I don’t cry until I'm back in my room and I've drunk almost a third of vodka.
***
The first time I saw Matt he was tending bar at Donnovan's, and I couldn't stop myself from watching him, even though I never did pluck up the courage to say anything to him at all -- not even to go up to the bar and order a drink, let alone a flirt a little. I mean, I was hanging out there because of the university GLB group, and while any kind of a relationship with a student would be a really bad idea, there's a fair few folks not from the University who tag along. It's the nearest thing Fairbanks has to a gay bar. Which doesn't mean that the bar staff are necessarily queer, although I've wondered about Michele a time or two, but makes it easier for a guy to play 'what if' in his head.
So sue me. I'd been in town nine months and not gotten laid. Who wouldn't want some new fantasy fodder after that long?
And Matt? I guess he's not exactly Falcon material, too stocky and solid for that, but to my tastes that's a good thing, and there was just something about him. Something just still and steady, but somehow like there could be anything underneath. I don't know. Maybe I was just desperate for a new face, someone I didn't know a damn thing about yet. Maybe I'm a white trash boy from Tennessee who has kinda a thing for native looking guys, or maybe I'm just a romantic at heart and was looking for any excuse to fall in love a little with the idea of someone.
By the next time we ran into each other, at the OIT helpdesk, I'd come up with a hundred and one histories for him, and a thousand and one futures where we would have ended up in bed, in love, in each other's lives, and in each other's bodies. He called me Chip for awhile after he found that out; reckoned that I should take up poker if I could hide my reactions that well.
I was at work! Well, that and you don't get through high-school in one piece without being able to hide a crush, and I've never quite lost the knack, apparently. Of course, I never turned up on Bobby-the-quarterback's doorstep and lurched from 'Hi, how are you?' to kissing him in the hallway in minutes either, so it's nice to know that some things do change.
So, yeah. I pretty much threw myself at this guy after maybe a half hour of conversation, and he caught me. The first time we kissed was in the doorway of this big house he was taking care of for the winter. The first time he sucked up a mark on my neck was against the wall of the hallway, the first time I blew him was on the stairs, and the first time he made me come was right there on top of him. Best gamble I ever took is what I told my room-mates when I hadn't been home in three days and Mitchell came into work and hauled me out for lunch with them both.
It's funny how things change, looking back.
***
When I wake up, I'm stiff and grainy from passing out in my clothes, my head and my knee are pounding, and my mouth….The first thing I'm going to do when I eventually muster the energy to haul myself to my feet is to brush my teeth. Drink some water. Take painkillers. Grab a Dew out of the fridge, and get back into my room without talking to anyone. I have a plan.
I turn it over in my sodden mind for a while, and it still looks about as good as it's going to get. Sure beats thinking about anything that happened yesterday.
One good thing about this godforsaken state is that, now that winter's really bitten down, at least I don't have to worry about opening the drapes and getting a face full of sunlight. In fact, even though it's nearly noon, I have to flick on the main lights as I lurch through the doorway.
I've only accomplished the toothpaste when the knocking starts. I rinse and spit, waiting to see if anyone answers. Mitch is most likely over at Su's place, seeing as it's a weekend, but Dirk might be in, and if I stay here in the bathroom I don't have to face him or whoever's at the door. When I've damped down my hair and rubbed enough water into my face that the world's starting to be a bit less blurry and the knocking's still going -- rat a tat tat every minute or two -- I figure that Dirk must have gotten lucky last night as well. Our visitor doesn't seem that likely to just go away, either, so I shuffle for the door.
It's Matt.
It's Matt and before I can slam the door in his face, he's stepping in, forcing me back with the power of pure good manners. Well, that and the very cold air that rushes in with him. For a split second the grin he flashes is warm, familiar, right, and then reality catches up, and I can taste bile in the back of my mouth.
He unzips and unwraps without speaking, and the slide of cloth and the vibration of the furnace are the only sounds. When he breaks the silence his voice is matter of fact, but he doesn't quite meet my eyes.
"Don't suppose we could do this in the kitchen, could we? I'd kill for a cup of coffee."
I can't think where to even start.
Mostly I can't think, although the faint remnants of yesterday's blinding anger are starting to wake me up. Matt takes silence for an answer and moves toward the back of the house and the kitchen as though he belongs there. He's got the coffee machine filled and on before I manage to form words.
"What are you doing here?" It's an effort, but I keep it to a neutral tone.
"We need to talk."
"Are you going to say anything I can believe this time, or is it always all lies for you?"
He turns with his back to the counter, arms crossed behind him, just looking at me.
"I guess I deserve that."
"You guess? You guess? Jesus! You're not even going to deny it?"
"No. I spoke with Ramon, by the way. He filled me in on your accident. I'm just glad you got out of that wreck more or less in one piece!"
"What do you mean, no? What the hell…?" My head is pounding, and I pinch the bridge of my nose. Jesus.
The small sounds that answer me are those of Matt opening the side cabinet where we've stored pills and potions for as long as I've lived here, and crossing the kitchen to put the big rattling bottle of pain pills on the counter beside my hand. The contrast is insane.
