one up
by greensilver
--
"--Through the far wall!"
"No, don't!"
That was all the warning Frank had before he got two to the chest.
In the ideal version of events, Frank stayed on his feet, took down whoever had shot him, and finished up with a cocky smile and a snappy scene-stealing line like, "That's how it's done, kids." That would've impressed the hell out of the new kid in Frank's unit, if not the more experienced guys.
Unfortunately, Ideal Frank, the impressive one, he was the version as played by Bruce Willis in Frank's blockbuster film bio.
The real Frank, he dropped like a fucking rock.
Life was a bitch that way.
______
"You okay?"
Frank was pretty sure that he was just stunned and winded, and not actually about to die - but given how much "stunned and winded" hurt, he wasn't entirely positive. His chest was on fire, which made it difficult to breathe, and sparks lit along his sides whenever he did manage to inhale. Was this what a collapsed lung felt like? Frank had never had a collapsed lung before, but he'd heard enough to know that it'd be at least this painful.
"Frank?"
Were shots still being fired? He couldn't tell. He needed to get on his feet. Who the hell was talking to him, anyway?
"Frank, are you awake, buddy?"
Matt. Had to be. Granger wasn't stupid enough to call a guy who'd been shot twice buddy, and none of the other guys were brave enough to call him Frank.
"Fuck off," he tried to say, which came out as a strained kind of wheeze. He was finally starting to catch his breath, though, and the second attempt to speak was a little more audible: "Wait, no, help me up," with some force behind it, if not a whole lot of volume.
"Yeah, okay," Matt said, and patted him on the shoulder, like Frank was a moody twelve-year-old and being shot was something to sulk about. As soon as Frank could stand on his own, he was going to kill Matt. "It looks like none of the bullets went through your vest, but I don't want you to get up, because--"
Gunfire broke out, loud enough that the source couldn't have been more than a few paces away.
"Right," Matt continued, almost conversationally. "It doesn't look like you're bleeding, that's good. I think you're going to be just fine, probably just a little winded, but we'll have a medic check you out, once--"
More shots, a little further away.
Matt kept talking, but Frank stopped listening. He wasn't sure if Matt was freaking out and all the soothing negotiator-voice crap was just a defense mechanism, or if Matt was just physically incapable of shutting up - but he didn't really care, which made things easier.
He sat up, just about ready to get back to the action.
"Clear," Granger shouted, off to the right.
"Clear," the new guy shouted back, further to the left.
Matt clapped Frank on the shoulder. "Hey, you feeling good enough to stand now, Frank?"
Frank had some choice things to say to that, but most of them would've gotten him suspended; so he settled for grumbling under his breath, and let Matt help him up.
______
Matt was freaking out.
The way that Matt had fussed over him like Florence fucking Nightingale had been the first clue, but at the time, Frank had chalked that up to Matt worrying about the gunfire being exchanged a few yards from their position. The fact that Matt insisted on riding in one of the ambulances that whisked off Frank's injured guys was the second clue, but Frank hadn't really been paying attention, because, shit, his guys were injured. Even when Matt had practically worn a tread on the waiting room floor while they waited for news, Frank hadn't thought anything of it; he'd been too worried himself to give a lot of thought to Matt's mental state.
Matt's freak-out didn't ping on Frank's radar until the ride back to the office, when Matt gave him that look, the look he usually used on just-rescued hostages - concerned on the verge of being needy, that look.
The look firmly in place, Matt reached out, touched Frank's shoulder, and said, "Hey, are you okay?"
It was pretty obvious that Matt had done something wrong, or at least, that Matt thought he'd done something wrong. Frank lacked the finesse of a trained negotiator, but it didn't take a genius to figure out that the sooner Matt spilled the beans, the sooner he'd chill out.
"What the hell did you do?" Frank belatedly glanced up front to make sure Cheryl wasn't listening, but he was good; she was chatting with Granger about something.
Matt just stared at him, still giving him the dark, needy eyes and small, worried frown. God, Frank hated that look.
"Fine," Frank said, in as sharp a whisper as he could manage without attracting Cheryl's attention. "You don't want to tell me what happened? Fine. I'll just have to find out later, from somebody else."
That was his last, best attempt at shaking Matt up, and it only made Matt look even guiltier. Frank decided to call it a day, and by sheer force of will, immediately ceased to give a fuck.
======
If Frank had to pick a month to have a hostage crisis in a forest in Oregon, December wouldn't be his top choice; in fact, December would probably be right at the bottom. January was colder, and February had shittier weather, but December had Christmas, and that meant longer negotiations with fewer nonviolent resolutions. Every year they got a Rent-a-Santa who'd snapped and grabbed a couple kids, or a toy store employee who'd snapped and grabbed a couple kids, or a deadbeat dad who'd snapped and grabbed his own kids - in general, December negotiations seemed to involve a lot more kids than usual, which drove him nuts. Even when there weren't kids involved, people were almost always more keyed up than usual. People went batshit crazy during the holidays; it was just a fact. If they went crazy in the forest in fucking Oregon and made him stand outside for hours on end in the middle of a goddamned blizzard, well, that was just the icing on the cake.
