Work Text:
The four of them stared up— Rusty and Brock with bored derision while the twins ‘oohed’ over the dripping contents— at what had been, just a few minutes ago, an ill-conceived vehicular rage that ended up getting splattered against his newly painted wall. The giant wings on the rear window were, however, new, and Rusty pinched the bridge of his nose as Hank leaned in closer, tongue first (no doubt on a dare from Dean’s horrifically-fascinated goading), to one of the oozing lines of—
“Hank, those are entrails, don’t lick them!” He swiveled around to stare hard at Dean, who was now stifling a giggle. “And don’t think I don’t know you were involved, Mr. Big Man! The two of you can scoot your tuchuses up to your bedrooms and we better not hear a peep out of you until Brock and I are finished up cleaning up this blood.”
“Awww, but pop—” Hank started to whine.
“Listen to your father,” Brock rumbled, grimly sizing up the amount of work to be done. Rusty shot him a grateful look and gave the boys a grand motion to move upstairs.
“Also, your uncle will be here to pick you up to babysit you later tonight; Brock and I have important business to attend to.”
He resolutely ignored Brock’s snort and folded his arms instead, knowing the mention of JJ would bolster the boys’ mood. Sure enough, they both managed to perk up at the mention of their— eccentric would be the politest word Rusty could conjure up for his (younger? twin? parasitic?) brother— uncle, Hank ribbing Dean as Dean immediately started to rattle off that cryptozoology nonsense JJ seemed to specialize in; Rusty, were he honest with himself, found his younger son’s interest in the paranormal rather troublesome, and it took more than one fielding from Brock for him to even consider Dean’s newfound hobby.
“What business? It’s a fucking dinner, Doc.”
Brock narrowed his eyes as Rusty cleared his throat, making motions to find a hose he very well knew that Brock very well knew he had no idea where the hose would be found.
“Yes, yes, of course, but you know how it is with the boys. Easier to call it work, avoid questions, and leave it at that, huh?” A nervous chuckle.
“I’m not gonna entertain Sheila while you pitch another deal to Malcolm, not again, this is one of the only nights they’re in town,” Brock warned, walking pointedly over to the shed housed behind the hanger bay and starting to uncoil (staring directly into Rusty’s eyes as he did so, which honestly stayed disconcerting no matter how many times something like this happened) the hose to the power washer.
“I don’t see why it should be a problem,” Rusty sniffed haughtily as he ran a hand through his (starting to thin, no matter how many anti-aging advancements he had created) hair, “it helps us because it’s a state contract, and it helps his constituents; do you know the unemployment rate of New Jersey since Malcolm’s become governor? It’s low, and let me tell you—” he visibly saw Brock roll his eyes as the other man started to wash away the goo sticking the corpse of the car and its menacingly (Rusty used menacingly with the smallest rain of salt) dressed occupants; the car slid to the ground with a damp ‘thwack’ that Rusty wrinkled his nose at.
“And just what are we going to do with these bodies? The field is up to the brim with corpses, Brock, and you said no— for some reason— to installing an on-site crematorium for… shenanigans just like this. I mean, who even are these guys? This is getting ridiculous!”
“Doc—” Brock began, giving up on whatever he was going to say as Rusty heaved himself dramatically to the side, the full impact of the older man’s body hitting his back nowhere close to making him sway.
“Brock, there is a villainous vigilante that is out to get our family and we’re just power washing off their men’s remains like it’s an everyday occurrence.”
“Twice a month,” Brock corrected and Rusty heaved an even bigger sigh against his back. No sympathy whatsoever (but really, he did not need the bi-monthly property/emotional/physical damage from an obviously unhinged, un-registered super villain).
“One day when the boys and I are dead you’ll regret your blasé attitude, mister, and I will haunt you for the rest of your waking life— you’ll never move on because I’ll always be there. Haunting you.”
“You don’t believe in ghosts,” Brock reminded him and Rusty let out a slightly garbled ‘humph!’; Brock flexed his shoulder as the edge of the scientist’s glasses bit into the skin, which did nothing except make the other more determined to push his face further.
