Durant/Wolcott Fic Challenge
Title: Heaven Beside You
Fandom: Black Hawk Down
Pairing: Mike Durant/Cliff Wolcott
Rating: G - R
Theme Set: Beta
Disclaimer: None of this ever happened, nor do I insist that the events hold truth in writing them.
Notes: Written for the 1sentence challenge community. 50 themes, 1 sentence each.
#01 - Walking
They are walking towards Rucker’s utility hangar, accompanied by the rosy fingers of dawn painting the sleepy sky, when their fingers brush together and Mike has to pretend that the gasp that falls from Cliff’s lips is due to the harsh winter cold; it’s seventy degrees outside and almost sunny.
#02 - Waltz
The feeling Mike’s lips on his skin is so far from graceful, so far from beautiful and perfect, that Cliff must think of it as a waltz, always thinking waltzes were ugly as a child.
#03 - Wishes
Mike wishes he had something to say when Cliff murmurs, “I hate you for doing this to me,” but cannot say anything when his mouth is being crushed.
#04 - Wonder
“Six-One is going down,” Cliff relays quickly on the radio and can’t help but wonder if Mike is still up for that cup of coffee after all this got straightened out.
#05 - Worry
Nights in Kentucky are miserably humid and unbelievably sticky, making it impossible to sleep, but Mike’s not thinking of sleep, but that they’ll someday be caught is eating away at his mind as Cliff is biting his shoulder to stifle a moan, his body already hotter than the outside temperature.
#06 - Whimsy
Cliff is utterly convinced that the word whimsy is of common usage because it really doesn’t need to be in the dictionary to be a word.
#07 - Wasteland
Mike stared across the Somali oceans and saw beauty, saw a glittering golden surface in every direction; Cliff glared across the Somali oceans and saw nothing, only felt a dark cloud shadowing him like the jet’s silhouette skimming across the reflecting pane of water that would be the end of him.
#08 - Whiskey and Rum
Something about the taste of whiskey in Cliff’s mouth drove Mike wild and something about licking rum off Mike’s thighs made Cliff wish he had bought a bigger bottle of rum.
#09 - War
It gave Mike some of the darkest nightmares imaginable; it took Cliff’s light away and screwed it in the broken fixture above Mike’s head, shattering when the cracked wooden door slammed shut, and every shard of foggy glass on his skin is a painful reminder of the long days to come.
#10 - Weddings
When Mike’s gold band clinks with Cliff’s nearly identical ring, Mike inwardly cringes because the day he was married was the first day that Lorrie ever suspected the bruises on his hips weren’t from the tool belt she had bought for him last spring.
#11 - Birthday
The best gift he got was a ’65 Mustang, but he’d seen a smile all but a minute before lips were pressed to his and Cliff’s Mustang may have finally been topped.
#12 - Blessing
“I don’t need your goddamn blessing,” Cliff hisses dangerously and stalks out, leaving Mike with a white and gold invitation pressed into his hand.
#13 - Bias
“Don’t ask, don’t tell.”
#14 - Burning
The smoldering look in Cliff’s eyes burns through Mike’s soul, the glorious sound of those three little words eats away at Mike’s heart and when he says them back, Cliff’s eyes shine a hazel so bright that Mike could turn off the lamp and see everything in the room.
#15 - Breathing
Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, Cliff has to remember to breathe as the ground blurs; sky, ground, sky, ground, he hears Mike over the radio before the blur fades to black and the sound of silence has never sounded so sweet.
#16 - Breaking
A ridiculously expensive champagne glass shatters against the wall as Mrs. Wolcott screams, “Clifton Wolcott, tell me who the fuck Michelle is right now, or I’m driving your stupid Mustang into the lake and taking the kids to Chicago with me,” and Cliff smiles in spite of the severe bodily damage this woman could cause him, but the smile disappears as he sits at the kitchen table nursing a black eye and waiting for Michael arrive and fill his now empty house with that ridiculously loud laughter.
#17 - Belief
The Bible feels terrifyingly heavy in Cliff’s hands and the church smells clean and crisp, a faint chime of moving water from the fountain cuts through the tension like a knife to flesh; he looks to Mike, staring down at his fingernails, the Bible long since forgotten on the pew beside him, and he raises his head to the crucifix towering over them and Cliff can make out the reflection of lost faith in Mike’s blue eyes.
