Fic: 16 Proofs of Love, #15 Twiddling Your Thumbs: when will I see you again?
Title: No Reason To Get Excited (The Thief He Kindly Spoke)
Fandom: Stargate
Rating: T
Genres: gen, a bit of het
Summary: It's Vietnam 1966 and Will Meyers is fed up with the idiocy of his boss, Evan Lorne.
A/N: So. I finally finished the response piece to With No Direction Home (Like a Complete Unknown) (it's taking place a month after the events in that fic, so it takes place before the latest three fics I posted, It's Way Too Soon, America Has Heard The Bugle Call and Military Madness) and I'm hoping once again that fandom won't behead me for writing a fic dealing with racism (from a black character's POV this time) and that I did passably, at least. Please tell me what you think?
PS.: You can see the other finished stories here.
( Kennedy Made Him Believe (We Could Do Much More) )
( We'll Dance Until Morning ('Til There's Just You And Me) )
( With No Direction Home (Like a Complete Unknown) )
( So I Came in Here (And Your Long-Time Curse Hurts) )
No Reason To Get Excited (The Thief He Kindly Spoke)
“No reason to get excited, the thief he kindly spoke
There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.”
Bob Dylan, “All Along The Watchtower”
So he can’t get out of it, after all.
For a while, he’d thought that the boss might just ignore it or at least let it slide but apparently, the boss never planned anything of the kind. There’s no other way he can explain a summon to the boss’s office out of the ordinary. There are no performance evaluations pending, he didn’t do anything stupid and the boss told him that approving his request for re-upping is a mere formality that should be already solved. So there is literally no other reason than the boss wanting to talk about The Incident left.
Took his own sweet time, the boss he did. Nearly four weeks of awkward sneaking around him, barely meeting his eyes for anything more personal than things that are strictly duty related. Anything further than that and he’d excused himself as soon as possible. Of course he’d joked around about the boss having discovered some sort of fascinating rock near the Air Force nurses’ hooch with McPherson which was par for the course - anyone can see that their favorite WAC passenger’s got him wrapped around her little finger, and it’s a damn shame it didn’t happen earlier - but they’d both known instantly that Lorne developed some serious issues with talking around him.
And poor little Joe Simmons smack dab in the middle of it. He almost felt sorry for the LT.
But yeah, Lorne’s issues didn’t come out of the blue and he knows very well what the problem here is. Ever since Lorne made the mistake of attacking Little Asshole Baker, his CO knows very well what he did wrong and that he is at fault. Thank God none of the other Sergeants even thought about telling him to be grateful to the Major for meddling in something he has no right to. And thank God for McPherson who’s always been the more patient between the two of them, the older, the wiser.
He pauses in his walk towards Lorne’s office, thinking back about his first days on Lorne’s chopper, the only black guy in a team of four. It would be a lie to say that he was never conscious about that, that it never bothered him but then again, not a lot of black guys overall in Pararescue and he’d been used to the feeling. They’d never let him feel it, not even McPherson with his Arizona twang, being old enough that he began his service in a segregated military.
McPherson… well. McPherson’s got his back, in the mess hall, at the NCO club, everywhere. McPherson and the other Sergeants in the squadron, and they deal with anyone trying to get the better of them on their own. Had it been McPherson who’d threatened Baker, he’d have gladly offered assistance. Had it been McPherson or any of the other NCOs in the squadron, no matter their skin color, shoving Baker into that wall, he’d happily used the opportunity to provide Baker with a few good arguments on why messing with Pararescue people is a very bad idea.
But an officer barging in on NCO matters… that’s just asking for trouble. And that’s why he is so fucking pissed with Lorne. That guy of all people should have known that you keep your damn officer nose out of any NCO business if you know what’s good for everyone involved. Because now he doesn’t only have to watch his back, he also has to watch out for his CO’s back and let me tell you, that’s a damn hard thing to do.
Of course he doesn’t have to, of course he could just stay out of it but despite everything, Lorne is still a decent officer and one of the good, if temporarily stupid, guys. He doesn’t even owe Lorne anything other than thanks for exceptional flying and keeping it together when he saw his brother-in-law slip away right there in front of his eyes - and for never saying anything about it or God forbid, telling him that there’d been nothing he could have done about it because there was and it’s his job and his alone to learn to cope with stuff like that.
