Fic: "Burn Up Hard And Bright" (Friday Night Lights)
Title: Burn Up Hard And Bright
For poisontaster, who requested college!Matt (as well as other elements, which I think I got here, but if not, apologies, PT! Things changed as I revised, things got cut...). I fused that with an earlier promise I'd made to write her Matt/Smash. I choose to see that as EFFICIENCY, not cheating.
Notes: Title from Ryan Adams. Thanks to sionnain for beta'ing.
The author has seen through episode 3.8, but there are no direct spoilers here. There are *implicit* spoilers, however, because I have seen it, if that makes sense. What I'm saying is, in my opinion (and my beta agrees), if you read this, you won't be spoiled, because you won't even recognize the implicit-spoiler-bits until you DO view the episodes. ::beams:: But that is just in our opinion, and all liability lies with the reader, etc.
Matt wakes up soaked in sweat, his heart pounding in his chest and his breath hiccuping in his throat. Something's gripping his legs, trapping them, and he struggles blindly for a few long minutes before he realizes it's just the sheets. He closes his eyes and slumps back against the mattress, trying to breathe.
Four AM, the clock tells him when he looks again. His roommate groans and sighs in his sleep from the bunk below Matt's. The wind knocks against the half-opened window, still cool and wet like spring instead of dust-dry. He can't remember what his nightmare was about.
He grabs his cell phone off the top of the bookshelf he uses as a bedside table. Punching in a text is easy; the autocomplete does half the message for him. He hits send and holds the phone against his forehead, closing his eyes again and waiting.
The phone buzzes and he flips it open, fast before it can even maybe wake up Jeff. my dorm, it says, and Matt climbs down the ladder from his bed, biting back a curse when he catches his kneecap on the bookshelf, like he does every single damn day.
He finds his shorts and an A&M t-shirt, dressing fast in the dark. He glances at Jeff out of the corner of his eye, Jeff with his skinny bowlegs and his beer belly and for some reason a never-ending parade of girls through the room. Matt likes Jeff all right but they're not ever going to be best friends.
It probably says something about Matt that he goes off to college and his best friend ends up being the guy he played ball with for three years.
He laces up his shoes and lets himself out, jogging quickly through the dark. Even the mid-week drunks are crashed somewhere by now. It's quiet and peaceful and beautiful in a weird way, beautiful like a zombie movie.
Smash is waiting on the steps of his dorm, stretching slowly, scowling up at the security lights. "You and your damn insomnia, Saracen," he says.
"You were up, too." Matt smiles a little and dodges the punch Smash throws at his head. "Quit your whining."
"I was studying," Smash says. "I do my best thinking after midnight."
"So call it a study break." Matt shifts his weight, jogs in place, feels the familiar tense and ease in his muscles. He's never going to play football again, he doesn't even really want to anymore, but his body is used to this, exertion and exercise, needs the sweat and ache and pounding heart. He thinks that's maybe why he has nightmares, just to send him out like this into the early hours.
Smash jumps down from the steps and bounces on his toes experimentally. "Hard or easy?"
Matt shrugs. "You got conditioning today?"
"Weight room."
"Then let's go hard."
"Cool." Smash reaches out and taps him across the back of his head, an easy open-handed slap. "You're it, Saracen. Come and get me."
**
It turns out that Matt likes college a hell of a lot more than he liked high school. He can fade into a crowd here whenever he wants. He doesn't have a 7 on his back, or QB1 on his forehead, and the invisibility that gives him is a relief, the way eyes slide over him and move on.
Plus the classes are cooler, they mean something, and they have a reason. Everything he takes is a part of what he wants to do with his life. It all fits together.
"You're taking a class about cutting shit out of construction paper," Smash says flatly. "That is bullshit, Matty. Teaching little kids shouldn't be a major. It's stupid."
"That's not what the class is on, that's just what we're doing this week." Matt digs down into his backpack, trying to find enough change to feed the vending machine. "And I've got a test in psychology tomorrow that's gonna kick my ass, so it's not like that's all I do."
"Whatever, man." Smash glances at the clock and gets to his feet. "Gotta go. Class time."
"Communications, now that is a bullshit major, Smash--"
"Blow me, Saracen," he calls back over his shoulder, moving toward the door. Matt shakes his head and counts the coins out in his palm; enough for a Snickers. Score.
The edge of the organizations fair comes right up next to the vending machine, and he glances at the closest table as he punches his money in. He's not big on clubs; he tried a few when he got here in the fall, but he felt weird and exposed walking in by himself. The art club kids all seemed to know each other from classes, even the freshmen, and the other--
"Hey." He looks up and finds the girl at the table smiling at him. "Matt, right?"
"Uh." He swallows, feeling sharp heat rising in his face. "Yeah. You remember me?"
"Lucky guess." He remembers her too, now that she's talking; she handed him cookies and Sprite and talked to him for ten minutes at the one meeting he went to. Her name tag says Lisa, and based on the names on all the fliers on the table, she's in charge. "How are you doing?"
"I'm fine. I'm good." He blinks at the table, covered in fliers and keychains and stickers. "How's the club doing?"
"Really well. We're going to have a big rally at the end of the semester. It's our whole project for the spring."
He nods, staring at the bright rainbows on the stickers, knowing his face is still red. "Cool."
"You should come to another meeting sometime."
"I don't really have time." She offers him a flier, two-inch letters screaming PRIDE across the top, and he shakes his head. "No thanks."
She nods and steps back. "Well, if you ever change your mind, you're always welcome."
He suddenly feels rude for telling her no--a stupid flier, what would that hurt, who would give a shit--and his hand darts out, grabbing one of the stickers off the table. "I'll just take one of these maybe."
She smiles at him. "Sure. That's what they're there for."
He nods again, jerky and unsure, and then hurries away from the table, shoving the sticker down to the bottom of his backpack. There. He has a goddamn sticker. And he has five minutes to get to class, because he has a lot of shit to cut out of construction paper today.
**
The sticker rides around in the bottom of his bag for a few weeks. It's not something he thinks about a lot; the little piece of paper and adhesive itself or what it stands for, what it...means. It's only his second semester but he has a lot of work to do. He has to keep his grades up to keep his scholarship or else it's back to Dillon and the Alamo Freeze.
Besides studying, he has his work-study job at the library, swiping cards through the little machine and scanning books in and out. And he has friends, too, Jeff and the other guys in the dorm, plus Smash and the doorway into the student-athlete world he provides.
Matt thought the student-athlete world was fucked-up in Dillon, but it's amped up a hundred times here. Even Jason Street wasn't the kind of god that the QB1 is here. Hell, Jason Street wasn't the kind of god that the third-string lineman is here.
Smash gets him in to some of the athlete parties, and it's always fun; somehow the two of them always seem to end up leaning against the wall in a far corner, drinking their beers and laughing at stupid shit, like the way girls would act when they were trying to get somebody with a jersey to look at them, and what it would be like if some of the guys from Dillon were there.
Smash had changed at college, not a lot but enough that Matt noticed. Or maybe it was the way he got in that changed him, the twist in what had looked like a wide-open road. He was still ambitious, still aggressive, still supremely confident, but some of the edge had come off. The cockiness, maybe, was gone. He wasn't quite as loud, and he still moved with purpose but without that extra bit of swagger. He'd found some humility, more or less, Matt figured. It worked for him, made him seem more like an adult than a kid. Sure as hell made him easier to get along with.
Late on a February night, hunching their shoulders against the chill in the air, Smash said "Think I'm gonna change my major."
"Huh," Matt said, the most committal answer he could manage while he was trying to make his feet go in a straight line. They were coming back from a basketball after-party, the team had beat Colorado, leaving everybody revved up and pumped up and in the mood to pour extra drinks. "Astrophysics?"
"Journalism. Broadcast, right? Could be a sportscaster."
"What happened to the NFL?" The pavement keeps threatening to not be smooth, making him place every step with extra concentration and care. Damn sneaky sidewalk.
"I want to have a back-up plan...Saracen, where the hell are you going?" Smash grabs his elbow and drags him back across the sidewalk. "You're drunk."
"So're you."
"Yeah, but I'm not making a damn fool of myself." He tugs on Matt's elbow again, moving him farther, and Matt looks up and realizes they're in front of Smash's dorm. "Come on. If I let you walk all the way home you're gonna pass out in a ditch or something."
Smash's roommate pretty much lived with his girlfriend, once the season was over and the coaches weren't checking up on him anymore. Smash's stuff had expanded to fill the space; Matt tripped over over a duffel bag and landed on the bare mattress of Dominic's bed, laughing a little as the ceiling spun above his head. "Shit."
"If you're gonna puke, make sure it's in the trash can." Smash sits down next to him, making the mattress dip and bob in ways that make Matt have to close his eyes tight and pray for it to stop. "Jesus, Matty."
"Good party," Matt says, squeezing his eyes tighter still.
"Yeah. It was."
"I think DeShaun has mice or something, though, in his house, cause..." The bed shifts and creaks again and Matt digs his fingers into the mattress, scrabbling for purchase. "Um, I mean, in the kitchen and..."
It takes him a minute to realize that Smash is kissing him. At first it just seems like he can't breathe right, all of a sudden, and he kind of thinks that's weird, getting drunk had never given him that problem before. Then he figures it out--not suffocating, Smash's mouth against his, warm and soft, dry, oh--and his lips part without him even really thinking about it. Smash groans, deep in his throat, and his hand comes up to curve along Matt's jaw.