“I’ll scientifically haunt you.” He pushed off and crossed his arms, trying to appear imperious. From Brock’s raised brow it did not achieve anything of the sort. “Now clean this up, I have work to do and I can’t sit around here entertaining you all day.”
“I’m not your servant and I didn’t even want you—”
“Semantics,” Rusty waved away, “I’m heading back to the lab, call me when my brother gets here.”
“I don’t work for you,” came Brock’s reply as Rusty started to walk away; the power washer, still turned on and pointed to the only now slightly stained wall, belied his statement.
“You’re right, freeloader, you have a spying hobby and don’t pay any rent from the body count cash.”
“It’s accomplished mission cash, and I’ll show you what rent is,” Brock retorted, and Rusty barely had time to close the glass door before the power washer hit where he had been a moment ago.
“Brute,” he mouthed as the water streaked down, flipping the bird to the smirking-face he was now able to fully make out.
He studiously ignored the ‘blow me’ gesture from his former bodyguard and current… guy who lived in his house and did basically the same things but now just wasn’t getting paid by the OSI to do so— he didn’t know what to call it. Also studiously ignoring the fact that he knew exactly what to call it. Sticking out his tongue (because he would get the last metaphorical word in, damn it!) he stomped through the corridor to his lab, ignoring the inquisitive beeping of HELPeR.
Sighing over the sight of the stack of paperwork in front of him, Rusty pinched the bridge of his nose as he sat down, flinging his glasses down onto the table so they wouldn’t dig into his head.
“I hate you,” he muttered to the framed photograph of his father and himself (the inspiration for his dad’s front plaza statue, of course) that stood at the corner of his desk— on the complete other side than his own family’s photos, which he always had to remind himself to turn to after his… he wouldn’t quite call it a vision board, but it was certainly the closest to the feeling he got as soon as his mission in life became clear: be absolutely, 100% better than his father.
And he was. Everything he had done, he had done better, faster, and stronger than his father before him. He had even done things his father would never be capable of, never even would have found himself dreaming of (he had a four-time Tony award winning musical, for Christ’s sake!).
Being better didn’t help. Because yeah, sure, he acknowledged his entire childhood had been one abusive episode after another (and wasn’t the base of that entire show just an entirely different layer of PTSD that had taken more years and more therapists to overcome than he’d liked to admit) but that didn’t make it suddenly not happen. And yeah, sure, he had forgiven his father for his transgressions, blah blah blah, but he still hated the man, still saw his face in the back of his mind every time he invented something new, or made another multi-million dollar deal, but mostly when one of the boys smiled up at him, proud and loving him like he loved them, after something they had done at school/with Brock/at the behest of his brother, and sneered with barely-concealed malicious pride at being everything his father was not.
Not the best way to begin a career in parenting, but with Myra having gone off the reservation and him having the choice of taking his children, or giving them up in fear of what he could become as a father, his father’s face in the back of his mind was all it took for him to be spending every night holding a bundle of crying baby on each side, with HELPeR flipping the pages of the barrage of parenting books that had been delivered to his doorstep in the weeks after the boys’ arrival.
Brock had been a godsend. Well, an OSI ‘your brain is too valuable for it to be killed due to lack of proper supervision’ send, but godsend had both a better ring to it and more accurately encompassed what their bodyguard had become in the ensuring years.
“I’m saying this,” he continued to the picture, “because you will hear me cursing out this paperwork like a cheap whore on a dimly-lit street corner who didn’t get any action that night due to her visible herpes; I just want you to know, I still hate you most.”
With that said and done, he acquired his glasses once more (harder to find than he would like to admit— and he knew that he should listen to Brock and put them in his pocket, but honestly, the theatricality was worth the sometimes broken and/or lost sets of spectacles) and picked up a pen, hovering it over the topmost stack of stapled R&D statements.
“JJ took the boys.”
Rusty blinked up from the steadily diminishing pile of work in front of him to Brock’s long shadow hovering in his lab’s doorframe.