He doesn’t owe Lorne shit. And he has a right to be pissed off about Lorne going and doing something so stupid as going off on a fucking Sergeant. If it had been Baker’s little dipshit LT, at least… but no, Lorne had to lose his shit in the exact wrong moment and it was probably a miracle that Sheppard and Cadman came around that bend in the right moment. Seriously, what had the guy been thinking?
Anyway, the boss said 0900 sharp and if he wants to be there 0900 sharp, he needs to get the fuck going again. His old man taught him that he should never be late, back in the Forties even before the Japs went crazy and he’d have his hide if he came too late to a summon from his commanding officer. That is, if he hadn’t broken his father’s heart with enlisting instead of applying for an officer’s position and becoming a pilot, first. Old Man Meyers had wanted to be a Tuskegee Airman so bad in the Forties and they didn’t even let him serve in the Army Air Force in the end.
Jesus, what the fuck is he even doing thinking about his old man? He’s gotta set his boss’s head straight, not get his own twisted around. Straightening himself, he walks up to the shed where the “offices” - more like broom closets, really - of the 38th are housed and knocks on his boss’s door. It takes Lorne only a few seconds to reply “Enter!” which tells him that his presence was expected with eager anticipation. Shit.
He walks in, gives his boss a textbook report, just the way the boss likes it and swiftly executes the order to sit down. He nearly expects Lorne to jump the gun but of course this isn’t how things are done here. There’s a bit of chit chat first and Lorne tells him that his request for re-upping for another year got approved, that his performance evaluation is likely going to be another stellar report… and then drops the bomb, as per usual.
“So, before we finish…” he says, in that typical businesslike voice that means that the boss is nervous about something, shuffling around his papers a little, “is there anything you require assistance with, Sergeant?”
Really, he thinks. That’s how you’re gonna go about this? Seems Cadman hasn’t rubbed off on him as much as they thought. Of course she hasn’t. He shakes his head.“No, sir.”
Lorne does this little clenching his jaw thing he usually does when he’s particularly dissatisfied with something and he’s practically burning to ask the Major what the hell he even expected to hear after that stellar miss a few weeks ago. “Mh, see, I was anticipating this answer.” Good thing he never got to ask the boss what he was expecting. That would have just earned him a busting and he isn’t really sure if it wouldn’t have been deserved. “Which is why I put you in a one hour time slot.” Shit. Shit shit shit. “So… I’ve got a lot of time right now to wait for you to reconsider that answer.”
He should expected Lorne to be prepared. Lorne practically lives the “Be always prepared for anything” credo of every training ever the Air Force has to offer. He just bets that the only thing Lorne didn’t prepare for was falling in love in a combat zone. At least that would explain why it took him so fucking long to make his move on Cadman. Well, anyway, that’s not the issue here, is it? “Sir…”
“Go ahead, don’t be shy, Sergeant.” Shy? Shy? Seriously, sir?
He clears his throat, trying not to let his displeasure show too much. “I’m not sure you understand, sir.”
Again clenching his law and going as far as dropping a few degrees in his tone, Lorne replies, “I’m sure I don’t. Care to enlighten me, Sergeant?”
So the guy’s serious about this. He just wishes he’d be able to still be pissed about him and not appreciate Lorne actually admitting that he needs someone to lay down the law about this to him. He clenches his fists. “Sir… this is an NCO matter.”
Lorne nods, and the worst thing is that he’s pretty sure that the boss really does understand what he just said. “And you think NCOs should solve this on their own?” Actually… he’s starting to get the bad feeling that Lorne knew what this is about long ago and that he’s only here for confirmation, not for an opportunity to get the upper hand of a superior officer. Sometimes, he can be a real idiot.
That doesn’t mean that his ire was unjustified, though. “Yes, sir.”
“How well is that going for you?” Fuck you, Lorne, he thinks. Fuck you and your genuine, stupid, white boy concern. And here he thought Lorne was different from all of them.
The irritation is harder to keep under wraps, the longer this takes and it’s a miracle that he manages to keep his voice even when he says, “Sergeant McPherson and I have the situation very well in hand, sir.”
The Major raises an eyebrow and actually dares to ask, “Would McPherson say the same if I asked him?”
“Absolutely, sir.” Did he really think he’d actually get anyone to rat out their fellow NCOs, white or black?
Damn, of course he didn’t. He can see if in the way Lorne shakes his head at himself and in the irritated tone when he mutters, “Of course he would, why am I even asking?” more to himself than to anyone else. For a field grade, that’s a surprising insight, he has to give him that. “Alright, Will, you’re making it very clear that you don’t want me to press charges against any enlisted man insulting and attacking my Airmen.”
