Helix - part 6
Table of contents
Part 6
scudthumper: So everybody's looking uncomfortable but nobody's saying anything. and I'm like, "Who is this vapid douche? why are we letting him perpetrate his vapid douchery unopposed?"
scudthumper: finally I notice Mel is trying frantically to shut me up but it is far too late, the missile has been launched and all we can do is brace for postapocalyptic scenario
BashRyan: I'm laughing so hard already. Rudy just slapped me across the head like he was trying to cure hiccups.
scudthumper: the guy emits some flouncey exit line and flees like an anime chick. I swear I saw sparkling tears trailing behind him. Mel pats me on the back and says "Not that it matters now, but that was Dr. Helmann."
scudthumper: haha go rudy.
BashRyan: Oh man. That's horrible, but so funny. Did you even go to the interview?
"You're cybering, aren't you?" Rudy accused.
"No, of course not," Bash chuckled as he sent the latest reply. Typing was a little tricky in a moving vehicle, but he wasn't going to let that stop him.
scudthumper: I had to know. Besides, maybe he was grateful for being called on his bullshit.
BashRyan: Was he?
scudthumper: Fuck no. Ripped me a new one and pitched me out of his office. he could not figure out why I was laughing.
Rudy smacked him upside the head again. "Stop that. Oh my God, you're sexting like teenagers. You're thirty-five, you asshole, act like it."
"Thirty-six," Bash corrected absently.
Rudy's hectoring tone vanished briefly. "Are you? Did I miss your birthday?" Then it was back: "Well, that's one year farther from fifteen, so all the more reason to grow the hell up."
BashRyan: LMAO. You had a narrow escape there. Not only is he a flaming jerkass but he has a magic talent for unoriginal research.
BashRyan: I'm not the only one to observe it. It's like he is psychic and can sense when someone is about to do some awesome science so he goes and does the same science only not as well and a month later.
BashRyan: Scuse please, Rudy maintenance required. I may be some time.
He closed the computer and began trying to work out the kinks in his neck. "We were trading funny job interview stories. What's your panic, anyway? We're still fifty miles from area-of-interest."
"I'm just concerned that your mind's not on your job."
"Come on, where's your evidence for that? Have I screwed anything up? Have I let anything slide?"
"Not yet, but --"
"So this is just --"
"-- but considering you're the guy who tells people where the twister is and just how cozy they can get with it, I would really feel a lot more comfortable if you could just focus."
Settling back against his seat, Bash closed his eyes and silently counted to ten. Consider the source, he told himself. Rudy's your best friend. And so he didn't ask if Rudy would be raising the same objections if Bash were starry-eyed over a woman. That would be a pointless question, and would imply an accusation they might never quite recover from.
"I can see that you're concerned," Bash said carefully. "I suppose if it's making other people nervous as well that's something I need to think about. I don't want to give the impression I'm... I don't know. Daydreaming? Slacking? I'm not sure what you think I'm doing."
"You're acting like a kid, is what you're doing."
"What, is it an image thing?"
Rudy opened his mouth, hesitated, shut it again. Frowned at the road. "Okay, maybe," he admitted at last.
"I just don't see how messaging Cory when nothing's going on is a problem. I mean, usually I spend that same time reading webcomics and dicking around on TV Tropes. It's downtime."
Rudy shook his head, the kind of frustrated short headshake that meant 'I can't articulate my thoughts, wait a minute.' Bash waited. His fingers itched to reopen the computer and get back to his chat with Cory, but he knew what a bad idea that would be.
"Usually," Rudy said at last, "you read that shit out loud to me."
"Ah," Bash said softly.
"It's not a big thing," Rudy added quickly. "It just gets kinda boring. Driving. When you're off doing your own thing over there."
"Sure, I get it. Let me just log off properly and then I'll entertain you."
Rudy cracked a grin. "You should know your purpose in life is to amuse me. You're like a funny reading-monkey whose only function is to read stuff to me. Monkily."
"Shit, that needs to be a word."
BashRyan: Rudy is bored without his entertainer monkey to read the internet to him, so I should quit chatting you. Also, monkily is now a word.
scudthumper: oh hell yes. I am going to manufacture opportunities to use monkily in sentences left and fucking right, you watch me.
scudthumper: You go soothe the savage Rudy then. I'll pass the time composing pornographic emails which I may or may not send. :D :D :D
scudthumper: <3
BashRyan: XD <3
"Okay, I confess there were some lessthanthrees there at the end," Bash said as he closed the chat, "but I swear we weren't cybering even a little bit."
