Die Hard fic for Smallfandomfest: Best Laid Plans
Title: Best Laid Plans (pun intended)
Author: persnickett
Fandom: Live Free or Die Hard
Pairing/Characters: John/Matt
Rating/Category: PG-13/Slash
Prompt: first date
Spoilers: I mean. The movie is ten years old. TEN! (omg)
Summary: Matt plans a first date with John. Or at least he thinks so.
Notes/Warnings: Coupla four letter words and some older dudes smooching some younger ones? I guess if that kind of thing really gets your feathers in a fluffle, by all means read something else. :) Written for smallfandomfest. Also available on Ao3
Best Laid Plans
by Persnickett
The evening was not going at all according to plan.
Matt’s plan had been a simple one, really: Get McClane out of Brooklyn. Spend an evening casually buying McClane enough drinks that he would be nice and relaxed…maybe sort of docile…okay, just basically less disposed toward murder in general, relatively speaking.
Tell McClane the truth about how Matt feels about him.
Oh yeah, simple.
Sure, it started out smoothly enough. Matt had only spent roughly an hour and a half crafting a casual email invitation. It was perfect, really, if he said it himself. It had the right tone of camaraderie and friendly banter - all about it becoming clear how it was his civic duty to show McClane that there was actually music that had been written since 1978, and food that didn’t come out of a freezer, a deep fryer, or a takeout box (sometimes even all three) to be convincing that this was not anything like a date at all.
Then it ended in a manner that balanced the banter with just enough ambiguity about where the night make take them after that, to be slightly suggestive that maybe, just maybe, it might be. Which was good. Or so Matt hoped. And it was short enough it didn’t sound like it had taken an hour and a half.
Or even an hour and forty-five minutes. Fine, forty-nine. Whatever.
The point was, everything more or less started out fine. They went to hear some live music (and have some drinks), and then hit the trendiest spot Matt could find on Yelp! for hipster bone marrow on toast, and gluten free fish tacos with Asian slaw (and more drinks).
Plan. But the reality? Less than awesome.
The live band they went to see turned out to offer the delightful combination of being really terrible, with the added charm of also being extra loud.
And the thing about bone marrow is, it turns out that it’s basically just fat. Which, yes, when you pair it with a bunch of trendy drinks (what even is in a ‘Negroni’ by the way?) might be sort of tasty, but is assuredly going to end up as a grease spot, vaguely resembling a map of Pangaea, on your brand new Thai silk shirt.
And no, it is not the kind of grease spot that dabs out with a little soap and water when you politely excuse yourself to the restroom. Nor is it a particularly small map.
After all, Pangaea was ostensibly the largest land mass- and why Matt ever let the salesgirl convince him he needed a silk shirt for tonight… He had read about how silk farmers get the silk from silk worms. And his advice to anyone who is curious about the process would be to squelch that curiosity until it is good and squelched, and to seriously not even look it up. Pretty fucking horrifying.
But the best (worst) part of the evening had been…well it had been McClane. Not that he was doing anything wrong per se - but that was just it. He wasn’t doing anything. All night long McClane had been sort of…just quietly sipping his drink(s) and thoughtfully regarding Matt over the rim of his glass, like he was waiting for something.
Like he knows Matt has been planning something. Something he might not like. Something somewhat exactly like what Matt is actually totally planning, and he’s considering the best ways to efficiently dispose of Matt’s remains once he’s finished responding appropriately.
And now, as they trudge home down the pavement skirting Central Park - well, Matt is trudging, McClane is sauntering like some sort of deadly, bulletproof peacock - he’s still doing it.
When Matt stuffs his hands a little deeper into his pockets and chances a shifty look over at him from under his bangs as they pass under a streetlamp, there it is. That look.
Matt takes his hands out of his pockets, the better to catch himself in case he does something masterful like tripping over his own feet. Because that look shouldn’t be sexy, but then Matt finding stuff sexy that he isn’t supposed to is kind of the whole reason they’re here. So.