“I needed to talk to him,” he complained, dropping the pen in order to massage his hand (now that his groove had been interrupted, he noticed the cramping).
“He says it’ll be late to spec— there was something in Andorra involving the Inquisition and disputed burial grounds, I dunno, Hank and Dean were real into it but whatever, he won’t be ready with them until next week.”
“Because the board gives so much leniency to scatter-brained scientists who have better things to do than help invent a potentially life-saving medical device, sure, that makes sense,” Rusty griped, ignoring Brock’s movements until his hands rested, heavy, against his shoulders— he collapsed a little in on himself, and he would more likely admit it was due to the weight of Brock’s hands than anything regarding any emotional distress on his part.
“I managed to keep my deadlines through raising twins, fending off the Guild for potential arches, and directing a hit musical.”
“Yeah,” Brock agreed easily, and the chair creaked as he leaned a little of his weight onto it in order to dig his thumbs in the base of Rusty’s neck, “but he’s still, I dunno, learning himself? I guess. Discovering the world. He’s only three years old.”
“He was partially conscious and came out of my body as a full-grown—” he paused, “— well, mentally full-grown man. Discover the world? Please, he went around the world with me my entire life. He’s just using that as an excuse, trust you me, I’ve seen it before— hooligans who think they can get away with doing the bare minimum because they’re backed by family money. No siree Bob, not in my house— we earn what we make.”
“Mmhmm,” Brock placated, and Rusty knew it was placating; that didn’t make it any less gratifying to hear agreement, “you can talk to him in the morning when he drops off the boys.”
“I will,” Rusty promised, leaning his head back until it hit Brock’s rock hard (and honestly, Brock was forty-four and that was just unfair) abdomen, “don’t think I won’t. Just because he’s family…”
He let his statement linger for a modicum of threat.
“What time’s it?”
“4.30.”
“JJ came early.”
“Rocket took an early nap.” Brock shook Rusty’s shoulders lightly. “Get up, it’s Saturday, you’re gonna shoot.”
“Oh, so just trading one type of work for another? I see how it is— you say ‘it’s Saturday!’ like that means something good is coming, and then you finish it up with more chores; I’m onto your game, Brock Samson, don’t think I’m not.”
Rusty took Brock manhandling him out of his chair with more grace than even he expected from himself, but refused to pry his arms from around Brock’s neck in a form of retribution that even he knew would not do anything due to the sheer deadweight Brock could carry with ease (so, as with a great many of things, the joke was on him). The younger man simply shifted his hold to one more comfortable for the pair of them, and it finally seemed as though (after the almost twenty years Brock had been with him— both under employ and of his own volition) his tricks could no longer faze him.
“You need to do it or I’m going to teach you hand-to-hand,” Brock admonished, prying Rusty’s grip from his body and unceremoniously dropping him to the ground as they entered the range. Rusty massaged his tail bone as he hauled himself up, glowering at Brock— who, and Rusty felt a flash of annoyance run up his spine, didn’t even deign to acknowledge him.
“Need to shoot a gun,” Rusty grumbled, eyeing the small pistol gleaming on the ledge of the fence separating the room in two and swallowing around his own bile as he recalled every time in his past that he had ever used a gun. “You don’t even use a gun!”
“Because I don’t need to. You—” he eyed Rusty up an down and shrugged (Rusty tried not to feel found lacking) “need distance on your side.”
“Fine,” Rusty bit out (and any other day than today, he might have refused Brock’s forceful request once more— like he had been doing for years).
He stalked to the fence, picked up the gun, checked it for working order, and unloaded the clip into the paper target on the other side of the room.
“There,” he ground out, slapping the button for the target to come to them, “I shot a gun. Happy?”
Ignoring Brock silently counting the bullet holes in the target, he unloaded the clip and stripped rest of the gun down.
“Did you really think, considering who I grew up with, I have never fired a gun before? I killed a man when I was thirteen, Brock, to get away from a kidnapping. I know how to shoot.”