#18 - Balloon
They are sitting side by side at the airport, hot in their uniforms and confined to the lobby, when an irresponsible child’s balloon floats lazily to the ceiling, a horrible clash of red against gray rafters and it was then that Mike decides going to Africa is not a good idea because the balloon popped and fell at Cliff’s boots, tattered and torn and Cliff just had to laugh.
#19 - Balcony
On the balcony after his life was changed forever, when the sun has begun to rise over the skyline, Cliff can see all of New York City, the huge metropolis preparing itself for a whole new day; on the balcony before his life takes an unexpected turn, when the crescent moon hangs in the dark sky, Cliff kisses Mike like it will be the last time, their tongues stroking, their hot breath warming cold skin, and their knees shaking until one of them drags the other to the concrete platform and tongues slowly begin to stroke different things all together, Cliff looks up into the infinite black space while Mike looks at Cliff, wondering how he got Cliff to finally love him, never once considering that maybe Cliff was in love him before Mike had even thought about it.
#20 - Bane
Cliff Wolcott’s bane is work because once he met Mike Durant, for the first time in his life he can’t seem to keep his mind on flying.
#21 - Quiet
The meteorologists on every local D.C. channel forecasts for rain, but Mike goes to Arlington Cemetery anyways, the sound of raindrops pitter-pattering on the marble cross sounds like his laugh, cutting through the silence of a soldier’s funeral a few hundred feet away; the soldier’s wife is sobbing and her tears mingle with the rain falling from the sky, but as he runs his fingertips across the cold, wet gravestone, he quietly tells her the pain will eventually fade away and stands.
#22 - Quirks
The first time Mike notices that Cliff likes to take his time and make things truly special and important, unbuttoning, unzipping, kissing, breathing, taking things slow by using passion in every touch, speaking words into words only half-hearing whatever was being whispered through the dark, is the first time ever.
#23 - Question
Mike questions his faith in God as black smoke rises like the fingers of a deadly devil above a hopeless cause; Cliff questions his faith in death and how fast it will descend upon him in the next thirty seconds.
#24 - Quarrel
Cliff wishes their first fight was a physical battle of tongues in a warm room over an even warmer bed and not a cruel verbal clash of tongues in the backlot of Fort Lewis in the freezing rain over a helicopter only half-built.
#25 - Quitting
“The day Wolcott walks away from a Scrabble board out of anger is the day he fucks me inside out,” Mike smiles convincingly at his friends and drops his gaze back to his tiles as they watch Cliff’s retreating back and the guys don’t know how to tell him that Cliff wasn’t coming back to the game.
#26 - Jump
When Cliff wraps his arms around Mike’s waist, buries his face in the crook of Mike’s neck and breathes in the scent of comfort, he feels safe and when he gets home after a long day and steps into the shower, a desperate attempt to wash the day’s activities away, he closes his eyes against the hot spray, arms wrap around him and a body presses up to him, making his startled jerk upwards pleasuring for the both of them; comfort and safety is saved for the bed.
#27 - Jester
Cliff touches the tip of Mike’s nose in the offices one day when no one else was looking, marveling at the tiny freckles that dust his sun-bronzed face and he jokingly tells him, a finger still lightly touching Mike’s warm skin that an angel really must have gone to town kissing that face and Mike quickly replies that one of them came to him last night before batting his hand away; Cliff sits down and smiles.
#28 - Jousting
They butt heads over the most ridiculous things, for example, whether or not whimsy is considered a word of common usage.
#29 - Jewel
He wasn’t trying to be cliché when he told Mike his eyes looked like diamonds, but Mike thought it was sweet anyways and showed him by taking his hand and leading him towards the master room, and Mike wasn’t trying to be predicable when he told Cliff that his eyes shone like emeralds when he touched him here, kissed him there, but Cliff thought it was charming anyways and showed him by kissing him chastely on the cheek and leading him towards the bed.
#30 - Just
It’s only fair that limo stays on the board, and no matter how much Mike protests, the only thing that will keep him quiet, Cliff learns, is a well applied lick of the tongue to his lips and a carefully targeted roll of the hips.
