Entry tags:
Behold, a fic
***
Erm. Behold... This.
Look. I was made to watch the Friends Reunion thingy and came out of that experience with a fucking plot bunny of all things. Am I glad that my months long creative drought has at least momentarily ended? Fuck yes. Would I preferred it had been by anything except fucking Friends RPF? Yes. Emphatically yes. But here we are.
Haha.
Ha.
***
***
Erm. Behold... This.
Look. I was made to watch the Friends Reunion thingy and came out of that experience with a fucking plot bunny of all things. Am I glad that my months long creative drought has at least momentarily ended? Fuck yes. Would I preferred it had been by anything except fucking Friends RPF? Yes. Emphatically yes. But here we are.
Haha.
Ha.
***
Title: The One Where They Finally Talk About It
Author: ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kat_lair / Mistress Kat
kat_lair / Mistress KatFandom: Friends RPF, Actor RPF
Pairing: Matt LeBlanc/Matthew Perry
Rating: M
Word count: 3,663
Disclaimer: Very not true.
Disclaimer: Very not true.
Summary: Turns out, there are things left to talk about after the interview. This time without a live studio audience.
“You didn’t say anything.” Matt's voice is as carefully neutral as only a trained actor’s can be.
For a split-second Matthew thinks about replying with ‘say what?’ or something equally bland, pretending he doesn’t understand, but…
“No,” he answers instead. “Neither did you.”
Author notes: Please bear two things in mind: 1) I know next to nothing about these actors and have done only the bare minimum of research re timeline. If there's something here that's wildly incorrect (beyond the obvious) you are welcome to tell me but I won't be doing any extensive rewrites. It's all make believe anyway, folks. 2) As with all my RPF assume real life significant others, past or present, don't exist. Adultery is a big squick for me so we're neatly bypassing that issue. See above re make believe. The fic also counts as #23 of my 100 Fandoms Challenge. Joint AO3 Collection here.
The One Where They Finally Talk About It on AO3
It’s Matt who finds him in the hotel bar later that night, because of course it is. It’s fine though because he can do this now; sit in a bar and nurse a glass of diet coke and not even feel like he’s shaking out of his skin. Much.
Doesn’t stop Matt from casting a quick speculative eye over his drink when he sits down. He doesn’t say anything though which is a point in his favor, not that he needs it.
“Perry,” he greets him and Matthew rolls his eyes. It’s an old joke between them.
“LeBlanc,” he says, lifting his glass. “Come to join me for a mediocre soft drink of dubious origin.” He’s pretty sure what he has is not a branded product but it’s already diluted enough with ice that it doesn’t make much of a difference.
Matt’s posture relaxes perceptibly at the confirmation of the non-alcoholic nature of Matthew’s drink, which is precisely why he let it slip.
“Alright,” Matt says, sliding into the opposite side of the booth and taking off his mask. “Get me an orange soda, as neon as they make it. Matthew.” The switch to first name is accompanied by a grin, familiar enough to make something almost painful but mostly sweet curl in Matthew’s chest.
“Coming right up,” he says, tugging up his mask where it’s around his neck and heading to the bar. He’s Matthew almost exclusively to this group of people and in this context. Most non-Friends related people in his life call him Matt, but here that would’ve only caused confusion. They were Matt and Matthew within the first forty-eight hours of filming, and within a week Matthew had stopped tagging ‘you can call me Matt, maybe Matt Two, haha?’ at the end every time he introduced himself to someone new. ‘Matty’ came later, maybe not until the end of the first season, when it was clear they’d be picked up for another, and he could trust this thing to last, at least for a little while.
The thing with the names had made him feel like older of the two despite Matt actually having a couple of years on him, less… fun. Like he was already past it. And Matt looking like he did back then, hadn’t exactly helped.
“Here you go.” The bartender slides over a glass of something violently orange and bubbly and Matthew waves his card over the proffered reader in return.
He grabs the drink and walks back slowly, taking the time to observe Matt while he’s distracted by messing with his phone. Out of all of them he’s the one who actually looks like his age, not younger like the women and David, the bastard, or actually older like Matthew himself, though maybe that’s just the week of toothache and nerves about today that have added chapters to the story his mirror is telling. Regardless, Matthew likes it. He likes the silver of Matt’s hair, the crow’s feet around his eyes, the solid frame of him, the soft press of his stomach and the strength of his grip when they’d hugged earlier.
“Drink if you dare,” he says, thunking the glass onto the table before taking his seat. He pulls down his mask again, breathing in relief. The ice in his own glass is all but melted now and the non-brand-coke tastes mostly like water and aspartame. Matthew doesn’t mind.
Matt takes a sip, grimaces, and immediately takes a longer one. “That’s disgusting,” he says. “I love it.”
Matthew snorts. “Of course you do.”
