A John McClane Christmas - part 2 (complete)
A John McClane Christmas - part 2
When Christmas Day first arrived it looked like none of Matt’s plans were going to work out at all. Lucy had of course suffered a change to her plans and was now running several hours late, and Matt was starting to panic about dinner being pushed back.
“So now she’s not bringing the jerkoff?” John had asked, hoping he didn’t sound too pleased.
“I believe he prefers ‘Jim’,” Matt had snarked, ever the wise guy, even when he was busy making frenzied re-calculations of how many pounds of turkey they needed, and the corresponding cooking time. Then again, doing math always tended to make Matt cocky. “It would have been weird anyway, why anyone would invite their ex to Christmas dinner is way beyond my processing capacity. Even if he didn’t have anywhere else to go until today.”
“Ex?"
"Yeah, something about him spying on her? Creeping her iPhone or something. She was kind of sketchy on the details."
"Since when? Last time I asked he wasn’t even her boyfriend.”
“I don’t know, like a month ago or something. A long time.”
Right. Ages.
“My kids never tell me a goddamn thing,” John muttered, trying to feel upset about it.
If that weren’t enough, sometime around noon, Bullitt managed to squeeze in enough unchaperoned quality time with Matt’s popcorn strings to chew a bald patch into the Christmas tree that was at least two feet across. And spruce-spiked popcorn didn’t seem to agree with the mutt’s digestion. It took four towels and half the bottle of disinfectant before Matt calmed down enough to go back into the kitchen and resume taking an obsessive inventory of the pantry items, and frantically texting Lucy last minute additions to her shopping list.
John was dumping the dirty towels in the wash when he heard activity on the first floor, and made his way up to investigate. Matt was in the kitchen, sitting in his favourite spot on the counter. He had a jar of peanut butter in his left hand, and was sucking on the fingers of the right like a chimp on an ant hill.
John was about to tell him not to stick his fingers back in that jar, when the source of the activity he’d been hearing appeared. Lucy came in from the hall, laden with groceries, and with Bullitt dancing in after her, his entire back end gyrating like it had a mind of its own.
Talk about the tail wagging the dog.
Bullitt loved Lucy. He obeyed John with unerring alacrity and was becoming a devoted and loyal partner in the field. He ran a constant protective circle around Matt, even when they were at home, and curled faithfully on the floor at his feet whenever he and John stretched out together on the couch. But Bullitt loved Lucy.
John suspected it was partly because of the rawhide she could generally be counted on to produce from her purse on every visit. Today was no exception, he saw, when Lucy deposited her burden unceremoniously on the floor and reached into her bag. But Bullitt was too overcome with canine ecstasy to take the gift. He rolled on his back, exposing his belly for Lucy to scratch.
“Mmm!” Not to be outdone for attention, Matt made an urgent sound when he saw Lucy, and flapped the hand he’d just licked clean. Apparently even having it glued shut with peanut butter couldn’t keep the kid’s mouth quiet. John only knew one thing that could accomplish that.
“You’re here! Thank all the gods of Azeroth,” Matt said. Whatever that meant. “I am starving. I don’t think my blood sugar has been this low since Joey shocked the world by choosing Pacey.”
“Nothing shocking about it, the woman had taste.”
“If only we could say the same for Katie,” Matt said, making about as much sense as the pair of them ever did to John.
“Bazinga,” said Lucy, drily.
Bullitt rolled back onto his feet, to start nosing curiously through the grocery bags.
“Off,” John commanded, and the dog pulled his dark muzzle out of the nearest bag and sat at alert; eyes on John, tongue out. “Relax,” He amended, and Bullitt picked up Lucy’s desiccated pig’s ear in his jaws and trotted happily off to his favourite chewing spot in the living room.
Matt held out the peanut butter jar, and Lucy stuck two fingers in and scooped. After petting the dog.
John swore sometimes this generation would never grow up. As if in confirmation, Matt swung his feet restlessly, thumping his heels against John’s cupboard doors and making them shudder and bang. John cut his gaze sharply over at Matt, who stilled, mouth silently forming the word “sorry”. He wrinkled his nose up in contrition, and damn him, John felt his diligently-perfected hard stare melt and go to mush.
“Turkey,“ Lucy was saying around a mouthful of peanut butter, pointing at one of the grocery bags she’d dropped on the floor. She pointed out all the bags in turn, giving an inventory of the contents. “Potatoes, onions, green beans - ugh, sweet potatoes, ‘bread for stuffing’ - whatever that is, and sausage for stuffing - however that works.”
“Cranberry sauce?” Matt asked.
“Check,” Lucy confirmed. “Not that I know what to do with any of it. Oh, and here,” she said, placing a last bag on the counter beside Matt. “Pie.”
Matt poked his nose in the bag eagerly, and Lucy slapped his thigh. “Off!” she quipped.
“Ow!” Matt exclaimed, gritting his teeth dramatically.
Lucy looked horrified, clearly remembering Matt’s old injury. She’d probably had time to develop a healthy bit of survivor’s guilt around that one by now. And Matt damn well knew it.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry Farrell, I forgot!”
“Don’t fall for it, sweetie, it only hurts him when it rains, now,” John said, ignoring Matt’s frustrated eye-roll and reaching out to draw her into a hug. “Merry Christmas, honey.”
“Merry Christmas Dad,” Lucy said, returning the embrace. Then she pulled free and punched Matt in the arm.
“Merry Christmas, dick hole,” Lucy said.
“Language!” said John.
“Ow, shit,” said Matt. That one did look like it hurt.
“Thanks for that, McClane,” he said, before turning to Lucy. “Yeah, Gennaro. Language.”
Then he mouthed a word that John was pretty sure was ‘bitch.’
Lucy smiled sweetly and took away the bag with the pie in it. Matt slumped on the counter in defeat.