"I believe you, actually, I was just being childish. It seems to be in fashion lately."
"Ouch. These burns. My fragile self-esteem may never recover." He popped up a few minimized windows, radars and various prediction maps that he could fiddle with while they talked. The 24-hour GFS instability forecasts were looking especially interesting. "So I gather you got some insider information about Cory from Melanie."
"I hope you're not going to ask why I didn't tell you."
"I'm sure you had a good reason. I'm just curious what it was."
"Are you joking?" Rudy said incredulously. "You honestly can't think why I wouldn't tell you one of the candidates you were in charge of vetting had a weird fanboy crush on you."
Bash gave him a sideways raised-eyebrow look. "I'm not an idiot, Rudy. I meant after I met him. It's not as if favoritism is really possible now. What am I going to do, slip him an extra tornado?"
Rudy hesitated. He scratched his head sheepishly. "Okay, I guess at that point I didn't want to encourage things. He seemed like kind of a dick, frankly. And Mel made his crush sound a bit skeevy."
"Well, here's your opportunity to share. I'm all ears."
"Man, I don't remember exactly what she said. And I'm not going to let you read her letters or anything."
Bash cracked a grin. "Ooh. Are things developing on the Melanie front?"
"We're gossipping about your retarded affairs, not mine," Rudy grumbled. "Basically she gave the impression he was sperging on you like an eight-year-old with a book about dinosaurs. He knows exactly how many times you've been on PBS. He has clips of your Weather Channel interviews on his hard drive. Shit like that."
To his embarrassment, Bash realized he was beaming. The thought of Cory collecting videos like an utter fanboy was just so... cute. "Hell, better me than Lady Gaga."
Rudy gave a snort-laugh so sudden he jerked the wheel, and the whole truck shuddered.
"Anyway, if our positions were reversed I'd probably do the same thing," Bash went on more seriously. "I don't think you can understand this, Rudy. You're straight. You don't have the kind of role model drought we have."
"How many Chinese-American meteorologists --"
"Rudy, no. I don't want to get all oppresseder-than-thou, but... no." Bash rubbed his temples as if he could massage his brain into coming up with a way to say this without shitting on Rudy's feelings. "It's different. Poor numerical representation isn't the same as --" Lecturing. Not friendly. New tack. "When you grow up being told it's like... obscene to even admit you exist, seeing someone step up to bat for your team is a pretty special experience. I don't make a big deal out of it but secretly it kind of is one."
A sort of squinting glance from Rudy, an uncomfortable pause, and then a nod. "Okay. Yeah. That's not as funny as obsessive fangeeking, though."
Relieved, Bash ran his hands over his head and relaxed into his seat. "Well, there's also the fact that I am extremely goddamned handsome and charming," he deadpanned. "That is undoubtedly a factor."
"Pfff. He only wants you for your radar and you know it." A smile tweaked the corner of Rudy's mouth. "For the record, he's a lot cooler than I thought at first. He's only an asshole when it's funny. I can put up with that. And he stopped ignoring your instructions, which means he's more mature than he seems, I think." He paused to lay on the horn as a rattletrap pickup with a cargo bed full of hay bales tried to merge into them, as if the big rig with the eight-foot radar dish on it had become magically invisible. "Driving, jackass, it's a learnable skill! He's a big improvement over your last few boyfriends. Especially if he doesn't start texting you twelve times a day and freaking out if you don't answer."
"Yeah, 'insecure' is not a word I'd use to describe him," Bash said wryly. "But before we segue into your admittedly hilarious but off-topic rants about Jason and Kyle, I --"
"Let's not forget Ian the Ironic Hipster Wannabe. How do you fail at wearing kitsch clothes and ugly glasses?"
"Oh, shut up, his fail was cute. He just took it too seriously. But we're not going to talk about the past."
"Says you."
"Yes. Says me. I'm saying that. I want to talk about now. Or actually the near future. I need a reality check."
Rudy threw him a sideways grin. "All right, since you asked, I think the southern system is way more likely to blow up than the northern one, and we're gonna get nothing today but hail damage."
"No way, they're both gonna pop, but the one we're heading for is gonna go cyclic. Ngh, don't distract me. That isn't --"
"It's not gonna go cyclic, it doesn't have the warm inflow."