For a while they hold almost perfectly still, kissing without moving, joined at the lips and the arc skin under Smash's palm. Matt's the one who takes the next step, long minutes later when he can't take it anymore, his dick getting too hard to ignore and the angle all wrong to do anything about it. That has to change, so he shifts, angling his body across the bed and reaching up to find Smash's hip with his hand, settle his palm against the flat of the bone, and guide Smash's weight down.
Smash groans again once they're pressed together, a rough "fuck, yes," escaping under his breath, and Matt would laugh if he could breathe, would talk--feels good, don't it?, he wants to whisper, feels really fucking good--but there's not enough air, and those would be exceptionally stupid things to say anyway. Better just to roll his hips up against Smash's, slowly, and fumble with his other hand to push Smash's t-shirt up. His palm skates over skin and Smash makes another sound, rough and hungry and approving.
They never quite make it out of their jeans; buttons popped and zippers slipped, yeah, but actually making it out of the confines of fabric to let skin meet skin, not so much. When they both finish there's another kiss, this one fast and sloppy and half at an angle across Matt's chin.
"Fuck," Smash mutters, breaking off the kiss and resting his forehead against Matt's shoulder, his face turned into the curve of Matt's neck and his breath hot against sweaty skin. "Fuck."
Matt draws breath in roughly, trying to think of something to say, but Smash pulls away, getting unsteadily to his feet. "I've gotta crash," he mutters, running his hand over his hair. "It's late."
Matt nods, scooting back to the center of the bed and closing his eyes again, holding his breath tight and aching in his chest until the lights go out and he hears Smash's bed creak under his weight. Then the air escapes his lungs in an unsteady, panicked rush, tasting sour with beer and adrenaline. Shit. Shit shit shit shit.
**
His name was Paul, and he was one of the day-shift nurse's aides at the Windy Poplars Nursing Home just outside Dillon. Matt moved his grandma in at Windy Poplars about two weeks before he himself was supposed to move into his dorm at A&M. There was absolutely no chance that it was going to be anything other than an exceptionally shitty two weeks, and Matt knew that even before it began. So did Paul, just from the look on Matt's face.
"Hey," he'd said, catching Matt's elbow as Matt made the last trip between the car and Grandma's room, with her Bible and a photo of him in his football uniform and her favorite cushion for her back. "I go off-shift in half an hour. Let me buy you a drink, okay? It's a rough day."
"I'm not twenty-one," Matt muttered.
"I didn't hear that," Paul said with a shrug, and Matt nodded, because a drink was just about the best idea he could come up with at that point, short of living in some other alternate reality where dementia didn't exist.
Halfway to the bar, they came across a liquor store, and suddenly it seemed like a lot better idea to just get a bottle and go back to Paul's apartment, where it wouldn't be smoky and loud.
They only had one shot apiece, between all the talking they ended up doing--and Matt never was sure what it was about Paul that made him start talking; he didn't like talking--so he couldn't even blame the booze for the fact that he ended up making out with a guy. Or the fact that he liked it. Or the fact that the idea of either going back to his grandma's empty house or from couch to couch of the guys on the team made his stomach turn, so he spent the next two weeks at Paul's.
While Paul was at work, he slept and read and filled out placement tests for A&M. When Paul got home, they...did stuff that he was really, really sure he wasn't supposed to like as much as he did.
And then he went off to school, wondering what the hell just happened, wondering what the hell it meant. He went to one Pride meeting and everyone else there was either so much more sure of themselves or so much better at faking it that there was just no way he could go back again. He figured maybe it was just a thing, a grief thing, a fear thing, a transition thing. Nothing real. Nothing that would happen again.
But now...now, and it was Smash, not some guy he just met, Smash, and...well, shit.
**
On Monday Smash lets his tray hit their usual table in the student union with a pissed-off thud that makes Matt flinch.
"Coach Thomas is trying to kill me," he says flatly.
"Huh?" Matt blinks hard, grabbing Smash's fork before it falls off the table and throwing it back on the tray. "Who?"
"Coach Thomas. He's crazy. This is not conditioning, it's...boot camp." Smash throws his backpack on the table as well and sits down, shaking his head. "Crazy shit. Where'd you get burritos? There weren't any when I looked."
Tuesday and Thursday are the same story, and they never had lunch together on Wednesdays anyway. By Friday Matt starts to relax a little. No big deal, just a drunk...thing. Just a thing. Everything's still the same.
But he spends the whole lunch waiting for Smash to tell him when and where the party is Saturday night, and Smash doesn't say a word. It's a home basketball game, Matt knows there's a party. They'll either be drinking to celebrate or to forget. A late night and a good fucking time.
And apparently Matt's not invited anymore.
It's weird; he can just about convince himself he doesn't even care, but never quite all the way. It catches him when he doesn't expect it--in the middle of class, walking away from the dining hall, playing quarters with Jeff on the floor in the hallway. Just suddenly, like a smack up the back of his head or Coach Taylor's voice barking across the field. You fucked up, Saracen, you fucked up good, and now you're out.
Jeff peels himself off the floor. "Bar time, Saracen," he says, skating his hand up under his t-shirt to scratch at his stomach. "You coming?"
"Nah." Matt stands up slowly, shrugging his shoulders and not making eye contact with anything but his shoes. "I'm good. Have fun."
He goes back to his room, stretching out on his bed and staring up at the ceiling, that ugly little reminder running through his head over and over like Landry trying to figure out some chords. Fucked up, kicked out, done.
And he wasn't even the one who started it, which seemed like it should kind of matter, but it looks like it doesn't, and that just isn't fucking fair.
Story of his life.
He sits up and digs around in his backpack for his notebook and textbook; he has a child psych test on Tuesday and he's not more than half ready for it. Studying on a Saturday night is about as lame as it comes, but he's got to do something and that's what's there.
He digs his way through one chapter, then another, then stops. His eyes ache and burn, and as he rubs at them he has to admit to himself that he doesn't remember a single thing from either chapter. Not one word. He's going to have to go through them again, maybe take notes this time, and it's one frickin' AM already, how did that happen, and--
Somebody's knocking on the door.
Matt rests his book against his chest and closes his eyes, thumping his head back against the pillow. "I told you, Jeff," he yells, picturing the sound waves bouncing crazily off the walls. "I told you if you forgot your key one more goddamn time, I'd--"
"Not Jeff, dumbass."
Matt's breath stops in his chest, going solid and choking so fast it hurts.
"Open the door, Saracen. Jesus."
Matt half-falls out of his bunk, barking his knee against the bookshelf even harder than usual and limp-hopping over to the door. "Smash? What the hell, man, it's--"
He barely gets the door open before Smash is coming through it, fast and aggressive like he's making a break for the end zone. There's sweat beading on his face and Matt can smell the beer on him, warm sour-sweet smell.
"What're you doing here?" Matt asks, falling back a step ahead of Smash's forward rush. The door swings shut with a solid thud, and Matt's foot catches in a discarded t-shirt, sending him lurching sideways. "Cops break up the party or--"
He catches himself with his hand on the wall, awkward and off-balance. Wincing at the impact, he opens his mouth to curse, but the chance is stolen as Smash grabs his shoulders and turns him, pushing him flat up against the wall with his whole body, another solid impact that makes him gasp. That sound gets whisked away, too, by Smash's mouth, suddenly hot and wet against his own, demanding.
Matt is sober this time and part of him knows that means it's his job to stop this, to push Smash back and tell him he's got it all wrong, he's confused and he's drunk and they're not doing this. Not here, not now, not ever.
But he's sober this time and that's how he knows, really and for sure, that he doesn't want to stop it, that he wants this. Smash's teeth scrape his lower lip and his tongue and he groans, sounding a little bit frantic, just wanting Smash to know not to stop.
He notices more this time; that Smash's skin up under his shirt is almost as soft as Julie's, that the football-shaped calluses on his hands make them feel completely different from any girl, that he'll make this funny little sound when Matt's fingers graze a certain place on his hip. Smash gets his hand down inside Matt's jeans and palms him through his boxers, making Matt's whole body jerk and come damn close to embarrassing himself.
Part of Matt is painfully, scary-aware that Jeff really could come back at any minute, and part of him is still kind of wondering why the hell nothing like this ever came up in something like ten years of playing football together from pee-wee to varsity, but most of him is pretty focused on Smash's mouth, Smash's body heavy against his, and the way those calluses feel even more different and even fucking better once the boxers are pushed out of the way and Smash has his dick in his hand, skin to skin.
He comes over Smash's hand, cursing under his breath and letting his head fall back against the wall. Smash presses even tighter against him, thrusting his hips, ignoring the wetness messing up his jeans in favor of trying to find friction. His mouth slips off Matt's, kissing rough and sloppy against his cheek and his jaw, and Matt drags in as deep a breath as he can. "Wait."
Smash stops, his chest heaving, and his eyes flicker to meet Matt's just for an instant. There's a spark of something there, under the gloss of the beer, something Matt knows he wasn't supposed to see and that tells him Smash isn't quite as drunk as he thought. Just drunk enough to be bold.
"Wait...wait," he repeats, knowing it sounds stupid and knowing Smash is going to take it wrong, but not able to get anything better past the adrenaline rush. "Just...hold on."
"Matt," Smash says, his voice thick and weird, and yeah, that's more than can just be blamed on the beer, too. "Matt, I don't--"
Matt shakes his head and steps forward, catching Smash's arms and turning them so Smash's back is against the wall. Those two smarter parts of him are still yelling, making their case loud and clear that this is a truly fucking stupid thing to do.