“There’s more out in the car,” Lucy said, putting the pie into the fridge. “And your gift is out there, John. Don’t move.” And Lucy stepped over the piles of grocery bags out into the hall.
“Oh...Oh, your gift!” Matt spluttered. His eyes were big. Something was going on. “I’m gonna...I better grab Bullitt,” he said, sliding off the counter gingerly to avoid crushing any of the grocery bags. He dragged one finger through the peanut butter -- a peace offering for interrupting the pig’s ear session no doubt -- then he thrust the jar into John’s hands and said, “Stay.”
Smartass.
John started unpacking the chaos in his kitchen. He heard Matt whistling and calling for Bullitt, but there was something else. Voices. Male voices. In his hallway. And it was distracting because one of them sounded an awful lot like...
“...Can just bring that right through to the kitchen,” Lucy was saying to two college-aged boys knocking the New York City slush from their boots. One was tall and blond, the other broad and dark, his hair cropped short to keep the curl out of it.
“These ones are for John,” said the dark-haired boy, holding up a cardboard box. And it was a good thing Matt couldn’t hear John’s heart from across the hall, where he was standing with a restraining hand tightly wrapped around Bullitt’s collar. Because if he could feel the way it tripped and faltered and stopped for a beat, Matt would have a shit fit.
“I’ve asked you repeatedly,” John said, and the young man who had just appeared unexpectedly in his doorway on Christmas Day met his gaze with a startled expression in his familiar eyes. “To call me ‘Dad’.”
~o~
John kept coming in to the kitchen to offer his help, and on a normal day Matt would have been grateful, but right now it was the last fucking thing he needed.
He was bouncing between the stove and the sink with a baster in one hand and a potato peeler in the other.
“Too many cooks make a...bad scene in the kitchen,” Matt answered. He could never remember how that saying went. Oh God, he’d been hanging around John too long and was turning into an old man before his time. “You’re supposed to be out in the living room, enjoying your daughter’s gift.”
The reunion between John and Jack hadn’t been what Matt was expecting. It wasn’t like he expected them to rush into each other’s arms Romeo and Juliet style, or for John to sweep him up and start smothering Jack with kisses and questions like a Jewish mother. In fact, he’d expected it to be awkward.
And it was. But not how Matt had thought. Jack had greeted his father with a jovial and placating “Merry Christmas, Dad” and a warm hug, and then after that, with the exception of a quick introduction to his travelling companion, Billy, he hadn’t said much of anything at all. He tended to stand around and watch everything John did like he was studying him for school.
“You mean my freaky, staring son and his loud Aussie friend?”
Jack had met Billy at the University where they were both studying Zoology. Watching John and Billy interact was a bit like watching Abbott and Costello.
Billy cracked jokes and told animated stories and generally tried way too hard, while John made classic John faces and nodded a lot. Matt actually had a suspicion that between Billy’s heavy -- and totally sexy by the way -- Australian accent, his liberal use of unfamiliar slang, and a tendency to quote pop culture references even more than Matt did, that John actually didn’t understand half of what Billy said.
“Well, technically just your freaky son,” Matt answered him. “He was the surprise for you. Billy was a surprise for me. But it’s all good.” Matt gestured with the utensils in his hands at the carefully calculated but probably still adequate amount food he was working on. “It’s not officially Christmas until you have to water down the gravy. Right?”
Matt gave a little laugh and managed to make it sound only slightly manic. John patted him on the shoulder sympathetically before he went back out to the living room looking reluctant.
~o~
It turned out Jack wasn’t the only one to bring a surprise guest into Matt’s dinner plans.
“Humbugs,” Old Man Pulaski announced, thrusting a box of candy into John’s chest. He coughed and unwound a long hand-knitted scarf that was wrapped around his neck several times, even though he’d only come from as far as next door.
“Try to ignore the irony.” There was a grinning youth standing behind Pulaski. He reached around the old man’s shoulder to clasp John’s hand in a solid, meaty grip.
“My wise-ass grandson, Rudy,” Pulaski introduced him, laying his scarf over John’s arm and working on his coat buttons like he was getting ready to hand him that too.
John took the moment to look Rudy over. This kid ate his Wheaties, John thought, taking in the tall frame, and broad, rounded shoulders - a running back’s build. He had short-cropped, sandy hair and a wide, white, cornfed grin. John was surrounded by college kids.
He didn’t have much time to feel old though, because Pulaski was introducing him to Rudy with his usual degree of tact.
“Detective McClane’s a faggot, bet you’d never guess. Where’s that hippie-dippy boy of yours, McClane? Here he his!” Like the words had conjured him up, Matt came out of the kitchen and into the hallway. “This here’s McClane’s piece of ass.”
Matt didn’t miss a beat.
“It’s actually Matthew Daniel Jacob Calrissian McClane’s-piece-of-ass Farrell, the third. But ‘Matt’ is shorter.”
“He’s a wise-ass too,” Pulaski grunted. And sure enough he shoved his coat at John with as much ceremony as he’d given the gift-wrapped box of humbugs.
“Nice to meet you, Matt,” Rudy shook hands again and Matt managed to look only slightly surprised at the strength of that grip. “I’d apologize for my grandfather, but I think he actually enjoys being an offensive old jackass.”
“You want to watch out for this one, Rudy,” Pulaski was saying, as John took Rudy’s oversized jacket. “He looks like a pansy but he’s feisty. Helped McClane defend the country from those thieving commie hacker bastards last year. Took a bullet. I’d get the kid to show you, but I don’t want him getting any ideas, hiking those hippie-trousers up for my boy here. Rudy likes pussy.” This last bit was for Matt’s benefit.
“Don’t we all,” Matt muttered.
