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The house looked the same as the last time he’d seen it. Maybe the grass needed to be cut again but that was the only thing that looked out of place. The numbers on the mailbox were faded from the sunlight. The numbers on the house, however, look freshly painted.
Rudy’s been keeping himself busy, Pappy thought to himself as he stepped onto the sidewalk that led to the front door.
Pappy scrubbed a hand over his face as he stepped up onto the porch. He could smell paint and cleaner and he fought the urge to roll his eyes. Every time they all got together like this, Rudy felt the urge to clean obsessively. Didn’t matter how many times Pappy tried to tell him that it was pointless, Rudy kept cleaning.
“Rudy, we’re Marines that spent an entire war in Humvees. A little clutter isn’t gonna kill one of us.” They’d been on the phone together, with Pappy in North Carolina to visit family while Rudy stayed in California. Rudy was cooking, something incredibly healthy that Pappy usually ate with little to no ribbing these days, and had gently scolded Pappy with a quick “I didn’t let myself go in the desert, I’m not going to let myself go in my own home brother”.
And it was true. He hadn’t let himself go. He stayed moisturized until the very end, or at least Pappy had been told. He’d had to leave… no, he wouldn’t think about that.
His foot hurt, something that happened every so often, and he grit his teeth as he fought back the phantom sound of gunfire that always accompanied the pain.
He wasn’t in the desert anymore. He was home.
That in mind, he pulled his keys from his pocket and found the house key. He ran his finger over the teeth of it, the way he did when he’d been away from home for a while, and put it into the lock.
“You know the door isn’t locked, right?” Rudy’s voice came from inside of the house and Pappy couldn’t help but smile. Even through a door, Pappy had missed hearing Rudy’s voice in person. They hadn’t talked much while Pappy was gone, three hours difference and way too many family members for Pappy to get away too often, so he’d missed it.
The door opened to reveal Rudy wearing an old and faded USMC shirt with a pair of jeans and his feet bare. Pappy looked at his toes and didn’t bother hiding his smile.
“I’d say something about grooming standard, but I don’t think you’d appreciate it,” Pappy’s words were swallowed by a quick and rough kiss from Rudy who pulled away and moved back into the kitchen where he had already started to get everything ready.
It had become a tradition for the Marines that served together, as many as could make it, to get together every few months. This time it was at the Patrick-Reyes home. They would stay at a hotel nearby and spend the weekend drinking and catching up.
Not everyone could afford to take the weekend off to fly to California, or drive from a different part of California. Some people were even deployed so they wouldn’t make it. They’d opened the invitation to everyone.
Even Rolling Stone.
“You should shower. You know what airplane air does to your skin. And when you’re done—“ Rudy’s words stopped abruptly when Pappy came up behind him and dropped his hand to his hip. He chucked softly into Rudy’s ear and said “Let me guess, I can help you get everything ready?”
He kissed Rudy’s neck before he trudged into their bedroom. The bed was made immaculately, everything clean and tidy in the room like always.
It wasn’t that Rudy was a perfectionist. It wasn’t even that he wanted to impress the other Marines that would be on that doorstep in a few hours. It all boiled down to discipline. Rudy took to the military discipline like a fish in water. It was ingrained now, much like how Pappy’s hair was still regulation despite him no longer serving.
His paddle was on the wall, decorated by his fellow Marines. He’d been out for a while now but sometimes he was still surprised to wake up in a bed instead of a Humvee.
Pappy shed his clothes and climbed into the shower. The water pressure was better in the guest room, but Pappy didn’t really care right then. He pressed his forehead to the cold wall of the shower and let the hot water pour over his back.
They all had nightmares at some point; it was part of surviving war he suspected. He knew that Rudy, for as put together as he seemed, had worse dreams than Pappy did. It wasn’t a competition, they didn’t compare their horrors, but Pappy just knew.
It was why Rudy liked the order so much. He could control it when there wasn’t much about war that could be controlled.
Rudy’s voice broke Pappy out of his memories as he called into the bathroom, “Try not to drown Marine; the LT and Colbert will be here in an hour.”
Even though Nate had left the Marines as a Captain, everyone still called him LT. A lot of the Marines dropped their nicknames after they were out. No one called Evan Stafford “Q-Tip” anymore. And no one outside of the Recon community called Colbert “Iceman” either.
Especially not after Ray made mention that “the LT is trying to thaw the Iceman with his dick”. It’d been an interesting night and when Ray was ‘accidentally’ tripped, he broke Mike’s coffee table.
Walt had apologized on Ray’s behalf as Doc Bryan figured out if he needed stitches or just a punch in the mouth. Walt hadn’t softened most of Ray’s edges but every now and then they saw a side of Ray they weren’t expecting.
Like when they walked in on Ray giving Walt head in Mike’s bathroom.
There was a reason Mike refused to host their meet-ups until Ray was trained better.
Pappy dried off and got dressed in the bedroom. Nate and Brad would be there in an hour and after that, they’d all trickle in. He’d been surprised when Nate had RSVPed for the both of them but he hadn’t questioned it. All of the deployment schedules made it through the grapevine but Pappy wasn’t caught up on it lately.
“What do you need me to do Rude?” Pappy called from the bedroom as he buckled his belt and ran his hand through his hair to get it to settle a bit.
“We need the ice chests from the garage. There are bags of ice in the freezer out there too.” Rudy’s voice was faint, probably still in the kitchen, and Pappy mock saluted before he made his way to the garage.
Both of their cars were parked there, since Pappy had just taken a taxi to and from the airport. He sidestepped a few paint cans and eyed where the ice chests were perched on a top shelf. How in the hell had they gotten up there?