#31 - Smirk
When the guns don’t work, Cliff curses Mike for screwing around with his baby, his D A fucking P, but Mike smirks when Cliff realizes that it was his own mistake and Cliff isn’t sure if he’d rather slug that smug look off Mike’s face, a quick jab to the right, or kiss it off; he would’ve carried out the latter, but with so many witnesses around, he is forced to settle with a punch that sends Mike flying, laughing hysterically the whole way down.
#32 - Sorrow
Mike walks past the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and tips his service hat, unimpressed with the marine’s pencil straight stature at the foot of the Tomb, and trying to ignore the fact that his uniform was soaked halfway through and the water streaming down the sides of his face stings
#33 - Stupidity
There are many occasions in Cliff’s life where he has shown his stupidity, allowed his weaknesses to slip through rational, or in some cases, irrational events, but seducing Mike in Fort Rucker’s utility hangar was not one of them.
#34 - Serenade
Walking off the flightline, there is a breeze being lifted upon the shoulders of the Somali air and it feels like heaven on Mike’s skin, like the soft kisses that Lorrie gives him after a night of proclaiming love; Cliff jumps from his seat a ridiculously happy man, ripping off his helmet and Nomex gloves, belts out an awful eighties song because he has decided that tonight will be the night he kisses Mike.
#35 - Sarcasm
“I’ll only go to your funeral if you’ll come to mine.”
#36 - Sordid
He can taste dust in his mouth, blood and bile in the back of his throat, as sunlight floods his vision and the only thing he can see past the cracked windscreen are the two camouflaged angels of death trying to pull him out of a living hell.
#37 - Soliloquy
“I can’t believe you dreamed that, you stupid motherfucking fucker, I can’t believe you dreamed about going down on your own fucking best friend, you sick fucking fuck; he’s your best friend, he’s your best friend, he’s your best friend…God, what’s wrong with me?”
#38 - Sojourn
A knock on his door at nine tells Mike that Cliff will stay just long enough for clothing to come half-way off before pecking him on the cheek and driving away; a pounding on his door at eleven tells Mike that Cliff means business and will stay for hours, him and that catty smile that never quite leaves the house, and Mike likes the hours situation better because five-minute fucking with his shirt on was never very comfortable.
#39 - Share
Cliff drops heavily to his knees, his fingers steepled and his eyes clenched shut against the silence of the church, his own breathing seeming to cut through the quiet almost disrespectfully so he holds it as he prays of love and forgiveness and loyalty, and Mike has never wanted to gun run Jesus Christ so badly before.
#40 - Solitary
“It’s just you and me now,” a camouflaged angel with blonde hair and battle-weary eyes says as he throws the half-dead warrant officer one last magazine; Mike is careful as he loads his shit weapon and wonders if Cliff’s wishing, a few blocks down, for a meanings to an end as a bullet kills a man he doesn’t know.
#41 - Nowhere
Somewhere between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, but past the Mississippi River, Mike brings the old Ford pickup, a poor truck that’s lived through the Vietnam War and many ‘peace not war’ bumper stickers, to an abrupt stop and unbuckles his seat belt before turning to the side with a grin; Cliff thanks the Lord for the dark of night when Mike straddles his hips and grinds into him, and Mike is completely aware that he only pulled the Ford about three feet off the four-lane freeway and knowing damn well that just about everyone driving northbound could see him drag his tongue wetly up the side of Cliff’s neck, cursing the Lord for making Levis so hard to unbutton.
#42 - Neutral
Taking Mike to a Yankees/Red Sox game was a poor idea on Cliff’s part, because Mike couldn’t seem to figure out that booing the Sox at Fenway was something that got even Delta killed, no matter how many popcorn kernels bounced violently off his Boston jersey.
#43 - Nuance
When Mike mentions his pending divorce, wearing a rumpled uniform and an exasperated look as he rakes his fingers through his disheveled hair, sliding down the wall and burying his tired face into his arms, Cliff stops in his tracks and shuts the door with shaking hands at 9.07, turning back around and finally noticing that there is a light mark on Mike’s finger where a gold band should have been.
