Just To Be With You (9/9)
Title: Just To Be With You (9/9)
Word Count: 10,720
Summary: Babe makes a big mistake that sends the one he loves into the arms of another. Now he has to chase him across the globe to tell him how he feels before it's too late. Seriously AU. Various pairings.
Disclaimer: I’m not making any money off of writing this story. It’s entirely fictional and based on the performances given in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers and not the actual soldiers. I don’t own anything….so please don’t sue me. I wrote it for your enjoyment so…enjoy!
Sleep for Babe did not come easily that night. He was too busy thinking about the day to come and he kept waking up in the hope that it was already morning.
It was a lot like the way he slept before Christmas, or the first day of school. He was anxious and excited. Well in this case mostly anxious…he couldn’t really stay asleep.
So naturally he got up to go Sharpie some more faces.
When it was finally morning and light was beginning to come through the hospital windows, Babe felt that it was time to start waking some bitches up….or something.
Bill was probably a good place to start.
When he actually got to Speirs’ room he really shouldn’t have been surprised to see that Ron was already up and apparently ready to go.
Ron looked at him quickly when he slipped in, all drowsiness gone. He looked both genuinely surprised and pleased to see that Babe was awake.
“Did you wake the others yet?” He asked in a sort of mumble as he went through his bag which they had brought to him the night before. Babe assumed he was looking for a less bloody shirt.
“Nah I thought I’d get you guys first.” Babe noticed that someone (Bill) had attempted to scrub the marker off of Ron’s forehead but it was called permanent for a reason and was only slightly faded. Babe smiled to himself. “Maybe you should do it.”
Speirs nodded and quickly gave up looking in his bag before rummaging through Bill’s things and just taking one of his shirts instead. Babe looked at him.
Speirs stared back, “You threw up on my other one remember?”
“Oh right…did I apologize for that?”
“…No.”
“Sorry.”
Speirs rolled his eyes, zipped up his bag and walked out. Babe went over to where Bill was snoozing in a nearby chair and started to push at him with his foot. When that didn’t work he just smacked him upside the head.
“Ow!” Bill slapped at Babe’s hands as he sat up.
“Oh good you’re up. We need to get going.”
“Where’s Ron?”
“Up, about, back to his hard ass ways, and not in need of your babysitting. He also took one of your shirts.”
“Oh. Well you threw up on his other one remember?”
“I know! I’m sorry already! ....You know I noticed you didn’t try to wash off the raccoon eyes.”
Bill was silent for a moment. “I thought they looked kind of cute.”
“You’re so weird sometimes.”
“Wake up.”
After the sharp command and a moment of rough shaking, Buck did. Luz was already yawning and stretching next to him and he looked up to see Speirs frowning at the two of them.
Luz looked at Speirs’ face before noticing that Speirs was looking in between the two of them.
“What?”
Ron just shook his head, “You two look ridiculous.” That said he turned and left.
Luz looked over at Buck, “We look ridiculous? Does he know that someone wrote ‘Balls’ on his forehead?”
“Did you know someone wrote ‘Fairy’ on yours?”
“WHAT!?”
But it was true, and Buck had to admit-Luz looked pretty funny. Someone had indeed written ‘Fairy’ in looping cursive across his forehead. A large diamond shape was around his right eye and lines had been drawn going down from the left in a Boy George kind of fashion (and Buck could appreciate that joke) and stars had been doodled all over his cheeks.
“I’m sure I look bad. You just look really, really gay.” Buck wasn’t sure if that was as reassuring as he meant it to be.
Luz sighed, “They got you with the old mustache and unibrow thing. Nice goatee though.”
Buck groaned, “Your friends suck.”
That statement unfortunately caused Luz to start humming something that sounded suspiciously like the Spice Girls.
“If ya wanna be my lover…”
“Stop.”
“Make me!”
“Oh I will.”
“Yeah my ass you will-oomph!”
Buck kissed him and hoped no one cared if they took a little longer to get up.
Of the many things that Nixon was notorious for, Babe felt that his inability to get up in the mornings couldn’t be too bad. That was before he had to deal with it firsthand, that and the fact that it was seriously holding them the fuck up!
They were all just staring at him. Buck stroked his Sharpie goatee in thought. “Maybe we should pour water on him.”
Luz snapped his fingers, “I remember this time when Dick accidently threw a cup of pee on him! That woke him up.”
Bill glared, “We are NOT going to pee on him.”
“All I’m saying is it worked.”
The conversation ended the way most of them had ended recently, with Speirs ignoring them all, going over to Nixon and flipping him onto the floor with a thud.
“Son of a bitch!”
Speirs just clapped his hands together, “He’s up.”
When they got to the car, the one that Babe had apparently “borrowed” from a drunk (a fact Ron was fairly impressed with), it became apparent that it was going to be a pretty tight fit.
“Okay,” Bill started slowly as the others seemed to be practically asleep, “I’ll drive. Babe, Speirs and Luz you all definitely have to be in the back.”
“What? Why? I thought I’d at least get shotgun!’ Babe complained.
“Because Luz and Speirs are injured, plus I need to fit four of you back there and you and Ron are easily the skinniest-”
Ron broke in at that, “Excuse me?”
“-thinnest in the bunch, so that’s a given. Ron, you and Luz should sit in the middle so you don’t somehow manage to bump your heads against the windows.”
Ron just nodded, it was funny to watch Bill fuss over the way every one was seated. He was such a closet control freak.
Bill seemed to have decided something in his head, “Okay, Babe I want you behind me, then Ron then Luz then Nixon. Buck’s up front.”
Nixon just snorted, “Thanks man.”
Bill shrugged, “I thought I’d spare everyone from having to deal with Buck and Luz sucking face.”
“Whatever.”
Ron knew that wasn’t the real reason. Looking over the way they were seated it was obvious to him that Bill had lined them up in a manner of safety. He had put Babe behind his chair because in the case of a crash, the driver automatically protected his side. Therefore Babe was in the safest position.
Ron wasn’t sure why Bill put him in the next safest. Wasn’t sure why he was being so kind to him still. Especially after what had happened last night…
At first he had thought that maybe he had been dreaming. Though he knew on some level he was kissing someone…it wasn’t until he woke up early that morning that he realized it had been Bill.
When he’d decided to come on this trip, he’d done so with every intention of confronting Lipton. What he would say when he saw him he didn’t know yet. He’d seen the opportunity, however, and he took it. He figured that helping Babe out might get him back into his good graces as well.
Another reason he had agreed to come along, other than the fact that they were all so completely hopeless, was out of the need for a challenge.
He had fallen into somewhat of a routine at work. Become too comfortable where he was. Trying to figure out how to fix whatever it was about him that had driven Carwood away. But he couldn’t pretend to be the good son forever. It just wasn’t in him…clearly. And there were certainly plenty of challenges to be had by tagging along.
Challenges like Bill Guarnere.
Ron had been pushing Bill’s buttons since the day he met him. Not only was it entirely too easy, but it also held an element of danger. And few things attracted men like himself more than danger. He was always trying to see how far he could go before Bill truly snapped.
He had it figured that Bill’s passionate hate for him was rooted in something much different for quite some time, but he had never actually acted on the theory.
Until he had kissed him last night. And from what he could remember, Bill hadn’t shied away. Of course he also hadn’t made any attempt to discuss the incident.
On the one hand, he could simply be embarrassed about it. Or he might not be aware that Ron actually remembered. One thing was very clear however, Bill wasn’t angry anymore.
Before it had all been about messing with him, pushing as hard as he could before good ole’ Bill showed him how he really felt. Good or bad. Ron had wanted to take it all the way. And now…he wished he hadn’t. Because Bill actually seemed to care about him.
And Ron didn’t really know a lot of people who did.
The apparent train wreck wasn’t the only life threatening injury or situation he had ever been in. But it was one of the few that had forced him to think about what he really, truly wanted.
Since before the moment he woke up in the hospital, Lipton hadn’t strayed far from his thoughts. Even now, despite what had happened, Ron was overwhelmed by his desire and his need to see him.
Because he was pretty certain that he loved him. But he couldn’t be sure. Wouldn’t be sure until he saw him.
But now there was Bill. There was a situation whether Bill chose to acknowledge it or not. Bill was…
Bill was a mistake. One that Ron never should have wanted to make. But he had.
As they piled into the car, Ron decided to let Luz take the middle seatbelt. Because eventually Bill would realize that Luz was more important to him than he was. And he’d stop caring about Ron.
Renee couldn’t calm the flutter in her heart as she looked at herself in the mirror. This wasn’t an ordinary dress she was wearing. It was her wedding dress. Her wedding…
She still couldn’t believe it. She had never been the kind of girl to plan or obsess about her future ceremony. All that mattered to her was that she loved the man she married. That they made each other happy. But now that it was here she couldn’t help but be overwhelmed.
Maybe she had never planned on eloping but it felt right somehow, Eugene had come all this way for her hand and eloping felt romantic and honest in some poetic way she couldn’t really vocalize. Of course it was also the only way it could be done. Her family…they wouldn’t understand. They all had such high expectations of her. They were always telling her to get a career before a husband. Her father was the only one to understand that she needed to make her own decisions. Whatever they might be.
Of course with such an important decision having already been made, and an even more important step lying ahead, she had questions. Questions she wasn’t sure she really wanted answers for.
The most important being- was this what she really wanted? There were so many voices telling her she was too young, she had too much ahead of her. But she didn’t know if they were her own ideas or merely the voices of her overbearing family.
Another important question was- why now? What had made Eugene come after her when he could have saved her the heartache by asking her before she left? She had forced herself to come to terms with their relationships’ end, and just when she thought that she was getting over him, he came in and swept her off her feet. They had ended it mutually; it had seemed the only way…so what had changed his mind?
Like she said…questions…
The car had eventually gotten silent and Bill wasn’t sure whether or not he was pleased.
Nixon’s bitching and Luz and Buck’s flirting had helped to keep him awake. Of course there was the unspoken plea from Babe to keep quiet about Ron’s face paint, but now just about all communication had died down rather quickly and there was mostly silence. But that didn’t mean everyone was asleep.
Bill glance up in the rearview mirror at the only passenger still awake. All he saw was the tousled hair along with the marked and partially bandaged forehead, but he could imagine the large dark eyes staring out the window. Thinking whatever the hell people like Ronald Speirs thought about.
“Don’t ya think you should sleep a little?”
Ron jerked his head towards the front of the car, “I slept plenty at the hospital, don’t worry.”
Bill had to fight the urge to tell him that he wasn’t worried, although by now it seemed to be a pointless argument.
“Yeah well, just try not to get hit in the head for another few days. If you think you can manage that is.”
Ron laughed softly, “There he is. I was wondering when you would drop all of the mother hen bullshit. It’s a good thing everyone fell asleep, must have been a hard act to keep up.”
Bill tensed at the words and couldn’t help but be offended, “It’s not bullshit, and it’s not an act either. Is it so fucking hard to believe that I give a shit what happens to you?”
“I’m pretty sure you were trying to beat the crap out of me not one day ago.”
“Hey you started that!”
“Did I?”
“Oh...right. I didn’t mean to hit a sore spot…what I said about Lip and you…I’m sorry.”
“No you’re not. But you shouldn’t be. You were right. Besides you were doing exactly what I do to you.”
Bill looked back at him again, “Yeah? What’s that?”
“You were pushing my buttons. And while it’s rather easy with you, I usually try not to let others get to me. You know Bill; you’re one of the few people who can rile me up like that. That’s what I like about you. We’re so similar…but you’re not like me in all the places that it counts. I do things for myself, and you do things for other people. I’ve always been jealous of that.”
Bill shrugged, not sure what to think. “You learn something new every day.”
He could hear Speirs tap a soft beat on his knee in the silence, “Maybe you can tell me something.”
Bill glanced back at him once, only this time Speirs looked back. “Okay…”
“Why did you kiss me back?”
Bill was so shocked that he almost didn’t see the spare tire lying in the middle of the street.
He made the mistake of swerving while at the same time he hit the brakes, hard.
Buck and Luz jerked awake-startled. Nixon stayed entirely still and asleep, Babe shot up quickly to shout “But I LOVE chocolate!” before dropping back into his undoubtedly fucked up dream and Speirs…
Speirs flew forward like a shot and Bill just barely had time to throw out his arm before Ron went face first through the windshield. But he was not quick enough to stop him from smacking his head on the dash.
Bill swore as Speirs seemingly passed out. Buck looked at him in shock. Luz spoke.
“We are NOT going back to that fucking hospital!”
Bill quickly began to pull off of the road as Ron groaned and started to move. Bill parked the car, opened his door and got out. Reaching back in he grabbed Speirs and pulled him out and to his feet.
