CHAPTER TEN.
"…Gilbert?"
"Yeah, Birdie?"
"I think I'm dying."
"How terribly unfortunate."
"I'm being serious."
"…Why's that?"
"No one should have thrown up that much without it turning to blood. I really mean that."
"And I really don't think anyone should have drunk that much without being brought into hospital to get their stomach pumped."
"Touché, jackass."
"Yeah, I know my ass is sexy; I hear it all the time."
Despite being so absolutely, undeniably, and fucking hung-over, Matthew somehow found the strength to pick up the pillow and smack Gilbert with it. Repeatedly. The smaller man was curled protectively around him, face buried in the nape of the Canadian's neck, arms thrown about his middle and his legs curled to fit in perfectly with the other's slim, toned legs, managing to keep both of their bodies excessively warm beneath the blankets and causing them to remain oblivious to the cold. The impact of the soft, gentle pillow caused Gilbert to snarl venomously in German and tighten his hold on the ailing Canuck, which in turn caused the one being cuddled into to gag, feeling bile rise in his throat from the added pressure on his alcohol-abused stomach.
Moaning and trying his best to keep everything down where it should be, Matthew wiggled in his grasp. "Don't hold me so tightly," he croaked out. "Or I'mma puke all over your shit, Gil."
Immediately the arms slackened and he gave a sigh of relief, retaking his pillow and stuffing it under his head once more and sighing, shutting his eyes. The Canadian felt Gilbert's breath ghost along the nape of his neck as he sighed heavily, burrowing back in even closer to the lithe youth as though he were intending to return to sleep.
Before he could, Matthew cleared his throat and spoke again: "What time is it?"
There was a brief shifting around, and one of the arms holding him was removed, leaving that part of his side not nearly as warm as before. "It's almost eleven in the morning." A yawn followed. "Go back to sleep for another while, please? It's not like you have to be there in an hour - didn't you tell me McKnight wanted you over for four?"
"Well, yeah," the Canadian said, making to get out of the bed. The one arm around him now tightened and pulled him back firmly against the Prussian-American. Matthew groaned, slamming his face back down onto the mattress. "But I want to get a shower and stuff."
"You can do that later," was the mumble he received in response to his whine. From how thick Gilbert's voice was, he could tell that his former boyfriend was starting to fall back to sleep - a few of the words seemed to be slurred, and he was nestling his nose back down into the soft, curly hair by his cheek. "I'll wake y'up later or somethin'."
"But you'll end up forgetting and I'll oversleep an-"
"Shu'up and go back to sleep, Matthew."
The arm snaked its way back beneath the thick blankets and he felt his body just sink into the soft, comfortable mattress, eyes fluttering shut as he gave a non-committal hum of agreement and acceptance. Everything around him was just so warm, and so soft. The blankets, the mattress, the pillows, the person he was sharing the bed with. Even the alcohol he could still feel in his system was wonderful, keeping him heated on the inside (despite the fact that it felt like his innards were waging a civil war, but that could be overlooked for the time being). Matthew sighed, burying his face back into the pillow as Gilbert curled in closer around him, sapping all the warmth from his body and simultaneously providing more than what was necessary. God, it felt so nice to just be held so closely, so firmly. Like he was wanted, and that he would never be let go of.
(And, for the briefest of moments, he found himself wondering what Alfred's arms would feel like around him, how his body would feel from behind like that, pressed flush against the expanse of his bare skin. Would they be like Gilbert's arms, would he feel firm and strong? Or would the-)
Body going tense, Matthew's eyes shot open, everything suddenly clear to him and his mind very wide awake and alert to everything. At the exact same time, his stomach rolled violently and he could taste last night's taco run, at two am, coming back to haunt him with a side of vodka, rum, whiskey and breezers.
Where the fuck had that thought come from, precisely?
Feeling the head by the base of his neck lift and vacate the area of his neck and skin, leaving the damp spot empty and cool, Gilbert propped himself up on one elbow and peered down at the tense Canadian. He looked worried beneath all the sleepiness his face and eyes still held. "You alright?" he murmured, brushing locks of messy, curly blonde hair from his flushed cheek.
Matthew shook his head 'no' and realized, a little too late, that that had been a terrible decision as his stomach suddenly started to crawl up along his oesophagus.