The third part of him just wants, and wants, and he's tired of not getting what he wants, he's tired of pretending all the time.
He gets down on his knees, not smoothly or anything but clumsily, but fast, before he can talk himself out of it or Smash can tell him to stop. He's done this exactly once in his life and if he stops now he has a feeling he'll never do it again, because one success and one fuck-up can be written off as a wash, but anything more than that and it has to mean...something...
"Matt," Smash says again, his voice jumping up half an octave, and Matt pulls himself together like he was running out onto the field, undoes Smash's fly, and guides his dick out.
Sucking cock takes a weird kind of split concentration, half on what he's doing and half on how Smash is reacting; what makes him breathe harder, what makes him make sounds, what makes the muscles in his thighs jerk under Matt's hands. Matt doesn't kid himself that he's any particular good at this, but he's not particularly bad, either, and he does something right enough that before too long Smash is gripping the back of his head hard, holding him tight against him, and coming in his mouth.
Matt gags hard, swallowing half and spitting half out over his chin as he sits back on his heels. He drags the back of his hand over his mouth and blinks at Smash, eyes watering.
Smash looks down at him, his face expressionless and his eyes suddenly unreadable beyond being a little wild. For a minute they both just breathe and stare, neither moving, neither speaking.
"Jeff's gonna be back soon," Matt says finally, wiping his mouth again and getting to his feet.
Smash nods a little and zips up his jeans. His hands are clumsy, Matt can only figure with relief. "Yeah. I should...I gotta get to bed, I guess."
After he leaves Matt goes over to his desk, sitting down carefully in the chair and staring down at the mess of notes strewn around the periphery of the surface and his laptop perched solidly in the middle. Coach and Mrs. Taylor gave him that, as a graduation present. It's probably the most valuable thing he owns.
He doesn't quite realizing what he's doing at first, beyond flipping through the notes and papers like he's looking for something. Whatever it is, he doesn't find it, and he reaches for his textbooks next, flipping through each volume in the stack one by one. When that's fruitless as well, he grabs his backpack from the floor and dives into the junk collected there.
The stupid little rainbow sticker is way down at the bottom, folded in with a flier for a food drive and an ad for cable. It's a little smudged from all the crap that's been shoved in on top of it for weeks, and one corner is crumpled. He smooths it out against the edge of the desk and peels off the back, then affixes it carefully to the left of the touchpad on his laptop.
His own business, but obvious if anybody looks closer. That seems about right.
**
It doesn't take long before it becomes another part of his life, one more thing that just happens, on a schedule of its own. Classes every day. Ordering pizza once a week with the guys in the dorm. Two or three times a week, a late-night run. And every other Saturday night or so, the extra bed in Smash's room, or a frantic secretive rush in Matt's, or, just once, an empty entrance to the football stadium at two in the morning.
It turned out that putting a sticker on his laptop didn't mean quite as much as he'd thought it might. A few people noticed it; some looked at him with a slight, shy smile of recognition, some gave him a nasty look or said something stupid that he shrugged off with only a little bit of a sting, some didn't react at all.
He ran into Lisa, from the Pride club, at the library once; she saw the sticker and beamed at him with this big, ridiculous smile that made him just feel weird, and kind of angry almost. She acted like she thought she had anything to do with it. He wasn't doing it for her, he wasn't doing it for anybody. He didn't even know why he did it at all, it just was something he wanted to do, at that one moment, and it's not anything bigger than that, just an impulse, except that it is.
It's the first sort-of step into being...out? Open? He doesn't even know what it is he's stepping toward, but that first try has turned out to be a little bit of a letdown.
When Smash saw the sticker, a weird look crossed his face and he ended up throwing away half of his sandwich, but that was it. Matt doesn't know what that means. He has a hunch he should get used to the feeling.
He's pretty sure now that he is gay; he's tried shaping the words with his mouth, whispering them with no air behind them into the darkness above his bunk at night. I'm gay. I'm Matt Saracen, and I'm gay. I'm from Dillon, Texas, and I'm...
It doesn't feel quite like it fits.
He's tried to send Paul an e-mail, more than once, but he's never quite managed it. Paul has his own life, his own problems, and it's not his job to help some random kid he doesn't even know stumble his way through figuring his shit out. Besides, just like always, Matt doesn't know what to say.
He talks to Julie sometimes, online, and Landry. He's managed a few fumbling almost-questions, vague stuff about if the think anything's changed since they left high school, anything big and deep-down that they never even really thought about before, but either neither one of them wants to take the bait, or they really did become the person they were always going to be somewhere around sophomore year.
And it just seems wrong, to ask them to help him with this. Too big. Too much.
Or maybe it isn't all that big. Maybe it's just what he thought to begin with, just a thing, just...just a thing that they do. Once in a while. Kisses that taste like beer or cheap liquor, hands that move fast and rough and sometimes leave a shallow scratch or a fingerprint pattern of bruises. Smash's dick heavy and warm on Matt's tongue, the taste of salt, Smash's palm rough against Matt's own erection.
Maybe it's all of those and no more, just a collection of things, like stars that are only a constellation if you tell yourself so. Turning it into anything more than what it is is just a pretty lie.
If he thinks about it too much it makes his chest hurt.
**
The knock on the door comes around two in the morning. Matt's still awake, studying in theory but mostly playing video games on his computer. Not having the option of MORPGs during high school probably did wonders for his GPA.
He gets up slowly, pausing the game and giving his textbook an apologetic look before he goes over to the door. Smash is leaning against the frame when it opens, smiling a little. "Hey."
"Hey." Matt runs his hand through his hair and glances up the hall one way and down the other. "It's late."
"You sleeping?"
"No." He shrugs, not sure why he bothered saying it at all. Of course it's late. That's how it works.
"Jeff here?"
"He went home this weekend." Matt clears his throat and steps back, letting Smash inside. "What's up?"
"You know, the usual. Living the dream." Smash shoves his hands in his pockets and looks around the room. His gaze settles on the laptop and he raises his eyebrows slightly in question.
"You want to play Warcraft?" Matt asks, moving over to the desk. He shuts down the program before Smash answers.
"Maybe later." Smash is looking at him now, a hint of puzzlement in his eyes. "Matt..."
Matt shakes his head and looks at the bed, smiling a little bit. "C'mon. Like I said, it's late." Smash steps in close and kisses him, and Matt closes his eyes, the better to just taste. Beer and just a little bit of weed, probably a lot earlier in the night. They must've just had one of their so-called random tests in the locker room. Safe for another few months.
Maybe because Jeff definitely isn't coming back tonight, they both stay in bed after, arms looped loosely together and one of Smash's legs tangled with Matt's. Matt breathes in and out slowly through his nose, blinking up at the ceiling. He's tired; he's choking to death on midterms and he hasn't been running in days and he's thisclose to leveling his druid. He's got his goddamn priorities.
Smash shifts a little, pressing closer against Matt. The skin between them is damp and sticky and Matt moves away, out of instinct rather than thought. Still, Smash frowns and props himself up on his elbows. "What?"
"Nothing."
"No, c'mon. Look like you have something you wanted to say."
Matt shrugs and sits up as well, looking around for his boxers. He doesn't believe in having any kind of serious conversation while he's naked. That's just not okay. "It's not important."
"Just come on already."
Matt exhales and looks at him, hating himself for what he's going to say before he even manages to say it. "Can't you just...maybe, just once, could you maybe be sober?"
Smash stares at him like he's grown a second head, and yeah, Matt hates himself. "What are you talking about?"
"Forget it."
"You think I drink too much, Saracen?"
"No! I don't...no. Not like that. Just...whenever you come over here, or you call me to come over there, whenever we...do this. You've always been drinking. It's like you've gotta be drunk to want to...whatever. Mess around with me." Out loud it sounds even worse than it did in his head, bad enough to be horrifying.
Smash scowls at him, grabbing his own boxers off the end of the bed. "That's not true."
"Yeah, it is. You only want to do this after you've been partying, and you always drink when you party, so...you know, that's...logic, or something. You only want to do this when you're drunk."
"What do you want from me, anyway?" Smash jumps down from the bunk and starts fumbling around for the rest of his clothes, his t-shirt and his shoes.
"Nothing. I don't want anything, Smash."
"You want me to hold your hand? Walk you around campus? Take you out to the movies? Come on, Matt. I'm on the football team. I've still got a shot at playing pro if all my luck comes in. I can't screw that up by--"
"I know that," Matt half-shouts at him, trying to catch himself so the guys in the next room won't hear, but not quite managing it. "I know you can't fuck up your whole life by letting people think you might be some kind of a fag. I'm not stupid. I'm not asking you for any of that, for anything like that."
"Then what the fuck do you want?"
Matt throws his hands in the air, laughing a little from sheet helplessness. "What I said. I want you to be sober. Just once, one goddamn time, don't have to get drunk before you want to kiss me. That's the only damn thing I'm asking for." Smash stares at him for a long time, his face blank and unreadable, and Matt's breath hitches painfully in his chest. "It's late."
"Yeah." Smash nods stiffly and zips up his jeans. "It is. I gotta go."
Matt wipes his hand over his face and doesn't look up again until the door closes. "Shit," he says, his voice too loud in the sudden quiet. "Fucking...fucking shit."