"It will by the time we get there. Rudy, argh!"
Chuckling, Rudy reached over and gave his shoulder a little shake. "You are so tense today. I'm just playing. You know I'm just playing."
"I know. I'm just. Yeah. Tense."
"Deep breath."
Bash obediently filled his lungs, held his breath a moment, then expelled it in a gust. "I need to know if I'm really giving the impression of being childish or distracted or just unprofessional in some way. Not to you. To the others. To everyone. This thing with Cory... okay, the Cory thing is happening. Definitely. But maybe it shouldn't happen during the study."
"Are you serious?" Rudy sounded inexplicably angry.
"I am. Actually. Really serious," Bash said humbly.
"Two years ago, when Dave and Meg Norwick had just gotten married, you shuffled personnel so they could be in the same truck."
"Well... not quite the same thing. They were married."
Rudy rolled his eyes. "Listen to yourself. You want to step up to bat for gay scientists, and then you have this double standard --"
"No, no. No, I didn't mean -- I mean their relationship was established. They weren't at the giddy infatuation stage. This is a scientific study, not a singles bar."
"Prissy is not as cute on you as it is on Mercy."
"Please. Be serious. I'm being serious. You know I need to maintain professionalism. I already ride the line a lot. I can't go over."
Rudy lifted his chin. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. He blew air at his bangs. "Jesus Christ, Bash. I take back all my resistance behaviors. You need Cory. You're getting so uptight. This is not a big deal."
Bash hadn't even noticed the knot in his stomach until it loosened. "You think?"
"As long as you don't waste the project's time or money or let it interfere with doing your job, it's nobody's goddamn business but yours."
A broad smile spread across Bash's face. He tapped the trackpad to wake up his computer, which had gone to screensaver while they talked. "I should tell Cory we have your blessing. Kidding! I'm checking radars." He began tabbing through, hitting reload. "You're the best friend ever, by the way. Best of all possible friends."
"Shut up, you cheeseball," Rudy grinned.
.
Bash was, unfortunately, wrong about the storm system he'd chosen for the day's chase, but he was right about the one they left behind -- it was a garden-variety thunderstorm and didn't drop anything but pea-sized hail -- so he didn't have to feel too bad about it. Nobody on the plains got a tornado today. Some bad shit went down in Ohio, but that was outside their arena.
"There's a silver lining, though," he told the people who gathered in the motel's lounge to dissect the day and speculate on tomorrow. "Because it's gonna be hot as hell up around here tomorrow, and all that moisture is just gonna poof up like --" He made an explody hand gesture and puffy-cheeks face.
Cory, standing behind the couch he was sitting on, reached around and poked his cheeks so he blew an inadvertent raspberry. Laughing and belatedly dodging, Bash grabbed at his hands. The one he caught, he kept hold of. Cory went still for a moment. Then he leaned on the couch back for easier hand-holding as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world.
"I see what you mean," Cory said. "There's that bolus of wet heat rolling up from the Gulf. It's a little weird how isolated it is, though."
"I think that's the first time I've ever heard someone say 'bolus' out loud." Bash finally lost the battle with himself and looked up to see what people were making of this public affection.
No one was even looking at them. All eyes were glued on various of the half-dozen laptops scattered among them. Bash almost laughed from relief.
"So you're thinking South Dakota?" Alan said. At Bash's affirmative, a chorus of weary enthusiasm went around the room. The meeting broke up.
Bash kept hold of Cory's hand until they reached the door of the room he was sharing with Rudy. There they stopped and glanced at each other. Cory actually looked a little uncertain; it was pretty much the most adorable thing Bash had ever seen.
"G'night, Montana," Cory said.
Bash leaned in and kissed him. Briefly, sweetly, far too chastely, but this was a public hallway. Then he reluctantly reclaimed his hand and went into the room. He didn't dare look back until he heard the door click shut behind him. He was afraid if he saw Cory still standing there, he'd do something downright uncivilized.
Rudy was already in bed, wearing his slightly disturbing sleep mask with the frog face on it. Bash flopped onto his own bed, gathered up the pillow, and screamed into it. Rudy lifted up the mask over one eye and gave him a cyclopic squint.
"I've got it bad, Rudy," he confessed.
"Ya don't say," Rudy drawled, and smoothed the frog mask back into place.