Old Man Pulaski hooted with laughter, and this time Matt did jump a little at what looked like a surprisingly firm thump on the back.
“What I tell ya Rudy? McClane’s got his hands full with this one, that’s sure as shit. Oh, well would you look at this,” Pulaski was suddenly standing up straight and adjusting his collar. “We’re in the presence of a lady.”
John looked over his shoulder, and sure enough there was Lucy, leaning on the frame of the entryway.
“Might be an Angel, granddad,” grinned Rudy. This kid never seemed to stop smiling. Suddenly John found it kinda suspicious. “It is Christmas after all.”
John would have expected his daughter to make a snappy put-down or roll her eyes, but she just raised an eyebrow and looked Rudy over with an amused little smile. Now he was really starting to feel suspicious.
“Lucy McClane,” she introduced herself, holding a hand out to the old man first. She looked skeptical enough when he took it and pressed it to his wizened lips, that Rudy didn’t try anything similar when she turned to him next. One point for the new kid, John thought, grudgingly.
~o~
When John came into the kitchen to get drinks for their newest guests, Matt was boiling a pot of water, stirring the gravy, and giving Jack and Billy instructions on where to find all the folding chairs stashed in various places in the basement.
“Looks like we’ll need a couple more now,” John said, squeezing Matt’s shoulder comfortingly as he made his way past him to the fridge. “How’s that gravy lookin’, Chef Farrell? A little more water in order?”
“My god, man!” Matt exclaimed in his best Scottish brogue -- which was pretty bad. “I've watered her down as far as she'll go! I canna water no more!”
“Old-school Simpsons, too right,” drawled Billy, reaching one of his impressively long arms over the corner of the counter for a high five.
As per usual, nothing from John.
“Dad’s a tough audience, huh Matt?” Jack asked, with a tone of sympathy.
“I swear I’m about oh-for-twelve with the quotes today alone. Your dad’s not much for the pop culture, but I keep trying. I’m invested in his education.”
“Strewth, that right, sir?” Billy twanged. “You dunnow the Simpsons? Not even Star Trek? Wow.”
“See what I have to deal with?” Matt asked, and it was easy enough to ignore the McClane eye-daggers headed his way and watch while Jack chuckled knowingly and Billy grinned at him.
“Dad?” Lucy had appeared in the doorway to the kitchen holding the phone. “It’s Mom. For you.” She was looking kind of meaningfully at them, like she thought the call might require privacy.
There were loud-mouthed Pulaskis in the living room, and the Australian science contingent conducting the John McClane observation experiment were still hanging out in the kitchen.
“It’s probably pretty quiet in my office,” Matt suggested, and started chopping the ends off three pounds of green beans. John ruffled his hair gratefully and went.
~o~
Holly’s voice on the phone sounded tentative and anxious. It wasn’t like her.
John asked after her mother, as soon as they’d greeted each other.
“Oh she’s fine,” Holly reassured him. “Much better than last year.”
Huh. No emergency, no last minute change of plans.
“Sounds like you’re Christmas Central,” Holly observed. “How many people are you entertaining over there?”
“Jack’s here,” John said, to save her the trouble of asking. “With his friend Billy.”
“Oh good,” Holly sounded relieved. “I didn’t want to say anything and spoil the surprise if he hadn’t arrived yet. And for a while there I wasn’t sure he was going through with it. He’s been very nervous about reconnecting with you, John, but he wants to try. So, try and go easy on him?”
“Easy, huh? You think I should let him out of this headlock and take the cuffs off him then?”
“Well,” Holly said, sounding pleasantly surprised. “You’re in a better mood on Christmas than I’ve seen you in… oh heck, possibly ever. I guess all of us have a lot to thank Matt for, this Christmas.”
“All of us?”
“Sure. You didn’t think the only son of the two most stubborn parents in the country would show up unexpected on Christmas without at least one express invitation, did you?” Holly laughed. “I think you might have finally found your match there, John. He’s quite the little schemer. And once he gets an idea in his head -- well let’s just say he can be very persistent.”
No shit. So ‘Lucy’s gift’ probably had more to do with Matthew than it did with Luce. John couldn’t help but smile as he thought of the number of secretive and obsessive phone calls his family had probably been getting from Matt this season.
“Yeah?” John said, tone conciliatory. “I guess he just takes his holidays pretty seriously.”
“Well you wish him a happy one for me.”
“Will do.”
There was a little pause in the conversation, and John figured it was time to bite that particular bullet and ask.
“So how’s things going with you and that Mark guy?”
“Mark?” There was an unsure second of silence from Holly, and then John could hear that hesitant note entering her voice again. “John…Mark wasn’t here with me on Christmas last year. He was here with Jack.”
It shouldn’t have hit him like an anvil in a Warner Bros. skit. It explained so much that John should have seen it coming ages ago. Why Jack had never talked about girls at school. Why he got so defensive whenever John asked about it.
It explained Billy. And the freaky staring like today was some kind of test.
“It turned out not to be serious, just like I said,” Holly was saying. “We thought you knew all of this. It’s why Jack’s been so nervous to call you until now.”
Holly didn’t say ‘until Matt’, but John got it anyway, now.
“John? You alright?”
He realized he’d been sitting there in silence.
“Yeah yeah, I’m here. I’m fine.”
“Alright,” Holly said slowly before changing the subject. “...And you get to meet Billy. Now I think that might be serious. Well, you should be honoured, John, we haven’t had the pleasure, yet.”
“We?” John wasn’t preoccupied enough to miss that unexplained little pronoun.
“Yes,” Holly said, sounding cautious yet again. “Speaking of serious…I should tell you about Craig.”
And she did. Craig was an Architect from Sacramento Holly had met when he did some work for her company. It had only been a few months and it was still a long distance thing, but he was self employed and traveled for his job so they were able to fit in enough visits to make it work, so far. They were even talking about him moving closer in the new year if things kept going so well.