Oh no, no, no, no.
Hell. Fucking. No.
Bolting upright with a strangled 'no' to accompany the shake of the head, narrowly missing cracking his skull on the bunk above him, he rolled out of it and let his knees hit the floor first before scrambling to his feet and making an immediate beeline for the bathroom. He tripped over an empty Smirnoff flask in the process before making a nose-dive for the toilet, slamming the door shut behind him as he quite literally clung to the porcelain throne, emptying his stomach of its contents in record time. Trying to keep the gagging and retching noises to a minimum, he shut his eyes firmly, tears leaking from the corners and down over his paling cheeks. A slight cold sweat had broken out across his back as he steadily vomited all the remaining alcohol in his system. Now that he thought of it, when he lifted his head and looked around, everything still felt sort of fuzzy, like all of the booze had yet to wear off. Well, that explained why when he had woken up that everything felt so warm and cozy, even more so than usual.
He thought about the absurdity of the situation - seven hours of sleep and still waking up with a bit of a buzz remaining - and then immediately stuck his head back down into the bowl of the toilet, continuing to puke like it was what he had been born to do.
"So worth it," he moaned in between gags. "So. Fucking. Worth it."
Matthew had never been so happy to toss his cookies in his entire life.
This was the ultimate hangover. Last night's mission had been a complete and utter success, through and through. From what he could remember, he had made out, several times, with some absolutely gorgeous girl from Texas while they had been in the middle of (attempting) singing 'onea' by illScarlet, a song devoted entirely to getting and being stoned. And they also learned that Antonio played some pretty amazing bongos, too. Which was very appropriate of course, when considering the occasion and all. And then after that he had gotten several phone numbers, out-drank the Danish student Mathias and learned how to speak bits and pieces of terribly pronounced Norwegian from Teit. After learning how to call several individuals he knew some very choice (and inappropriate) names in both Norwegian and Danish, everything was a bit of a blur - by that time he had already finished off an entire bottle of whiskey and was moving onto a single bottle of Bacardi. Some more making out with very pretty women ensued, and that essentially was the evening until three-thirty in the morning rolled around and the alcohol in his stomach suddenly decided it wanted out.
Like now, really. It was just everything that was leftover that wanted out. Along with those devastatingly good tacos that they had consumed.
Leaving the bathroom after washing his face over several times and brushing his teeth four times obsessively, the ailing Canadian groaned as he staggered back over to the bottom bunk and flopped back into it. He curled in on his side in the original spot he had come from, Gilbert resuming his curled position around his former boyfriend with a sigh.
"Feeling any better after your little escapade with the porcelain goddess?" he asked softly, laughing lightly as he nuzzled the other's neck gently. Arms snaked their way back around his middle, locking in place in front of his flat abdomen, and the Canadian just felt his body sink even deeper into the mattress; vomiting for so long had reduced him to an exhausted state of mind once more, his body feeling useless and unbelievably heavy.
All Gilbert received as a reply was a pained groan and a 'shut the fuck up, you goddamn hoser because I'm going back to sleep.'
They remained that way until almost two-thirty in the afternoon, having fallen back into a deep slumber, the alcohol finally leaving their systems as they slept. When Gilbert's cell phone started to vibrate beneath the pillow, the older woke up first, grumbling as he tried to bury himself deeper into Matthew's thin, warm body. This movement only succeeded in waking up the younger. Stretching lazily and yawning, the Canadian rolled over to face Gilbert, giving him a lazy, sleepy smile as he stretched again. He quietly wished him a Merry Christmas, nuzzling their noses together for a brief moment.
"What time'sit?" he mumbled, hazy eyes barely open as he watched the Prussian-American grumble and curl back in on himself, screwing his eyes shut and muttering blackly beneath his breath in rapid German.
Groaning and lazily smacking the older man's shoulder, Matthew rolled out of the bed and onto his feet, stretching as he stood, back arching a little. Groping for his glasses, he located them on the dresser and shoved them on, blinking rapidly as the world came back into focus. He yawned. While we was still hung-over - the nausea still lingered, his head pounded and it felt like something had crawled into his mouth and had died there - he didn't feel nearly as terrible as when he had first woken up. After a moment, when he finally noticed the chill in the bedroom's air, he reached for his sweater and pulled it down over his bare torso.