"Matt, just -- what the fuck? I thought -- I thought I knew you. I know how you take your coffee and that you hate the smell of bug spray and how hard you like your balls to be touched when you're getting blown, and, hell, you know your way around my house well enough, but I don’t, do I? I don't know a fucking thing about your real life, and why are you even here?"
He shrugs, backing off just a fraction, although I'm hyper-aware that his hand is still on the work surface, just millimeters away from my own. Still standing close enough that he has to look up a little to meet my eyes.
"Because I owe you an apology, Dan. I lied to you. I'm sorry."
"That's it? You're sorry? What? Like that’s supposed to make it better?"
He looks away, and for the first time I think I can see what he's feeling. He looks hurt. Sad. I don’t know how to react to that.
"Well. I hoped it … I hoped you might let me explain some."
The coffee is finishing up and making two cups -- black with three sugars for him, creamer and none for me -- gives me time to think. In the end I pass him a mug and decide to let him talk. Maybe it will help.
"Go on then, Matt. This I want to hear. Fuck. Is that even your name?"
The thought that it might not be hits like a fist, and I feel queasy again. When his hand brushes the back of mine, I don't flinch this time.
"Yes. Well, short for Mahto, but you know that. Shit. Look, Dan. You know me. You know me better than anyone has since I left my family. "
The laugh chokes in my throat. He looks to me for explanation, and it's like a hundred thousand shared moments from my memories, so I say it. "That's pretty sad, if it's true."
"It's true. You really think that's sad?"
"Given that I pretty much know nothing, I'd say so."
He's leaning back against the counter top, staring into his coffee, blunt fingers wrapped around yellow ceramic, and I know it's crazy but I've missed him.
"You know me. You know my name, my character, my heart. You know why I came back for you, although I guess you might not know that you do yet." When he
looks up, he catches my eye, and his smile is rueful, rain-on-your-wedding-day-ironic. "I messed up. I should have told you, it's just…"
Everything about his posture, his breathing, the way his fingers are flexing on his mug, tells me this is hard for him, and if he's acting he ought to be in Hollywood. He takes a deep breath.
"It probably doesn’t make it any better, but I wasn't lying to you Dan, just -- to everyone. Oregon is, I guess you'd call it a cover story."
Memories of increasingly frantic web searches and desperate phone calls wash over me. Damn right it's a cover story; a bad one. The University of Oregon doesn't even have a post graduate biology program. He must have caught the gist of my thoughts because he makes a small shrug as he continues. "Not even a good one, I know, but Dan, you've got to believe that I have a good reason why I can't tell you where I really was -- what I do all summer."
"Matt Quinhagak, international man of mystery?"
I can't help but make the joke, with the atmosphere so serious.
"Something like that."
I wait for a moment, until it becomes apparent that that's all he's planning on saying.
"That's it? That's your explanation?"
"Yes? Really, Dan, I can't tell you. Can't tell anyone. I'm not even meant to tell you that there's something I can't tell you, and,” his mug clatters on the counter and all of a sudden he's close enough that I can feel him through jeans and layers of shirts. "I missed you."
Three words, and somehow I'm touching him, my arm going around his thick waist, and leaning down to meet his lips is like everything sliding back into focus. When his hands scrabble under the edges of my shirt to skim up around my ribs, I shiver all over, and somehow, in those moments, a decision is made.
***
We didn't even make a pretence of taking it slowly. I think the only reason he didn't move into my rooms sooner was that it took him three days to get around to telling me that the Kupfer's were wintering at home this year, so he had neither a collection of neurotic lizards to look after, nor a real place to stay. We got cosy so fast it occasionally made my head spin, and it certainly confused the hell out of the handful of friends who knew our history.
The mystery in the history became a running joke. That first day, wrapped around each other in my messed up bed, I broke off from kissing each bit of skin I could reach to say 'so maybe you're a spy?' and he laughed and said maybe he was, except that he'd always thought the FBI paid better.
It was like that, odd moments and maybes, and none of them made sense so all of them seemed like jokes. Maybe he's in the army, maybe he's escaped from the nut house, maybe he's on seasonal release from the alien's human farm, maybe he's a terrorist, maybe he's secretly breeding mutant trees, maybe he's a snow spirit, maybe he's a Russian spy, maybe he's infiltrating Greenpeace on behalf of the Japanese whaling industry. Maybe, maybe, maybe, but the man snoring in my arms and cooking me dinner and getting beaten at Teken and massaging my healing muscles, the man making me laugh and come was real, and that's what mattered.
It was a relatively conscious decision to accept it, too. I certainly had to explain it enough times to enough concerned friends, and I could see why they'd be worried, it was just that being back with him felt so much better than being alone did, I was willing to let things ride. I'd spent a long time after the accident feeling very alone in the world. Even when I was discharged from the hospital, when the guys had a schedule pinned up on the fridge for helping me out, so there'd be someone around every evening to keep me from moping, it never felt as right as Matt's arm around my waist did. Sarah accused me of hiding from reality with him, but the fact remained that for the first time in months I was sleeping through the night without nightmares of that pickup hurtling towards Tex's car.