Master fic list
Part 6
scudthumper: So everybody's looking uncomfortable but nobody's saying anything. and I'm like, "Who is this vapid douche? why are we letting him perpetrate his vapid douchery unopposed?"
scudthumper: finally I notice Mel is trying frantically to shut me up but it is far too late, the missile has been launched and all we can do is brace for postapocalyptic scenario
BashRyan: I'm laughing so hard already. Rudy just slapped me across the head like he was trying to cure hiccups.
scudthumper: the guy emits some flouncey exit line and flees like an anime chick. I swear I saw sparkling tears trailing behind him. Mel pats me on the back and says "Not that it matters now, but that was Dr. Helmann."
scudthumper: haha go rudy.
BashRyan: Oh man. That's horrible, but so funny. Did you even go to the interview?
"You're cybering, aren't you?" Rudy accused.
"No, of course not," Bash chuckled as he sent the latest reply. Typing was a little tricky in a moving vehicle, but he wasn't going to let that stop him.
scudthumper: I had to know. Besides, maybe he was grateful for being called on his bullshit.
BashRyan: Was he?
scudthumper: Fuck no. Ripped me a new one and pitched me out of his office. he could not figure out why I was laughing.
Rudy smacked him upside the head again. "Stop that. Oh my God, you're sexting like teenagers. You're thirty-five, you asshole, act like it."
"Thirty-six," Bash corrected absently.
Rudy's hectoring tone vanished briefly. "Are you? Did I miss your birthday?" Then it was back: "Well, that's one year farther from fifteen, so all the more reason to grow the hell up."
BashRyan: LMAO. You had a narrow escape there. Not only is he a flaming jerkass but he has a magic talent for unoriginal research.
BashRyan: I'm not the only one to observe it. It's like he is psychic and can sense when someone is about to do some awesome science so he goes and does the same science only not as well and a month later.
BashRyan: Scuse please, Rudy maintenance required. I may be some time.
He closed the computer and began trying to work out the kinks in his neck. "We were trading funny job interview stories. What's your panic, anyway? We're still fifty miles from area-of-interest."
"I'm just concerned that your mind's not on your job."
"Come on, where's your evidence for that? Have I screwed anything up? Have I let anything slide?"
"Not yet, but --"
"So this is just --"
"-- but considering you're the guy who tells people where the twister is and just how cozy they can get with it, I would really feel a lot more comfortable if you could just focus."
Settling back against his seat, Bash closed his eyes and silently counted to ten. Consider the source, he told himself. Rudy's your best friend. And so he didn't ask if Rudy would be raising the same objections if Bash were starry-eyed over a woman. That would be a pointless question, and would imply an accusation they might never quite recover from.
"I can see that you're concerned," Bash said carefully. "I suppose if it's making other people nervous as well that's something I need to think about. I don't want to give the impression I'm... I don't know. Daydreaming? Slacking? I'm not sure what you think I'm doing."
"You're acting like a kid, is what you're doing."
"What, is it an image thing?"
Rudy opened his mouth, hesitated, shut it again. Frowned at the road. "Okay, maybe," he admitted at last.
"I just don't see how messaging Cory when nothing's going on is a problem. I mean, usually I spend that same time reading webcomics and dicking around on TV Tropes. It's downtime."
Rudy shook his head, the kind of frustrated short headshake that meant 'I can't articulate my thoughts, wait a minute.' Bash waited. His fingers itched to reopen the computer and get back to his chat with Cory, but he knew what a bad idea that would be.
"Usually," Rudy said at last, "you read that shit out loud to me."
"Ah," Bash said softly.
"It's not a big thing," Rudy added quickly. "It just gets kinda boring. Driving. When you're off doing your own thing over there."
"Sure, I get it. Let me just log off properly and then I'll entertain you."
Rudy cracked a grin. "You should know your purpose in life is to amuse me. You're like a funny reading-monkey whose only function is to read stuff to me. Monkily."
"Shit, that needs to be a word."
BashRyan: Rudy is bored without his entertainer monkey to read the internet to him, so I should quit chatting you. Also, monkily is now a word.
scudthumper: oh hell yes. I am going to manufacture opportunities to use monkily in sentences left and fucking right, you watch me.
scudthumper: You go soothe the savage Rudy then. I'll pass the time composing pornographic emails which I may or may not send. :D :D :D
scudthumper: <3
BashRyan: XD <3
"Okay, I confess there were some lessthanthrees there at the end," Bash said as he closed the chat, "but I swear we weren't cybering even a little bit."