"You know," Granger said, his voice weirdly muffled by the snow, "When they said 'mandatory retreat,' I had this image in my head of poolside drinks and free massages."
"Really?" The new guy's scarf hid his smirk, but Frank could hear it in his voice. "'Cause I had an image of, you know, chairs in a circle, icebreakers, getting to know you--"
"Is that what they teach you at the academy these days? Icebreakers?" Granger shook his head. "Whatever - you're probably right. Did it have to be fucking Oregon, though?"
"I heard they got the resort for nothing," the new guy said, and shrugged.
Granger snorted. "Yeah, and I heard Cheryl wanted to try her hand at skiing."
Frank knew for a fact that it was a little bit of both, but he wasn't going to volunteer any information that could get him in trouble with Cheryl later. "Come on, guys, stay sharp."
Granger knew a shut up when he heard one, but the new guy just kept rattling on. "I still don't get why we needed a mandatory retreat anyway, it's not like anyone di-oomph."
Good. That sound probably meant that Granger had saved Frank the trouble of having to ream the kid out for saying something incredibly stupid.
Man, but he hated breaking in the new ones.
He was getting antsy. This thing was dragging on way too long; if it took much longer, the sun would set, and then their options would start to get real limited. Their options were pretty limited as it was: the falling snow was the dense, icy kind that made footfalls sound like gunshots, which meant they couldn't approach the target without tipping him off - and they couldn't get a bead on him through the snow, so they were stuck waiting for the storm to clear. Once it got dark, though - yeah, then they were potentially fucked. If someone was holding a bank hostage, Matt could talk all he wanted, but this was a forest and there was a blizzard and there were three little kids out there who stood a good chance of freezing to death overnight.
Unless the storm cleared, or Matt found the guy a way out. It had to be one or the other, and after hours of futile negotiations, Frank wasn't banking on Matt.
He was almost hoping it'd be the storm, really. He wanted this guy. On the grand scale of crazy HTs they'd dealt with, this guy was way, way up there; he'd somehow gone from being your average wannabe lumberjack on a Christmas tree farm to holding a family of five hostage, and he was keeping his underage hostages in line with a fucking chainsaw, for Christ's sake. Frank was itching to get in there. If it weren't for the blizzard and the goddamned snow crackling underfoot, Frank would've been in there hours ago, and the whole thing would've been over.
Instead, he was stuck outside in a snowstorm wearing the thickest parka known to man, and fucking Jack Frost was nipping at his nose with enough force to chew the thing right off.
And there were kids. It always had to be kids at the holidays.
Yeah, Frank wanted the guy, real bad.
Matt wasn't an idiot; he knew it had to be a rush job. Frank could just barely hear him through the snow, but he knew that Matt was probably talking himself hoarse; the lumberjack hadn't shown any interest in talking to Cheryl. Instead, Cheryl had found herself in charge mostly by default. The guy in charge of the local crisis negotiation unit was off with his own team, handling a situation somewhere a little bit more indoors; the genius in charge of their team was back in Los Angeles, where snow was still just a four-letter word. Matt was on the phone, Frank had his own guys to deal with, and that left just Cheryl.
She wasn't freaking out yet, which was a good sign. Actually, she was doing a bang-up job, considering the situation, the location, and the fucking snow - but Frank wasn't about to tell her that.
Cheryl looked over at him, like she knew he'd be watching, and made a few quick gestures; the forecast hadn't changed. They were still overdue for "imminent clear skies" - three hours overdue, at this point.
They weren't going anywhere for a while.
"Hey, Granger - keep an eye on things," Frank said, and left it at that. Granger was smart enough to know that things meant loud-mouthed new guy; Frank didn't have to spell it out for him.
From just a few yards away, Matt had been partially obscured by the snow, but he got clearer as Frank approached Cheryl. The look on Matt's face said that he knew this wasn't going to end well, but he was still trying his damnedest to produce a miracle. Frank didn't get that; as long as he'd been working with Matt and Cheryl, he'd never gotten it. He'd seen Matt go two nights without sleep, once, just chugging coffee and talking to some guy with a dozen hostages and a semi-automatic. That guy wouldn't talk to anyone but Matt, and Matt wouldn't give up, and at the end of it, Matt had rescued himself a dyed-in-the-wool gun-toting maniac, like that was something to be proud of.
That was Matt: it wasn't a perfect solution if it didn't save the hostages and the psycho.
"He knows negotiations are over as soon as the storm lifts enough to give us a shot, right?" Frank kept his voice low, hoping Matt wouldn't overhear.
"Probably," Cheryl said, not taking her eyes off Matt.
Probably? What the fuck did that mean? "Cheryl--"
"You know how it works with him - it isn't over 'til it's over," she said, almost dismissively.
Matt waved an arm over his head, snapping his fingers. His fingers were as thickly gloved as Frank's, so the gesture wound up looking like some kind of weird Alaskan sign language, seals this way, that sort of thing. Frank filed that away under 'things that would be funny later,' along with Granger and the kid.
Cheryl cleared her throat when he fell into step with her, which probably meant go away, and he just ignored her, which meant you're not the boss of me.