Well. There are many things you can say about Evan Lorne and not all of them are favorable but you certainly can’t say that he isn’t smart. Even though he’s still pissed off at Lorne’s concern about him not being able to handle the little shits of Baker’s circle of cronies, he nods and tries not to sound too smug when he confirms, “That assumption is correct, sir.”
Nodding again, Lorne adds, “For the record, I think this is a very bad idea but if you think you can handle it, knock yourself out.”
He was prepared to go head to head with his boss, full throttle, no holds barred. He wasn’t prepared for his boss to give in so easily, especially after how this conversation started. It throws him out of the loop so hard for a moment that he can only lamely offer, “Thank you, sir, that…”
“Unless there are officers involved.” Right. Of course Lorne couldn’t just let this lie. Of course he had to find that one weak point of the whole “Let us NCOs handle this on our own” logic. Damn Academy grads. “As soon as this gets past NCO ranks, you report immediately to me and let me handle it, no exceptions.”
Damn field grades making actual sense. Damn them all to hell, that’s what he always says. Except that it isn’t, especially not about this field grade, so he keeps himself from sighing and admits, “Fair enough, sir.”
“Good.” Lorne nods again and it’s almost perverse how much satisfaction he draws from being able to see very clearly that the tension still hasn’t left the boss. Guy didn’t really think they’d just kiss and make up and everything would be sunshine and roses again, right? “And Will… if there is anything I can do for you, don’t hesitate to ask. That’s my job as your CO and I hope I just made it clear that I’m serious about it.”
Well, he certainly did make it clear that he expects him to keep him in the loop instead of simply sweeping everything under the rug of “What happens among the NCOs stays among the NCOs”. It’s not fair that he couldn’t simply make it an order and he seriously hopes that Lorne is aware of that. And of how that would piss him off even more if it weren’t such a damn nice thing to do. He nods. “Crystal, sir.” And then, something in the air probably makes him add a stupid but true from his heart, “And, sir… I appreciate it. Just because I don’t always take the offer, it doesn’t mean that I don’t care about it.”
Something in Lorne’s eyes tells him that he knows exactly that this Master Sergeant certainly wasn’t under any obligation of telling him that and it’s good to see that Lorne feels just as embarrassed by that admission as he does, even though people not daily putting their life in the hands of this pilot probably wouldn’t have been able to spot it. It really doesn’t do to undermine the military class system as easily as working together on a MedEvac chopper does. Should have joined the fucking Marines, after all, that’s what he should have done.
It’s ridiculous how grateful he is, then, that Lorne doesn’t dwell on the subject any longer and swiftly fires the flare of, “Now that we got that cleared up… what did your wife say about you re-upping, by the way?”
After that minefield of racism on base and the fine distinctions between NCOs and officers, he’s almost glad that Lorne chose that topic for distraction and even feels safe enough to smirk a little when saying, “That she’s thinking about enlisting herself because she’d rather be in the dirt with me than stateside without me.”
He’s been aware that he’s the only one happily married on their chopper for as soon as they started working together, with Simmons being too young and too prim and proper for having committed himself to any relationship at all, Lorne being probably the only divorcee in the entire Air Force who ever managed to rise to field rank at thirty and Mac… well, just don’t ask him about his married life, if you know what’s good for you. Lorne, of course, is aware of that, too so he doesn’t mind his boss’s smirk too much when he say, “What did you tell her?”
You know… he wishes he could say that he told her to leave that fucking be and fucking stay stateside, what the fuck but he’s been married for almost ten years now and even though Jessi isn’t nearly as outspoken as Cadman or as openly sarcastic as Captain Reece on a really bad day, she’s got an unbelievably smart head on her shoulders and the heart of a lioness in her chest. You just don’t tell that woman to sit and home, twiddling her thumbs and wondering when they would see each other again, if she set that heart on going to the mountain before it comes to her. He rubs his neck. “That she should do it soon if she wants to be here in time for my second tour to start.”
It almost makes Lorne grin when he says, “Brave answer, Sergeant.”
Suddenly feeling safe - and a little less pissed off - enough to revert to that scandalously familiar way of talking to each other Lorne and his NCOs developed after over six months of flying together, he finds himself asking, “What did Lieutenant Cadman say about you re-upping, sir?”
