[RPS] Watching Us Fall
Title: Watching Us Fall
Wordcount: ~2000
Pairing/Characters: Matt Doyle/Wesley Taylor
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Just a short little dealie that I wrote for zephyrocity while in Italy. Title from the prompt - Last Week's Alcohol by Kerrigan & Lowdermilk, which you can see Matt perform (beeeuatifull, as always) here.
New York City rushes on below his window, evening throwing itself headlong into night, the darkness dancing between the bright islands of streetlights, swaying away from the sweeping headlights of a thousand cars, but Matt's apartment is still and silent and dim, his face ghost-pale in the glow from his phone. He's opening and closing a new text message over and over. "Are you okay?" he wants to ask, useless and foolish because if Wes isn't it's his fault and if he is -
It hurts to think he might be, when Matt isn't, isn't even close to okay, and he doesn't want to know, doesn't want to ask just to have Wes say 'yes' or 'fine' or even 'why wouldn't I be?' But he opens the text again because he cares too fucking much, and that's what got them here in the first place.
"You're what?"
Matt's mouth is dry and he can't, can't look at Wes' face. "I'm in love with you," he says again, this time halting and terrified, because Wes' voice is shocked and his hands are dropping away from Matt's hips and he's stepping away, the tiny gap between them stretching wide and aching.
"Matt, I - " says Wes, rejection coloring his voice and Matt raises his eyes, parts his lips to say, it's okay, nevermind, I was kidding, let's keep this a flirty, torturous fucking friendship, please, forget it -
Wes shakes his head. "I'm sorry," He says, voice distant, dark eyes not quite meeting Matt's. "I don't feel the same way."
Matt nods, miserable, mechanical, like this is what he expected, and lies, "It's okay, I just wanted - I thought you should. Know."
"Yeah," says Wes, and then, still strange and emotionless, no sympathy, not even pity in his face, "I should go."
"Alright," chokes Matt, and wonders why the fuck he ever thought this was a good idea.
He shifts back in his chair at the table. The tears are gone, now, lost into the carpet under his feet, carrying the hurt and hope with them. Now he's left with sorrow and resentment and over it all worry, because there had been something so wrong in Wes' face and he's still (maybe, god, maybe not, maybe he's screwed it all up) Matt's best fucking friend and so he sends instead, "I'm sorry."
He stares for a moment at the screen and then leaves the phone on the table and stands, flicking on a lightswitch. His apartment is flooded with light and he blinks at it, darkness clinging at the corners of his eyes. He can feel a headache coming on and considers turning the light back off and just going to sleep, but his weariness is not a physical one and it's barely nine fucking PM and maybe- maybe Wes will text him back. He shoves a hand into his hair and wanders barefoot into his kitchen. Something glints at him from the back of a shelf and he feels a manic sort of laughter bubble up in his chest.
"For a special occasion," Wes had said, pressed into Matt's personal space by the babbling crowd, his eyes warm velvet, and handed Matt a heavy something wrapped in gold and red paper. "Happy birthday," he'd breathed, and Matt had taken the present blindly, watching the sweep of Wes' lashes across his cheek and thinking, idly, how easy it would be to just lean in and -
His laughter dies sour. "You know, Wes, " he says to his empty kitchen, "I have no idea what made me think you might love me back." Lips twisted, he grabs the bottle of wine by the neck and curls back into his chair, checking his phone, but his background (a picture of Layla that Wes took when he was fooling around with Matt's shiny new phone) just stares back at him, no new messages. He tosses it back onto the table, harder than he means to, and leans over to hook the corkscrew off the wall.
Two hours later and he's sent two more messages, another "Im sorry" typed through blurred eyes and a frustrated, drunken "wes" that he
wishes he could take back because it's too...something. Needy. Fucking - fucking demanding, like Wes owes him something, and he doesn't, really, doesn't owe Matt a thing even though he's been. Been sending him signals and leading him on for fucking months. He's been flirting and touching and maybe Matt doesn't know him after all, maybe he's been reading him wrong since the day they fucking met or maybe -
He's dialing before his wine-slowed brain can stop tripping over itself to notice what his fingers are doing, and to his surprise Wes picks up immediately. "Matt," he says, and then stops, like he's not sure why he answered. It feels like years (four, six, eight hours) since Matt's heard his voice. He can hear the rush of wind, of traffic in the background.
"Does this count as a special occasion?" he asks, alcohol making his tongue clumsy against his teeth, and Wes sucks in a sharp breath.
"Matt - " he says again, and Matt shakes his head, feels his hand tremble around the phone in harmony.
"I don't get it," he says. "I wouldn't have said it, you know, if I didn't think." His throat closes on the end of the sentence and he fills his mouth with wine, forces it to open so he can swallow.
"You were wrong," Wes says, still in that awful blank voice, and Matt narrows his eyes, sucks wine from his lips.
