Live Free or Die Hard fanfic: "Caffeine and Other Addictions"
Title: Caffeine and Other Addictions
Fandom: Live Free or Die Hard
Characters: John/Matt
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2437 words
Summary: "Caffeine withdrawal is an actual thing, McClane. I could die, you know!"
Notes: Written for DW's smallfandomfest for the prompt "obsession", and for 1_million_words for a previous weekend challenge prompt ("My advice to you is to start drinking heavily.") This was originally also about 500 words sitting on my hard drive forever with the 'title' "random john and matt in hospital" which just proves: save allll the things.
Caffeine and Other Addictions
by Severina
"McClane."
"No."
"There's nothing wrong with your legs, you could just get up-"
"No."
"…and walk down the hall, the vending machine is right-"
"No."
"…there!"
"Bet you can guess what I'm gonna say, kid."
Despite the litany of No's, Matt hadn't really thought John was going to turn him down. Not really. It was John who found the doctor that first night and got him an extra dose of morphine, and it was John who sat up with him on the second night when he'd had a bit of a panic attack - and fine, in the light of day he'd realized that it really wasn't plausible that Mai had survived the Giant SUV Fireball of Certain Death and was currently hiding in his bathroom, but that didn't make the panic attack any less real. And it was John who got Lucy to bring them in a real meal on the fourth night, because Matt had complained that hospital food all tastes like starch with starch dressing and a side of starch.
John was watching him now, so Matt flopped back onto his pillow with as much flounce as possible while working around the restriction of a leg hooked into a pulley-system and raised to a thirty-five degree angle. It took a lot of talent, but he managed to make it extra floppy. Because he was gifted like that.
"You drink too much of that sugary shit, kid," John said.
"Drink too much of that sugary…" Matt muttered under his breath. "Guy's known me for a week. I had one Red Bull - one! - the entire time that we were on the goddamn run from terrorists who were trying to kill me, I got shot and still he thinks-"
"What ya mumbling about there?"
"Did you leave your hearing aid at home?" Matt said, making sure to enunciate each syllable slowly and clearly and to use a volume normally found at rock concerts. Not that he'd ever been to one; his hearing was one of his most valuable commodities - along with his hair - and he didn't really need to watch somebody thrash around on stage like they were having a seizure to enjoy their music, and okay John was glaring at him now.
"You don't even care that I'm getting a headache." Matt flailed out an arm, letting his hand hang limply over the side of the too-small bed. Did he sound petulant? He didn't want to sound petulant, but… "Caffeine withdrawal is an actual thing, McClane. I could die, you know!"
John snorted. "You're in a fuckin' hospital, kid. You ain't gonna die. Jeeeezus."
Matt leaned back, crossed his arms over his chest. McClane thought he knew everything. "I could, though."
The door opened before John could answer. Matt looked up quickly, hoping for some back-up. The Warlock would be best, 'cause he could pull up some stats on his laptop that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was indeed possible to have a heart attack from a sudden lack of caffeine. (And yes, the soda manufacturers knew all about it and were in on the whole scam, and he really should be boycotting everything involved with the caffeine and sugar industries, but have you ever tried to live your life without Red Bull or Pepsi or a sweet double double with extra foam from your local barista? Who may just give you a Grande for the price of a Tall because you may flirt with him just a tad? Matt just isn't that strong.) And if Warlock doesn't show up, one of the guys from his D&D club would back him up just on principle. Worst case scenario would be Lucy McClane-now, because not only would she scoff at his theory she'd probably cuff him on the head as well.
He still has a bruise from the last time. And he still insists that, at least when recovering from a gun shot wound, hello, ice cream counts as a food group. He just doesn't insist it out loud.
But it's not the Warlock or Edgardo or Becca or Lucy.
It's Doctor Perfect Hair Perfect Teeth. Doctor Works Out In The Gym Twice Daily. Doctor Could Play Tom Cruise In The Biopic. Doctor-
"Matthew. How are you feeling today?"
"Brewer." Matt answered. When the doctor's perfectly sculpted eyebrow lifted, he shook his head. "Doctor Brewer, I mean. Doctor Brewer."
The impeccably shaped brow held its position like it'd been velcroed to the doctor's forehead. "And?"
