Archive of Our Own ^beta

Matt wouldn't have believed it, if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes.

The idea of John McClane, undercover cop, is ridiculous. The whole point, as far as Matt can tell, of being John McClane is that he's immutable. He has always been the same dogged, fiercely protective, independent, incorruptible, unthreatenable guy. The papers had nearly made his face into a trademarked image of a New York cop, and Matt has seen all those movies about people who work undercover: chameleons or charmers, or John Does so unremarkable that people just pass them by. John doesn't come within a mile of any of those descriptions.

That was what Matt thought before he watched John pull a knit cap on and down low over his eyes, before he somehow hunched his broad shoulders in under a patched and worn surplus jacket. Suddenly Matt found himself face to face with… he wasn't sure who that was exactly. Someone a little twitchy. Probably homeless, maybe a user. Certainly the type of guy that John saw on the streets a hundred times a week in the city. Honestly? Someone who Matt wasn't all that comfortable being two feet away from.

"You- uh, that's- Wow," he stuttered, mouth nowhere near keeping up with his brain. "I mean, do they teach classes in that? Because you're- that's- you're not you anymore." Matt took a step back, and his eyes widened as he tried to catalogue the changes. "I've never… I mean, I don't know any actors, not since high school anyway. I've never watched someone stop being himself before. That is really freaky, man." he resisted the urge to reach out, close his eyes to the mask and see if he could still recognize the topography of John's newly-familiar face or body with his hands instead.

Because, sure, John McClane had this whole life before Matt ever met him – and that's fine, for all that it was something Matt didn't plan to dwell on – but this? This John was like he could have a whole life that Matt would never know about, and that was way scarier.

Matt's brain was still ticking so fast that he only realized his mouth had gone silent when he sensed movement, and John was back in front of him, hat gone, one hand tipping Matt's chin up, looking into his eyes. "Hey, you in there kid? Don't go getting lost in that brain."

"No- I'm… I'm here." Matt touched John's wrist, briefly, and then backed up a few steps so he could see all of John again. "Jesus," he breathed. And it, wow, yeah, there was the creepy again, how he could hardly see a shadow of whoever had been standing in the living room a minute ago. John's raised eyebrows indicated that he was waiting for something more coherent, so Matt tried again.

"Sorry, no, that was just… Um, can you…? I'm not… good? With people? And I just. What I." Giving that thought up for lost, he huffed out a breath before trying again. "The thing is, you don't BS; you don't play games. It's easy to trust you. I don't… trust. People." He saw John's lips try to quirk into a smile. "Yeah, yeah, or the media, or the government," he added, with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Look, man, I'm trying to be serious here."

Matt turned back towards the window, fingering the cord for the blinds while he corralled his thoughts. "So, I just need you…to be… to stay you." The second it left his lips, he regretted saying "need" because he'd seen those movies too, about cops' wives who can't cope with the hours or the dangers, and are bossy or needy, and even if Matt was the wife here, he wouldn't do that to John, because John is a god-damned certified hero, so there is no way that Matt is going to try to tell him how to do his job.

Besides, even though Matt didn't know what kind of friends McClane'd had, he was pretty sure that they weren't the type to make demands, and his family certainly hasn't kept him in practice for being needed. Matt likes this, likes being whatever kind of thing they are, and he wasn't about to start pushing at John McClane the Immovable Object just because Matt was feeling a little insecure. He hadn't mean to turn this into a talk, though, so before he could say anything more embarrassing, he steered back toward what triggered his excursion into neurosis.

"I mean, not that it- Do you do that often? Go undercover?" he asks, trying to manage curious, rather than clingy.

He heard John shrugging off the jacket onto the arm of the couch, shoulder popping as he rolled it. "Nah, not as much as I used to. They've got too many years in me now to waste me sitting around waiting for something that may never happen."

That's a relief, that at least Matt isn't going to have to watch John become a stranger on a regular basis. "So you're gonna stay under until they catch the guy?"

"Or until it's too cold to stay out the night, yeah." John says. "Defeats the purpose if I spend the night in a shelter. I need to blend in with the guys he's targeting."

"So a week? Two?" Matt asked. He's seen John unselfconsciously covered in dirt and ash and blood, but two weeks in the same clothes still didn't sound like a good time.

John groans. "God, I hope not. There's more than one reason they usually put the young guys on this crap." Matt felt John's hands land on his shoulders, tugging him back a little until he's leaning against John's chest, and he can feel the rumble of the words when John speaks again. "You wanna go get something to eat? I figured I should get one last hot meal in me before I have to go in."

Dating that doesn't involve scheduling time to avoid roommates or parents was sort of a novelty for Matt, and dating a man was, as far as Matt can tell, sort of a novelty for John. They'd been drifting along, their relationship only distinguishable from the camaraderie that sprung up after the fire sale by the sex.

Matt'd had a key to John's apartment within a week of moving into his own, way before he'd thought they had anything but sarcasm and hero worship tying them together. As soon as he'd been able to hobble the few blocks between their buildings without passing out, he spent as many hours as possible there as he could without McClane threatening to beat him to death with his own crutches. The problem was, Matt wasn't sure on the protocol for living in your cop boyfriend's place when he wasn't home, and he'd forgotten to ask.

From the beginning, McClane, and his apartment, had been equal parts comfort and distraction. The worst of Matt's nightmares had faded while he was still in the hospital, but he still had some landmines in his memories, and New York still had its share of dystopian moments to trigger them. Matt had suffered through his few sessions of trauma counseling about as well as he'd put up with the debriefing meetings, and by the time he was discharged, he'd been set on keeping the government out of his brain. McClane didn't seem like the type to go in for therapy, but he had a steady confidence in his actions, and the belief that Gabriel's crew had deserved whatever they'd gotten that helped settle Matt's mind more than any instruction to verbalize his feelings had.

So while he still hadn't moved in with John, exactly, he'd spent enough time in the place that he might as well have. All the same, it's not like John had plants that needed watering or a pet ferret to keep alive, so Matt chose the non-creepy-stalker route, and planned on spending time in his own apartment while John was under. Matt had a couple months' worth of video game reviews saved that he hadn't had a chance to check out, and his guild had probably forgotten he existed. He'd keep busy; it'd be fine.

Three days after John disappeared into the streets or the wilds of Prospect Park or wherever the hell he'd gone, Matt gave up on pretending he wasn't lonely. He lost himself in code for as many hours as they'd let him stay at work, and then went straight to John's apartment and curled up with something to read or his laptop. More often than not, he passed out mid-sentence on John's bed and was a little disoriented when he woke up, which is what happened the night John came home.

Matt produced a garbled "Mrph?" sound against the pillow when a draft of chilly air insinuated itself, and John's skin was a little cool from the damp of the shower when he slid under the sheet. That was enough to rouse Matt's brain to the fact that John was back and spur him try to string together a few words of welcome or something. What came out was a muffled "hey" against John's collarbone and a smile he hoped John could feel. He tilted his head back after a few seconds, hair snagging on the whiskers that John hadn't taken the time to shave, and Matt figured he must have just rinsed the street off before coming to bed. "What time's it?"

Blunt fingers brushed Matt's hair out of the way before he turned Matt back to face the wall and pushed his head back onto the pillow. "Middle of the damn night, kid, go back to sleep." A twist of his shoulders and a sleepy roll of his hips earned Matt an arm around his chest and then a solid weight against his back. "Sleep," the grumble sounded again. "It'll all still be here in the morning," and Matt drifted back to sleep wrapped up in the one thing he was learning to be sure of.