(FIC) Team Building (2/2)
Turns out I probably was scaring all the fish, because when we finally meet up back at the campfire, he has three big ones, and I have… ramp.
We wind up just stuffing the leaves into the cleaned and gutted fish while they cook. Eating the ramp as-is would be doable and all, but not too pleasant, but it gives other stuff a good leeky taste.
Roadblock watches the fish, and I watch him, as much as I can without looking like I’m staring. Eventually, Scarlett and Snake Eyes get back to camp. Where ninja boy’s been, I couldn’t tell you, but wherever Scarlett’s been, she found a newspaper.
“I’ll spare you the suspense-we’re not in it.”
“That’s a relief.” Duke says.
“Can I get the comics?” Ripcord asks.
Sections get passed around, and we all wind up doing the crossword together, shouting things out at each other around bites of fish.
I’m on page six when the world just grinds to a halt around me.
“T-Rat?” Roadblock whispers.
“Ten six fifty-four.” I croak out, tapping the paper. “They’re changing ten six fifty-four.”
There’s a moment of stillness that the others don’t even notice. Then Scarlett reaches over and takes the front page and leaves us with the entertainment section.
For a long time, I just wait, because of course she’ll see it, when she gets there. How could she not?
Ripcord’s on my other side telling a story, and I try to tune into that, to look like I’m not anxiously awaiting some kind of sentence, even though according to that story, I am. According to that story I’m waiting on the second-biggest sentence the army’s ever gonna make in regards to me.
“So we’re on the couch,” He’s saying. “That’s when I hear her dad come in, just as I’m about to get to second base-“
“Wait, wait, wait,” I interrupt. Not because I care, but because I better look like I care a heck of a lot more about a teammate’s story than I do about what’s in the paper. “Major league second base, or minor league second base?”
“What’s the difference?” Scarlett asks.
At least this really awkward silence isn’t as personally uncomfortable, even if it’s way more widely acknowledged. I’m pretty sure that was the moment Ripcord realized he was telling this story in what my mom would call ‘mixed company’.
“Seriously, you guys?” She manages to look really unimpressed.
“Well, in the minor leagues, second base is under-the-sweater, over-the-bra.” I say.
“Obviously. I didn’t know there were two second bases.”
“Yeah, well, major league… Major league second base is…” I look over at Roadblock.
“You’re on your own.”
“Major leagues is the four-Why am I answering the question? It’s Ripcord’s story.”
“Oh, I was playing in the minors.” He says, either because it’s true or because no one wants to explain the hierarchy of sexual conquest to a girl we all have to work with.
I don’t know if it’s more or less awkward to talk about that kind of thing to a woman you might actually be attracted to… I mean, not that I’m ever going to find out, but do you go for it because you want to talk about sex with a pretty lady, or do you resolutely avoid it?
Besides, it’s all kind of different with two guys anyway.
“Fine. Don’t explain it. I probably don’t want to hear any of you talk about it.”
“Anyway, that’s my embarrassing first girlfriend story.” Ripcord shrugs. “What about you, Tunnel Rat?”
“Me? I don’t have an embarrassing first girlfriend story.”
“Sure you do. Everybody has an embarrassing first girlfriend story.” Duke snorts. Then he glances over at Scarlett. “Or an embarrassing first boyfriend story.”
“Uh-uh.” She shakes her head.
“Ripcord and I told ours.”
Duke told an embarrassing first girlfriend story? Damn, I kind of wish I’d been listening…
“My first girlfriend was when I was six. We played house, our parents talked about how cute we were, then I think she moved… Anyway, by the time I even had a vague idea about what sex was, she wasn’t around, so. No embarrassment, just… I think mostly I was bored but I didn’t want to say anything because she was taller than me. Which I guess is embarrassing, if not what you were looking for.”
“First real girlfriend, then.” Ripcord presses. “Junior high? High school?”
“I was already urb-exing. Girls don’t go for guys who spend their free time breaking into the sewer system. The smell tends to linger.”
“College then. Come on, something.”
The closest thing to ‘something’ I had in high school was wrestling matches that sometimes turned into something else, with the one friend I had who wasn’t completely straight, but he wasn’t completely gay either, and we never really went anywhere with it, and that all stopped when he got a real girlfriend… As for college, I don’t know, I’ve thought about it, something I might do after the army. Didn’t have much of a chance-even if I’d had the money to go, it was the army or face jail time for trespassing, there wasn’t exactly a third option for college when they made the ultimatum.
“About time!” Scarlett saves me from having to answer by shouting at the newspaper, and that’s when I remember, and then it’s just, dread. This is about to become a discussion.
“About time for Tunnel Rat to have a girlfriend?” And I’d punch him in the arm or something, but Ripcord actually sounds confused.
“Congress is looking to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.” She sighs. “We had way too many people in intelligence lose their jobs over it, people we couldn’t spare. A lot of translators.”
“Oh, yeah. I remember that, a few years back? It seemed like a weirdly high number of translators.” Duke nods.
“Well, hopefully that doesn’t have to happen anymore.”
“I never really thought about it. Aside from the fact that it seemed like only translators were getting discharged over it…”
“You never really thought about it?” And crap, I didn’t mean to sound so… I don’t know, so invested, at least to my own ears. Maybe it just comes across as casual disbelief to everyone else, but to me, I sound…
Crap.