Matt glanced from the doctor's smoothly unlined face - gotta be Botox - to the long fingers ending in immaculately manicured nails clutching the ubiquitous chart. He had no idea what he missed while he was musing about the white coat's generically perfect and completely off-putting body. He couldn't even imagine staring into that bland face topped with its perfected coiffed mane every morning over breakfast; he'd be too tempted to dump a bowl of cereal over that shampoo-commercial-ready hair.
No, Matt liked rough angles. Laugh lines. A nose that's maybe gone a few rounds with a fist and not always come out the winner. A strong profile without any poofy hair to get in the way?
He would not look at McClane. He would not look at McClane.
The doctor was still staring at him.
"Um…" he tried, "thank… you?"
"The kid here is under the delusion that he's in imminent danger of death due to caffeine withdrawal," John put in when the doctor just frowned confusedly at him. Matt did notice that the doctor's forehead remained glaringly wrinkle-free. If it wasn't Botox, he'd eat his charger cord. "Might want to fetch him a chocolate bar, stat."
"See! Yes!" Matt crowed. He lugged himself up into a sitting position, pointed a finger at McClane excitedly. "You get it. You do the whole 'no, I am not walking down the hall to fetch you a Pepsi thing', but cocoa beans! Naturally occurring caffeine, right?"
"Right."
"Right! You were sooooo messing with me there. Before. I totally didn't… get that. But then, the withdrawal is probably messing with my…" Matt waved a finger at his head.
"Insanity?" John asked.
"Hah. Right. Funny. So, yeah, if one of you could just pop down-"
"No."
Matt flopped back down on the bed. "I'm going to diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie."
"Is he always this melodramatic?"
Matt's eyes were closed, but he didn't have to open them to know that Doctor Wonderful was flashing his dimples. Like the looming death of one of his patients - somebody that he was sworn by the Hippocratic Oath to protect - was amusing. Like withdrawal was something to joke about! He'd be laughing out of the other side of his perfectly dimpled cheek when Matt started seeing spiders coming out of the walls and ended up in a padded room and sued his flawless bubble butt for malpractice!
"I've only known him a week or so," McClane answered, "but if you gotta keep dealing with this one, Doc? My advice to you is to start drinking heavily."
"Now that you mention it, I am a fan of a local IPA they serve down at McGillivray's in Soho," Doctor Brewer answered. "Anytime he's driving you crazy, I'd be happy to have company."
Matt opened his eyes, swiveled his head on the scrunched up pillow. In the time it took him to flail about and imagine his soon-to-be transfer to the Juniper Hill Asylum, Doctor Brewer had moved from standing beside the window to sit - to perch!! - at the side of McClane's bed. One leg crossed casually over his knee. Clipboard abandoned on the little rolling table that McClane swung over the bed to eat his meals every night. Hand resting just next to McClane's bare arm. Close enough to touch.
As if having a doctor that looked like a walking, talking Ken Doll wasn't bad enough, now that same doctor was hitting on his… well, Matt wasn't entirely sure what McClane was to him, exactly, but he was something! And there was no way he was going to let Doctor Only Eats Organic Vegetables muscle in on his turf!
"Hey," he said.
" 'Preciate that, Doc," McClane said.
Matt grimaced. "Yeah, got a little issue with my-"
"Been known to imbibe a glass or two myself, though I gotta admit I prefer a Budweiser. I'm a man of simple tastes," McClane said.
"Okay, ow," Matt said.
"But I think I'll have my hands full with this lunatic."
"OWWWWW!" Matt screamed. When the doctor jumped up, he gestured weakly at his bound leg. "Really in a lot of pain here! You know, from the whole getting shot thing! I mean, I'm not a doctor or anything, but maybe you should be taking care of it instead of flirting with my… my… my cop!"
McClane's arched brow was nothing like Doctor Brewer's. It was cute and quirky. As was the little smirk that matched it. "Your cop?" he said.
"I don't know!" Matt frowned, because he always knew. It was kind of his thing to know. That's what happened when you scored 152 on the Mensa test that your overachieving parents forced you to take when you were fifteen. He knew exactly what he was doing when he then spent the next year ditching class and hanging out at the skateboard park in between hacking into various private security companies and government installations. Just to see.
