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It’s a given that Matt doesn’t like to be proven wrong.
It’s not like he has anything against being told that he was incorrect about something per say, it was just that he was one of those people who got irrationally mad at it.
It’s happened once or twice, a lot more when he was a kid than when he’s been in adulthood, but there are times he remembers with shame how he treated his Mom and Dad, more his Mom considering his Dad passed away as he was about to graduate high school.
Obviously, he’s gotten better at controlling that side of himself - the music industry doesn’t take that shit lying down unless you want to be out of a job and that combined with therapy and growing up has helped. A lot. He learned to use his favorite word - compromise - more than once in a conversation and so far, that’s gotten him out of problems that younger him would have never dealt with or even considered dealing with.
Then again, if younger him had met Alex before he actually met him, he wasn’t sure younger him would have accepted this was the man that Matt would fall in love with in the first place, given younger Matt was, to older Matt’s chagrin, not into dudes.
Doesn’t matter now he’s casually married to the guy.
Matt these days would never admit it, but there was something about Alex the first time they met after DMing each other for months and making an album together in two different countries that drew him into a state of confusion. Alex wasn’t special by any means, just your average white rapper trying to make their way in the world who just happened to have a killer personality and a smile that made Matt’s insides curl, but as they got to know each other, Alex’s entire being seemed just that little bit closer to what he wanted in life as the years passed.
Obviously, given he still thought of himself as straight at that time, he never said anything to his face - he wasn’t that game when he was just figuring shit out - but he didn’t have to say anything as Alex said it for him. There was one night, when they were hanging out in Tampa, after filming the Sonic cosplay video, where Matt was sloppy drunk and all legs, barely able to hold himself up. Being 6 foot 8, he was normally okay holding his booze, but it seemed that he’d gone a little too hard on the bottle and eventually, found himself being half carried by Alex and one of their mutual friends back to the hotel they were staying in.
From the bare threads of memory he had of that night, he remembers laughing to himself and finding Alex’s eyes, saying something that seemed to catch the shorter man off guard, startled eyes and pink cheeks making Matt grin and feel like he was on top of the world before he was out like a light.
Morning brought a killer hangover and Alex could barely look him in the eyes, but he finds himself on a couch in the hotel lobby with his eyes closed when a throat clears itself over him and he cracks them open to see his best friend, looking slightly nervous.
“Hey bro.” Matt groans, trying to put on a winning smile despite feeling like death. “What’s up?”
“Can I…talk to you?” Alex looks mildly like he’s about to have a Karen level menty b and Matt’s heart starts to hammer in his chest as he stares on, feeling like the walls might be closing in on him as he nods mutely. “Sure man, no problem.”
Getting up off the couch is an art in itself, but Alex seems more jittery now that he’s standing versus when he was lying down, which doesn’t seem to be a good thing. Walking together, they manage to find an empty smoking balcony just off to the side of the place, Matt leaning against the railing as he looks at Alex, curious. “Everything okay?”
“Did you mean what you said last night?” Alex blurts out and it takes all of Matt’s brain energy he has (which isn’t a lot right now) to try and rack his limited knowledge of anything past drinks 3 and 4, only to come up with nothing.
Something still tells him inside to ask, “Did I mean what last night?”
Alex looks torn between running away and staying put, eyes flickering from Matt to the glass door separating them from their friends and Matt’s about to open his mouth to say something when Alex steps closer, suddenly invading Matt’s personal space and making him feel quite prickly under the collar. “You said last night that I…um…”
He watches as Alex, normally obnoxiously confident, struggles with his words, his cheeks going as pink as Matt remembered them fleetingly before Alex finally spoke, voice small.
“You said last night that it sucked that I wasn’t single, because if I was, you would be all over me before you said that…you loved me. More than a friend.” Alex laughed, but it was hollow, like he hadn’t known what to do with that information. Matt felt his mouth run dry. “You also said that if you weren’t so fucked up, you would get me to ride your face, but that’s-”
“Okay, yeah-” Matt said hoarsely, cutting Alex off, starting to twist his gold rings around his fingers, a habit he’d gotten into early in high school whenever he got anxious. “That’s a…lot to take in. Sorry…about that.”