“It didn’t really apply to me. I didn’t think about it.” Duke shrugs and leans back. “Why, what do you think about it?”
“I don’t know.” I lie. What was I supposed to say?
Besides, it’s still fraternization. They can repeal the hell out of DADT and it’ll still be fraternization.
“I don’t know, either.” Ripcord says. “I mean, there’s the unit cohesion argument,”
‘Unit cohesion?’, I want to scream, ‘We had unit cohesion out the ass before you came back from the dead and turned into a giant snot monster and got all buddy-buddy with my boyfriend!’
I don’t say anything.
“But, I mean, if we can serve with women just fine, that shouldn’t be a problem, right?” He continues, and the vise in my chest unclenches just a little.
“Right.” I say. “Scarlett, you’re cool with Duke and Ripcord, right?”
“I’m cool with all of you.” She stares at me.
“Exactly. All of us. All of us manly men, with the spitting and swearing, the manliness. You feel perfectly safe, amid all these veritable testosterone factories.”
“… Yeah…” She’s still staring. Maybe I oversold that more than I needed to.
“So, if you don’t feel threatened by being on a team with a bunch of dudes, then a bunch of dudes shouldn’t feel threatened by being on a team with… with other dudes, who are… less… heterosexual…”
Yeah, that’s stirring rhetoric.
“Unless that bunch of dudes just isn’t as brave as our girl Scarlett. Actually, I think this might make Scarlett braver than seventy percent of all Marines.” Roadblock says.
She laughs.
I wonder what percent of people I’ll actually be expected to serve with would have a problem with ‘unit cohesion’.
“I just… I don’t think it’s ever even been an issue.” Duke says. “For me, I mean. I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever served with anyone who was… you know. Well, not that I’d know, I guess.”
It is taking literally all the willpower I have to not turn around and roll my eyes at Roadblock over this.
Also, Scarlett’s staring at me again.
She knows. Oh crap, she knows. How much does she know? Does she know everything? I mean, at least she’s clearly on the ‘I don’t have a problem with this’ side, and it’s hard to be sure about the others, because there’s a world of difference between ‘not hostile’ and ‘actually cool’, but Scarlett knows, otherwise she wouldn’t be staring at me like that.
“Well, I hope the repeal goes through.” And that’s all Roadblock says on the subject. Nobody presses.
“So what if it became an issue?” I ask Duke. “I mean, would you be okay with it? If it was somebody on your team?”
“Yeah, sure. I probably would be.” He looks at me a little weird, but it’s not the same as the knowing look I got from Scarlett.
Probably, there’s a word that makes everything not reassuring.
“Yeah, probably, right?” Ripcord joins back in. “I mean… as long as it wasn’t awkward. I just don’t want to have to break any hearts.”
“Yeah, ‘cause that would be the number one issue.” I snarl, stalking off. “I can’t believe you guys.”
“Tunnel Rat!”
“Let him go, Duke,” Roadblock’s the last person I hear clearly, before I’m through the scrubby trees and it’s just sound, no words.
After a while, he finds me down by the creek.
“Guess what?”
“What?” I sound tired. I feel tired.
But when I look up, Roadblock’s smiling, so… good news, I guess?
“Duke thinks you’re the homophobe.”
“What? I’m apparently the gayest guy he knows-“
“Well, one of two.” He shrugs, squeezing my arm. “From where he’s standing, he and Ripcord are coming out with some support for the repeal and you’re freaking out and storming off.”
“That’s rich.” I start to laugh. Pretty soon my chest and face are hurting and I’m tearing up. “What am I supposed to say to that?”
“Don’t worry about it. I said I didn’t think you’d been sleeping and you were probably just upset about something else, and Scarlett said she thought you’d been on edge for days before we even got the news. I think the official story is, you’re a little freaked out over the Ripcord-Viper thing.”
“I am freaked out over the Ripcord-Viper thing.”
“Exactly. And according to Scarlett, you sublimated all that out of a sense of comradeship, and that led to a completely unrelated issue making you blow your top.”
“Great.”
“It is pretty great. Unless you wanted to explain the other thing. You… You could, if you wanted to.”
“No.” I shake my head. “I can’t come out about me without coming out about us, even just by accident, and-And there’s just no way that’s okay. I mean, we still want to get cleared, we still want to go back to the army, and as long as we’re in the same unit… It’s easier if we don’t, if we don’t say anything. Can’t put the cat back in the bag, right? I don’t want to get you into any more trouble than we’re already in…”
“Hey, I was ready to stand by you whatever you wanted to do. I’m certainly not pushing for you to come out.”
“This moment would be really romantic, if I didn’t think the rest of our team was watching us from up there.” I smirk.
“Come on.” He chuckles. “Let’s get back up there so you can tell them you’re tired.”
“I am tired.” I say. I’m tired of so much… I’m tired of not being completely wrapped up in this man, I’m tired of not kissing him, I’m tired of hiding and lying even though I know it’s absolutely necessary, and I’m just… I’m just tired.
“Then come on back to camp and you can rest.”
That’s not at all what I meant, but I can tell he knows, just from the way he says it, from the way his hand lands on my back, solid and gentle following me up the little rise.
Everyone pretends I didn’t just storm off in a snit, and when we bed down for the night, I reach across the space between us so that the back of my hand rests against his arm, and it’s barely even a touch, nothing anybody else would notice, but it’s something, and something’s better than nothing.