Love Letters To An Illiterate

Rebloggable is here! 

my little bird - matt/kaz

It’s only a hairline fracture, but Karen is nothing but worry nevertheless.

“You nearly died!” She cried repeatedly, grimacing every time she glanced over at his sling-covered arm while she drove home from the hospital.

“I did not.” He mumbled, running the hand attached to his good arm through his hair. It was his own fault, really, he insisted that his stunt people take the day off so that he could try the wired fall himself. He couldn’t have foreseen a cable snapping, but at least he hadn’t been up very high. The weight of the fall landing entirely on his left arm was a bit unfortunate, though.

“You did so! I’m never letting you do another stunt again. I’m surprised the producers even let you walk around set, much less run or jump or whatever silly dangerous things you do.” She caught him rolling his eyes good naturedly and squawked at him.

“Kazza, walking is hardly dangerous.” He reached over with his good arm and patted her hand. The arm would be healed in a few weeks, and it wouldn’t even interfere with shooting - Matt had no idea why Karen was in such a tizzy.

“With you it is!” She pulled into his driveway on a slow, wide turn and stopped the car so softly and gently it was as though she had a sleeping baby cougar in the backseat that she didn’t dare wake. “We’re home now. Bed! Go!” She ordered.

Matt dutifully trudged up the stairs, mildly doped up on painkillers and utterly exhausted by the excitement of the day. “Are you okay? Are you sure?” Karen chirped behind him every step of the way. 

By the time they reached the bedroom, Matt was sleepy and, secretly, too grateful to Karen for staying with him to be bothered by her endearing Florence Nightingale complex. He flopped down onto the bed face up, too tired to move any more. “Clothes. Off.” He heard Karen say, and he opened his eyes in surprise.

“Kazza, I love your enthusiasm, but I’m not exactly in working condition at the moment - “ 

“Not for that, you prawn. Pajamas.” She had fetched his favorite pajama bottoms (dark blue cotton with badgers printed on them, she had found them online for his last birthday) and was holding them out in one hand. Matt smiled.

“Whoops, Kaz, I have a broken wing. Looks like you’re going to have to do this for me.” His grin was tired but wicked. Now it was her turn to roll her eyes. 

“Fine.” She sat down next to him on the bed, and surveyed his outfit. T-shirt first, then shoes and socks, then trousers, she decided. Carefully, she began to bunch up the bottom of his tight t-shirt. “Lift your right arm.” She murmured, and Matt watched her concentration with bleary eyed adoration. Working the fabric over his raised arm and trying not to bump the broken one, she pursed her lips, frustrated. The fabric flopped, useless, at the juncture of his left shoulder, stopped by the impossibly bothersome sling. “I don’t know how to - oh, here.” She spread the opening as wide as possible and, with her other hand, began to coax his broken arm through. When she began to manhandle his elbow, he flinched. “Oh! Oh gosh! I’m sorry!” She backed up, flustered almost to tears at the thought of hurting him. 

“Shh, Kaz, it’s okay. It’s not that bad. Here.” Matt used his good arm to finish the job, pulling the shirt entirely off. Setting it aside, he reached out his right hand. “Come here, sunshine.” 

He pulled her close to him again on the bed, kissing her softly. “It’s okay,” He whispered. “I won’t break.” 

“Okay.” She whispered back. 

She slowly removed his shoes and silly silk socks (even though they’re nowhere near his affliction, she wants to be gentle anyway) and begins to undo the button of his trousers. She looked up at him momentarily when she does, and he finds it difficult not to be aroused by the sight of her, pink-faced and tentative. Nevertheless, the moment is too intimate and endearing to be sexual; just him and his Kazza, her love for him so overwhelming, like a religious experience. 

She shimmied off his trousers with the help of his raised hips, and braced his good arm against her skinny pale one to help him get up (his knees were sore from the fall). He stepped into the cotton pajama bottoms, and Karen giggled up at him from his feet, pulling up the trousers and kissing him at the top. Then slowly, lovingly, she tucked him into bed like a child, kissing his wispy tufts of mahogany hair and turning off the lights quietly.