He knew exactly what would happen when his parents shipped him off to live with his aunt in Scranton, of all fucking places; knew almost exactly what to expect when he hooked up again with that old buddy from space camp (except for the part about how the Warlock far surpassed him in intelligence, much as it pained him to admit it.) And he knew exactly when the Feds were going to show up at his door, all due to one damn misplaced protocol marker in what should have been a standard Homeland hack.
McClane's smirk didn't falter. "So does that make you my hacker?"
"Ex hacker," Matt said automatically. "I told you before, McClane, I gave up that black hat stuff yea… wait. What?"
McClane tried to shrug, but the splint and gauze made it a little difficult. He did a bit of a Quasimodo hunch instead. Not that Matt would ever tell him he reminded him of Quasimodo, either the Lon Chaney classic or the Disney version, because he was one thousand percent certain that even a one-armed McClane could kick his ass. And also? He wanted to find out what this whole 'my hacker' thing meant.
He snuck a glance over at Doctor My Shit Doesn't Stink, but at some point the man had vacated the premises, presumably to fetch a nurse and some meds. Matt flicked his gaze back over to McClane, unsure whether this whole conversation would make more or less sense with a morphine drip.
McClane made a sound somewhere between a cough and a snort. Which didn't help him at all, genius brain notwithstanding. John McClane has a whole series of vocalizations combined with rubbery facial expressions but Matt had yet to come across this one, and without data to extrapolate from he's at a loss.
Matt blinked when nothing more was forthcoming. "Seriously… what?"
Again with the pseudo-shrug. "When we were comin' outta the tunnel, and I was all banged up, and you thought I looked sexy…"
"What?" Matt yelped. "I never said you were sexy!"
"I said 'sexy, right?' And you agreed. So."
"I never agreed!" And okay, Matt was absolutely positively certain that he'd responded to that question back in the tunnel with a loud and emphatic "No!", mostly because the way McClane's shirt had clung to his barrel chest and he was all grimy and dirt-stained was so ridiculously sexy he could barely hold back from launching himself at the guy and wrestling him to the rubble.
"Your lips said no, but your eyes said fuck yes," McClane said.
"Did you… actually just say that? Out loud?"
McClane huffed out a frustrated breath. "I was sexy, right?"
Matt dropped his gaze. There was just no meeting those take-no-bullshit cop eyes and successfully pulling off a lie. He fumbled a little with the limp top sheet instead. "Yeah. Okay. Totally sexy."
"And you wanna date me, right?"
"Wow, McClane, you are just all over it with the bluntness, aren't you? Just lay it all out there."
"Been around a long time, kid. Learned over the years that there ain't no point in beatin' around the bush. You want something? You go out…" McClane reached out with his good arm, closed his fist quickly around nothing but air. "And you grab it."
"And you want to grab… me?"
McClane raised that brow again. Matt never knew that an eyebrow could be so erotic. "You wanna be grabbed?"
Matt blinked again. This. Was totally a conversation he was having with John McClane, tank-like super-cop. Protector of the innocent. Killer of deadly helicopters and fighter jets.
He'd done the 'what if' mental gymnastics on him and McClane but nothing had prepared him for this option. Another thing he didn't know. He had a feeling this was going to become a habit if he kept hanging around with John McClane.
"Kid?"
Matt looked across at the other bed. McClane was still wearing that little smirk, but it looked a bit… strained. Like maybe this wasn't as easy for John McClane as he made it out to be. There was a tiny chink in that armor after all. The thought did a lot to relax him, and he grinned back. "I wouldn't be averse to being grabbed," he said.
McClane nodded - and yup, shoulders that hadn't seemed all that tense suddenly eased as John leaned back onto his pillow. "Good," he said.
"Groped would be good, too."
"Okay, kid."
"Manhandled is not completely off the table."
McClane's head swiveled slowly toward him… and yeah, now Matt didn't have a problem meeting those eyes at all. "Duly noted," he said. He smirked again - if Matt knew anything, it was that he was going to get addicted to that smirk - and then settled back against the pillow. Let his eyes fall closed.
Matt watched that barrel chest rise and fall for a three count before he opened his mouth.
"So I guess this means that you won't mind-"
"No."
"…walking down to the vending machine-"
"No."
"…and grabbing me a Hershey's Dark so I don't die!"
