A/N - Me and Callitwhatyouwill77 devised and wrote this together as a sort of stand-alone thing, however since then we have had a few requests to carry it on. There is no real build up to this story so the background information is basically that Matthew and Mary are both 17 and have been family friends forever. Isobel is away for the summer helping out water-aid get clean water in LEDC countries so Mary's family have taken Matthew with them to Rosamund and Marmaduke's villa in spain. The idea is that at some point in this holiday, Patrick signs Matthew up to join a bull run (neither of us were really sure if this was a real thing but basically a load of bulls are released and a crowd of runners have to beat them to the finish line) and Matthew is kind of enthusiastic to give it a try because he's quite a keen runner. Mary, who has had a crush on him for a while now, is not so enthusiastic. This story starts with Mary, Matthew, Patrick, Sybil and Edith stood by the start line as Matthew prepares to race.
If, after reading, you would like us to continue with this, please review and let us know! Also, please do check out Callitwhatyouwill77 on here is you're a M/M fan!
Also, if you have any better ideas for a name for this story please do either review or message me or callitwhatyouwill77 because we're both not too sure about it.
That said, here goes. Hope you enjoy it :)
"If you do this Matthew..." she didn't know what to say. "I will never speak to you again."
Mary's words hang in the air, her threat palpable enough to cause not only Matthew's, but everyone's jaws to drop slightly as Matthew takes her in. He wants to gauge if she's serious, but he knows she is. He knows Mary doesn't make empty threats.
She's being selfish and impeccably self-centred, she knows this, but she doesn't have Sybil's blind faith or Edith's steady trust. She doesn't have it in her to watch him walk out there and pretend that any of this is okay with her. Even Patrick looks a little taken aback, just a few seconds ago he was clapping Matthew on the back, revelling in all the excitement, and now his eyes have widened in shock. Mary is his eldest cousin and he's been in and out of her family's house since the day he was born; he knows she means what she says. And he knows she'll stick to her guns.
Mary also knows there's a risk and a price that comes with a threat like this, knows that it's entirely possible, probable even, that Matthew or any of the others are willing to call her bluff or even that her stupidity and stubbornness might provoke her to go through with it. She's the kind of person that sticks to her guns no matter how ridiculous and how much it hurts herself to do it. She's not the kind of person that loses face. The others know this too- if Sybil's wide eyed stare, Edith's sharp intake of breath, and Patrick's muttered "Oh shit," are any indication. But it barely registers in Mary's mind as her eyes lock with Matthew's piercing blue ones, and she wonders if he knows what she's really trying to say.
Please don't do this. You have nothing to prove to me. If you get hurt...
If he got hurt. It's this thought that causes the heat behind her eyes but it's the look on his face that causes her to turn her back and walk away. His look tells her it's a risk he's willing to take, that he doesn't quite believe her, that he doesn't know what she really means. She can't take it anymore, she can't watch it, it's too painful, and so she walks away from the situation which is ironically hypocritical but at this point she doesn't care. She can't watch him do this.
I'm never going to speak to him again. I'm never going to speak to him again. I'm never going to speak to him again.
If she repeats it enough times in her head it might give her the strength she knows she doesn't have in order to do it. She can feel her heart pounding in her chest as she tries to push away the horrible feeling of acute disappointment when he doesn't come chasing after her like someone from one of those stupid movies he keeps getting her to watch.
She walks all the way back to her aunt's villa and sits in the garden on the patio steps, pathetically crying.
She hears the loud gong that signals the start of the running and she closes her eyes at the thought of what could be happening. Despite the extreme heat, goosebumps erupt on her arms and her toes curl in frightful anticipation. With each second that passes she gets even more nervous and her mind is flooded with unbidden pictures of Matthew being stomped into the ground, blooded and bruised with his eyes open, unseeing. She takes a deep breath, pushing the image from her mind.
Maybe Sybil was right. Maybe Matthew could do it and he'd be perfectly fine. Maybe they'd all go out for dinner afterwards in celebration and Papa would slap Matthew on the back proudly and give him a toast. Maybe he'd be ok. He was some sort of qualified sprinting champion after all, she'd seen the picture of the finals in Manchester on Matthew's screensaver when he set up films- his best friend James slapping Matthew on the back as the first-place medal was hung around his neck. Maybe it'll all work out and she can swallow her pride and give him a teasing smile and roll her eyes at him again, because their subtle flirting and playful arguments have become an intrinsic part of her that she doesn't know what to do without. She wakes up each morning looking forward to it and goes to sleep each night re-living the events of the day. Besides, she doesn't think she can stay away from him when he does such infuriating things like wink at her across the dinner table as he taps her feet with his or buy her her favourite very rare chocolates with the last of his pocket money just to see the smile on her face.
