recharge phenomenon

It started out as just one impossible night, as all soft-mouthed things do. Something that wouldn't necessarily fall apart under scrutiny and harsh light, but would look...somewhat less appealing. To some discerning onlookers, anyway.

However, most of BLADE aren't that discerning, Frye realizes - if they even had been to begin with. They should have been, considering military elite and all, but to get to be military elite you have to be military crud, first. You had to get a little bit broken, and then build yourself back up.

It didn't matter all that much, though. The crash had changed everyone, taken down all the round and square pegs alike.

Frye's always liked guys, and the occasional girl too (you set him up on a real winner of a blind date, and he's golden, so long as the girl can actually tolerate his unique brand of crazy and refusal to ever even take a lady home - as if, what home? diner's fine, real fine, better than good enough).

That's Frye. That's big brother, Daddy's little soldier, glass eye unable to take a look sky high.

Doug's always, always liked guys. A true bear, as fine as they come, with that hip V hidden between grabbable waist and thighs. The advent of Alois Bernholt had made Frye feel properly bicurious, but for Doug, it had done something else entirely.

It might have been the thing that got Doug fully unstrapped. There really would be no way of knowing. And then, besides all that, there was Lao.

So Frye, to tell the truth, actually had it pretty good, in view of his chances, considering that Lao was either gone or plain unreachable, and the same could be said of Bernholt (c'mon, who really got to call him Al? even if he asked you for it, face-to-face), except on the atomic level, this time.

Hoo-wee. Creature comforts were one thing. Being blown to bits and chucked out into the swirl of a black hole was a whole 'nother.

The night Doug let him into his arms (and into his pants, honestly), Frye thought he'd finally made it. He'd gotten close to someone. He'd met them where they were at, without tricking them. It wasn't that Frye usually did trick anybody, but if he had no decent stretches of luck, otherwise, he started to consider it.

He'd felt, just for that night, and then the next three, four five, that he was allowed not to be completely in control of the way things went down with the Christophs. That he was allowed to be a little messy, a little helpless, a little undecided. Doug was the helpless one, in the encounter, but Frye was happy - god, so happy - to be helpless with him.

With all of that ugly-bumping said and done, the trouble now was, Frye didn't know how to come back down and let himself feel defeated. He just didn't, doesn't do that. He scraps harder than anyone would ever know, when they think he's just getting himself into scrapes for the hell of it, for the bare-knuckled thrill.

Just once, at first, of course. Just nothing and never. Just silent, too fragile to even say any names, or else just barely whisper them.

His voice thrums low but threatens to jump and crack out, just now. "Jesus, I'm telling you, man, it meant a lot to me! Freakin' everything!"

Doug frowns, bitterer than the usual firm set of his mouth. "But that's not...that's not what it was."

Only one thing. Only one way. Only pragmatism, and a point to it, so he could unhem and dethaw and rationalize it away. For all his vast straightforwardness, easiness on the ears and eyes both that all might trust in the good character of a man with a hefty deft to repay, Doug could be capitally squirrelly. Oh, yeah, he always worked it out.

So how to work out Frye? How to tell himself a lithe truth, a true lie, a little snickety thread of gray-haired morality?

Just say it's not that much. Just act tough - you're the tough guy, aren't you? Yeah, you can play the part. Doug would take that assignment for free.

He wouldn't forget that it had happened, though. Harriers could and did stow a lot of things, but not this. Doug's...well, he's just not that kind of guy. Not the kind to actually forget, fuck and regret.

Regardless, how much can a shot of good intentions buy you? Enough to smooth over a limping, one-eyed friendship cum relationship?

Of course that's the way it would turn out, between a crew cut and a buzz who needed to get buzzed to even let himself think about it, and even then wouldn't really get stuck in.

(Yeah, and Doug doesn't hardly drink on a good day or a bad one. It'd have to be really, really bad and busted. Once upon a time, it really securely was.)

Doug has big hands, broad shoulders, big everything, even without the Grenada Medium that should prooobably be pretty damn heavy, by rights. The pride of the Skelleton Crew, really.

Is it heavy? Does it matter, for a mim? Is it a weight Doug obstinately keeps on him to hold him down, block everything out, carry the weight of his father's debts like he had anything do do with it? Does it just look so bulky because he's balding?

Obviously it is, the armor and the philosophy, all of those things and more. That's why Frye hates the bitter irony of it so goddamn much; it all fits together so well, too well.

But Doug's still hung up on Lao, so Frye will never win. Doug thinks drunk feelings don't count, that it's embarrassing, shameful, netherworld activity. As if all the raucous, rowdy, raptured patrons of that one damn doggone dive bar were just worthless bums to be written off into the chill of the nighttime.

Lao's not coming back. Lao's been gone. Lao died the moment his girls did; didn't really care about the bonds of the Army in the slightest. Mr. Barrett, the perennial gay man, wouldn't even know what the white picket fence was about, so to say, now.

Doug's not really worried about the clutches of the past, is he? He just did what he thought was the honorable thing, and brought it all with him.

Broken-hearted, the ostrich limps, too savvy to actually just bury its head. No, Frye can't have anyone else knowing that he's changed, been changed, been through it and had enough.

Frye's rough edges usually protect him, sand away the world unfurling and make way for the Killer Ostrich to claim his prize. Now, though, it's him who's the slippery one.

The way Frye feels about Doug, he'd never want to throttle him, but this moment gets awful close. "Two can play at the game, Doug. And you don't even want to." He spits, and a fleck of ire rises to the corner of his mouth.

Doug sees it. His watery eyes drift distractedly to that cant side of Frye's face, unable to look at the whole of him and definitely unable to match his gaze.

But Frye won't let himself burn - be burned - anymore. It's not out of spite or hatred that he decides this.

He swallows it, just like he'd swallowed everything else. His love. His pain. Probably his pride, too.

Rough edges. Rough hands. Master gunners' pity party.

Save me the effort, would you? Too freakin' far gone.

(Long standing personal headcanon that Doug has broken Frye's heart so many times. "I'm standing right here and he's still hung up on that sniper gfdi.")

(Nulliverse Frye: could be trans, not the point, mostly into guys but will pinch hit if you ask nicely, as a result a bit of a menace, anyhow very very attracted to Doug, has had drunken hook up(s) which meant a lot to Frye and was just a drunk comfort thing to Doug and so Frye is all ha ha yeah comfort it can be wild huh?) (crying)

Frye's last h2h consistently breaks my heart, as he's describing the dive bar that was like home and it is GONE GONE GONE LOST LOST LOST what can you do but keep on drinking am I right? I swear his sorrow feels more genuine and generous than other people I could mention.