They sit in silence for a bit. Around them, the hotel bar is only half-full, even Hollywood ground to an almost-halt by the virus. There are probably more staff around than guests, and for the first time in a long while he and Matt may just be the most famous people in the room.
The thought makes him laugh. Matt raises an eyebrow.
“What’s so funny?”
“Fame,” Matthew says, picking up a spare coaster to spin around. He doesn’t need it, not the way he used to, but it’s still grounding to have something to keep his fingers occupied. It really is a wonder he never took up smoking.
Matt’s other eyebrow joins its mate. “You miss it?” he asks.
“Hell no!” Matthew tosses the coaster down for dramatic emphasis; best he can do here without actually ending up in the tabloids again. “Didn’t suit me at all, if you remember.”
“I remember,” Matt concedes softly. He stirs the ice around with a straw, before looking straight at him. “Miss us, at least?” he asks.
“I…” Matthew slumps down on his seat and tips his head back, breaking eye contact. “Yeah,” he says at last. “Yeah, ‘cos I do.” It’s not a lie, just not the whole truth, but he doesn’t know how to explain the latter. He misses them, he’s glad to see them, he does pick up the phone when one of them calls but… He doesn’t miss who he was for a lot of that decade they spent in each other’s pockets, and how part of who he was was because of them. It’s not their fault, he’s not blaming anyone except maybe his fucked up brain chemistry, but it’s complicated and messy and Matthew’s reached the bottom of his already shallow bucket of nostalgic platitudes.
“Okay,” Matt says like he’s agreeing to everything Matthew’s not said out loud as well as the little he has. “Me too.” He kicks Matthew’s legs under the table, hard enough to jolt him upwards again. “Missed you.”
“We saw each other like…” Matthew thinks back. “At that charity thing. Just before the lockdown.”
“Oh yeah, for ten whole minutes.”
Matthew shrugs. He hadn’t tried to avoid Matt or anything like that, but neither had he really tried to seek him out again, after their initial ‘oh my god, didn’t expect to see you here!’ chat got interrupted.
Matt huffs and opens his mouth to retort, but then clearly changes his mind half-way through the first syllable. There’s a beat of silence and then: “That was something. Tonight, I mean.”
Okay then. Matthew thinks he knows where this is going and fights hard not to tense. “It sure was something,” he agrees.
Matt eyes him for a moment and then leans forward, both elbows on the table, voice lowered. “Didn’t know he was going to ask that, though. About whether there was ever anything… You know. Going on,” he adds, as if Matthew didn’t know exactly what question he was referring to.
“Yeah, you did,” Matthew says. “We all did. It was in the list of questions they sent.” He’d thought about vetoing it but by that point he’d already crossed out at least five other questions and figured he’d ran out of leniency.
“Okay, yes. But I didn’t expect him to actually ask it.” Matt’s hands are flat against the table, thick and sturdy, fingers splayed wide like he needs the support.
“Jen and David clearly did,” Matthew comments. He’s hoping for a diversion even though he knows Matt better than that. The man is like a dog with a bone. When he gets hold of something, or someone, he doesn’t let go easily. God knows Matthew tried.
“Not here to talk about them,” Matt says in confirmation.
Matthew refuses to ask the obvious question. Instead, he focuses on his breathing – in-one-two-three, out-one-two-three, in-one-two-three – until he doesn’t feel like just making a break for the nearest exit. Running away would be easier but, as his therapist so eloquently put it, turning your back on things only made it easier for them to bite you in the ass.
Besides, he probably owes this to Matt.
Matt, who is looking determined and apprehensive in equal measure, still gripping the table top like it’s the last piece of driftwood in the stormy sea.
“You didn’t say anything.” His voice is as carefully neutral as only a trained actor’s can be.
For a split-second Matthew thinks about replying with ‘say what?’ or something equally bland, pretending he doesn’t understand, but…
“No,” he answers instead. “Neither did you.”
Something about the words – the admission of it, Matthew guesses – lands like a right hook, and he watches Matt visibly reel back, shoulders pressed right into the cushions of the seat.
“Oh, fuck you,” he breathes, shocked though he must have anticipated this, must have known at least on some level to even start the conversation. “I thought you didn’t remember. Over twenty years, you let me think you didn’t remember.”
“Yeah.” Matthew doesn’t apologize because he’s not sorry. Well. He’s maybe a little sorry about the expression on Matt’s face right now, some kind of sour looking mix of incredulity and hurt, but he’s decidedly not sorry about ensuring that the show didn’t suffer no matter how badly his personal life was falling apart, nor is he sorry about keeping twenty years of sort-of-friendship sort-of-going.
“Why?”
And there it is. The same look of honest confusion he’d had that night, superimposed onto an older version of the familiar face.