"Way to kill the view, jackass," Gilbert groaned from his spot on the bottom bunk.
"Aye, el chico es muy guapo, ¿Verdad?" Antonio purred loudly from above him as his friend replied in kind with a string of German that ended with a loud wolf-whistle.
Dirty, bilingual bastards.
For a long moment that started to become very awkward, very fast, Matthew alternated between staring at the two men with a flat, dry look in his bloodshot eyes. At first neither of them seemed to be bothered by the look of death being directed towards them. But then, when the Canadian gave an icy smirk, they started to shift about, somewhat uncomfortably, and the Spaniard even went as far as burying his face back down in the blankets and hauling his thick quilt up over his head as if in an attempt at hiding himself from the prying gaze of the one stood in the center of the room.
"You're both pigs," he finally said in a voice that was terrifyingly nonchalant as he picked up his backpack and removed from it two pill bottles, popping out a Valium and Zoloft, choking them back with some left over liquid. Thankfully enough it was indeed water, and not vodka like he feared it might have been - one was not to trust bottles of clear liquid in a room that had been previously filled to capacity with drunken college students and every brand name of alcohol known to man.
"I'm going to go and get a shower if that's fine with all of you," Matthew then announced as he put his medications back into an interior pouch of his bag. "If I'm not out within an hour, call for the National Guard to come in and get me, alright?"
There were two mumbles of agreement from either of the college students and Matthew laughed softly, shaking his head slowly and then grimacing slightly at the throb of protest that came from a spot just above his right eye. Fucking hangover; they always gave him the most painful cluster headaches known to man. If the excessive amount of alcohol in his system wasn't enough to make him sick, than the migraine the next morning would be more than enough to do him in.
Hobbling into the bathroom - which he thankfully had enough strength to clean after he had finished puking earlier on in the morning - Matthew set down his change of clothing down on the floor as he started the shower up. Pulling back he flicked a switch to turn on the overhead fan that would clear up the steam with minimal effort.
Stripping back out of the sweater and removing his glasses, he dropped the clothing to the floor along with his pyjama pants and boxers, stepping over the edge of the tub and under the stream of heated, pulsating water that poured down from the shower head and forcefully hit the tub he was standing in. The warm water on his bare, cold skin felt incredible, he noted with a shiver of pleasure, shoving his head under the flow and soaking his hair, eyes screwed shut. Blindly, he reached for the shampoo that was there and poured it onto his head, turning so that his back was to the water as he massaged his scalp, cleaning his hair twice before he put the bottle away and finished rinsing out his hair, freeing it from the sweet-smelling suds that Gilbert's hair was usually fragranced with.
And so, he just stood there under the water, letting the warmth hit him. It felt so relaxing, almost as though he were washing away his hangover and every other bad thing he had attached to him - which there were more than enough of. Running a hand absently down along his side, he also noted with some mild disdain that he could count, without any sort of impediment, seven of his twelve ribs. Lips dipped into a frown. This knowledge disgusted him to no end, and when he moved his hand to the other side he found he could count eight there with no problem. His searching hand travelled to his back and he ran his fingertips down along his spine, biting his lips and shutting his eyes as he felt the bumps on his spine - they were higher out than what they were last month. He had managed to lose even more weight, yet again. Why couldn't he keep it on? Was something like that just too hard to ask? He had eaten what Alfred had put in his fridge (although when the man asked if he was, he pointedly changed the topic of conversation with the utmost ease), and he had even bought some stuff that was on special that week with some extra money he happened to have. But still, why was he still steadily dropping pounds? That was all, honest to God that was all he wanted to know. Tears of frustration formed in his eyes and spilt down over his cheeks, forming a salty hot trail that he quickly washed away by sticking his face into the water. It ran down over his face, got into his mouth and it felt like he was suffocating as it ran down over his nose, preventing him from inhaling.
Maybe he could drown this way - something like that would be interesting. Everything would be far, far easier as well. But when his lungs demanded that air be returned to them, he gasped sharply and jerked his head back with a shuddering sigh.