“That’s great, Holly.”
“Great. Really?”
Really. It had been years. It was way past time. And Holly deserved to be happy as much as John did. Maybe more, who the hell knew.
“Yeah,” he said, simply. “I trust ya. If anyone knows you got taste, it’s me. I know you only go for the real stand-up guys.”
Holly laughed again. John had always loved that sound. Some things never changed.
“Hey, tell him from me he’s a lucky guy, alright?”
“Alright,” she agreed, and John could hear the smile he knew so well all the way from California. She finally sounded like herself.
They exchanged their Christmas wishes and ended the call, and John was left alone with his thoughts and the poster Matt had put up in here, of that rock star with the dirty-looking blond hair and the eye liner who shot his brains out back in the 90’s.
Jesus H. Christ. It was hard enough thinking about Lucy having a boyfriend. But his youngest...and his only son...
John didn’t even know how to feel about this. He was a little pissed off Jack had thought John couldn’t deal with hearing it straight from him.
Then he tried to think about the head space he’d been inhabiting a year ago and how he would have felt back then. And then he was ashamed, because Jack might not have been as wrong about it as John thought. Tolerance and not giving a shit what two consenting adults got up to in a bedroom was one thing. John maybe wouldn’t like to admit it, but the shitty truth was it was a whole different ballgame when it came down to your own kid.
So next came the guilt and feeling like a hypocrite, but then he thought about the last year of his life and how much things had changed. The things he’d learned about living your life and sharing it with somebody else.
He thought about the way they looked at each other and how Jack and the tall Aussie laughed together at Matt’s jokes in the kitchen. John’s son was happy. And however it had happened, however awkward the start, he was choosing to let John in on it.
He thought about how much he truly did have to thank Matt for.
~o~
When John made his way back to the living room, everybody was already seated around the table, chatting amiably and looking eagerly at the platters of food Matt had laid out.
John stood behind the empty chair left waiting for him next to Matthew. He looked around at all of them, and thought about how each of them had brought something special to the table today. Lucy and Jack, who truly had made his life whole again today, Billy who made that possible because he so obviously did the same for Jack, and the Pulaskis whose brash friendship had settled over all of these new, and somewhat awkward, pieces of the perfect holiday and made them finally fit together in the most comfortable way. And of course, Matt. Who had made all of this -- the tree, the turkey, the seven people now crowded around their little kitchen table made for four -- happen.
John stood behind that chair and proceeded to thank them each for it. Jesus, John realized, he’d just made a Christmas dinner speech. It was official. John had turned into his old man. And by the looks he was getting as he finally sat down, everybody around the table was as surprised about it as he was.
Leave it to Matt not to let any silence, no matter how awkward, last long. “And now, the airing of grievances,” he murmured.
For some reason, the table exploded into laughter and there was a loud chorus of “I got a lot of problems with you people!!”
Was this the usual reaction Matt got with his constant quoting of obscure tv and movies? Whatever else might have been running through his gene pool, John never suspected his family had been chock feel of geeks.
“McClane, come on,” Matt was saying, as he started passing the platter of turkey around the table. “I thought even you would get that one. Seinfeld? Festivus for the rest of us? No? Seriously nothing?”
John looked around and saw Lucy, Jack and Billy smirking at him, eyes glittering with laughter. Even old man Pulaski was giving a dried-up old chuckle. There was only one other person who didn’t seem to be in on the joke. Rudy, who was seated on the other side of John, met his eye and shrugged like he thought the pack of them were as crazy as John did.
Chalk up another point for the new kid, John thought. Which actually didn’t make John feel the least bit better about it when a minute or so later he caught Matt and Lucy darting meaningful looks between each other and the big burly meathead, and quite obviously kicking each other under the table.
Lucy and the boy next door? Well, shit. It was starting to seem like, as with everything else, the McClane clan didn’t half-ass it when it came to clichés. At least the Meathead would be an improvement over the Jerkoff.
John must have been scowling again because a warm hand landed on his knee under the table.
“Everything cool?” Matt was asking him.
John looked around the table again. At Jack and Billy exchanging amused grins while Mr. Pulaski told them in vivid detail all about how Matt and Bullitt had saved his life last month. At Lucy, tugging coyly on her earring and admitting to an enthralled-looking Rudy that, yeah, it was pretty awesome having a national hero for a dad.
He looked at Matt, who, despite all the changes in plans, was not only still here with John but was still wearing that bright smile that always tripped him up so bad. Matt, who hadn’t gotten trapped on a doomed aircraft or taken hostage or even fatally injured himself making dinner. Even if the gravy was a little on the watery side.
Everything was cool, John realized. But there was still one last thing.
John got up from the table and crossed the room to where the tree was standing with its puppy-inflicted bald spot turned strategically into the corner. He stepped over Bullitt, lying innocently under its branches and gnawing happily on his pig’s ear, and flipped on the god damn twinkle lights they’d forgotten yet again.
Matt was still watching him with questions etched all over his features as he made his way back to the table.
“Cool,” John answered at last, and the unsure lines of Matt’s expression relaxed back into that smile John was waiting to see. He leaned over to press a kiss to the top of Matt’s head before he settled himself back into his chair. “Now, it’s officially Christmas.”
Maybe making plans wasn’t always such a bad idea. John looked over at the fireplace where Matt had put up little stockings bearing the names McClane, Kid, and Bullitt. He thought about how, since Matt hated eggnog, they really ought to try mulled wine instead sometime, and he started making some plans of his own for New Years. And if they changed a little between now and then, well, they could roll with the punches.
They were experts at it by now.
Welcome, Christmas, bring your cheer.
Cheer to all far and near.
Christmas Day is in our grasp,
So long as we have hands to clasp.