'What are you doing?' he’d asked. 'Hey, hey, Matthew, what…?' Bewildered, but not resisting, not pushing Matthew away. Instead, his hands had settled onto Matthew’s hips, steadying him as he’d climbed into Matt’s lap, shaking from withdrawal but determined that this time, this time he wouldn’t cave, this time would be different… He’d just needed something. Something to distract him.
Someone.
Matthew sighs. There’s nothing but melted ice in his glass now but he takes a sip anyway. “In case you’ve forgotten,” he says and makes himself look Matt in the eye, “I was never very good at facing the consequences of my mistakes.”
And then – on a day Matthew’s already done several things he’d never expected to – something even more surprising happens.
Matt flinches.
His shoulders curl forward, hands convulsing around the half-empty glass until the ice rattles, and when he draws a breath it goes in knife sharp and comes out shaky.
“Right,” he bites out, “Mistake,” at the same time as Matthew stutters out “What? No,” because he’s starting to suspect that the conversation he thought they were having is maybe not the conversation they’re actually having.
It’s not much but it’s enough to crack the awful blank mask that had dropped over Matt’s face.
“Explain,” he says. “You owe me that much.”
“I…” The thing is, he’s not wrong. Matthew rubs a hand over his face, the left side of his mouth throbbing softly, the painkillers long worn off and not like he could afford to take any more. “How did you know?”
“Perry…”
“I’m not avoiding the question,” Matthew promises, holding his hands up placatingly. He wants to reach out and touch, maybe just give Matt’s forearm a quick squeeze, but the easy physical affection from earlier is long gone and he doesn’t want to risk it. “Just… Humor me. Please. How did you know I remembered? Twenty years is a long time and you’ve never brought this up before.”
Matt stares at him for a bit, lips pressed together in an unhappy line, until he relents. “You looked at me,” he says simply. “When Corden asked that question, you looked over and…” Matt shrugs.
He had, that’s the thing. He’d known that fucking question was coming, had even practiced a face of bland amusement to put on for the occasion, picked a camera to smirk at and everything and he’d still glanced at Matt, on pure, helpless fucking instinct, and it shouldn’t have mattered, wouldn’t have mattered expect…
Expect Matt had been looking right back.
And now here they are; two mostly has been actors in their fifties, having some kind of emotional catharsis over subpar sodas. God, if they ever ran out of money they could probably recreate this on Oprah.
It would’ve been funny if he wasn’t the butt of the joke. Well. It still kind of was.
“I was a mess,” Matthew starts. It’s familiar ground. He’s started a lot of stories over the last few decades with those exact words, like his own fucked up version of ‘once upon a time’. It’s a neat summary of the hazy spiral of anxiety and chemical numbness, of never feeling good enough or funny enough or even fucking warm enough, the days when the only thing keeping him going was the knowledge that if he didn’t miss a line, if he still showed up at every call time, at least they couldn’t fire him.
Matt nods. “You were,” he agrees. “But you were getting help.”
And that had been worse. Getting better had been an awful, disgusting, pathetic process of failing and failing and failing and getting sober enough to realize exactly how badly he was doing that.
Matthew had hated every miserable minute of it.
“We… I should’ve done mo—”
“Don’t.” Matthew shakes his head sharply, and to his credit Matt doesn’t push it. He’s had this conversation before, with pretty much everyone in the cast and crew, back when they were still filming and Matthew, newly sober, had to ask for old scripts to read to figure out what the fuck had happened during the three seasons he only remembered in fragments.
They’d all tried and none of it had made a goddamn difference.
“I was… It wasn’t good.” He’s had to explain his addiction before, many times, has talked about the underlying reasons to three separate therapists until his voice gave out, but he’s never really had to put to words what the recovery was like. Probably because most people either already knew from personal experience, or were just relieved he’d reached the destination and not interested in the journey. “Everything hurt. All the time,” he tries again. Because he owes this to Matt. “And I just… I wanted to feel something good, just for a bit. And you…”
Across the table, Matt’s mouth tips up at the corner, resigned. “I was there,” he finishes the sentence. “And I was willing.”
“Yes,” Matthew says. “And no. It wasn’t convenience.”
He remembers standing outside Matt’s hotel room, fingers pressed against the dark wood of it, but not what city they’d been in. He remembers the garish gold of the bed spread but not what was it about that day that had pushed him to the point where he’d gone and done what he’d thought about a million times before, two million after. He remembers saying ‘please’ and ‘Matty’, knowing he was playing dirty with the nickname and doing it anyway, remembers the soft yield of Matt’s mouth, how he’d wanted it to hurt, Matt to bite and bruise, to make him take it.
He remembers how Matt wouldn’t, and wishes he didn’t.
“It was you,” he tells him now. “I wanted you. I used…” Matthew swallows, blinks, forces himself to continue, to look Matt in the fucking eye and tell him. “And you were… kind about it.”
