Rating: PG-13
Words: 4,100
Disclaimer: As in Previous Part.
The next night, John extracted a confession of Matt's sleeping habits and made him promise not to call for a few days. John spent the next couple noticing things around the apartment, like that the couch didn't feel right without Matt's weight on the next cushion, and turned on the radio when he was home to fill the silences. It wasn't just conversation, it was the background noise of a second person in the apartment that was lacking: footsteps in the hall, the sound of running water or clattering dishes from another room, the click-purr of typing or even breathing from Matt's open door.
"You said it yourself," John muttered, standing in Matt's doorway. "You knew what it meant."
What it also meant was discontent among the gamblers at the station.
"This is bullshit--he's even worse than before."
"Yeah, whatever it is--and I think it's pretty obvious by now Tavon already knew--it's over. She must've gone off with his brother or something, the way he's been snarling around the place."
"McClane doesn't have a--"
John let them think his hearing was worse than it was. Lem and Tavon clearly took John at his word, because the MGM Pool chart remained on the wall. The bets didn't proliferate the way they did on the Power Hub sheet, but some people who liked long odds added their names.
Saturday morning, John woke to the phone ringing. He fumbled for the receiver on his night stand and knocked it to the ground. The handset fell off and connected. A high, thin voice trailed out of the earpiece before he could wrangle it to his ear.
"Dad--Dad? What the heck are you doing over there?"
"Lucy," John said. He opened his eyes wide and blinked a few times, ran a hand over his face and tried to sound less fogbound. "Hi, Lucy. What's going on?"
"That's what I wanna ask you," said Lucy. "Are you dying, or going nuts or something?"
"That's a little rough just because I'm not awake at..." He blinked at his alarm clock. "Ten a.m. on my day off." He pushed himself into a sitting position and stifled a yawn.
"Yeah," said Lucy, and John could hear the eye-roll in her voice, "that's exactly it. Not the five different officers from your precinct calling to quiz me about your personal life." John's eyebrows shot up, and for a moment, he was too taken aback to answer. "So what the hell have you been--"
"What?" John finally managed. "Who the hell called you?"
Lucy made a considering noise and a page turned on her end of the line. "Joe Antwill, Paige Karkoski and Avery Chen. The other two were smart enough to call from payphones, but they weren't far from your station."
"That's good checking," John said, distracted by parental pride.
"Yeah, well," said Lucy. "And?"
"I know three people who are gonna be real unhappy the next time I need an outdoor crime scene guarded during a blizzard. I don't believe they looked you up."
"They must've been really interested for some reason, huh?"
John sighed. "Alright, officer, you win."
"What, I don't get to be a detective?"
John smiled. "It's not hereditary, Luce."
"Hmph." She sounded amused.
"They've got a bet going," John said.
"Okay...?"
"About me. And why, apparently, I've been in a better mood the last couple months."
"Uh-huuuuuh."
"Honest to god. It's up on the break room wall. MGM."
"McClane's Good Mood. Are you serious?"
"Unfortunately. Glad to know where your tax dollars will be going?"
"I have a part-time!"
"You get it all refunded."
"Well." Lucy cleared her throat. "Have you been in a good mood?"
"Not for the past week since I found out about the bet."
"Dad."
"Yeah, I have." John swung his legs over the side of the bed. This was a conversation he needed to have with his feet on the floor.
"Is this chemical?"
"You askin' me if I'm goin' through male menopause?"
"Dad."
"No, Luce. C'mon, really."
"I can't imagine you doing drugs," Lucy admitted. "You're not drinking, are you?"
"No," said John. An uncomfortable weight settled in his chest. John's flirtation with death by alcohol poisoning had happened after he moved back to New York, out of sight of his children. They were still in elementary school, then. Holly had gotten some idea of what was going on from their uglier phone conversations, but he knew she never would have passed that on to Lucy and Jack. He wasn't sure if that was one of those things you should eventually talk about so your kids could learn from your mistakes, or something he could take to the grave and count his blessings.
"Well, if you won the lottery," Lucy said, "I'd hope you'd move."