- - - 

In the morning, he wakes to Earl Grey and cinnamon-sugar toast, the way his mum used to make. How Karen knew that was his childhood favorite, he’d never know. After he eats she climbs into bed with him, and rests her head between his good shoulder and his neck.

“How’s my little bird with his broken wing today?” She whispers, kissing the crook of his neck and smiling at his scent, all clean sheets and tangerine body wash. 

“He’s much better, thanks to you.” Now he smiles too, glad to feel her body curled up against his. “I never thought I’d need help getting dressed, but I’m glad it was you who was there.” 

“Mmm.” Karen hums happily in response, absentmindedly shimmying closer to him. 

“Karen?”

“Mm-hmm?” She blinks open her eyes and moves her head to look into his eyes. 

“I love you.”

It’s the first time he’s ever said it. And she’s stunned. The only thing she can think of to do, her gut reaction to it, is to make a joke.

“Is this because of the toast? Because I swear, you mentioned it once before when we were in Nevada and I -“ 

“No, you freak, it’s not about the toast.” He laughs, and suddenly she realizes that perhaps making a joke after her boyfriend says he loves her for the first time is not the right way to go. But Matt doesn’t seem to mind. “It’s about everything. It’s about everything that you are. I just love you, Kaz. Is that okay?”

“Yes.” She says, breathless. “I love you too.” It isn’t even a thought, it’s a truth, and it’s tumbling off her lips before she really knows it. And then they’re kissing, and she’s carefully trying to avoid his poor broken arm, until Matt pulls away.

“You know, the toast thing isn’t a bad perk, actually-“

“Matt!” 

“Yes?”

“I’m going to break your other arm if you don’t keep kissing me, okay?”

“Yeah, Kaz. Okay.” 

some nights I stay up cashing in my bad luck - matt/kaz

It started with the first night she didn’t sleep at his flat.

Since they’d started dating seriously, she’d spent almost every night sleeping in his bed, out of convenience (it was located much closer to set), necessity (Matt was actually the one better-adjusted to adult life out of the two of them, surprising everyone. He was the one who had bowls and spoons and soaps and cable TV. Kazza had a box of Lucky Charms and some dish washing liquid, mostly) and out of genuine desire to be near to him.

But after her departure from the show, she was forced to spend more time at her home - well, her legal home, Matt’s place still felt like home to her. She had to be closer to her agent’s office and her publicist’s office and all of that, and so, she had to spend some nights alone.

And that’s when the nightmares started.

The first night she dreamt of the Weeping Angels, from the show. She was running from them and no matter how far she ran or how long she hid, she was overwhelmed by the sense that they were coming for her, and the terror struck her like a lightning bolt.

“Matt!” She’d screamed, bolting awake and sitting up as though coming out of an exorcism. But he wasn’t there, and she knew that, but somehow her subconscious-dream-whatever-self had expected him to be. She turned on her side, trying to catch her breath, and flicked on the bedside light. 3:44 AM read the alarm clock perched under the lamp. She sighed.

It was like this every night for a week, until she couldn’t take it any more.

Matt was meant to come over after work, but the shoot got delayed and he’d be there much later than expected. Around 7 that night he called her, frazzled and deeply upset that he’d mussed her finely made plans for dinner.

“Kazza, I’m so sorry. Steven thought this shoot would only take a bit, now it’s taking … well, quite a bit longer. I’ll be done around midnight. Forgive me?”

“‘S alright!” Chirped Karen, unshaken. “I got lazy, anyway, planned on ordering Thai when you got here.” She could almost hear him smiling through the phone. “Listen, how ‘bout you come round after you’re done anyway? I’ll probably be asleep, but you can crash here tonight and we can go get a proper Sunday breakfast in the morning?”