Brock, for his part looking uncomfortable at the sudden wooden factuality of Rusty’s tone— if he were in another mood, Rusty would shave laughed at the usually confident man— hovered over him, ineffectual yet oddly endearing.
“I know you did. I just didn’t think—”
“I took a lot of liberties for an employer, but I didn’t tell you everything about my life.”
“Yeah, I gathered.” The twist in Brock’s mouth made Rusty want to break out in a situationally inappropriate grin. He almost cooed at the undertone of (maybe unknown to even Brock, considering the blank look) heavily guarded jealousy.
“I know you probably haven’t counted the number of men that you’ve killed, but—”
“7,382,” Brock replied instantly.
“139. Directly, I mean— not counting,” he waved a hand around to encompass the entire compound and the company he ran, “you know, all the collateral.
“I just— I’m not cut out for the actual kill.”
The ‘unlike you’ was left unsaid, and Rusty narrowed his eyes at the minute flinch of Brock’s jaw.
“That’s not a bad thing,” he hastened to explain himself, flustered at the thought that Brock might think him judging for some ungodly reason, “I just— I was young and it was traumatic.
“Not that—” he continued, flashing in suddenly in on how, exactly he lost his former college roommate, “— your experience wasn’t traumatic, I just meant—”
“I know, Rust,” Brock interrupted, and Rusty’s jaw clicked audibly shut at his name coming from the other’s mouth. “I get what you meant.”
It didn’t quite feel right, however, and despite his own inadequacies screaming at him to show no moral doubt, he found himself apologizing. His breath let out in a huff (he didn’t know he had been holding it) when Brock’s arm reached out to pull him in closer by the nape of his neck; the hand was warm and solid and Rusty couldn’t help but arch slightly into it, the inches between them seeming more fraught with a now undeniable (it was so much easier to deny it when he could remind himself that Brock was an employee—family, a man whom he knew loved the boys just as much as Rusty did, but an employee nonetheless) tension than there ever had been before.
“I’m also, you know, sorry.” Brock’s voice rumbled lowly. “If I had known that your shooting was… well, shit, Doc, it was pretty dead accurate. But even if it weren’t— if I had known that shooting—”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine; you have to ignore me, I’m an emotional wreck— you know that.”
His smile was more grim than intended and suddenly, he didn’t know which of them pulled closer, but suddenly they were in a loose embrace and Rusty knew that this was uncomfortable for the both of them— too few moments of loose affection from anyone but the boys did not bode well for the sort of emotional intimacy this moment obviously called for— he knew that Brock felt as awkward as he, unknowing of where to put any one limb, let alone the rest of his body. Brock’s other arm wrapped around his lower back and suddenly, all at once, Rusty’s thoughts went eerie still.
“Rusty.”
“Yes, Brock?” And wasn’t that just way more breathy than he ever wanted to know his voice was capable of.
“You could do with some work on your shooting stance.”
A stab of disappointment ran him through his already scarred kidney-area (the flag in his PTSD-fueled nightmares now reading ‘you wish’ in bold contrast to the bloodstain that spread from his open wound) and he made sure to let out a breeze of light laughter as he separated himself from Brock entirely, making sure to even put the extra couple of inches between them once more— no need for his own irrationality to get the best of him again, not at this precarious juncture, and especially not with Brock.
He would take any day with the other man in his life (he understood what it meant not to have Brock in his life— the boys understood what it meant, and no one the OSI assigned in absentia could ever be what Brock was) than to scare the man away from the compound— again? Again.
“Doc, I didn’t mean—”
And Rusty really could not handle the pity he was sure that would be coming from the younger man in, he was sure, the realization of what exactly Rusty had been harboring all of these years with Brock under his employment.
“So, I’ll just get ready for dinner, huh? It’s about that time…”
He trailed off in a fit of sudden nerves, the slight tremor in his fingers taken care of with nary more than clenching his fists tightly to his sides.
“I’ll meet you at the hanger in an hour and a half?” It was ostensibly a question, but he turned away— why tarry when hygiene awaited him? He was fully responsible adult man, after all, he cared about that sort of thing, and it was urgent if he didn’t want to keep Malcolm and Sheila waiting— in lieu of waiting for an answer.