(He was also beginning to lose track of all the different options, so let's just call this one number two hundred)
Rubbing at his face viciously, feeling tears continuing to stream down his cheeks and mingle with the water that was running down his pale skin from his drenched hair, Matthew simply gave up. The Canadian sat down on the floor of the bath, side-on to the spray of water, letting it douse his knees and midsection as he stared at the white curtain, eyes blank as he let his head rest back against the wall. He closed them and sighed, running his hand down over his face before remaining there, silent and unmoving, only lifting his hand on occasion to wipe away the tears that were really starting to get to him.
He didn't know how much time had passed, but he simply sat there the entire time, letting the water pound his body until one side was numb from the pellet-like force of the water, and the other side was numb from the cold, from having no exposure to any warm water.
There was a knock at the door. "You still alive in there, Birdie? It's almost three-thirty."
"Barely," was Matthew's flat reply as he stood finally, knees buckling dangerously as he shut off the water with a sigh, tipping his head to the side as he rung out his sopping tendrils of hair. "I'll be out in a minute."
Grabbing a towel and drying off his hair, and then his body, he hauled on a pair of crisp blue jeans he had been given the evening before by Antonio as a Christmas gift - in return, the Spaniard had gotten another bottle of Port from the Canadian, which the man said he was going to save for New Year's Eve. Shouldering the pale gray dress shirt he had bought for the occasion - Matthew could not and would not justify spending thirty dollars on a shirt, but really, he couldn't just wear a t-shirt to a Christmas dinner - he picked up the hair dryer and turned it on, bending over and ducking his head slightly so he could blow dry the messy, soaked blonde locks before going over.
Some few minutes later he emerged from the bathroom, bright-eyed and smiling at Gilbert as he tucked his shirt down into his jeans, pulling on the sneakers he had gotten as well. "Do I look presentable?" he asked with a soft laugh, picking up his bag and stuffing his dirty clothes down into it before setting it back on the floor.
Gilbert, who had already changed into a black sweater and pair of jeans, glanced over from the desk where his laptop was and smiled. "You always look presentable, Birdie," he said with a laugh, stretching lazily before standing and grabbing his car keys from his desk.
Blushing and rolling his eyes, he smiled a little when he caught sight of the painting of the two soldiers and little girl he had done for the man hanging on the wall already. The art student followed his friend's gaze and ducked his head, smiling slightly when Matthew commented idly that he had wasted no time in getting it up there. "Well, I like it, so why not?" he mumbled, following after the Canadian as they left the room, the Prussian-American shouldered his jacket while the younger pulled a sweater over his head and snuggled down into it.
"Are you headed off to your parents place for dinner tonight?" Matthew asked as they headed down the hall, glancing over to the pale-skinned man beside him.
Gilbert nodded with a grin. "Oh yeah," he said. "Ludwig is going to be there, and with his new, hot Italian girlfriend. I plan on bringing out the baby photos before Dad gets a chance to." He cackled, looking positively malevolent as he essentially planned the demise of his younger brother's masculinity.
All Matthew could do was laugh, shaking his head and calling his friend a 'bad, bad man'. Checking his bag to make sure he had his own house keys and the art supplies Gilbert had given him for his Christmas gift (including a home made card that nearly brought tears of laughter to Matthew's eyes), he hoisted his bag back up and trailed behind Gilbert, finding that he never wanted to leave the place, that this was where he wanted to stay for as long as it was possible.
But that wouldn't happen, not unless some sort of miracle occurred in the near future.
One might imagine that having a family dinner with your psychiatrist's family would be a stiffly polite, awkward and tediously formal affair. In most cases, that is the God given truth.
But when it came to Ian McKnight and his family, it was anything but that.
In fact, Matthew almost wondered if he was the sanest one that was there in the house.
Sitting on the floor with the family cat curled up in his lap, back against the sofa, Matthew watched the television with Greg, Dr. McKnight's eldest son - a man that worked for ExxonMobil and was quite the intelligent individual. Neither of them were at all interested in watching It's a Wonderful Life for the second time that day, but no complaints were made considering Greg's wife and his younger sister, Chloe, were the ones that had claimed sovereignty over the remote for the remainder of the evening - and when it came to Greg's wife, Jade, you did not defy a pregnant woman, not unless you had a death wish.