#44 - Near
“You could have been killed, and it’s almost as if you don’t really care,” Cliff screams into Mike’s face, not caring how many people’s attentions were now turned to them, not caring how many tears slipped down Mike’s cheeks as the man continues to stare at Three-Two like it’s at fault for the gushing wound on his cheek and the shrapnel imbedded in his chickenplate, still thinking that Cliff was exploding because of his beloved helicopter and not for the life he had risked tonight.
#45 - Natural
As the suited men stare down at the hostage cop in the trunk, a smile touching the lips of all three when their captive pulls at his bonds, Cliff states how much it looks like Jollata and laughs, stretching out on the couch and pushing him to the floor; Mike gets up for a beer, telling him that the day he’s taken prisoner in the greater Los Angeles area, he’ll be sure to call and let him know how long it takes for his ear to be sawed off to Stealers Wheel before throwing an empty Bud can towards his friend’s head.
#46 - Horizon
Sunrise was beautiful in New York City, if only he could see past the arm flung over his head towards the open French doors.
#47 - Valiant
They know a man who pulled a comrade from a burning helicopter with complete disregard for his own life, fueled by the notion of saving another’s life even if that meant dying himself and they wish they could carry out the same action and never brag about it, just as he never spoke of the burns on his arms, and that was on his record.
#48 - Virtuous
Mike rests back in his seat as Cliff leans over him to look out the Boeing’s window, down on the shining oceans leading them to Africa; Cliff sighs and sinks into the cushioned headrest, and Mike can ignore the fingers threading through his beneath the rough navy blanket, can ignore the fact that anyone could see, but cannot ignore the fearing look deep within hazel eyes as he boldly states how they will better the ravished country gradually approaching on the horizon.
#49 - Victory
Cliff pins Mike to the bed, straddling him fully clothed and holding his wrists to the headboard, their hips grinding in the sweetest of rhythms and throwing them both into a slow blissful release before Cliff grips Mike’s face in his hands and stares down expectantly, worriedly, “Please, Mike, don’t be freaked out when I say that I…”
#50 - Defeat
“…love you,” he whispers to the rolling lawns of fallen heroes, and his soft words fall upon the deaf ears of thousands.
Fandom: Black Hawk Down
Pairing: Mike Durant/Cliff Wolcott
Rating: G - R
Theme Set: Beta
Disclaimer: None of this ever happened, nor do I insist that the events hold truth in writing them.
Notes: Written for the 1sentence challenge community. 50 themes, 1 sentence each.
#01 - Walking
They are walking towards Rucker’s utility hangar, accompanied by the rosy fingers of dawn painting the sleepy sky, when their fingers brush together and Mike has to pretend that the gasp that falls from Cliff’s lips is due to the harsh winter cold; it’s seventy degrees outside and almost sunny.
#02 - Waltz
The feeling Mike’s lips on his skin is so far from graceful, so far from beautiful and perfect, that Cliff must think of it as a waltz, always thinking waltzes were ugly as a child.
#03 - Wishes
Mike wishes he had something to say when Cliff murmurs, “I hate you for doing this to me,” but cannot say anything when his mouth is being crushed.
#04 - Wonder
“Six-One is going down,” Cliff relays quickly on the radio and can’t help but wonder if Mike is still up for that cup of coffee after all this got straightened out.
#05 - Worry
Nights in Kentucky are miserably humid and unbelievably sticky, making it impossible to sleep, but Mike’s not thinking of sleep, but that they’ll someday be caught is eating away at his mind as Cliff is biting his shoulder to stifle a moan, his body already hotter than the outside temperature.
#06 - Whimsy
Cliff is utterly convinced that the word whimsy is of common usage because it really doesn’t need to be in the dictionary to be a word.
#07 - Wasteland
Mike stared across the Somali oceans and saw beauty, saw a glittering golden surface in every direction; Cliff glared across the Somali oceans and saw nothing, only felt a dark cloud shadowing him like the jet’s silhouette skimming across the reflecting pane of water that would be the end of him.
#08 - Whiskey and Rum
Something about the taste of whiskey in Cliff’s mouth drove Mike wild and something about licking rum off Mike’s thighs made Cliff wish he had bought a bigger bottle of rum.