“Doc—”
“No dress code, we’re going to some hole in the wall— I don’t want you to have to go out of your way; after all, I’m going to be discussing business with Malcolm.”
And finally, most likely at the tinge of desperation coloring Rusty’s expression, Brock let him leave the room with the tatters of his dignity wrapped, gossamer and brittle, around him.
“What do you do when you realize the one thing you’ve wanted more than anything is unattainable to you? When your every waking moment is spent with trying to hide what will inevitably become known?”
There was a pause on the other end of the line.
“Hi, this is Gary— let me get th—” he stuttered and Rusty wondered where this intern came from, “—Malcolm on the line.”
“Hey, wait,” he started, wondering what in God’s name had an intern answering his friend’s private cell.
“Who was that?” he demanded as Malcolm’s nasal ‘hello?’ came on the line.
“That was Gary.”
“Who’s Gary?”
“He’s my—” a pause and Rusty narrowed his eyes, “— my friend.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But enough about me, why did you call? You going to cancel? You can’t do that, Rust, it’s been months and the Missus and I are only in town for the next couple of days. I absolutely forbid you to cancel on these reservations, Thaddeus Venture.”
“I’m not, Jesus, what bee’s in your bonnet? I just— you know what? It doesn’t even matter anymore…”
Malcolm was quiet on the other end for a moment.
“Gary said you didn’t sound too good.”
“I just—” he cleared his throat, not knowing why it was always easier to talk to his friend on the phone than in person— probably so he didn’t have to encounter any expression other than what he managed to glean from the contorting of his own face, “— it’s good that Brock loved the boys enough to come back, isn’t it? Like, no matter what else.”
“I mean, considering he was basically a second parent to those kids, yeah, probably,” and despite knowing that would be the answer, Rusty still felt a tightness constrict his ribs to his lungs, “but that doesn’t mean something, you know, can’t happen.”
He let out a bark of a laugh, noticing his glasses had already been thrown in a fit of pique when the ringer had sounded more than the one time only when he pinched the bridge of his nose once more.
“What if I just realized nothing will ever happen and I have to face that face everyday for the rest of my life, trying to hide it and knowing that he probably already knows and pities me?”
“That’s— are you sure that’s what happened?”
“Pretty fucking sure,” Rusty replied, a little more shrill than he would have liked, but exuding his point nevertheless.
“That doesn’t seem right.”
“Right? He came back, and I thought— well, I don’t know what I thought but I obviously was wrong in it all.”
He scoffed.
“Just like my life.”
“Hey, don’t be like that— there’s plenty of good things about your life…”
“Did you know that he’s the only person, and I’ve realized this, like, looking back on my life and regrets and everything— he’s the only person I’ve ever, like, loved?”
Another pause.
“That’s—”
“Pathetic? Asinine? Willfully tragic? Believe you me, I’ve said it all about myself and more.”
“… You should tell him.”
“Puh-leez. Malcolm, this isn’t some love story like you and Sheila, okay? We— well we raised two kids together and if nothing— well, there was what I would consider to be a prefect chance, and— it obviously just isn’t in the cards for us… me.”
There was a sigh and a rustling, as though Malcolm were leaning himself against a wall or counter.
“Listen, Rusty, can I be blunt?”
“… Yes?”
“You’re wrong and you need to say something— Samson won’t, so you need to pull up your big boy pants for once in your life and do something about a situation you can actually partly control. If you don’t, you’re an asshole. Well, I mean, you’re always an asshole, but this will make you even bigger of one.”
“Ummmm?!”
“We will reschedule dinner until eight PM— get your shit together, Rusty, or face the wrath of the M— MY wrath! Face the wrath of myself!”
With that the phone line went dead, and Rusty stared at the dial-tone emitting receiver still loosely grasped in his hand.
“Fucking crazy-pants of a best friend,” he muttered, finally hanging up after another solid ten seconds of letting the dial-tone drone on in the background.
“Do you think Hank deserves a cat?”