"You bet I would," John said, looking skyward at Lem's guess resurfacing.
"Alright, so?" said Lucy.
"If I give you any more hints, you won't be able to enter the pool."
"What's the pot?"
"Couple hundred dollars in there," he said. He felt he should at least offer her the option to leave this in a manly silence between them. Lucy took after him in a lot of ways he doubted she wanted to admit, so they might be happier leaving a whole variety of things unsaid.
"I'll take the info," Lucy said.
"You may not like it."
"What?" Lucy said, her voice drawing tight. "Did you get a girlfriend?" That tone of voice was trouble. John steeled himself. So soon after she'd started talking to him again, they might be in for another long period of silence. He wasn't about to lie to her, though.
"Close," he said.
There was a pause, and Lucy's voice came out of the phone like the wind from the Canadian Rockies. "If you got married without telling us--"
"No, no," John said. Yippee-ki-yay, he thought. "Back up," he said. "Then turn right instead of left."
Lucy paused again. "You... got a boyfriend?"
"Yeah."
A much longer pause. "Holy fucking shit."
Only the dial tone heard John's admonition about language.
"That's gotta be the shittiest start to a Saturday I've had recently," John muttered. He considered going back to bed, but his stomach contracted, reminding him he was only three minutes from a decent meal if he wasn't above eating dinner for breakfast. He wasn't. He headed for the kitchen.
Halfway through his first cup of coffee, the phone rang. He picked up the cordless.
"All right," said Lucy, "I'm probably going to regret this, for ruining a perfectly good dramatic hang-up, and for some epic TMI, but I'm too damn curious. When did this happen? Who is he? Do I know him?"
John kept his sigh of relief quiet. "You've met."
"Oh, god, it isn't Curtis, is it?"
"Lem? No. Jesus. Why?"
"I don't know, you're married to your job, and he's there, and cute, and he likes you. I mean, I thought he was straight, but then, I thought you were straight, so as long as we're picking people to suddenly be gay..."
"I'm not suddenly gay," John said.
"Oh, Jesus," said Lucy. "I live on a college campus, okay? I don't think I can take it if you start giving me the 'people are just born that way' speech. God, is this why you and Mom broke up?"
John let out a long breath. "No, Luce. It's not why we got divorced. I don't know what the politics are, and I don't care. I'm not gay."
"Then... what? You're bisexual? Oh, this is too weird a conversation to be having with my father."
"It ain't exactly a cakewalk from where I'm standing," said John.
"Okay," Lucy said wryly. "This is your chance to get a word in edgewise. Go."
John snorted. He'd been so hung up on the age difference between him and Matt, he hadn't given the gay angle as much thought as possibly he should have. It was the twenty-first century, and he'd spent a chunk of time in California, where guys you didn't know kissed you at New Year's in the eighties. "Luce, I never really thought about it before. I was too busy being in love with your mother most of my life to notice. We got together in college."
"Yeah, I know the story."
John chose his words carefully, because, yes, it was a weird conversation to be having with his daughter. "I've never paid much attention to men. It's just him."
"Mmm," said Lucy. "So this is a serious thing?"
John thought about Matt's arms around his neck the day he left. He thought about his face in the front doorway the night John had come home and thought he'd moved out. He thought of sitting together in Matt's room during a blackout, when Matt refused to cling, but his fingers curled in the hem of John's shirt, where he hoped John wouldn't notice. John had to inhale deeply to hold back the feeling that night was setting in at a quarter to eleven in the morning. In England, it was. Damn.
"It's serious," he said. When it only took days to miss someone this much, it was. "You tell me when you don't wanna hear it, okay?"
Lucy gave a short laugh. "Okay. You said he was someone I knew."
"Yeah, I think you'll remember him. Guy name of Matt Farrell."
Lucy paused, then burst out laughing.
"Luce?"
"You really had me going there, Dad," Lucy giggled.
"I'm not joking."
"Yeah, sure," Lucy drawled, still laughing. "The cute little hacker kid with the big doe eyes, who can barely even lift a gun. And I'm engaged to Johnny Depp. We want you at the wedding."
