Disclaimer: Not mine, never were, never will be.
Note: This fic describes something first mentioned in 'Counting Down' but is not a sequel as such and can stand alone. Betaed by Kerry.
I'm pacing; I know it Larabee, you don't need to glare like that. I like to pace when I'm worried – no, that sounds wrong, that sounds like I like to be worried. I need to pace, that's it, I need to pace.We had a bust today, big one, Chris was SAIC for the whole show, three agancies, - four counting the cops - if you looked at the jackets it was like alphabet soup; FBI, their usual charming, helpful selves, DEA, who are okay, if somewhat single minded, the DPD - mostly there for crowd control and us, the good old ATF. Why were we there? Why was Chris running the show? Well - despite our alphabet collection - we are actually the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and our suspect was making bombs, nasty ones. He was using them to blackmail bank managers into opening up their safes for him, by booby trapping their family cars - with loved ones in the car, you understand. He did this in several states - hence the FBI - and used the money to buy drugs wholesale, which he then planned to re-sell, at a huge profit - hence the DEA.
It was all going sweet as a nut, bomb squad in the wings waiting to go, had the place surrounded when he made one of the feebs, to be fair it wasn't his fault, despite what Ezra says. Our mark, one Henry Velasques, decides not to run, not to give up, but to barricade himself in his house. Why is it that the ones who can be real smart when it comes to what Ezra calls their 'nefarious business', can be so dumb when they get caught? Well anyway, long story short, there was a siege, lasted about three hours. Vin finally gets a clean shot at the guy, he's asking if he can fire, Henry sees Vin's little red dot on him and BANG, bastard blows himself to Kingdom come - and blows Vin out of the tree he was in. Turns out he'd been in the pen before, when he was nineteen, been gang raped etc, etc. If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. I know it sounds harsh, but it's not like we don't all know what goes on in jail, he took the risk, couldn't handle the consequences and now Vin's in the ER, so don't ask me to be sympathetic.
So here we all are, all except Nathan who's back there, in doctor land, finding out what's happened to Vin. Nate got to him first, stopped him moving 'till the paramedics got there and got a collar on him, before they strapped him to a board. Poor Vin, he hates to be strapped down. Then they took him away in the ambulance, Nathan rode with him. Me, Josiah and JD followed it. Chris and Ezra had to stay at the scene and do the official stuff.
So here I am pacing, it's all very well for you Chris, we've been here four hours now, you only just got here. I know you, if it was you waiting here, that coffee machine would have a whole new collection of dents in the bottom panel by now. Come on, come on, what's taking so long? Finally!
"So what's the verdict?" Chris asks Nathan.
"Mild concussion, badly bruised, torn shoulder muscles. He was very lucky."
You could hear the sigh of relief go around the room.
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By the time Vin was released it was gone five and we all had preliminary reports to type, so by the time we hit the shower room it was almost seven. Ezra had called and moved our dinner reservation to nine, but since we'd all been snacking as we wrote it wasn't a problem.
What I'm talking about here is our thing, a Team Seven thing. After a big bust we all shower and put on fresh clothes - that’s normal, everyone does it, pretty much. Kevlar does not breath, it does not come in a light summer version, besides even in winter, you tend to sweat a lot, just from the adrenaline. So we shower, and change; what's different is we bring in special clothes, not the spares we all keep in our lockers (which tend to be casual and very crumpled - unless you're Ezra) but clean, semi-smart, pressed clothes on a hanger, brought in just for that day, and we shower together.
The federal building is huge, it has to be, every federal agency and organisation has to have offices in Colorado and they all have them in the one place, all the law enforcement agencies like us, the forestry service, the IRS - damn them! - the immigration guys, even the CIA, though they never talk to anyone, of course no one talks to them either, or the IRS. So, anyway, the building, it's got a huge underground car park, but at street level and the one below that, the car park's only half as big as it is lower down. This is because there is also a basement level gym and swimming pool. All the field agencies have locker and shower facilities not too far from their offices. These are nice, with individual shower cubicles, but there are other showers in the basement, for the gym and pool. These are old fashioned, locker room showers, one line of eight heads, no partitions, no privacy. This is where we shower after a bust.
I forget how it started, there was a whole period of time when the showers on our floor were out of action and they told us to go down and use the feeb's showers - as if! So we started coming down to the gym, I guess it was then. Some times a take-down goes as smooth as clockwork, but not always, not often in fact. We're the best there is at what we do, so we get the toughest assignments, like Henry Velasques. Things go wrong, things can get messy, we've all had to take lives. You can't carry that stuff around with you; you'd go crazy. So we wash it out - that's what Josiah reckons anyway. It's a cleansing rite.