So, nothing was really resolved, but we had mostly good times, and he accepted my new limits, and I tried not to think about the maybes too hard.
***
My whole entire plan for the evening is to collapse on the couch and look pitiful until Matt brings me dinner. Eight months since my accident and the physio sessions are down to one every two or three weeks but they still wipe me out. Larry insists it's for my own good, but damn. I'm wrung out like a sponge after two hours with him, even if I do mostly keep to my exercise schedule between times. Matt might tease me about it sometimes, but I will be climbing this summer, and if that means hitting the gym and doing stuff at home every day, that's what I'll do.
Only, for the time being, what I'm mostly doing is leaning against Matt and poking him in the side to get him to put down his book and go make me some food. Maybe a little poking for its own enjoyment, too. His top shirt is blue, washed so soft it almost feels like a baby blanket, and he's warm and just yielding enough to the touch, and every time he shifts a fraction away from my demanding fingertip, he leans his shoulders in a fraction toward mine. I can feel him, ribs to ribs, trying not to laugh, and I'm pretty sure that, if I look away from the TV, he’ll be watching me, all dark eyes and affection. Love, maybe, although he's never said it in those words.
I'm so lost in my thoughts that he takes me by surprise when he drops his shoulder and wriggles free, leaving me sprawled on the couch. He's surprisingly fast and flexible for a guy his size.
"Bastard! I was comfortable!" I tease, and his hand is hot around my wrist, turning me right side up again.
"Yeah, yeah, comfortable but starving. What do you want? A cook or a comforter?"
I catch his hand, holding it so I can gnaw gently at the side of it, which makes him chuckle.
"Ok, ok -- I'll go make dinner."
"Thanking you!" I call after him, and he leans back around the door to give me the finger, so I blow him a kiss.
Both my room-mates are still at work, and the house is quiet enough for me to hear him moving around the kitchen, opening the fridge door, rinsing something off in the sink. The summer, and its pain and misery, seems a very long time ago. I'm half watching an old Burt Reynolds film, and half dozing, and it's warm and comfortable and I'm tired, but happy.
The clatter of pans and breaking crockery from the kitchen startles me, but it's the fraction of a second of silence where Matt's cussing should be that starts me panicking.
"Matt? You ok?"
It feels like it takes me forever to scramble to my feet, stiff muscles protesting. By the time I reach the kitchen my heart is in my mouth, and when I see Matt slumped down by the cabinets surrounded by raw chops and broken plates, it pretty much stops altogether.
Everything about what I can see broadcasts wrong I get to my knees at his side and my first aid training kicks in, hands running on autopilot. He's breathing, but not well. Pulse fast and thready. Pale, clammy skin. Barely responsive, although by the time I skim my right hand down his left leg, looking for injuries, he's starting to move, rolling his head and there are small painful sounds breaking up his breathing. I try everything, talking to him, calling his name, holding his hand, his face, slapping his cheeks gently, pinching his ear -- he's semi-conscious but not responsive. We're pretty much at the far end of a one day first aid class and all I can think is that it's time to call the cavalry, insurance or none. Except that the phone is in the front room and my knee's locked, and Matt's unconscious for no visible reason and I'm halfway hysterical, laughing and crying and choking and pleading with Matt to ‘please baby, please look at me.’
I'm not at all clear how long we're stuck like that -- long enough for my knee to put my thigh muscles into spasm and even in the middle of all this drama and panic I can't help but yelp, because the pain is just that much. I've got my eyes screwed up, trying to focus, to breath, to work out what to do, how to move, how to endure, and I don't hear the truck pull up outside, or the key in the door, only Mitch's stunned ”Shit!”
Guess the cavalry made it after all.
Mitch hauls me unceremoniously to my feet -- foot, really -- and it's a testament to the guy's good nature that he even gives Matt a long enough look to figure out wh
o the real invalid is. Mitch has told me, repeatedly, he doesn't understand why I would want Matt back, let alone why I'd ever trust him again, but when I grit my teeth over the pain, and grind out 'I'm fine', Mitch goes to his knees in our messed up little kitchen. I've never been so grateful in my life.
Until maybe a moment later, when Mitch gets an actual reaction from Matt. It's fuzzy and unfocussed, but it's a definite sign of consciousness. His second word is my name, and I curse my leg for the millionth time as I start to go to him only to be stopped by the fact that it's a burning mess of pain. Mitch shoulders his way under Matt's arm, gradually helping him up, where we can lean fuzzily against each other. Matt's gripping the counter with a white knuckled grip, but edges his hand along so our fingers can brush. His are ice cold.
"What in the heck happened? You ok, Matt?" Mitch asks.
Matt's still pale -- almost grey under his tan -- and his skin looks damp and wrong. He's holding his head as though it's precariously balanced, and his voice, when it comes, is thick and uncertain.
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