John looked at the handset, projecting the dial tone louder than it ever managed to get a voice. He hit the off button and set it down. He was starting to regret not having a plan for this eventuality. Improvisation worked better with terrorists and fighter jets. He drank the rest of his coffee, luke-warm by then, in two long gulps, and finished half of the beef and broccoli stir-fry marked for the day.
He picked up the phone before it completed a full ring.
"You weren't kidding, were you?"
"No."
"Oh, my god, Dad. Oh, my god. He's my age."
John grimaced. "He's five years older than you."
"Oh, my god--"
"Lucy, don't hang up--"
"I'll hang up on you if I want to!" John braced himself for the dial tone, but apparently she didn't want to just yet. "God, Dad, he could be my brother. That's disgusting."
John let out a long breath. "Don't think it didn't bother me, at first."
"Don't tell me he seduced you. That kid had all the seductive mojo of a plush toy."
John's eyebrow quirked. He wanted to ask, but filed it away for later. "No," he said. "Nobody seduced anybody." Matt could turn it on when he wanted to, but that had come gradually, once he was more secure in the idea that John wanted him. Matt had begun with the unpracticed, often clumsy appeal of a beginner, unskilled, but passionately earnest--and he hadn't entirely lost it, even now. "It wasn't like that."
"What was it like?" Lucy asked, voice hard.
So John told her how Matt had nowhere to go after the Fire Sale, and even his parents wouldn't have him--that drew a mutter of disapproval from Lucy--so he had moved into John's spare room. He told her about Matt's ambitions to clean up after the disaster. He told her about sitting through the blackouts together.
"I don't know what to tell you, Luce. At first, he was just good company. It was fun having a roommate to shoot the shit and eat dinner with. He got under my skin as I got to know him. I didn't notice it happening. Just suddenly realized I didn't wanna live without him."
There was a long silence. "I don't know how I feel about you feeling like that for anyone but Mom."
"I can understand that."
"You can?"
"Yeah. Look, Luce, I don't expect you to be gung-ho about this--"
"Good."
"But it was gonna come up sooner or later--"
"Even if your fellow cops hadn't been snooping around?"
"Yeah, although I think it would've been later than sooner."
"I'll bet," Lucy snorted.
"Luce," John sighed.
"Chill." Lucy gave an exasperated sigh of her own. "I've got enough reasons to hate you already. This doesn't really rank."
"Thanks."
"That doesn't mean I like you dating someone I was kinda hoping would call me." John winced. "But, whatever, he was probably too much of a pussy for me, anyway."
"He's not--" John started, but Lucy continued over him.
"And I don't know what I'm gonna tell Jack..."
"Are you gonna tell him?" John asked uncertainly. "Or should I?"
"Oh, you'd really better leave Mini-Mom to me."
"Yes, ma'am," John said.
He thought a pleased note entered her voice. "I'll take care of him. What about Mom?"
Holly and John had spoken while he was in the hospital, after the Fire Sale, for the first time in two years. They had exchanged a couple words in those two years, to coordinate visits with the kids or college tuition arrangements, but that had been their first conversation since Lucy switched majors. John had called to check on Holly and Jack. Holly wasn't surprised to hear that John had been at the center of the mess, but she was furious when she heard Lucy had been involved. "I know it's not your fault, John, but where does it end? When? When are you going to retire and wipe that bull's-eye off your back?"
"I can't retire from this," he'd said.
"No. You really can't, can you?"
Part of him had been hoping for more, he'd realized when they hung up. Hoping the revival of old patterns might rekindle some feeling between them, that Holly might be moved to come see him again, even if it was just that. Instead, it was just a reinforcement of why she hadn't been able to stay in the first place. He couldn't help his luck, but they both knew there was more to it--he wasn't a guy who could walk away from trouble--not to keep himself safe, not to save his marriage. He'd heard the old fatigue in her voice. She couldn't be married to that guy, and John couldn't change.
He didn't want to hear that voice again.
"Can you tell her for me?"
"Sure," said Lucy.