He jumps down from the bed and goes to Jeff's dresser, digging through the sock drawer until he finds the bottle of vodka that lives there. He's very aware that there's quite a bit of irony here, but at the moment he doesn't give a damn.
**
He drinks till he passes out, and pays for it just about as much as he should've expected come morning--or, well, afternoon, since that's when he actually wakes up. He lies in Jeff's bed, where he ended up, and silently prays for death for a good hour before he manages to get up and stumble down the hall for some water. That plus another half-hour of standing under the shower and tempting fate to drown him makes him just about feel human again. Unfortunately that means that he can also start thinking, and remembering, and that kind of makes him want to just crawl back into bed again and stay there for the foreseeable future.
He has a metric fuckton of studying to do, but the thought makes him feel worse, so crawling back into bed is exactly what he does. It's quiet there, and if he puts the pillow over his head, it's dark. Those are the only two things he needs in life right now. And to not move. At all. Possibly ever.
That's all going great for about two hours, until somebody pounds on his door. "Go 'way," he says from under the pillow.
"Let me in, Saracen."
Smash. He should've guessed. He turns his face flat to the mattress and pulls the pillow down harder over his head, wondering how long it takes to suffocate.
"Open the door."
No chance in hell.
"Matt. Open the door." There's a pause, and Matt turns his head to the side again, lifting the pillow enough to peer out from under it. "Please?"
That's unexpected. Matt sits up slowly, clearing his throat until he can get the words out clearly. "Just a sec."
He finds a clean t-shirt and a pair of running shorts; for some reason the idea of answering the door in his boxers feels wrong right now. And he kind of wants to look like he hasn't spent the whole day in bed.
When he opens the door, Smash is leaning on the frame, just like usual. "Hi," he says, blinking uncertainly.
"Hi," Matt croaks, wincing and grabbing his water bottle off the top of the dresser. "What's up?"
"Are you okay?"
Matt shrugs and nods and takes a long drink of water. "I'm fine."
Smash gives him a skeptical look. "Let me in."
"I'm kinda busy."
"Doing what?"
Matt frowns, taking another drink. "Leveling my druid."
"I don't even know what that means." Smash runs his hand over his hair and glances down the hallway. "That's not...some kind of code, is it?"
"Yeah, Smash. It's the secret gay code for jerking off."
"Well, what the hell do I know?" Matt rolls his eyes and steps back, and Smash grabs the edge of the door. "Let me come in. I want to talk."
"I don't think we have anything to talk about."
"Yeah, we do, Matt." Smash looks at him, really looks at him, and Matt gives in like a sucker. Like always.
"Fine," he mutters, stepping back and letting Smash inside. "But hurry up. I've got stuff to do."
"Right. Leveling or whatever."
"Right."
Smash shakes his head slightly and sits down on the edge of Jeff's desk. Matt crosses his arms over his chest and leans against the beds, wishing the room was just a little bit bigger. Another square foot of air between him and Smash would...help.
"I thought about what you said last night." Smash runs his hands along the edge of the desk, frowning down at the chips in the finish. "I've been thinking about it ever since I left. Didn't get much sleep."
"Sorry to hear that." Matt swallows and shrugs, looking down at the mess of discarded laundry and paper on the floor around Jeff's desk. "Told you to just forget it."
"I can't just forget it. I mean, the stuff you said, that's...that's important, right? It's important to you." Matt shoots a puzzled look at him and Smash exhales in a sharp, frustrated huff. "You're...it's not just messing around for you, you really are..."
"Yeah." Matt nods, his voice softer than he means it to be. "I think I am."
"And that's...you know, that's whatever. I'm kinda surprised, because Julie, and the nurse, and...but whatever, Matt, go for it. But me...it's different. I play football, Matt. I can't have people in the locker room talking about me, saying stuff like..." He's panicking, and it's kind of interesting to watch, from the parts of Matt's brain that are pulling back and observing instead of feeling anything, because feeling is going to hurt. "I can't have that happen, you know, Matt?"
"I know. I wasn't asking you to." Matt lets out a frustrated breath of his own and smacks the flat of his hand against the bed. "I really wasn't."
"How...I mean, how do you know? You were with girls in high school. You obsessed over Julie Taylor like a freak."
Matt laughs a little, shaking his head. "Thanks, man."
"You know what I mean."
"Julie, and Carlota..." Matt licks his lips, trying to fumble his way through the mess of thoughts in his head to find words. He's thought about this, tried to explain it to himself, tried to put it into e-mails to Julie and Landry that he always deleted. "I needed...things kind of sucked, in high school. You know? I mean, yeah, there was lots of good stuff, but a lot of things, a lot of things at home, they...sucked. And I needed...I wanted somebody to like me, to be nice to me. And they...well, they were."
Smash nods a little bit, though the look on his face makes it clear he doesn't understand. "So what made you think about guys?"
"I met this guy. After graduation. And...and with him it was...different. It just felt more...more right. More like something was...I mean, it was good with Julie and Carlota, I'm not saying...but with guys it's just..." He blows out a sharp breath. "I don't know how to explain it. I just know, okay?"
"Okay." Smash holds up his hands and nods, then drops them back to the edge of the desk and looks up at the ceiling. "But...for me it's not like that, Matt. Girls or...or with you, it's the same. It feels...good, the same way. There's not any big difference like you're saying. It's just not...so I'm not...right?"
Matt looks at him for a minute, not sure if he wants to laugh or throw a book at his head. "So I'm gay and you're bi. Glad we got that figured out, Smash."
"You're a sarcastic son of a bitch, Saracen." Smash kicks the legs of the desk, his jaw set in irritation. "So what now?"
"You just said." Matt shrugs, digging his fingers into his palms to keep his expression blank. "You can't do this, you can't...it'll fuck up your career."
"Not if we're careful."
"You want to be that careful? All the time?"
"I don't know. I mean..." Smash stands up and paces across the room, looking out the window over the courtyard. "I like...hooking up with you. I like you."
"We're gonna be friends either way, Smash."
"I know that, but I..." Matt waits, looking at him. Smash drums his hands against the windowsill and stares out at the courtyard. "I guess I gotta do some thinking."
That hurts, but not as much as Matt expected. "That's probably smart."
"I'll get it figured out."
"Yeah." Matt shoves his hands into the waistband of his shorts, curling them against the fabric of his boxers. "Just, you know, whatever you decide, all I'm asking is you tell me where we're at. Just be honest with me."
Smash nods slightly. "I can do that."
"Cool." Matt pushes away from the bed, blinking hard against the headache he'd forgotten about. "I gotta study, so..."
"I thought you were doing something geeky and lame."
"Yeah, well, I gotta stop doing that so I can study."
Smash laughs and steps toward him, reaching out to catch his arm. "Hold on one second."
"What?"
Smash leans in and kisses him, slow and deep and warm, and this kiss tastes like wintergreen gum and just...Smash. Nothing else.
"I'm gonna go think," Smash says softly.
Matt nods until the door swings closed, then sinks down to the floor, pressing his forehead against his knees. What just happened? he wonders, his breath catching painfully in his chest.
He thinks they did a smart thing. He doesn't know if it was a good or a bad one, though. And he really, really doesn't know what happens next.
**
The Pride rally gets a good turnout, spilling out of the corner they were assigned and out over the sidewalk. Matt hangs to the back of the crowd, holding up the poster somebody gives him and yelling whenever everybody else does.
There are two big banners of white fabric laid out behind the podium where the Pride president is giving her speech, and the other club members start handing out markers to the closest people in the crowd. "Step up and sign," Lisa says, smiling out at them from behind the microphone. "Whether you're gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, or an ally, step up and sign your name to show your support for equality."
The crowd starts to shuffle, people moving over to the fabric and signing and then circulating away again, a barely-orderly process that leads to a lot of mashed toes and torn posters. Matt holds his up above his head, curving the paper to shade his face from the sun. It takes a while for him to get up to the banners, but once he does, he signs his name right across the middle in big, clear letters. He still isn't entirely sure that this a place he belongs, but today is for standing together, and yeah, he is proud.
"Allies!" Lisa hollers into the microphone. "We want you, too, allies. Step up and sign. Make a statement that you believe everybody should have the right to be who they are and love who they love."
Matt steps back from the banners, rolling the marker between his fingers and looking around for someone to hand it off to. A pale girl with huge glasses reaches for it, and he goes to hand it to her, the hesitates as she looks over his shoulder. Her eyes widen, and he looks back, confused.
A cluster of football players is walking by, glancing at the rally with varying levels of confusion and interest. One nudges another and says something that makes them both laugh as they keep walking. Matt bites his lower lip and curves his poster around his head again. Part of him wants to yell something, but the rest knows it would make more trouble than it would do good.
The girl takes the marker and steps up to the banner, and Matt falls back, watching the football players go. Lisa is still yammering on into the microphone, causing a squeal of feedback that makes him wince and look away.
When he looks back again, Smash is jogging toward him, calling something back over his shoulder at the other players as he runs. He gets to the banners just as the girl finishes signing. "You mind?" he asks, holding out his hand. "I'm kinda in a hurry."
She hands him the marker and he scrawls his name beneath hers, Brian Smash Williams in two-inch block print. "Equality," he says, handing the marker off again. "Hell yeah."
He barely glances at Matt, but Matt grins anyway, and in the split second that their eyes do meet, he nods. Smash nods back and jogs away, throwing a vague thumbs-up over his shoulder.
