120_minuten | Hurt/Comfort - Narben

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Team: Dickinson
Autor: nessaniel
Titel: What doesn’t pass
Challenge: Hurt/Comfort – Narben – für mich
Fandom: The Expendables 2
Charaktere/Pairing: the whole team, but mostly Ross, Billy and Yin Yang
Disclaimer: Mir gehört gar nichts. Ich stell ja eh nur Blödsinn damit an, wie man sieht.
Warnings: Story is in English
Kommentar: für

sarkasmuz, weil sie die tollsten Icons und spaßigsten Theorien herstellt. Und für

der_jemand, weil sie die Schwedenpekingente mag. Vielen, vielen Dank an

chija für den tollen Titel (dem ich nicht gerecht werden konnte. Meh. (Das ist überhaupt nicht so geworden, wie ich es wollte. Aber hoffentlich gefällt es trotzdem. >.<)

Fortsetzung zu Early Bird

What doesn’t pass

“... and that’s when he fell into the river.”

The men looked at Ross as if he had sprouted a second head and for a split second Billy thought he would be spared.
But then all seven of them started to howl with laughter, even Ross who had told the story.
Hale, the one of Native American descend, threw his head back so hard that Billy feared the bench would get a dent; all the while Tool slapped his own thighs, taking huge breaths between his barking laughs. Even Christmas smiled around the cigarette in his mouth.
Gunnar, the huge blonde guy from Sweden, hammered his fists on the table, laughing until tears streamed from his eyes, continuing long after the others had stopped which nobody thought strange.

Billy tried to smile although his face must have been dark red, burning from embarrassment. He hadn’t been this nervous since that one time in elementary school when he was supposed to give a presentation and right the day before he had gotten his braces.

Billy shook his head. No need to make himself sicker than he already was.

Ross had taken him to meet all of them in this shady bar mostly occupied by bikers and truckers somewhere down by the river. “Better to introduce you before we get down to explaining the details of that job in Iceland”, he had said and Billy had agreed wholeheartedly, wanting to leave a better impression than when he had met Christmas yesterday morning.
It wasn’t as if he couldn’t take a joke made on his expense; there had been two or three times in his life when he would willingly expose himself to general mockery.

But right now, he feared that instead of getting the guys to accept him they would think him an incompetent fool who was entirely worthless for their team.

Billy swallowed, forcing a bright grin onto his face.
“With all due respect, Sir”, he said, raising his voice to be heard over Gunnar’s still ongoing laughing fit. “It wasn’t so much a fall as a calculated jump into the water.”

That got him all the attention, even Gunnar grew silent and looked at him with a surprised half-grin that was either meant in a menacing way or just his usual expression.

Ross had also turned to look at Billy, his furrowed face as unreadable as ever, and he was eyeing him in such a way that sparked a white hot feeling in Billy’s stomach.

I am dead, Billy thought. That was too much.

He shot a quick glance over to Christmas who scrutinized him over his cigarette. Billy knew that Christmas was probably still sour because of what had happened yesterday but he tried his best not to flinch and shy away from him. He wouldn’t have become an instructor if he couldn’t stand his ground and prove himself.

He wasn’t afraid of them – although he had reason to, he believed. He was pretty sure that he had seen two of the men before, on wanted posters back in the office in Iraq, charged with crimes almost impossible to describe (and impossible to believe).
Facing all six of them at once made him question pretty much all of his skills and it wouldn’t do to get on somebody’s bad side, especially not Christmas’.

After some moment of agonizing silence, it was Yang, the silent, ever steady guy who finally broke it.

“You are from the army” he said slowly and with a heavy Chinese accent. “I know that army people often sell their mishaps as advantages.”

For a moment, Billy didn’t know how to answer that. He remembered ‘mishaps’ his comrades and brothers had had and no matter how bloody or devastating the results were, the commanding officer more often than not decided to describe their fights as “honorable defenses of morale and value”.

Billy forced himself to grin although he felt more like screaming. “If it benefits the cause” he answered through gritted teeth.

Yang furrowed his brow at that, shaking his head and retreating once again into silence.

This surely was the most awkward job interview Billy’s ever had.

He tried to think of something to lighten the mood because all the guys were still staring at him but he couldn’t for the life of him come up with anything.

All of a sudden, Gunnar broke into another laugh. “He talks funny”, he said cheerfully (bordering on maniac) smacking Billy on the shoulder. “I like that.”