"That's great - yes, great," Matt was saying as they approached. His voice was still completely conversational, but his face was drawn tight. "You're not going to go anywhere, are you, Tom? Good, 'cause I'm calling you right back, and I want you to be there when I do."
Since when did Matt hang up during negotiations?
Cheryl touched Matt on the shoulder, questioning; he held up a hand, waving her off. "Two minutes, yeah, okay. I'm hanging up now, Tom."
The second Matt clicked off his phone, Frank said, "That didn't sound good."
"He's going to make a deal," Matt said.
Frank could almost always read Matt's body language; the guy was like an open book with very small words, and Frank had been working with him way too long, besides. When Matt knew negotiations were about to end badly, his body language would give him away every time, even if his voice never rose; his mouth would thin out and his eyebrows would draw together and his gestures would just get more and more agitated, until Cheryl stepped in or the operation ended, or both. Matt wasn't just easy to read, he was borderline predictable.
He didn't have the faintest fucking clue what was going on with Matt's body language right then, and it made him nervous. Something was screwy.
Frank didn't have to point that out to Cheryl, who just said, guardedly: "Oh?"
Matt pushed back the hood of his parka so he could scrub at his hair with both massively gloved hands and his cell phone. "If I promise him a helicopter, he'll release one hostage right now."
"That's good - we get a hostage, and we don't actually have to give him anything," Cheryl pointed out.
"Yeah, I don't think so," Matt said, swatting irritably at the snow that was falling down the back of his neck. "I think he's giving up. He doesn't actually expect a helicopter, he's just looking for an excuse to unload one of the kids."
"You have to keep that guy talking," Frank interjected. Matt looked slightly startled when he glanced at Frank, like he was noticing Frank for the first time. "We can't go in there until the storm lightens."
"I know that." Matt took a step forward, jabbing a gloved finger at Frank's chest. "I know that, Frank, but thanks for telling me how to do my job--"
"Whoa, whoa," Frank said, batting Matt's hand away. "I'm just doing my job, so--"
"That's not what it sounds like--"
"Guys," Cheryl said, trying to interrupt. The attempt was less than effective; Frank had no idea what'd set Matt off, but the guy was pissed, and he just kept on going:
"So why don't you worry about tactical, and leave the negotiations to me--"
"Matt!" Cheryl somehow managed to slide into the inches of space between them, and pointed up. "Get him on the phone, Matt."
They looked up.
The sky was clear.
Fuck.
Granger was ready when Frank got back to his guys. "I've got a shot."
"Do - no, no, wait." He couldn't give that order; like it or not, Cheryl was more or less in charge.
He glanced back at her, seeking her approval.
She looked at Matt, hesitated just a moment, and nodded.
"Okay," he said, keeping half an eye on Matt and Cheryl. "Take the shot."
Matt's head jerked up, and his arms shot up over his head - no, stop, seals that way, seals that way--
Granger took the shot.
======
All of the drinks in the hotel bar had peppermint in them, or cinnamon, or something else that was supposed to make them real fucking Christmassy; Frank was sick of it. He wanted whiskey, something golden and smooth that would burn all the way down and leave a smoky aftertaste - the good stuff. Single malt, top shelf, no more fucking schnapps; weren't those words an overpaid bartender in a fancy ski resort should understand?
Cheryl dropped onto the barstool next to his, and stole one of the cherries off his fruity cinnamon drink. He let her get away with it. He'd always let her get away with shit like that; there'd even been a time, not so long ago, when--
But Cheryl couldn't not win an argument, and he couldn't not start arguments, and he'd thought better of it before it'd even began.
Ancient history. He was ready to find a nice girl, settle down, have a bunch of kids; that would never happen with Cheryl.
Still, he nudged his drink over to Cheryl, and let her steal the other cherry, too.
"Going somewhere?" She had all of her ski gear on, even a pair of oversized goggles pushed up onto her head; he was teasing more than asking, but she seemed to take him seriously - typical Cheryl.
"Skiing." She pushed her goggles a little further up and out of the way, just so she could give Frank a dirty look. "Apparently there's a rumor going around that we're here so I can ski. I wonder how that started?"
"Wasn't me." He was pretty sure it was Granger - Granger could be a one-man gossip factory - but he had no idea how Granger had found out in the first place. "Maybe it was Matt."
"If it was, I'll kick his ass." She just sat there for a moment, one gloved hand resting on the counter, which probably meant that they were about to have a big deep talk of some kind. He grabbed the fruity cinnamon drink and slammed it, just to be safe. "Listen, I think you should talk to him."
"To Matt?" Yeah, that was exactly what he wanted to do with his last day of mandatory semi-vacation. "Cheryl--"
"That's why we're here, Frank." She was using the voice she'd used back in the forest, which was apparently her I'm in charge here voice; it worked better during negotiations than it did when she was in ski gear in a resort bar. "Team building, trust issues--"
"Icebreakers, chairs in a circle," he said, not quite smiling.
"Exactly," she said, even though she looked a little confused. "The point is, we're here to talk to each other, and even though the official teambuilding exercises seem to have been preempted by our trip to the woods, we've still got a day left, and we should still try to--"
"Ski." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, at the door. "So you go ski, and I'll - I'll think about talking to Matt, all right?"
