AN: One last chapter, because I promised. This is the prequel to the first two chapters...Makes sense that it should come afterward, huh? Yea, didn't think so. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed! Enjoy!

Gabriel's eyes were wide and red with exhaustion. He looked fed up with explosions and car chases and dead girlfriends and spoiled plans. He looked fed up with stupid hacker geniuses and hostages that were more trouble than they were worth. He looked fed up with John McClane, the ultimate action hero who just wouldn't die.

But now Gabriel had McClane right where he wanted him—on the business end of a stainless steel Jericho 941. The small hangar bay was filled with the sounds of gasping and crying, a high-pitched ringing still echoing in everyone's ears.

"Wait! Wait, wait, wait!" Matt stretched his arms out towards Gabriel, willing the gun pointed at McClane to lower. Gabriel's gaze snapped in his direction, and the young hacker could see the annoyance in his facial features, the desperation in the muscles rippling along his jawline.

"Matthew," he ground out through clenched teeth, "get back to work."

Matt quickly licked his cracked lips with a dry tongue, his arms still outstretched as he shook his head just slightly. "N-No, just wait."

Gabriel's gun swung around, and Matt was almost relieved that it wasn't pointed at John...except for the fact that it was now pointed at him. He swallowed hard, taking a deep, shuddering breath. "You kill McClane, and I won't do it. I won't give you the code."

Gabriel turned, popping off a shot in Lucy's direction. The young woman gave a shout of surprise, closing her eyes tightly as the sobs started afresh. Matt's breath caught in his throat as he quickly scanned Lucy for any wounds. None. Just a scare. Gabriel's hot gaze was back on him.

"Yes, Matthew. You will give me the code," he said in a voice that betrayed how much his nerves were being racked. "The deal was for Lucy, not John. If you want his life, you'll have to—"

"Whatever you want," Matt blurted, mentally kicking himself for the desperation in his tone. He offered John a fleeting glance. The older man was shaking his head as discretely as possible, but Gabriel saw it, and a look of comprehension dawned on his face.

"I see," Gabriel said quietly, and Matt could almost hear the cogs grinding in the terrorist's head as the man took a step towards the him.

"Gabriel," John growled warningly, but the other took no heed, his stride wide and determined.

Matt couldn't move, his gaze frozen on Gabriel's dilating pupils and hungry expression. Just before the older man reached him, something clicked into place, and he took a quick, fluttering breath.

"Y-You'll never get the money," he wheezed, shaking his head slightly, "not if you don't let them go. I won't do it. I won't."

Matt flinched as the terrorist grabbed the back of his shirt at the collar, leaning in so that their faces were barely an inch apart. "What makes you think I'm interested in the money anymore?" The hacker smelled stale mint on the man's breath, and he wrinkled his nose.

Gabriel, suddenly, shoved Matt down onto the table, the young man's chin colliding with metal and making an awful noise. The terrorist pressed his knees into the hacker's thighs, and Matt's fingers scraped uselessly against the smooth table as his gunshot wound throbbed. He whimpered.

"Gabriel!" John shouted dangerously, using what little strength he had to pull himself to his feet. "Don't you dare—"

The barrel of the Jericho 941 was shoved roughly against the base of Matt's skull, and the young man hissed, closing his eyes and suppressing a yelp.

"Stay where you are, John," Gabriel instructed, his calm, condescending air back in place. His free hand slid beneath Matt's shirt, splayed fingers gliding up the young man's spine on sweat and dirt and blood. "You'll get your turn."

Gabriel's hips jerked forward violently, and Matt let loose a harsh sob, quickly biting his bottom lip and clenching the edge of the table with white-knuckled fingers. He could feel the bulge forming in Gabriel's pants, pressing insistently between his thighs.

The older man leaned over him, his chest flush against the young man's back and his lips pressed tightly against Matt's left ear. "When I'm done with you," he whispered, quietly enough so that only the young man could hear, "you're going to wish I had shot your other knee instead." Matt's eyes clenched shut, and he whimpered, one of his fingernails breaking as he scratched uselessly at the table. "And when you beg me to stop—and you will, Matthew...Oh, you will—I'm going to finish with Lucy."

The hacker couldn't stop his eyes from flying open, his gaze from settling on the young woman. He glanced away fleetingly, but not quickly enough. John had seen, and he was looking between him and Lucy, his eyes narrowing and his teeth clenching. "Gabriel—"

"And when I'm finished with her," Gabriel continued, "I'm going to shoot John McClane in the chest. And I'm going to make sure he dies this time, slowly and painfully, knowing that I fucked his daughter...and his boyfriend."

"Please," Matt cried helplessly into the table, saliva and snot running in sticky rivers from his mouth and nose, "please just...just let them go. Just have me and let them go."

Gabriel straightened, taking a step back and allowing Matt a small reprieve from the crushing weight. The younger man dared not move, groaning tiredly as he heard the sounds of the terrorist unbuttoning his pants and roughly tugging his zipper down. "Matthew," Gabriel said quietly, pressing himself against the young man, hooking the fingers of his free hand into Matt's jeans, and tugging experimentally, "this is going to hurt."

Gabriel jerked against him just as a gunshot sounded in the small bay, echoing in everyone's ears through the stillness that followed. The terrorist slumped, falling first against Matt, then sliding to the floor with a deadened thunk. A stunned quiet settled over the hangar, seeming to last for hours before Matt had the courage to carefully push himself up off of the table. He locked eyes with John very briefly, who was shaking his head, warning him from turning around.

