a meet-cute scenario for our bois because why the hell not!!! (matt/harper, college au, rated g.)
It all happens very fast, because the moment the guy actually reaches out and actually puts his arm around Matt’s waist, there’s a blur, somebody brushing past him, the heavy scraping of a bar stool, a surprised, “What the—” and a very decided, “Get the fuck out of here, man!” Cursing, stunned silence for a few seconds, then the conversations resuming, and the space next to him blissfully empty.
“Made me spill my beer, too,” someone says, close but not that close, and then, “You okay?” Matt figures he has to look up at some point (just a guess, really), so he might as well do it now. When he does, he comes face to face with a young man, early twenties he’d say, licking beer off the back off his hand and frowning at him in concern.
“I’ve watched you steadily inch away from that guy for the last twenty minutes or so,” he says by way of explanation. “Thought you would actually slide off the bar stool any moment now.”
“Y-yeah,” Matt says, a little shaken and incredibly grateful. “Thanks, yeah?”
“No problem,” the man says. He hesitates for a moment, looking Matt over, and whatever he sees makes him add, “Next time something like that happens, you find me and tell them you’re with me, all right? Or better yet, just come over.”
Matt is stunned for a solid amount of seconds. “That’s...” he starts eventually, not quite knowing what to say. “Thank you.”
The man smiles. He has a pleasant, open face and short blond hair and Matt thinks he can see the outline of dog tags through his t-shirt. Definitely a certain type of army physique, he notes. A local accent too, if he had to guess. “I’m James, by the way,” the young man says, and offers Matt his hand.
Matt takes it, saying his own name in turn.
He’s having trouble coming up with what else to say while definitely wanting to say something when James asks, “You don’t come out here often, do you?” He keeps his distance even with how crowded the place is and Matt appreciates it, although he’s not uncomfortable in the least.
“What gave me away?” replies Matt, smiling sheepishly, and James grins.
If it had been up to Matt, he would have never come here in the first place, really. To his misfortune (although Matt starts to re-evaluate that the longer James stands there), his dear mother decided to involve herself in his personal matters. She’s held off on any judgement during his first semester, but Matt’s continuous evasion of any social life well into the second finally spurred her into action. The college social experience, according to her, should be about more than staying in your dorm drawing and pushing the opening hours of various campus libraries.
“You should go out,” she’d said earlier that night on the phone, not for the first time either. “Have fun,” she’d added, to which Matt had replied, “I am having fun, mom,” at which she’d sighed and didn’t say anything for a couple of very long, very pointed seconds, at the end of which Matt grudgingly said, “Fine,” and then, “I have to go now,” and, “I love you.”
He then googled “student night life kansas city,” figuring he might as well get it over with, hyped himself up for a good one and a half hours and ended up in a pub not far off campus that had a slightly wacky taste in interior decor and famously cheap grilled cheese sandwiches. He told himself he’d stay for one (1) hour and had just been served his drink when some sleazy dude invited himself right into Matt’s personal space, clearly undeterred by his lack of interest or reciprocation of any kind. Matt had made it through twenty torturous minutes of spectacularly bad come-ons when James, bless him, finally came to his rescue.
“There’s been a consensus that I’m a hermit, apparently,” Matt adds, a little bashful and wisely leaving out the mom part.
James keeps smiling at him, warm and genuine and making Matt feel slightly nervous, albeit definitely in a pleasant way this time. “How about I get you a drink, then?” James says. “And just so you know, I do take no for an answer,” he adds, and winks.
Matt’s stomach does a little flip. “Don’t worry, you won’t have to,” he says before he can think better of it.
The corner of James’ mouth quirks up. There’s a glint in his eyes as he takes one last swig from his bottle, and Matt feels his cheeks redden. Maybe that was too forward. Probably he made a fool of himself. Definitely what he should have done was just go to a fucking library and—
“Come on then,” James says, setting his bottle down, and motioning for Matt to follow, and Matt does, his heart beat picking up a notch, the music loud and pleasant in his ears.
Maybe, he thinks as he’s weaving through the crowd after James, just maybe, his mother wasn’t so wrong after all.
Matt and Harper decide to spend the day inside because it’s raining, or about to, anyway, great, billowing clouds closing in on the city from the east. Matt loves slow days like these, Harper off work, no classes for him to attend to, no looming deadlines, no rush to be anywhere but here. A quiet, familiar intimacy unfurling: bare feet on hardwood floors and rumpled t-shirts, unhurried kisses, the leisured flow of time itself. Matt cannot wait for the rain to pour, is itching for it, really; Harper just smiles and shakes his head when he sees him at the window for the umpteenth time, just looking up. “Harper, come on, you’ve got to smell it,” Matt says and motions for Harper to come over, and Harper obliges, even though to him rain is just rain is rain is rain. Matt leaps off the couch the moment the thunder finally unleashes; the lightning cuts across the sky and Matt counts one two three four five until another roll of thunder breaks. Matt’s always liked the rain but since Iraq it’s different; something about how indiscriminate it is, how soothing to the earth beneath it; how you can always count on it to fall again.
Harper wraps a blanket around him, presses a cup of tea into his palms, a kiss against his shoulder; Matt says, “Stay here with me,” and Harper does.
