Fine Zinc Teeth

[ninefox]

There was a time Jedao would have said that half a century was barely any time; less than a mortal life, not more than two generations. But the world has changed so much since he first put the Americans' uniform on. Even the uniform has changed - they don't call dance halls dance halls any more, for another thing. But the smell of the place - sweat, desire, alcohol - that much is the same.

He slinks in under a stranger's face, although he doesn't disguise his own scent when he smiles, glittering, at the bouncer: a flashed lure that Fives might not even notice or recognize, let alone pursue. It took a few months to get someone to handle all the things which apparently needed handling for his "retirement", and a few more to track down one particular squad of decommissioned weretroops, out of thousands, mostly paperless, in the busiest city this side of the Pacific. But Jedao did find them.

He dances without keeping track of the time, lets his face slowly slide back to its default arrangement, lets his spine relearn how to hold him up without being army rigid. He has several drinks - people buy them for him, which is nice; one or two of them he even dances with until they can't keep up with him any more. Fives rotates from the receiving line onto the floor as the night wears on and patrons get drunker, and he maneuvers himself into Fives' line of view, always moving, twisting, flashing glances that catch on Fives' eyes as the beat hits. Slowly, as if by the whim of the music, he draws closer.

Comments

[callmefives]

Fives actually likes this job: the energy, the noise, the pounding beat of the music and the bodies writhing in time on the dance floor. Even the smell of booze and sweat and lust has its appeal. It makes him feel keyed up and alive in a way very few things have since they were decommissioned. His brothers all think he's crazy, but that's okay, he thinks he makes more money than almost all of them and comes home energized at the end of a shift.

He's even learned how to make small talk with the people in line, which bands are popular, where they go for late night (or early morning) food after a night spent drinking and dancing, and he likes knowing he's keeping people safe. Kicking out unruly patrons, or just doing some overt intimidating to get an asshole on the straight and narrow. He's big enough and intimidating enough that even this place's clientele doesn't want to mess with him... which is the only thing that got him the job in the first place. He's also one of the few on staff with a keen enough sense of smell to sniff out the assholes who are stupid enough to think they can bring date rape drugs into a supernatural bar.

He's friendly and animated when he works the receiving line, chatting with regulars, moving absently to the beat of the music that comes blaring out every time the door opens to let someone in or out. He's turning away a surly teenager with a very low quality fake ID when a familiar scent catches his attention, but he has to finish moving the guy along, and by the time that's handled he's looking up into a pair of unfamiliar eyes above a flash of teeth in an irresistible smile. The combination gets him just wrong-footed enough that he waves the man through with a slightly fuddled smile, still trying to match the scent to the definitely unfamiliar face.

The line's busy, though, and he stops wondering about it after just a couple minutes as he deals with a couple more fake IDs, an asshole who's been banned trying to talk his way back in, and two belligerent human tourists who are already so tanked he's amazed they managed to find the door and sure have no business getting through it. By the time he rotates inside to work the floor he's almost forgotten the brief encounter, except every so often he'll catch that scent again from somewhere on the dance floor, or near the bar, and it sets his metaphorical hackles up as he never quite seems to catch sight of the scent's owner.

When he finally does he freezes for a breathless instant, the connection he'd been trying to make coming instantly clear now that the Fox General is wearing his own face, or at least the one he's familiar with. Fives can't seem to look away as the music carries him closer, and it doesn't take long to recognize those looks, always on the beat of the music, always managing to catch his eyes no matter what the surging crowd of bodies is doing. To figure out that the General's slow approach is very deliberate, no matter how casual it looks.

It sets his hackles up in an entirely different way. Makes him want to edge onto the dance floor instead of working its perimeter. Makes him want to step in close and see if he can match the General's movements any better than his many obvious admirers... and reminds him of the man times Rex had chastised him back in the day for his 'inappropriate interest' in one of their commanding officers. Not to mention a free being with infinitely more power than any of them could properly comprehend. He doesn't pay any more attention to the memory of Rex's lectures than he had to the real thing, and he grins (appropriately) wolfishly the next time one of those glances come his way.

[ninefox]

"I could smuggle you a drink," Jedao murmurs, when his steps take him in range, and he takes a break to lean against the same wall where Fives is standing rather more upright. His gleam with a golden backshine in the low light. "Guaranteed your bosses wouldn't notice."

[callmefives]

"I'm sure they wouldn't, sir," he answers, nostrils flaring as he catches more of the way Jedao's scent has shifted with sweat and liquor and other peoples' bodies pressed against him. "But I don't drink on the job." He smirks right at the General, then does his regular scan of the floor for any sign of trouble before looking back to him again.

[ninefox]

"I doubt your metabolism would be too bothered," he points out, with a brief flash of tongue on his lips. "Anyway, I'm out. I'm no more an officer now than you are, lieutenant."

[callmefives]

"No, it absolutely wouldn't," he agrees, looking back at him again just in time to catch that flash of tongue. To have to catch his breath before he visibly gives himself away, though he imagines the stink of lust on him has to have been as obvious to the General as it has been to his packmates for years.