Leaning a wobbling Ron against the car he leaned in to speak to Buck. “Everyone wait here. We’ll be back in a few.”
He helped his shaking companion walk over to lean against a tree before he started with the shouting. Bill was amazed he lasted that long really. He hadn’t yelled at anyone in awhile.
“Why the FUCK weren’t you wearing a seatbelt? Are you trying to get killed? Is that what you want?”
Speirs looked pale and like he wanted to grasp at his head but instead he stood his ground.
“Me? Maybe if you had been watching the road and not looking at me we wouldn’t have almost crashed. Besides there was only one seatbelt so I gave it to Luz.”
“WHY? Your injury is much more severe and Luz is used to not wearing a seatbelt or do you not remember that shitty jeep you got him! Why would you do that?”
“Because the last thing I would want is for something horrible to happen to Luz and for you to realize that you wished it had been me!”
Bill stopped and looked at Ron who was breathing heavily. Bill wasn’t sure if it was the adrenaline or if he was feeling ill. But when he started to sway, Bill rushed forward and wrapped an arm around his waist and, despite himself, placed the other one on his jaw.
He sucked in a breath and looked Ron in the eye, “I would never, ever, wish that.”
Ron closed his eyes and Bill could feel him shaking and wished he wasn’t such a shitty driver.
“I really do love Carwood.”
Bill nodded, “I know.”
But he kissed Ron anyway, because after they got to Bastogne, he knew he’d never get another chance.
And Speirs kissed Bill back, because after all the shit he put him through, Ron thought he could at least give him that much.
Everyone in the car was awake by the time Bill buckled his seatbelt and started the engine.
Babe cleared his throat, “So are we going to acknowledge the fact that you two were making out?”
“NO!” Bill and Speirs shouted at the same time.
Speirs, who was now sitting up front (reasoning be damned) turned around to glare at them all, “And I swear to God if any of you mention this to Carwood I will hunt you down, cut your tongue out, shove it down your throat and watch you choke on your own blood.”
There was complete silence. Babe even put a protective hand over his mouth.
Bill decided that he could appreciate the silence. As well as other things.
He looked at Ron who was licking his lips, not knowing how crazy he was driving Bill. He turned to look at the road and gritted his teeth.
Yeah, he was going to have a talk with Lip.
Some men looked at marriage as a trap, an execution date, a great beyond from which there was no dignified return. Gene liked to think he wasn’t one of those men.
That wasn’t to say that he didn’t have worries, apprehensions, and all the sorts of insecurities that grooms were supposed to have on their big day. But he had been the one steering the relationship to this point and he had spent quite some time freaking out about the whole thing.
He knew that in the end the only thing that mattered was love. Corny as it may sound, Gene felt that if two people loved each other, then marriage shouldn’t change that.
He smoothed out a small crease in his tux, not sure why he was thinking about this now. Renee was only a couple of hallways away- getting ready. In a little under an hour, he would be getting married.
Which was what he wanted…because Renee loved him.
But was that what this was supposed to be about? Who loved him more? If anything, his decision to come to Europe should have been made based on who he loved more.
Or maybe the fact that Renee didn’t puke when he confided his feelings to her made him love her more? And again…why the hell was he thinking about this now?
So, for the first time in awhile, Gene decided not to ignore the tiny voice in the back of his head. And he let himself think about something he had been trying incredibly hard not to think about. Because he knew that when he started…he might never stop. He had to ask himself a question.
Just what made him love Babe?
Babe was…amazing. He was fun, silly and spontaneous. He was loyal to his friends no matter what, and to Gene. He never took anything too seriously…which was something Gene could never do.
He always said what he was thinking no matter how ridiculous it might sound aloud. And even if he got embarrassed, he would never apologize for being himself.
Babe was an adventure, although not always a mystery-but then Babe didn’t keep secrets.
Babe was pink lips that Gene could watch talk forever, even if he was talking about some evil squirrel that had chased him to class that day. Babe was red hair that was light in the summer, and dark and bright in the winter and Gene loved to mess it up whenever Babe had obviously tried to fix it.
Babe was soft hands that he wanted to hold while they watched TV on that crummy couch. Babe was long limbs that Gene wanted to be wrapped and tangled up in until he didn’t know who was who.
And when he smiled….
When he smiled Gene would feel so warm and flush with contentment that he could stay that way for eternity and never have to worry about being cold again.
What the Hell was he doing?
Even if Babe didn’t want him, even if Babe didn’t love him…he couldn’t marry Renee. Because he loved Babe more than anyone he had ever met, would meet or could dream up.
He couldn’t be afraid of being alone, not anymore. Because someone by his side wouldn’t make him happy. Babe would, even if Gene could only be his friend, having Babe in his life was the only thing that could ever truly make him happy.
What was he going to do?
Babe couldn’t believe it. They were FINALLY in Bastogne. But they were running out of time.
“We’re not going to have time to look in all of these churches. What if we pick the wrong one?” He knew he probably sounded kind of frantic but, damn it, time was of the essence!
Speirs and Buck looked over the short list that Lipton had given them and Buck crossed a couple
out with his fingers. “Those aren’t catholic, so that only leaves these 3.”
Speirs just nodded to himself, “So we’ll split up into twos, that way at least two of us can find the right place.”
Babe jerked at the suggestion, “Split up? Are you for real? That’s how people get axed!”
Bill rolled his eyes, “Yeah Babe in horror movies, not shitty romantic dramadies like this one.”
“What movie are you watching? This is a horror...” Nixon mumbled.
“Blah Blah,” Luz griped over them. “Who cares? We split, Babe keeps the phone and if one of us finds the church first we’ll call from a payphone.”
Speirs nodded, “Agreed. Babe, you should stay with Bill. You two take the car. Nixon and I will go look at this one, Buck and Luz can go look at the one downtown and you guys can drive out to this one. Sound good?”
Bill brought his eyes away from one of their newly acquired maps to look at Speirs and Babe just knew that part of Bill wanted to go with him.
Instead Bill just nodded and they all got out of the car.
Buck and Luz basically split right away with a wave over their backs. Crazy kids.
Speirs however grabbed Bill’s elbow and pulled him away for a moment. Like Babe even wanted to know what was being said there. Actually it probably wouldn’t be that bad. But his basic view
of Bill HAD been shattered and all.
Nixon cleared his throat. “So Babe, be careful. Just don’t jinx anything, drink anything or try to tie your shoes alone and you should be just fine.”
Babe stuck his tongue out and Nix just laughed and pulled him into a hug. “Like I said, it’ll work out. Just be careful.”
All Babe could really do was nod, touched. Not just by Nixon’s words but by the actions of them all. He was again overwhelmed by how hard they were trying to help him. Although somewhere along the way, he knew they all found their own reasons for doing this. But he was moved all the same.
“Okay,” he whispered and hugged Lewis back.
Ron wasn’t sure what exactly he wanted to say. But it wasn’t like he didn’t have feelings for the man in front of him. Because it was obvious he did. Plus Lipton and Bill were friends, they couldn’t leave all this unresolved, it would just blow up in their faces.
Bill looked down at his feet and then caught Ron’s eye, “So this really sucks.”
All of a sudden Speirs wasn’t sure if he was doing the right thing, he wasn’t sure of anything anymore, “Maybe I shouldn’t go. I could stay with you and when we find them…”
Even though he didn’t finish saying it, Bill knew anyways and cut him off, “No…no you need to be with Lipton.”
Now Ron was confused, wasn’t this what Bill had wanted?
“Why are you saying that?”
Bill seemed to pause, like he was going to say something he couldn’t believe he was about to say.
“I'm saying it because it's true. Inside of us, we both know you belong with Lipton. If we find them and you don’t take your chance you'll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.”
Speirs ignored the familiar feeling that he had heard that before, “But what about us?”
“We’ll always have Paris.”
“But…we were never in Paris.”
“Look! I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that.”
“I’m kind of confused.”
Instead of a reply there were firm lips on his and Bill squeezed his hip tightly.
After a few moments Bill pulled away, “Here’s looking at you kid.”
Then he got into the car, leaving behind a very confused Ronald Speirs.
Babe buckled in and looked over at Bill.
“So how’d it go?”
“I, uh, I quoted Casablanca,”
“…How much?”
“A lot.”
“Oh my. Has he seen that movie?”
“Apparently not.”
“Well then I’m sure it was very touching.”
“Shut up.”
Buck looked over at Luz who he was pretty sure was reading their map upside down. He walked up and snatched it away.
“I’ll do that, you can hail us cab.”
Luz just made a face, “A taxi? Do they even have those around here? Can’t we just walk there? I thought this was the close one.”
Buck nodded, “It is close, but walking means risking you getting dizzy and falling down, and hitting your head again…and I see a string of taxis across the street, so get one.”
“But the cab could crash, and that would be worse.”
Buck just rolled his eyes and waved at a taxi driver who was coming back to his car, “Highly unlikely.”
“Yeah but-”
By that point the man had driven over and Buck grabbed Luz around the waist and flung him as gently as he could into the backseat.
Sliding in next to him he pointed at the map for the driver. He wasn’t actually fluent in whatever the hell the language was.
“Hey don’t do that!” Luz shoved him hard against the door as the man started to drive. “I don’t like being manhandled!”
“Don’t lie.”
“Why did we just HAVE to take a cab?”
“Because we’re starting to get really good at making out in moving vehicles.”
“……….”
“If you catch my drift.”
“For the millionth time, I totally catch it. Just say that stuff up front.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Duh.”
Talking kind of ceased after that.
“So what’s the plan?” Nixon asked as they came up to a payphone next to a street vendor.
Speirs grabbed the phone and put in the change, “Mainly we just need to call a taxi and then-“
Suddenly Speirs was bent over clutching at his head, “Fuck!”
Nixon rushed to grab him as he slid to the ground in obvious pain, “Ron-shit are you going to be okay?”
“It’s my fucking head, I need to take some pills, grab me something to drink OK?”
Nixon nodded, he was freaked out enough to do just about anything. Getting up he rushed over to the vendor close by and bought what he was 90% percent sure was some kind of green tea.
He gave it a sniff, yeah sure tea.
“Here,” He handed it to Speirs who took a drink and then knocked back a handful of different pills. Some of which Lewis wasn’t sure the doctor had given him.
Speirs took a few deep breaths and then motioned to the phone, “You call. I’ll get up in a second.”
Nixon just nodded and dialed information. Speirs handed the tea to him, claiming he didn’t want anymore. Lewis just shrugged and took a drink.
By the time he was getting into the taxi, Speirs felt like he was going to die. It was as if every organ in his body wanted to come up his throat and the pain in his head which was
supposed to have gotten better after he took the pills, felt basically the same. On top of that he was so dizzy, he could hardly sit upright.
“Nixon, are you sure that what you gave me was tea?”
Nixon, who was trying to buckle his seatbelt to the window looked over, “Um…no…no I’m not.”
Why did he sound so wasted? Even if they had consumed what Ron was now almost positive was some form of alcohol, Nixon was practically immune.
“Where is it?”
“I have decided that I drank it…”
“Where’s the bottle idiot?”
When Nixon didn’t even snark back, Ron knew he was right. Lewis tossed him the empty bottle and Speirs skipped over most of the gibberish on the back until he hit the ingredients.
Oh…fuck. He was pretty sure under what looked like a warning label…that it read Absinthe.
No wonder he felt like shit and Nixon felt great.
This should be fun.
Groaning he laid down and rode out the pain hoping that he might get some of the herbs more desired effects before he saw Lipton. The last thing he wanted was to pass out, or throw up in front of him….again.
Luz jogged back to where Buck was waiting by the cab, “This one ain’t it. There’s no weddings, or services of any kind happening in there.”
Buck nodded and opened the door for him, “Well then I guess we should head towards where Speirs and Nixon are going. That’s the furthest away.”
“Sure why not. Should we call Babe and let him know?”
“Yeah, let’s find us a phone.”
“We are so fucking lost.”
“We’re not lost okay? I just don’t remember what street it was on…or what street I need to get on to get to the street that it’s on.”
“So we’re lost.”
“Yeah…”
“Damn it Bill!”
Bill sucked in a breath when Babe’s voice jumped up another octave, “Hey, on the upside this might not even be the right church.”
Babe nodded, “Yeah or it COULD be the right church and Gene is about to- oh TURN NOW right there I see it!”
“What!?”
“TURN LEFT NOW!”
Bill swerved left then hit the brakes as he saw a church not too far up ahead. Babe was already unbuckling his seatbelt.
“Pull over, pull over, pull over.”
Bill pulled over.
“Thank you!” Babe hopped out of the car and started rushing down the sidewalk.
As he ran towards the church he could see flowers outside the doors and here piano music coming from inside. There was a wedding going on in there and he was going to stop it!
Rushing up the steps two at a time he pulled back the doors.