"I believe you, actually, I was just being childish. It seems to be in fashion lately."
"Ouch. These burns. My fragile self-esteem may never recover." He popped up a few minimized windows, radars and various prediction maps that he could fiddle with while they talked. The 24-hour GFS instability forecasts were looking especially interesting. "So I gather you got some insider information about Cory from Melanie."
"I hope you're not going to ask why I didn't tell you."
"I'm sure you had a good reason. I'm just curious what it was."
"Are you joking?" Rudy said incredulously. "You honestly can't think why I wouldn't tell you one of the candidates you were in charge of vetting had a weird fanboy crush on you."
Bash gave him a sideways raised-eyebrow look. "I'm not an idiot, Rudy. I meant after I met him. It's not as if favoritism is really possible now. What am I going to do, slip him an extra tornado?"
Rudy hesitated. He scratched his head sheepishly. "Okay, I guess at that point I didn't want to encourage things. He seemed like kind of a dick, frankly. And Mel made his crush sound a bit skeevy."
"Well, here's your opportunity to share. I'm all ears."
"Man, I don't remember exactly what she said. And I'm not going to let you read her letters or anything."
Bash cracked a grin. "Ooh. Are things developing on the Melanie front?"
"We're gossipping about your retarded affairs, not mine," Rudy grumbled. "Basically she gave the impression he was sperging on you like an eight-year-old with a book about dinosaurs. He knows exactly how many times you've been on PBS. He has clips of your Weather Channel interviews on his hard drive. Shit like that."
To his embarrassment, Bash realized he was beaming. The thought of Cory collecting videos like an utter fanboy was just so... cute. "Hell, better me than Lady Gaga."
Rudy gave a snort-laugh so sudden he jerked the wheel, and the whole truck shuddered.
"Anyway, if our positions were reversed I'd probably do the same thing," Bash went on more seriously. "I don't think you can understand this, Rudy. You're straight. You don't have the kind of role model drought we have."
"How many Chinese-American meteorologists --"
"Rudy, no. I don't want to get all oppresseder-than-thou, but... no." Bash rubbed his temples as if he could massage his brain into coming up with a way to say this without shitting on Rudy's feelings. "It's different. Poor numerical representation isn't the same as --" Lecturing. Not friendly. New tack. "When you grow up being told it's like... obscene to even admit you exist, seeing someone step up to bat for your team is a pretty special experience. I don't make a big deal out of it but secretly it kind of is one."
A sort of squinting glance from Rudy, an uncomfortable pause, and then a nod. "Okay. Yeah. That's not as funny as obsessive fangeeking, though."
Relieved, Bash ran his hands over his head and relaxed into his seat. "Well, there's also the fact that I am extremely goddamned handsome and charming," he deadpanned. "That is undoubtedly a factor."
"Pfff. He only wants you for your radar and you know it." A smile tweaked the corner of Rudy's mouth. "For the record, he's a lot cooler than I thought at first. He's only an asshole when it's funny. I can put up with that. And he stopped ignoring your instructions, which means he's more mature than he seems, I think." He paused to lay on the horn as a rattletrap pickup with a cargo bed full of hay bales tried to merge into them, as if the big rig with the eight-foot radar dish on it had become magically invisible. "Driving, jackass, it's a learnable skill! He's a big improvement over your last few boyfriends. Especially if he doesn't start texting you twelve times a day and freaking out if you don't answer."
"Yeah, 'insecure' is not a word I'd use to describe him," Bash said wryly. "But before we segue into your admittedly hilarious but off-topic rants about Jason and Kyle, I --"
"Let's not forget Ian the Ironic Hipster Wannabe. How do you fail at wearing kitsch clothes and ugly glasses?"
"Oh, shut up, his fail was cute. He just took it too seriously. But we're not going to talk about the past."
"Says you."
"Yes. Says me. I'm saying that. I want to talk about now. Or actually the near future. I need a reality check."
Rudy threw him a sideways grin. "All right, since you asked, I think the southern system is way more likely to blow up than the northern one, and we're gonna get nothing today but hail damage."
"No way, they're both gonna pop, but the one we're heading for is gonna go cyclic. Ngh, don't distract me. That isn't --"
"It's not gonna go cyclic, it doesn't have the warm inflow."