Mary looked down at the dusty ground and stomped on a fly that had landed next to her foot. How dare Matthew go and risk his life when she had explicitly told him not to!
Because what if Sybil was wrong. What if the others were all wrong and Mary is right. Yes, he's sprinted before but never in a crowd of other people with bulls chasing them that could very easily catch up with him and crush him beneath their stampeding hooves. Did bulls have hooves? Mary didn't know, or care for that matter, because perhaps he'll be hospitalised and she'll end up clutching his hand and praying to the god she's not sure if she believes in that he'll wake up and be ok. Just so she can tease him and smack his arm as he grins at her, sweeping an annoying hand through his annoyingly lovely messy blonde hair. And then Mary suddenly realises that she's already praying.
Dear Lord, I don't pretend to have much credit with you. I'm not even sure that you're there. But if you are, and I've ever done anything good, I beg you to keep him safe.
It's ironic because it was Matthew that taught her that it's ok to be vulnerable sometimes, and it's alright to seek quiet moments to be alone to sort it out and it's alright to ask for help and put yourself out there if you need it. She's slightly bitter about this, because, quite obviously, she had put herself out there to implore him for help- begging him not to do it- and he'd rejected it. But now silence is stretching around her worry consumed body, save for the pounding in her chest and thousands of painful images screaming through her brain.
She'd never felt quite like this before. Her throat feels swollen and her mouth feels dry and the butterflies in her stomach feel more like parasites. She thinks she might be sick. She's been trying to ignore the fact that she likes him for a long time now, simply because she has no idea where having this kind of a crush could lead. It frightens her that she cares so much about him. She's had boyfriends before, sure, but none of them have made her feel the way Matthew does, and that scares her. Because Matthew is her age, he doesn't live nearby or go to the same school but she's known him forever and he's smart, he's funny, he's kind and gentle and attractive. He wants so to study English Literature at Cambridge. He's caring and he's interesting and, oh god he's handsome. Mary isn't used to people's affection being shown, she knows her parents love her but they are old fashioned in their ways and although they do occasionally tell her it isn't often. You are my darling daughter, and I love you, as hard as it is for an Englishman to say the words. Granny is much the same. Her and Edith have their brief moments of friendship but most of the time they just bicker and fight. Sybil is a darling of course but she's possibly even more strong willed than Mary and likes to spend her time righting injustice in the world. She's also young, and doesn't quite understand some things yet. Reggie was always kind to Mary, he was her godfather and she felt eminently loved by him and Isobel too, but when he had died she'd lost him and Isobel had come over less because it reminded her of what she'd lost.
She remembers when Reggie died so well because she'd been the first of her family to know. She'd been woken up in the very early morning to her phone going and had picked it up to find Matthew distraught on the other line, crying and wavering as she tried to comfort him. She'd woken up the driver at four in the morning and he'd taken her all the way to Manchester. It had been odd, because her and Matthew hadn't really been best friends at that point so she wasn't sure why he had turned to her or why she had felt the need to travel at that god-awful hour so he could cry into her shoulder as they lay in his bed and she could hold him and whisper to him.
This only brings her back to Matthew.
She doesn't move from that spot for a long time. The thunderstorm in her gut twists her up from the inside and she's never contemplated before that it's possible to break your own heart but in that moment when she hears the second gong hers might as well have been that vase of granny's that Matthew had broken when he'd punched that scumbag of a boyfriend she'd had last year. She feels it shatter inside her at the noise because she knows she's been sat there for an hour now and whatever has happened has happened. The chase is over. And Matthew is either ok or he isn't.
What if it had happened? What if he'd slipped and fell into the dust and it was all her fault because she'd said the wrong thing. She hadn't supported him and maybe it was her fault for not doing so. She's stupid. Because she can't think of a single thing that makes it worth not talking to him ever again and she can't imagine anything that would provoke him to never speak to her again, if the threat had been reversed. He's so incomprehensible; he'd tell her she's beautiful without a stutter, that he wants her to be happy, that if her boyfriends weren't good to her they'd have to answer to him, but for some reason he's happy to bargain her not talking to him just to take part in a stupid race.
She imagines his body thudding onto the solid ground and she wants to run back over to him and make certain he's ok, even though she knows these things she's picturing may not be true. The chances are that he's fine, he's done the race and he did well. She'd surely know if something had happened? Someone would have come to tell her?
She's angry with him mostly. She wants to slap him and scream at him and make sure he knows that she'll keep her threat and it's all his fault. But she feels all anger evaporate when she hears the gate to the garden squeak as it opens and footsteps on the stone. She looks up, her heart beating so erratically she's surprised she hasn't had a heart attack.