“Well kid,” McClane says suddenly, “I’ll give it to ya,” and he pauses right there, making Matt glad he freed his hands up, because this is the exact kind of thing McClane does to him all. The time. And yeah, he stumbles just a tad. “…You do know how to plan an evening.”
“Yeah,” Matt says. He ignores the nervous little laugh that escapes him before he can catch it and presses on. “…Not bad for a first date, huh?”
He says it in a cool, nonchalant way that could totally be taken for facetious in case McClane hasn’t had quite enough of whatever is in a Negroni to quell all homicidal-type instincts.
“First Date?” McClane says, with the rise of a single brow - and this is it, Matt thinks. Murder time. McClane is going to snap his neck with a single pinky and simply flash his badge at any of the sundry passers by who even bother to look up from their smart phones.
“…This isn’t our first date.”
Yup. It’s over. ‘Police business’ McClane will say dismissively, and the pitifully few witnesses will go back to crushing candy and hunting Pokemon, and Matt will be nothing more than a vague memory; a wisp of legend only still occasionally remembered in the chat archives of the darkest, geekiest, corners of the internet.
“No? I mean, heh, no,” Matt stammers. “No it’s of course it’s not - I didn’t mean - I just meant it’s my first time planning- ”
“Doncha remember that time we went and hung around that hippy-dippy book shop for no good reason?”
“I-” and now Matt stumbles to a stop altogether because: “Date?? That was a date?.”
Even here on the dimly lit pavement where they’ve stopped in the stretch between streetlamps, Matt can see that McClane’s face, which has been doing nothing all night, is now actively, even aggressively, frowning.
“I bought you that idiotic coffee?” he prompts. And Matt is suddenly afraid McClane wants to kill him for a whole host of other reasons.
“I-” Matt says again, and then he pushes his hands up into his hair and pulls, because suddenly a shit ton of realizations are crashing in on him, and it feels like there might not be enough storage space in his brain.
He turns and looks behind him as if there might be some sort of escape. But there is just the park, and even with certain death staring him in the face Matt is smart enough to remember only dumbass tourists and suicidal freakjobs go running around Central Park after dark.
“It was all covered in whipping cream…” McClane is still muttering to himself about coffee when Matt turns back and faces him. “It had a cookie sticking out of it…”
“So,” Matt interrupts daringly, because if he doesn’t get some of what is caving in on him out right now, he is sure he is going to have some kind of system breakdown. “The vintage record store?”
McClane shrugs, and his face starts to do something else altogether. Something crinkly and just the slightest bit lopsided. McClane might actually be smiling. “You’re not the only one with a collection.”
Confirmation. Matt has to remind himself for a second to breathe.
“…That time you made me drive all the way out to Queens with you, just for a veal sandwich?”
McClane’s face gets a little crinklier and there are definitely elements of a smile there now. “Hey, Dimitri knows how to handle his meat. It’s an experience every man should have before he goes.”
And now McClane is teasing him, and Matt realizes he’s been teasing him for…well for pretty much ever, and… Oh God. Matt stops pulling on his hair and lets his hands fall limply to his sides.
“Your gym?” Matt asks, and that particular hangout sesh had had consequences so disastrous he’s sort of oddly afraid of the answer.
“Wanted to introduce ya to my friends,” McClane verifies, with another shrug.
“Haaaaaaaaaaa,” Matt exhales noisily. He turns around again and there is still nowhere viable to run or hide, and no superheroes jump out of the bushes to save Matt’s bacon by insisting that McClane join their team of secret government uber-agents and rush off immediately to help them save the world from certain destruction.
“Sure,” Matt says, when he finally turns around again. “Sure, sure, sure. It’s just.” Matt pulls on his hair for a while again, but that doesn’t do shit for making the words come any better so he stops. “I spent two hours writing you a totally-just-friendly-yet-slightly-suggestive email, and I cut myself shaving three times - three McClane! - and you’re telling me we’ve been dating for…” Matt held up a hand did a quick count. “Four months?”