THE END
________________________
'Snick, December 2010
When Christmas Day first arrived it looked like none of Matt’s plans were going to work out at all. Lucy had of course suffered a change to her plans and was now running several hours late, and Matt was starting to panic about dinner being pushed back.
“So now she’s not bringing the jerkoff?” John had asked, hoping he didn’t sound too pleased.
“I believe he prefers ‘Jim’,” Matt had snarked, ever the wise guy, even when he was busy making frenzied re-calculations of how many pounds of turkey they needed, and the corresponding cooking time. Then again, doing math always tended to make Matt cocky. “It would have been weird anyway, why anyone would invite their ex to Christmas dinner is way beyond my processing capacity. Even if he didn’t have anywhere else to go until today.”
“Ex?"
"Yeah, something about him spying on her? Creeping her iPhone or something. She was kind of sketchy on the details."
"Since when? Last time I asked he wasn’t even her boyfriend.”
“I don’t know, like a month ago or something. A long time.”
Right. Ages.
“My kids never tell me a goddamn thing,” John muttered, trying to feel upset about it.
If that weren’t enough, sometime around noon, Bullitt managed to squeeze in enough unchaperoned quality time with Matt’s popcorn strings to chew a bald patch into the Christmas tree that was at least two feet across. And spruce-spiked popcorn didn’t seem to agree with the mutt’s digestion. It took four towels and half the bottle of disinfectant before Matt calmed down enough to go back into the kitchen and resume taking an obsessive inventory of the pantry items, and frantically texting Lucy last minute additions to her shopping list.
John was dumping the dirty towels in the wash when he heard activity on the first floor, and made his way up to investigate. Matt was in the kitchen, sitting in his favourite spot on the counter. He had a jar of peanut butter in his left hand, and was sucking on the fingers of the right like a chimp on an ant hill.
John was about to tell him not to stick his fingers back in that jar, when the source of the activity he’d been hearing appeared. Lucy came in from the hall, laden with groceries, and with Bullitt dancing in after her, his entire back end gyrating like it had a mind of its own.
Talk about the tail wagging the dog.
Bullitt loved Lucy. He obeyed John with unerring alacrity and was becoming a devoted and loyal partner in the field. He ran a constant protective circle around Matt, even when they were at home, and curled faithfully on the floor at his feet whenever he and John stretched out together on the couch. But Bullitt loved Lucy.
John suspected it was partly because of the rawhide she could generally be counted on to produce from her purse on every visit. Today was no exception, he saw, when Lucy deposited her burden unceremoniously on the floor and reached into her bag. But Bullitt was too overcome with canine ecstasy to take the gift. He rolled on his back, exposing his belly for Lucy to scratch.
“Mmm!” Not to be outdone for attention, Matt made an urgent sound when he saw Lucy, and flapped the hand he’d just licked clean. Apparently even having it glued shut with peanut butter couldn’t keep the kid’s mouth quiet. John only knew one thing that could accomplish that.
“You’re here! Thank all the gods of Azeroth,” Matt said. Whatever that meant. “I am starving. I don’t think my blood sugar has been this low since Joey shocked the world by choosing Pacey.”
“Nothing shocking about it, the woman had taste.”
“If only we could say the same for Katie,” Matt said, making about as much sense as the pair of them ever did to John.
“Bazinga,” said Lucy, drily.
Bullitt rolled back onto his feet, to start nosing curiously through the grocery bags.
“Off,” John commanded, and the dog pulled his dark muzzle out of the nearest bag and sat at alert; eyes on John, tongue out. “Relax,” He amended, and Bullitt picked up Lucy’s desiccated pig’s ear in his jaws and trotted happily off to his favourite chewing spot in the living room.
Matt held out the peanut butter jar, and Lucy stuck two fingers in and scooped. After petting the dog.
John swore sometimes this generation would never grow up. As if in confirmation, Matt swung his feet restlessly, thumping his heels against John’s cupboard doors and making them shudder and bang. John cut his gaze sharply over at Matt, who stilled, mouth silently forming the word “sorry”. He wrinkled his nose up in contrition, and damn him, John felt his diligently-perfected hard stare melt and go to mush.
“Turkey,“ Lucy was saying around a mouthful of peanut butter, pointing at one of the grocery bags she’d dropped on the floor. She pointed out all the bags in turn, giving an inventory of the contents. “Potatoes, onions, green beans - ugh, sweet potatoes, ‘bread for stuffing’ - whatever that is, and sausage for stuffing - however that works.”
“Cranberry sauce?” Matt asked.
“Check,” Lucy confirmed. “Not that I know what to do with any of it. Oh, and here,” she said, placing a last bag on the counter beside Matt. “Pie.”
Matt poked his nose in the bag eagerly, and Lucy slapped his thigh. “Off!” she quipped.
“Ow!” Matt exclaimed, gritting his teeth dramatically.
Lucy looked horrified, clearly remembering Matt’s old injury. She’d probably had time to develop a healthy bit of survivor’s guilt around that one by now. And Matt damn well knew it.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry Farrell, I forgot!”
“Don’t fall for it, sweetie, it only hurts him when it rains, now,” John said, ignoring Matt’s frustrated eye-roll and reaching out to draw her into a hug. “Merry Christmas, honey.”
“Merry Christmas Dad,” Lucy said, returning the embrace. Then she pulled free and punched Matt in the arm.
“Merry Christmas, dick hole,” Lucy said.
“Language!” said John.
“Ow, shit,” said Matt. That one did look like it hurt.
“Thanks for that, McClane,” he said, before turning to Lucy. “Yeah, Gennaro. Language.”
Then he mouthed a word that John was pretty sure was ‘bitch.’
Lucy smiled sweetly and took away the bag with the pie in it. Matt slumped on the counter in defeat.