She hesitated a moment, but eventually slid off the barstool. "He's in 305."
"Okay," he said, waving her toward the door.
"I really think it would help--"
"Okay," he said again, and then, finally, she was gone.
The bartender grabbed his glass. "Can I get you another?"
Frank eyed the glass, which was still faintly streaked with red liqueur. "What was that called?"
"A raspberry candy cane," the bartender said, practically beaming. "I invented it myself."
Fuck it. Maybe there'd be a minibar in Matt's room.
______
Matt just stood in the doorway, like he wasn't sure whether or not he should let Frank in.
"I guess we're supposed to talk, or something," Frank said, trying to get a look at the room over Matt's shoulder; was that a fridge in the corner? "About ... hell if I know what about, but I guess...." He couldn't tell if there was a fridge, but he was pretty damned sure there was a minibar, because Matt's desk was full of tiny, empty bottles. "Look, Cheryl asked--"
Matt turned around and walked back into the room, which was apparently as much of an invitation as Frank was going to get.
Frank let the door slam behind him as he made a visual sweep of the room, looking for anything that might conceal miniature bottles of alcohol. Dresser, nightstand, desk - what'd looked like a fridge was just another nightstand, and - shit, maybe there was no minibar here, after all.
"Looking for these?" Matt crouched next to the extra nightstand and swung it open; the drawers were fake, hiding a minifridge. Were they trying to hide the alcohol? Was this some sort of test they gave FBI agents to see if their investigative skills were up to snuff? "The vodka is mine, but there's scotch, and a whole shelf of peppermint schnapps."
"Scotch," he said, and just barely had time to get a hand up in front of his face before a tiny bottle would've whacked in him the eye. "Uh - thanks?"
"Don't mention it." Matt flopped down on the bed. Frank was sharing a room with Granger, but Matt apparently had a room all to himself; Frank supposed it would've been weird if Matt had roomed with Cheryl, but it irked him a little to see Matt by himself in a room with a huge-ass bed and a stealth minifridge. "So, what are we supposed to talk about?"
Frank paused in the act of opening his scotch. "Do we actually have to do that?"
"I guess not." Matt cracked open a bottle of vodka. "We just gonna drink, then?"
"You bet," Frank said. No talking, just drinking. It still counted as spending time with Matt, and what Cheryl didn't know wouldn't kill her.
He sat at the far end of the bed, and uncapped his scotch.
______
Leave it to Matt to fuck up a perfectly good plan.
"I gave away your position," Matt blurted out, clutching a thumb-sized bottle of schnapps. They'd run out of scotch and vodka half an hour ago, but it didn't really matter; the peppermint had numbed Frank's tongue, and he couldn't really taste it anymore. It was better than nothing. "I thought I had my headset turned off, but I didn't, and I--"
"What?" Frank didn't get it; when did Matt have time to accidentally tip off the lumberjack? "When, right before Granger shot him?"
"No, not - not that one." Matt sat up a little, pushing himself up on one elbow. Frank had been flat on his back on the bed for the past fifteen minutes, so now Matt was almost towering over him, which was irritating; if Frank had trusted himself to sit up without swaying, he would've done it, just to keep Matt from getting one up on him. "The one - the one where you got shot, Frank."
No, don't, and then his chest was on fire--
"That was you?" He sat up, and yeah, he was swaying, but to hell with it; he was pissed. "Are you saying I got shot because you - because you don't know how to work a headset?"
"I thought the mike was off." Matt had that look on his face, the needy one, and this time the neediness was underscored by the sheer volume of alcohol they'd consumed. "I swear I thought it was off, Frank, and Cheryl told me you were moving in, and I told her - I told her you should alter your approach, so that--"
"And we did." Frank was on the same page, now. "And they heard you, and they were waiting for us--"
"It was an accident--"
"Two of my guys got shot, Matt!" He stood up, wishing like hell he hadn't had so much to drink; he'd be lucky if he made it back to his room without being seen, and even then, Granger was going to give him hell. "Not two-in-the-Kevlar shot, really shot, because you didn't know how to turn off a fucking headset!"
Something else was starting to make sense, too. In the woods, when Matt had hung up--
Hell, had they all been shipped up to Oregon because Matt was having trust issues? It was possible; better than possible, if Cheryl insisted on it. But instead of icebreakers and circled chairs, they'd gotten called in on a situation at a Christmas tree farm, without even the idiot in charge of their unit to keep a handle on things, and Cheryl - give Cheryl a tiny bit of power and the next thing you knew, you were in Matt Flannery's hotel room, getting drunk so Matt could feel better about himself, just because Cheryl had told you to.
Maybe her boss of you voice worked better than he'd thought.
Matt was awful quiet, wasn't he?
When Frank turned around, Matt was sprawled out on the bed again, rolling an empty bottle of schnapps between his palms. He'd apparently gone past the confessional and needy stage straight to fucking depressed; it was definitely time to stop the flow of booze.
"Matt?"
"Yeah," Matt said, staring at his empty bottle.