“Five,” McClane corrects him. “Well nearly. It’ll be nineteen weeks on Sunday.”
“Seriously,” Matt says, “three times! My hands were shaking so bad - still! Look at this shit!” Matt thrusts out a hand toward McClane that admittedly looks a hell of a lot steadier than he feels. “I need t-fuck it, I’m sitting down.”
Matt whirls around and stomps back up the pavement the way they came, until he comes to the nearest wrought iron structure that will hold him and collapses unceremoniously.
“Five months…” Matt marvels. He’s still staring at his hand and trying to detect a tremor as McClane comes up the walk to join him, bulletproof peacock saunter still intact. “Is that, like-Am I in a relationship?”
“Settle down,” McClane growls, in that low tone he has that’s somehow gentle and commanding all at once and never fails to get Matt’s full attention.
But then he can’t settle down. He can’t, because he somehow missed the moment where McClane ended up sitting down on the bench next to him, and now McClane is taking his hand, and bringing it down to rest in his lap.
“Five months,” Matt squeaks again, he stares down a moment at their hands just sitting there on his knee before he tears his gaze away so he can look McClane in the face.
His fingers are so warm. Matt can feel them covering his; the way the size of McClane’s hand outclasses his own enough to overhang it on either side so the touch of palm and fingertips feel nearly hot against his thigh.
Their knees are touching too, but none of this seems to bother McClane, who is watching him intently now, with his own brand of steely concern.
“You got your…?” McClane says, picking his hand up off Matt’s leg just long enough to gesture vaguely in the direction of the bag slung over Matt’s shoulder in a manner that’s meant to represent his inhaler. “You’re gonna give yourself one of those attacks.”
Matt can concede his breathing might be a little shallow, but he’s reasonably sure it hasn’t got a lot to do with an asthma attack. He really doesn’t relish explaining the truth, however, about the effects of something as simple as a little hand-on-knee action on somebody who gets out as frequently as Matt does - especially when McClane is looking all intense and attentive at him like that.
So Matt rifles dutifully in his bag, goes through the slightly embarrassing routine of shaking, puffing, and waiting. He’s careful all the while not to move his knee in the slightest, lest he dislodge McClane’s hand.
At some point during the procedure though, McClane maybe catches a clue, and withdraws his hand. But then it is only to recline back on the bench, and lay an arm casually along the top of it, and now McClane’s hand is resting cozily against the top of Matt’s spine.
“You alright?” His thumb slides across the collar of Matt’s shirt, and yeah, he had to hand it to the salesgirl, McClane's touch through the silk is several kinds of awesome against his skin. Sorry silkworms.
“Yeah. Yes, I’m -” Matt stutters, but McClane is still kind of watching at him with that solicitous glower that probably only he is quite capable of, so Matt clears his throat and says it again. “Yes.”
McClane’s features seem to relax a little then, thankfully, because Matt really isn’t sure how much more of this he can take. And then that thumb moves across the back of his neck again, this time a little higher so that it catches the shivery, goosebump-inducing hair at his nape.
“Are you gonna kiss me now?” he blurts, and at this point he’s kind of not even sorry. “Are we kissing, because you’re looking at me kinda like…and honestly, it’s making m- Oh!” Matt falters.
Because the way McClane is looking at him, well, it’s the way he’s been looking at him all night. And all at once Matt gets the very strong sense that what McClane has been waiting for all night, isn’t to kill him at all.
McClane’s warm, rough fingers are curved around the back of Matt’s neck now, and now that he’s looking for it, Matt can feel there’s a tension in them that he wouldn’t really describe as ‘pulling’. Maybe almost a ‘nudge’.
“Yeah,” Matt says, and his breath catches a little on the words, but he is so past caring by now. “I’m just gonna…” and he leans forward for what he is now, reasonably, like at least eighty-six percent sure, is not going to result in his death.
That’s it. That does it. McClane’s hand slides forward from the nape of his neck to the cut of his jaw and their mouths come together.
