Matt & Topher

Morning Glory

Matt woke up twice in the night — once when Toph kicked him in the leg and again when an elbow rammed into his ribs.

"The hell?" he muttered, rolling over enough to corral Toph's limbs back onto his side of the mattress. Toph seemed to settle, though Matt thought briefly about getting him some elbow pads.

A few hours later, Matt woke again to a solid line of heat all down his right side where Toph had decided to make him a human body pillow. From the damp spot near his shoulder there might have been drool involved, too. Matt rested his cheek on Toph's bedhead and relaxed. There were worse places to be.

They could do this now. This was allowed. He could wake up next to Toph on the weekends — their respective class schedules would determine weeknights — and they could grumble about who would get coffee or feed the cats or a...variety of different things.

Which, okay, a certain part of his anatomy was definitely on board with that plan.

He stretched the leg Toph wasn't lying on.

Right. Well. Reciting the periodic table did wonders for making his libido behave, and so did counting ceiling tiles, if there were any ceiling tiles to be counted. There was only expensive wood — oak, maybe, who knew — above him, plain and ordinary.

Cold. Empty.

Houses were supposed to be lived in enough to turn into homes and this one was not by any stretch of the imagination. The only rooms that looked like they hadn't been staged by a realtor were Toph's bedroom and what would have been Edward's study. The billiards room was halfway there, mostly due to the amount of time Colby had spent there.

Otherwise it was just as empty and alone as it had been when Toph had lived here full time.

If Toph could have sold it, he probably would have.

Fingers danced along his ribs. Matt startled badly.

"What are you thinking about this loudly this early?" Toph muttered into Matt's shoulder.

"Life?" Matt shrugged carefully. "I guess?"

Toph lifted his head enough to blink at him, eyebrows raised. "Really?"

"The house seems really empty," he admitted after a couple long seconds of chewing the words over. "It's not a home. I know you love Mira and that she's family, and that your dad's study is downstairs, but...God, this place is just cold." He rolled partially onto his side and put a hand on Toph's chest. "Fuck, Barnaby, I don't know how you came from this place. It's — it's — shit."

"When you can't come from a place, you come from people. No, listen." Toph tapped a finger against Matt's nose; Matt snapped his mouth closed. "You come from a wonderful, supportive home filled with people who encouraged you to try new things — even if you failed at them — and who loved you regardless. Yes, it wasn't all roses and sunshine. I know this. We've talked about that. But your parents have done their damndest to make sure you and your sisters knew you were loved, and that if the world chewed you up and spit you out, you could go back to the nest and try again." He gestured to the room around them. "I clearly didn't have that. This place is not home for me, and you know this. This is just a house. So I come from people. I'm a product of Mira, of Auntie B, of Delia and, by proxy, Uncle Phil and Aunt Helen. Even those years with relatives on the James side of the family shaped me, though that was more a what not to be than anything."

Matt stared.

"My first roommate at school had a lot to do with it, too," he continued. "I was...shit, I was so angry. I was angry at Natalie, I was angry at the Stanton side of the family for not trying hard enough — "