Matt holds up his sign, cheers along when the crowd does, and thinks that it's kind of a beautiful day.
For poisontaster, who requested college!Matt (as well as other elements, which I think I got here, but if not, apologies, PT! Things changed as I revised, things got cut...). I fused that with an earlier promise I'd made to write her Matt/Smash. I choose to see that as EFFICIENCY, not cheating.
Notes: Title from Ryan Adams. Thanks to sionnain for beta'ing.
The author has seen through episode 3.8, but there are no direct spoilers here. There are *implicit* spoilers, however, because I have seen it, if that makes sense. What I'm saying is, in my opinion (and my beta agrees), if you read this, you won't be spoiled, because you won't even recognize the implicit-spoiler-bits until you DO view the episodes. ::beams:: But that is just in our opinion, and all liability lies with the reader, etc.
Matt wakes up soaked in sweat, his heart pounding in his chest and his breath hiccuping in his throat. Something's gripping his legs, trapping them, and he struggles blindly for a few long minutes before he realizes it's just the sheets. He closes his eyes and slumps back against the mattress, trying to breathe.
Four AM, the clock tells him when he looks again. His roommate groans and sighs in his sleep from the bunk below Matt's. The wind knocks against the half-opened window, still cool and wet like spring instead of dust-dry. He can't remember what his nightmare was about.
He grabs his cell phone off the top of the bookshelf he uses as a bedside table. Punching in a text is easy; the autocomplete does half the message for him. He hits send and holds the phone against his forehead, closing his eyes again and waiting.
The phone buzzes and he flips it open, fast before it can even maybe wake up Jeff. my dorm, it says, and Matt climbs down the ladder from his bed, biting back a curse when he catches his kneecap on the bookshelf, like he does every single damn day.
He finds his shorts and an A&M t-shirt, dressing fast in the dark. He glances at Jeff out of the corner of his eye, Jeff with his skinny bowlegs and his beer belly and for some reason a never-ending parade of girls through the room. Matt likes Jeff all right but they're not ever going to be best friends.
It probably says something about Matt that he goes off to college and his best friend ends up being the guy he played ball with for three years.
He laces up his shoes and lets himself out, jogging quickly through the dark. Even the mid-week drunks are crashed somewhere by now. It's quiet and peaceful and beautiful in a weird way, beautiful like a zombie movie.
Smash is waiting on the steps of his dorm, stretching slowly, scowling up at the security lights. "You and your damn insomnia, Saracen," he says.
"You were up, too." Matt smiles a little and dodges the punch Smash throws at his head. "Quit your whining."
"I was studying," Smash says. "I do my best thinking after midnight."
"So call it a study break." Matt shifts his weight, jogs in place, feels the familiar tense and ease in his muscles. He's never going to play football again, he doesn't even really want to anymore, but his body is used to this, exertion and exercise, needs the sweat and ache and pounding heart. He thinks that's maybe why he has nightmares, just to send him out like this into the early hours.
Smash jumps down from the steps and bounces on his toes experimentally. "Hard or easy?"
Matt shrugs. "You got conditioning today?"
"Weight room."
"Then let's go hard."
"Cool." Smash reaches out and taps him across the back of his head, an easy open-handed slap. "You're it, Saracen. Come and get me."
**
It turns out that Matt likes college a hell of a lot more than he liked high school. He can fade into a crowd here whenever he wants. He doesn't have a 7 on his back, or QB1 on his forehead, and the invisibility that gives him is a relief, the way eyes slide over him and move on.
Plus the classes are cooler, they mean something, and they have a reason. Everything he takes is a part of what he wants to do with his life. It all fits together.
"You're taking a class about cutting shit out of construction paper," Smash says flatly. "That is bullshit, Matty. Teaching little kids shouldn't be a major. It's stupid."
"That's not what the class is on, that's just what we're doing this week." Matt digs down into his backpack, trying to find enough change to feed the vending machine. "And I've got a test in psychology tomorrow that's gonna kick my ass, so it's not like that's all I do."
"Whatever, man." Smash glances at the clock and gets to his feet. "Gotta go. Class time."
"Communications, now that is a bullshit major, Smash--"
"Blow me, Saracen," he calls back over his shoulder, moving toward the door. Matt shakes his head and counts the coins out in his palm; enough for a Snickers. Score.
The edge of the organizations fair comes right up next to the vending machine, and he glances at the closest table as he punches his money in. He's not big on clubs; he tried a few when he got here in the fall, but he felt weird and exposed walking in by himself. The art club kids all seemed to know each other from classes, even the freshmen, and the other--
"Hey." He looks up and finds the girl at the table smiling at him. "Matt, right?"
"Uh." He swallows, feeling sharp heat rising in his face. "Yeah. You remember me?"
"Lucky guess." He remembers her too, now that she's talking; she handed him cookies and Sprite and talked to him for ten minutes at the one meeting he went to. Her name tag says Lisa, and based on the names on all the fliers on the table, she's in charge. "How are you doing?"
"I'm fine. I'm good." He blinks at the table, covered in fliers and keychains and stickers. "How's the club doing?"
"Really well. We're going to have a big rally at the end of the semester. It's our whole project for the spring."
He nods, staring at the bright rainbows on the stickers, knowing his face is still red. "Cool."
"You should come to another meeting sometime."
"I don't really have time." She offers him a flier, two-inch letters screaming PRIDE across the top, and he shakes his head. "No thanks."
She nods and steps back. "Well, if you ever change your mind, you're always welcome."
He suddenly feels rude for telling her no--a stupid flier, what would that hurt, who would give a shit--and his hand darts out, grabbing one of the stickers off the table. "I'll just take one of these maybe."
She smiles at him. "Sure. That's what they're there for."
He nods again, jerky and unsure, and then hurries away from the table, shoving the sticker down to the bottom of his backpack. There. He has a goddamn sticker. And he has five minutes to get to class, because he has a lot of shit to cut out of construction paper today.
**
The sticker rides around in the bottom of his bag for a few weeks. It's not something he thinks about a lot; the little piece of paper and adhesive itself or what it stands for, what it...means. It's only his second semester but he has a lot of work to do. He has to keep his grades up to keep his scholarship or else it's back to Dillon and the Alamo Freeze.
Besides studying, he has his work-study job at the library, swiping cards through the little machine and scanning books in and out. And he has friends, too, Jeff and the other guys in the dorm, plus Smash and the doorway into the student-athlete world he provides.
Matt thought the student-athlete world was fucked-up in Dillon, but it's amped up a hundred times here. Even Jason Street wasn't the kind of god that the QB1 is here. Hell, Jason Street wasn't the kind of god that the third-string lineman is here.
Smash gets him in to some of the athlete parties, and it's always fun; somehow the two of them always seem to end up leaning against the wall in a far corner, drinking their beers and laughing at stupid shit, like the way girls would act when they were trying to get somebody with a jersey to look at them, and what it would be like if some of the guys from Dillon were there.
Smash had changed at college, not a lot but enough that Matt noticed. Or maybe it was the way he got in that changed him, the twist in what had looked like a wide-open road. He was still ambitious, still aggressive, still supremely confident, but some of the edge had come off. The cockiness, maybe, was gone. He wasn't quite as loud, and he still moved with purpose but without that extra bit of swagger. He'd found some humility, more or less, Matt figured. It worked for him, made him seem more like an adult than a kid. Sure as hell made him easier to get along with.
Late on a February night, hunching their shoulders against the chill in the air, Smash said "Think I'm gonna change my major."
"Huh," Matt said, the most committal answer he could manage while he was trying to make his feet go in a straight line. They were coming back from a basketball after-party, the team had beat Colorado, leaving everybody revved up and pumped up and in the mood to pour extra drinks. "Astrophysics?"
"Journalism. Broadcast, right? Could be a sportscaster."
"What happened to the NFL?" The pavement keeps threatening to not be smooth, making him place every step with extra concentration and care. Damn sneaky sidewalk.
"I want to have a back-up plan...Saracen, where the hell are you going?" Smash grabs his elbow and drags him back across the sidewalk. "You're drunk."
"So're you."
"Yeah, but I'm not making a damn fool of myself." He tugs on Matt's elbow again, moving him farther, and Matt looks up and realizes they're in front of Smash's dorm. "Come on. If I let you walk all the way home you're gonna pass out in a ditch or something."
Smash's roommate pretty much lived with his girlfriend, once the season was over and the coaches weren't checking up on him anymore. Smash's stuff had expanded to fill the space; Matt tripped over over a duffel bag and landed on the bare mattress of Dominic's bed, laughing a little as the ceiling spun above his head. "Shit."
"If you're gonna puke, make sure it's in the trash can." Smash sits down next to him, making the mattress dip and bob in ways that make Matt have to close his eyes tight and pray for it to stop. "Jesus, Matty."
"Good party," Matt says, squeezing his eyes tighter still.
"Yeah. It was."
"I think DeShaun has mice or something, though, in his house, cause..." The bed shifts and creaks again and Matt digs his fingers into the mattress, scrabbling for purchase. "Um, I mean, in the kitchen and..."
It takes him a minute to realize that Smash is kissing him. At first it just seems like he can't breathe right, all of a sudden, and he kind of thinks that's weird, getting drunk had never given him that problem before. Then he figures it out--not suffocating, Smash's mouth against his, warm and soft, dry, oh--and his lips part without him even really thinking about it. Smash groans, deep in his throat, and his hand comes up to curve along Matt's jaw.