#09 - War
It gave Mike some of the darkest nightmares imaginable; it took Cliff’s light away and screwed it in the broken fixture above Mike’s head, shattering when the cracked wooden door slammed shut, and every shard of foggy glass on his skin is a painful reminder of the long days to come.
#10 - Weddings
When Mike’s gold band clinks with Cliff’s nearly identical ring, Mike inwardly cringes because the day he was married was the first day that Lorrie ever suspected the bruises on his hips weren’t from the tool belt she had bought for him last spring.
#11 - Birthday
The best gift he got was a ’65 Mustang, but he’d seen a smile all but a minute before lips were pressed to his and Cliff’s Mustang may have finally been topped.
#12 - Blessing
“I don’t need your goddamn blessing,” Cliff hisses dangerously and stalks out, leaving Mike with a white and gold invitation pressed into his hand.
#13 - Bias
“Don’t ask, don’t tell.”
#14 - Burning
The smoldering look in Cliff’s eyes burns through Mike’s soul, the glorious sound of those three little words eats away at Mike’s heart and when he says them back, Cliff’s eyes shine a hazel so bright that Mike could turn off the lamp and see everything in the room.
#15 - Breathing
Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, Cliff has to remember to breathe as the ground blurs; sky, ground, sky, ground, he hears Mike over the radio before the blur fades to black and the sound of silence has never sounded so sweet.
#16 - Breaking
A ridiculously expensive champagne glass shatters against the wall as Mrs. Wolcott screams, “Clifton Wolcott, tell me who the fuck Michelle is right now, or I’m driving your stupid Mustang into the lake and taking the kids to Chicago with me,” and Cliff smiles in spite of the severe bodily damage this woman could cause him, but the smile disappears as he sits at the kitchen table nursing a black eye and waiting for Michael arrive and fill his now empty house with that ridiculously loud laughter.
#17 - Belief
The Bible feels terrifyingly heavy in Cliff’s hands and the church smells clean and crisp, a faint chime of moving water from the fountain cuts through the tension like a knife to flesh; he looks to Mike, staring down at his fingernails, the Bible long since forgotten on the pew beside him, and he raises his head to the crucifix towering over them and Cliff can make out the reflection of lost faith in Mike’s blue eyes.
#18 - Balloon
They are sitting side by side at the airport, hot in their uniforms and confined to the lobby, when an irresponsible child’s balloon floats lazily to the ceiling, a horrible clash of red against gray rafters and it was then that Mike decides going to Africa is not a good idea because the balloon popped and fell at Cliff’s boots, tattered and torn and Cliff just had to laugh.
#19 - Balcony
On the balcony after his life was changed forever, when the sun has begun to rise over the skyline, Cliff can see all of New York City, the huge metropolis preparing itself for a whole new day; on the balcony before his life takes an unexpected turn, when the crescent moon hangs in the dark sky, Cliff kisses Mike like it will be the last time, their tongues stroking, their hot breath warming cold skin, and their knees shaking until one of them drags the other to the concrete platform and tongues slowly begin to stroke different things all together, Cliff looks up into the infinite black space while Mike looks at Cliff, wondering how he got Cliff to finally love him, never once considering that maybe Cliff was in love him before Mike had even thought about it.
#20 - Bane
Cliff Wolcott’s bane is work because once he met Mike Durant, for the first time in his life he can’t seem to keep his mind on flying.
#21 - Quiet
The meteorologists on every local D.C. channel forecasts for rain, but Mike goes to Arlington Cemetery anyways, the sound of raindrops pitter-pattering on the marble cross sounds like his laugh, cutting through the silence of a soldier’s funeral a few hundred feet away; the soldier’s wife is sobbing and her tears mingle with the rain falling from the sky, but as he runs his fingertips across the cold, wet gravestone, he quietly tells her the pain will eventually fade away and stands.
#22 - Quirks
The first time Mike notices that Cliff likes to take his time and make things truly special and important, unbuttoning, unzipping, kissing, breathing, taking things slow by using passion in every touch, speaking words into words only half-hearing whatever was being whispered through the dark, is the first time ever.
#23 - Question
Mike questions his faith in God as black smoke rises like the fingers of a deadly devil above a hopeless cause; Cliff questions his faith in death and how fast it will descend upon him in the next thirty seconds.