Greg, who was sprawled off across the sofa, his head down by Matthew's and a glass of cold champagne on his stomach, looked incredibly bored and close to falling asleep as the smell of a turkey dinner being prepared by Ian and Peggy came wafting out through the kitchen door, down the hall, and into the living room of the splendid Manhattan apartment.
"Enjoying the film?" Greg asked in a flat voice, glancing to the Canadian who looked as though he were in the process of nodding off as well while he rubbed behind the cat's ears.
Jolting, the hung-over youth turned his gaze so that it rested on the business man and grinned wryly. "Immensely," he deadpanned. "Although my hangover is providing even more amusement for me right now. So is staring at the cat, but all the same."
The man laughed, drawing the attention of the two women and causing them to shush him with stern looks on his face. Greg scowled, muttering 'women' under his breath in a vile-sounding tone of voice and rolling his eyes, causing Matthew to snicker quietly, ducking his head lest they hear him.
Standing as he removed the glass of champagne from his stomach, Greg stretched and yawned, running his hand through his dark brown hair and shaking out the closely cropped locks. "Let's leave the women to their, ah, fawning over black and white films while we go and discuss things that are relevant," he said, motioning for Matthew to get up and join him. "Like, oh I don't know, the price of tea in China and England or something like that."
Laughing despite the glares they both received this time around, Matthew followed behind the man that stood almost a full head taller than anyone else in the entire house. The cat gave him an offended look for a brief moment before twining about his legs and curling up on the spot on the sofa that had just been vacated.
Leading them to McKnight's home office, where there were more books and fancy objects than what an office would normally have, Greg flopped down on the sofa that was there while Matthew sunk down into an arm chair, looking far to comfortable and smug.
"So, I have to ask you, how do you know Dad?" Greg asked idly as he sipped on his drink, smiling encouragingly at the younger man before him.
Freezing at the question, eyes widening, Matthew's mouth opened and closed uselessly for a brief moment. He hadn't been expecting to be pulled off to the side like this by an oil company mogul and questioned about how he knew the man that had invited him to dinner. McKnight had warned him that it might happen, but not to expect it - usually his kids, although somewhat crazy despite being adults and the fact that they all conformed to the cliché (we put the fun back in dysfunctional!) they were not usually nosy and knew when to draw the line and stop asking questions.
'It must be hard to draw the line when you've only just started, though,' Matthew thought nervously, swallowing and looking away.
"I, ah, I'm one of your dad's p-patients," he said, voice dropping to a whisper as he wrung his hands, staring awkwardly at the floor.
But, to his surprise, Greg didn't react the way he had expected to. Instead, his eyes lit up and he leant forward. "Oh, so you're that Matthew!" he declared with a grin, nodding. "Dad's mentioned you a few times. I've wanted to meet you for a while now, actually."
"W-What?" Looking up quickly, he blinked several times, cheeks heating up as he chewed on his lower lip, running a hand through his hair and managing a weak smile. "And h-he has? Ah…"
"Yes, yes, all good stuff nothing to worry," he said with a laugh. "He thinks very highly about you."
The blush adorning his cheeks darkened drastically, and the Canadian bit his lip, trying to keep from smiling too much. Yes, he knew McKnight thought well of him - the man had told him that several times - but he never thought his psychiatrist would actually go as far as talking about him to members of his family about him. The knowledge caused something warm to bloom in his chest and he ran a hand through his hair, smiling freely now as he looked past Greg and to the wall.
"As well, I also hear you're quite the artist," Greg said, leaning forward with a conspiratorial look in his eyes - eyes that were like McKnight's in every way possible. "He showed me some pictures of the stuff you've done, and all I can say is that you have some serious talent at your fingertips."
If it was at all possible, Matthew's cheeks had gone scarlet and he all but hoped that the floor was going to open up and swallow him whole. So, that's what they had talked about: his art. For some reason, it started to make a lot more sense.
"Which is why I wanted to ask you a few things," Greg continued cheerfully, eyes bright and the smile on his face a winning one, subtly reminding him of a certain American. It was enough to cause some of the heat to run out of his face and maybe even cause a scowl to form on his lips - but because he was in the presence of who seemed to be a very nice man, he chose not to. "First off, I was wondering - one of the paintings Dad showed me. It was the one of the Statue of Liberty with the AK-47 instead of the torch and a book with the names of the FBI's most wanted on it instead of the Declaration of Independence or whatever it is she's holding. Do you still have that one?"