'You can,' Matt had said. 'It’s okay, it’s okay, shh, it’s good,' while Matthew had dragged his cold, trembling hands under his t-shirt, and his clumsy, no good mouth over the thick tendons of his neck and it had been good and awful, everything he’d wanted and nothing he’d deserved.
“Kind?” Matt says the word like it’s foreign language, like he can’t even begin to guess at its meaning.
“And I didn’t want to… lose that, I guess,” Matthew continues. “It was selfish and stupid, maybe the worst in a long line of selfish and stupid things I did back then, but I thought if I didn’t say anything I could just… keep that. This one good thing that I took.”
He’d woken up while it was still dark outside, the curtains of the hotel room open because neither of them had gotten up to close them, either before or after. Matt’s arm had been heavy over his middle, his body already thickened from the twink-like early seasons to something sturdier and healthier. Matthew had lain there, fully clothed but sticky in a way that left little doubt over the reliability of his memories, which were… selective for sure, but clear, achingly so, for a change.
And he’d thought ‘I want this’ and ‘Matt might let me have this’ and he couldn’t do it, couldn’t drag Matt down with him.
“So you left,” Matt says now. “And the next day, when I sought you out, you gave me this whole speech about how the withdrawal was messing with your brain. And the day after that…”
Matthew remembers. “The day after that I checked myself into rehab. Again.” They’d been between filming, right at the start of some press tour, and producers had readily agreed to let him off in exchange even the possibility of having him back fully conscious for the next season.
“That was…” Matt huffs in frustration.
“What?”
“I want to tell you that it was a dick move, but…” Matt crosses his arms and then very deliberately uncrosses them immediately after. “You checked yourself into rehab. That was a good move.”
Matthew wants to tell him that while the whole ‘keeping his body language in check’ is kind of sweet, it’s also unnecessary. He’s never once been intimated by Matt, not like that anyway, which is probably at least partly why they’re even having this conversation.
There’s a sudden crash from the bar and both of them jump, glancing over. The bartender is already busy cleaning up after the mishap, clearly having dropped something breakable and probably expensive judging by the amount of cursing. The interruption breaks the tension somewhat and when Matthew turns back, Matt is leaning on the table again, not exactly smiling but more relaxed at least.
Which makes the next words out of his mouth all the more devastating.
“Letting me think that I’d taken advantage of a friend who was too fucking high to know what he was doing however… That was a shitty move.”
Matthew frowns, genuinely thrown. “Why would you…? You asked.” Unlike most people, though Matthew has the presence of mind not to say that part out loud. “And you didn’t… You wouldn’t let me.” That part he remembers with excruciating clarity; scrabbling with Matt’s belt, still shaking from his own orgasm and desperate to get his mouth on Matt, grateful to feel the hard length of him under denim because at least it proved something, if not that much at the end of the day.
Only to be told ‘No, no, c’mon, not like this, let’s just…’ as Matt had gathered up his hands and pulled them both down to the bed, curling around Matthew until he’d fallen asleep.
The look Matt is giving him right now is very different from back then. Less… kind, for a start.
“I wanted to,” he says, blunt and overwhelmingly honest.
Turns out, twenty years does nothing to lessen the impact of that. Matthew feels his mouth dropping open, fingers loosening in shock where he’d been gripping an empty glass. His entire body sways forward, only to reel back again at what follows.
“But afterwards,” Matt continues, “when I first thought you just wanted to pretend it didn’t happen and then thought you genuinely didn’t remember, that I’d gotten it wrong after all… The fact that I hadn’t was the only fucking reason I didn’t just…” He rubs a hand over his face, somehow, for the first time that day, managing to seem older than Matthew. More helpless. “I don’t know. Turn myself in or something.”
Matthew gapes. “I… You’re an idiot.” He can’t even imagine the shitshow that would’ve been. The mere idea makes him shudder. “I’m sorry,” because now he is, but he’d never thought… “You’re such an idiot.”
“Well yeah,” Matt says, smiling ruefully. “Stupid about you, that’s for certain.”
Matthew blinks and Matt barks a laugh. It even sounds like genuine amusement, only a little bitter around the edges, like a cake that’s been in the oven just a couple of minutes too long.
“You think Jen and David were the only ones with a crush?” Matt shakes his head, actually chuckling, like it’s the best joke he’s heard in ages and not something that’s just tipped Matthew’s worldview upside down. “Now who’s the idiot?”
Matthew thinks it might be him, which, honestly? Shouldn’t even be a surprise at this point, yet still somehow, wondrously, is.
He’s about to admit as much but doesn’t get the chance.
“Anyway,” Matt says, pushing his empty glass aside and now quite looking Matthew in the eye. “I guess I’m glad we had this talk. And not in front of a live studio audience either.” He flashes a quick grin before pulling up his mask.