Definitely not a good question, he can see that much in the way Lorne clenches his jaw again and taps his desk with his pen. “That she already handed in her request for another tour.”
Okay. He hadn’t know that which is kind of surprising, seeing as he damn well knows better than anyone - okay, maybe except Sheppard and Lorne’s Academy buddy, that Moore guy - what the hell’s going on in this camp. He raises his eyebrows, now genuinely curious. “What did you tell her about that?”
“Something very stupid.” Right. Of course Lorne would tell his girlfriend what he thought about another year in the dirt for her - nothing good, seeing how fucking protective his boss likes to be in the exactly wrong moment - probably even yelled it at her and damn, even though he’s known Laura Cadman only for a little about six months, he never pegged her as someone to be easily cowed, especially not from the guy she spent six months bickering with.
He knows he shouldn’t but after everything, there’s no way he can’t do it. Not even bothering to hide the mocking undertone from his voice, he sweetly asks, “And how did that go for you, sir?”
To his credit, Lorne doesn’t jump at his throat for insolence, just glowers at him uselessly shuffling around a few papers again. “Let’s not talk about that now. Or ever.”
Well then. It doesn’t, in any way, make up for the idiocy of making him the target of even more racist assholery with one misplaced deed of white chivalry but it does give him a bit of satisfaction to see Lorne browbeaten by his new girlfriend for just another misplaced deed of this time male chivalry and being able to - more or less - admit that it really didn’t go well for him, either. It does tell him that Lorne is a bit less of an idiot as he’d pegged him when this all started and it’s good to know that he wasn’t completely wrong with his initial assessment of Lorne being an agreeable, if slightly stern but definitely smart guy.
Maybe, he thinks, as he takes his leave of his CO and gets invited to one of their pre-idiocy team drinking tours in Saigon, things aren’t as bad as he thought, after all. Maybe he can still hope that he can find it in himself to not forget but at least forgive Lorne for that one stupid act. What other option does he have left, with over a year left in the team of that guy, anyway?
( Forget The Dead You’ve Left (They Will Not Follow You) )
( It’s Way Too Soon (To Be Obsessin’ Like This) )
( America Has Heard The Bugle Call (And You Know It Involves Us One And All) )
( Military Madness (Is Killing Your Country) )
Fandom: Stargate
Rating: T
Genres: gen, a bit of het
Summary: It's Vietnam 1966 and Will Meyers is fed up with the idiocy of his boss, Evan Lorne.
A/N: So. I finally finished the response piece to With No Direction Home (Like a Complete Unknown) (it's taking place a month after the events in that fic, so it takes place before the latest three fics I posted, It's Way Too Soon, America Has Heard The Bugle Call and Military Madness) and I'm hoping once again that fandom won't behead me for writing a fic dealing with racism (from a black character's POV this time) and that I did passably, at least. Please tell me what you think?
PS.: You can see the other finished stories here.
( Kennedy Made Him Believe (We Could Do Much More) )
( We'll Dance Until Morning ('Til There's Just You And Me) )
( With No Direction Home (Like a Complete Unknown) )
( So I Came in Here (And Your Long-Time Curse Hurts) )
No Reason To Get Excited (The Thief He Kindly Spoke)
“No reason to get excited, the thief he kindly spoke
There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.”
Bob Dylan, “All Along The Watchtower”
So he can’t get out of it, after all.
For a while, he’d thought that the boss might just ignore it or at least let it slide but apparently, the boss never planned anything of the kind. There’s no other way he can explain a summon to the boss’s office out of the ordinary. There are no performance evaluations pending, he didn’t do anything stupid and the boss told him that approving his request for re-upping is a mere formality that should be already solved. So there is literally no other reason than the boss wanting to talk about The Incident left.
Took his own sweet time, the boss he did. Nearly four weeks of awkward sneaking around him, barely meeting his eyes for anything more personal than things that are strictly duty related. Anything further than that and he’d excused himself as soon as possible. Of course he’d joked around about the boss having discovered some sort of fascinating rock near the Air Force nurses’ hooch with McPherson which was par for the course - anyone can see that their favorite WAC passenger’s got him wrapped around her little finger, and it’s a damn shame it didn’t happen earlier - but they’d both known instantly that Lorne developed some serious issues with talking around him.
And poor little Joe Simmons smack dab in the middle of it. He almost felt sorry for the LT.