Wracking his memory to try and remember which painting it was that McKnight's son was talking about, his eyes suddenly lit up and he nodded. That one he had painted while living with McKnight, in the first month he had been there. Baby blue canvas, twelve by fourteen. He remembered it very well - it was the first thing he had painted in almost two years at that time, and had come out far better than expected. One of his favourites, but it had ended up in a pile in his bedroom, along with the many other completed paintings he no longer had the space to put up on the walls in his apartment. "Yes, I do actually," he said politely, nodding his head and smiling. His stomach was twisting nervously in on itself and he could actually feel his palms beginning to sweat. He swallowed hard. "Why do you ask?"
Greg surprised him by removing his wallet from his suit jacket, counting out several bills from it. "I'll give you five hundred for it," he said, setting down five hundred-dollar bills down in front of Matthew, causing the Canadian's face to go white and his eyes to widen with shock. "And I want to see some of your other works later on as well; I'm in the process of redecorating my office, and I'm looking for some art to hang there. And frankly, I'm more into modern stuff than all that classical shit the other guys have hanging in their own offices. Your stuff is what I've been looking for for months now, and that's that. What do you say?"
Staring at the bills on the table, picking them up and looking up at Greg with impossibly wide eyes, he nodded weakly. "I-I-I… y-yes, ah, th-this is more than f-fine. I … I just … wow," he finished with an equally weak laugh, warmth making its way back into his cheeks. "Wh-when w-would you like to c-come over and look?"
"Well, tomorrow might be best; I go back to work after that and I'm sure you do, too," Greg said pleasantly, his smile wide as he sipped his champagne. "Also, there's something else I wanted to ask you to do for me."
Laughing in a voice that was a pitch higher as he slipped the money into his pocket, Matthew gestured for him to speak, thoughts too incoherent at the moment for him to even try and formulate the words he wanted so desperately to use at the moment.
"Well, Jade's going to be having the baby around March, and we were both wondering if we could commission you decorate the room for us," he said with a soft smile, a sparkle in his eyes, looking excited as he set the glass of nearly-gone bubbly down on the table that separated them. "We'll pay you one grand for it considering we'll need you to take some days off of work to complete it, and we already have colour schemes picked out because we already know that she's having a girl. All we're looking for is some cutesy stuff - butterflies, rainbows, ponies, flowers. Shit like that. Happy, calming stuff that she won't grow out of until she's at least nine or ten, y'know? And if it's really good, then we might pay you some extra. How does that sound to you?"
Matthew was positively breathless as he nodded, eyes going wide as he covered his mouth and laughed, whispering a 'thank you' as he tried his best not to cry from the overwhelming amount of emotions he was suddenly experiencing - ones he hadn't felt in so damn long thrown into the mix as well.
Stretching lazily, as though he had not done the boy across from him a world of favours and then some, he grinned somewhat smugly. "I'll probably end up taking three or four more of your paintings off of your hands, if you don't mind; I have a lot of wall space to take up in my, ahem, lovely penthouse office."
Clearing his throat once he finally felt as though he might have relocated his voice, Matthew edged forward and bit his lip. "You know, you really don't have to pay me anymore for my paintings," he said quietly. "Five hundred is far more than what they are already worth. I'm just happy that someone likes them enough to buy them."
"Nonsense," he said with a rich laugh as he drained back the rest of his alcohol. "I have enough money to toss around, Matthew - no need to worry about that. Extra savings from university, and I just got my Christmas bonus. So, I think I'm capable of paying for what your art is worth."
'What his art was worth'. All the artist could do was nod, feeling numb all over and a stupid smile still plastered upon his face as he did his best to process what it was that happened just then. He just got five hundred dollars for a painting, was being offered a thousand or more to paint a baby's room, and there was a chance he'd get another sum for several more of his paintings. Normally he was not inclined to part with his artistic endeavours - they became part of him, to an extent, especially after spending so much time working on one piece as he usually did - but this? This was not an opportunity he could pass up so easily on. This was money, and money that he needed. Savings for in case he ever got the opportunity to reapply to the School of Visual Arts - the same one that had enthusiastically accepted him several years ago, and the one that Gilbert and Antonio currently attended. Hell, he had two semesters worth of tuition already at his fingers, especially once he got to painting the baby's room.