“STOP! Stop everything you guys CANNOT do this! I-"
Babe trailed off as every single head in a very crowded church turned to gape at him.
…Why were they all wearing black?
Babe really hoped that wasn’t a casket he was seeing.
He felt his mouth drop open in horror, and just as he started to stammer out an apology, the cell phone rang.
More heads turned. He answered it, still frozen to the spot. “Now is a horrible time. Who is this?”
“Babe? It’s Buck-listen we checked out our church and it’s definitely not here.”
“Hmmmmm well it’s DEFinitely not here either.”
“Well that only leaves one place.”
“THAT’S IT! YES! YOU FOUND IT! YAY!”
Some of the angry faces were coming towards him now.
“Yeah I gotta go.”
Bill was just getting out of the car when he saw Babe running towards him.
“Are they in there?”
Babe shook his head quickly, “No, now start the car!”
Just then three very large men came running not ten feet behind Babe. Bill jumped in the car and threw Babe’s door open for him.
“What the Hell did you do?”
“Nothing!”
“Looks like something to me.”
“It was an honest mistake! Now shut up and drive bitch!”
Lipton wasn’t sure why he was so nervous, this wasn’t HIS wedding...for obvious reasons.
Maybe he was disappointed in Gene. Maybe he was worried about Ron. Maybe he just really wanted to see Babe come rushing through those doors.
Whatever the reason, he excused himself from the bench he was sharing with Dick. Walking down the corridor he spotted a confessional.
It looked empty. He wouldn’t exactly be hiding in there…just taking a minute to collect his thoughts.
When the taxi finally pulled up to the church, Speirs wasn’t feeling as much pain but the dizziness had heightened and Nixon had started to get philosophical on him. It was definitely time to get out of the cab.
“But if you really love someone, I mean like soul mate love someone-”
Speirs cut him off, “No one cares Nixon, now get out.”
As he shoved Nixon out, and paid the driver, he couldn’t help notice how miserable the church looked.
If that wasn’t a sign he didn’t know what was.
Dragging himself up the steps he let Nixon open the doors, there were only about ten steps in when-
“Oh thank God.”
Nixon suddenly had Dick Winters pulling him tightly against his body. “Are you okay Nix?”
Nixon seemed to lose some of his alcohol induced cool for a moment, “NO I am not okay! I have some very serious questions for you! Like catastrophic questions and if-”
Speirs cut him off again, “Pipe down. Look Dick he’s basically done the equivalent of smoking a very large joint so, be patient. Where’s Lipton?”
Dick seemed to just now be taking in his presence, “Ron are you okay? You look kind of pale, and did you know someone wrote ‘Balls’ on your forehead?”
Ron had not known that. He quickly touched his forehead, “That little shit, I’m going to kill him!”
Dick and Nixon got quiet and looked around. Ron remembered that he was in a church.
“Shit. Sorry! Sorry! Man…digging a hole here. So Lip?”
“Umm last I saw him he went down the hallway over to the left, that was…ten minutes ago? Where are the others?”
“On their way.”
Ron knew he should call but…first things first. He headed in the direction Dick had pointed.
“Could you drive a little faster please?”
“I’m already flooring it Babe, I’m surprised we haven’t been pulled over yet.”
All of a sudden lights were flashing and the sound of sirens were unsettlingly close behind.
Damn it.
“Now who’s the jinx?”
“Can it.”
Bill pulled over and rolled down the window as an officer approached the car. The policeman leaned over and began to speak in maybe- Dutch? Babe didn’t know, they still couldn’t understand anything anyone said in this country.
When the officers saw their, more than likely, confused faces he motioned to what Babe could only guess was a second officer and then retreated back to his car.
The second officer approached this time and spoke in English, which was so nice to hear that Babe almost didn’t care that they were probably in trouble.
“You both need to step out of the car, now.”
Ummm…okay.
Babe unbuckled his seatbelt and scrambled out.
Bill decided to ask the questions, “So what’d we do? Other than probably speed.”
The officer skirted them cautiously and then glanced at the car’s plates. “This car has been reported stolen. You’ll both have to come with us.”
“WHAT?”
“Stolen is kind of harsh-”
“You don’t understand!” Babe was getting incredibly frustrated now, “I have to get to this church like really soon! I’ve been through way too much not to go!”
The officer wasn’t in the mood, apparently, to deal with Babe’s personal problems. “The only thing you HAVE to do, is come with us. “
With one more wave the other cop started to approach and they certainly looked like they meant business.
Shit, shit, shit…what was he going to do? Getting arrested was just NOT an option. Certainly not at this point.
Maybe he could…….
But he really shouldn’t.
He had to.
He tossed a look Bill’s way and jerked his head towards the now abandoned police cruiser and hoped that all of their time spent in silent communication as kids had paid off.
Bill’s eyes widened and he looked at Rusty’s car.
Babe looked at the keys in Bill’s hand. Duh.
They both started running towards the cruiser at the same time, just barely dodging the officers’ attempts to tackle them.
Bill hopped into the driver’s seat and started the car faster than anything Babe had ever seen, and they were peeling away before the officers could even get close.
Even Babe watched enough COPS to know that you never abandoned the cruiser. Or ANY vehicle, especially with the key still in the ignition.
His heart was beating so quickly he wasn’t sure he could breathe. He looked over at Bill.
“We just jacked a police car!”
“Nice of you to catch up.”
“Remember all the times in the last few days when we thought we were going to get arrested?”
“How could I forget?”
“Well we are going to get arrested for realz this time. “
“Most likely.”
“Lame.”
“Dick we have to talk!”
“Lew you need to sit down, you’re drunk….wow I can’t believe I’m saying that. “
“HA! You don’t like that I drink! I KNEW IT! By the way, anymore secret boyfriends you want to come clean about?”
“Not too drunk to function it would seem. Are you sure you want to have this conversation now?”
“What better time?”
“Never?”
Lewis threw his sunglasses on the church floor angrily and ran a frustrated hand through his hair. The euphoric effects of the Absinthe were wearing off and he was starting to get aggressive, which wasn’t what he wanted.
He looked up at the face of his concerned boyfriend and couldn’t remember why he was angry. He shouldn’t be yelling at Dick…
Wait! That was his whole problem, he was too infatuated with Dick to ever ask him tough questions. He was so afraid that if they fought, they might break up.
But now he was starting to realize that if he didn’t honestly express himself then he might self destruct.
“No I need to know why you never mentioned him. And why don’t you want me to meet your parents? And why don’t you introduce me to all of your friends? And WHY do you talk to your ex - who didn’t even know you were dating someone by the way- behind my back? Do you even think about how that makes me feel?”
Dick looked like he had been slapped, “Lewis I-”
But Nixon held up a hand to stop him, “You’ve met my stupid parents and you know I would NEVER talk to an ex you didn’t know about. I don’t have friends because I don’t need them. I have you. You’re my world Dick. Do you understand that? No of course you don’t…why else would you do things that you have to know would upset me?”
It was so quiet and Dick looked so hurt that even though he needed to say it all, Lewis wished he could take every harsh word back.
Finally Dick spoke, “I was just protecting myself.”
That…Lewis did not understand, “What?”
“It’s not like we have anything in common. We’re so opposite it almost doesn’t seem possible, and you HATE my friends. You have to think I’m a stiff or something. I just…never knew how serious you were about me. So I didn’t want to integrate every aspect of our lives together, I didn’t want to introduce you to my parents because I was never sure that we would last. Everything seems fine but then a moment comes along where I’m just so sure that you’re ready to move on. I mean I’m never going to enjoy the things that you enjoy, and I don’t want to enable your bad habits, but I don’t want to change you either. I know that one day I’m going to have to choose one of those routes and it’ll ruin everything.”
Lewis shook his head. Was Dick breaking up with him?
“No it won’t! Don’t you get it? I would choose you over anyone Dick. I could never get tired of you. You’re perfect. I don’t want you to be into the things that I’m into, that would make you someone completely different. I love that we’re so different, but I hate that my habits bother you. I’d choose you over them too. When that day comes just say the word, and I’ll stop. I swear. I love you so much, how could you ever doubt how much I love you?”
“We don’t really bring it up.”
“Well I’m bringing it up now. I love you Dick. I like…soul mate love you. Wow that made more sense in the cab...”
Dick just smiled his all knowing smile. “It makes sense to me. I’m sorry…for everything…I was just being insecure.”
Lewis just let out a laugh and wrapped his arms around the only person he’d ever honestly loved, “I’m the insecure one, remember?”
Dick sighed and returned the embrace, “If you say so.”
“Oh and Dick?”
“Yeah?”
“Could you maybe call Buck less?”
“That should be easy, he’s transferring to our school. I can hang out with him anytime. Why? Don’t you like him?”
Nixon just sighed in defeat, “I just ADORE him.”
Ron had been checking this damn corridor long enough to know that Lipton wasn’t in any of the rooms nor was he just wandering about. Where was he?
Damn he needed to sit…badly. Looking around all he saw was the far off confessional.
Maybe…
Walking over as quietly as he could, he slipped into the empty space where a priest would normally reside and lightly tapped the thin wooden window separating them.
“Hello?” came the confused reply.
Ron just smiled and pulled the window back so that he could see Lipton through the small grate. “This seems kind of ironic.”
“…..Ron?”
Speirs swallowed, dread creeping up through him. What if Lipton still hated him? What if he didn’t want to see him? Why was it that this man always made him lose his nerve?
“Yeah. Carwood I-”
“Are you okay?” Lipton’s voice was still soft despite the panicked edged in it that Ron hoped he wasn’t imagining, “I heard you got hurt. I’ve been going nuts worrying about you!”
“You were worried?”
“Of course I was. Ron…I know things went badly last time we saw each other…I mean…well I’m sorry I threw that bottle at your head…and locked you out of your hotel room.”
“Forget about it. I deserved it. I am never going to be able to tell you all the regrets I have…about us.”
Lipton let out a deep breath, “I just…I don’t know. I was just overwhelmed by all the drama and I freaked out. I just…I liked you so much and it felt like…I dunno.”
Speirs knew that now was the time to say everything he had been dying to say to Lipton since the last time he had seen him. Or when he had woken up, nursed his hangover and realized that he was gone. So maybe the last time he’d talked to him?
“I know…that I am a detached, cold, mean, violent, irrational asshole. And I know that there’s not really many good qualities to me. But you always made me feel like I could be more than what people perceived me to be. You gave me the opportunity to prove that I could love somebody and I ruined it. I put you through so much stress and I know I don’t deserve a second chance.”
He leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes, “But I want to be better for you, with you, because of you. I can change and you are the only person I would ever do that for. I just want you to forgive me.”
Ron waited for what felt like forever. When he didn’t get a response he chanced a look through the grate.
Lipton wasn’t there anymore.
Suddenly his door was opening from the outside and Ron wasn’t sure if the light pouring in was coming from the hall or from finally being able to see Lipton’s face.
“I forgive you.”
Ron straightened and smiled, “Just like that?”
The corner of Lipton’s lip curled up and he let out a soft laugh, “I only ever wanted you to ask.”
Ron stood up and pulled him into the room with him. Lipton melted against him and Ron savored the feeling of having him in his arms again.
He felt perfect.
Lipton looked at his face and smirked, “What happened to your face?”
Ron just rolled his eyes, “Babe, Nixon and a Sharpie. That’s what happened.”
Lipton’s smiled faltered and he put a gentle hand to Ron’s bandaged head, “Does it hurt?”
Speirs shook his head lightly, “Nothing hurts anymore.”
“That was so lame.”
Laughing Ron backed Carwood against the wall and moved his hands along his back, before casually slipping one under Lipton’s shirt. Leaning forwards he pressed their lips together softly.
“I don’t care.”
Buck couldn’t help but get concerned when the driver began to slow down on a very empty looking street.
“What the hell?”
Suddenly two policemen were rushing out of nowhere and waving their arms in the air, one shouting in Dutch at the driver who quickly got out of the car.
The other spoke in English to them, “We need this vehicle to pursue two suspects that have stolen our police cruiser. You’ll have to stay here.”
Buck was about to ask what they were suspects of if the man knew they had stolen his car….
Then he saw a red car in the distance.
“Oh...okay.”
Luz grumbled and hopped out after Buck and watched as the officers sped away in their cab.
Buck looked over at Luz, “Well you’ll finally get to walk.”
Babe wasn’t sure what he was about to bust in on but they were only moments away from the church and he was pretty sure that those cops were after them already.
Whatever he was going to say or do, he was going to have to do it quickly.
Dick was starting to get worried after awhile. The wedding was supposed to start in five minutes and he and Nixon were the only ones in the service area.
Suddenly Renee came rushing into the room in all her bridal glory, her two bridesmaids a couple of steps behind. She gave Nixon a confused look, “Lewis?”