This is probably where Matthew should say something, maybe ‘I didn’t know’, obvious as that is, or even ‘wait, don’t go yet’ but he’s still processing, only ever quick with a joke, not with anything that matters, and by the time he opens his mouth, Matt has already gotten up.
“Well,” he says. “Best be off.” He looks at Matthew briefly, eyes unreadable above the mask, before rapping his knuckles against the table. “Don’t be a stranger.”
“No.” Matthew does a weird shake-nod of his head. “I mean yeah, no.” At least that elicits another laugh.
There’s no hug goodbye this time and Matt walks away with nothing but a small wave, clearly heading towards the lifts and his hotel room.
Matthew watches his retreating back and thinks about going after him, except his legs won’t move, and he doesn’t know what he would say anyway. Or do. And it’s stupid, reckless to even contemplate but…
For once, doing nothing doesn’t seem like the safest option.
One thing’s for sure though; Matthew is definitely going to need something stronger than diet coke to figure it out. And if ever there was a perfect excuse…
He goes to the bar and orders an orange soda. On the rocks.
The One Where They Finally Talk About It on AO3
It’s Matt who finds him in the hotel bar later that night, because of course it is. It’s fine though because he can do this now; sit in a bar and nurse a glass of diet coke and not even feel like he’s shaking out of his skin. Much.
Doesn’t stop Matt from casting a quick speculative eye over his drink when he sits down. He doesn’t say anything though which is a point in his favor, not that he needs it.
“Perry,” he greets him and Matthew rolls his eyes. It’s an old joke between them.
“LeBlanc,” he says, lifting his glass. “Come to join me for a mediocre soft drink of dubious origin.” He’s pretty sure what he has is not a branded product but it’s already diluted enough with ice that it doesn’t make much of a difference.
Matt’s posture relaxes perceptibly at the confirmation of the non-alcoholic nature of Matthew’s drink, which is precisely why he let it slip.
“Alright,” Matt says, sliding into the opposite side of the booth and taking off his mask. “Get me an orange soda, as neon as they make it. Matthew.” The switch to first name is accompanied by a grin, familiar enough to make something almost painful but mostly sweet curl in Matthew’s chest.
“Coming right up,” he says, tugging up his mask where it’s around his neck and heading to the bar. He’s Matthew almost exclusively to this group of people and in this context. Most non-Friends related people in his life call him Matt, but here that would’ve only caused confusion. They were Matt and Matthew within the first forty-eight hours of filming, and within a week Matthew had stopped tagging ‘you can call me Matt, maybe Matt Two, haha?’ at the end every time he introduced himself to someone new. ‘Matty’ came later, maybe not until the end of the first season, when it was clear they’d be picked up for another, and he could trust this thing to last, at least for a little while.
The thing with the names had made him feel like older of the two despite Matt actually having a couple of years on him, less… fun. Like he was already past it. And Matt looking like he did back then, hadn’t exactly helped.
“Here you go.” The bartender slides over a glass of something violently orange and bubbly and Matthew waves his card over the proffered reader in return.
He grabs the drink and walks back slowly, taking the time to observe Matt while he’s distracted by messing with his phone. Out of all of them he’s the one who actually looks like his age, not younger like the women and David, the bastard, or actually older like Matthew himself, though maybe that’s just the week of toothache and nerves about today that have added chapters to the story his mirror is telling. Regardless, Matthew likes it. He likes the silver of Matt’s hair, the crow’s feet around his eyes, the solid frame of him, the soft press of his stomach and the strength of his grip when they’d hugged earlier.
“Drink if you dare,” he says, thunking the glass onto the table before taking his seat. He pulls down his mask again, breathing in relief. The ice in his own glass is all but melted now and the non-brand-coke tastes mostly like water and aspartame. Matthew doesn’t mind.
Matt takes a sip, grimaces, and immediately takes a longer one. “That’s disgusting,” he says. “I love it.”
Matthew snorts. “Of course you do.”
They sit in silence for a bit. Around them, the hotel bar is only half-full, even Hollywood ground to an almost-halt by the virus. There are probably more staff around than guests, and for the first time in a long while he and Matt may just be the most famous people in the room.
The thought makes him laugh. Matt raises an eyebrow.
“What’s so funny?”
“Fame,” Matthew says, picking up a spare coaster to spin around. He doesn’t need it, not the way he used to, but it’s still grounding to have something to keep his fingers occupied. It really is a wonder he never took up smoking.
Matt’s other eyebrow joins its mate. “You miss it?” he asks.
“Hell no!” Matthew tosses the coaster down for dramatic emphasis; best he can do here without actually ending up in the tabloids again. “Didn’t suit me at all, if you remember.”
“I remember,” Matt concedes softly. He stirs the ice around with a straw, before looking straight at him. “Miss us, at least?” he asks.