It’s soft, but firm. A dry, chaste press of lips and a stroke or two of that roving thumb over Matt’s cheek that is more an affirmation than anything else. A short but sweet vow of confirmation that everything leading up to this moment has really been leading here after all.
It is not enough.
“Don’t stop there,” Matt says, a little breathless from just the barest taste of McClane, of the merest possibility that this is something he might be able to have.
He reaches forward for a fistful of McClane’s shirt, and feels the resulting chuckle against his mouth as they come together again.
This is more like it. This time, the pressure of John’s hand is definitely strong enough Matt might classify it as ‘pulling’, as it slides up indelicately into his hair and brings their lips together hard. McClane’s mouth moves against his this time, pressing and opening, and Matt is more than happy to oblige. He obliges all of it - the scratch of silvering stubble against his chin, the slow entry of McClane’s tongue between his lips.
When it’s over, it takes a second to sink in. Matt still has a handful of McClane’s shirt, and he’s not about to let go. He’s not sure he’ll stay upright if he does.
McClane’s calloused thumb is stroking over his cheek again, and Matt’s brain is buzzing with the heady giddiness of what it’s apparently like to kiss McClane, and he doesn’t mean to, but he laughs.
Just a little. But McClane doesn’t immediately dispatch him and leave his body for the roving perverts in the park. In fact he doesn’t even really pull away, so Matt feels like he can talk.
“Seriously,” he pants. “That’s what you were waiting for? Permission?”
And now McClane does pull away, but those crinkly, twinkly, definite-elements-of-smileage are still there, all over his face.
“Guess that’s what you get for dating an old guy.”
“Mmmmmm, I prefer the term ‘retro’. Let’s go with that.”
The twinkle element of McClane’s expression ratchets up a notch, so Matt figures he likes that.
“Did it really take you two hours to write that email?” McClane asks slyly, and now that Matt gets what’s been going on he’s actually kind of good with the teasing thing, but that was a low blow.
“It was important, okay!” he exclaims. “And I wouldn’t be throwing so much shade, old man. At least it didn’t take me nineteen weeks.”
“Old man? I thought we were being ‘retro’.”
“Okay,” Matt laughs, still feeling a little dizzy from that kiss, “I see there’s only going to be one way to resolve this,” and he leans in for another. Which McClane lets him have.
After a moment, Matt presses closer, and McClane lets him have that too. And not so many moments later, when Matt is valiantly fighting the urge to climb into his lap in complete public, he remembers he’s making out with the Captain of 63 Precinct, and as much as the local park pervs might be digging it, it maybe wouldn’t be the most successful first date if they got picked up for public indecency.
“Let’s get outta here,” McClane says when they pull apart, as if he’s reading Matt’s thoughts. His voice comes out all deep, like he’s as kiss-drunk as Matt feels, and the sound of it just gives Matt all kinds of ideas. Nice ones.
And then one that actually kind of sucks.
“Um…” Matt tries to think, but there’s no way his brain is going to give him any better way to phrase this in its current state, so he plows ahead instead. “You’re not so retro that you don’t put out on the first date are you? Because if I have to wait another four months I-”
“Five,” McClane corrects him again. “And this? Is not our first date.”
And with that, McClane is up off the bench, dusting himself down in a way that might just be a subtle method of readjusting a pair of khakis that have suddenly become as tight as Matt’s jeans are feeling.
Then he does that thing with his eyebrow again, that he knows damn well makes Matt crazy. But then now that it’s okay for them to get a little crazy, Matt finds he actually kind of appreciates it.
“Make sure you bring that little gadget of yours,” McClane says, with a suggestive little nod at Matt’s inhaler, lying forgotten next to him on the bench, before he turns and strides away. “You might need it.”
And Matt’s last thought as he hurries to pack up and high-tail it after him, is that McClane really doesn’t get how asthma works. But now isn’t going to be the time to correct him.
Hell, Matt thinks, as he springs up off the bench and gets a move on, even he kind of hopes he ends up needing it.