Nixon gave her a bright, though somewhat fake, smile, “Hey Renee. You look awfully pretty.”
Well...that part was true. He did like Renee…he just liked Babe more now.
She just shook her head and looked around, “Where’s Eugene?”
“Renee!”
They all turned to see Gene rushing in from the outside hallway. Nixon whistled, “Speak of the devil.”
Gene looked at him, “Nixon?”
Lewis just shrugged as Renee and Gene turned to address one another.
“We cannot get married!”
“I can’t do this!”
That shut them both up.
“Um what?” Nixon asked confused.
Renee put her hand on Gene’s shoulder, “I am not ready for this. I do love you Eugene, but I have my whole future ahead of me, I have a career to think about. I thought this was what I wanted but I was being foolish. I’m so sorry.”
Gene shook his head, “No Renee- I’m sorry. I forced all of this on you because I was running away from the one person who rejected me. It’s not that I don’t love you...”
She smiled at him with tears in her eyes, “Oh Eugene it’s alright.”
They embraced and Dick was pretty sure he had NOT seen that one coming.
At that moment the doors busted open.
“STOP! EVERYBODY STOP!”
Nixon rolled his eyes, “It’s about fucking time you showed up.”
Babe just pointed a finger at him, “Shut up! You never called me.”
“I was busy.”
Gene just looked shocked, “Babe? What are you doing here?”
Babe panted heavily, “Gene I am so sorry I almost threw up on you. I was soooo wasted. I mean really no one should ever let me drink ever again.”
“Huh?”
“I flew all the way over the ocean in a stolen jet with, I have to say, some of the craziest people I have ever met or known. I have been party to the kidnapping and drugging of a congressmen, the assault of a police officer, and the stealing of a car. I got wasted and started singing on a table and you KNOW how awful a singer I am, I’m on the run from both the Belgium and Amsterdam police, I survived a train wreck, stole a car from a drunk guy, and I just stole a police cruiser. And I am pretty sure that I’m about to get arrested. And I did it all just to be with you. I’m in love with you Gene. Please don’t get married.”
Gene’s mouth dropped open before he recovered, “I’m…I’m not.”
Babe leaned his head forward, “I’m sorry-what?”
“I’m not getting married. The only reason I even wanted to get married was because I couldn’t be with you. But now I know I’ll never love anyone else as much as I love you Babe.”
“…Really?”
“Really. Even if you didn’t love me back, you’re the only one I want to be with.”
Babe couldn’t believe he was finally here. After everything…Gene was right there.
And he loved Babe.
He was about to move forward to kiss him when the doors flew open again.
“Nobody move!”
Babe turned around to see two unfamiliar policemen rushing into the church.
“Oh…shit.”
Everything started to happen too quickly.
The officers rushed in and tried to assess who it was they were supposed to be arresting. One of them roughly grabbed Babe by the arm and started to cuff him.
Gene started to shout, “Take it easy man, he didn’t hurt anyone!”
The officer yelled at him in Dutch and as Gene reached for Babe, who still wasn’t quite cuffed, the officer shoved Babe roughly to the ground.
“Don’t fucking push him!” Gene yelled getting right into the man’s face. The officer shoved him back and Babe jumped up at that moment and socked the officer in the jaw.
Then all Hell broke loose.
The officer punched Babe in the gut, which caused Gene to rush in to pull the officer back. Another cop rushed forward to jerk Gene away.
Renee started to cry and tried to come over to talk to the police but got caught in Babe’s brawl, which resulted in her getting shoved to the ground.
“Watch it, you could’ve hurt her!” Nixon helped her up and pulled her away before shoving the officer himself.
Babe took the opportunity to tackle the cop that Gene was scuffling with to the ground as the doors busted opened again.
Bill looked over to see the two men that had pulled them over. They started to head towards Babe with murder in their eyes.
Hmm join the fight or let Babe get his ass kicked by three cops at once?
Who was he kidding?
Before they could reach Babe he kicked the leg of one of the officers and he fell to the ground, not a moment later the second cop tackled him.
Nixon had apparently done something that caused the officer he shoved to grab him by the front of his shirt and shove him face down as he tried to cuff him.
But then something incredibly awesome happened.
Richard Winters grabbed the officer by his shirt and flung him face first into a nearby pew with a loud thud.
One of the officers trying to subdue Bill ran over to help the now possibly unconscious cop and Babe had to wonder…
“Where the fuck is Speirs when we need him?”
A throat cleared, “Um right here.”
Suddenly all the fighting stopped and they all looked over to see a shirtless Speirs, and a red faced Lipton who was tugging at his clothes in a manner that suggested he had just put them on, and behind them was a very pissed off priest.
He started shouting to the officers in Dutch and everyone screamed, “SPEAK ENGLISH!”
Even Renee said it, more than likely because she knew he could.
“FINE! Arrest these two!”
“What are we arresting THEM for?”
“They were doing unspeakable acts in my confessional!”
That got quite a few responses.
“Oh my God!”
“You guys had sex in a confessional?”
“We didn’t!”
“We did.”
“This is a church for Christ’s sakes!”
“Wow Lip, I didn’t know you had it in you.”
All of a sudden one of the officers seemed to recognize Speirs. “You look really familiar.”
Ron just shrugged. But the officer worked it out in this head, “You assaulted a policemen in Amsterdam. Oaky I AM going to have to arrest you.”
“No!” cried Lipton.
“The Hell you are!” Bill shouted and jumped to his feet.
Then everyone started fighting again.
The doors opened once more and they didn’t even make it two feet in before Luz was violently elbowed in the face and fell down, and Buck was toppled over by Bill and an officer rolling around on the ground.
One of the English speaking police officers jumped up amid all the chaos, pulled out his gun and fired it into the church ceiling.
Everyone froze.
“ENOUGH!” He shouted, gun still in the air, “If you’re not a woman or a priest, then you are UNDER ARREST!”
“Aw man! What the Hell did I do?” Luz shouted, a hand over his bloody nose.
“I’M SURE YOU DID SOMETHING! NOW EVERYONE GET OUTSIDE BEFORE I SHOOT SOMEBODY!”
As the nine of them were trudged out and separately shoved in the back of two police cars and a taxi, Babe couldn’t help but think this was at least better than going to jail alone.
He, Eugene, and Luz were put in the taxi. He looked over at Gene, “Thank you for coming to jail with us.”
Gene smiled, leaned forward and kissed Babe softly, “Anything to be with you Babe.”
Luz rolled his eyes and wished he could be in one of the cop cars with Buck.
Buck looked over at Dick’s now purple eye and winced. “You okay Dick? They really did a number on you.”
“Don’t talk to him! Don’t even look at him!”
“Nixon, calm the fuck down.”
Nixon shook his head from the side of Buck that he was sitting on, “No way. As a matter of fact, we’re switching seats. NOW.”
This proved to be rather difficult as Nixon struggled to climb over Buck to separate him from Dick. It probably would have been easier if he hadn’t been handcuffed behind the back.
Dick just sighed as the two men bitched and fought with each other. He bet Lipton didn’t have to put up with anything like this in his cruiser.
“What do you mean you two hooked up!?”
Ron sunk a little lower into his seat, trapped between the two friends, “Congratulations Bill, you made it a whole 20 minutes without mentioning it. That ripping your tongue out threat still applies.”
“Okay that just slipped out. Look Lip it was nothing. ”
Speirs straightened a little, “Well it wasn’t nothing.”
Bill nodded, “Yeah, but it won’t happen again.”
Lipton just nodded and scooted closer to Ron, “Okay…good.”
“I mean unless you guys don’t work out or something.”
“Bill!”
“Sorry, sorry!”
“It’s really done with though. He gave a stupid little speech and everything.”
Lipton’s irritation melted into curiosity, “Bill? A speech? Seriously? What did you say?”
Bill mumbled something under his breath and Lipton just gaped.
“That’s from CASABLANCA!”
“Okay so let me get this straight. Buck used to date Dick, but didn’t know he was now dating Nixon, who hates Buck, even though Buck now wants to date Luz, who he met at a bar in Amsterdam, hustling darts? And now he’s moving to our school?” Gene asked and Babe just nodded as they were all ushered into a cell.
“And Ron and Lipton are back together now, but not before Ron and Bill hooked up at the hospital and on the side of the road only after realizing they had a thing for each other after getting trapped in a closet on the train that crashed but Bill isn’t really gay though-he just still has feelings for Ron who really is in love with Lipton?”
“Yeah…”
“And you and Nixon are friends now and you’re the one who drew on everyone’s face?”
“Um…yeah that all sounds right.”
“That’s fucking confusing.”
“Okay you guys are just making us all very uncomfortable by summing this up! We’re all in here y’know!” Nixon shouted from the other side of the cell.
Luz just started laughing his ass off.
Speirs glared, “What the Hell is so funny?”
“I can’t believe that you guys had sex in a confessional!”
Lipton hid his face in Ron’s neck, “We’re never going to escape that.”
Nixon shook his head and pointed at Babe, “I can’t believe you guys stole a cop car!”
Dick smiled, “I can’t believe that we got into a brawl with the police in a church!”
Bill laughed, “I can’t believe you of all people knocked out a cop!”
Babe just laughed and sat down next to Gene, hooking their legs together, “I can’t believe that after all the close calls we had that we all got arrested.”
“Despite everything we still wound up in jail.”
“Just like God intended.”
“I wonder how’ll long we’ll be in here?”
……………
They only spent one night in jail. As it turned out, Ron’s father had already cleared up the issue with the jet after he figured out that while it was stolen, it wasn’t exactly stolen. The congressman might want to press charges, but unfortunately when the airport security found them doped up on the plane that thought they were druggies and wouldn’t listen to a word they said.
Renee talked the cops into simply fining Bill and Babe for stealing the cruiser, although Babe wasn’t sure how the Hell she pulled that off.
After a few phone calls Buck and Nixon’s parents wired enough money to pay all of their bail and they got released to the dismay of four very battered and bruised officers who looked like they wanted to take another whack at them all.
Now they were all at the Amsterdam airport getting ready to board their not so stolen jet.
Speirs turned to look at him, “So has everyone decided who’s all going back with us?”
Lipton looked unsure and held up a piece of paper, “I’m going with you but I still have this plane ticket for the end of the summer.”
Nixon snatched it out of his hand, “I’ll take that.”
Dick gave him a puzzled look and Nixon just tugged him close to him and smiled, “We could use a real vacation together. Right?”
Dick nodded, “Absolutely.”
Luz made a gagging noise before turning to Buck, “So what are you going to do?”
Buck shrugged, “I was thinking I’d go back with you guys…get a tour of the place. I’m a little Europed out at this point.”
Luz smirked, “Excellent. I’m not much of a tour guide but I know this great place you can stay.”
“Is that right?”
“Oh yeah…if you catch my drift.”
Buck smiled and followed Luz into the jet after waving goodbye to Nixon and Dick.
Bill looked over at Speirs, “You really think you’re going to fly this jet don’t you?”
“Of course I am.”
“You’re drugged off your ass you concussed psychopath.”
“I have an excellent co-pilot,” He hopped up into the jet, Bill following close behind.
“We cannot survive a plane crash too! We’ve built up too much bad karma.”
“Calm down Gonorrhea!”
Gene laughed and turned to Lipton, “I’d keep an eye on that if I were you.”
Lipton just smiled, “I don’t think I have anything to worry about.”
Dick smiled at them both, “I guess you guys should go. I’ll see you in a couple of months. And Gene?”
“Yeah?”
“I knew you’d come around.”
Gene just rolled his eyes with a laugh, “Of course you did.”
The three of them said goodbye before Lipton and Gene headed for the jet. Gene turned around to look at Babe. “Aren’t you coming?”
Babe smiled, “Duh. Just give me a sec.”
Gene nodded and climbed in.
Babe turned to Nixon, “Don’t do anything I might accidentally do.”
“That’s actually excellent advice.”
Babe smiled and hugged Nixon tightly. Nixon sighed, “I’m really proud of you Babe.”
“Thanks. I guess you were right.”
“How is that?”
“Everything worked out just fine.”
About four hours into the flight Gene called up from the back, “Hey there’s a mini bar back here! Anyone want anything?”
“NO!”
“HELL no!”
“No fucking thank you.”
“Keep that shit away from your boyfriend! I don’t have anymore clean shirts!”
Gene slowly closed the cabinet before going back over to Babe, “I don’t even want to know do I?”
“Probably not.”
“Hey Babe?”
“Yeah Gene?”
“Thanks for coming after me. Especially now that I know what you had to go through. ”
Babe smiled and pressed their foreheads together, “Wanna know something crazy?”
“What’s that?”
“I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.”