"Bet you can guess what I'm gonna say, kid."
.
Fandom: Live Free or Die Hard
Characters: John/Matt
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2437 words
Summary: "Caffeine withdrawal is an actual thing, McClane. I could die, you know!"
Notes: Written for DW's smallfandomfest for the prompt "obsession", and for 1_million_words for a previous weekend challenge prompt ("My advice to you is to start drinking heavily.") This was originally also about 500 words sitting on my hard drive forever with the 'title' "random john and matt in hospital" which just proves: save allll the things.
Caffeine and Other Addictions
by Severina
"McClane."
"No."
"There's nothing wrong with your legs, you could just get up-"
"No."
"…and walk down the hall, the vending machine is right-"
"No."
"…there!"
"Bet you can guess what I'm gonna say, kid."
Despite the litany of No's, Matt hadn't really thought John was going to turn him down. Not really. It was John who found the doctor that first night and got him an extra dose of morphine, and it was John who sat up with him on the second night when he'd had a bit of a panic attack - and fine, in the light of day he'd realized that it really wasn't plausible that Mai had survived the Giant SUV Fireball of Certain Death and was currently hiding in his bathroom, but that didn't make the panic attack any less real. And it was John who got Lucy to bring them in a real meal on the fourth night, because Matt had complained that hospital food all tastes like starch with starch dressing and a side of starch.
John was watching him now, so Matt flopped back onto his pillow with as much flounce as possible while working around the restriction of a leg hooked into a pulley-system and raised to a thirty-five degree angle. It took a lot of talent, but he managed to make it extra floppy. Because he was gifted like that.
"You drink too much of that sugary shit, kid," John said.
"Drink too much of that sugary…" Matt muttered under his breath. "Guy's known me for a week. I had one Red Bull - one! - the entire time that we were on the goddamn run from terrorists who were trying to kill me, I got shot and still he thinks-"
"What ya mumbling about there?"
"Did you leave your hearing aid at home?" Matt said, making sure to enunciate each syllable slowly and clearly and to use a volume normally found at rock concerts. Not that he'd ever been to one; his hearing was one of his most valuable commodities - along with his hair - and he didn't really need to watch somebody thrash around on stage like they were having a seizure to enjoy their music, and okay John was glaring at him now.
"You don't even care that I'm getting a headache." Matt flailed out an arm, letting his hand hang limply over the side of the too-small bed. Did he sound petulant? He didn't want to sound petulant, but… "Caffeine withdrawal is an actual thing, McClane. I could die, you know!"
John snorted. "You're in a fuckin' hospital, kid. You ain't gonna die. Jeeeezus."
Matt leaned back, crossed his arms over his chest. McClane thought he knew everything. "I could, though."
The door opened before John could answer. Matt looked up quickly, hoping for some back-up. The Warlock would be best, 'cause he could pull up some stats on his laptop that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was indeed possible to have a heart attack from a sudden lack of caffeine. (And yes, the soda manufacturers knew all about it and were in on the whole scam, and he really should be boycotting everything involved with the caffeine and sugar industries, but have you ever tried to live your life without Red Bull or Pepsi or a sweet double double with extra foam from your local barista? Who may just give you a Grande for the price of a Tall because you may flirt with him just a tad? Matt just isn't that strong.) And if Warlock doesn't show up, one of the guys from his D&D club would back him up just on principle. Worst case scenario would be Lucy McClane-now, because not only would she scoff at his theory she'd probably cuff him on the head as well.
He still has a bruise from the last time. And he still insists that, at least when recovering from a gun shot wound, hello, ice cream counts as a food group. He just doesn't insist it out loud.
But it's not the Warlock or Edgardo or Becca or Lucy.
It's Doctor Perfect Hair Perfect Teeth. Doctor Works Out In The Gym Twice Daily. Doctor Could Play Tom Cruise In The Biopic. Doctor-
"Matthew. How are you feeling today?"
"Brewer." Matt answered. When the doctor's perfectly sculpted eyebrow lifted, he shook his head. "Doctor Brewer, I mean. Doctor Brewer."
The impeccably shaped brow held its position like it'd been velcroed to the doctor's forehead. "And?"