FIN
.
Author: persnickett
Fandom: Live Free or Die Hard
Pairing/Characters: John/Matt
Rating/Category: PG-13/Slash
Prompt: first date
Spoilers: I mean. The movie is ten years old. TEN! (omg)
Summary: Matt plans a first date with John. Or at least he thinks so.
Notes/Warnings: Coupla four letter words and some older dudes smooching some younger ones? I guess if that kind of thing really gets your feathers in a fluffle, by all means read something else. :) Written for smallfandomfest. Also available on Ao3
Best Laid Plans
by Persnickett
The evening was not going at all according to plan.
Matt’s plan had been a simple one, really: Get McClane out of Brooklyn. Spend an evening casually buying McClane enough drinks that he would be nice and relaxed…maybe sort of docile…okay, just basically less disposed toward murder in general, relatively speaking.
Tell McClane the truth about how Matt feels about him.
Oh yeah, simple.
Sure, it started out smoothly enough. Matt had only spent roughly an hour and a half crafting a casual email invitation. It was perfect, really, if he said it himself. It had the right tone of camaraderie and friendly banter - all about it becoming clear how it was his civic duty to show McClane that there was actually music that had been written since 1978, and food that didn’t come out of a freezer, a deep fryer, or a takeout box (sometimes even all three) to be convincing that this was not anything like a date at all.
Then it ended in a manner that balanced the banter with just enough ambiguity about where the night make take them after that, to be slightly suggestive that maybe, just maybe, it might be. Which was good. Or so Matt hoped. And it was short enough it didn’t sound like it had taken an hour and a half.
Or even an hour and forty-five minutes. Fine, forty-nine. Whatever.
The point was, everything more or less started out fine. They went to hear some live music (and have some drinks), and then hit the trendiest spot Matt could find on Yelp! for hipster bone marrow on toast, and gluten free fish tacos with Asian slaw (and more drinks).
Plan. But the reality? Less than awesome.
The live band they went to see turned out to offer the delightful combination of being really terrible, with the added charm of also being extra loud.
And the thing about bone marrow is, it turns out that it’s basically just fat. Which, yes, when you pair it with a bunch of trendy drinks (what even is in a ‘Negroni’ by the way?) might be sort of tasty, but is assuredly going to end up as a grease spot, vaguely resembling a map of Pangaea, on your brand new Thai silk shirt.
And no, it is not the kind of grease spot that dabs out with a little soap and water when you politely excuse yourself to the restroom. Nor is it a particularly small map.
After all, Pangaea was ostensibly the largest land mass- and why Matt ever let the salesgirl convince him he needed a silk shirt for tonight… He had read about how silk farmers get the silk from silk worms. And his advice to anyone who is curious about the process would be to squelch that curiosity until it is good and squelched, and to seriously not even look it up. Pretty fucking horrifying.
But the best (worst) part of the evening had been…well it had been McClane. Not that he was doing anything wrong per se - but that was just it. He wasn’t doing anything. All night long McClane had been sort of…just quietly sipping his drink(s) and thoughtfully regarding Matt over the rim of his glass, like he was waiting for something.
Like he knows Matt has been planning something. Something he might not like. Something somewhat exactly like what Matt is actually totally planning, and he’s considering the best ways to efficiently dispose of Matt’s remains once he’s finished responding appropriately.
And now, as they trudge home down the pavement skirting Central Park - well, Matt is trudging, McClane is sauntering like some sort of deadly, bulletproof peacock - he’s still doing it.
When Matt stuffs his hands a little deeper into his pockets and chances a shifty look over at him from under his bangs as they pass under a streetlamp, there it is. That look.
Matt takes his hands out of his pockets, the better to catch himself in case he does something masterful like tripping over his own feet. Because that look shouldn’t be sexy, but then Matt finding stuff sexy that he isn’t supposed to is kind of the whole reason they’re here. So.