It took Rusty a solid half an hour to come up with a neutral enough opening statement, deciding in the last ten or so minutes what actions he would partake in to make his entrance all the more natural. In the end he decided to go with the old-fashioned, look at the phone as thought just receiving a text (a text that he had ignored from three months ago), routine.
“Why?”
“He’s just texted me about his sudden want of a cat, Brock. I think my eldest son deserves one, but I wanted to clear it through you as well.”
Brock cleared his throat and Rusty looked up breezily, faltering at the vaguely amused expression on the other’s face.
“What?”
“Just that,” a half grin that Rusty absolutely did not find endearing in any manner except for just the friendliest of them, “Hank texted me about that, like, three months ago and then complained that you just ignored the one he sent to you.”
Rusty’s plan deflated as quickly as his teenaged nightly erections due to his father (or the Action Man, or Colonel Gentlemen, or a plethora of other heroes— or even villains— that had free roam of the house, the grounds, the family) barging in at inopportune times. Clearing his throat briskly, his eyes darted around for inspiration of some sort. Finding nothing, he improvised.
“Yes, I’ve been thinking very hard about it for the last three months, and I feel as though he finally deserves it. He just— needed to grow up a little bit.”
“Doc, I don’t think Hank wants a cat anymore.”
Brock looked away when Rusty trained a glare on him— and that, really, was the breaking point. Brock knew, it was known, and what would actually saying it do worse than what has been king on unsaid? At least that way he could— explain? Defend? Throw himself upon Brock’s feet for a modicum of mercy? Whatever he did it didn’t really matter at this point; nothing much else could go wrong.
“Brock.”
“Yeah, Rust?”
“I—” he swallowed harshly in order to get some spit in his mouth to continue on, ignoring Brock who he would not pretend (even if for one glorious moment) was inching his way closer to him, “— well…
“Malcolm had to reschedule until eight.”
“… Oh.”
He refused to look up from Brock’s chin to his eyes, he refused to hear what he believed to be a hint of disappointment in his former bodyguard’s monosyllabic response, he refused to unclench his body from the tension that it had been in for the last few hours, he refused, refused, refused.
“Yeah, so… You don’t have to get anything ready yet— if you don’t want to.”
And this would be fine, it would, he could live with being nothing more than a coward. Really. He could.
Brock turned away, ostensibly to return to checking the engines of the jet, and Rusty’s chest constricted a little as Brock’s turn exposed the flush that had gathered at his (still odd to see without the accustomed mane out of the way) hairline. The haircut showed his blush line, astoundingly, and Rusty was a little boggled at the obvious tell.
“What I meant to say was—” and this time it was confident, louder than he intended but as resolute as he suddenly needed himself to be, “— that I love you; in love— with you, I mean. That’s what I meant to say. That’s what I always, you know, meant to say.”
Rusty nodded to himself, eyes still locked onto the reddened hairline that— all at once and faster than Rusty anticipated or wanted— turned into chin, into neck, into chest, into two inches away once more and Rusty had to look up if he didn’t want (was better for him, his psyche, his… whatever) them to touch. The center of Brock’s nose was where he settled on; it seemed good, a safe place to look.
“Doc…”
“Anyways, what’s all I wanted to—” his voice gave out for a moment and in his mental disconnect from his body he wondered, calmly, floating, how it took so long, “— and you don’t have to— don’t say anything.” He felt as though he didn’t have to tack on the ‘please’ that hung, suddenly desperate, from his lips.
“It took me awhile,” both Brock’s statement and the hand holding onto the nape of his neck held him back from turning away, “you know, to realize. And— me too.”
“What?”
“Aw, Doc, you’re not gonna make me say it…”
“Considering,” Rusty began, bristling at the implication that he was just supposed to know somehow what Brock was thinking, “you haven’t said anything, I will most certainly make you say it. I mean, what am I, some sort of charlatan psychic pretending to know your every thought? It’s called brainwashing, and it’s not worth the paper it’s written on. The psychics, I mean, not the brainwashi—”
He was interrupted with a kiss. Idly, in some distant part of his mind (the rest of it in a loop of ‘what is happening?’) he tried to recall the last time he had been interrupted with a kiss and enjoyed it. The answer was, with most things, poked through with a Bock shaped hole that let the other get away with what would otherwise be considered unconscionable.