It's Matthew. He's walking towards her very slowly, his expression fixed in one of concerned confusion. In spite of herself, relief floods through her when she sees him, but she's already descending into hysteria and she can't breathe and he knows what's happening to her before she does as she struggles for breath and breaks down into tears.
He might be ok, but she isn't.
It irritates her that he's so calm, that he knows exactly what to do during her panic attacks, and he sits there next to her with both his hands clasping hers in her lap, thumbs stroking gently over the back of her hands as his soft voice assures her that she's quite, quite safe and everything is alright. By the time it's over, she's exhausted and sweating slightly from her rapid breathing but she won't give in. He's not getting off that easily. But she can't bring herself to take her hands away.
"What's going on?" He asks, exasperated and utterly bewildered by her more than unusual behaviour. Mary refuses to talk to him, turning her gaze up so she's looking at the sky. She can still see him in her peripheral, his forever messy blonde hair falling over his forehead as he peers at her tearful eyes, trying so desperately to understand.
"You can talk to me, you know." He adds. "I didn't race."
She looks at him properly then. "You didn't?" There's a light in her voice that shows that she's cheered slightly by this knowledge. Matthew shakes his head seriously. "Why not?" she asks.
Matthew squeezes her hands at that. "Because I know you, and you don't make empty threats. And I couldn't bear you never talking to me again."
His words console her more than she will admit. "So," he continues, "are you going to tell me why you made such a threat and then ran off straight afterwards?"
She stammers her next words, unsure how to put her feelings into words. "I - I couldn't watch. I don't know why, I just... couldn't watch."
There's a beat of silence, and Mary can feel her heart slipping out of her fingers.
Matthew nods. He thinks he finally understands what she means; he stayed to watch the race because he's learned over the years that it's best to give Mary time to cool down and he saw the unlucky few that made a stumble and had to be rushed to hospital. He didn't know exactly why she had rejected to him racing so very strongly, but he did know that, if she had told him she was racing, he wouldn't have been able to watch for fear of seeing her get hurt. "I get it," he says slowly.
"Yeah, I just... didn't want you to, you know, die or anything." She jokes, trying to swallow down the lump that is slowly rising in her throat. "I still have so many things to say about your hideous green flipflops. It would be a shame to see them go to waste." Matthew laughs, despite how he can still hear the uncertain waver in her voice. He removes one of his hands from its place in her lap and wraps his arm around her shoulders. She closes her eyes and leans against him.
"If I didn't know better, I'd say you're going soft," he mutters, resting his chin on her head.
"Fortunately, you know better." She says in return. Part of it is because of her pride, and she doesn't really want to vocalise how terrified she had been for fear of damaging her reputation. But given that she'd spent the last ten minutes hyperventilating and crying, begging for his help to make her feel normal again
(Matthew, I can't breathe.
It's alright.
Matthew, please help me.
I've got you.
Please, please help me.
It's perfectly alright.)
It is more for the second reason that she doesn't elaborate: She is afraid of how strongly she feels. She's terrified that if she really looks at him, talks to him, lets him in, she won't be able to step back again when the inevitable rejection hurts her. Matthew and her and too different. Matthew, who can make you feel like you're worth the entire world when he fixes his bright-eyed gaze on you. Matthew who doesn't have creepers growing and crawling and tightening around the chains on his heart. Matthew who doesn't destroy everything he tries to love.
Her body is still recovering from its episode and she figures he won't mind if she goes up to her room to rest, she just doesn't want to move from his arms, not quite yet, because she doesn't know when or if she'll get a chance to be there again.
"Are you alright now?" He asks, and she sighs because he's so goddamn caring and to be honest, after creating so much drama she's not sure if she deserves it.
"I'm tired. I think I might go up and rest for a bit." But she doesn't move. Matthew murmurs his agreement; he knows from previous experience how exhausted these attacks leave her afterwards and he hates seeing her like this because, although it's a part of her and he wouldn't wish to change her in any way, he sees how horrible it is for her and he hates to see her suffer.
When she finally, reluctantly, removes herself from Matthew's warm embrace she stands up and walks over to the entrance to the villa. She turns back to him when he calls her and smiles when he stands up, his shorts and t-shirt and green flipflops (they really were hilarious) rather becoming.
"Patrick has suggested we all go down to the beach in an hour or two," he says, "I don't want to push you if you're too tired, but it wouldn't be nearly as fun without you." He grins at her and she smiles back.
"Of course. I'll walk down with you in… shall we say an hour?"
Matthew agrees at once, surprised she took him up on the offer.
As if I'd miss the chance to see him wearing nothing but swim shorts, she thinks as she goes up to her room.
A/N - we are very much open to prompts which you can sent to either of us, please review and tell us what you thought