“I…” Matthew slumps down on his seat and tips his head back, breaking eye contact. “Yeah,” he says at last. “Yeah, ‘cos I do.” It’s not a lie, just not the whole truth, but he doesn’t know how to explain the latter. He misses them, he’s glad to see them, he does pick up the phone when one of them calls but… He doesn’t miss who he was for a lot of that decade they spent in each other’s pockets, and how part of who he was was because of them. It’s not their fault, he’s not blaming anyone except maybe his fucked up brain chemistry, but it’s complicated and messy and Matthew’s reached the bottom of his already shallow bucket of nostalgic platitudes.
“Okay,” Matt says like he’s agreeing to everything Matthew’s not said out loud as well as the little he has. “Me too.” He kicks Matthew’s legs under the table, hard enough to jolt him upwards again. “Missed you.”
“We saw each other like…” Matthew thinks back. “At that charity thing. Just before the lockdown.”
“Oh yeah, for ten whole minutes.”
Matthew shrugs. He hadn’t tried to avoid Matt or anything like that, but neither had he really tried to seek him out again, after their initial ‘oh my god, didn’t expect to see you here!’ chat got interrupted.
Matt huffs and opens his mouth to retort, but then clearly changes his mind half-way through the first syllable. There’s a beat of silence and then: “That was something. Tonight, I mean.”
Okay then. Matthew thinks he knows where this is going and fights hard not to tense. “It sure was something,” he agrees.
Matt eyes him for a moment and then leans forward, both elbows on the table, voice lowered. “Didn’t know he was going to ask that, though. About whether there was ever anything… You know. Going on,” he adds, as if Matthew didn’t know exactly what question he was referring to.
“Yeah, you did,” Matthew says. “We all did. It was in the list of questions they sent.” He’d thought about vetoing it but by that point he’d already crossed out at least five other questions and figured he’d ran out of leniency.
“Okay, yes. But I didn’t expect him to actually ask it.” Matt’s hands are flat against the table, thick and sturdy, fingers splayed wide like he needs the support.
“Jen and David clearly did,” Matthew comments. He’s hoping for a diversion even though he knows Matt better than that. The man is like a dog with a bone. When he gets hold of something, or someone, he doesn’t let go easily. God knows Matthew tried.
“Not here to talk about them,” Matt says in confirmation.
Matthew refuses to ask the obvious question. Instead, he focuses on his breathing – in-one-two-three, out-one-two-three, in-one-two-three – until he doesn’t feel like just making a break for the nearest exit. Running away would be easier but, as his therapist so eloquently put it, turning your back on things only made it easier for them to bite you in the ass.
Besides, he probably owes this to Matt.
Matt, who is looking determined and apprehensive in equal measure, still gripping the table top like it’s the last piece of driftwood in the stormy sea.
“You didn’t say anything.” His voice is as carefully neutral as only a trained actor’s can be.
For a split-second Matthew thinks about replying with ‘say what?’ or something equally bland, pretending he doesn’t understand, but…
“No,” he answers instead. “Neither did you.”
Something about the words – the admission of it, Matthew guesses – lands like a right hook, and he watches Matt visibly reel back, shoulders pressed right into the cushions of the seat.
“Oh, fuck you,” he breathes, shocked though he must have anticipated this, must have known at least on some level to even start the conversation. “I thought you didn’t remember. Over twenty years, you let me think you didn’t remember.”
“Yeah.” Matthew doesn’t apologize because he’s not sorry. Well. He’s maybe a little sorry about the expression on Matt’s face right now, some kind of sour looking mix of incredulity and hurt, but he’s decidedly not sorry about ensuring that the show didn’t suffer no matter how badly his personal life was falling apart, nor is he sorry about keeping twenty years of sort-of-friendship sort-of-going.
“Why?”
And there it is. The same look of honest confusion he’d had that night, superimposed onto an older version of the familiar face.
'What are you doing?' he’d asked. 'Hey, hey, Matthew, what…?' Bewildered, but not resisting, not pushing Matthew away. Instead, his hands had settled onto Matthew’s hips, steadying him as he’d climbed into Matt’s lap, shaking from withdrawal but determined that this time, this time he wouldn’t cave, this time would be different… He’d just needed something. Something to distract him.
Someone.
Matthew sighs. There’s nothing but melted ice in his glass now but he takes a sip anyway. “In case you’ve forgotten,” he says and makes himself look Matt in the eye, “I was never very good at facing the consequences of my mistakes.”
And then – on a day Matthew’s already done several things he’d never expected to – something even more surprising happens.
Matt flinches.
His shoulders curl forward, hands convulsing around the half-empty glass until the ice rattles, and when he draws a breath it goes in knife sharp and comes out shaky.
“Right,” he bites out, “Mistake,” at the same time as Matthew stutters out “What? No,” because he’s starting to suspect that the conversation he thought they were having is maybe not the conversation they’re actually having.
It’s not much but it’s enough to crack the awful blank mask that had dropped over Matt’s face.