“There’s more out in the car,” Lucy said, putting the pie into the fridge. “And your gift is out there, John. Don’t move.” And Lucy stepped over the piles of grocery bags out into the hall.
“Oh...Oh, your gift!” Matt spluttered. His eyes were big. Something was going on. “I’m gonna...I better grab Bullitt,” he said, sliding off the counter gingerly to avoid crushing any of the grocery bags. He dragged one finger through the peanut butter -- a peace offering for interrupting the pig’s ear session no doubt -- then he thrust the jar into John’s hands and said, “Stay.”
Smartass.
John started unpacking the chaos in his kitchen. He heard Matt whistling and calling for Bullitt, but there was something else. Voices. Male voices. In his hallway. And it was distracting because one of them sounded an awful lot like...
“...Can just bring that right through to the kitchen,” Lucy was saying to two college-aged boys knocking the New York City slush from their boots. One was tall and blond, the other broad and dark, his hair cropped short to keep the curl out of it.
“These ones are for John,” said the dark-haired boy, holding up a cardboard box. And it was a good thing Matt couldn’t hear John’s heart from across the hall, where he was standing with a restraining hand tightly wrapped around Bullitt’s collar. Because if he could feel the way it tripped and faltered and stopped for a beat, Matt would have a shit fit.
“I’ve asked you repeatedly,” John said, and the young man who had just appeared unexpectedly in his doorway on Christmas Day met his gaze with a startled expression in his familiar eyes. “To call me ‘Dad’.”
~o~
John kept coming in to the kitchen to offer his help, and on a normal day Matt would have been grateful, but right now it was the last fucking thing he needed.
He was bouncing between the stove and the sink with a baster in one hand and a potato peeler in the other.
“Too many cooks make a...bad scene in the kitchen,” Matt answered. He could never remember how that saying went. Oh God, he’d been hanging around John too long and was turning into an old man before his time. “You’re supposed to be out in the living room, enjoying your daughter’s gift.”
The reunion between John and Jack hadn’t been what Matt was expecting. It wasn’t like he expected them to rush into each other’s arms Romeo and Juliet style, or for John to sweep him up and start smothering Jack with kisses and questions like a Jewish mother. In fact, he’d expected it to be awkward.
And it was. But not how Matt had thought. Jack had greeted his father with a jovial and placating “Merry Christmas, Dad” and a warm hug, and then after that, with the exception of a quick introduction to his travelling companion, Billy, he hadn’t said much of anything at all. He tended to stand around and watch everything John did like he was studying him for school.
“You mean my freaky, staring son and his loud Aussie friend?”
Jack had met Billy at the University where they were both studying Zoology. Watching John and Billy interact was a bit like watching Abbott and Costello.
Billy cracked jokes and told animated stories and generally tried way too hard, while John made classic John faces and nodded a lot. Matt actually had a suspicion that between Billy’s heavy -- and totally sexy by the way -- Australian accent, his liberal use of unfamiliar slang, and a tendency to quote pop culture references even more than Matt did, that John actually didn’t understand half of what Billy said.
“Well, technically just your freaky son,” Matt answered him. “He was the surprise for you. Billy was a surprise for me. But it’s all good.” Matt gestured with the utensils in his hands at the carefully calculated but probably still adequate amount food he was working on. “It’s not officially Christmas until you have to water down the gravy. Right?”
Matt gave a little laugh and managed to make it sound only slightly manic. John patted him on the shoulder sympathetically before he went back out to the living room looking reluctant.
~o~
It turned out Jack wasn’t the only one to bring a surprise guest into Matt’s dinner plans.
“Humbugs,” Old Man Pulaski announced, thrusting a box of candy into John’s chest. He coughed and unwound a long hand-knitted scarf that was wrapped around his neck several times, even though he’d only come from as far as next door.
“Try to ignore the irony.” There was a grinning youth standing behind Pulaski. He reached around the old man’s shoulder to clasp John’s hand in a solid, meaty grip.
“My wise-ass grandson, Rudy,” Pulaski introduced him, laying his scarf over John’s arm and working on his coat buttons like he was getting ready to hand him that too.
John took the moment to look Rudy over. This kid ate his Wheaties, John thought, taking in the tall frame, and broad, rounded shoulders - a running back’s build. He had short-cropped, sandy hair and a wide, white, cornfed grin. John was surrounded by college kids.
He didn’t have much time to feel old though, because Pulaski was introducing him to Rudy with his usual degree of tact.
“Detective McClane’s a faggot, bet you’d never guess. Where’s that hippie-dippy boy of yours, McClane? Here he his!” Like the words had conjured him up, Matt came out of the kitchen and into the hallway. “This here’s McClane’s piece of ass.”
Matt didn’t miss a beat.
“It’s actually Matthew Daniel Jacob Calrissian McClane’s-piece-of-ass Farrell, the third. But ‘Matt’ is shorter.”
“He’s a wise-ass too,” Pulaski grunted. And sure enough he shoved his coat at John with as much ceremony as he’d given the gift-wrapped box of humbugs.
“Nice to meet you, Matt,” Rudy shook hands again and Matt managed to look only slightly surprised at the strength of that grip. “I’d apologize for my grandfather, but I think he actually enjoys being an offensive old jackass.”
“You want to watch out for this one, Rudy,” Pulaski was saying, as John took Rudy’s oversized jacket. “He looks like a pansy but he’s feisty. Helped McClane defend the country from those thieving commie hacker bastards last year. Took a bullet. I’d get the kid to show you, but I don’t want him getting any ideas, hiking those hippie-trousers up for my boy here. Rudy likes pussy.” This last bit was for Matt’s benefit.
“Don’t we all,” Matt muttered.
Old Man Pulaski hooted with laughter, and this time Matt did jump a little at what looked like a surprisingly firm thump on the back.