“Beautiful!” Matt said, just as the A.D. waved at him to get back on set. “Alright, Kaz, I’ve gotta run. Should I wake you when I get there?”

“Eh, just let yourself in, love, and climb into bed. I haven’t been sleeping well lately, so if I don’t wake up, it’s a good thing, but if I do … maybe we can make it a happy accident.” She wishes momentarily he could see the silly-suggestive wink she was attempting, but opts for giggling instead.

“You’re perfect. I love you. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Yeah, see you in the morning. Tell Steven I said hello! Love you too.” 

He finds her sobbing on the bedroom floor at 1 AM. He’d walked into her flat and heard her from the vestibule, wherein he immediately assumed she’d been hurt. Running into the bedroom, he found her, curled into a ball on the floor and sobbing like a baby.

“Can’t - sleep-” She sobs and hiccups in between each word. “Keep - having - nightmares-” She shakes against his shoulder, vaguely aware that she was snotting up his nice shirt. “Just - want - to - sleep -“ 

He scoops her up and cradles her, her head against his chest and her legs folded against his like a child’s. “Shh, Kazza, it’s okay. It’s okay.” He kisses the top of her head as she cries tears of exhaustion and frustration. Suddenly he remembers the one thing that may work to calm her down, the one song that would bring her back to him through her sleep-deprived sobs. “You are my sunshine … ” He sang it to her jokingly on their first real date, when she’d mentioned how hot the summer sun was and he’d replied that it wasn’t nearly as hot as she was. “My only sunshine … ” It had become a sort of ‘thing’ with them, a lovely little inside joke. She called him sunshine when she was happy or randy or cross, but no matter what it always felt endearing to him. “You make me happy, when skies are grey … ” She was only whimpering now, her breathing hitching but slowly getting steadier, stronger. “You’ll never know dear, how much I love you … ” He stroked her hair, longing desperately to give her the ability to have only sweet dreams for the rest of her life. He hated to see her so upset, so distraught, over something so seemingly silly. He couldn’t stop the nightmares, but he could give her this. “Please don’t take my sunshine away.” He kisses her forehead, and her crying is quelled. 

The last thing she remembers is being lifted up by his strong forearms and being placed into bed. 

She wakes up in the morning with a cold compress pressed against her forehead, her eyes puffy and sore from crying so hard the night before. But that’s just it, she thinks to herself. I woke up. I slept. I really slept. Karen slept the dreamless sleep of the exhausted, the deep quiet slumber of someone who just needed to have a good break down. She yawns, and makes that high-pitched-yawning noise she always does, and Matt pokes his head in.

“You’re up?” He murmurs, smiling and carrying in a plate of pancakes. 

“Oh, Matt, you didn’t have to - I said we’d go out this morning and all that -“

“Shh. It’s okay. You had a rough night. We’re staying in.” He hands her the plate and kisses her. When he pulls away her takes her face in one of his hands, gently stroking the soft skin between her ear and the corner of her bloodshot eye. “You cried so hard last night you bruised your eye.” He chuckles, but it’s the laughter of someone who genuinely cares. “Just under your eyebrow. I’ll fetch some ice.”

She smiles weakly, overwhelmed by his sweetness, as he exits. When he comes back, it’s not his gentle smile or his mop of hair that she sees appear in the doorway, but the face of a teddy bear. 

“Wha …?” She tries to ask, giggling, through a mouthful of pancake, but the bear speaks before she can finish.

“Kazza, I’ve got a surprise for you!” Matt speaks through the bear in a high pitched voice, and she collapses into a peal of giggles. Finally Matt steps back into the room, carrying the stuffed bear and some ice wrapped in a towel. “Here, love.” He presses the ice carefully to her left eye, then hands her the bear. “He’s a present. Squeeze him.” 

Karen does so, gingerly, as though she’s afraid she’ll hurt it. When she does, she hears Matt’s voice again, but he isn’t speaking - it’s the bear. And he’s singing. 