#24 - Quarrel
Cliff wishes their first fight was a physical battle of tongues in a warm room over an even warmer bed and not a cruel verbal clash of tongues in the backlot of Fort Lewis in the freezing rain over a helicopter only half-built.
#25 - Quitting
“The day Wolcott walks away from a Scrabble board out of anger is the day he fucks me inside out,” Mike smiles convincingly at his friends and drops his gaze back to his tiles as they watch Cliff’s retreating back and the guys don’t know how to tell him that Cliff wasn’t coming back to the game.
#26 - Jump
When Cliff wraps his arms around Mike’s waist, buries his face in the crook of Mike’s neck and breathes in the scent of comfort, he feels safe and when he gets home after a long day and steps into the shower, a desperate attempt to wash the day’s activities away, he closes his eyes against the hot spray, arms wrap around him and a body presses up to him, making his startled jerk upwards pleasuring for the both of them; comfort and safety is saved for the bed.
#27 - Jester
Cliff touches the tip of Mike’s nose in the offices one day when no one else was looking, marveling at the tiny freckles that dust his sun-bronzed face and he jokingly tells him, a finger still lightly touching Mike’s warm skin that an angel really must have gone to town kissing that face and Mike quickly replies that one of them came to him last night before batting his hand away; Cliff sits down and smiles.
#28 - Jousting
They butt heads over the most ridiculous things, for example, whether or not whimsy is considered a word of common usage.
#29 - Jewel
He wasn’t trying to be cliché when he told Mike his eyes looked like diamonds, but Mike thought it was sweet anyways and showed him by taking his hand and leading him towards the master room, and Mike wasn’t trying to be predicable when he told Cliff that his eyes shone like emeralds when he touched him here, kissed him there, but Cliff thought it was charming anyways and showed him by kissing him chastely on the cheek and leading him towards the bed.
#30 - Just
It’s only fair that limo stays on the board, and no matter how much Mike protests, the only thing that will keep him quiet, Cliff learns, is a well applied lick of the tongue to his lips and a carefully targeted roll of the hips.
#31 - Smirk
When the guns don’t work, Cliff curses Mike for screwing around with his baby, his D A fucking P, but Mike smirks when Cliff realizes that it was his own mistake and Cliff isn’t sure if he’d rather slug that smug look off Mike’s face, a quick jab to the right, or kiss it off; he would’ve carried out the latter, but with so many witnesses around, he is forced to settle with a punch that sends Mike flying, laughing hysterically the whole way down.
#32 - Sorrow
Mike walks past the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and tips his service hat, unimpressed with the marine’s pencil straight stature at the foot of the Tomb, and trying to ignore the fact that his uniform was soaked halfway through and the water streaming down the sides of his face stings
#33 - Stupidity
There are many occasions in Cliff’s life where he has shown his stupidity, allowed his weaknesses to slip through rational, or in some cases, irrational events, but seducing Mike in Fort Rucker’s utility hangar was not one of them.
#34 - Serenade
Walking off the flightline, there is a breeze being lifted upon the shoulders of the Somali air and it feels like heaven on Mike’s skin, like the soft kisses that Lorrie gives him after a night of proclaiming love; Cliff jumps from his seat a ridiculously happy man, ripping off his helmet and Nomex gloves, belts out an awful eighties song because he has decided that tonight will be the night he kisses Mike.
#35 - Sarcasm
“I’ll only go to your funeral if you’ll come to mine.”
#36 - Sordid
He can taste dust in his mouth, blood and bile in the back of his throat, as sunlight floods his vision and the only thing he can see past the cracked windscreen are the two camouflaged angels of death trying to pull him out of a living hell.
#37 - Soliloquy
“I can’t believe you dreamed that, you stupid motherfucking fucker, I can’t believe you dreamed about going down on your own fucking best friend, you sick fucking fuck; he’s your best friend, he’s your best friend, he’s your best friend…God, what’s wrong with me?”
#38 - Sojourn
A knock on his door at nine tells Mike that Cliff will stay just long enough for clothing to come half-way off before pecking him on the cheek and driving away; a pounding on his door at eleven tells Mike that Cliff means business and will stay for hours, him and that catty smile that never quite leaves the house, and Mike likes the hours situation better because five-minute fucking with his shirt on was never very comfortable.