After too brief a moment, his mind still not having caught up to where this scene seemed to be going, Brock’s mouth parted from his own and a strangled sound escaped from the back of his throat before he surged up on the balls of his feet, fisting the back of Brock’s collar into his tightening grip for leverage, to smack (clumsy and awkward because almost two decades of knowing each other could still not prepare them for this moment) his lips against the other’s for a second, sloppy, kiss.
Brock was warm, and as his former bodyguard, current—everything really—lover?, pulled Rusty into the final step between him, his breath caught. A flick of Brock’s tongue, Rusty’s sharp exhale, and he found his other hand holding onto Brock’s chin to keep him close, like his grip could do anything to hold him in place (and Brock was keeping still, letting Rusty hold him that way, and all of a sudden he didn’t want to think about what that meant— too much, too far in too short a time.)
“Brock?” he asked, the few beats in between the end of their kiss and his statement devoted to trying to glean something out of the other’s expression. And Rusty knew it was desperate, but he couldn’t stop himself from asking; a dull red graced his cheeks, he knew, but— he was tired and all he wanted was a straight answer.
“You too…” And this time Rusty was able to see his throat moving in a harsh swallow, “I love you too.”
“Well, okay then—”
They stayed silent for a moment.
“Like that was so hard,” he finally complained, faking a punch to Brock’s bicep, “you big sap.”
“Oh,” Brock replied, grip tightening on Rusty’s neck that— and really, how was it okay that he found it seductive? That was most likely not a normal thing to be turned on by and here he was and he would bet everything in his wallet that he had nothing but his fucked up childhood and involuntary adolescent erotic imaginings in said fucked up childhood to blame for this sexual reaction, “because I seem to recall you basically needing to spit it out.”
“Yeah, but,” and was it just him or was he sounding a little breathless, Brock a little husky?, “I said it first, so I win.”
“So what do you want for your prize?”
“Well,” he started, going a little cross-eyed as Brock simultaneously leaned down and hauled him up a couple of inches off the ground, “I’m sure I can think of a few things…”
“It is 8.45!”
“I know, honey.”
“Rusty was supposed to be here at eight.”
The Monarch, (alias Malcolm Potenate, governor of New Jersey, alias the Monarch, arch villain, vig.) seemed to come to the end of his tirade, his decibel going down from foghorn to megaphone— it was, were Sheila honest with herself— a marked improvement.
“I know, honey. Do you know what happened? He called you, right? And Gary—” she darted her eyes to the other man who nodded, “said that you two talked for a bit.”
“Yes, he was having—” a pause, “relationship troubles.”
“And did you help him out?” Sometimes he needed a heavy poke, but he always seemed to get her the information she needed.
“Two of my henchmen crashed their car into his wall earlier today.”
“Honey, did you help Dr. Venture with his boy troubles?”
Malcolm sighed, sprawling into his seat with his usual casual arrogance. “Yes, dear.”
“Who’s he having troubles with?” Gary asked, and Sheila could almost see the defensive ‘what?’ that was crawling up his throat at hers and Malcolm’s subsequent expressions.
“With Samson, of course,” he practically seethed and Sheila barely refrained from rolling her eyes at her husband’s theatrics. She supped, of course, Brock would have to go through much the same now— not that he had not dealt with it before, but it was an entirely different ballpark when you were… intimately involved with the crazy you seemed to fall for.
“Samson? Brock Samson?” Gary’s eyes bugged out and Sheila restrained herself from cooing— Malcolm had no such qualms in his reaction at finding the expression absolutely darling.
“You mean the man who’s been living with him for the past two decades and raised two kids with him?” she replied, tone drier than her vagina when listening to one of Malcolm’s stump speeches in another big haired, backwards, too tanned county on the shore.