"Was I?" he asks, and Wes is silent in his ear. He's still there, Matt can hear footsteps and car horns and far-off music.
"Wes," he says, and it comes out needy and slurred and mortifying and he presses the heel of his hand to his eye, pushing at the shadows that are still lingering. Wes still hasn't said anything and Matt can feel something building in his throat, a sob, maybe, or a scream, unclear until it tears its way out of him, and then someone rings his doorbell and he can hear it through his phone, too, and he stumbles suddenly to his feet.
Matt buzzes Wes in and Wes hangs up. When he opens the door, Wes brushes past him immediately, striding over to the table and picking up the almost-empty bottle of wine. He looks around for Matt's glass but he never bothered with one and after a moment neither does Wes. Matt watches the muscles in his throat work and suppressed a mad giggle, thinking of teenage girls sharing drinks with their crushes. Mouth against bottle-mouth. An indirect kiss.
Wes puts the wine down, doesn't look at Matt. "You weren't supposed to drink it without me," he says, and his voice is a little lost but it's not cold, not the glass-smooth rejection of earlier, and Matt takes a step towards him.
"Wes," he says, gentle-broken, "Why are you here?" Wes licks his lips and Matt jolts forward again.
"I just -" says Wes, and looks down at the bottle again. "It sucks to drink alone."
For a minute Matt is angry, so angry he can't breathe, because it can't he unintentional, has to be a, a fucking game, toying with him like this. But then Wes turns to him and he notices the glaze to his eyes, the slight lag to his motions, and he realizes what Wes meant. But that doesn't make it okay, not quite. Not yet.
He crosses to the table, doesn't miss the way Wes' eyes flicker over him like be can't help it. He raises the bottle to his lips and drinks, and Wes closes his eyes, hard.
Matt steps into his space, presses a palm over Wes' heart, and Wes takes a breath at the contact. "Why did you lie to me?" Matt demands, the hurt slipping back into him, up from the carpet through the soles of his feet. "I didn't," Wes tries in the tone of one speaking placating nonsense to children.
Matt sets down the bottle, leans further in than he's ever dared go. "Wes," he breathes over Wes' lips, "Please."
Wes' eyes snap open and then Matt's back is against the wall, one if Wes' legs between his and mouth sealed to mouth. Matt's moaning, embarassing and instinctual, melting into the curves and hollows of Wes' body, surprise overruled by lust and a dizzying, trembling wave of RELIEF, and then Wes is shoving words into his mouth. He can taste the shape if them, where Wes curls his tongue around their corners, but their meaning is lost in pounding hearts and slick lips and Matt wants, needs to know why it took them this long.
He pulls away, and as soon as he does, so does Wes. "Sorry. Sorry, I am so fucking sorry, Matt," he babbled, eyes enormous and sad-dark and somehow Matt's hands have ended up buried in his hair. Wes tries to pull away from them but Matt won't let him, won't let him dodge.
"Sorry for the kiss or the lies?" Matt asks, as coherently as he can with the taste of Wes and wine on his skin, and Wes flinches, mouth closing again in a miserable line.
"For the lies," he says, and then, "and the kiss, maybe, if you are."
Matt laughs at that, and Wes looks at him like he can't understand why.
He drops abruptly out from under Matt's hands and into his chair. "I'm scared," he says, bald-faced and drunken.
Matt licks the taste of him from the corners of his mouth, savoring. "Why?" he asks simply, after a silent moment, and pushes himself back and up so he's sitting on the edge of the table, looking at Wes.
"Because," Wes says, and waves a hand. "I don't know how to. To do this, be in love," and Matt goes a little still at that because he hasn't actually said it yet. "I know how to long," Wes continues, wrinkling his nose. He picks ip the bottle of wine and drains it, swallowing short and sharp. "I've got longing down. But if anyone ever - when you told me, today, I panicked. I've never been in love before, Matt. What do I do? What if I suck at it?"
"I can teach you," Matt says, serious. "I won't say it's easy," he continues, and leans down, sliding a palm along the curve of Wes' jaw, marveling at being able to touch. He lets his thumb linger on the skin below Wes' eye, let's his gaze linger on his lips. "But it's fucking beautiful."
"Matt," Wes breathes, and then swallows hard. "I'm in love with you."
Matt closes his eyes and smiles for the first time in, maybe ever. He feels it blossom across his face until he's grinning like an idiot, and he says, tone teasing, "Wes."
"Mm?" Says Wes, and Matt can feel it vibrate against his palm. He opens his eyes. "I'm not sorry about that kiss."
He'll never figure out if he leaned down or Wes leaned up but regardless it's this kiss they call their first, years later, this kiss that's really theirs, unmasked and honest and sloppy, and Matt curls his hand around the back of Wes' neck and drinks the last of his birthday wine from his lips.