"Thank you," he said in a voice the wavered dangerously. "Thank you so very much, Sir."
Greg cringed at this and Matthew almost panicked, wondering what it was that he had done wrong, what he had said wrong to cause the look of disdain to form on his face. "Jesus, I'm only thirty-six," he groaned. "Don't start calling me 'Sir' just yet, please. It's Greg or nothing, got it?"
Matthew laughed and nodded. "Alright, Greg," he said softly, glancing up when McKnight enter the room, smiling slightly at the sight of his son and patient talking so easily. The psychiatrist stood a little way away from them, hands in his pocket as he watched the exchange between the two men.
"Just letting you know dinner's ready whenever you want it," the man that was slowly going bald said with a relaxed grin, turning and heading back out to wherever he came from - which was more than likely the kitchen. "So I recommend you come out to have it now unless you want Peggy to come out and beat the two of you up."
Leaning across the table, whispering to the Canadian artist in a low voice, the ExxonMobil worker smirked. "Mom can be a real brute when it comes to being late for dinner," he said with a low laugh, winking at the younger man, causing him to chuckle a little, hand going to his mouth to mask the sound the best he could. "If we want to live to see Boxing Day, we might want to go now."
Both of them jumped when they noticed McKnight leaning down into their little secret-mumbling zone. "You're damn right you might want to go now if you want to live to see Boxing Day," the doctor said with a wry laugh, straightening up and leaving the two men to decide whether or not they did, indeed, want to see Boxing Day. It didn't require much thought; McKnight wasn't even all the way out of the room when the two were on their feet and quickly following after him and then passing him to get to the dining room where a large turkey dinner was being served up.
However, Matthew stopped McKnight before either of them could enter the room to sit down and eat, the young Canadian turning to stare at the American with an abnormally soft and tender look in his deeply coloured eyes.
"What is it?" the shrink asked, tilting his head to the side in a thoughtful manner as he assessed the look upon the other's face
He was taken off guard in a way most pleasant when Matthew reached out and gave his psychiatrist a surprisingly strong hug. Without a moment's hesitation, arms wrapped themselves around the young man, and startling even himself, he pressed a somewhat fatherly kiss to the youth's forehead as the boy whispered a grateful 'thank you', appearing as though he might start crying at any given moment.
At this, McKnight gave a soft smile. "Thank you for what?" he asked quietly, laughing in a low, deep voice as he let go of the thin young man.
"Everything," Matthew whispered, looking at the floor as he chewed upon his lip and blinked rapidly before he met the other's eyes with a level gaze. "Everything." Turning and heading out into the kitchen, the Canadian wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, still smiling despite the tears that were there - why they were there in the first place was something he was not entirely sure of. Perhaps it was just simply relief; he had seen people cry because of that before. Not everyone cried because of sorrow, or heartbreak. There were always other reasons, different motives.
And although he loathed crying, for once it felt nice to be crying over something that just felt so undeniably amazing.
Taking the seat that Chloe, the baby of the family, gestured to with a wide smile revealing gap teeth that he thought to be just too adorable, Matthew smiled shyly at the thirty-four-year-old woman as he set himself down, hands folded in his lap as he watched everyone putting food on their plates. There was quiet conversation being made, and he hesitantly plucked up a wheat roll, setting it down on the edge of his plate and leaning back as Peggy, a tiny plump woman with curly white hair, luminescent gray eyes and a cherry red nose (the perfect grandmother material, he decided to himself with a smile), put some cooked vegetables down onto his plate alongside the turkey, salt meat and dressing that was already there. Peggy smiled down at him before making her way over to the next plate - Jade's - and doing the same thing.
Once all of the plates were filled, and a small grace said, they started eating and discussing idle things as Matthew remained silently focused on the plate in front of him, occasionally taking a sip from the glass of ice cold red wine in front of him. The food, he decided with an inward smile of delight, tasted incredible. Even his own mother wouldn't have been able to cook as good of a turkey dinner - eleven chances out of ten said the turkey would have either dried out or would have been completely undercooked.
Just because he loved his mother and missed her with all his heart, it did not mean he missed her attempts at cooking turkey dinners.