"Try telling that to Rex." He huffs in exasperated amusement. "I'm pretty sure he thinks we're all still in, it's just a much smaller military and he's in charge." Even Cody has loosened up more than Rex has, he thinks.

[ninefox]

Jedao laughs, bright and warm.

"Sometimes older brothers are just like that, I think. Even when they've never been soldiers."

[callmefives]

The laugh enchants him, so different from anything he'd ever witnessed during the intensity and chaos of the war. It's the General's words that truly catch his attention, though. The idea that the Fox General could have had something as normal and relatable as a brother. An older brother, just like him.

"You... have an older brother?" he asks, suddenly riveted, fascinated even more than by the General's sinuous movements on the dance floor or that flash of tongue. Enough that he even forgets the reflexive sir that a lifetime of conditioning had trained into him.

[ninefox]

"Had, once," Jedao says, but his tone is wistful rather than suddenly somber. "Smart as anything, but bookish and fussy. It felt like he was always yelling at me about something. Although to be fair, I was very good at trouble."

[callmefives]

Fives is more than accustomed to the loss of brothers, and how you remember their lives and move on. Mourning isn't a luxury the weretroops had been allowed.

"Sounds a lot like Rex." His smile is quick and bright and impish. "And me." And then he remembers himself and makes another scan of the room, by sight and scent and hearing.

[ninefox]

"How is Rex, these days?" Just because Jedao sought out Fives first doesn't mean he isn't invested in all of them. He's not sure when that happened, but it surely did.

[callmefives]

"Just as uptight as always," Fives answers, grinning. "He's good, though. Everyone's... everyone's pretty good. Rex was picking up shifts doing a lot of different things, moving and commercial security and shit, but he got a regular gig with a commercial security firm about a month ago."

His smile shifts to a smirk. "He tried working here for a bit, but he couldn't take the music and the drunks."

[ninefox]

"I'm glad." For all of them; he couldn't check up as much as he would have liked, in the circus of the stand-down.

"But you can handle us just fine, I'm sure," he murmurs, grinning right back.

[callmefives]

The fact the General thinks of them at all, that he bothered to seek him out, to attract his attention and speak with him, even to ask about his brother, is surprising and flattering in a way that has Fives on edge in the best possible way.

"I can." His smile widens, and he moves a little closer to Jedao as the crowd on the dance floor shifts nearer. "I like the music and the people and the energy. And I don't mind the excuse to throw people out on their asses a few times a week either."

[ninefox]

"I'm a little bit tempted to provoke someone just so I can watch," Jedao admits.

[callmefives]

Fives laughs, warm and low. "I can't possibly condone anyone doing anything that would be a disruption, or possibly involve violence," he answers, eyebrows creeping up as he smirks at him. "... but if anything does happen, I certainly hope I don't have to throw you out on your ass, General."

[ninefox]

"You'd have to catch me first," he points out. And wouldn't that be fun.

[callmefives]

"Are you questioning my professional competence?" he asks, drawing himself up in mock affront and smoothing his beard as he looks down on the General. "I'll have you know, no one's ever given me the slip since I started here. Or before here."

[ninefox]

"I'm very slippery," Jedao murmurs, mostly straight-faced.

[callmefives]

Fives catches his bottom lip between his teeth and looks down at the General from beneath lowered lashes. "Are you? At least you'd be a challenge, then," he answers, just as low, and in the kind of tone that always had Rex jabbing a thumb into the nearest gap in his body armor to try and get him to shut up. Because meat cans don't flirt with not just generals, but ancient and powerful beings.

[ninefox]

"I certainly wouldn't want to be too easy," Jedao lies like a rug.

[callmefives]

"I don't know, General, the more I think about it, the more you look like you'd be pretty easy to me." Fives absolutely knows Rex would progress from discreet jabbing to just flat out smacking him upside the head and possibly dragging him away while shouting apologies for his unacceptable behavior for this particular transgression, and finds he absolutely does not care as he grins. He's a civilian now, what's the worst that can happen?

[ninefox]

"Thought about it a lot, have you?" Jedao asks, voice warm with suppressed laughter.

[callmefives]

Okay, this... might be a bit far even for him, and Fives flushes, grateful that it's barely visible in the pulsing light from the dance floor. And yet- "I might have given it a little thought," he concedes, and for all the butterflies in his stomach and Rex's voice yelling imprecations in the back of his head, he manages a toothy wolf's grin.

[ninefox]

"Well, at least I know you hadn't forgotten me," Jedao faux-laments. He pushes himself of from the wall, his smile crooked, gentle and complicated, not sure if he should say any more just now after Fives' softpedaling.

[callmefives]

"Well, you are fairly memorable," he allows with a cockeyed smile in return. "You kept them from setting me and Jesse up in front of a second firing squad and saved Tup, after all." And Dogma, but he doesn't say that. Doesn't like thinking of Dogma if he can avoid it, isolating himself in wolf form and obsequiously trying to apologize for being the loudest voice yelling for their execution.

"You could come by. See everyone. Sometime. If you want." He doesn't make eye contact, looks studiously out at the dance floor, doing his job, and doesn't quite make it a question either. It's just a possibility, left out there for the General if he happens to be interested.