New Year's Resolution

They spent Christmas in Kuwait, back home for New Years. But it wasn't much of a party, a bunch of Rangers with nowhere better to be fired up on whatever booze showed up to the officer's lounge.

The next morning, in the sober light of day, he saw things a little differently than he feels like he did the year before. The blonde he'd went to bed with was gone, but it hadn't taken long for Murdock to show up with some hangover-eggs and a slightly-slutty bloody mary to wash away his indiscretions - and make new ones.

They were closer than ever, and as tight as it felt it was getting easy to see that whatever was happening between them - sometimes a couple times a week, sometimes not for a few weeks, but always an unspoken option - wasn't going to end soon. It was also obvious, as he lay behind his friend, one arm wrapped across his chest and the other tucked up under the pillows and filching gummy bears off the nightstand, that he owed it to Murdock to make the lines clear.

"Mmm, red one - all yours." He murmurs against his ear, guiding the bear to his lips.

Moo (not thread)

 A week after getting back from Mexico, a week after the first time he slept with his best friend, Face was out with a feisty redhead at the county fair. She was the sister of another ranger that he’d worked with a couple times and he’d just happened to catch her leaving base. One thing led to another and before he could turn her around twice they were walking the midway with corn dogs and lattes arm in arm giggling at the carnival barkers trying to lure them into their games.

 

He’s good at the ring toss, decent at the ducks and amazing at darts – but it’s the air rifles that catch his attention. “Hit the bull’s-eye three times in a row and walk away with the cuddly monkey!”

 

“God, I hate that…” the girl rolls her eyes, looking up at him with a dull frown.

 

“You have a beef with monkeys? Everyone loves monkeys.”

 

“No… no, monkeys are great,” she giggles, looping her arm around his waist.

 

He teases the curls of rich coppery hair under his fingers, but his attention is caught by something else completely. Dangling from clip on nooses at the top of the air rifle booth are a head of plump stuffed cattle. Reflexively, a smile curled his lips in memory of the time spent up close and personal in the back of a cattle car on a suicide mission to secure a chopper. In the middle of the sea of black and white splotches a lone brown cow hangs from a neon pink clip.

 

“Guns… everywhere. It’s barbaric.” She sighs, guiding him toward a fortune teller’s tent.

 

Face snorts; “Barbaric? I’m pretty sure your brother disagrees with that…”

 

“My brother’s an idiot.” She looks up at him with sweet hazel eyes; “But you’re not like him, are you Temp?”

 

“No…” he shakes his head, letting out a soft laugh. For one, he’s a much better shot. “Hey, babe… you mind doing this one alone? I’ve, uh… I don’t doo fortune tellers.”

 

“Aww, don’t tell me you’re afraid of a woman from Jersey with a fake accent and wig?”

 

“No, no… just principal, you know?”

 

She rolls her eyes and laughs at him, but as soon as she disappears into the tent he’s at the range picking up the gun loaded with plastic pellets. “One shot for anything on the bottom shelf, two’ll get you your choice of the smaller plush and three nets you the cuddly monkey.”

 

Just two? Well… in that case. He slides a five across the counter and takes aim, easily pinging the first two dead center – then forces the third to glace off the blue ring. “Oops…”

 

“No losers here, buddy! You did better than the last two clowns. What’ll it be? We’ve got your Garfield, Spongebob, kitty cat…”

 

“That one,” he points up at the lone brown cow; “please.”

 

“Oh, no can do! That one’s just for show, but I’ll get you one of her sisters…”

 

“No, it has to be the brown one.”

 

“I’m sure your girlfriend will love…”

 

“She’s not my girlfriend,” he snorts, “I want the brown one and I’m not leaving until I get it.”

 

The barker frowns, then chuckles under his breath. “Tell you what, kiddo – you hit all ten bull’s-eyes and she’s yours.”

 

“Ten?” He feigns concern at the level of difficulty slipping a ten from his wallet – he knows he could probably just get the other one, or none at all, but that one means something. And he knows someone who’ll appreciate it without even knowing it set him back fifteen bucks and probably having to tell a couple well placed lies about where he got it.

 

Laughing, the barker pockets the cash and switches it over. One by one, the targets fall – his smile fading with each ‘ping’.

 

That night, he slips into Murdock’s room while he’s asleep and slips the stuffed creature from where he’d stashed it under his jacket into the crook of his friend’s arm.

 

“Moo.”

The Other Woman

Charissa...

They met the officer's club, where else would he find a woman like her? She was passionate - intense, everything he wanted in a woman. It was easy to forget everything around her, everything about the man he was. She made it easy to turn a deaf ear on Hannibal's warnings about playing dangerous games and to turn a blind eye to the fact that Murdock was pulling away from him.

And it was all gone in an instant, the months together - the plans, the future.

They'd been lying in bed and he teased; "We're going to make such beautiful babies."

She laughed, at first. "How many of those beers have you had?"

"I mean it," and he really did, maybe it was time to settle down... do the family thing. "I'm being serious here."

Apparently she didn't feel the same. At least it sure as hell seemed that way when she walked out and stopped answering his calls and messages.

The second night alone he got a single text reply; "Don't call me again."

Well, that settles that. With a bottle of scotch alone in a dark room.