“Yeah, mostly because you are batshit insane”, Christmas said, chugging down his beer and giving Billy another death glare – until he raised his now empty glass to Ross.

“Buy me a drink, soldier? Over there at the bar?”

Ross snorted but he got up, his chair screeching on the floor. “Desperate times for ya, darling?”

“Shut your face.”

As soon as Ross and Christmas had occupied a spot on the bar, Billy thought that this had ended quite anticlimactically and he was still convinced that he should have delivered a snarky one-liner to impress Ross and the others. But, dear God, those were hard to come up with it.

“Don’t worry, kid”, Hale suddenly said. “Gunnar says he likes you and Gunnar can smell crazy on anyone. You are in. You were in the moment Ross walked into this bar with you.”

“Thanks. But... are you sure?”, Billy asked, oddly flattered though his worries only grew when he saw Christmas and Ross almost clawing at each other’s jackets, talking heatedly (about him presumably).

“Oh, don’t worry about Christmas. He’s just jealous.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that?”

“Well you see, before you came around, both Ross and Christmas were quite...”

Without warning, Gunnar slammed down his fist onto the table, making men and bottles jump two feet in the air.

“Jesus motherfucking Christ, Gunnar!” Hale shouted, hand already in his vest, probably ready to pull out a gun or a knife, but

Gunnar just stared at Billy.
“I cannot smell crazy”, he said slowly. “But I can tell traitors. And fear.”

“I’m not afraid”, Billy immediately answered, wondering whether that would become his catchphrase.

Gunnar only smiled. “And not a traitor. Also not a minority which is stupid. I wanted to make fun of the new guy. Yang’s getting boring.”

For a moment, Billy contemplated to answer that with the only thing that came to his mind (“Uh...what?”) but when he saw Yang’s skeptical look he reconsidered and went for a simple:

“Thanks, Gunnar.”

Gunnar smiled, leaning back with a proud nod.
“Told you, I’d win him over” he said to Yang, grinning smugly.

“Yeah, sure.”

At this exact moment, Ross and Christmas returned from the bar, saving Billy from further thinking about what kind of weird initiation ritual Gunnar had just put him through.

“Kid’s coming with us”, Ross declared while Christmas groaned loudly. “And we are all so very glad ‘bout that, right, Father Christmas.”

The men around the table nodded and Hale even patted Billy on the back but for him it sounded like an entire football stadium cheering for him.

“Thank you, Sir”, he said with the first honest grin of this evening. Not even Christmas’ constant violent threats could ruin that for him.

“I’m going to kick you right between the eyes, Ross, when the Children’s Matinee is over”, he mumbled, clutching his beer and pointedly not looking at Billy.

Ross laughed. “He loves ya, Kiddo. Anyway. Go and get some fresh air, will ya. Old men wanna talk.”

Immediately Billy stood up. “Yes, Sir!”

Ross’ whole face lit up for a moment in a surprised, almost soft smile, so Billy guessed that his enthusiasm was clearly over the top but he couldn’t help himself. Fuck yeah, the team wanted him, he would jump into ten rivers if necessary!
As he walked away from their table, reminding himself not to jump up and down like an overexcited puppy, he heard Hale saying:
“He is actually calling you sir? God damn, Ross, you have the weirdest fetishes....”

It took them longer than Billy had expected but he didn’t want to go inside again, so he kept leaning against Ross’ motorcycle, staring into the sky and watching his breath come out in puffs due to the freezing temperatures.
He contemplated leaving before he remembered that Ross still had the keys for the warehouse where the plane was currently standing.
Damn, Billy really needed a flat of his own though searching for one wasn’t really an option right now – he hadn’t been chased by harmless rabbits before he fell into the river after all. Better to stay off the radar for a while and Ross didn’t seem to mind sharing the plane with him.
Billy smiled, ignoring the giddy feeling building up in his stomach. He was actually looking forward to spending another night on the tiny stretcher wrapped in all his sweaters and an emergency blanket, listening to Ross’ breathing...

“You smile very often”, Yang suddenly said, startling Billy so he almost fell off the motorcycle.
He caught himself in time, turning so he could look at the man who was patting one of the other bikes’ handlebars.

“Uh, I guess?”, Billy said, not sure how he was supposed to react. He put on a polite smile, checking over Yang’s shoulder whether Ross and the others had left the bar too.

“They are still debating”, Yang murmured as if he’d read Billy’s thoughts.

“Oh. Right.”

An awkward silence grew between them; Billy didn’t know what to say as Yang kept looking at him with that calm, unreadable expression.