Matt glanced from the doctor's smoothly unlined face - gotta be Botox - to the long fingers ending in immaculately manicured nails clutching the ubiquitous chart. He had no idea what he missed while he was musing about the white coat's generically perfect and completely off-putting body. He couldn't even imagine staring into that bland face topped with its perfected coiffed mane every morning over breakfast; he'd be too tempted to dump a bowl of cereal over that shampoo-commercial-ready hair.
No, Matt liked rough angles. Laugh lines. A nose that's maybe gone a few rounds with a fist and not always come out the winner. A strong profile without any poofy hair to get in the way?
He would not look at McClane. He would not look at McClane.
The doctor was still staring at him.
"Um…" he tried, "thank… you?"
"The kid here is under the delusion that he's in imminent danger of death due to caffeine withdrawal," John put in when the doctor just frowned confusedly at him. Matt did notice that the doctor's forehead remained glaringly wrinkle-free. If it wasn't Botox, he'd eat his charger cord. "Might want to fetch him a chocolate bar, stat."
"See! Yes!" Matt crowed. He lugged himself up into a sitting position, pointed a finger at McClane excitedly. "You get it. You do the whole 'no, I am not walking down the hall to fetch you a Pepsi thing', but cocoa beans! Naturally occurring caffeine, right?"
"Right."
"Right! You were sooooo messing with me there. Before. I totally didn't… get that. But then, the withdrawal is probably messing with my…" Matt waved a finger at his head.
"Insanity?" John asked.
"Hah. Right. Funny. So, yeah, if one of you could just pop down-"
"No."
Matt flopped back down on the bed. "I'm going to diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie."
"Is he always this melodramatic?"
Matt's eyes were closed, but he didn't have to open them to know that Doctor Wonderful was flashing his dimples. Like the looming death of one of his patients - somebody that he was sworn by the Hippocratic Oath to protect - was amusing. Like withdrawal was something to joke about! He'd be laughing out of the other side of his perfectly dimpled cheek when Matt started seeing spiders coming out of the walls and ended up in a padded room and sued his flawless bubble butt for malpractice!
"I've only known him a week or so," McClane answered, "but if you gotta keep dealing with this one, Doc? My advice to you is to start drinking heavily."
"Now that you mention it, I am a fan of a local IPA they serve down at McGillivray's in Soho," Doctor Brewer answered. "Anytime he's driving you crazy, I'd be happy to have company."
Matt opened his eyes, swiveled his head on the scrunched up pillow. In the time it took him to flail about and imagine his soon-to-be transfer to the Juniper Hill Asylum, Doctor Brewer had moved from standing beside the window to sit - to perch!! - at the side of McClane's bed. One leg crossed casually over his knee. Clipboard abandoned on the little rolling table that McClane swung over the bed to eat his meals every night. Hand resting just next to McClane's bare arm. Close enough to touch.
As if having a doctor that looked like a walking, talking Ken Doll wasn't bad enough, now that same doctor was hitting on his… well, Matt wasn't entirely sure what McClane was to him, exactly, but he was something! And there was no way he was going to let Doctor Only Eats Organic Vegetables muscle in on his turf!
"Hey," he said.
" 'Preciate that, Doc," McClane said.
Matt grimaced. "Yeah, got a little issue with my-"
"Been known to imbibe a glass or two myself, though I gotta admit I prefer a Budweiser. I'm a man of simple tastes," McClane said.
"Okay, ow," Matt said.
"But I think I'll have my hands full with this lunatic."
"OWWWWW!" Matt screamed. When the doctor jumped up, he gestured weakly at his bound leg. "Really in a lot of pain here! You know, from the whole getting shot thing! I mean, I'm not a doctor or anything, but maybe you should be taking care of it instead of flirting with my… my… my cop!"
McClane's arched brow was nothing like Doctor Brewer's. It was cute and quirky. As was the little smirk that matched it. "Your cop?" he said.
"I don't know!" Matt frowned, because he always knew. It was kind of his thing to know. That's what happened when you scored 152 on the Mensa test that your overachieving parents forced you to take when you were fifteen. He knew exactly what he was doing when he then spent the next year ditching class and hanging out at the skateboard park in between hacking into various private security companies and government installations. Just to see.