A/N:The End…although I have been considering writing a prequel of sorts detailing Lipton and Speirs summer romance. Not sure though…
Word Count: 10,720
Summary: Babe makes a big mistake that sends the one he loves into the arms of another. Now he has to chase him across the globe to tell him how he feels before it's too late. Seriously AU. Various pairings.
Disclaimer: I’m not making any money off of writing this story. It’s entirely fictional and based on the performances given in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers and not the actual soldiers. I don’t own anything….so please don’t sue me. I wrote it for your enjoyment so…enjoy!
Sleep for Babe did not come easily that night. He was too busy thinking about the day to come and he kept waking up in the hope that it was already morning.
It was a lot like the way he slept before Christmas, or the first day of school. He was anxious and excited. Well in this case mostly anxious…he couldn’t really stay asleep.
So naturally he got up to go Sharpie some more faces.
When it was finally morning and light was beginning to come through the hospital windows, Babe felt that it was time to start waking some bitches up….or something.
Bill was probably a good place to start.
When he actually got to Speirs’ room he really shouldn’t have been surprised to see that Ron was already up and apparently ready to go.
Ron looked at him quickly when he slipped in, all drowsiness gone. He looked both genuinely surprised and pleased to see that Babe was awake.
“Did you wake the others yet?” He asked in a sort of mumble as he went through his bag which they had brought to him the night before. Babe assumed he was looking for a less bloody shirt.
“Nah I thought I’d get you guys first.” Babe noticed that someone (Bill) had attempted to scrub the marker off of Ron’s forehead but it was called permanent for a reason and was only slightly faded. Babe smiled to himself. “Maybe you should do it.”
Speirs nodded and quickly gave up looking in his bag before rummaging through Bill’s things and just taking one of his shirts instead. Babe looked at him.
Speirs stared back, “You threw up on my other one remember?”
“Oh right…did I apologize for that?”
“…No.”
“Sorry.”
Speirs rolled his eyes, zipped up his bag and walked out. Babe went over to where Bill was snoozing in a nearby chair and started to push at him with his foot. When that didn’t work he just smacked him upside the head.
“Ow!” Bill slapped at Babe’s hands as he sat up.
“Oh good you’re up. We need to get going.”
“Where’s Ron?”
“Up, about, back to his hard ass ways, and not in need of your babysitting. He also took one of your shirts.”
“Oh. Well you threw up on his other one remember?”
“I know! I’m sorry already! ....You know I noticed you didn’t try to wash off the raccoon eyes.”
Bill was silent for a moment. “I thought they looked kind of cute.”
“You’re so weird sometimes.”
“Wake up.”
After the sharp command and a moment of rough shaking, Buck did. Luz was already yawning and stretching next to him and he looked up to see Speirs frowning at the two of them.
Luz looked at Speirs’ face before noticing that Speirs was looking in between the two of them.
“What?”
Ron just shook his head, “You two look ridiculous.” That said he turned and left.
Luz looked over at Buck, “We look ridiculous? Does he know that someone wrote ‘Balls’ on his forehead?”
“Did you know someone wrote ‘Fairy’ on yours?”
“WHAT!?”
But it was true, and Buck had to admit-Luz looked pretty funny. Someone had indeed written ‘Fairy’ in looping cursive across his forehead. A large diamond shape was around his right eye and lines had been drawn going down from the left in a Boy George kind of fashion (and Buck could appreciate that joke) and stars had been doodled all over his cheeks.
“I’m sure I look bad. You just look really, really gay.” Buck wasn’t sure if that was as reassuring as he meant it to be.
Luz sighed, “They got you with the old mustache and unibrow thing. Nice goatee though.”
Buck groaned, “Your friends suck.”
That statement unfortunately caused Luz to start humming something that sounded suspiciously like the Spice Girls.
“If ya wanna be my lover…”
“Stop.”
“Make me!”
“Oh I will.”
“Yeah my ass you will-oomph!”
Buck kissed him and hoped no one cared if they took a little longer to get up.
Of the many things that Nixon was notorious for, Babe felt that his inability to get up in the mornings couldn’t be too bad. That was before he had to deal with it firsthand, that and the fact that it was seriously holding them the fuck up!
They were all just staring at him. Buck stroked his Sharpie goatee in thought. “Maybe we should pour water on him.”
Luz snapped his fingers, “I remember this time when Dick accidently threw a cup of pee on him! That woke him up.”
Bill glared, “We are NOT going to pee on him.”
“All I’m saying is it worked.”
The conversation ended the way most of them had ended recently, with Speirs ignoring them all, going over to Nixon and flipping him onto the floor with a thud.
“Son of a bitch!”
Speirs just clapped his hands together, “He’s up.”
When they got to the car, the one that Babe had apparently “borrowed” from a drunk (a fact Ron was fairly impressed with), it became apparent that it was going to be a pretty tight fit.
“Okay,” Bill started slowly as the others seemed to be practically asleep, “I’ll drive. Babe, Speirs and Luz you all definitely have to be in the back.”
“What? Why? I thought I’d at least get shotgun!’ Babe complained.
“Because Luz and Speirs are injured, plus I need to fit four of you back there and you and Ron are easily the skinniest-”
Ron broke in at that, “Excuse me?”
“-thinnest in the bunch, so that’s a given. Ron, you and Luz should sit in the middle so you don’t somehow manage to bump your heads against the windows.”
Ron just nodded, it was funny to watch Bill fuss over the way every one was seated. He was such a closet control freak.
Bill seemed to have decided something in his head, “Okay, Babe I want you behind me, then Ron then Luz then Nixon. Buck’s up front.”
Nixon just snorted, “Thanks man.”
Bill shrugged, “I thought I’d spare everyone from having to deal with Buck and Luz sucking face.”
“Whatever.”
Ron knew that wasn’t the real reason. Looking over the way they were seated it was obvious to him that Bill had lined them up in a manner of safety. He had put Babe behind his chair because in the case of a crash, the driver automatically protected his side. Therefore Babe was in the safest position.
Ron wasn’t sure why Bill put him in the next safest. Wasn’t sure why he was being so kind to him still. Especially after what had happened last night…
At first he had thought that maybe he had been dreaming. Though he knew on some level he was kissing someone…it wasn’t until he woke up early that morning that he realized it had been Bill.
When he’d decided to come on this trip, he’d done so with every intention of confronting Lipton. What he would say when he saw him he didn’t know yet. He’d seen the opportunity, however, and he took it. He figured that helping Babe out might get him back into his good graces as well.
Another reason he had agreed to come along, other than the fact that they were all so completely hopeless, was out of the need for a challenge.
He had fallen into somewhat of a routine at work. Become too comfortable where he was. Trying to figure out how to fix whatever it was about him that had driven Carwood away. But he couldn’t pretend to be the good son forever. It just wasn’t in him…clearly. And there were certainly plenty of challenges to be had by tagging along.
Challenges like Bill Guarnere.
Ron had been pushing Bill’s buttons since the day he met him. Not only was it entirely too easy, but it also held an element of danger. And few things attracted men like himself more than danger. He was always trying to see how far he could go before Bill truly snapped.
He had it figured that Bill’s passionate hate for him was rooted in something much different for quite some time, but he had never actually acted on the theory.
Until he had kissed him last night. And from what he could remember, Bill hadn’t shied away. Of course he also hadn’t made any attempt to discuss the incident.
On the one hand, he could simply be embarrassed about it. Or he might not be aware that Ron actually remembered. One thing was very clear however, Bill wasn’t angry anymore.
Before it had all been about messing with him, pushing as hard as he could before good ole’ Bill showed him how he really felt. Good or bad. Ron had wanted to take it all the way. And now…he wished he hadn’t. Because Bill actually seemed to care about him.
And Ron didn’t really know a lot of people who did.
The apparent train wreck wasn’t the only life threatening injury or situation he had ever been in. But it was one of the few that had forced him to think about what he really, truly wanted.
Since before the moment he woke up in the hospital, Lipton hadn’t strayed far from his thoughts. Even now, despite what had happened, Ron was overwhelmed by his desire and his need to see him.
Because he was pretty certain that he loved him. But he couldn’t be sure. Wouldn’t be sure until he saw him.
But now there was Bill. There was a situation whether Bill chose to acknowledge it or not. Bill was…
Bill was a mistake. One that Ron never should have wanted to make. But he had.
As they piled into the car, Ron decided to let Luz take the middle seatbelt. Because eventually Bill would realize that Luz was more important to him than he was. And he’d stop caring about Ron.
Renee couldn’t calm the flutter in her heart as she looked at herself in the mirror. This wasn’t an ordinary dress she was wearing. It was her wedding dress. Her wedding…
She still couldn’t believe it. She had never been the kind of girl to plan or obsess about her future ceremony. All that mattered to her was that she loved the man she married. That they made each other happy. But now that it was here she couldn’t help but be overwhelmed.
Maybe she had never planned on eloping but it felt right somehow, Eugene had come all this way for her hand and eloping felt romantic and honest in some poetic way she couldn’t really vocalize. Of course it was also the only way it could be done. Her family…they wouldn’t understand. They all had such high expectations of her. They were always telling her to get a career before a husband. Her father was the only one to understand that she needed to make her own decisions. Whatever they might be.
Of course with such an important decision having already been made, and an even more important step lying ahead, she had questions. Questions she wasn’t sure she really wanted answers for.
The most important being- was this what she really wanted? There were so many voices telling her she was too young, she had too much ahead of her. But she didn’t know if they were her own ideas or merely the voices of her overbearing family.
Another important question was- why now? What had made Eugene come after her when he could have saved her the heartache by asking her before she left? She had forced herself to come to terms with their relationships’ end, and just when she thought that she was getting over him, he came in and swept her off her feet. They had ended it mutually; it had seemed the only way…so what had changed his mind?
Like she said…questions…
The car had eventually gotten silent and Bill wasn’t sure whether or not he was pleased.
Nixon’s bitching and Luz and Buck’s flirting had helped to keep him awake. Of course there was the unspoken plea from Babe to keep quiet about Ron’s face paint, but now just about all communication had died down rather quickly and there was mostly silence. But that didn’t mean everyone was asleep.
Bill glance up in the rearview mirror at the only passenger still awake. All he saw was the tousled hair along with the marked and partially bandaged forehead, but he could imagine the large dark eyes staring out the window. Thinking whatever the hell people like Ronald Speirs thought about.
“Don’t ya think you should sleep a little?”
Ron jerked his head towards the front of the car, “I slept plenty at the hospital, don’t worry.”
Bill had to fight the urge to tell him that he wasn’t worried, although by now it seemed to be a pointless argument.
“Yeah well, just try not to get hit in the head for another few days. If you think you can manage that is.”
Ron laughed softly, “There he is. I was wondering when you would drop all of the mother hen bullshit. It’s a good thing everyone fell asleep, must have been a hard act to keep up.”
Bill tensed at the words and couldn’t help but be offended, “It’s not bullshit, and it’s not an act either. Is it so fucking hard to believe that I give a shit what happens to you?”
“I’m pretty sure you were trying to beat the crap out of me not one day ago.”
“Hey you started that!”
“Did I?”
“Oh...right. I didn’t mean to hit a sore spot…what I said about Lip and you…I’m sorry.”
“No you’re not. But you shouldn’t be. You were right. Besides you were doing exactly what I do to you.”
Bill looked back at him again, “Yeah? What’s that?”
“You were pushing my buttons. And while it’s rather easy with you, I usually try not to let others get to me. You know Bill; you’re one of the few people who can rile me up like that. That’s what I like about you. We’re so similar…but you’re not like me in all the places that it counts. I do things for myself, and you do things for other people. I’ve always been jealous of that.”
Bill shrugged, not sure what to think. “You learn something new every day.”
He could hear Speirs tap a soft beat on his knee in the silence, “Maybe you can tell me something.”
Bill glanced back at him once, only this time Speirs looked back. “Okay…”
“Why did you kiss me back?”
Bill was so shocked that he almost didn’t see the spare tire lying in the middle of the street.
He made the mistake of swerving while at the same time he hit the brakes, hard.
Buck and Luz jerked awake-startled. Nixon stayed entirely still and asleep, Babe shot up quickly to shout “But I LOVE chocolate!” before dropping back into his undoubtedly fucked up dream and Speirs…
Speirs flew forward like a shot and Bill just barely had time to throw out his arm before Ron went face first through the windshield. But he was not quick enough to stop him from smacking his head on the dash.
Bill swore as Speirs seemingly passed out. Buck looked at him in shock. Luz spoke.
“We are NOT going back to that fucking hospital!”
Bill quickly began to pull off of the road as Ron groaned and started to move. Bill parked the car, opened his door and got out. Reaching back in he grabbed Speirs and pulled him out and to his feet.
Leaning a wobbling Ron against the car he leaned in to speak to Buck. “Everyone wait here. We’ll be back in a few.”