"Look, it could've happened to anyone-" fresh out of the academy, "-and no one was hurt-" even though I did get two to the chest, thanks for that, "-so don't beat yourself up about it, okay?" Because Cheryl is going to give me hell if you do, and I don't want to hear it.
Matt finally looked up from the bottle. "Really?"
No. Well, maybe. "Sure."
Matt slid off the bed and swayed upright, smiling wider than he ever did sober. "Hey, thanks," he said, entirely sincere; and then he slid a hand around the back of Frank's head, and kissed him.
That wasn't even the really fucked-up part; no, the really fucked-up part was that Frank's mind went right to the bed, that enormous goddamned bed, already half-unmade from the two of them lying on it for the past hour and a half.
But before Frank could react one way or another, Matt was moving away, still smilingly off-kilter. "I appreciate it, Frank. I know we don't always get along, but I appreciate that you'd say - you know - you're a real good guy, and - schnapps?"
It looked like Matt was just a touchy-feely drunk, and hadn't actually been trying to put any moves on Frank - and that was fucking weird, because really, who kissed another guy to say 'thank you'? Not that Frank wanted Matt to put moves on him, hell no, but still, it was weird.
They'd both definitely had enough schnapps for one lifetime, that was for sure.
"I'm going to head out," Frank said, and made a pointless gesture back at the door, like Matt didn't know which direction Frank would be leaving in. "Any more schnapps and I'll be puking peppermint for a week."
Matt stood up from where he'd been kneeling next to the minifridge, two bottles of schnapps dangling from his fingers. "These are the last two. We could finish off the set."
If Frank never saw another tiny bottle of alcohol again, it would be too soon. "Nah, I've had enough."
"You sure?" And there they were, the needy eyes, and that was all the warning Frank had before Matt was pressed up against him, pressing him against the wall. "Because it doesn't look like--"
And then his mouth was on Frank's, and this time, the kiss was a lot more than grateful.
Okay, fine. So Frank had read the situation totally wrong, twice.
______
Frank couldn't taste anything but peppermint. Matt's mouth tasted like peppermint, his fingers tasted like peppermint - even his chest tasted like peppermint, though that was probably Frank's tongue flavoring Matt's skin, and not the other way around.
He didn't know how they'd gotten from the wall to the bed, but he suspected it had something to do with the fact that he wasn't going to put up with Matt pushing him around, no way, no how. He probably should've hit Matt and been done with it, but instead, he'd wound up pinning Matt's wrists above his head - something that Matt had tried to object to, not that Frank had cared.
"Frank," Matt panted, "clothes - off--"
Either Frank was drunker than he'd realized, or Matt was sneakier than he'd realized, because it sounded like a perfectly sensible point at the time; less clothes would be better, Matt had a point there, so Frank let go of Matt's wrists to fumble with his zipper--
Matt immediately used his regained leverage to roll them over, and he spread his whole body out across Frank's, pinning Frank to the bed.
Well, fuck that; Frank had twenty pounds on Matt at least, and that pretty much guaranteed that Frank was going to be the one who--
Matt shoved Frank's pants down, and wrapped a hand around Frank's dick.
Frank let him stay on top, just for the moment.
______
The trouble was, they were both trying to set the rhythm, and all they were accomplishing was a rough, messy tangle that wasn't doing nearly enough for Frank, not nearly enough. It wasn't bad enough that they were doing this on their sides, because they couldn't agree who got to be on top; no, they had to do this on their sides and totally fuck up as basic a thing as a friction, as basic a thing as - as--
If Matt would just stop trying to be in control of the situation, this would be so much easier--
"Goddammit, Frank," Matt hissed into Frank's mouth, and flattened him, rolled right onto him, which was completely unexpected. Sure, the other way hadn't been working out so well, but he'd thought they'd had an agreement--
Matt pinned Frank's arms to the bed, holding him in place, pressing him down into the mattress, and that was exactly how Frank came, with Matt running the goddamned show.
He'd be pissed about that later, when his brain was back to firing on all cylinders.
______
Frank woke up to what was, without a doubt, the worst hangover of his life. His head was killing him, his mouth tasted absolutely foul, and when he opened his eyes, Matt was watching him with absolutely no trace of the oh, fuck look that had to be on Frank's face, which pissed Frank off a little bit; why wasn't Matt freaking out? Why did Matt get to be calm?
"He was surrendering," Matt said, his voice still low and heavy with sleep.
It was too early in the morning to figure out what the hell Matt was talking about - fuck, but Frank needed coffee. Good, strong coffee, strong enough to wash the taste out of his mouth and wake him up at the same time: no sugar, no cream, just bitter caffeine.
That, and maybe a couple tiny bottles of something that didn't taste like peppermint.
Matt was just watching Frank, not even picking his head up off the pillow; he apparently was just going to lie there until Frank got with the program.
Frank sighed, rubbing at his eyes as he sat up. "Who was surrendering?"
"Tom." Matt sat up too, slowly, one hand cradling his head. "The guy in the forest."
Seals this way.
Frank's stomach dropped, and it had nothing to do with the hangover. "That's why you--"
"Yeah." Matt rested his forehead on the heel of his palm, and closed his eyes. "I haven't told Cheryl."