But yeah, Lorne’s issues didn’t come out of the blue and he knows very well what the problem here is. Ever since Lorne made the mistake of attacking Little Asshole Baker, his CO knows very well what he did wrong and that he is at fault. Thank God none of the other Sergeants even thought about telling him to be grateful to the Major for meddling in something he has no right to. And thank God for McPherson who’s always been the more patient between the two of them, the older, the wiser.
He pauses in his walk towards Lorne’s office, thinking back about his first days on Lorne’s chopper, the only black guy in a team of four. It would be a lie to say that he was never conscious about that, that it never bothered him but then again, not a lot of black guys overall in Pararescue and he’d been used to the feeling. They’d never let him feel it, not even McPherson with his Arizona twang, being old enough that he began his service in a segregated military.
McPherson… well. McPherson’s got his back, in the mess hall, at the NCO club, everywhere. McPherson and the other Sergeants in the squadron, and they deal with anyone trying to get the better of them on their own. Had it been McPherson who’d threatened Baker, he’d have gladly offered assistance. Had it been McPherson or any of the other NCOs in the squadron, no matter their skin color, shoving Baker into that wall, he’d happily used the opportunity to provide Baker with a few good arguments on why messing with Pararescue people is a very bad idea.
But an officer barging in on NCO matters… that’s just asking for trouble. And that’s why he is so fucking pissed with Lorne. That guy of all people should have known that you keep your damn officer nose out of any NCO business if you know what’s good for everyone involved. Because now he doesn’t only have to watch his back, he also has to watch out for his CO’s back and let me tell you, that’s a damn hard thing to do.
Of course he doesn’t have to, of course he could just stay out of it but despite everything, Lorne is still a decent officer and one of the good, if temporarily stupid, guys. He doesn’t even owe Lorne anything other than thanks for exceptional flying and keeping it together when he saw his brother-in-law slip away right there in front of his eyes - and for never saying anything about it or God forbid, telling him that there’d been nothing he could have done about it because there was and it’s his job and his alone to learn to cope with stuff like that.
He doesn’t owe Lorne shit. And he has a right to be pissed off about Lorne going and doing something so stupid as going off on a fucking Sergeant. If it had been Baker’s little dipshit LT, at least… but no, Lorne had to lose his shit in the exact wrong moment and it was probably a miracle that Sheppard and Cadman came around that bend in the right moment. Seriously, what had the guy been thinking?
Anyway, the boss said 0900 sharp and if he wants to be there 0900 sharp, he needs to get the fuck going again. His old man taught him that he should never be late, back in the Forties even before the Japs went crazy and he’d have his hide if he came too late to a summon from his commanding officer. That is, if he hadn’t broken his father’s heart with enlisting instead of applying for an officer’s position and becoming a pilot, first. Old Man Meyers had wanted to be a Tuskegee Airman so bad in the Forties and they didn’t even let him serve in the Army Air Force in the end.
Jesus, what the fuck is he even doing thinking about his old man? He’s gotta set his boss’s head straight, not get his own twisted around. Straightening himself, he walks up to the shed where the “offices” - more like broom closets, really - of the 38th are housed and knocks on his boss’s door. It takes Lorne only a few seconds to reply “Enter!” which tells him that his presence was expected with eager anticipation. Shit.
He walks in, gives his boss a textbook report, just the way the boss likes it and swiftly executes the order to sit down. He nearly expects Lorne to jump the gun but of course this isn’t how things are done here. There’s a bit of chit chat first and Lorne tells him that his request for re-upping for another year got approved, that his performance evaluation is likely going to be another stellar report… and then drops the bomb, as per usual.
“So, before we finish…” he says, in that typical businesslike voice that means that the boss is nervous about something, shuffling around his papers a little, “is there anything you require assistance with, Sergeant?”
Really, he thinks. That’s how you’re gonna go about this? Seems Cadman hasn’t rubbed off on him as much as they thought. Of course she hasn’t. He shakes his head.“No, sir.”
Lorne does this little clenching his jaw thing he usually does when he’s particularly dissatisfied with something and he’s practically burning to ask the Major what the hell he even expected to hear after that stellar miss a few weeks ago. “Mh, see, I was anticipating this answer.” Good thing he never got to ask the boss what he was expecting. That would have just earned him a busting and he isn’t really sure if it wouldn’t have been deserved. “Which is why I put you in a one hour time slot.” Shit. Shit shit shit. “So… I’ve got a lot of time right now to wait for you to reconsider that answer.”