As he ate, Matthew found it easier to relax amongst McKnight's family. They were such a large, friendly clan of people that he would have found it impossible to not feel comfortable amongst them. The entire family was all smiles the entire time they ate, laughing as they caught up on different things from all sides of the family. Like how Chloe's husband was due back from Iraq in a few weeks time, and that he had been over there for almost two years now on an extended tour of duty and that this was his second time being there. While the youth was a pacifist, and brutally so, the knowledge made him smile.
Turning to the boy, Jade smiled. "What about you, Matthew?" she asked. "What's your family like?"
The colour left Matthew's face and he looked down, absently picking at the food on his face while McKnight rubbed his forehead. Greg shot his wife a sharp look from across the table, shaking his head slightly as if to say 'no, don't ask something like that'. It seemed she caught on to the meaning of the pointed glance rather quickly as she bit her lip and brought her glass of water up to her lips.
Much to the surprise of the family in the dining room, Matthew gave a nonchalant shrug. "I don't have a family," he said in a quiet voice, smiling oddly as he lifted his wine glass to his lips to take a sip from it. After a moment he set it back down. "My mom died when I was seventeen and my step-father only kept me until my eighteenth birthday. Other than that, yeah. I have no family. But that's fine by me." He cut up a piece of turkey and set it down on his tongue, chewed thoughtfully, and then promptly excused himself from the table when he realized he no longer had an appetite.
Giving a soft smile that was hopefully somewhat reassuring to Jade, he left the dining room after thanking Peggy several times for the meal, laughing when he cheeks grew even rosier. The moment he set foot into the hall, the smile fell from his face and he drew a shuddering breath, willing himself not to cry. Because that would be just so utterly fucking humiliating; who cried when everyone else was happy? What kind of idiot did that?
When he reached up and felt the wetness on his cheeks, he cursed himself when he realized that yes; he was that kind of idiot through and through.
A hand on his shoulder startled him out of thoughts that were leaning towards self-loathing, and he quickly swiped at his eyes to free them of the tears. But they were still an incriminatingly bright shade of red. Sniffing, he looked down when he saw McKnight stood there.
"Are you alright, Matt?" he asked quietly, peering at the frail young man before him.
Slowly, Matthew nodded and sighed, wiping at his eyes one last time before offering a watery smile. "Yes, I'm fine," he replied in a similar tone.
"I'm very glad you know she didn't mean anything by that," McKnight said, keeping his voice low as he walked out into the living room, Matt close at his heels. "I'm just surprised you answered her."
Shrugging lightly, the boy sighed. "It would have been rude on my end to ignore her question or get angry with her for it," he said in a crisp voice as he took a seat on the sofa, running a hand through his hair and yawning. Instead of What a Wonderful Life, the television was now playing one of the many versions of A Christmas Carol - and from the looks of it, it was the one with the Muppets. "So I figured I might as well answer her question, despite what the answer was."
For a long moment, they remained in silence, simply watching the movie on the television - which indeed turned out to be A Muppet's Christmas Carol - before McKnight sat down beside the Canadian youth. "You've improved," was all he said, causing Matthew to look over at him and give a small, wry smile.
"I should hope I have," he murmured quietly, looking down at his hands, running his thumb across his forearm absentmindedly. One incident in a whole year? Yes, that was an improvement beyond all.
With a soft laugh, the psychiatrist tousled the youth's hair, earning him a spluttering laugh and a light slap to the hand. "Two years to the very day," he murmured quietly, smiling slightly at the young man. "You picked a good day, kid."
Matthew laughed out-right now, rubbing his face. "A day if any day at all," he said in agreement, nodding. "And it's always a party."
He held out his hand, clenching it into a fist and rose an eyebrow, offering the fist to his doctor and pseudo-father.
"Knucklebump?"
"Might as well."
Ahahahaha Christmaaaaas. =3= That's all I really have to say for this chapter xD That, and it was a lot of fun writing them with a hangover. Like, way too much fun. As well, during the duration of this chapter, I also started working on chapter 26, which is part one of three AND I'M REALLY FUCKING EXCITED FOR THAT SHIT YEAAH.
Thank you all so so so much for the reviews. And I'm at over 100 alerts for this story. Wtf. :'D