“Explain,” he says. “You owe me that much.”
“I…” The thing is, he’s not wrong. Matthew rubs a hand over his face, the left side of his mouth throbbing softly, the painkillers long worn off and not like he could afford to take any more. “How did you know?”
“Perry…”
“I’m not avoiding the question,” Matthew promises, holding his hands up placatingly. He wants to reach out and touch, maybe just give Matt’s forearm a quick squeeze, but the easy physical affection from earlier is long gone and he doesn’t want to risk it. “Just… Humor me. Please. How did you know I remembered? Twenty years is a long time and you’ve never brought this up before.”
Matt stares at him for a bit, lips pressed together in an unhappy line, until he relents. “You looked at me,” he says simply. “When Corden asked that question, you looked over and…” Matt shrugs.
He had, that’s the thing. He’d known that fucking question was coming, had even practiced a face of bland amusement to put on for the occasion, picked a camera to smirk at and everything and he’d still glanced at Matt, on pure, helpless fucking instinct, and it shouldn’t have mattered, wouldn’t have mattered expect…
Expect Matt had been looking right back.
And now here they are; two mostly has been actors in their fifties, having some kind of emotional catharsis over subpar sodas. God, if they ever ran out of money they could probably recreate this on Oprah.
It would’ve been funny if he wasn’t the butt of the joke. Well. It still kind of was.
“I was a mess,” Matthew starts. It’s familiar ground. He’s started a lot of stories over the last few decades with those exact words, like his own fucked up version of ‘once upon a time’. It’s a neat summary of the hazy spiral of anxiety and chemical numbness, of never feeling good enough or funny enough or even fucking warm enough, the days when the only thing keeping him going was the knowledge that if he didn’t miss a line, if he still showed up at every call time, at least they couldn’t fire him.
Matt nods. “You were,” he agrees. “But you were getting help.”
And that had been worse. Getting better had been an awful, disgusting, pathetic process of failing and failing and failing and getting sober enough to realize exactly how badly he was doing that.
Matthew had hated every miserable minute of it.
“We… I should’ve done mo—”
“Don’t.” Matthew shakes his head sharply, and to his credit Matt doesn’t push it. He’s had this conversation before, with pretty much everyone in the cast and crew, back when they were still filming and Matthew, newly sober, had to ask for old scripts to read to figure out what the fuck had happened during the three seasons he only remembered in fragments.
They’d all tried and none of it had made a goddamn difference.
“I was… It wasn’t good.” He’s had to explain his addiction before, many times, has talked about the underlying reasons to three separate therapists until his voice gave out, but he’s never really had to put to words what the recovery was like. Probably because most people either already knew from personal experience, or were just relieved he’d reached the destination and not interested in the journey. “Everything hurt. All the time,” he tries again. Because he owes this to Matt. “And I just… I wanted to feel something good, just for a bit. And you…”
Across the table, Matt’s mouth tips up at the corner, resigned. “I was there,” he finishes the sentence. “And I was willing.”
“Yes,” Matthew says. “And no. It wasn’t convenience.”
He remembers standing outside Matt’s hotel room, fingers pressed against the dark wood of it, but not what city they’d been in. He remembers the garish gold of the bed spread but not what was it about that day that had pushed him to the point where he’d gone and done what he’d thought about a million times before, two million after. He remembers saying ‘please’ and ‘Matty’, knowing he was playing dirty with the nickname and doing it anyway, remembers the soft yield of Matt’s mouth, how he’d wanted it to hurt, Matt to bite and bruise, to make him take it.
He remembers how Matt wouldn’t, and wishes he didn’t.
“It was you,” he tells him now. “I wanted you. I used…” Matthew swallows, blinks, forces himself to continue, to look Matt in the fucking eye and tell him. “And you were… kind about it.”
'You can,' Matt had said. 'It’s okay, it’s okay, shh, it’s good,' while Matthew had dragged his cold, trembling hands under his t-shirt, and his clumsy, no good mouth over the thick tendons of his neck and it had been good and awful, everything he’d wanted and nothing he’d deserved.
“Kind?” Matt says the word like it’s foreign language, like he can’t even begin to guess at its meaning.
“And I didn’t want to… lose that, I guess,” Matthew continues. “It was selfish and stupid, maybe the worst in a long line of selfish and stupid things I did back then, but I thought if I didn’t say anything I could just… keep that. This one good thing that I took.”
He’d woken up while it was still dark outside, the curtains of the hotel room open because neither of them had gotten up to close them, either before or after. Matt’s arm had been heavy over his middle, his body already thickened from the twink-like early seasons to something sturdier and healthier. Matthew had lain there, fully clothed but sticky in a way that left little doubt over the reliability of his memories, which were… selective for sure, but clear, achingly so, for a change.