“Well kid,” McClane says suddenly, “I’ll give it to ya,” and he pauses right there, making Matt glad he freed his hands up, because this is the exact kind of thing McClane does to him all. The time. And yeah, he stumbles just a tad. “…You do know how to plan an evening.”
“Yeah,” Matt says. He ignores the nervous little laugh that escapes him before he can catch it and presses on. “…Not bad for a first date, huh?”
He says it in a cool, nonchalant way that could totally be taken for facetious in case McClane hasn’t had quite enough of whatever is in a Negroni to quell all homicidal-type instincts.
“First Date?” McClane says, with the rise of a single brow - and this is it, Matt thinks. Murder time. McClane is going to snap his neck with a single pinky and simply flash his badge at any of the sundry passers by who even bother to look up from their smart phones.
“…This isn’t our first date.”
Yup. It’s over. ‘Police business’ McClane will say dismissively, and the pitifully few witnesses will go back to crushing candy and hunting Pokemon, and Matt will be nothing more than a vague memory; a wisp of legend only still occasionally remembered in the chat archives of the darkest, geekiest, corners of the internet.
“No? I mean, heh, no,” Matt stammers. “No it’s of course it’s not - I didn’t mean - I just meant it’s my first time planning- ”
“Doncha remember that time we went and hung around that hippy-dippy book shop for no good reason?”
“I-” and now Matt stumbles to a stop altogether because: “Date?? That was a date?.”
Even here on the dimly lit pavement where they’ve stopped in the stretch between streetlamps, Matt can see that McClane’s face, which has been doing nothing all night, is now actively, even aggressively, frowning.
“I bought you that idiotic coffee?” he prompts. And Matt is suddenly afraid McClane wants to kill him for a whole host of other reasons.
“I-” Matt says again, and then he pushes his hands up into his hair and pulls, because suddenly a shit ton of realizations are crashing in on him, and it feels like there might not be enough storage space in his brain.
He turns and looks behind him as if there might be some sort of escape. But there is just the park, and even with certain death staring him in the face Matt is smart enough to remember only dumbass tourists and suicidal freakjobs go running around Central Park after dark.
“It was all covered in whipping cream…” McClane is still muttering to himself about coffee when Matt turns back and faces him. “It had a cookie sticking out of it…”
“So,” Matt interrupts daringly, because if he doesn’t get some of what is caving in on him out right now, he is sure he is going to have some kind of system breakdown. “The vintage record store?”
McClane shrugs, and his face starts to do something else altogether. Something crinkly and just the slightest bit lopsided. McClane might actually be smiling. “You’re not the only one with a collection.”
Confirmation. Matt has to remind himself for a second to breathe.
“…That time you made me drive all the way out to Queens with you, just for a veal sandwich?”
McClane’s face gets a little crinklier and there are definitely elements of a smile there now. “Hey, Dimitri knows how to handle his meat. It’s an experience every man should have before he goes.”
And now McClane is teasing him, and Matt realizes he’s been teasing him for…well for pretty much ever, and… Oh God. Matt stops pulling on his hair and lets his hands fall limply to his sides.
“Your gym?” Matt asks, and that particular hangout sesh had had consequences so disastrous he’s sort of oddly afraid of the answer.
“Wanted to introduce ya to my friends,” McClane verifies, with another shrug.
“Haaaaaaaaaaa,” Matt exhales noisily. He turns around again and there is still nowhere viable to run or hide, and no superheroes jump out of the bushes to save Matt’s bacon by insisting that McClane join their team of secret government uber-agents and rush off immediately to help them save the world from certain destruction.
“Sure,” Matt says, when he finally turns around again. “Sure, sure, sure. It’s just.” Matt pulls on his hair for a while again, but that doesn’t do shit for making the words come any better so he stops. “I spent two hours writing you a totally-just-friendly-yet-slightly-suggestive email, and I cut myself shaving three times - three McClane! - and you’re telling me we’ve been dating for…” Matt held up a hand did a quick count. “Four months?”