“What I tell ya Rudy? McClane’s got his hands full with this one, that’s sure as shit. Oh, well would you look at this,” Pulaski was suddenly standing up straight and adjusting his collar. “We’re in the presence of a lady.”
John looked over his shoulder, and sure enough there was Lucy, leaning on the frame of the entryway.
“Might be an Angel, granddad,” grinned Rudy. This kid never seemed to stop smiling. Suddenly John found it kinda suspicious. “It is Christmas after all.”
John would have expected his daughter to make a snappy put-down or roll her eyes, but she just raised an eyebrow and looked Rudy over with an amused little smile. Now he was really starting to feel suspicious.
“Lucy McClane,” she introduced herself, holding a hand out to the old man first. She looked skeptical enough when he took it and pressed it to his wizened lips, that Rudy didn’t try anything similar when she turned to him next. One point for the new kid, John thought, grudgingly.
~o~
When John came into the kitchen to get drinks for their newest guests, Matt was boiling a pot of water, stirring the gravy, and giving Jack and Billy instructions on where to find all the folding chairs stashed in various places in the basement.
“Looks like we’ll need a couple more now,” John said, squeezing Matt’s shoulder comfortingly as he made his way past him to the fridge. “How’s that gravy lookin’, Chef Farrell? A little more water in order?”
“My god, man!” Matt exclaimed in his best Scottish brogue -- which was pretty bad. “I've watered her down as far as she'll go! I canna water no more!”
“Old-school Simpsons, too right,” drawled Billy, reaching one of his impressively long arms over the corner of the counter for a high five.
As per usual, nothing from John.
“Dad’s a tough audience, huh Matt?” Jack asked, with a tone of sympathy.
“I swear I’m about oh-for-twelve with the quotes today alone. Your dad’s not much for the pop culture, but I keep trying. I’m invested in his education.”
“Strewth, that right, sir?” Billy twanged. “You dunnow the Simpsons? Not even Star Trek? Wow.”
“See what I have to deal with?” Matt asked, and it was easy enough to ignore the McClane eye-daggers headed his way and watch while Jack chuckled knowingly and Billy grinned at him.
“Dad?” Lucy had appeared in the doorway to the kitchen holding the phone. “It’s Mom. For you.” She was looking kind of meaningfully at them, like she thought the call might require privacy.
There were loud-mouthed Pulaskis in the living room, and the Australian science contingent conducting the John McClane observation experiment were still hanging out in the kitchen.
“It’s probably pretty quiet in my office,” Matt suggested, and started chopping the ends off three pounds of green beans. John ruffled his hair gratefully and went.
~o~
Holly’s voice on the phone sounded tentative and anxious. It wasn’t like her.
John asked after her mother, as soon as they’d greeted each other.
“Oh she’s fine,” Holly reassured him. “Much better than last year.”
Huh. No emergency, no last minute change of plans.
“Sounds like you’re Christmas Central,” Holly observed. “How many people are you entertaining over there?”
“Jack’s here,” John said, to save her the trouble of asking. “With his friend Billy.”
“Oh good,” Holly sounded relieved. “I didn’t want to say anything and spoil the surprise if he hadn’t arrived yet. And for a while there I wasn’t sure he was going through with it. He’s been very nervous about reconnecting with you, John, but he wants to try. So, try and go easy on him?”
“Easy, huh? You think I should let him out of this headlock and take the cuffs off him then?”
“Well,” Holly said, sounding pleasantly surprised. “You’re in a better mood on Christmas than I’ve seen you in… oh heck, possibly ever. I guess all of us have a lot to thank Matt for, this Christmas.”
“All of us?”
“Sure. You didn’t think the only son of the two most stubborn parents in the country would show up unexpected on Christmas without at least one express invitation, did you?” Holly laughed. “I think you might have finally found your match there, John. He’s quite the little schemer. And once he gets an idea in his head -- well let’s just say he can be very persistent.”
No shit. So ‘Lucy’s gift’ probably had more to do with Matthew than it did with Luce. John couldn’t help but smile as he thought of the number of secretive and obsessive phone calls his family had probably been getting from Matt this season.
“Yeah?” John said, tone conciliatory. “I guess he just takes his holidays pretty seriously.”
“Well you wish him a happy one for me.”
“Will do.”
There was a little pause in the conversation, and John figured it was time to bite that particular bullet and ask.
“So how’s things going with you and that Mark guy?”
“Mark?” There was an unsure second of silence from Holly, and then John could hear that hesitant note entering her voice again. “John…Mark wasn’t here with me on Christmas last year. He was here with Jack.”
It shouldn’t have hit him like an anvil in a Warner Bros. skit. It explained so much that John should have seen it coming ages ago. Why Jack had never talked about girls at school. Why he got so defensive whenever John asked about it.
It explained Billy. And the freaky staring like today was some kind of test.
“It turned out not to be serious, just like I said,” Holly was saying. “We thought you knew all of this. It’s why Jack’s been so nervous to call you until now.”
Holly didn’t say ‘until Matt’, but John got it anyway, now.
“John? You alright?”
He realized he’d been sitting there in silence.
“Yeah yeah, I’m here. I’m fine.”
“Alright,” Holly said slowly before changing the subject. “...And you get to meet Billy. Now I think that might be serious. Well, you should be honoured, John, we haven’t had the pleasure, yet.”
“We?” John wasn’t preoccupied enough to miss that unexplained little pronoun.
“Yes,” Holly said, sounding cautious yet again. “Speaking of serious…I should tell you about Craig.”
And she did. Craig was an Architect from Sacramento Holly had met when he did some work for her company. It had only been a few months and it was still a long distance thing, but he was self employed and traveled for his job so they were able to fit in enough visits to make it work, so far. They were even talking about him moving closer in the new year if things kept going so well.