The hacker disregarded this and slowly craned his neck, seeing several federal agents storming into the bay, guns raised, and Bowman at the very front, watching him carefully but keeping his gun trained on the ground. Matt looked down, and his throat closed around a faulty breath.

Gabriel lay sprawled behind him, pants undone and slung halfway off his hips. The right half of his face was covered in what looked like a red mask, the eye socket nothing more than a bloody hole spurting fleshy pulp and veiny bits. Matt quickly looked away, wheezing as he reached a trembling hand to the back of his head, feeling something warm and sticky in his hair. He pulled his hand back, finding blood and the same fleshy pulp coating his fingers.

"Farrell?" Bowman questioned from behind him.

Matt's hand slapped down wetly on the table as he steadied himself, feeling dizzy. His throat would still not open, and the muscles behind his adam's apple spasmed from the exertion of trying to draw in breath.

"Matt!" John called from across the room, carefully weaving his way through agents and paramedics who tried to grab at him.

Matt fell, closing his eyes tightly in anticipation of the pain in his knee. But it never came. Strong, warm arms were there, holding him tight and gently guiding him to the ground.

"I gotcha," John whispered. "Breathe, Matty. You have to breathe." The older man looked around frantically. "I need a medic! Someone help!"

A young woman leaned down beside them, dropping her medical bag and trying to squeeze her way between the two. "What's wrong here?"

"He's not breathing," John said desperately. "He has asthma. I don't know where his inhaler is."

The paramedic quickly looked the young hacker over, her brows knitting as she shook her head and unzipped her bag. "An inhaler won't work. His throat's already closed." She took out a pair of scissors and a syringe filled with a clear liquid.

"What's that?" the older man asked suspiciously, still holding Matt as close as possible. Matt's grip on John's shirt was weakening, his eyes wide with desperation.

"Epinephrine," the young woman said patiently, using the scissors to cut a large slit in Matt's jeans on the outer right thigh. "It'll help him breathe." She uncapped the syringe with her teeth, taking quick aim and jabbing the needle into the exposed skin. Matt barely flinched (after all, who's going to complain about a needle after their knee cap has been shot out?), merely fisting the older man's shirt and burying his face in the crook of the other's neck. John let loose a hysterical bark of laughter as blessed air rushed past the young man's lips and down his throat. The paramedic drew a tourniquet out of her bag, quickly tying it around Matt's leg above the gunshot wound. "Can you carry him?"

John bit the inside of his cheek, considering his shoulder for only a moment before shaking his head.

"I got 'im," Bowman said from behind them, and John leaned back just slightly as the agent scooped Matt gently up—John having to pry Matt's fingers from his shirt—and hurried to an ambulance with the young woman. He tried to follow, but another paramedic caught him and took him to the ambulance where Lucy sat, shivering beneath a blanket.

"Dad?" she whispered, her voice wavering and her eyes filling with fresh tears.

John immediately placed his good arm around her shoulders. "Shh, honey, everything's all right." Lucy cried into his shoulder as he wondered whether he was lying for Lucy's sake or for his own.

0 o 0 o 0

Chapter Two??

"You don't deserve this, kid."

Matt opened his eyes tiredly, squinting at the older man clutching desperately at the end of his hospital bed, his head lowered and shaking from side to side.

"Don't deserve what?" he rasped, and John's head snapped up. Matt's vision was swimming, but he could swear that there was a wetness coating the cop's eyes. He swallowed and winced, closing his eyes again. His knee was throbbing dully. He must be on meds.

"Matt." John said the name like the hacker had just returned from the dead. The older man rounded the bed, stopping at his side and running his fingers through the tangled, dark mass that Matt called hair. "Jesus, kid, you scared the hell outta me."

"John," Matt breathed, panting as the pain and ache began to settle in. Where was the morphine they had set him up with in the ambulance? He liked morphine. "J-John...Hurts. Everything hurts." His chest was screaming, the burn crawling up his throat and expelling as choked sobs.

"Okay," John said, his hand leaving Matt's hair—to the hacker's great disappointment—and pressing the call button. "Okay, Matty. It's gonna be all right. I promise."

Nurses spilled into the room almost immediately, gently guiding John from the bed and swarming around the distressed young man. Reaching towards John with a trembling hand, Matt moaned in protest, wanting nothing more than the other man beside him, telling him everything would be okay.

"Matty, you have to let them help you." John's voice was rough, and, in Matt's opinion, too far away. "You have to calm down and let them do their job." The younger man tried to nod, tried to follow his lover's orders, but it was so hard. Everything hurt, everything swiveled and spun out of control. Faces blurred and sounds melted together. Was John still talking? Was he even in the room anymore?

A calming warmth, suddenly, filled Matt's left arm, starting at the crook in his elbow and spreading outward, until he felt nothing at all—no pain, no anxiety...nothing. He let his eyes drift closed. Before the black took his consciousness, though, a firm grip held his hand, fingertips brushing his hair back again. He leaned into the touch and sighed with contentment.

"Stay," he begged, pleaded, and the hand in his tightened.

"I'm not going anywhere, Matty," John whispered against his ear.

Darkness swallowed Matt whole.

AN: ...And then he dies, like, a year and a half later...Sad...