He should expected Lorne to be prepared. Lorne practically lives the “Be always prepared for anything” credo of every training ever the Air Force has to offer. He just bets that the only thing Lorne didn’t prepare for was falling in love in a combat zone. At least that would explain why it took him so fucking long to make his move on Cadman. Well, anyway, that’s not the issue here, is it? “Sir…”
“Go ahead, don’t be shy, Sergeant.” Shy? Shy? Seriously, sir?
He clears his throat, trying not to let his displeasure show too much. “I’m not sure you understand, sir.”
Again clenching his law and going as far as dropping a few degrees in his tone, Lorne replies, “I’m sure I don’t. Care to enlighten me, Sergeant?”
So the guy’s serious about this. He just wishes he’d be able to still be pissed about him and not appreciate Lorne actually admitting that he needs someone to lay down the law about this to him. He clenches his fists. “Sir… this is an NCO matter.”
Lorne nods, and the worst thing is that he’s pretty sure that the boss really does understand what he just said. “And you think NCOs should solve this on their own?” Actually… he’s starting to get the bad feeling that Lorne knew what this is about long ago and that he’s only here for confirmation, not for an opportunity to get the upper hand of a superior officer. Sometimes, he can be a real idiot.
That doesn’t mean that his ire was unjustified, though. “Yes, sir.”
“How well is that going for you?” Fuck you, Lorne, he thinks. Fuck you and your genuine, stupid, white boy concern. And here he thought Lorne was different from all of them.
The irritation is harder to keep under wraps, the longer this takes and it’s a miracle that he manages to keep his voice even when he says, “Sergeant McPherson and I have the situation very well in hand, sir.”
The Major raises an eyebrow and actually dares to ask, “Would McPherson say the same if I asked him?”
“Absolutely, sir.” Did he really think he’d actually get anyone to rat out their fellow NCOs, white or black?
Damn, of course he didn’t. He can see if in the way Lorne shakes his head at himself and in the irritated tone when he mutters, “Of course he would, why am I even asking?” more to himself than to anyone else. For a field grade, that’s a surprising insight, he has to give him that. “Alright, Will, you’re making it very clear that you don’t want me to press charges against any enlisted man insulting and attacking my Airmen.”
Well. There are many things you can say about Evan Lorne and not all of them are favorable but you certainly can’t say that he isn’t smart. Even though he’s still pissed off at Lorne’s concern about him not being able to handle the little shits of Baker’s circle of cronies, he nods and tries not to sound too smug when he confirms, “That assumption is correct, sir.”
Nodding again, Lorne adds, “For the record, I think this is a very bad idea but if you think you can handle it, knock yourself out.”
He was prepared to go head to head with his boss, full throttle, no holds barred. He wasn’t prepared for his boss to give in so easily, especially after how this conversation started. It throws him out of the loop so hard for a moment that he can only lamely offer, “Thank you, sir, that…”
“Unless there are officers involved.” Right. Of course Lorne couldn’t just let this lie. Of course he had to find that one weak point of the whole “Let us NCOs handle this on our own” logic. Damn Academy grads. “As soon as this gets past NCO ranks, you report immediately to me and let me handle it, no exceptions.”
Damn field grades making actual sense. Damn them all to hell, that’s what he always says. Except that it isn’t, especially not about this field grade, so he keeps himself from sighing and admits, “Fair enough, sir.”
“Good.” Lorne nods again and it’s almost perverse how much satisfaction he draws from being able to see very clearly that the tension still hasn’t left the boss. Guy didn’t really think they’d just kiss and make up and everything would be sunshine and roses again, right? “And Will… if there is anything I can do for you, don’t hesitate to ask. That’s my job as your CO and I hope I just made it clear that I’m serious about it.”
Well, he certainly did make it clear that he expects him to keep him in the loop instead of simply sweeping everything under the rug of “What happens among the NCOs stays among the NCOs”. It’s not fair that he couldn’t simply make it an order and he seriously hopes that Lorne is aware of that. And of how that would piss him off even more if it weren’t such a damn nice thing to do. He nods. “Crystal, sir.” And then, something in the air probably makes him add a stupid but true from his heart, “And, sir… I appreciate it. Just because I don’t always take the offer, it doesn’t mean that I don’t care about it.”