Wordcount: ~2000
Pairing/Characters: Matt Doyle/Wesley Taylor
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Just a short little dealie that I wrote for zephyrocity while in Italy. Title from the prompt - Last Week's Alcohol by Kerrigan & Lowdermilk, which you can see Matt perform (beeeuatifull, as always) here.
New York City rushes on below his window, evening throwing itself headlong into night, the darkness dancing between the bright islands of streetlights, swaying away from the sweeping headlights of a thousand cars, but Matt's apartment is still and silent and dim, his face ghost-pale in the glow from his phone. He's opening and closing a new text message over and over. "Are you okay?" he wants to ask, useless and foolish because if Wes isn't it's his fault and if he is -
It hurts to think he might be, when Matt isn't, isn't even close to okay, and he doesn't want to know, doesn't want to ask just to have Wes say 'yes' or 'fine' or even 'why wouldn't I be?' But he opens the text again because he cares too fucking much, and that's what got them here in the first place.
"You're what?"
Matt's mouth is dry and he can't, can't look at Wes' face. "I'm in love with you," he says again, this time halting and terrified, because Wes' voice is shocked and his hands are dropping away from Matt's hips and he's stepping away, the tiny gap between them stretching wide and aching.
"Matt, I - " says Wes, rejection coloring his voice and Matt raises his eyes, parts his lips to say, it's okay, nevermind, I was kidding, let's keep this a flirty, torturous fucking friendship, please, forget it -
Wes shakes his head. "I'm sorry," He says, voice distant, dark eyes not quite meeting Matt's. "I don't feel the same way."
Matt nods, miserable, mechanical, like this is what he expected, and lies, "It's okay, I just wanted - I thought you should. Know."
"Yeah," says Wes, and then, still strange and emotionless, no sympathy, not even pity in his face, "I should go."
"Alright," chokes Matt, and wonders why the fuck he ever thought this was a good idea.
He shifts back in his chair at the table. The tears are gone, now, lost into the carpet under his feet, carrying the hurt and hope with them. Now he's left with sorrow and resentment and over it all worry, because there had been something so wrong in Wes' face and he's still (maybe, god, maybe not, maybe he's screwed it all up) Matt's best fucking friend and so he sends instead, "I'm sorry."
He stares for a moment at the screen and then leaves the phone on the table and stands, flicking on a lightswitch. His apartment is flooded with light and he blinks at it, darkness clinging at the corners of his eyes. He can feel a headache coming on and considers turning the light back off and just going to sleep, but his weariness is not a physical one and it's barely nine fucking PM and maybe- maybe Wes will text him back. He shoves a hand into his hair and wanders barefoot into his kitchen. Something glints at him from the back of a shelf and he feels a manic sort of laughter bubble up in his chest.
"For a special occasion," Wes had said, pressed into Matt's personal space by the babbling crowd, his eyes warm velvet, and handed Matt a heavy something wrapped in gold and red paper. "Happy birthday," he'd breathed, and Matt had taken the present blindly, watching the sweep of Wes' lashes across his cheek and thinking, idly, how easy it would be to just lean in and -
His laughter dies sour. "You know, Wes, " he says to his empty kitchen, "I have no idea what made me think you might love me back." Lips twisted, he grabs the bottle of wine by the neck and curls back into his chair, checking his phone, but his background (a picture of Layla that Wes took when he was fooling around with Matt's shiny new phone) just stares back at him, no new messages. He tosses it back onto the table, harder than he means to, and leans over to hook the corkscrew off the wall.
Two hours later and he's sent two more messages, another "Im sorry" typed through blurred eyes and a frustrated, drunken "wes" that he
wishes he could take back because it's too...something. Needy. Fucking - fucking demanding, like Wes owes him something, and he doesn't, really, doesn't owe Matt a thing even though he's been. Been sending him signals and leading him on for fucking months. He's been flirting and touching and maybe Matt doesn't know him after all, maybe he's been reading him wrong since the day they fucking met or maybe -
He's dialing before his wine-slowed brain can stop tripping over itself to notice what his fingers are doing, and to his surprise Wes picks up immediately. "Matt," he says, and then stops, like he's not sure why he answered. It feels like years (four, six, eight hours) since Matt's heard his voice. He can hear the rush of wind, of traffic in the background.
"Does this count as a special occasion?" he asks, alcohol making his tongue clumsy against his teeth, and Wes sucks in a sharp breath.
"Matt - " he says again, and Matt shakes his head, feels his hand tremble around the phone in harmony.
"I don't get it," he says. "I wouldn't have said it, you know, if I didn't think." His throat closes on the end of the sentence and he fills his mouth with wine, forces it to open so he can swallow.
"You were wrong," Wes says, still in that awful blank voice, and Matt narrows his eyes, sucks wine from his lips.