“I never—” he seemed to think about it and Sheila patted his hand, no matter how condescending it might have seemed he was just too precious for her not too— she and Malcolm would fuck that innocence right out of him, and as he eyes flicked to her husband’s, his face seemed to agree, “I suppose that makes sense.”
“I’ll text Rusty and reschedule for tomorrow,” Sheila replied, signaling for the check as Gary and Malcolm both turned to look at her— she suddenly had the urgent need to get back to their hotel, out of the public sphere and into more… private quarters. When in Colorado, she supposed, do as what (undoubtedly) their unarrived dinner guests do.
“Yes,” Malcom agreed quickly, seeming to come to the same conclusion at almost exactly the same moment— she really did love being married— “since Dr. Venture is most assuredly tied up for the rest of the evening.”
“I really hope you don’t mean literally,” Gary replied, and Malcolm threw an arm around his shoulders as they stood up, waiting for her as she paid.
“Trust me when I say that you don’t want to know all the things I know about Rusty Venture. It could fill a book and all of it’s… weird.”
“Okay, but why don’t you use it when you’re arching him?”
“Okay, but where would the fun be in that? He would, like, totally know it was me, and then where would we be, Gary? Huh? Nowhere, that’s where. Sitting on the side of the road, a tortoise trying to get off of its back, watching a family leaving on their jalopy to go west, go west, but the west is never as good as it was promised to them.”
“Okay, high school English teacher, thanks for the symbolism.”
“Awww, shit, did you get that reference?”
“Dude, you might have kidnapped me in eighth grade, but I got my GED…”
Their voice faded as the two of them exited the restaurant before her, and she hid a smile against their antics.
“Honey, stop lagging, if anything I like to see you from behind!”
“Yeah, Doct— Sheila, you’re missing me totally verbally kicking Malcolm’s ass.”
“He is not, he’s a liar and will be punished for his transgressions.”
“Oh yeah,” Gary mocked, “I’d like to see you try.”
“Try, my ass.”
“Well, I mean, if it’s an offer…”
“Hey, Dean-o, you find pops?”
Dean stumbled into the room, pale, and Hank quit his vPhone game to focus (most of) his attention on his brother.
“What’s up? You look like you did the time after you saw uncle JJ and our new aunt Sally doing it a few months ago.”
Dean whimpered and Hank narrows his eyes at the black-clad teen curled up in a ball on the couch in front of him. This called for direct action. Hank style.
“Sooooooo, who’d you see doing it?”
“No one was… doing it— I just saw—”
“Gooooood morning, boys!” their father called out, raking a hand through his hair as he yawned. “How was your uncle’s house?”
“Fine,” Hank replied, putting the password into his phone once more, the quiet serenading of the candy beckoning him to play one more game, “our new aunt Sally’s pregnant again.”
“How was your important meeting, daddy?” Dean asked, and Hank paused in his browsing (because the clashing of the clans was also calling to him and he couldn’t decide between the two) of his game folder to glance quizzically up at Dean— it seemed like his little bro was prying, playing detective. Private Dick, as it were.
“You got me, Dean, it was only dinner with Potenate’s, I lied to you both; I’m sorry.” Hank ignored the apology, as it was faker than Brock’s boss’— the scary woman with the cigarette and the angry growl— boobs.
“Oh. Then how was—”
“Morning, boys, how was your uncle’s?” Brock came in.
“It was fine.” Dean that time, and annoyed.
Hank sighed and paused his game, casting a longing glance at the three moves he knew, he knew would grant him the win, knowing that with Dean’s voice that high that this was going to become an issue.
“Daddy, I went to find you this morning— you’re usually up when we get back from uncle JJ’s— and I saw, I saw—”
Interestingly, both their father and Brock seemed to pale, and Hank had to wonder what crazy awesome thing Dean had seen them doing.
“How long have you been keeping this a secret?”
“Drama queen,” Hank muttered, deciding that no familial issue was currently worth losing his place in his game for. He only had, like, ten levels left until his character was available for upgrade and he really wanted the new, sweet ‘stume that came with it.