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are grey. You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away. Kazza, it kills me that I can’t be there with you every night. I hope this guy here helps you feel safe even when I’m away. I love you, Karen Sheila Gillan. I am always with you, sunshine.” 

She never has another nightmare again.

we the people, in order to form a more perfect union // matt ‘n kaz

“You absolutely, without any right to say otherwise, are going to shag me senseless right now.”

Karen looked Matt dubiously up and down. 

“I want you to know that if you were covering your naked body with anything other than an engagement ring box right now, that declaration would be completely false.”

They would never be able to tell the kids how they got engaged.

punk rock manners // matt ‘n kaz

Even though the dance floor was dimly lit and packed to the brim with people, he could still see her through the haphazardly yet rhythmically moving bodies. It had been his idea to go to a club in the first place, and now he was seriously regretting it. Among the throngs of “hip young people” as he had called them earlier (and Karen had subsequently rolled her eyes and called him “an old geezer in a humanoid giraffe’s body”), they were virtually unrecognizable - these kids were not their show’s clientele. So as he stared from the bar, looking up from his drink through dark lashes, at Karen’s bright hair dancing a paso double just a few meager yards away, there was no one to stop him with an autograph request, no one to distract him. His only occupation was to watch her, swaying her hips and tossing her head back as in though in the throes of ecstasy.

And then he saw who she was dancing with, and he knew he had to have her. 

Matt had always been the type of person who hated loud ruckus. The type of person who would turn the music down while he was making a turn, or parking, or looking for a house number, so he could “see better”. The type of person who would rather fiddle around his house in his silk socks waltzing aimlessly to classical music than be where he was at that moment: at a darkened London club, where bass music was flowing through speakers just as freely as the vodka and sodas kept flowing into his cup. He wasn’t drunk, not yet, anyway, but the sight of Karen was making him feel appropriately woozy. 

It was his idea to go to the club in the first place. “Matt,” Karen had said, crinkling her nose at him. “You hate that sort of thing. Too, you know, whomp-whomp-whomp-whaaaaamp-dooosh for you.” She had mimicked a bass drop with her voice and grinned at him, and it was that grin that made him want to prove her wrong. Wipe that knowing smile off her face. He could be surprising. He could be unpredictable. So they went. And there she was, in that skin tight red dress that somehow didn’t clash with her hair in the least, eyes shut tightly as she threw her body about to the punk-esque music. 

But that wasn’t what bothered him. Sure, the sight of her, all fluid limbs and parted lips and rhythmic gyrating and slightly sweaty and - yes, he should say, all of that certainly made him grip his cup a little tighter and grit his teeth a little harder. It was who was next to her that made some kind of fire light up within him. He had never taken Arthur for the clubbing kind of man, and yet there he was, his hands placed on Karen’s hips, his body using hers as a metronome. Matt watched, as though witnessing an enthralling but horrid accident, as Arthur’s stubbly chin leaned momentarily against her shoulder, a gesture that was too intimate an embrace for Matt’s liking. She was his, and Arthur knew that perfectly well. Or so Matt thought, until he saw Arthur’s hands move from Karen’s hipbones to fully around her waist, tugging her into a kind of backwards hug that placed Arthur’s hips flush against hers. Matt’s mind went white after that; the last conscious thought he clearly remembered was Look at how she’s moving her hips against his before he was pushing his way through the dance floor.

By the time he got through to them, they were sweaty and leaning into one another, not out of affection, but out of fatigue. Matt grabbed Karen’s wrist, forcing her to open her eyes and look at him in surprise. “Matt!” She yelped, but he was already leading her off the floor. Arthur, confused, had stopped moving entirely, and merely watched them leave. Matt would swear later that he saw the bastard smirk, but they would make up. Eventually.

The area outside the bathrooms, wallpapered in lush red with black fleur de lis, was empty when he dragged her into the hall. Flushed and mildly embarrassed, Karen pushed a lock of hair out of her face and pulled her arm away from his grasp.