For a while they hold almost perfectly still, kissing without moving, joined at the lips and the arc skin under Smash's palm. Matt's the one who takes the next step, long minutes later when he can't take it anymore, his dick getting too hard to ignore and the angle all wrong to do anything about it. That has to change, so he shifts, angling his body across the bed and reaching up to find Smash's hip with his hand, settle his palm against the flat of the bone, and guide Smash's weight down.
Smash groans again once they're pressed together, a rough "fuck, yes," escaping under his breath, and Matt would laugh if he could breathe, would talk--feels good, don't it?, he wants to whisper, feels really fucking good--but there's not enough air, and those would be exceptionally stupid things to say anyway. Better just to roll his hips up against Smash's, slowly, and fumble with his other hand to push Smash's t-shirt up. His palm skates over skin and Smash makes another sound, rough and hungry and approving.
They never quite make it out of their jeans; buttons popped and zippers slipped, yeah, but actually making it out of the confines of fabric to let skin meet skin, not so much. When they both finish there's another kiss, this one fast and sloppy and half at an angle across Matt's chin.
"Fuck," Smash mutters, breaking off the kiss and resting his forehead against Matt's shoulder, his face turned into the curve of Matt's neck and his breath hot against sweaty skin. "Fuck."
Matt draws breath in roughly, trying to think of something to say, but Smash pulls away, getting unsteadily to his feet. "I've gotta crash," he mutters, running his hand over his hair. "It's late."
Matt nods, scooting back to the center of the bed and closing his eyes again, holding his breath tight and aching in his chest until the lights go out and he hears Smash's bed creak under his weight. Then the air escapes his lungs in an unsteady, panicked rush, tasting sour with beer and adrenaline. Shit. Shit shit shit shit.
**
His name was Paul, and he was one of the day-shift nurse's aides at the Windy Poplars Nursing Home just outside Dillon. Matt moved his grandma in at Windy Poplars about two weeks before he himself was supposed to move into his dorm at A&M. There was absolutely no chance that it was going to be anything other than an exceptionally shitty two weeks, and Matt knew that even before it began. So did Paul, just from the look on Matt's face.
"Hey," he'd said, catching Matt's elbow as Matt made the last trip between the car and Grandma's room, with her Bible and a photo of him in his football uniform and her favorite cushion for her back. "I go off-shift in half an hour. Let me buy you a drink, okay? It's a rough day."
"I'm not twenty-one," Matt muttered.
"I didn't hear that," Paul said with a shrug, and Matt nodded, because a drink was just about the best idea he could come up with at that point, short of living in some other alternate reality where dementia didn't exist.
Halfway to the bar, they came across a liquor store, and suddenly it seemed like a lot better idea to just get a bottle and go back to Paul's apartment, where it wouldn't be smoky and loud.
They only had one shot apiece, between all the talking they ended up doing--and Matt never was sure what it was about Paul that made him start talking; he didn't like talking--so he couldn't even blame the booze for the fact that he ended up making out with a guy. Or the fact that he liked it. Or the fact that the idea of either going back to his grandma's empty house or from couch to couch of the guys on the team made his stomach turn, so he spent the next two weeks at Paul's.
While Paul was at work, he slept and read and filled out placement tests for A&M. When Paul got home, they...did stuff that he was really, really sure he wasn't supposed to like as much as he did.
And then he went off to school, wondering what the hell just happened, wondering what the hell it meant. He went to one Pride meeting and everyone else there was either so much more sure of themselves or so much better at faking it that there was just no way he could go back again. He figured maybe it was just a thing, a grief thing, a fear thing, a transition thing. Nothing real. Nothing that would happen again.
But now...now, and it was Smash, not some guy he just met, Smash, and...well, shit.
**
On Monday Smash lets his tray hit their usual table in the student union with a pissed-off thud that makes Matt flinch.
"Coach Thomas is trying to kill me," he says flatly.
"Huh?" Matt blinks hard, grabbing Smash's fork before it falls off the table and throwing it back on the tray. "Who?"
"Coach Thomas. He's crazy. This is not conditioning, it's...boot camp." Smash throws his backpack on the table as well and sits down, shaking his head. "Crazy shit. Where'd you get burritos? There weren't any when I looked."
Tuesday and Thursday are the same story, and they never had lunch together on Wednesdays anyway. By Friday Matt starts to relax a little. No big deal, just a drunk...thing. Just a thing. Everything's still the same.
But he spends the whole lunch waiting for Smash to tell him when and where the party is Saturday night, and Smash doesn't say a word. It's a home basketball game, Matt knows there's a party. They'll either be drinking to celebrate or to forget. A late night and a good fucking time.
And apparently Matt's not invited anymore.
It's weird; he can just about convince himself he doesn't even care, but never quite all the way. It catches him when he doesn't expect it--in the middle of class, walking away from the dining hall, playing quarters with Jeff on the floor in the hallway. Just suddenly, like a smack up the back of his head or Coach Taylor's voice barking across the field. You fucked up, Saracen, you fucked up good, and now you're out.
Jeff peels himself off the floor. "Bar time, Saracen," he says, skating his hand up under his t-shirt to scratch at his stomach. "You coming?"
"Nah." Matt stands up slowly, shrugging his shoulders and not making eye contact with anything but his shoes. "I'm good. Have fun."
He goes back to his room, stretching out on his bed and staring up at the ceiling, that ugly little reminder running through his head over and over like Landry trying to figure out some chords. Fucked up, kicked out, done.
And he wasn't even the one who started it, which seemed like it should kind of matter, but it looks like it doesn't, and that just isn't fucking fair.
Story of his life.
He sits up and digs around in his backpack for his notebook and textbook; he has a child psych test on Tuesday and he's not more than half ready for it. Studying on a Saturday night is about as lame as it comes, but he's got to do something and that's what's there.
He digs his way through one chapter, then another, then stops. His eyes ache and burn, and as he rubs at them he has to admit to himself that he doesn't remember a single thing from either chapter. Not one word. He's going to have to go through them again, maybe take notes this time, and it's one frickin' AM already, how did that happen, and--
Somebody's knocking on the door.
Matt rests his book against his chest and closes his eyes, thumping his head back against the pillow. "I told you, Jeff," he yells, picturing the sound waves bouncing crazily off the walls. "I told you if you forgot your key one more goddamn time, I'd--"
"Not Jeff, dumbass."
Matt's breath stops in his chest, going solid and choking so fast it hurts.
"Open the door, Saracen. Jesus."
Matt half-falls out of his bunk, barking his knee against the bookshelf even harder than usual and limp-hopping over to the door. "Smash? What the hell, man, it's--"
He barely gets the door open before Smash is coming through it, fast and aggressive like he's making a break for the end zone. There's sweat beading on his face and Matt can smell the beer on him, warm sour-sweet smell.
"What're you doing here?" Matt asks, falling back a step ahead of Smash's forward rush. The door swings shut with a solid thud, and Matt's foot catches in a discarded t-shirt, sending him lurching sideways. "Cops break up the party or--"
He catches himself with his hand on the wall, awkward and off-balance. Wincing at the impact, he opens his mouth to curse, but the chance is stolen as Smash grabs his shoulders and turns him, pushing him flat up against the wall with his whole body, another solid impact that makes him gasp. That sound gets whisked away, too, by Smash's mouth, suddenly hot and wet against his own, demanding.
Matt is sober this time and part of him knows that means it's his job to stop this, to push Smash back and tell him he's got it all wrong, he's confused and he's drunk and they're not doing this. Not here, not now, not ever.
But he's sober this time and that's how he knows, really and for sure, that he doesn't want to stop it, that he wants this. Smash's teeth scrape his lower lip and his tongue and he groans, sounding a little bit frantic, just wanting Smash to know not to stop.
He notices more this time; that Smash's skin up under his shirt is almost as soft as Julie's, that the football-shaped calluses on his hands make them feel completely different from any girl, that he'll make this funny little sound when Matt's fingers graze a certain place on his hip. Smash gets his hand down inside Matt's jeans and palms him through his boxers, making Matt's whole body jerk and come damn close to embarrassing himself.
Part of Matt is painfully, scary-aware that Jeff really could come back at any minute, and part of him is still kind of wondering why the hell nothing like this ever came up in something like ten years of playing football together from pee-wee to varsity, but most of him is pretty focused on Smash's mouth, Smash's body heavy against his, and the way those calluses feel even more different and even fucking better once the boxers are pushed out of the way and Smash has his dick in his hand, skin to skin.
He comes over Smash's hand, cursing under his breath and letting his head fall back against the wall. Smash presses even tighter against him, thrusting his hips, ignoring the wetness messing up his jeans in favor of trying to find friction. His mouth slips off Matt's, kissing rough and sloppy against his cheek and his jaw, and Matt drags in as deep a breath as he can. "Wait."
Smash stops, his chest heaving, and his eyes flicker to meet Matt's just for an instant. There's a spark of something there, under the gloss of the beer, something Matt knows he wasn't supposed to see and that tells him Smash isn't quite as drunk as he thought. Just drunk enough to be bold.
"Wait...wait," he repeats, knowing it sounds stupid and knowing Smash is going to take it wrong, but not able to get anything better past the adrenaline rush. "Just...hold on."
"Matt," Smash says, his voice thick and weird, and yeah, that's more than can just be blamed on the beer, too. "Matt, I don't--"
Matt shakes his head and steps forward, catching Smash's arms and turning them so Smash's back is against the wall. Those two smarter parts of him are still yelling, making their case loud and clear that this is a truly fucking stupid thing to do.