It took a second for Frank to absorb that, but when he did, he instantly understood; it'd been Cheryl's first run at being in charge of a hostage situation, and Matt didn't want his fuck-up to go on Cheryl's record, or her conscience.
Matt was assuming it was his fuck-up, like Frank and Cheryl hadn't made the decision between them. Like Frank hadn't seen Matt waving at him, trying to call off the shot.
"Don't tell her," he said, surprising himself with the words. "What she doesn't know won't kill her."
Matt shook his head. "We have to be able to trust each other, Frank. We can't have secrets."
And that was, Frank realized, Matt's half-assed way of saying, oh, fuck. Matt couldn't even get that part right.
"Don't tell her," Frank said again, and slid out of bed. There were his underwear; where the hell were his pants? All the way against the far wall - what, had Matt hurled them? And that was his shirt, which seemed to be missing a button. Shit. "And Granger, you don't need to tell him, either." Matt made a little choking sound, and too late, Frank realized how Matt might take that in context. Great, now Matt was going to think Frank was making the rounds of half the team. Not that Frank particularly cared what Matt thought, but if Matt made any comments to Granger- "I mean-" He turned around, shaking his head. "I mean, I'm not - I was talking about the lumberjack--"
But Matt had already figured that out, and he was laughing, the ass. It was a tired, this wouldn't really be funny if I were all there kind of laughter, but he was still laughing at Frank, and Frank was--
Frank was smiling, but he wasn't going to let Matt see that.
"Later," he said, and let the door slam behind him, just barely muffling the sound of Matt's laughter.
______
When Frank got back to his room, Granger had a pot of coffee on, and it smelled like heaven.
"Where the hell were you?" Granger said, skipping over the hey, good morning, didn't see you last night sorts of pleasantries and getting right to the point. Frank liked that about Granger; in fact, Granger was, Frank supposed, more or less his friend.
"I was-" He had no fucking clue what to say.
Granger's eyes widened. "Are those bruises?"
Frank took a half-step backward to look at himself in the mirror. He had a bruise on either arm, just above the elbow - just about the size of Matt's thumbs, probably. When the hell had Matt done that? Shit. He was going to kill Matt.
He dug a long-sleeved shirt out of his bag, and yanked it on. "Did you see a hot blonde waitress working the floor in the hotel bar last night?"
"No," Granger said, setting Frank up perfectly.
"Exactly," Frank said, and grabbed the pot of coffee.
______
Granger apparently got to Matt before Frank could, because when Matt finally joined the tactical guys for breakfast, he was already up on the day's rumor.
"Heard you bagged a waitress," Matt said, which started a minor riot among Frank's guys, who had yet to get over the hilarity of it all.
It sounded weird to hear Matt say something like that, but whatever; Frank was just glad Matt was playing along. "No comment," he said, which set the guys off all over again.
He finally caught up to Matt next to the buffet table, and it was just the two of them up there, nobody was around - but hell if he knew what to say to Matt, so he just dished up some eggs and flirted with the idea of a pancake.
When Matt spoke, he caught Frank off-guard. "Are we friends?"
Frank didn't get it. "Are we friends?"
"Yeah." Matt grabbed the pancake Frank had been eyeing. "Are we friends, Frank?"
That sounded like one of those casual-but-loaded kinds of questions, so he made of a show of inspecting the rye toast while he thought it over. He didn't actually like Matt, not all the time; or at least, getting the better of Matt had been one of his major hobbies since they'd met, which seemed to indicate a general sort of dislike. Still, he didn't really mind hanging out with Matt; or, anyway, he didn't exactly hate it when they all went out for drinks together and he and Matt wound up being the last ones in the joint. That was pretty much all the hanging out they ever did, but they did it often enough, and against his better judgment, he usually enjoyed Matt's company.
Cheryl and Frank were friends, but Frank had the feeling she was going to get transferred out somewhere to be in charge of something soon enough, and Frank and Granger were friends, but Granger was Frank's friend second and his subordinate first. Who did that leave, but Matt?
"Sure, we're friends," Frank said, almost reluctantly.
"Okay." Matt swooped in on the rye toast, too. "Then I'm fine with the waitress story."
And Matt took off, his plate loaded with stuff Frank had had his eye on.
That figured.
The whole waitress speech didn't click with Frank until later, when he sewing a new button onto his shirt. If we're friends, then I'm fine with the waitress story.
Jesus. Leave it to Matt to fuck up as simple a concept as let's just be friends.
======
Emily had that vaguely irritated look on her face, the one she got whenever Matt and Frank and Cheryl started rehashing old times. Frank still didn't know if it was just that Emily hated to be excluded from any conversation, ever - she could be kind of annoying that way sometimes, just like every hostage negotiator Frank had ever known - or if it was that she suspected something had happened between Matt and Cheryl back in the day, which, as far as Frank knew, nothing ever had.
He wondered if Emily was the jealous type. If he and Matt were still the kind of friends they'd been before Cheryl's promotion, he'd have given Matt a hard time about it in private: hey, you might want to lighten up on the 'good ol' days' speeches while your girlfriend is around, that sort of thing.