Sometimes it can be weeks or even months before we do it. I mean we do shower, don't get me wrong, but we only do the group thing in the basement when everyone is ready, no one is in the hospital, no one is not permitted to shower for medical reasons, no one is under investigation by internal affairs. We only shower when it's over. Then, after the shower, when we're all clean and dressed to kill, we have a meal. Someplace where they only know we're seven guys who work together having a nice meal, not someplace everyone knows us, so not the saloon, for instance. We go someplace where they take your order at the table, where they have real serviettes, not paper ones. Not as fancy as Ezra likes, but someplace the likes of me feels at home, someplace they have steak or fried chicken so Vin will eat something!
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Locker rooms all smell the same, a combination of bleach, sweat and aerosol. So long as it's just the seven of us, no one has any inhibitions, some of us have no inhibitions no matter who's in there, but that's neither here nor there. By seven o’clock everyone's pretty much gone home, besides I get the feeling that the word has gone out to keep clear while Team Seven do their 'thing', 'cause no one has disturbed us for the last six times we've done this.
Nathan's already naked and helping Vin get out of his shirt, damn, that boy has some bruises on his shoulders! Nathan is a very fit guy; he's probably the most toned of all of us. I know he works out every morning, down here in the gym, but he doesn't do enough to get that body, just maintain it. I've never asked him but I'd guess he got like that in the army. For a big, strong guy, he's so gentle as he eases Vin's old shirt down. That Rain is a lucky girl, I'm telling you, 'cause I'd sleep with that bod any day - if I wasn't in a committed, hopefully life long relationship and Nate was gay or bi, which he isn't.
Vin's in good shape too - we all are, have to be. He's lean, not as lean as Chris, but there isn't much to him when he stands sideways on. Chris is always calling him a 'scrawny assed Texan' but that's not fair - okay he is a Texan - but that ass is not scrawny, it's just peachy. I mean it, he's got an ass like a peach, it's just so perfect, round, firm and smooth. The boy's got some scars, I can tell you, but so far not on that perfect ass. It amazes me he doesn’t have more relationships or even one night stands, I even offered him my little black book, since it's kind of redundant these days. I know there was a married woman who hurt him a while back, but we've all had those kind of relationships, you learn from it and carry on. Oh well, someone will take his eye someday soon, I'm sure of it.
JD is fit, he really is, he can keep up with me running, which considering that my legs must be half as long again as his and I've run marathons, is pretty good. He's still young, only twenty three, and he doesn’t get much time to work out, so he doesn’t have the kind of muscle tone the rest of us have, but he's fit and strong and that Casey is just mad about him. Which is good, she's a fine young lady and they go well together, but they are young and if it doesn’t work out he'll find someone else, he's a good looking kid. Mind you, from the look of those hickeys on his neck, oh and on his back and - my, my - on his nipples, Casey isn't going to be letting him go anytime soon! Lucky boy.
Ezra works out, he takes it seriously, has equipment at home, belongs to a private gym - the works, and it shows. He has got a great body, he doesn’t carry as much muscle bulk as Nathan, but every bit of him is hard and sculpted and damn, he's easy on the eyes. Now Ezra is gay, not bi, gay. I've always known that, well pretty much always, it took Chris a while to work it out. I don't know how many of the others knew before he came out to us, but no one looked surprised or shocked and it's never been a problem. In fact now that it's all out in the open, things are better, we compare notes about cute guys and stuff - drives Chris crazy of course, 'cause he's definitely the possessive type, but that's half the fun of it. Damn Ezra, doesn't make it easy on a guy, he's only gone and shaved which on him is so hot. I'm not saying I want Chris to do it, 'cause those blond curls of his are just so sexy, and they smell great, but on Ez it's hot! Shows how confident he is around us that he'd show it off like he is. Bet he's got a hot date coming up, reckons he's gonna get lucky. It's weird, but hot as Ezra is, I've never considered him as a bed partner. It's not just that we're both tops or that we work together - I work with Chris after all and I can switch - it's more that, even when I knew he was gay and available, before Chris and I got together; I knew if I ever went over to the other side permanently, it would only be for Chris.