"Counting on ya, Luce."
"I got it," she said. She was his daughter, after all; it'd taken him years to figure out what she'd always understood about him: that the best way to pacify her was to ask for her help. "And now, you don't get to feel sorry for yourself because of this, but it's actually really fun."
"What--?" John started, but was cut off by the echoing slam of Lucy's receiver hitting the hook. Good old Rutgers. Slammable phones in every dorm room.
John eyed his empty coffee cup. Too early in the morning for a beer. Damn shame.
"Seem to remember you tellin' the kid we were gonna charge in and take no prisoners," John muttered. "Who the fuck forgets this kinda thing?"
He hadn't told his children about his relationship with a fellow detective, but that had been ten years ago, when Lucy was still in sixth grade. Both his children were college students, now--adults, or, at least, old enough to have a right to know about major changes in their father's marital status. Well, there was no question of that status changing legally. That challenge to their mother's privilege wasn't an option.
Mini-Mom, Lucy had called her brother. Jack looked like Holly, thought like her, even spoke kinda like her, with allowances for a much lower voice, and had been staunchly pro-Holly in any disagreement since he was old enough to vote by toddling over and grabbing his mother's leg. But if anyone could sway him, it was Lucy. The siblings had been closer to each other than to either of their parents since Lucy turned ten and they got over their squabbling phase. With their parents' marriage in such constant turmoil, John had always been grateful for that.
He expected a call from Matt for the rest of the day, but none came.
Sunday evening, he ate the last dinner from the freezer--lasagne--slowly, without registering much of the taste, though he was trying to savor it.
He had the unpleasant feeling he'd underestimated the situation, that what had seemed simple--or at least simpler--was much more complicated. For months, it had seemed like he and Matt were the only people in the world. Outside the station, he'd been in communication with no one, and now, suddenly, his decisions had ramifications for his children and his ex-wife. There was a childish part of him that resented anyone else's involvement when it ought to concern only him and Matt. But that was the very opposition they had agreed they would blast through. It wasn't so much a blast as a few really uncomfortable conversations, but still, John had promised. He wasn't going to give Matt up. He might owe his family explanations, but he wouldn't change his mind for them. This was a step in making Matt a permanent part of his life, so, ugly or not, it was happening.
John cleared the table, then installed himself on his bed and picked up the phone.
Matt's voice was clear and awake although it was past midnight in England. "I was hoping you'd call."
John rolled his eyes. You tell him not to call, then get bent outta shape when he doesn't. Good, John. You're doin' real well. "Not the greatest timing, huh?"
"Nah, it's cool. I'm going in at a decent hour tomorrow."
"How's it looking?"
"The job? I should be done in a few more days. Probably won't leave much time before my return date, but I can swing it without killing myself."
"Good."
"I bought a hairdryer yesterday."
"Huh?" said John.
"There's a TV, minifridge, microwave and travel iron in here, so I plugged in my laptop and the hairdryer and ran them all at once."
"So what'd you do after the fire department pulled you out the window? Or did you get to use the trampoline?"
Matt chuckled. "Didn't even trip the breaker. I went to Leicester Square Thursday night at midnight, and the restaurants and movies were still open; the place was packed. Regent Street is all decked out in Christmas lights. They've got these really cool new-age lookin' ones that are like clusters of floating orbs, and they change color and flash in different patterns depending on how many pedestrians are on the street, and environmental factors like wind speed and sunlight levels. These science fiction-looking lights hanging in the middle of all this classic architecture--you gotta love it."
"You're gonna use your return ticket, aren't you?" John asked.
"Yeah," said Matt. "The blackouts in New York are a good excuse to take a break. With the uninterrupted power around here, I have to work twenty-four-seven."
John snorted. "They do it for you, y'know."
"Besides," Matt said, "it's no good running. It could happen here as easily as it did in the States. They have most of... Uh... Anyway, I think New York is about the furthest away from my hometown I could survive long-term. I'm just an east coast kinda guy."
"I can get behind that," said John. "California wasn't really for me, either."