Frank watched Emily over the rim of his pint glass, only half-listening to Cheryl's current story.
"And they stuck us in a van and shipped us up to Oregon, because the boss had some kind of in with the owner, so we got a weekend retreat for free--"
Frank couldn't help it; his eyes cut right to Matt, who was looking at anything but Frank.
"Which, as it turned out, didn't include the minibar, as Matt learned when he tried to check out."
Frank choked on a mouthful of beer, and Matt looked right at him, almost accusingly.
"I never heard this part of the story," Frank said, aware that he was probably asking for trouble.
Cheryl laughed, shaking her head. "So he tries to turn in his room key - and the guy at the front desk says--"
"'That'll be two hundred dollars,'" Matt interjected, starting to smile.
"Two hundred and sixty dollars," Cheryl corrected him, "and Matt gets this look on his face--"
Emily was smiling now, no longer irritated. "Did he make Matt pay?"
Matt started laughing, and Cheryl just kept shaking her head, barely able to finish the story. "So Matt grabs his room key back, and just walks out of the hotel and gets in the van."
You are so dead, Matt had muttered at him when he'd gotten in the van, but by the time they'd reached the motel halfway back to L.A., Frank had forgotten to ask Matt why he was a dead man.
"And you have to understand," Cheryl was saying, wiping her eyes with one hand, "the bottles in the minibar were ten dollars apiece, which means that in two days, Matt would've had to have had--"
"Twenty-six bottles," Emily said, looking at Matt in absolute amazement. "I didn't know you could hold that much alcohol--"
"He can't!" Cheryl shook her glass, like more beer was going to magically appear. "He never could. He was lucky he was drinking in his room, or he probably would've wound up somewhere with a waitress, like Frank."
Shit. He hadn't thought Cheryl had ever been aware of that rumor.
"And speaking of waitresses," Cheryl said, still laughing, "did Matt ever tell you about the time we had a hostage situation in a diner?"
Frank exhaled slowly into his beer, letting the conversation wash over him. He knew this story; this was an okay story, a safer story.
When he looked up, Matt was watching him from across the table, smiling at Frank's discomfort.
"I'll get the next round," Frank said, and shot up out of his chair, heading for the bar.
______
"Thought you could use some help carrying the drinks," Matt said, leaning back against the counter.
Frank doubted that was the only reason Matt was there. "Oh, yeah?"
Sure enough, Matt shrugged, still smiling a little. "Yeah. And-" There was an 'and,' go figure- "I thought you might want to do a shot of peppermint schnapps, for old times' sake."
Frank didn't think for a second that Matt was coming on to him, or that Matt was serious; Matt was needling him, trying to get one up on him, just like Matt always had.
But just the thought of smelling peppermint made him think of Matt's voice at Frank's ear, sharp and incoherent: let me, you have to let me, like Matt had to negotiate his way through his own orgasm, and, hell, maybe Frank just didn't think it was as funny as Matt seemed to.
"I'll get these," Frank said, grabbing the first three glasses to touch the counter. "You get the rest."
He didn't stop to see if Matt was following him.
______
They were the last ones to leave, just like the old days; even Cheryl and Emily had called it a night, but Frank and Matt were still sitting at the table, surrounded by empty glasses.
"Long day today," Matt said, making a show of examining the last two swallows of beer in his glass.
Frank decided to cut to the chase. "It wasn't--"
Matt looked up, his mouth turning down in a questioning frown, and Frank lost his resolve. It wasn't that he wanted to go there again, that he'd ever been tempted to go there again, it was more that--
Goddammit, Frank, and then Matt had been on top of him--
It was more that maybe, after all this time, Frank was still pissed off that Matt had gotten the upper hand.
But it wasn't like Frank wanted a second chance to do it right - he loved his wife, and Matt had Emily, and anyway, if he never saw Matt naked again, it'd be too soon - and having this fight now would just put that squarely on the table.
"Long day," he agreed, and finished his beer.
Matt followed suit, tipping his glass back until he'd finished off every drop. "Well, I'm off. Say hello to the old ball and chain for me, if she even remembers my name."
"She does," Frank said, pushing his glass away. "I will."
"Good." Matt stood, and hesitated - just for a second, but long enough for Frank to notice. "Goodnight, Frank."
"Yeah," Frank said, giving him a careless wave.
He listened to Matt leave, listened to the sound of the front door swinging shut; and even then, just to be on the safe side, he waited another fifteen minutes before taking off.
When Frank got out to the parking lot, Matt wasn't there.
He didn't know if Matt had won this round, or not. He couldn't tell.
_____________________________________________
Epilogue
Okay, okay, I'll do it, just tell them not to shoot--
"Matt?"
He's half-surprised to hear that Frank is still there; for some reason, he thought that Frank left the room while Matt wasn't paying attention. "Yeah?"
"Look, it could've happened to anyone," Frank says, the words coming out slower and thicker than alcohol alone would account for. "No one was hurt, so don't beat yourself up about it, okay?"
That's so completely uncharacteristic of Frank that Matt isn't quite sure he heard him right, and he looks up, seeking some kind of assurance that Frank isn't the product of Matt's pretty thoroughly inebriated mind. "Really?"