“Five,” McClane corrects him. “Well nearly. It’ll be nineteen weeks on Sunday.”
“Seriously,” Matt says, “three times! My hands were shaking so bad - still! Look at this shit!” Matt thrusts out a hand toward McClane that admittedly looks a hell of a lot steadier than he feels. “I need t-fuck it, I’m sitting down.”
Matt whirls around and stomps back up the pavement the way they came, until he comes to the nearest wrought iron structure that will hold him and collapses unceremoniously.
“Five months…” Matt marvels. He’s still staring at his hand and trying to detect a tremor as McClane comes up the walk to join him, bulletproof peacock saunter still intact. “Is that, like-Am I in a relationship?”
“Settle down,” McClane growls, in that low tone he has that’s somehow gentle and commanding all at once and never fails to get Matt’s full attention.
But then he can’t settle down. He can’t, because he somehow missed the moment where McClane ended up sitting down on the bench next to him, and now McClane is taking his hand, and bringing it down to rest in his lap.
“Five months,” Matt squeaks again, he stares down a moment at their hands just sitting there on his knee before he tears his gaze away so he can look McClane in the face.
His fingers are so warm. Matt can feel them covering his; the way the size of McClane’s hand outclasses his own enough to overhang it on either side so the touch of palm and fingertips feel nearly hot against his thigh.
Their knees are touching too, but none of this seems to bother McClane, who is watching him intently now, with his own brand of steely concern.
“You got your…?” McClane says, picking his hand up off Matt’s leg just long enough to gesture vaguely in the direction of the bag slung over Matt’s shoulder in a manner that’s meant to represent his inhaler. “You’re gonna give yourself one of those attacks.”
Matt can concede his breathing might be a little shallow, but he’s reasonably sure it hasn’t got a lot to do with an asthma attack. He really doesn’t relish explaining the truth, however, about the effects of something as simple as a little hand-on-knee action on somebody who gets out as frequently as Matt does - especially when McClane is looking all intense and attentive at him like that.
So Matt rifles dutifully in his bag, goes through the slightly embarrassing routine of shaking, puffing, and waiting. He’s careful all the while not to move his knee in the slightest, lest he dislodge McClane’s hand.
At some point during the procedure though, McClane maybe catches a clue, and withdraws his hand. But then it is only to recline back on the bench, and lay an arm casually along the top of it, and now McClane’s hand is resting cozily against the top of Matt’s spine.
“You alright?” His thumb slides across the collar of Matt’s shirt, and yeah, he had to hand it to the salesgirl, McClane's touch through the silk is several kinds of awesome against his skin. Sorry silkworms.
“Yeah. Yes, I’m -” Matt stutters, but McClane is still kind of watching at him with that solicitous glower that probably only he is quite capable of, so Matt clears his throat and says it again. “Yes.”
McClane’s features seem to relax a little then, thankfully, because Matt really isn’t sure how much more of this he can take. And then that thumb moves across the back of his neck again, this time a little higher so that it catches the shivery, goosebump-inducing hair at his nape.
“Are you gonna kiss me now?” he blurts, and at this point he’s kind of not even sorry. “Are we kissing, because you’re looking at me kinda like…and honestly, it’s making m- Oh!” Matt falters.
Because the way McClane is looking at him, well, it’s the way he’s been looking at him all night. And all at once Matt gets the very strong sense that what McClane has been waiting for all night, isn’t to kill him at all.
McClane’s warm, rough fingers are curved around the back of Matt’s neck now, and now that he’s looking for it, Matt can feel there’s a tension in them that he wouldn’t really describe as ‘pulling’. Maybe almost a ‘nudge’.
“Yeah,” Matt says, and his breath catches a little on the words, but he is so past caring by now. “I’m just gonna…” and he leans forward for what he is now, reasonably, like at least eighty-six percent sure, is not going to result in his death.
That’s it. That does it. McClane’s hand slides forward from the nape of his neck to the cut of his jaw and their mouths come together.