The third part of him just wants, and wants, and he's tired of not getting what he wants, he's tired of pretending all the time.
He gets down on his knees, not smoothly or anything but clumsily, but fast, before he can talk himself out of it or Smash can tell him to stop. He's done this exactly once in his life and if he stops now he has a feeling he'll never do it again, because one success and one fuck-up can be written off as a wash, but anything more than that and it has to mean...something...
"Matt," Smash says again, his voice jumping up half an octave, and Matt pulls himself together like he was running out onto the field, undoes Smash's fly, and guides his dick out.
Sucking cock takes a weird kind of split concentration, half on what he's doing and half on how Smash is reacting; what makes him breathe harder, what makes him make sounds, what makes the muscles in his thighs jerk under Matt's hands. Matt doesn't kid himself that he's any particular good at this, but he's not particularly bad, either, and he does something right enough that before too long Smash is gripping the back of his head hard, holding him tight against him, and coming in his mouth.
Matt gags hard, swallowing half and spitting half out over his chin as he sits back on his heels. He drags the back of his hand over his mouth and blinks at Smash, eyes watering.
Smash looks down at him, his face expressionless and his eyes suddenly unreadable beyond being a little wild. For a minute they both just breathe and stare, neither moving, neither speaking.
"Jeff's gonna be back soon," Matt says finally, wiping his mouth again and getting to his feet.
Smash nods a little and zips up his jeans. His hands are clumsy, Matt can only figure with relief. "Yeah. I should...I gotta get to bed, I guess."
After he leaves Matt goes over to his desk, sitting down carefully in the chair and staring down at the mess of notes strewn around the periphery of the surface and his laptop perched solidly in the middle. Coach and Mrs. Taylor gave him that, as a graduation present. It's probably the most valuable thing he owns.
He doesn't quite realizing what he's doing at first, beyond flipping through the notes and papers like he's looking for something. Whatever it is, he doesn't find it, and he reaches for his textbooks next, flipping through each volume in the stack one by one. When that's fruitless as well, he grabs his backpack from the floor and dives into the junk collected there.
The stupid little rainbow sticker is way down at the bottom, folded in with a flier for a food drive and an ad for cable. It's a little smudged from all the crap that's been shoved in on top of it for weeks, and one corner is crumpled. He smooths it out against the edge of the desk and peels off the back, then affixes it carefully to the left of the touchpad on his laptop.
His own business, but obvious if anybody looks closer. That seems about right.
**
It doesn't take long before it becomes another part of his life, one more thing that just happens, on a schedule of its own. Classes every day. Ordering pizza once a week with the guys in the dorm. Two or three times a week, a late-night run. And every other Saturday night or so, the extra bed in Smash's room, or a frantic secretive rush in Matt's, or, just once, an empty entrance to the football stadium at two in the morning.
It turned out that putting a sticker on his laptop didn't mean quite as much as he'd thought it might. A few people noticed it; some looked at him with a slight, shy smile of recognition, some gave him a nasty look or said something stupid that he shrugged off with only a little bit of a sting, some didn't react at all.
He ran into Lisa, from the Pride club, at the library once; she saw the sticker and beamed at him with this big, ridiculous smile that made him just feel weird, and kind of angry almost. She acted like she thought she had anything to do with it. He wasn't doing it for her, he wasn't doing it for anybody. He didn't even know why he did it at all, it just was something he wanted to do, at that one moment, and it's not anything bigger than that, just an impulse, except that it is.
It's the first sort-of step into being...out? Open? He doesn't even know what it is he's stepping toward, but that first try has turned out to be a little bit of a letdown.
When Smash saw the sticker, a weird look crossed his face and he ended up throwing away half of his sandwich, but that was it. Matt doesn't know what that means. He has a hunch he should get used to the feeling.
He's pretty sure now that he is gay; he's tried shaping the words with his mouth, whispering them with no air behind them into the darkness above his bunk at night. I'm gay. I'm Matt Saracen, and I'm gay. I'm from Dillon, Texas, and I'm...
It doesn't feel quite like it fits.
He's tried to send Paul an e-mail, more than once, but he's never quite managed it. Paul has his own life, his own problems, and it's not his job to help some random kid he doesn't even know stumble his way through figuring his shit out. Besides, just like always, Matt doesn't know what to say.
He talks to Julie sometimes, online, and Landry. He's managed a few fumbling almost-questions, vague stuff about if the think anything's changed since they left high school, anything big and deep-down that they never even really thought about before, but either neither one of them wants to take the bait, or they really did become the person they were always going to be somewhere around sophomore year.
And it just seems wrong, to ask them to help him with this. Too big. Too much.
Or maybe it isn't all that big. Maybe it's just what he thought to begin with, just a thing, just...just a thing that they do. Once in a while. Kisses that taste like beer or cheap liquor, hands that move fast and rough and sometimes leave a shallow scratch or a fingerprint pattern of bruises. Smash's dick heavy and warm on Matt's tongue, the taste of salt, Smash's palm rough against Matt's own erection.
Maybe it's all of those and no more, just a collection of things, like stars that are only a constellation if you tell yourself so. Turning it into anything more than what it is is just a pretty lie.
If he thinks about it too much it makes his chest hurt.
**
The knock on the door comes around two in the morning. Matt's still awake, studying in theory but mostly playing video games on his computer. Not having the option of MORPGs during high school probably did wonders for his GPA.
He gets up slowly, pausing the game and giving his textbook an apologetic look before he goes over to the door. Smash is leaning against the frame when it opens, smiling a little. "Hey."
"Hey." Matt runs his hand through his hair and glances up the hall one way and down the other. "It's late."
"You sleeping?"
"No." He shrugs, not sure why he bothered saying it at all. Of course it's late. That's how it works.
"Jeff here?"
"He went home this weekend." Matt clears his throat and steps back, letting Smash inside. "What's up?"
"You know, the usual. Living the dream." Smash shoves his hands in his pockets and looks around the room. His gaze settles on the laptop and he raises his eyebrows slightly in question.
"You want to play Warcraft?" Matt asks, moving over to the desk. He shuts down the program before Smash answers.
"Maybe later." Smash is looking at him now, a hint of puzzlement in his eyes. "Matt..."
Matt shakes his head and looks at the bed, smiling a little bit. "C'mon. Like I said, it's late." Smash steps in close and kisses him, and Matt closes his eyes, the better to just taste. Beer and just a little bit of weed, probably a lot earlier in the night. They must've just had one of their so-called random tests in the locker room. Safe for another few months.
Maybe because Jeff definitely isn't coming back tonight, they both stay in bed after, arms looped loosely together and one of Smash's legs tangled with Matt's. Matt breathes in and out slowly through his nose, blinking up at the ceiling. He's tired; he's choking to death on midterms and he hasn't been running in days and he's thisclose to leveling his druid. He's got his goddamn priorities.
Smash shifts a little, pressing closer against Matt. The skin between them is damp and sticky and Matt moves away, out of instinct rather than thought. Still, Smash frowns and props himself up on his elbows. "What?"
"Nothing."
"No, c'mon. Look like you have something you wanted to say."
Matt shrugs and sits up as well, looking around for his boxers. He doesn't believe in having any kind of serious conversation while he's naked. That's just not okay. "It's not important."
"Just come on already."
Matt exhales and looks at him, hating himself for what he's going to say before he even manages to say it. "Can't you just...maybe, just once, could you maybe be sober?"
Smash stares at him like he's grown a second head, and yeah, Matt hates himself. "What are you talking about?"
"Forget it."
"You think I drink too much, Saracen?"
"No! I don't...no. Not like that. Just...whenever you come over here, or you call me to come over there, whenever we...do this. You've always been drinking. It's like you've gotta be drunk to want to...whatever. Mess around with me." Out loud it sounds even worse than it did in his head, bad enough to be horrifying.
Smash scowls at him, grabbing his own boxers off the end of the bed. "That's not true."
"Yeah, it is. You only want to do this after you've been partying, and you always drink when you party, so...you know, that's...logic, or something. You only want to do this when you're drunk."
"What do you want from me, anyway?" Smash jumps down from the bunk and starts fumbling around for the rest of his clothes, his t-shirt and his shoes.
"Nothing. I don't want anything, Smash."
"You want me to hold your hand? Walk you around campus? Take you out to the movies? Come on, Matt. I'm on the football team. I've still got a shot at playing pro if all my luck comes in. I can't screw that up by--"
"I know that," Matt half-shouts at him, trying to catch himself so the guys in the next room won't hear, but not quite managing it. "I know you can't fuck up your whole life by letting people think you might be some kind of a fag. I'm not stupid. I'm not asking you for any of that, for anything like that."
"Then what the fuck do you want?"
Matt throws his hands in the air, laughing a little from sheet helplessness. "What I said. I want you to be sober. Just once, one goddamn time, don't have to get drunk before you want to kiss me. That's the only damn thing I'm asking for." Smash stares at him for a long time, his face blank and unreadable, and Matt's breath hitches painfully in his chest. "It's late."
"Yeah." Smash nods stiffly and zips up his jeans. "It is. I gotta go."
Matt wipes his hand over his face and doesn't look up again until the door closes. "Shit," he says, his voice too loud in the sudden quiet. "Fucking...fucking shit."