“Matt, what the hell’re you-“

She would’ve finished the sentence, but she was finding it hard to speak as Matt pushed her up against the wall and savagely thrust his mouth against hers. She had seen him worked up before - oh, had she seen him worked up before - but never like this. When he pulled away from her, his pupils were dilated and his eyes serious and driven. She let out a tiny noise from the back of her throat, as though she was frightened but gratefully so, and it was as though the flood gates were opened. He seized her, pressing his body against hers with such ferocity that she thought she might actually go through the wall behind her, and began to ravage her with his lips and hands. Karen could hardly keep track of his hands and lips and … other appendages as he ground his body against hers - one hand was pushing her hair off her neck, the other was at one moment at her breast and, at the next, pushing her dress up over her hips and plunging it’s way under her panties. His lips, meanwhile, were biting hers, working their way down to bite and suck at her neck, which would surely be red and purple the next morning. 

He didn’t look up from the soft hollow under her chin where he had just placed a hickey as he growled against her chin, “Mine.” 

A shiver shook through Karen and she instinctively rolled her hips against his. “Yours.” She whispered, partly in disbelief and partly in pure pleasure, achingly willing him to continue. The wavering moan of her voice set him off again, hoisting her up so that her legs were wrapped around his waist and their lips were feverishly dueling with one another’s for supremacy. Before she knew what was happening, Matt had maneuvered them into the bathroom and locked the door behind them, leaving them pressed against the door and all alone. 

The top of Karen’s dress had come completely unhooked, exposing her upper half, while her panties were by this time down to her ankles, and Matt’s fingers working inside her. She arched her back and made a sort of vocalized gasp, the kind of noise one doesn’t know they can make until they make it. And good God, did he know how to make her make noise. “Mine.” He growled against her breast, leaving mark after mark on the porcelain skin. “Mine,” He thrust his fingers into her entirely, then pulled away entirely. “Mine,” And again. “Mine.” And again, until she was incoherently making sounds and curling and uncurling her hands in his damp hair. By the time he had worked his way out of his jeans and knickers and, painfully hard after all this time, thrust into her, she was the mental equivalent of a nervous system with a heartbeat, nothing more. She was working her hips against him like a maniac, her eyes dark with arousal, willing to do just about anything for release. 

And he was just as impatient as she, working himself into a quick and deep rhythm. He felt her hands claw at his back, and it propelled him to slam a thrust into her and against the door as he buried his face against her bare shoulder, biting and sucking and licking there. He knew he was close, she knew she was close, and as he worked his lips up her neck and near her ear, he whispered once more: “Mine.” His intensity sent shock waves through her, but all she could do was nod and gasp. He shook his head against her, slowing down his pace and making her whine. “Say it.” He bit the sensitive flesh just below her ear and kissed it, running his tongue against the already darkening bruise. 

“Y - yours.” She whimpered, and he began to move more quickly after what felt like the longest moment of her life. “Again.” He said, and she swore before replying, “Yours.” His pace was rapid again, and he reached a hand down to rub furiously at her clit. “No one else’s. Say it again,” he groaned, “Say it.” “Yours. Yours. Yours.” Her moaned, exalting cry was in time with him now, and he kissed her, animalistic and rough, before looking her in the eyes and firmly asserting, “Mine.” A final flick of his finger and what must’ve been the deepest thrust Karen had ever felt sent her spiraling into release, half-moaning and half-screaming, “Yours! Yours! Oh, god, yours. No one else’s. Yours.” He followed her, biting her lip to keep from yelling, and they collapsed against the door, entirely spent.

After a moment of hazy-eyed recuperation, Matt looked over at Karen: disheveled hair, dress bunched up around her waist, legs akimbo, sweaty and relaxed. They smiled at each other.

“We still have to drive Arthur home … “

Maybe they wouldn’t leave the bathroom for a while.

we lurk late // matt&kaz

“Matt, that is not the leg you think it is. Take your rhinoceros print silk socks off my upper thigh.”

“… Sorry, Steven.”