"Was I?" he asks, and Wes is silent in his ear. He's still there, Matt can hear footsteps and car horns and far-off music.
"Wes," he says, and it comes out needy and slurred and mortifying and he presses the heel of his hand to his eye, pushing at the shadows that are still lingering. Wes still hasn't said anything and Matt can feel something building in his throat, a sob, maybe, or a scream, unclear until it tears its way out of him, and then someone rings his doorbell and he can hear it through his phone, too, and he stumbles suddenly to his feet.
Matt buzzes Wes in and Wes hangs up. When he opens the door, Wes brushes past him immediately, striding over to the table and picking up the almost-empty bottle of wine. He looks around for Matt's glass but he never bothered with one and after a moment neither does Wes. Matt watches the muscles in his throat work and suppressed a mad giggle, thinking of teenage girls sharing drinks with their crushes. Mouth against bottle-mouth. An indirect kiss.
Wes puts the wine down, doesn't look at Matt. "You weren't supposed to drink it without me," he says, and his voice is a little lost but it's not cold, not the glass-smooth rejection of earlier, and Matt takes a step towards him.
"Wes," he says, gentle-broken, "Why are you here?" Wes licks his lips and Matt jolts forward again.
"I just -" says Wes, and looks down at the bottle again. "It sucks to drink alone."
For a minute Matt is angry, so angry he can't breathe, because it can't he unintentional, has to be a, a fucking game, toying with him like this. But then Wes turns to him and he notices the glaze to his eyes, the slight lag to his motions, and he realizes what Wes meant. But that doesn't make it okay, not quite. Not yet.
He crosses to the table, doesn't miss the way Wes' eyes flicker over him like be can't help it. He raises the bottle to his lips and drinks, and Wes closes his eyes, hard.
Matt steps into his space, presses a palm over Wes' heart, and Wes takes a breath at the contact. "Why did you lie to me?" Matt demands, the hurt slipping back into him, up from the carpet through the soles of his feet. "I didn't," Wes tries in the tone of one speaking placating nonsense to children.
Matt sets down the bottle, leans further in than he's ever dared go. "Wes," he breathes over Wes' lips, "Please."
Wes' eyes snap open and then Matt's back is against the wall, one if Wes' legs between his and mouth sealed to mouth. Matt's moaning, embarassing and instinctual, melting into the curves and hollows of Wes' body, surprise overruled by lust and a dizzying, trembling wave of RELIEF, and then Wes is shoving words into his mouth. He can taste the shape if them, where Wes curls his tongue around their corners, but their meaning is lost in pounding hearts and slick lips and Matt wants, needs to know why it took them this long.
He pulls away, and as soon as he does, so does Wes. "Sorry. Sorry, I am so fucking sorry, Matt," he babbled, eyes enormous and sad-dark and somehow Matt's hands have ended up buried in his hair. Wes tries to pull away from them but Matt won't let him, won't let him dodge.
"Sorry for the kiss or the lies?" Matt asks, as coherently as he can with the taste of Wes and wine on his skin, and Wes flinches, mouth closing again in a miserable line.
"For the lies," he says, and then, "and the kiss, maybe, if you are."
Matt laughs at that, and Wes looks at him like he can't understand why.
He drops abruptly out from under Matt's hands and into his chair. "I'm scared," he says, bald-faced and drunken.
Matt licks the taste of him from the corners of his mouth, savoring. "Why?" he asks simply, after a silent moment, and pushes himself back and up so he's sitting on the edge of the table, looking at Wes.
"Because," Wes says, and waves a hand. "I don't know how to. To do this, be in love," and Matt goes a little still at that because he hasn't actually said it yet. "I know how to long," Wes continues, wrinkling his nose. He picks ip the bottle of wine and drains it, swallowing short and sharp. "I've got longing down. But if anyone ever - when you told me, today, I panicked. I've never been in love before, Matt. What do I do? What if I suck at it?"
"I can teach you," Matt says, serious. "I won't say it's easy," he continues, and leans down, sliding a palm along the curve of Wes' jaw, marveling at being able to touch. He lets his thumb linger on the skin below Wes' eye, let's his gaze linger on his lips. "But it's fucking beautiful."
"Matt," Wes breathes, and then swallows hard. "I'm in love with you."
Matt closes his eyes and smiles for the first time in, maybe ever. He feels it blossom across his face until he's grinning like an idiot, and he says, tone teasing, "Wes."
"Mm?" Says Wes, and Matt can feel it vibrate against his palm. He opens his eyes. "I'm not sorry about that kiss."
He'll never figure out if he leaned down or Wes leaned up but regardless it's this kiss they call their first, years later, this kiss that's really theirs, unmasked and honest and sloppy, and Matt curls his hand around the back of Wes' neck and drinks the last of his birthday wine from his lips.