And he’d thought ‘I want this’ and ‘Matt might let me have this’ and he couldn’t do it, couldn’t drag Matt down with him.
“So you left,” Matt says now. “And the next day, when I sought you out, you gave me this whole speech about how the withdrawal was messing with your brain. And the day after that…”
Matthew remembers. “The day after that I checked myself into rehab. Again.” They’d been between filming, right at the start of some press tour, and producers had readily agreed to let him off in exchange even the possibility of having him back fully conscious for the next season.
“That was…” Matt huffs in frustration.
“What?”
“I want to tell you that it was a dick move, but…” Matt crosses his arms and then very deliberately uncrosses them immediately after. “You checked yourself into rehab. That was a good move.”
Matthew wants to tell him that while the whole ‘keeping his body language in check’ is kind of sweet, it’s also unnecessary. He’s never once been intimated by Matt, not like that anyway, which is probably at least partly why they’re even having this conversation.
There’s a sudden crash from the bar and both of them jump, glancing over. The bartender is already busy cleaning up after the mishap, clearly having dropped something breakable and probably expensive judging by the amount of cursing. The interruption breaks the tension somewhat and when Matthew turns back, Matt is leaning on the table again, not exactly smiling but more relaxed at least.
Which makes the next words out of his mouth all the more devastating.
“Letting me think that I’d taken advantage of a friend who was too fucking high to know what he was doing however… That was a shitty move.”
Matthew frowns, genuinely thrown. “Why would you…? You asked.” Unlike most people, though Matthew has the presence of mind not to say that part out loud. “And you didn’t… You wouldn’t let me.” That part he remembers with excruciating clarity; scrabbling with Matt’s belt, still shaking from his own orgasm and desperate to get his mouth on Matt, grateful to feel the hard length of him under denim because at least it proved something, if not that much at the end of the day.
Only to be told ‘No, no, c’mon, not like this, let’s just…’ as Matt had gathered up his hands and pulled them both down to the bed, curling around Matthew until he’d fallen asleep.
The look Matt is giving him right now is very different from back then. Less… kind, for a start.
“I wanted to,” he says, blunt and overwhelmingly honest.
Turns out, twenty years does nothing to lessen the impact of that. Matthew feels his mouth dropping open, fingers loosening in shock where he’d been gripping an empty glass. His entire body sways forward, only to reel back again at what follows.
“But afterwards,” Matt continues, “when I first thought you just wanted to pretend it didn’t happen and then thought you genuinely didn’t remember, that I’d gotten it wrong after all… The fact that I hadn’t was the only fucking reason I didn’t just…” He rubs a hand over his face, somehow, for the first time that day, managing to seem older than Matthew. More helpless. “I don’t know. Turn myself in or something.”
Matthew gapes. “I… You’re an idiot.” He can’t even imagine the shitshow that would’ve been. The mere idea makes him shudder. “I’m sorry,” because now he is, but he’d never thought… “You’re such an idiot.”
“Well yeah,” Matt says, smiling ruefully. “Stupid about you, that’s for certain.”
Matthew blinks and Matt barks a laugh. It even sounds like genuine amusement, only a little bitter around the edges, like a cake that’s been in the oven just a couple of minutes too long.
“You think Jen and David were the only ones with a crush?” Matt shakes his head, actually chuckling, like it’s the best joke he’s heard in ages and not something that’s just tipped Matthew’s worldview upside down. “Now who’s the idiot?”
Matthew thinks it might be him, which, honestly? Shouldn’t even be a surprise at this point, yet still somehow, wondrously, is.
He’s about to admit as much but doesn’t get the chance.
“Anyway,” Matt says, pushing his empty glass aside and now quite looking Matthew in the eye. “I guess I’m glad we had this talk. And not in front of a live studio audience either.” He flashes a quick grin before pulling up his mask.
This is probably where Matthew should say something, maybe ‘I didn’t know’, obvious as that is, or even ‘wait, don’t go yet’ but he’s still processing, only ever quick with a joke, not with anything that matters, and by the time he opens his mouth, Matt has already gotten up.
“Well,” he says. “Best be off.” He looks at Matthew briefly, eyes unreadable above the mask, before rapping his knuckles against the table. “Don’t be a stranger.”
“No.” Matthew does a weird shake-nod of his head. “I mean yeah, no.” At least that elicits another laugh.
There’s no hug goodbye this time and Matt walks away with nothing but a small wave, clearly heading towards the lifts and his hotel room.
Matthew watches his retreating back and thinks about going after him, except his legs won’t move, and he doesn’t know what he would say anyway. Or do. And it’s stupid, reckless to even contemplate but…
For once, doing nothing doesn’t seem like the safest option.
One thing’s for sure though; Matthew is definitely going to need something stronger than diet coke to figure it out. And if ever there was a perfect excuse…
He goes to the bar and orders an orange soda. On the rocks.
***