He helped his shaking companion walk over to lean against a tree before he started with the shouting. Bill was amazed he lasted that long really. He hadn’t yelled at anyone in awhile.
“Why the FUCK weren’t you wearing a seatbelt? Are you trying to get killed? Is that what you want?”
Speirs looked pale and like he wanted to grasp at his head but instead he stood his ground.
“Me? Maybe if you had been watching the road and not looking at me we wouldn’t have almost crashed. Besides there was only one seatbelt so I gave it to Luz.”
“WHY? Your injury is much more severe and Luz is used to not wearing a seatbelt or do you not remember that shitty jeep you got him! Why would you do that?”
“Because the last thing I would want is for something horrible to happen to Luz and for you to realize that you wished it had been me!”
Bill stopped and looked at Ron who was breathing heavily. Bill wasn’t sure if it was the adrenaline or if he was feeling ill. But when he started to sway, Bill rushed forward and wrapped an arm around his waist and, despite himself, placed the other one on his jaw.
He sucked in a breath and looked Ron in the eye, “I would never, ever, wish that.”
Ron closed his eyes and Bill could feel him shaking and wished he wasn’t such a shitty driver.
“I really do love Carwood.”
Bill nodded, “I know.”
But he kissed Ron anyway, because after they got to Bastogne, he knew he’d never get another chance.
And Speirs kissed Bill back, because after all the shit he put him through, Ron thought he could at least give him that much.
Everyone in the car was awake by the time Bill buckled his seatbelt and started the engine.
Babe cleared his throat, “So are we going to acknowledge the fact that you two were making out?”
“NO!” Bill and Speirs shouted at the same time.
Speirs, who was now sitting up front (reasoning be damned) turned around to glare at them all, “And I swear to God if any of you mention this to Carwood I will hunt you down, cut your tongue out, shove it down your throat and watch you choke on your own blood.”
There was complete silence. Babe even put a protective hand over his mouth.
Bill decided that he could appreciate the silence. As well as other things.
He looked at Ron who was licking his lips, not knowing how crazy he was driving Bill. He turned to look at the road and gritted his teeth.
Yeah, he was going to have a talk with Lip.
Some men looked at marriage as a trap, an execution date, a great beyond from which there was no dignified return. Gene liked to think he wasn’t one of those men.
That wasn’t to say that he didn’t have worries, apprehensions, and all the sorts of insecurities that grooms were supposed to have on their big day. But he had been the one steering the relationship to this point and he had spent quite some time freaking out about the whole thing.
He knew that in the end the only thing that mattered was love. Corny as it may sound, Gene felt that if two people loved each other, then marriage shouldn’t change that.
He smoothed out a small crease in his tux, not sure why he was thinking about this now. Renee was only a couple of hallways away- getting ready. In a little under an hour, he would be getting married.
Which was what he wanted…because Renee loved him.
But was that what this was supposed to be about? Who loved him more? If anything, his decision to come to Europe should have been made based on who he loved more.
Or maybe the fact that Renee didn’t puke when he confided his feelings to her made him love her more? And again…why the hell was he thinking about this now?
So, for the first time in awhile, Gene decided not to ignore the tiny voice in the back of his head. And he let himself think about something he had been trying incredibly hard not to think about. Because he knew that when he started…he might never stop. He had to ask himself a question.
Just what made him love Babe?
Babe was…amazing. He was fun, silly and spontaneous. He was loyal to his friends no matter what, and to Gene. He never took anything too seriously…which was something Gene could never do.
He always said what he was thinking no matter how ridiculous it might sound aloud. And even if he got embarrassed, he would never apologize for being himself.
Babe was an adventure, although not always a mystery-but then Babe didn’t keep secrets.
Babe was pink lips that Gene could watch talk forever, even if he was talking about some evil squirrel that had chased him to class that day. Babe was red hair that was light in the summer, and dark and bright in the winter and Gene loved to mess it up whenever Babe had obviously tried to fix it.
Babe was soft hands that he wanted to hold while they watched TV on that crummy couch. Babe was long limbs that Gene wanted to be wrapped and tangled up in until he didn’t know who was who.
And when he smiled….
When he smiled Gene would feel so warm and flush with contentment that he could stay that way for eternity and never have to worry about being cold again.
What the Hell was he doing?
Even if Babe didn’t want him, even if Babe didn’t love him…he couldn’t marry Renee. Because he loved Babe more than anyone he had ever met, would meet or could dream up.
He couldn’t be afraid of being alone, not anymore. Because someone by his side wouldn’t make him happy. Babe would, even if Gene could only be his friend, having Babe in his life was the only thing that could ever truly make him happy.
What was he going to do?
Babe couldn’t believe it. They were FINALLY in Bastogne. But they were running out of time.
“We’re not going to have time to look in all of these churches. What if we pick the wrong one?” He knew he probably sounded kind of frantic but, damn it, time was of the essence!
Speirs and Buck looked over the short list that Lipton had given them and Buck crossed a couple
out with his fingers. “Those aren’t catholic, so that only leaves these 3.”
Speirs just nodded to himself, “So we’ll split up into twos, that way at least two of us can find the right place.”
Babe jerked at the suggestion, “Split up? Are you for real? That’s how people get axed!”
Bill rolled his eyes, “Yeah Babe in horror movies, not shitty romantic dramadies like this one.”
“What movie are you watching? This is a horror...” Nixon mumbled.
“Blah Blah,” Luz griped over them. “Who cares? We split, Babe keeps the phone and if one of us finds the church first we’ll call from a payphone.”
Speirs nodded, “Agreed. Babe, you should stay with Bill. You two take the car. Nixon and I will go look at this one, Buck and Luz can go look at the one downtown and you guys can drive out to this one. Sound good?”
Bill brought his eyes away from one of their newly acquired maps to look at Speirs and Babe just knew that part of Bill wanted to go with him.
Instead Bill just nodded and they all got out of the car.
Buck and Luz basically split right away with a wave over their backs. Crazy kids.
Speirs however grabbed Bill’s elbow and pulled him away for a moment. Like Babe even wanted to know what was being said there. Actually it probably wouldn’t be that bad. But his basic view
of Bill HAD been shattered and all.
Nixon cleared his throat. “So Babe, be careful. Just don’t jinx anything, drink anything or try to tie your shoes alone and you should be just fine.”
Babe stuck his tongue out and Nix just laughed and pulled him into a hug. “Like I said, it’ll work out. Just be careful.”
All Babe could really do was nod, touched. Not just by Nixon’s words but by the actions of them all. He was again overwhelmed by how hard they were trying to help him. Although somewhere along the way, he knew they all found their own reasons for doing this. But he was moved all the same.
“Okay,” he whispered and hugged Lewis back.
Ron wasn’t sure what exactly he wanted to say. But it wasn’t like he didn’t have feelings for the man in front of him. Because it was obvious he did. Plus Lipton and Bill were friends, they couldn’t leave all this unresolved, it would just blow up in their faces.
Bill looked down at his feet and then caught Ron’s eye, “So this really sucks.”
All of a sudden Speirs wasn’t sure if he was doing the right thing, he wasn’t sure of anything anymore, “Maybe I shouldn’t go. I could stay with you and when we find them…”
Even though he didn’t finish saying it, Bill knew anyways and cut him off, “No…no you need to be with Lipton.”
Now Ron was confused, wasn’t this what Bill had wanted?
“Why are you saying that?”
Bill seemed to pause, like he was going to say something he couldn’t believe he was about to say.
“I'm saying it because it's true. Inside of us, we both know you belong with Lipton. If we find them and you don’t take your chance you'll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.”
Speirs ignored the familiar feeling that he had heard that before, “But what about us?”
“We’ll always have Paris.”
“But…we were never in Paris.”
“Look! I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that.”
“I’m kind of confused.”
Instead of a reply there were firm lips on his and Bill squeezed his hip tightly.
After a few moments Bill pulled away, “Here’s looking at you kid.”
Then he got into the car, leaving behind a very confused Ronald Speirs.
Babe buckled in and looked over at Bill.
“So how’d it go?”
“I, uh, I quoted Casablanca,”
“…How much?”
“A lot.”
“Oh my. Has he seen that movie?”
“Apparently not.”
“Well then I’m sure it was very touching.”
“Shut up.”
Buck looked over at Luz who he was pretty sure was reading their map upside down. He walked up and snatched it away.
“I’ll do that, you can hail us cab.”
Luz just made a face, “A taxi? Do they even have those around here? Can’t we just walk there? I thought this was the close one.”
Buck nodded, “It is close, but walking means risking you getting dizzy and falling down, and hitting your head again…and I see a string of taxis across the street, so get one.”
“But the cab could crash, and that would be worse.”
Buck just rolled his eyes and waved at a taxi driver who was coming back to his car, “Highly unlikely.”
“Yeah but-”
By that point the man had driven over and Buck grabbed Luz around the waist and flung him as gently as he could into the backseat.
Sliding in next to him he pointed at the map for the driver. He wasn’t actually fluent in whatever the hell the language was.
“Hey don’t do that!” Luz shoved him hard against the door as the man started to drive. “I don’t like being manhandled!”
“Don’t lie.”
“Why did we just HAVE to take a cab?”
“Because we’re starting to get really good at making out in moving vehicles.”
“……….”
“If you catch my drift.”
“For the millionth time, I totally catch it. Just say that stuff up front.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Duh.”
Talking kind of ceased after that.
“So what’s the plan?” Nixon asked as they came up to a payphone next to a street vendor.
Speirs grabbed the phone and put in the change, “Mainly we just need to call a taxi and then-“
Suddenly Speirs was bent over clutching at his head, “Fuck!”
Nixon rushed to grab him as he slid to the ground in obvious pain, “Ron-shit are you going to be okay?”
“It’s my fucking head, I need to take some pills, grab me something to drink OK?”
Nixon nodded, he was freaked out enough to do just about anything. Getting up he rushed over to the vendor close by and bought what he was 90% percent sure was some kind of green tea.
He gave it a sniff, yeah sure tea.
“Here,” He handed it to Speirs who took a drink and then knocked back a handful of different pills. Some of which Lewis wasn’t sure the doctor had given him.
Speirs took a few deep breaths and then motioned to the phone, “You call. I’ll get up in a second.”
Nixon just nodded and dialed information. Speirs handed the tea to him, claiming he didn’t want anymore. Lewis just shrugged and took a drink.
By the time he was getting into the taxi, Speirs felt like he was going to die. It was as if every organ in his body wanted to come up his throat and the pain in his head which was
supposed to have gotten better after he took the pills, felt basically the same. On top of that he was so dizzy, he could hardly sit upright.
“Nixon, are you sure that what you gave me was tea?”
Nixon, who was trying to buckle his seatbelt to the window looked over, “Um…no…no I’m not.”
Why did he sound so wasted? Even if they had consumed what Ron was now almost positive was some form of alcohol, Nixon was practically immune.
“Where is it?”
“I have decided that I drank it…”
“Where’s the bottle idiot?”
When Nixon didn’t even snark back, Ron knew he was right. Lewis tossed him the empty bottle and Speirs skipped over most of the gibberish on the back until he hit the ingredients.
Oh…fuck. He was pretty sure under what looked like a warning label…that it read Absinthe.
No wonder he felt like shit and Nixon felt great.
This should be fun.
Groaning he laid down and rode out the pain hoping that he might get some of the herbs more desired effects before he saw Lipton. The last thing he wanted was to pass out, or throw up in front of him….again.
Luz jogged back to where Buck was waiting by the cab, “This one ain’t it. There’s no weddings, or services of any kind happening in there.”
Buck nodded and opened the door for him, “Well then I guess we should head towards where Speirs and Nixon are going. That’s the furthest away.”
“Sure why not. Should we call Babe and let him know?”
“Yeah, let’s find us a phone.”
“We are so fucking lost.”
“We’re not lost okay? I just don’t remember what street it was on…or what street I need to get on to get to the street that it’s on.”
“So we’re lost.”
“Yeah…”
“Damn it Bill!”
Bill sucked in a breath when Babe’s voice jumped up another octave, “Hey, on the upside this might not even be the right church.”
Babe nodded, “Yeah or it COULD be the right church and Gene is about to- oh TURN NOW right there I see it!”
“What!?”
“TURN LEFT NOW!”
Bill swerved left then hit the brakes as he saw a church not too far up ahead. Babe was already unbuckling his seatbelt.
“Pull over, pull over, pull over.”
Bill pulled over.
“Thank you!” Babe hopped out of the car and started rushing down the sidewalk.
As he ran towards the church he could see flowers outside the doors and here piano music coming from inside. There was a wedding going on in there and he was going to stop it!
Rushing up the steps two at a time he pulled back the doors.