"All that nice weather. Maybe we're just born masochistic in the northeast, and we like getting frozen half to death every year. Or we like bitching about it."
"Makes you tough."
"Or makes you Con Edison's bitch. Y'know, one or the other."
John looked at the ceiling. The trouble with suddenly having people in your life after isolating yourself for ten-odd years was you forgot the protocol. "Matt," he said, "did you flirt with Lucy?"
"Uh," said Matt. There was a longish pause. "You're breakin' up, John, what was that?"
"Matt."
"Kidding." Matt sighed. "Yeah, I think so. No, not think--I did. When Gabriel had grabbed us both. But it was just that once."
"As opposed to what other time?" John asked. He hoped his interrogation room voice wasn't kicking in. He just wanted to know.
"Well..." Matt sounded uncomfortable. "She dropped in on me at the hospital. I didn't flirt with her that time. I swear."
"Why not?"
"You told me you'd beat me to death."
"Oh, yeah."
"Actually, it wasn't that," said Matt, "'cause I didn't really believe you by that point." He paused. "It was what you said right after that."
"What'd I say?" The order of things was a little hazy around that point in John's memory; he'd had some morphine in his system, and a fair amount of blood loss.
"You thanked me. And you told me I was that guy." Matt took a deep breath, like he was running it over in his head. "You had sunset on you. Right then, I thought, I'd rather die than disappoint him."
"Oh," said John lamely.
"But I didn't want to, when she came by. At the time, I thought it was because I didn't want to piss you off by hitting on your daughter--'cause that wasn't the kinda thing you did to a guy who'd just saved your life about fifteen times. But I really wasn't stopping myself; I didn't want to, anymore. I mean--I don't know Lucy well, but she seems great. It's just that... I think what drew me to her the most was how like you she is. I had no idea it was headed for... what we have now, but I knew the reason I didn't want you mad at me was that it was you I wanted to stay close to. That's why I came here." Matt swallowed. "Should I stay in England, after all?"
"Only if you wanna make me come get you," said John.
"To beat me to death?"
"Nah, you're off the hook."
"Oh, good."
"So," John said, "that wasn't just outta the blue." He explained the MGM Pool--though he neglected to mention his own wager.
Matt cracked up. "Oh, my god. Did you shoot anyone?"
"It was close."
"Brooklyn's finest have got some guts."
"Lem doesn't think I'll beat him to death, either."
"Thank you for restraining yourself."
"Yeah, well--he isn't the only one. Five people called Lucy to ask her opinion."
"Uh-oh," said Matt.
"So she called me."
"Oh," said Matt. "What'd you tell her?"
"The truth."
"Ohhh," said Matt. "And how'd that go?"
"Not bad, considering," said John. She said she'd break it to Jack and Holly."
"Oh," said Matt.
"You keep saying that."
"Oh--uh, yeah. Wow."
"Is that one of those things you're supposed to decide by committee before makin' announcements?" John asked.
"Uh..." Matt blew out a breath. "I don't know. It's been so long since I had a normal relationship with my family, I'm not sure what the procedures are. I don't wanna cause trouble between you and your kids. That's more important."
"You're important," said John. "That's why they needed to know, sooner or later. If the truth causes trouble, then we've got trouble, because I'm not about to change it."
"Even if your children hate you for it?"
"They're my and Holly's kids. I don't think it'll change that much in the end, but, no, even so."
"You think they'll wanna beat me to death?"
"Nah. Wouldn't hurt to watch your back, though."
"That'd be funnier coming from almost anyone else."
"What about you?" John asked.
"I don't have any kids to beat you up."
"Your parents, genius."
"They didn't tell me they were getting remarried." Matt was quiet a moment. "They weren't interested in me while my life was hell. Kinda feel like the rest of it isn't any of their business. I know that sounds cold, but... I don't know. I think if they suddenly decided to make it their business, it'd only be trouble. I don't really wanna give 'em an excuse to notice me again."
If Matt had been there, John would have touched him--some kind of communication was necessary, but none of the words that came to mind fit. "C'mon home, hack boy," he said.
--December 13, 2008
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