It’s soft, but firm. A dry, chaste press of lips and a stroke or two of that roving thumb over Matt’s cheek that is more an affirmation than anything else. A short but sweet vow of confirmation that everything leading up to this moment has really been leading here after all.
It is not enough.
“Don’t stop there,” Matt says, a little breathless from just the barest taste of McClane, of the merest possibility that this is something he might be able to have.
He reaches forward for a fistful of McClane’s shirt, and feels the resulting chuckle against his mouth as they come together again.
This is more like it. This time, the pressure of John’s hand is definitely strong enough Matt might classify it as ‘pulling’, as it slides up indelicately into his hair and brings their lips together hard. McClane’s mouth moves against his this time, pressing and opening, and Matt is more than happy to oblige. He obliges all of it - the scratch of silvering stubble against his chin, the slow entry of McClane’s tongue between his lips.
When it’s over, it takes a second to sink in. Matt still has a handful of McClane’s shirt, and he’s not about to let go. He’s not sure he’ll stay upright if he does.
McClane’s calloused thumb is stroking over his cheek again, and Matt’s brain is buzzing with the heady giddiness of what it’s apparently like to kiss McClane, and he doesn’t mean to, but he laughs.
Just a little. But McClane doesn’t immediately dispatch him and leave his body for the roving perverts in the park. In fact he doesn’t even really pull away, so Matt feels like he can talk.
“Seriously,” he pants. “That’s what you were waiting for? Permission?”
And now McClane does pull away, but those crinkly, twinkly, definite-elements-of-smileage are still there, all over his face.
“Guess that’s what you get for dating an old guy.”
“Mmmmmm, I prefer the term ‘retro’. Let’s go with that.”
The twinkle element of McClane’s expression ratchets up a notch, so Matt figures he likes that.
“Did it really take you two hours to write that email?” McClane asks slyly, and now that Matt gets what’s been going on he’s actually kind of good with the teasing thing, but that was a low blow.
“It was important, okay!” he exclaims. “And I wouldn’t be throwing so much shade, old man. At least it didn’t take me nineteen weeks.”
“Old man? I thought we were being ‘retro’.”
“Okay,” Matt laughs, still feeling a little dizzy from that kiss, “I see there’s only going to be one way to resolve this,” and he leans in for another. Which McClane lets him have.
After a moment, Matt presses closer, and McClane lets him have that too. And not so many moments later, when Matt is valiantly fighting the urge to climb into his lap in complete public, he remembers he’s making out with the Captain of 63 Precinct, and as much as the local park pervs might be digging it, it maybe wouldn’t be the most successful first date if they got picked up for public indecency.
“Let’s get outta here,” McClane says when they pull apart, as if he’s reading Matt’s thoughts. His voice comes out all deep, like he’s as kiss-drunk as Matt feels, and the sound of it just gives Matt all kinds of ideas. Nice ones.
And then one that actually kind of sucks.
“Um…” Matt tries to think, but there’s no way his brain is going to give him any better way to phrase this in its current state, so he plows ahead instead. “You’re not so retro that you don’t put out on the first date are you? Because if I have to wait another four months I-”
“Five,” McClane corrects him again. “And this? Is not our first date.”
And with that, McClane is up off the bench, dusting himself down in a way that might just be a subtle method of readjusting a pair of khakis that have suddenly become as tight as Matt’s jeans are feeling.
Then he does that thing with his eyebrow again, that he knows damn well makes Matt crazy. But then now that it’s okay for them to get a little crazy, Matt finds he actually kind of appreciates it.
“Make sure you bring that little gadget of yours,” McClane says, with a suggestive little nod at Matt’s inhaler, lying forgotten next to him on the bench, before he turns and strides away. “You might need it.”
And Matt’s last thought as he hurries to pack up and high-tail it after him, is that McClane really doesn’t get how asthma works. But now isn’t going to be the time to correct him.
Hell, Matt thinks, as he springs up off the bench and gets a move on, even he kind of hopes he ends up needing it.
FIN
.