“STOP! Stop everything you guys CANNOT do this! I-"
Babe trailed off as every single head in a very crowded church turned to gape at him.
…Why were they all wearing black?
Babe really hoped that wasn’t a casket he was seeing.
He felt his mouth drop open in horror, and just as he started to stammer out an apology, the cell phone rang.
More heads turned. He answered it, still frozen to the spot. “Now is a horrible time. Who is this?”
“Babe? It’s Buck-listen we checked out our church and it’s definitely not here.”
“Hmmmmm well it’s DEFinitely not here either.”
“Well that only leaves one place.”
“THAT’S IT! YES! YOU FOUND IT! YAY!”
Some of the angry faces were coming towards him now.
“Yeah I gotta go.”
Bill was just getting out of the car when he saw Babe running towards him.
“Are they in there?”
Babe shook his head quickly, “No, now start the car!”
Just then three very large men came running not ten feet behind Babe. Bill jumped in the car and threw Babe’s door open for him.
“What the Hell did you do?”
“Nothing!”
“Looks like something to me.”
“It was an honest mistake! Now shut up and drive bitch!”
Lipton wasn’t sure why he was so nervous, this wasn’t HIS wedding...for obvious reasons.
Maybe he was disappointed in Gene. Maybe he was worried about Ron. Maybe he just really wanted to see Babe come rushing through those doors.
Whatever the reason, he excused himself from the bench he was sharing with Dick. Walking down the corridor he spotted a confessional.
It looked empty. He wouldn’t exactly be hiding in there…just taking a minute to collect his thoughts.
When the taxi finally pulled up to the church, Speirs wasn’t feeling as much pain but the dizziness had heightened and Nixon had started to get philosophical on him. It was definitely time to get out of the cab.
“But if you really love someone, I mean like soul mate love someone-”
Speirs cut him off, “No one cares Nixon, now get out.”
As he shoved Nixon out, and paid the driver, he couldn’t help notice how miserable the church looked.
If that wasn’t a sign he didn’t know what was.
Dragging himself up the steps he let Nixon open the doors, there were only about ten steps in when-
“Oh thank God.”
Nixon suddenly had Dick Winters pulling him tightly against his body. “Are you okay Nix?”
Nixon seemed to lose some of his alcohol induced cool for a moment, “NO I am not okay! I have some very serious questions for you! Like catastrophic questions and if-”
Speirs cut him off again, “Pipe down. Look Dick he’s basically done the equivalent of smoking a very large joint so, be patient. Where’s Lipton?”
Dick seemed to just now be taking in his presence, “Ron are you okay? You look kind of pale, and did you know someone wrote ‘Balls’ on your forehead?”
Ron had not known that. He quickly touched his forehead, “That little shit, I’m going to kill him!”
Dick and Nixon got quiet and looked around. Ron remembered that he was in a church.
“Shit. Sorry! Sorry! Man…digging a hole here. So Lip?”
“Umm last I saw him he went down the hallway over to the left, that was…ten minutes ago? Where are the others?”
“On their way.”
Ron knew he should call but…first things first. He headed in the direction Dick had pointed.
“Could you drive a little faster please?”
“I’m already flooring it Babe, I’m surprised we haven’t been pulled over yet.”
All of a sudden lights were flashing and the sound of sirens were unsettlingly close behind.
Damn it.
“Now who’s the jinx?”
“Can it.”
Bill pulled over and rolled down the window as an officer approached the car. The policeman leaned over and began to speak in maybe- Dutch? Babe didn’t know, they still couldn’t understand anything anyone said in this country.
When the officers saw their, more than likely, confused faces he motioned to what Babe could only guess was a second officer and then retreated back to his car.
The second officer approached this time and spoke in English, which was so nice to hear that Babe almost didn’t care that they were probably in trouble.
“You both need to step out of the car, now.”
Ummm…okay.
Babe unbuckled his seatbelt and scrambled out.
Bill decided to ask the questions, “So what’d we do? Other than probably speed.”
The officer skirted them cautiously and then glanced at the car’s plates. “This car has been reported stolen. You’ll both have to come with us.”
“WHAT?”
“Stolen is kind of harsh-”
“You don’t understand!” Babe was getting incredibly frustrated now, “I have to get to this church like really soon! I’ve been through way too much not to go!”
The officer wasn’t in the mood, apparently, to deal with Babe’s personal problems. “The only thing you HAVE to do, is come with us. “
With one more wave the other cop started to approach and they certainly looked like they meant business.
Shit, shit, shit…what was he going to do? Getting arrested was just NOT an option. Certainly not at this point.
Maybe he could…….
But he really shouldn’t.
He had to.
He tossed a look Bill’s way and jerked his head towards the now abandoned police cruiser and hoped that all of their time spent in silent communication as kids had paid off.
Bill’s eyes widened and he looked at Rusty’s car.
Babe looked at the keys in Bill’s hand. Duh.
They both started running towards the cruiser at the same time, just barely dodging the officers’ attempts to tackle them.
Bill hopped into the driver’s seat and started the car faster than anything Babe had ever seen, and they were peeling away before the officers could even get close.
Even Babe watched enough COPS to know that you never abandoned the cruiser. Or ANY vehicle, especially with the key still in the ignition.
His heart was beating so quickly he wasn’t sure he could breathe. He looked over at Bill.
“We just jacked a police car!”
“Nice of you to catch up.”
“Remember all the times in the last few days when we thought we were going to get arrested?”
“How could I forget?”
“Well we are going to get arrested for realz this time. “
“Most likely.”
“Lame.”
“Dick we have to talk!”
“Lew you need to sit down, you’re drunk….wow I can’t believe I’m saying that. “
“HA! You don’t like that I drink! I KNEW IT! By the way, anymore secret boyfriends you want to come clean about?”
“Not too drunk to function it would seem. Are you sure you want to have this conversation now?”
“What better time?”
“Never?”
Lewis threw his sunglasses on the church floor angrily and ran a frustrated hand through his hair. The euphoric effects of the Absinthe were wearing off and he was starting to get aggressive, which wasn’t what he wanted.
He looked up at the face of his concerned boyfriend and couldn’t remember why he was angry. He shouldn’t be yelling at Dick…
Wait! That was his whole problem, he was too infatuated with Dick to ever ask him tough questions. He was so afraid that if they fought, they might break up.
But now he was starting to realize that if he didn’t honestly express himself then he might self destruct.
“No I need to know why you never mentioned him. And why don’t you want me to meet your parents? And why don’t you introduce me to all of your friends? And WHY do you talk to your ex - who didn’t even know you were dating someone by the way- behind my back? Do you even think about how that makes me feel?”
Dick looked like he had been slapped, “Lewis I-”
But Nixon held up a hand to stop him, “You’ve met my stupid parents and you know I would NEVER talk to an ex you didn’t know about. I don’t have friends because I don’t need them. I have you. You’re my world Dick. Do you understand that? No of course you don’t…why else would you do things that you have to know would upset me?”
It was so quiet and Dick looked so hurt that even though he needed to say it all, Lewis wished he could take every harsh word back.
Finally Dick spoke, “I was just protecting myself.”
That…Lewis did not understand, “What?”
“It’s not like we have anything in common. We’re so opposite it almost doesn’t seem possible, and you HATE my friends. You have to think I’m a stiff or something. I just…never knew how serious you were about me. So I didn’t want to integrate every aspect of our lives together, I didn’t want to introduce you to my parents because I was never sure that we would last. Everything seems fine but then a moment comes along where I’m just so sure that you’re ready to move on. I mean I’m never going to enjoy the things that you enjoy, and I don’t want to enable your bad habits, but I don’t want to change you either. I know that one day I’m going to have to choose one of those routes and it’ll ruin everything.”
Lewis shook his head. Was Dick breaking up with him?
“No it won’t! Don’t you get it? I would choose you over anyone Dick. I could never get tired of you. You’re perfect. I don’t want you to be into the things that I’m into, that would make you someone completely different. I love that we’re so different, but I hate that my habits bother you. I’d choose you over them too. When that day comes just say the word, and I’ll stop. I swear. I love you so much, how could you ever doubt how much I love you?”
“We don’t really bring it up.”
“Well I’m bringing it up now. I love you Dick. I like…soul mate love you. Wow that made more sense in the cab...”
Dick just smiled his all knowing smile. “It makes sense to me. I’m sorry…for everything…I was just being insecure.”
Lewis just let out a laugh and wrapped his arms around the only person he’d ever honestly loved, “I’m the insecure one, remember?”
Dick sighed and returned the embrace, “If you say so.”
“Oh and Dick?”
“Yeah?”
“Could you maybe call Buck less?”
“That should be easy, he’s transferring to our school. I can hang out with him anytime. Why? Don’t you like him?”
Nixon just sighed in defeat, “I just ADORE him.”
Ron had been checking this damn corridor long enough to know that Lipton wasn’t in any of the rooms nor was he just wandering about. Where was he?
Damn he needed to sit…badly. Looking around all he saw was the far off confessional.
Maybe…
Walking over as quietly as he could, he slipped into the empty space where a priest would normally reside and lightly tapped the thin wooden window separating them.
“Hello?” came the confused reply.
Ron just smiled and pulled the window back so that he could see Lipton through the small grate. “This seems kind of ironic.”
“…..Ron?”
Speirs swallowed, dread creeping up through him. What if Lipton still hated him? What if he didn’t want to see him? Why was it that this man always made him lose his nerve?
“Yeah. Carwood I-”
“Are you okay?” Lipton’s voice was still soft despite the panicked edged in it that Ron hoped he wasn’t imagining, “I heard you got hurt. I’ve been going nuts worrying about you!”
“You were worried?”
“Of course I was. Ron…I know things went badly last time we saw each other…I mean…well I’m sorry I threw that bottle at your head…and locked you out of your hotel room.”
“Forget about it. I deserved it. I am never going to be able to tell you all the regrets I have…about us.”
Lipton let out a deep breath, “I just…I don’t know. I was just overwhelmed by all the drama and I freaked out. I just…I liked you so much and it felt like…I dunno.”
Speirs knew that now was the time to say everything he had been dying to say to Lipton since the last time he had seen him. Or when he had woken up, nursed his hangover and realized that he was gone. So maybe the last time he’d talked to him?
“I know…that I am a detached, cold, mean, violent, irrational asshole. And I know that there’s not really many good qualities to me. But you always made me feel like I could be more than what people perceived me to be. You gave me the opportunity to prove that I could love somebody and I ruined it. I put you through so much stress and I know I don’t deserve a second chance.”
He leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes, “But I want to be better for you, with you, because of you. I can change and you are the only person I would ever do that for. I just want you to forgive me.”
Ron waited for what felt like forever. When he didn’t get a response he chanced a look through the grate.
Lipton wasn’t there anymore.
Suddenly his door was opening from the outside and Ron wasn’t sure if the light pouring in was coming from the hall or from finally being able to see Lipton’s face.
“I forgive you.”
Ron straightened and smiled, “Just like that?”
The corner of Lipton’s lip curled up and he let out a soft laugh, “I only ever wanted you to ask.”
Ron stood up and pulled him into the room with him. Lipton melted against him and Ron savored the feeling of having him in his arms again.
He felt perfect.
Lipton looked at his face and smirked, “What happened to your face?”
Ron just rolled his eyes, “Babe, Nixon and a Sharpie. That’s what happened.”
Lipton’s smiled faltered and he put a gentle hand to Ron’s bandaged head, “Does it hurt?”
Speirs shook his head lightly, “Nothing hurts anymore.”
“That was so lame.”
Laughing Ron backed Carwood against the wall and moved his hands along his back, before casually slipping one under Lipton’s shirt. Leaning forwards he pressed their lips together softly.
“I don’t care.”
Buck couldn’t help but get concerned when the driver began to slow down on a very empty looking street.
“What the hell?”
Suddenly two policemen were rushing out of nowhere and waving their arms in the air, one shouting in Dutch at the driver who quickly got out of the car.
The other spoke in English to them, “We need this vehicle to pursue two suspects that have stolen our police cruiser. You’ll have to stay here.”
Buck was about to ask what they were suspects of if the man knew they had stolen his car….
Then he saw a red car in the distance.
“Oh...okay.”
Luz grumbled and hopped out after Buck and watched as the officers sped away in their cab.
Buck looked over at Luz, “Well you’ll finally get to walk.”
Babe wasn’t sure what he was about to bust in on but they were only moments away from the church and he was pretty sure that those cops were after them already.
Whatever he was going to say or do, he was going to have to do it quickly.
Dick was starting to get worried after awhile. The wedding was supposed to start in five minutes and he and Nixon were the only ones in the service area.
Suddenly Renee came rushing into the room in all her bridal glory, her two bridesmaids a couple of steps behind. She gave Nixon a confused look, “Lewis?”