He was about to drift back into his fantasy conversations with Ross (witty retorts and all that) when Yang suddenly opened his jacket and started to take off his shirt.

Billy just stared at him like a cow. “Uh, Yang...?”

“I want to show you something” he said, completely unfazed as he threw his clothes on the ground.

“What exactly....oh.”

He didn’t see it at first. Yang turned so the light from the lamp above the bar door fell on him and there it was: a huge scar running over his upper body from his arm to his shoulder and down his side in a jagged zigzag line.

It looked grotesque as if it was something artificially created in a Hollywood horror movie.

Burn scar, Billy concluded, possibly electrocution, possibly torture.

He was shocked to say it mildly. Of course he had seen scars before but the way Yang stood in front of him, exposed like this in the middle of snow and ice shook him to the core.

“Why...why are you showing me this?” he stammered.

“This is what happens, when you make a mishap”, Yang explained. “A tiny one at the time, but the result... not so much. I want you to understand that. There are no causes. No benefits. Just pain. Endless pain. Do you get that?”

“I do.” Billy swallowed. “I get that you don’t trust me, you don’t have to, it’s fine. But I’d never do something to endanger the team. No mishaps.”

Yang just rolled his eyes which wasn’t the reaction Billy had hoped for. It irritated him. “You are young and stupid, xīnshǒu!* Saying things and doing them are not the same.”

“I will stand by my promise”, Billy answered harshly. He was becoming angrier by the minute because he knew a lost cause when he saw one.”What do you want me to say?” There was no use in talking anymore, he thought. He wouldn’t be able to convince him no matter what.

Yang sighed, looking quickly at the bar’s door. “I want you to say that... you will look out for the team. Like the team looks out for you” he then said, quietly. The look on his face softened a bit, causing Billy to swallow his ill-natured reply.

“You can bet on that”, he finally said. “I will never leave you hanging, Yang. Never.”

He bent down to pick up Yang’s jacket and shirt.

“Here, must be cold...” he mumbled, holding the clothes out to the other.

Yang look absolutely mortified.

“I was not asking for myself, you idiot!”, he screamed, grabbing his jacket, holding it against it chest. “You don’t have to look out for me! I meant the team! The team!”

“Uh, I...what?” Billy was utterly confused, the shirt still in his hands. “I don’t understand...”

Just then, the bar door was opened, revealing Ross and the others leisurely walking out, laughing about something.

“Kid!“, Ross shouted. „We’re leaving…and what the hell are you two doing there?”

Billy felt himself blushing furiously. “It’s not what it looks like!”, he hollered, instantly knowing that it was the wrong thing to say because what the hell was it looking like anyway? Yang half naked staring at him with an incredibly offended expression, the shirt in Billy’s hands and oh God, could someone please shoot him instantly!

“Well, it looks pretty damn obvious to me”, Hale said, a smug grin on his face. “You surely aren’t wasting any time kiddo!“

The other men doubled over with laughter, only Ross seemed utterly confused, shaking his head as he slowly made his way over to them.

Yang finally grabbed his shirt, quickly dressing himself while he cursed Billy in Chinese (he assumed it was Chinese anyway), apparently oblivious to the others.

“Is there anything you would like to say?” Ross asked, looking back and fro between him, making Billy squirm even more.

“No!” both of them answered in perfect unison, then Yang turned on his heel, walking over to where Gunnar was leaning against the wall, trying to pull himself together. Yang grabbed his arm. “We go home. Now.“

„But it’s so much fun…“

„Now!“

Under the whistles and laughs of the others they made their way down to the river and over to the main street, all the while Gunnar laughed and shouted obscene questions at Yang.

Billy gazed after them.

“I think I ruined that too” he murmured.

Ross laughed. “He told ya to look out for the team?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s his thing. He basically means be nice to Gunnar or he’ll rip you apart. Though the shirtless part is new.”

Billy coughed. „It made sense in context.”

“Yeah, sure it did, kid.” Ross snorted, as he went over to his motorcycle. Now hop on. It’s way past your bedtime, anyway.“

Billy briefly thought about telling Ross how that made him sound like a creepy pedophile but he decided to let it go for now. There was no way he could work his standard “Sir” into that without coming off as being into it.

So he got onto the bike behind Ross, trying not to think about the endless mockery that awaited him in the future.

“Keep your shirts on, guys!” Christmas shouted as they drove off into the night.

- To be continued

*Grünschnabel

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