Something in Lorne’s eyes tells him that he knows exactly that this Master Sergeant certainly wasn’t under any obligation of telling him that and it’s good to see that Lorne feels just as embarrassed by that admission as he does, even though people not daily putting their life in the hands of this pilot probably wouldn’t have been able to spot it. It really doesn’t do to undermine the military class system as easily as working together on a MedEvac chopper does. Should have joined the fucking Marines, after all, that’s what he should have done.
It’s ridiculous how grateful he is, then, that Lorne doesn’t dwell on the subject any longer and swiftly fires the flare of, “Now that we got that cleared up… what did your wife say about you re-upping, by the way?”
After that minefield of racism on base and the fine distinctions between NCOs and officers, he’s almost glad that Lorne chose that topic for distraction and even feels safe enough to smirk a little when saying, “That she’s thinking about enlisting herself because she’d rather be in the dirt with me than stateside without me.”
He’s been aware that he’s the only one happily married on their chopper for as soon as they started working together, with Simmons being too young and too prim and proper for having committed himself to any relationship at all, Lorne being probably the only divorcee in the entire Air Force who ever managed to rise to field rank at thirty and Mac… well, just don’t ask him about his married life, if you know what’s good for you. Lorne, of course, is aware of that, too so he doesn’t mind his boss’s smirk too much when he say, “What did you tell her?”
You know… he wishes he could say that he told her to leave that fucking be and fucking stay stateside, what the fuck but he’s been married for almost ten years now and even though Jessi isn’t nearly as outspoken as Cadman or as openly sarcastic as Captain Reece on a really bad day, she’s got an unbelievably smart head on her shoulders and the heart of a lioness in her chest. You just don’t tell that woman to sit and home, twiddling her thumbs and wondering when they would see each other again, if she set that heart on going to the mountain before it comes to her. He rubs his neck. “That she should do it soon if she wants to be here in time for my second tour to start.”
It almost makes Lorne grin when he says, “Brave answer, Sergeant.”
Suddenly feeling safe - and a little less pissed off - enough to revert to that scandalously familiar way of talking to each other Lorne and his NCOs developed after over six months of flying together, he finds himself asking, “What did Lieutenant Cadman say about you re-upping, sir?”
Definitely not a good question, he can see that much in the way Lorne clenches his jaw again and taps his desk with his pen. “That she already handed in her request for another tour.”
Okay. He hadn’t know that which is kind of surprising, seeing as he damn well knows better than anyone - okay, maybe except Sheppard and Lorne’s Academy buddy, that Moore guy - what the hell’s going on in this camp. He raises his eyebrows, now genuinely curious. “What did you tell her about that?”
“Something very stupid.” Right. Of course Lorne would tell his girlfriend what he thought about another year in the dirt for her - nothing good, seeing how fucking protective his boss likes to be in the exactly wrong moment - probably even yelled it at her and damn, even though he’s known Laura Cadman only for a little about six months, he never pegged her as someone to be easily cowed, especially not from the guy she spent six months bickering with.
He knows he shouldn’t but after everything, there’s no way he can’t do it. Not even bothering to hide the mocking undertone from his voice, he sweetly asks, “And how did that go for you, sir?”
To his credit, Lorne doesn’t jump at his throat for insolence, just glowers at him uselessly shuffling around a few papers again. “Let’s not talk about that now. Or ever.”
Well then. It doesn’t, in any way, make up for the idiocy of making him the target of even more racist assholery with one misplaced deed of white chivalry but it does give him a bit of satisfaction to see Lorne browbeaten by his new girlfriend for just another misplaced deed of this time male chivalry and being able to - more or less - admit that it really didn’t go well for him, either. It does tell him that Lorne is a bit less of an idiot as he’d pegged him when this all started and it’s good to know that he wasn’t completely wrong with his initial assessment of Lorne being an agreeable, if slightly stern but definitely smart guy.
Maybe, he thinks, as he takes his leave of his CO and gets invited to one of their pre-idiocy team drinking tours in Saigon, things aren’t as bad as he thought, after all. Maybe he can still hope that he can find it in himself to not forget but at least forgive Lorne for that one stupid act. What other option does he have left, with over a year left in the team of that guy, anyway?
( Forget The Dead You’ve Left (They Will Not Follow You) )
( It’s Way Too Soon (To Be Obsessin’ Like This) )
( America Has Heard The Bugle Call (And You Know It Involves Us One And All) )
( Military Madness (Is Killing Your Country) )