Black Hawk Down fanfiction

Gary/Randy, PG

Summary: Set during Gary's first weeks in operator training. Not going so well.

~*~

The sound of the door locking and unlocking almost had him stirring from the floor.

But then the door flew open and let in an unmistakable presence, slammed shut, and Randy didn’t move from where he lay.

A thud followed by a muted whoomp against the wall, Gary drop-kicking his ruck into the corner, followed by an angry Fuck!, and then footsteps thudding in his direction.

Without moving his forearm from across his face, he waited for Gary to come into the kitchen. But Gary seemed to have stopped somewhere just inside the entrance, presumably watching him.

Sluggishly, he said to Gary, “You know we can’t call it going-away sex if you don’t actually leave after it’s over.”

Gary didn’t respond.

He, unapologetically, didn’t move from where he lay, on a fresh pile of laundry where he had been for the past hour or so, ever since Gary had fucked him up something fierce and left him to enjoy the pleasures of a non-working mind.

Gary remained at the entrance breathing heavily, and obviously angrily. Randy listened to the deep, shaking breaths.

Within the hour-fifteen, Gary had gone to the compound and unexpectedly returned. So something had happened. But whatever it was, he couldn’t make him mind function enough to care. He was sure he would be able to in a minute.

In the meantime he probably ought to brace himself for the coming explosion.

Gary shoved into the kitchen and dropped down beside him, missing him only by a few centimeters. He hadn’t had time to move and now lay partially crushed under Gary’s massive weight. Feeling the yell coming. He regretted that it would have to be so close to his ear.

“That fucking asshole! This isn’t boot camp, this is operational unit training. We’re supposed to be professionals! I didn’t give up a promising career in the Army Rangers for this bullshit. I shouldn’t have to put up with this bullshit!”

Randy let out a sigh.

Gary in operator training was like a young sun waiting to go nova. He didn’t know whether even he could live through it, and he didn’t just mean his auditory health, either.

Pretending he didn’t just get an erection, he lowered his arm and began gently.

“And by ‘bullshit,’ you mean…”

“In my entire Ranger class,” Gary went on, loud and clear. “I was the only one who didn’t hallucinate. Not once. You know what it takes to maintain that level of concentration? That level of focus? That is not fucking common.”

“No, it certainly isn’t…”

“And there’s no dispute that I have strong natural abilities. Some might even say excellent natural abilities.”

“Definitely. I for one have always been impressed by your ability to whistle around a mouth full of pecan pie—”

Gary let out a hard sigh and drew up his knees. He wasn’t listening.

What Gary was doing, was screwing up the balance of the laundry pile. A wedge of clothes shoved hard against Randy’s hip and he fought against the urge to shift out of his comfortable position and move it. He told himself to pretend it wasn’t there and that he was still perfectly settled.

After which, he let their sudden, odd conversation slip from his head and exhaled softly, taking Gary’s weight with him as he sank into the pile of clothes.

Tonight had been the opportunity to spend the evening reliving their earlier experience, and as graphically as possible. While Gary was gone he had planned to capture the moment, the feelings, the intimate words they had shared with each other, and place them in a glass bottle to keep safe in his thoughts.

“I’ve decided we can’t do things like that anymore.”

And…now the sensations were fleeing for their life.

He turned until he could touch his nose against Gary’s nape, inhaling softly when skin touched skin. He didn’t think he would ever get used to this. This love of mindlessness Gary caused in him.

He moved closer and kissed Gary’s neck, hot from emotions and exerting himself on five flights of stairs. He groaned a little, shifting closer so Gary could feel his—

“I mean with my gear,” Gary went on, obviously impervious to his advances. “We shouldn’t do things like that with my gear. It’s weird, a…and it’s too…distracting when I’m trying to focus. You know, and we can do it later, but not now when I need to concentrate on not fucking up unit training, and…”

Randy went slack, giving up. They’d get to what had caused all this eventually.

He felt around and fished up a pair of pajama bottoms, lifting his hips off the ground to pull them over his hard-on. He sat up and got to his feet.

“Where’re you going?” Gary asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

He reached down and yanked the T-shirt pinned under Gary, having to use his foot to push Gary off while pulling on it, since Gary’s self-pity was proving an immovable object.