An awkward silence stretched between them for some time.
“So…” Alex started again, making Matt jerk his head up. “-did you mean it, though?”
Matt did think about lying. Really did. Briefly considered it. His favorite word hung there like a moving target. He could tell a white lie, spin it to make out Alex was good looking and that if he were a girl, he would have asked for him to ride his face, laugh it off and go back to normal - but he finds himself stuck trying to say the words right, Alex looking at him for answer as he feels his face heat up.
He can’t look at him, eyes darting away to watch the skyscrapers and palm trees above them as he sighs. “Yeah, but look, I was drunk and all motormouth, so you don’t have to take it too seriously, I was just-”
He stops talking when he feels Alex’s palm against his chest, or more where Alex can reach his chest, the pressure of legs against his thigh making him whip around to stare as Alex’s face is rather close to his and he looks…desperate in a way as his voice, hardened and containing a note Matt totally doesn’t latch onto as he speaks. “Did you mean it?”
Matt can only blink before he swallows, letting out a breathy sounding “Yeah.”
Alex stares, looks between his eyes and then his mouth, before he’s pulling Matt down with all the strength he seems to have and crashing his lips into his. On automatic instinct, Matt’s hands reach out and grab onto Alex’s waist and for almost 5 glorious minutes, neither of them take a breath until Matt, disappointingly because fuck Alex’s swimmer lungs and also his glasses that digging into the bridge of Matt’s nose, has to pull away and try to breathe somehow, head dipped and resting against the latter. “Shit.”
“Shit.” Alex echoes and that’s as far as they get talking about it as the door opens and they jump apart like they’ve been electrocuted.
They eventually talk about it - for real this time - but that also ends with a lot more kissing than intended.
Safe to say now they’re married, Matt regards that moment as one of the many be all, end alls he has saved up in his memory bank to take with him to wherever he’s going after his time on Earth is up and as he looks from the kitchen where he’s making breakfast, coffee in hand and hair tied up behind out of his face, he might just be about to make another.
Alex, several years older now, but maybe not wiser similar to himself, is standing outside on the balcony of their house they purchased a couple of years ago in BC pointing up at the sky as he talks inaudible from where Matt is standing. Wearing just a pair of plaid pajama pants and his glasses perched on his head, Matt honestly wonders how Alex isn’t freezing his nuts off before reminding himself that Alex was built here before he just chuckles to himself.
Beside him, in the crook of his arm, their daughter Minnie looks on in wonder from Alex’s shoulder, a drool covered grin making itself known around her teething toy, blonde curls tied in a topknot and sock covered feet kicking out as Alex’s eyes - all soft and blurred at the edges like Matt likes them - flicker between her and the clouds, seemingly content.
Between the music, Alex and her, how did he get so lucky?
Matt didn’t think he could fall in love again after he and Alex got together, but this was the one time, the one time, he was glad to be proven wrong. He can’t help but grin as Alex’s eyes meet his and pulls Minnie’s arm up to wave a chubby wrist his way, which makes her giggle by the expression on her face as Matt waves back over his mug before he’s turning back towards the stove to continue making pancakes before he burns them.
Eventually, Alex finally comes, all windswept cheeks and new gray streaks running through his hair to match his main one, looking at him almost the same as that day all those years ago, Minnie squealing as he hands her over to him. “Morning, Daddy.”
“Morning, Papa.” Matt effortlessly takes her, arm dwarfing her as she looks up at him with blue eyes. His eyes. “-and good morning to you, little mouse.” He kisses her forehead.
“Thought of some good bars this morning while in the shower-” Alex smiles eagerly from where he’s setting the table, one eye completely on them as he speaks. “-thinking about going to the studio to lay them down.”
“Sounds good.” Matt lets Minnie rest across his arm on her stomach, safely tucked to his chest as he flips a pancake. “Can’t wait to hear them.”
Alex just grins before wandering back over, leaning against a countertop as he watches Matt work, their daughter between them. “I love you.”
Matt felt his insides curl with warmth again, but it was familiar this time and he just smiled back. “Love you too.”