He knew exactly what would happen when his parents shipped him off to live with his aunt in Scranton, of all fucking places; knew almost exactly what to expect when he hooked up again with that old buddy from space camp (except for the part about how the Warlock far surpassed him in intelligence, much as it pained him to admit it.) And he knew exactly when the Feds were going to show up at his door, all due to one damn misplaced protocol marker in what should have been a standard Homeland hack.
McClane's smirk didn't falter. "So does that make you my hacker?"
"Ex hacker," Matt said automatically. "I told you before, McClane, I gave up that black hat stuff yea… wait. What?"
McClane tried to shrug, but the splint and gauze made it a little difficult. He did a bit of a Quasimodo hunch instead. Not that Matt would ever tell him he reminded him of Quasimodo, either the Lon Chaney classic or the Disney version, because he was one thousand percent certain that even a one-armed McClane could kick his ass. And also? He wanted to find out what this whole 'my hacker' thing meant.
He snuck a glance over at Doctor My Shit Doesn't Stink, but at some point the man had vacated the premises, presumably to fetch a nurse and some meds. Matt flicked his gaze back over to McClane, unsure whether this whole conversation would make more or less sense with a morphine drip.
McClane made a sound somewhere between a cough and a snort. Which didn't help him at all, genius brain notwithstanding. John McClane has a whole series of vocalizations combined with rubbery facial expressions but Matt had yet to come across this one, and without data to extrapolate from he's at a loss.
Matt blinked when nothing more was forthcoming. "Seriously… what?"
Again with the pseudo-shrug. "When we were comin' outta the tunnel, and I was all banged up, and you thought I looked sexy…"
"What?" Matt yelped. "I never said you were sexy!"
"I said 'sexy, right?' And you agreed. So."
"I never agreed!" And okay, Matt was absolutely positively certain that he'd responded to that question back in the tunnel with a loud and emphatic "No!", mostly because the way McClane's shirt had clung to his barrel chest and he was all grimy and dirt-stained was so ridiculously sexy he could barely hold back from launching himself at the guy and wrestling him to the rubble.
"Your lips said no, but your eyes said fuck yes," McClane said.
"Did you… actually just say that? Out loud?"
McClane huffed out a frustrated breath. "I was sexy, right?"
Matt dropped his gaze. There was just no meeting those take-no-bullshit cop eyes and successfully pulling off a lie. He fumbled a little with the limp top sheet instead. "Yeah. Okay. Totally sexy."
"And you wanna date me, right?"
"Wow, McClane, you are just all over it with the bluntness, aren't you? Just lay it all out there."
"Been around a long time, kid. Learned over the years that there ain't no point in beatin' around the bush. You want something? You go out…" McClane reached out with his good arm, closed his fist quickly around nothing but air. "And you grab it."
"And you want to grab… me?"
McClane raised that brow again. Matt never knew that an eyebrow could be so erotic. "You wanna be grabbed?"
Matt blinked again. This. Was totally a conversation he was having with John McClane, tank-like super-cop. Protector of the innocent. Killer of deadly helicopters and fighter jets.
He'd done the 'what if' mental gymnastics on him and McClane but nothing had prepared him for this option. Another thing he didn't know. He had a feeling this was going to become a habit if he kept hanging around with John McClane.
"Kid?"
Matt looked across at the other bed. McClane was still wearing that little smirk, but it looked a bit… strained. Like maybe this wasn't as easy for John McClane as he made it out to be. There was a tiny chink in that armor after all. The thought did a lot to relax him, and he grinned back. "I wouldn't be averse to being grabbed," he said.
McClane nodded - and yup, shoulders that hadn't seemed all that tense suddenly eased as John leaned back onto his pillow. "Good," he said.
"Groped would be good, too."
"Okay, kid."
"Manhandled is not completely off the table."
McClane's head swiveled slowly toward him… and yeah, now Matt didn't have a problem meeting those eyes at all. "Duly noted," he said. He smirked again - if Matt knew anything, it was that he was going to get addicted to that smirk - and then settled back against the pillow. Let his eyes fall closed.
Matt watched that barrel chest rise and fall for a three count before he opened his mouth.
"So I guess this means that you won't mind-"
"No."
"…walking down to the vending machine-"
"No."
"…and grabbing me a Hershey's Dark so I don't die!"
"Bet you can guess what I'm gonna say, kid."
.