He got the shirt but the momentum rolled Gary off the pile of clothes and dumped him face down on the hard kitchen floor.

Gary laid there, defeated, and said into the tiled floor, “Perfect.”

From where he stood, now dressed and leaning against the kitchen counter, staring down at the long, stretched out form of Gary in his assault BDUs and boots, blond hair spiking all over the place, he’d definitely say it was.

“What I need from you right now,” Gary mumbled, raising his head long enough to check on his silence, “is compassion. Instead you’re over…there,” he pointed in the wrong direction, “thinking about sex. I think.”

“Tomorrow night, then?”

Gary rolled onto his back and folded his hands across his stomach, crossing his ankles. He blinked up at the ceiling, seeming more lucid. The contact with the cold floor seemed to have cleared his head.

“I can’t. I’m catching the next helo ride out with the first training unit going out in the morning.”

“Oh, so you’re still in Delta. I was worried.”

Gary didn’t say anything. He sighed a little.

Randy waited a minute. “Tell me what happened.”

“I took the baby oil and poured it on my gloves and rubbed it all over my gloves. Then I got out the rappelling rope—you know which one—and rubbed the oil all over that, and then I got out the flex cuffs and that rescue harness that’s made for two… And I did it all without being aware of a single action, completely on automatic. When I noticed everybody was staring at me, I stopped and looked at what I had done. And I had done…a lot.”

Gary stopped talking and looked at him.

He stared at Gary.

The only thing on the planet, the only power on earth keeping him motionless and his expression in check was the absolute certainty that Gary would blow out his eardrums if he so much as twitched in the wrong direction.

He wasn’t even sure he had heard right, but there was no way in hell he was going to be able to test that theory without losing his shit.

So somehow he just managed to stand there, and stare at Gary.

Gary sighed softly, sadly, and went back to looking at the ceiling.

“Randy, everybody saw me. The instructor, it was Gabe, he said it was okay. That if I wanted to be the dumb blond in the unit, that was cool. Some people found it hot.”

Randy clenched his jaw and sucked in his breath. And somehow killed his howl.

“He found a way of referencing it, too, and by ‘it’ I mean the baby oil—God, I can’t even say it anymore without wanting to shoot myself—every fifteen minutes, and managed to come up with a new dumb blond joke to go with it.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to say Such as? He could think of one right now. How many blonds does it take to go through a 4-ounce bottle of baby oil? Just one. One big, hot one.

Gary sat up and pulled up his knees, draping his arms over them. “I was so embarrassed I had to get the hell out of there. And… well, come clean my stuff.”

Randy stared at his own bare feet, hiding his smile.

Everyone had a dumb-attack, and not once in a lifetime. Perhaps seldom as spectacular as Gary’s, which he didn’t have the heart or balls to tell him was most likely going into Delta lore, but Gary needed to learn the indispensable Delta skill of out-mouthing your fellow operator.

He’d get there. They all did.

In the quiet that followed, Gary sat there and stared at his hands, his fingernails, flicked at a rolled-up sock.

It was while Gary was doing that that it dawned on him that despite all that ranting and railing, Gary hadn’t come all this way, back from the compound, paying cab fare and all, for commiseration. He could have gotten that from any of the guys at the barracks.

What Gary had come for was attention, and some love.

He had, after all, only just turned his back on his Army-enlisted stupor five months ago and in the midst of that had dealt with falling in love, having to grow up, operator training, smart-mouthed instructors, first time in Special Forces, and the strangeness of frequently finding himself alone in a relationship he hadn’t even seen coming.

He himself had only gotten back in town that afternoon after being gone for one month, and now Gary was leaving for a week the following morning.

Three hours of going-away sex was all well and good, but it was time he showed his baby some love.

He pushed off the counter and reached for a skillet.

“Would you like me to prepare you some dinner?”

“Yeah,” Gary replied with a sigh. “Are you gonna make that red sauce with the green spicy specks in it? If so, please make a lot.”

“Aren’t you missing a ride tonight with one of B Squad’s troops, by the way? They have a helo going out.”

“Gabe specifically told me to catch the morning ride out. He wouldn’t even let me join the unit tonight. He said he was too freaked out. Can you believe that? I mean, c’mon. What the fuck?”

Randy bent to light the stove, lowering his head and, quietly, gave in to his laughter.

~*~