He jumps down from the bed and goes to Jeff's dresser, digging through the sock drawer until he finds the bottle of vodka that lives there. He's very aware that there's quite a bit of irony here, but at the moment he doesn't give a damn.
**
He drinks till he passes out, and pays for it just about as much as he should've expected come morning--or, well, afternoon, since that's when he actually wakes up. He lies in Jeff's bed, where he ended up, and silently prays for death for a good hour before he manages to get up and stumble down the hall for some water. That plus another half-hour of standing under the shower and tempting fate to drown him makes him just about feel human again. Unfortunately that means that he can also start thinking, and remembering, and that kind of makes him want to just crawl back into bed again and stay there for the foreseeable future.
He has a metric fuckton of studying to do, but the thought makes him feel worse, so crawling back into bed is exactly what he does. It's quiet there, and if he puts the pillow over his head, it's dark. Those are the only two things he needs in life right now. And to not move. At all. Possibly ever.
That's all going great for about two hours, until somebody pounds on his door. "Go 'way," he says from under the pillow.
"Let me in, Saracen."
Smash. He should've guessed. He turns his face flat to the mattress and pulls the pillow down harder over his head, wondering how long it takes to suffocate.
"Open the door."
No chance in hell.
"Matt. Open the door." There's a pause, and Matt turns his head to the side again, lifting the pillow enough to peer out from under it. "Please?"
That's unexpected. Matt sits up slowly, clearing his throat until he can get the words out clearly. "Just a sec."
He finds a clean t-shirt and a pair of running shorts; for some reason the idea of answering the door in his boxers feels wrong right now. And he kind of wants to look like he hasn't spent the whole day in bed.
When he opens the door, Smash is leaning on the frame, just like usual. "Hi," he says, blinking uncertainly.
"Hi," Matt croaks, wincing and grabbing his water bottle off the top of the dresser. "What's up?"
"Are you okay?"
Matt shrugs and nods and takes a long drink of water. "I'm fine."
Smash gives him a skeptical look. "Let me in."
"I'm kinda busy."
"Doing what?"
Matt frowns, taking another drink. "Leveling my druid."
"I don't even know what that means." Smash runs his hand over his hair and glances down the hallway. "That's not...some kind of code, is it?"
"Yeah, Smash. It's the secret gay code for jerking off."
"Well, what the hell do I know?" Matt rolls his eyes and steps back, and Smash grabs the edge of the door. "Let me come in. I want to talk."
"I don't think we have anything to talk about."
"Yeah, we do, Matt." Smash looks at him, really looks at him, and Matt gives in like a sucker. Like always.
"Fine," he mutters, stepping back and letting Smash inside. "But hurry up. I've got stuff to do."
"Right. Leveling or whatever."
"Right."
Smash shakes his head slightly and sits down on the edge of Jeff's desk. Matt crosses his arms over his chest and leans against the beds, wishing the room was just a little bit bigger. Another square foot of air between him and Smash would...help.
"I thought about what you said last night." Smash runs his hands along the edge of the desk, frowning down at the chips in the finish. "I've been thinking about it ever since I left. Didn't get much sleep."
"Sorry to hear that." Matt swallows and shrugs, looking down at the mess of discarded laundry and paper on the floor around Jeff's desk. "Told you to just forget it."
"I can't just forget it. I mean, the stuff you said, that's...that's important, right? It's important to you." Matt shoots a puzzled look at him and Smash exhales in a sharp, frustrated huff. "You're...it's not just messing around for you, you really are..."
"Yeah." Matt nods, his voice softer than he means it to be. "I think I am."
"And that's...you know, that's whatever. I'm kinda surprised, because Julie, and the nurse, and...but whatever, Matt, go for it. But me...it's different. I play football, Matt. I can't have people in the locker room talking about me, saying stuff like..." He's panicking, and it's kind of interesting to watch, from the parts of Matt's brain that are pulling back and observing instead of feeling anything, because feeling is going to hurt. "I can't have that happen, you know, Matt?"
"I know. I wasn't asking you to." Matt lets out a frustrated breath of his own and smacks the flat of his hand against the bed. "I really wasn't."
"How...I mean, how do you know? You were with girls in high school. You obsessed over Julie Taylor like a freak."
Matt laughs a little, shaking his head. "Thanks, man."
"You know what I mean."
"Julie, and Carlota..." Matt licks his lips, trying to fumble his way through the mess of thoughts in his head to find words. He's thought about this, tried to explain it to himself, tried to put it into e-mails to Julie and Landry that he always deleted. "I needed...things kind of sucked, in high school. You know? I mean, yeah, there was lots of good stuff, but a lot of things, a lot of things at home, they...sucked. And I needed...I wanted somebody to like me, to be nice to me. And they...well, they were."
Smash nods a little bit, though the look on his face makes it clear he doesn't understand. "So what made you think about guys?"
"I met this guy. After graduation. And...and with him it was...different. It just felt more...more right. More like something was...I mean, it was good with Julie and Carlota, I'm not saying...but with guys it's just..." He blows out a sharp breath. "I don't know how to explain it. I just know, okay?"
"Okay." Smash holds up his hands and nods, then drops them back to the edge of the desk and looks up at the ceiling. "But...for me it's not like that, Matt. Girls or...or with you, it's the same. It feels...good, the same way. There's not any big difference like you're saying. It's just not...so I'm not...right?"
Matt looks at him for a minute, not sure if he wants to laugh or throw a book at his head. "So I'm gay and you're bi. Glad we got that figured out, Smash."
"You're a sarcastic son of a bitch, Saracen." Smash kicks the legs of the desk, his jaw set in irritation. "So what now?"
"You just said." Matt shrugs, digging his fingers into his palms to keep his expression blank. "You can't do this, you can't...it'll fuck up your career."
"Not if we're careful."
"You want to be that careful? All the time?"
"I don't know. I mean..." Smash stands up and paces across the room, looking out the window over the courtyard. "I like...hooking up with you. I like you."
"We're gonna be friends either way, Smash."
"I know that, but I..." Matt waits, looking at him. Smash drums his hands against the windowsill and stares out at the courtyard. "I guess I gotta do some thinking."
That hurts, but not as much as Matt expected. "That's probably smart."
"I'll get it figured out."
"Yeah." Matt shoves his hands into the waistband of his shorts, curling them against the fabric of his boxers. "Just, you know, whatever you decide, all I'm asking is you tell me where we're at. Just be honest with me."
Smash nods slightly. "I can do that."
"Cool." Matt pushes away from the bed, blinking hard against the headache he'd forgotten about. "I gotta study, so..."
"I thought you were doing something geeky and lame."
"Yeah, well, I gotta stop doing that so I can study."
Smash laughs and steps toward him, reaching out to catch his arm. "Hold on one second."
"What?"
Smash leans in and kisses him, slow and deep and warm, and this kiss tastes like wintergreen gum and just...Smash. Nothing else.
"I'm gonna go think," Smash says softly.
Matt nods until the door swings closed, then sinks down to the floor, pressing his forehead against his knees. What just happened? he wonders, his breath catching painfully in his chest.
He thinks they did a smart thing. He doesn't know if it was a good or a bad one, though. And he really, really doesn't know what happens next.
**
The Pride rally gets a good turnout, spilling out of the corner they were assigned and out over the sidewalk. Matt hangs to the back of the crowd, holding up the poster somebody gives him and yelling whenever everybody else does.
There are two big banners of white fabric laid out behind the podium where the Pride president is giving her speech, and the other club members start handing out markers to the closest people in the crowd. "Step up and sign," Lisa says, smiling out at them from behind the microphone. "Whether you're gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, or an ally, step up and sign your name to show your support for equality."
The crowd starts to shuffle, people moving over to the fabric and signing and then circulating away again, a barely-orderly process that leads to a lot of mashed toes and torn posters. Matt holds his up above his head, curving the paper to shade his face from the sun. It takes a while for him to get up to the banners, but once he does, he signs his name right across the middle in big, clear letters. He still isn't entirely sure that this a place he belongs, but today is for standing together, and yeah, he is proud.
"Allies!" Lisa hollers into the microphone. "We want you, too, allies. Step up and sign. Make a statement that you believe everybody should have the right to be who they are and love who they love."
Matt steps back from the banners, rolling the marker between his fingers and looking around for someone to hand it off to. A pale girl with huge glasses reaches for it, and he goes to hand it to her, the hesitates as she looks over his shoulder. Her eyes widen, and he looks back, confused.
A cluster of football players is walking by, glancing at the rally with varying levels of confusion and interest. One nudges another and says something that makes them both laugh as they keep walking. Matt bites his lower lip and curves his poster around his head again. Part of him wants to yell something, but the rest knows it would make more trouble than it would do good.
The girl takes the marker and steps up to the banner, and Matt falls back, watching the football players go. Lisa is still yammering on into the microphone, causing a squeal of feedback that makes him wince and look away.
When he looks back again, Smash is jogging toward him, calling something back over his shoulder at the other players as he runs. He gets to the banners just as the girl finishes signing. "You mind?" he asks, holding out his hand. "I'm kinda in a hurry."
She hands him the marker and he scrawls his name beneath hers, Brian Smash Williams in two-inch block print. "Equality," he says, handing the marker off again. "Hell yeah."
He barely glances at Matt, but Matt grins anyway, and in the split second that their eyes do meet, he nods. Smash nods back and jogs away, throwing a vague thumbs-up over his shoulder.
Matt holds up his sign, cheers along when the crowd does, and thinks that it's kind of a beautiful day.