They were empty so they weren’t heavy to lift. Pappy simply raised his arms and brought them down. Two ice chests, one blue and white and the other red and white, would probably not be enough but at least one other Marine would bring an ice chest so it’d even out.
The ice from the freezer needed to be broken up so he dropped the bags a few times before he emptied half into each chest. He carried the blue one in first and dropped it on the towel that Rudy had put down for them. By time he had the red one sat on its own towel, Rudy had almost gotten the blue one full.
“So what are we doing for entertainment? We could do music but we’ll have to make sure Ray doesn’t get near it. You know how Brad gets about country,” Pappy raised his eyebrows as he spoke and helped Rudy load up the next ice chest.
“We might pop in a movie for background noise. We could probably find one that everyone agrees on. Or agrees enough on.”
Trying to please this many Marines would be almost impossible under this conditions. That simply meant without a gun in their hand and an enemy to shoot at.
Pappy looked through the movies and saw one he didn’t recognize. It was a burned copy of a movie called Pacific Rim. When he held it up asked about it, Rudy had said “Aliens come to Earth and humans build huge robots to fight them. We tried to see it in theaters.”
Tried because they hadn’t actually made it from the house that day. If Pappy remembered correctly, they didn’t even make it past the bedroom except for food and water. They had days like that sometimes.
“The one with the mind meld thing?” He flipped the case but there wasn’t any information. He remembered seeing the previews but he hadn’t been home enough lately to watch it for himself. He hadn’t even known that Rudy had burned a copy of it.
“It’s called the drift. The pilots of the jaeger have to be drift compatible and then you see flashes of your combined memories. It’s pretty interesting actually.”
Pappy put the movie next to the DVD player and made his way into the kitchen where Rudy had checked on the chicken that was marinating for the grill once more people got there. Pappy put his hands in the middle of Rudy’s back and rubbed a few small circles before he pressed his thumbs in and smiled when Rudy shivered a bit.
“So being drift compatible is a big deal?” He smiled as Rudy made a hmm sound in the back of his throat before he sat up and turned around to lean against the counter.
“It is. It means a connection between the pilots that’s greater than everything else. There are husband and wife pilots, sibling pilots, parent and child pilots, friends, twins, lovers. It’s intimate because you are in the other person’s head, can hear all of their thoughts.”
Pappy thought about that, thought about having someone in his head and unable to hide anything. He thought about other people he knew, relationships before now, and shook his head.
“You think we’d be drift compatible,” It wasn’t a question because he knew how to read Rudy by now.
With a nod and a smile, Rudy pressed his lips to Pappy’s and said, “We don’t have secrets from one another,” the words spoken against Pappy’s mouth.
It was true and it made Pappy smile in response. Something dinged and broke them apart. Rudy checked the timer and then opened the oven to check something before he went back to his spot beside Pappy.
“Who else do you think would be drift compatible from Bravo?” Pappy couldn’t help the question, couldn’t help the shit-eating grin on his face when he asked it. Rudy laughed and seemed to actually think about it.
“Schewtje and Griego, definitely; although that much stupidity in one jaeger would probably be catastrophic.”
The thought of Encino Man and Casey Kasem becoming like one in a larger than life robot was a little terrifying, so Pappy laughed and then thought of one.
“Nate and Mike, without a doubt, would be drift compatible.” The mere thought of all of the shit they kept from rolling down on them made Pappy grimace. Nate had even been prepared to throw himself on his sword to protect his men.
“But maybe also Nate and Brad. Think about how well their ability to communicate without words translated from the war to their personal lives.” Rudy gestured a little bit between them as if to convey what he meant, but he didn’t need to.
Nate and Brad had been able to convey a lot through a few looks and that hadn’t changed. They barely spoke to one another when around others; it seemed that all they needed was a brief look or a touch to do the job.
“What about the team leader and the best damn RTO? Could you imagine?”
The thought of Ray and Brad sharing each other’s most intimate thoughts made both Pappy and Rudy laugh. Brad would kill Ray within seconds. They were all pretty sure that Ray was just one constant stream of consciousness but the thought of Brad being subjected to it in surround sound was almost more than they could handle.
“Okay, so maybe not Ray and Brad. He might be the best RTO, but he’s an acquired taste that still makes you want to brush your teeth afterwards.” Pappy tipped his head back until it rested on a cabinet and sighed after he spoke. After a moment of silence, he turned to Rudy and asked “When are Nate and Brad supposed to be here?”
“Twenty minutes, but with Brad driving, they might be pulling in any time now.” Rudy checked whatever was in the oven one last time before he walked over to the fridge and pulled out one of his protein shakes.
“Want me to fix you up brother?” Rudy’s voice held a smirk that Pappy didn’t need to see to know it was there. He smiled and shook his head.
“Hell nah Rudy, that shit is disgusting. And I’m not kissing you again until you brush your teeth.”
Pappy stepped into the living room and pushed the couches back a bit. They would go between the house and the backyard which had the grill set up a ways away from the tables set up back there.
He plopped down into the couch and closed his eyes. It was the last bit of peace he’d have for a while. Rudy sat next to him and placed his hand on Pappy’s thigh and they leaned against one another.
They didn’t need a drift to know how they felt. They were hardened Marines and maybe didn’t say it out loud, but it was said a hundred different ways. It was said with coffee in the morning and beers at night, with Pappy hogging the covers and Rudy not minding, with a hand on his thigh and his head on a shoulder, with allowing to disturb their home and potentially their neighbors for a weekend to spend time with the men they counted as their brothers.
Just as Pappy and Rudy had fallen into a calm and contented silence, their bodies completely relaxed, the doorbell sounded.
Here goes.