"Sure," Frank says, looking incredibly uncomfortable, and just like that, Matt gets it; this is Cheryl, using Frank as a mouthpiece. Frank is still pissed at Matt, but he'd rather make Matt feel better that get on the wrong side of Cheryl.
That's just funny enough to make Matt smile, really smile, and - okay, now he's smiling a little too much, but the vodka and the schnapps are making it hard to stop smiling once he's started, and--
He doesn't remember standing up, but now he's kissing Frank, because Frank is a decent guy, underneath, and even if Frank didn't mean a thing he said, it's nice that he said it, just the same.
Matt is pretty sure that logic won't make sense to him when he's sober, but whatever, he's drunk and going with it.
Frank's mouth opens under Matt's, just a tiny bit, and hey, whoa, it isn't that kind of kiss. Matt backs up, kneeling by the minibar almost by default; it gives him something to do while he freaks out. "I appreciate it, Frank. I know we don't always get along, but I appreciate that you'd say--"
Dammit--
"You know - you're a real good guy, and--"
What kind of kiss was it?
"Schnapps?"
He risks a glance up at Frank, who just kind of stares at him, apparently still stuck on the part where they kissed. Where they kissed - because Frank was the one who'd tried to make it more than friendly, right? Not that Matt has ever given anyone a friendly kiss before, but there's a first time for everything, and Frank had to go and--
"I'm going to head out," Frank says, waving at the door. He looks almost trapped, like maybe Matt the drunk kissing bandit isn't going to let him leave; that's enough to make Matt start smiling again. "Any more schnapps and I'll be puking peppermint for a week."
Yeah, that's attractive.
There are two bottles left in the fridge, both peppermint. Matt hates peppermint, in everything -gum, dessert foods, alcohol, you name it, peppermint shouldn't be in it, but he's had enough of it that he can't really taste it anymore, and he grabs both bottles on impulse. He's having too many semi-coherent thoughts; he isn't nearly drunk enough yet.
"There are the last two," he says, and stands, giving the bottles an inviting little shake. "We could finish off the set."
Frank's eyes go wide, like Matt dropped his pants instead of offering Frank more alcohol. "Nah, I've had enough."
Matt shakes his head, which sends the room into a pleasant, gentle spin. "You sure?"
Frank is looking right at Matt's mouth.
Matt gets from the minifridge to the wall with surprising speed for a guy as drunk as he is, and of course, Frank is between Matt and the wall, so Frank winds up pinned against a whole lot of girly floral wallpaper.
"Because it doesn't look like," Matt starts to say, but then Frank leans forward and presses their mouths together, and, shit - Frank tastes like peppermint, Matt hates peppermint, but that sort of works out, because Matt hates Frank, too.
Hate might be too strong a word. Dislike; that's better. He dislikes the hell out of Frank, and peppermint, and the fact that the two of them currently come as a package deal is just so typical of Frank, so typical, that Matt almost laughs against Frank's mouth.
Frank doesn't seem to notice.
Frank lets Matt pin him to the wall for a surprisingly long time before he grabs Matt's shoulders in both hands and just kind of tosses him onto the bed, and fair is fair, so Matt lets Frank be in charge for a while; but Frank is apparently a take-it-slow kind of guy when he's drunk, and Matt just wants to be naked, now, five minutes ago, as soon as possible--
"Frank," he says, and doesn't get any further, because Frank's mouth is a half-inch away from a real sweet spot on Matt's neck, and if he'd just - if he'd only get with the program and - but he doesn't get it, no matter how hard Matt twists to get Frank's mouth where he wants it, and he won't let go of Matt's fucking hands, so Matt can't just grab Frank's head and move it to the right spot - "Frank, clothes, off--"
That much Frank understands, and Matt doesn't waste the opportunity; as soon as Frank lets go of Matt's hands, Matt flips them over, wraps both hands around Frank's head, and drags Frank's mouth to the spot on his neck, just below his right ear - yes, there, apparently even Frank can be trained, and Matt wants - he wants Frank to - gasp, just like that, and go slack, just like that, yes, perfect, and Frank doesn't even know Matt has one up on him right now, that's the beauty of it.
Frank is yanking off Matt's pants, which is good, but he's rolling them over onto their sides at the same time, which is - terrible, they're just colliding, this is no good--
"Goddammit, Frank," Matt snaps, and rolls back onto Frank, flattening Frank out on the bed, pinning his arms to his sides to keep him there, and this is better than showing Frank up in the firing range, than beating Frank in drills, because there's no competition here, just Frank underneath him - but Frank still won't give in, and Matt is never going to come unless Frank - until Frank just--
"Let me," Matt pants at Frank's ear, pushing down on him, bearing down; not coaxing, not negotiating, just demanding. "You have to let me--"
And maybe Frank gets it, finally, because he stops fighting, and Matt is in control, completely in control - completely--
They're coming in through the far wall--
No, don't--
His fingers dig into Frank's arms, hard enough to leave marks.
--
Author's Note: Written for Dira Sudis in the Yuletide 2006 challenge.
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