raincitybones:

kali1967:

raincitybones:

kali1967:

We come to an uneasy truce, us two sitting at the table sipping our beers and trying to pretend that we’re calm and shit, while our boys stand on one side and the Marine stands at the other. His buddies have sat down, but they’re watching us. Hell, everyone’s watching us, and suddenly it’s like everything’s in our hands and when did that happen? Licking my lips, I try to think of how to defuse the situation a little, because if shit starts happening, it’s not gonna end pretty for anyone involved, and I like my guys without any exta holes in them.

“So,” I say, and my voice is only shaking a little. “What’s your name, Marine?”

It makes him chuckle again, leaning a hip against our table. Keller makes a tiny little movement forward, like he wants to push him away again, but Beecher grabs his arm, holds him in place.

“It’s Ray, babe. Yours?”

“I’m Caro, this is Kayla. And these are our friends so we’d appreciate it if you didn’t start anything. It would be a bad move.”

Ray looks at Keller and Ryan, sizing them up, and I huff an annoyed breath. Tell a guy something is a bad idea and he’ll do it just to prove he’s got balls-men are so fucking immature sometimes. Hell, a fight now wouldn’t even be over us, it would be over who’s got the biggest stones. Pesonally, I’m voting for the Viking, I think he’d give even Keller a run for his money. I blink, turning that thought over in my head, about the Viking and Keller getting all sweaty and breathless and oh look, their shirts have gone too. I laugh into my beer, and everyone looks at me a little funny, but I won’t share the joke, at least not yet. But who knows what’ll happen later.

(Hee, got sidetracked, sorry)

“This shit is so tense you need a hack saw, I swear to fucking God,” the tension is doing nothing for my nerves and I look up at them. The thing is, Keller never seems particularly bothered by the fact that we’re fucking Ryan who in return never seems to even think about it. It’s just that they’re not ours.

Which I guess I get.

“Can’t you just lay ‘em out and measure or something?” you offer after a second and both O’Reily and Keller get sort of smug, adjust themselves obviously in their jeans. And Ray makes his noise low in his throat which is part amusement, part assessment.

“I knew a guy who joined up,”  it’s Alvarez who speaks up, in that husky voice of his and he’s still sorta skittish but he shrugs like what the fuck. He bumps his knuckles against your shoulder and you lean back, pat his hand, “he said Marines were hard mother fuckers. You know.”

“Cause we are hard mother fuckers, homes,” Ray laughs, knocks back the dregs of his beer which is warm by now, “you fuckers swagger in here bringing fine ass babes into our bar and think there’s not going to be competition. Shit. You should know better, just be glad the competition’s only me. The Iceman just has to look at a girl and she’s wet like Niagra.”

“That’s the Aryan poster boy right?” Beecher’s voice has that edge of still sort of crazy anger to it. Everybody sees the way Keller palm’s the back of his neck, moves close into his side.

“Yeah, only he’s a Hebrew super soldier,” Ray grins, leans across the table into Beecher’s space like it’s no big deal, “which is always hilarious to watch the Neo Nazi, whiskey tango retards figure out in little bits. Makes whatever little smudges of brain they had left get all liquid-y and trail out their noses.”

“Gross, thanks for the imagery which will never wash away,” you say what I’m thinking.

Ray just laughs, like he’s used to and proud of grossing people out. I’m beginning to think he’s kind of demented, and it’s not necessarily a bad thought. I mean, I’m fucking two stone-cold killers, who am I to judge?

“So did your friend make it?” Ray asks, looking at Alvarez. “Or did he pussy out?”

Alvarez looks at his beer, shrugs his shoulders. “He made it. Got deployed and everything. Dunno what happened to him after that.”

Ray blinks, expression going serious for a second, and he raises his empty bottle to his lips in a kind of salute. It’s only for a second, and then that manic grin is back.

“So, you gonna let me buy you a drink?” He directs it to both of us, and we look at Ryan and Keller. They’re not ours, we all know that, but by the same token, we’re not theirs. None of us have any claim on anyone. I look at you, biting my lip, and shrug.

“If the little puppy over there joins us, then sure.”

Ray’s grin gets even wider, which I didn’t think was possible. “Fucking A, homes. Whose buying who beer?”

“Let’s just see what happens, yeah?”

The guys are pissed. We come back, share a cab back to the motel in the clothes we wore the night before. Keller doesn’t even agknowledge us and Ryan is being a cold mother fucker.  It makes Cyril quick to freak out and Alvarez has folded back in on himself. Beecher is  handling it pretty well but that’s probably because Keller is being particularly affectionate.

We make it up to San Fransisco before anyone is even talking again. Even then it’s tense.

Things come to a head with Keller, which really shouldn’t surprise anyone. He bumps your shoulder too hard when he passes you on the way between the van and the rooms. Which apparently is enough, you shove him back, one hand on his chest.

“Fuck you!” your voice is hard and sharp and you don’t back down when Keller rounds on you. He’s taller than you, broader across the shoulders and a stone-killer but you shake your head, “no, seriously, fuck. You. Because that was fun.”

“Caro’s right,” I am hefting my bag into my room and Keller presses one hand against the wall in front of me so I can’t keep going. They are waiting around the edges and I sigh again, “this whole silent treatment thing is boring and its stressing everyone out. We’re sorry you’re upset.”

“And we’d very much like to get back to the fun parts of this thing,” you agree while I duck under his arm. But Cyril is easier to deal with at dinner and as we climb back into the van Ryan presents you with a spoon he stole off the table and a shit eating grin.

Keller palms the back of my neck for a hot second before taking the keys off Beecher and heading for the driver’s seat.

And then we all drive off into the sunset on our endless roadtrip, content to have kinky sex in various combinations of the group and maybe circling back to California every now and then. The End.

(OMG dude, I totally love you for all this, and if you wanna continue I will cheer you on but this seems like a natural stopping point to me.)

(Source: , via raincityruckus)