#39 - Share
Cliff drops heavily to his knees, his fingers steepled and his eyes clenched shut against the silence of the church, his own breathing seeming to cut through the quiet almost disrespectfully so he holds it as he prays of love and forgiveness and loyalty, and Mike has never wanted to gun run Jesus Christ so badly before.
#40 - Solitary
“It’s just you and me now,” a camouflaged angel with blonde hair and battle-weary eyes says as he throws the half-dead warrant officer one last magazine; Mike is careful as he loads his shit weapon and wonders if Cliff’s wishing, a few blocks down, for a meanings to an end as a bullet kills a man he doesn’t know.
#41 - Nowhere
Somewhere between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, but past the Mississippi River, Mike brings the old Ford pickup, a poor truck that’s lived through the Vietnam War and many ‘peace not war’ bumper stickers, to an abrupt stop and unbuckles his seat belt before turning to the side with a grin; Cliff thanks the Lord for the dark of night when Mike straddles his hips and grinds into him, and Mike is completely aware that he only pulled the Ford about three feet off the four-lane freeway and knowing damn well that just about everyone driving northbound could see him drag his tongue wetly up the side of Cliff’s neck, cursing the Lord for making Levis so hard to unbutton.
#42 - Neutral
Taking Mike to a Yankees/Red Sox game was a poor idea on Cliff’s part, because Mike couldn’t seem to figure out that booing the Sox at Fenway was something that got even Delta killed, no matter how many popcorn kernels bounced violently off his Boston jersey.
#43 - Nuance
When Mike mentions his pending divorce, wearing a rumpled uniform and an exasperated look as he rakes his fingers through his disheveled hair, sliding down the wall and burying his tired face into his arms, Cliff stops in his tracks and shuts the door with shaking hands at 9.07, turning back around and finally noticing that there is a light mark on Mike’s finger where a gold band should have been.
#44 - Near
“You could have been killed, and it’s almost as if you don’t really care,” Cliff screams into Mike’s face, not caring how many people’s attentions were now turned to them, not caring how many tears slipped down Mike’s cheeks as the man continues to stare at Three-Two like it’s at fault for the gushing wound on his cheek and the shrapnel imbedded in his chickenplate, still thinking that Cliff was exploding because of his beloved helicopter and not for the life he had risked tonight.
#45 - Natural
As the suited men stare down at the hostage cop in the trunk, a smile touching the lips of all three when their captive pulls at his bonds, Cliff states how much it looks like Jollata and laughs, stretching out on the couch and pushing him to the floor; Mike gets up for a beer, telling him that the day he’s taken prisoner in the greater Los Angeles area, he’ll be sure to call and let him know how long it takes for his ear to be sawed off to Stealers Wheel before throwing an empty Bud can towards his friend’s head.
#46 - Horizon
Sunrise was beautiful in New York City, if only he could see past the arm flung over his head towards the open French doors.
#47 - Valiant
They know a man who pulled a comrade from a burning helicopter with complete disregard for his own life, fueled by the notion of saving another’s life even if that meant dying himself and they wish they could carry out the same action and never brag about it, just as he never spoke of the burns on his arms, and that was on his record.
#48 - Virtuous
Mike rests back in his seat as Cliff leans over him to look out the Boeing’s window, down on the shining oceans leading them to Africa; Cliff sighs and sinks into the cushioned headrest, and Mike can ignore the fingers threading through his beneath the rough navy blanket, can ignore the fact that anyone could see, but cannot ignore the fearing look deep within hazel eyes as he boldly states how they will better the ravished country gradually approaching on the horizon.
#49 - Victory
Cliff pins Mike to the bed, straddling him fully clothed and holding his wrists to the headboard, their hips grinding in the sweetest of rhythms and throwing them both into a slow blissful release before Cliff grips Mike’s face in his hands and stares down expectantly, worriedly, “Please, Mike, don’t be freaked out when I say that I…”
#50 - Defeat
“…love you,” he whispers to the rolling lawns of fallen heroes, and his soft words fall upon the deaf ears of thousands.