“That’s great, Holly.”
“Great. Really?”
Really. It had been years. It was way past time. And Holly deserved to be happy as much as John did. Maybe more, who the hell knew.
“Yeah,” he said, simply. “I trust ya. If anyone knows you got taste, it’s me. I know you only go for the real stand-up guys.”
Holly laughed again. John had always loved that sound. Some things never changed.
“Hey, tell him from me he’s a lucky guy, alright?”
“Alright,” she agreed, and John could hear the smile he knew so well all the way from California. She finally sounded like herself.
They exchanged their Christmas wishes and ended the call, and John was left alone with his thoughts and the poster Matt had put up in here, of that rock star with the dirty-looking blond hair and the eye liner who shot his brains out back in the 90’s.
Jesus H. Christ. It was hard enough thinking about Lucy having a boyfriend. But his youngest...and his only son...
John didn’t even know how to feel about this. He was a little pissed off Jack had thought John couldn’t deal with hearing it straight from him.
Then he tried to think about the head space he’d been inhabiting a year ago and how he would have felt back then. And then he was ashamed, because Jack might not have been as wrong about it as John thought. Tolerance and not giving a shit what two consenting adults got up to in a bedroom was one thing. John maybe wouldn’t like to admit it, but the shitty truth was it was a whole different ballgame when it came down to your own kid.
So next came the guilt and feeling like a hypocrite, but then he thought about the last year of his life and how much things had changed. The things he’d learned about living your life and sharing it with somebody else.
He thought about the way they looked at each other and how Jack and the tall Aussie laughed together at Matt’s jokes in the kitchen. John’s son was happy. And however it had happened, however awkward the start, he was choosing to let John in on it.
He thought about how much he truly did have to thank Matt for.
~o~
When John made his way back to the living room, everybody was already seated around the table, chatting amiably and looking eagerly at the platters of food Matt had laid out.
John stood behind the empty chair left waiting for him next to Matthew. He looked around at all of them, and thought about how each of them had brought something special to the table today. Lucy and Jack, who truly had made his life whole again today, Billy who made that possible because he so obviously did the same for Jack, and the Pulaskis whose brash friendship had settled over all of these new, and somewhat awkward, pieces of the perfect holiday and made them finally fit together in the most comfortable way. And of course, Matt. Who had made all of this -- the tree, the turkey, the seven people now crowded around their little kitchen table made for four -- happen.
John stood behind that chair and proceeded to thank them each for it. Jesus, John realized, he’d just made a Christmas dinner speech. It was official. John had turned into his old man. And by the looks he was getting as he finally sat down, everybody around the table was as surprised about it as he was.
Leave it to Matt not to let any silence, no matter how awkward, last long. “And now, the airing of grievances,” he murmured.
For some reason, the table exploded into laughter and there was a loud chorus of “I got a lot of problems with you people!!”
Was this the usual reaction Matt got with his constant quoting of obscure tv and movies? Whatever else might have been running through his gene pool, John never suspected his family had been chock feel of geeks.
“McClane, come on,” Matt was saying, as he started passing the platter of turkey around the table. “I thought even you would get that one. Seinfeld? Festivus for the rest of us? No? Seriously nothing?”
John looked around and saw Lucy, Jack and Billy smirking at him, eyes glittering with laughter. Even old man Pulaski was giving a dried-up old chuckle. There was only one other person who didn’t seem to be in on the joke. Rudy, who was seated on the other side of John, met his eye and shrugged like he thought the pack of them were as crazy as John did.
Chalk up another point for the new kid, John thought. Which actually didn’t make John feel the least bit better about it when a minute or so later he caught Matt and Lucy darting meaningful looks between each other and the big burly meathead, and quite obviously kicking each other under the table.
Lucy and the boy next door? Well, shit. It was starting to seem like, as with everything else, the McClane clan didn’t half-ass it when it came to clichés. At least the Meathead would be an improvement over the Jerkoff.
John must have been scowling again because a warm hand landed on his knee under the table.
“Everything cool?” Matt was asking him.
John looked around the table again. At Jack and Billy exchanging amused grins while Mr. Pulaski told them in vivid detail all about how Matt and Bullitt had saved his life last month. At Lucy, tugging coyly on her earring and admitting to an enthralled-looking Rudy that, yeah, it was pretty awesome having a national hero for a dad.
He looked at Matt, who, despite all the changes in plans, was not only still here with John but was still wearing that bright smile that always tripped him up so bad. Matt, who hadn’t gotten trapped on a doomed aircraft or taken hostage or even fatally injured himself making dinner. Even if the gravy was a little on the watery side.
Everything was cool, John realized. But there was still one last thing.
John got up from the table and crossed the room to where the tree was standing with its puppy-inflicted bald spot turned strategically into the corner. He stepped over Bullitt, lying innocently under its branches and gnawing happily on his pig’s ear, and flipped on the god damn twinkle lights they’d forgotten yet again.
Matt was still watching him with questions etched all over his features as he made his way back to the table.
“Cool,” John answered at last, and the unsure lines of Matt’s expression relaxed back into that smile John was waiting to see. He leaned over to press a kiss to the top of Matt’s head before he settled himself back into his chair. “Now, it’s officially Christmas.”
Maybe making plans wasn’t always such a bad idea. John looked over at the fireplace where Matt had put up little stockings bearing the names McClane, Kid, and Bullitt. He thought about how, since Matt hated eggnog, they really ought to try mulled wine instead sometime, and he started making some plans of his own for New Years. And if they changed a little between now and then, well, they could roll with the punches.
They were experts at it by now.
Welcome, Christmas, bring your cheer.
Cheer to all far and near.
Christmas Day is in our grasp,
So long as we have hands to clasp.
THE END
________________________
'Snick, December 2010