Nixon gave her a bright, though somewhat fake, smile, “Hey Renee. You look awfully pretty.”
Well...that part was true. He did like Renee…he just liked Babe more now.
She just shook her head and looked around, “Where’s Eugene?”
“Renee!”
They all turned to see Gene rushing in from the outside hallway. Nixon whistled, “Speak of the devil.”
Gene looked at him, “Nixon?”
Lewis just shrugged as Renee and Gene turned to address one another.
“We cannot get married!”
“I can’t do this!”
That shut them both up.
“Um what?” Nixon asked confused.
Renee put her hand on Gene’s shoulder, “I am not ready for this. I do love you Eugene, but I have my whole future ahead of me, I have a career to think about. I thought this was what I wanted but I was being foolish. I’m so sorry.”
Gene shook his head, “No Renee- I’m sorry. I forced all of this on you because I was running away from the one person who rejected me. It’s not that I don’t love you...”
She smiled at him with tears in her eyes, “Oh Eugene it’s alright.”
They embraced and Dick was pretty sure he had NOT seen that one coming.
At that moment the doors busted open.
“STOP! EVERYBODY STOP!”
Nixon rolled his eyes, “It’s about fucking time you showed up.”
Babe just pointed a finger at him, “Shut up! You never called me.”
“I was busy.”
Gene just looked shocked, “Babe? What are you doing here?”
Babe panted heavily, “Gene I am so sorry I almost threw up on you. I was soooo wasted. I mean really no one should ever let me drink ever again.”
“Huh?”
“I flew all the way over the ocean in a stolen jet with, I have to say, some of the craziest people I have ever met or known. I have been party to the kidnapping and drugging of a congressmen, the assault of a police officer, and the stealing of a car. I got wasted and started singing on a table and you KNOW how awful a singer I am, I’m on the run from both the Belgium and Amsterdam police, I survived a train wreck, stole a car from a drunk guy, and I just stole a police cruiser. And I am pretty sure that I’m about to get arrested. And I did it all just to be with you. I’m in love with you Gene. Please don’t get married.”
Gene’s mouth dropped open before he recovered, “I’m…I’m not.”
Babe leaned his head forward, “I’m sorry-what?”
“I’m not getting married. The only reason I even wanted to get married was because I couldn’t be with you. But now I know I’ll never love anyone else as much as I love you Babe.”
“…Really?”
“Really. Even if you didn’t love me back, you’re the only one I want to be with.”
Babe couldn’t believe he was finally here. After everything…Gene was right there.
And he loved Babe.
He was about to move forward to kiss him when the doors flew open again.
“Nobody move!”
Babe turned around to see two unfamiliar policemen rushing into the church.
“Oh…shit.”
Everything started to happen too quickly.
The officers rushed in and tried to assess who it was they were supposed to be arresting. One of them roughly grabbed Babe by the arm and started to cuff him.
Gene started to shout, “Take it easy man, he didn’t hurt anyone!”
The officer yelled at him in Dutch and as Gene reached for Babe, who still wasn’t quite cuffed, the officer shoved Babe roughly to the ground.
“Don’t fucking push him!” Gene yelled getting right into the man’s face. The officer shoved him back and Babe jumped up at that moment and socked the officer in the jaw.
Then all Hell broke loose.
The officer punched Babe in the gut, which caused Gene to rush in to pull the officer back. Another cop rushed forward to jerk Gene away.
Renee started to cry and tried to come over to talk to the police but got caught in Babe’s brawl, which resulted in her getting shoved to the ground.
“Watch it, you could’ve hurt her!” Nixon helped her up and pulled her away before shoving the officer himself.
Babe took the opportunity to tackle the cop that Gene was scuffling with to the ground as the doors busted opened again.
Bill looked over to see the two men that had pulled them over. They started to head towards Babe with murder in their eyes.
Hmm join the fight or let Babe get his ass kicked by three cops at once?
Who was he kidding?
Before they could reach Babe he kicked the leg of one of the officers and he fell to the ground, not a moment later the second cop tackled him.
Nixon had apparently done something that caused the officer he shoved to grab him by the front of his shirt and shove him face down as he tried to cuff him.
But then something incredibly awesome happened.
Richard Winters grabbed the officer by his shirt and flung him face first into a nearby pew with a loud thud.
One of the officers trying to subdue Bill ran over to help the now possibly unconscious cop and Babe had to wonder…
“Where the fuck is Speirs when we need him?”
A throat cleared, “Um right here.”
Suddenly all the fighting stopped and they all looked over to see a shirtless Speirs, and a red faced Lipton who was tugging at his clothes in a manner that suggested he had just put them on, and behind them was a very pissed off priest.
He started shouting to the officers in Dutch and everyone screamed, “SPEAK ENGLISH!”
Even Renee said it, more than likely because she knew he could.
“FINE! Arrest these two!”
“What are we arresting THEM for?”
“They were doing unspeakable acts in my confessional!”
That got quite a few responses.
“Oh my God!”
“You guys had sex in a confessional?”
“We didn’t!”
“We did.”
“This is a church for Christ’s sakes!”
“Wow Lip, I didn’t know you had it in you.”
All of a sudden one of the officers seemed to recognize Speirs. “You look really familiar.”
Ron just shrugged. But the officer worked it out in this head, “You assaulted a policemen in Amsterdam. Oaky I AM going to have to arrest you.”
“No!” cried Lipton.
“The Hell you are!” Bill shouted and jumped to his feet.
Then everyone started fighting again.
The doors opened once more and they didn’t even make it two feet in before Luz was violently elbowed in the face and fell down, and Buck was toppled over by Bill and an officer rolling around on the ground.
One of the English speaking police officers jumped up amid all the chaos, pulled out his gun and fired it into the church ceiling.
Everyone froze.
“ENOUGH!” He shouted, gun still in the air, “If you’re not a woman or a priest, then you are UNDER ARREST!”
“Aw man! What the Hell did I do?” Luz shouted, a hand over his bloody nose.
“I’M SURE YOU DID SOMETHING! NOW EVERYONE GET OUTSIDE BEFORE I SHOOT SOMEBODY!”
As the nine of them were trudged out and separately shoved in the back of two police cars and a taxi, Babe couldn’t help but think this was at least better than going to jail alone.
He, Eugene, and Luz were put in the taxi. He looked over at Gene, “Thank you for coming to jail with us.”
Gene smiled, leaned forward and kissed Babe softly, “Anything to be with you Babe.”
Luz rolled his eyes and wished he could be in one of the cop cars with Buck.
Buck looked over at Dick’s now purple eye and winced. “You okay Dick? They really did a number on you.”
“Don’t talk to him! Don’t even look at him!”
“Nixon, calm the fuck down.”
Nixon shook his head from the side of Buck that he was sitting on, “No way. As a matter of fact, we’re switching seats. NOW.”
This proved to be rather difficult as Nixon struggled to climb over Buck to separate him from Dick. It probably would have been easier if he hadn’t been handcuffed behind the back.
Dick just sighed as the two men bitched and fought with each other. He bet Lipton didn’t have to put up with anything like this in his cruiser.
“What do you mean you two hooked up!?”
Ron sunk a little lower into his seat, trapped between the two friends, “Congratulations Bill, you made it a whole 20 minutes without mentioning it. That ripping your tongue out threat still applies.”
“Okay that just slipped out. Look Lip it was nothing. ”
Speirs straightened a little, “Well it wasn’t nothing.”
Bill nodded, “Yeah, but it won’t happen again.”
Lipton just nodded and scooted closer to Ron, “Okay…good.”
“I mean unless you guys don’t work out or something.”
“Bill!”
“Sorry, sorry!”
“It’s really done with though. He gave a stupid little speech and everything.”
Lipton’s irritation melted into curiosity, “Bill? A speech? Seriously? What did you say?”
Bill mumbled something under his breath and Lipton just gaped.
“That’s from CASABLANCA!”
“Okay so let me get this straight. Buck used to date Dick, but didn’t know he was now dating Nixon, who hates Buck, even though Buck now wants to date Luz, who he met at a bar in Amsterdam, hustling darts? And now he’s moving to our school?” Gene asked and Babe just nodded as they were all ushered into a cell.
“And Ron and Lipton are back together now, but not before Ron and Bill hooked up at the hospital and on the side of the road only after realizing they had a thing for each other after getting trapped in a closet on the train that crashed but Bill isn’t really gay though-he just still has feelings for Ron who really is in love with Lipton?”
“Yeah…”
“And you and Nixon are friends now and you’re the one who drew on everyone’s face?”
“Um…yeah that all sounds right.”
“That’s fucking confusing.”
“Okay you guys are just making us all very uncomfortable by summing this up! We’re all in here y’know!” Nixon shouted from the other side of the cell.
Luz just started laughing his ass off.
Speirs glared, “What the Hell is so funny?”
“I can’t believe that you guys had sex in a confessional!”
Lipton hid his face in Ron’s neck, “We’re never going to escape that.”
Nixon shook his head and pointed at Babe, “I can’t believe you guys stole a cop car!”
Dick smiled, “I can’t believe that we got into a brawl with the police in a church!”
Bill laughed, “I can’t believe you of all people knocked out a cop!”
Babe just laughed and sat down next to Gene, hooking their legs together, “I can’t believe that after all the close calls we had that we all got arrested.”
“Despite everything we still wound up in jail.”
“Just like God intended.”
“I wonder how’ll long we’ll be in here?”
……………
They only spent one night in jail. As it turned out, Ron’s father had already cleared up the issue with the jet after he figured out that while it was stolen, it wasn’t exactly stolen. The congressman might want to press charges, but unfortunately when the airport security found them doped up on the plane that thought they were druggies and wouldn’t listen to a word they said.
Renee talked the cops into simply fining Bill and Babe for stealing the cruiser, although Babe wasn’t sure how the Hell she pulled that off.
After a few phone calls Buck and Nixon’s parents wired enough money to pay all of their bail and they got released to the dismay of four very battered and bruised officers who looked like they wanted to take another whack at them all.
Now they were all at the Amsterdam airport getting ready to board their not so stolen jet.
Speirs turned to look at him, “So has everyone decided who’s all going back with us?”
Lipton looked unsure and held up a piece of paper, “I’m going with you but I still have this plane ticket for the end of the summer.”
Nixon snatched it out of his hand, “I’ll take that.”
Dick gave him a puzzled look and Nixon just tugged him close to him and smiled, “We could use a real vacation together. Right?”
Dick nodded, “Absolutely.”
Luz made a gagging noise before turning to Buck, “So what are you going to do?”
Buck shrugged, “I was thinking I’d go back with you guys…get a tour of the place. I’m a little Europed out at this point.”
Luz smirked, “Excellent. I’m not much of a tour guide but I know this great place you can stay.”
“Is that right?”
“Oh yeah…if you catch my drift.”
Buck smiled and followed Luz into the jet after waving goodbye to Nixon and Dick.
Bill looked over at Speirs, “You really think you’re going to fly this jet don’t you?”
“Of course I am.”
“You’re drugged off your ass you concussed psychopath.”
“I have an excellent co-pilot,” He hopped up into the jet, Bill following close behind.
“We cannot survive a plane crash too! We’ve built up too much bad karma.”
“Calm down Gonorrhea!”
Gene laughed and turned to Lipton, “I’d keep an eye on that if I were you.”
Lipton just smiled, “I don’t think I have anything to worry about.”
Dick smiled at them both, “I guess you guys should go. I’ll see you in a couple of months. And Gene?”
“Yeah?”
“I knew you’d come around.”
Gene just rolled his eyes with a laugh, “Of course you did.”
The three of them said goodbye before Lipton and Gene headed for the jet. Gene turned around to look at Babe. “Aren’t you coming?”
Babe smiled, “Duh. Just give me a sec.”
Gene nodded and climbed in.
Babe turned to Nixon, “Don’t do anything I might accidentally do.”
“That’s actually excellent advice.”
Babe smiled and hugged Nixon tightly. Nixon sighed, “I’m really proud of you Babe.”
“Thanks. I guess you were right.”
“How is that?”
“Everything worked out just fine.”
About four hours into the flight Gene called up from the back, “Hey there’s a mini bar back here! Anyone want anything?”
“NO!”
“HELL no!”
“No fucking thank you.”
“Keep that shit away from your boyfriend! I don’t have anymore clean shirts!”
Gene slowly closed the cabinet before going back over to Babe, “I don’t even want to know do I?”
“Probably not.”
“Hey Babe?”
“Yeah Gene?”
“Thanks for coming after me. Especially now that I know what you had to go through. ”
Babe smiled and pressed their foreheads together, “Wanna know something crazy?”
“What’s that?”
“I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.”
A/N:The End…although I have been considering writing a prequel of sorts detailing Lipton and Speirs summer romance. Not sure though…