"It will by the time we get there. Rudy, argh!"
Chuckling, Rudy reached over and gave his shoulder a little shake. "You are so tense today. I'm just playing. You know I'm just playing."
"I know. I'm just. Yeah. Tense."
"Deep breath."
Bash obediently filled his lungs, held his breath a moment, then expelled it in a gust. "I need to know if I'm really giving the impression of being childish or distracted or just unprofessional in some way. Not to you. To the others. To everyone. This thing with Cory... okay, the Cory thing is happening. Definitely. But maybe it shouldn't happen during the study."
"Are you serious?" Rudy sounded inexplicably angry.
"I am. Actually. Really serious," Bash said humbly.
"Two years ago, when Dave and Meg Norwick had just gotten married, you shuffled personnel so they could be in the same truck."
"Well... not quite the same thing. They were married."
Rudy rolled his eyes. "Listen to yourself. You want to step up to bat for gay scientists, and then you have this double standard --"
"No, no. No, I didn't mean -- I mean their relationship was established. They weren't at the giddy infatuation stage. This is a scientific study, not a singles bar."
"Prissy is not as cute on you as it is on Mercy."
"Please. Be serious. I'm being serious. You know I need to maintain professionalism. I already ride the line a lot. I can't go over."
Rudy lifted his chin. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. He blew air at his bangs. "Jesus Christ, Bash. I take back all my resistance behaviors. You need Cory. You're getting so uptight. This is not a big deal."
Bash hadn't even noticed the knot in his stomach until it loosened. "You think?"
"As long as you don't waste the project's time or money or let it interfere with doing your job, it's nobody's goddamn business but yours."
A broad smile spread across Bash's face. He tapped the trackpad to wake up his computer, which had gone to screensaver while they talked. "I should tell Cory we have your blessing. Kidding! I'm checking radars." He began tabbing through, hitting reload. "You're the best friend ever, by the way. Best of all possible friends."
"Shut up, you cheeseball," Rudy grinned.
.
Bash was, unfortunately, wrong about the storm system he'd chosen for the day's chase, but he was right about the one they left behind -- it was a garden-variety thunderstorm and didn't drop anything but pea-sized hail -- so he didn't have to feel too bad about it. Nobody on the plains got a tornado today. Some bad shit went down in Ohio, but that was outside their arena.
"There's a silver lining, though," he told the people who gathered in the motel's lounge to dissect the day and speculate on tomorrow. "Because it's gonna be hot as hell up around here tomorrow, and all that moisture is just gonna poof up like --" He made an explody hand gesture and puffy-cheeks face.
Cory, standing behind the couch he was sitting on, reached around and poked his cheeks so he blew an inadvertent raspberry. Laughing and belatedly dodging, Bash grabbed at his hands. The one he caught, he kept hold of. Cory went still for a moment. Then he leaned on the couch back for easier hand-holding as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world.
"I see what you mean," Cory said. "There's that bolus of wet heat rolling up from the Gulf. It's a little weird how isolated it is, though."
"I think that's the first time I've ever heard someone say 'bolus' out loud." Bash finally lost the battle with himself and looked up to see what people were making of this public affection.
No one was even looking at them. All eyes were glued on various of the half-dozen laptops scattered among them. Bash almost laughed from relief.
"So you're thinking South Dakota?" Alan said. At Bash's affirmative, a chorus of weary enthusiasm went around the room. The meeting broke up.
Bash kept hold of Cory's hand until they reached the door of the room he was sharing with Rudy. There they stopped and glanced at each other. Cory actually looked a little uncertain; it was pretty much the most adorable thing Bash had ever seen.
"G'night, Montana," Cory said.
Bash leaned in and kissed him. Briefly, sweetly, far too chastely, but this was a public hallway. Then he reluctantly reclaimed his hand and went into the room. He didn't dare look back until he heard the door click shut behind him. He was afraid if he saw Cory still standing there, he'd do something downright uncivilized.
Rudy was already in bed, wearing his slightly disturbing sleep mask with the frog face on it. Bash flopped onto his own bed, gathered up the pillow, and screamed into it. Rudy lifted up the mask over one eye and gave him a cyclopic squint.
"I've got it bad, Rudy," he confessed.
"Ya don't say," Rudy drawled, and smoothed the frog mask back into place.
Master fic list