Now I may have given the idea that I was the only one of us who has no problem being naked in front of strangers, and that would be wrong. Josiah has no more inhibitions about his body than I do, and that's saying something, believe me. He says we are as God made us, and thus there is nothing to be ashamed of. God made Josiah Ezekiel Sanchez big, in every way, he's not the tallest, but he is the biggest - okay I'm better hung than him, I'm better hung than any guy I ever met, and that's no lie, but he's not far behind me. Considering he's a good eight years older than me, he's in damn good shape, he may not be as toned as Nathan or Ezra, but he's stronger, a lot stronger, the size of his hands alone is enough to scare some folk. Josiah is solidly built, he goes straight down from chest to hip, no tapering, but it's all muscle. Now he's an open minded kind of guy, he says he was a hippie in the seventies, after he came home from the war and I can see him with long hair, beads and little Lennon glasses, so I reckon if the opportunity presented itself, and he was of a mind to, he'd cross the street. Who's to say he hasn't? He was a soldier - sorry, a Marine - and it happens a lot in war, so they say. There he goes, our own - not so gentle - giant, strolling down to the showers, towel over one shoulder, whistling to himself. You know, for an older guy he's got bun's of steel. Way to go, big guy!
Chris was in the lead as we walked down here and he was already under the shower when I came in with the kid. This is where it gets interesting. I love the guy, I love every thing about him, well most everything, I could do without 'drunk Chris', he's a mean drunk. He doesn’t do it often, not like before, but if he does get drunk, really drunk, not just 'happy', he's mean, physically and verbally. That aside, he's the one for me, in every way, so seeing his body, in all it's naked glory, tends to get 'Little Buck' - I can call him little, but only me - kinda excited. And as much as I feel comfortable around the guys, I don't think I'm ready to show them that, I don't think they're ready for it either. So now I have to keep calm, and not look. The trouble is Chris knows this and he likes to tease. I drive him crazy checking out other guys, this is his revenge. Yup there he is, with the only free showerheads either side of him, so I have to shower next to him. God damn it! Okay Buck, eyes up, looking strictly at head height. He looks up and smiles a me, that little smile, so small most folk wouldn't even know he was smiling, but I know. It's his 'come on' smile. If he did that over dinner we'd hardly make it past dessert. Oh shit! You evil bastard, now you start washing your hair! Now, when you know all I can look at safely is your head, you start running your fingers through your hair? No, I'm not gonna look. Except that Ezra is the other side of me and he's washing where there is no hair! The wall, I'll look at the wall, and wash myself real fast.
What? Chris is speaking, what did he say? I turn to look at him. Hair's all clean, good. He wants me to wash his back. Oh, for Christ’s sake, this isn't fair! Okay, I can do this; it's only his back that's fairly safe. I'll just rub some of the foam from his hair over his shoulders, work it in to those broad lean shoulders. Lean and hard and packed with muscle under soft smooth skin, I'll work it in over the little puckered scar where he got shot when we were cops and down his spine to his…Oh crap! Z Y X…X…X what the hell comes before X? Think man, think! X W V U… R S T, no that's wrong, S T R? Nope, T S R, that's it. What am I doing, he asks? What the hell does he think I'm doing? I'm reciting the alphabet backward so I can wash his God damned back and retain my dignity.
"Nothing," I tell him.
"Well stop tapping on my back and get on with it." Oh now I'm in trouble, once he starts getting all demanding I'm lost, it's a wonder I don't pin him to the wall and take him there and then, which, if we were alone, he'd love. He gets it 'hard and fast' against the wall of the shower most mornings and he likes that just fine, believe me.
"I'm finished," I tell him, with that I turn back to my own shower, stare at the wall and turn the water to cold, the old ways are the best.
At which point the others all start sniggering as they turn off their own water and start heading back to the lockers, bastards the lot of them. Once we're alone, and we know none of the others will come back or let anyone else in, Chris takes my dick in his hand, it's still half hard; the cold water hasn't worked at all, and pulls me into his shower area. He's kissing me as he works my dick with both hands, pushing his tongue in deep. My hands are on his butt, squeezing, kneading it, harder and harder as he brings me off, I break contact with his mouth and begin to work my lips and teeth over his neck and shoulder. I'm so close now, yes, do it just like that, do it harder, oh God yes, harder, again like that and …yes!
"Better now?" he asks.
All I can do is nod, my head is still resting on his shoulder, I'm panting like a hound dog on a Mississippi summers afternoon.
"You need a shave," he tells me gently, I know it, always do by this time in the evening. He likes a smooth cheek.
"You?" I finally manage to ask.
He grins at me like a ten dollar hooker. "I'll save it for later, at home."
I look down; wretched man's as soft as butter. How the hell does he do that? Good job we're not working tomorrow 'cause we won't be getting much rest tonight!
The End
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