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]

"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.

[ninefox]

"I'd like that," he says softly, softly enough that a human probably couldn't hear him over the music. Fives, of course, manages fine.

[callmefives]

His gaze flicks immediately back to the General, surprise and pleasure both obvious in the brief widening of his eyes and the quick tilt of his lips into a smile. "That... it'd be great." He casts his eyes down for a moment, and the flirtation is mostly gone when he looks back up. At least for now. "I think Echo and Tup would especially like that." Dogma too, of course, but he's still not mentioning him. "... I know I would," he adds, glancing away again because that's too open, not flirtatious in a way that can be easily shrugged off as teasing.

[ninefox]

"So where's by? Unless you'd prefer I just followed you home after shift."

Although that might be a bit heart attack inducing for some of the others.

[callmefives]

Oh, he'd definitely prefer that, just the idea has him almost vibrating with eagerness... that he quickly suppresses as he has much the same thought.

"Nice as that would be, I think Rex might have kittens if I brought you home at three in the morning." His smile is wide as he looks back again, and then it goes just a little impish. "But if you leave me your number I can text you the address when I get off shift, and... you could come by tomorrow night? Rex and Cody will probably want to feed you, and I think almost everyone will actually be home then, or at least likely to get home at a fairly reasonable hour."

[ninefox]

"I don't think I have a phone," he realizes, with a gentle bafflement. How positively odd, to need one of the little current machines, and not be provided with one. The hazards of unemployment.

[callmefives]

Fives' response is a startled laugh as he looks at the General in disbelief. "You don't know for sure?" he asks, eyes crinkling in amusement. "Do you even have somewhere to stay?" Because gods only know about that one if he's not even sure whether he has a phone or not. "You can come back with me tonight if you need a place to stay... and I can help you get a phone tomorrow."

[ninefox]

He waves a hand airily. "I can stay places. I have things. Details."

It does provide them with a slight quandary, though.

"I could meet you somewhere in the neighborhood?"

[callmefives]

"Of course you do." Fives huffs in quiet amusement... and turns to glare quellingly at a regular looking about to make an ass of himself on the dance floor. It's enough for now, though Fives suspects he's going to be having to escort him to the door before the night's over, and it might be the idiot's third strike.

"Echo works at a coffee shop just a few blocks from the apartment," Fives suggests after a moment's thought once he's turned back. "It's a lot easier to find than the apartment, and it's right next to a phone store," he adds, eyebrows raised.

[ninefox]

"I suppose, if it's important to you," he agrees, suggesting the phone but also sort of meaning the coffee. Maybe there will be danishes. And more importantly, there will be Fives.

"When's his shift? Not morning, I hope."

[callmefives]

Fives can't help but smile at the agreement, though he tries not to beam like an overeager pup. He's not entirely sure he succeeds. "No, not morning. If it was I sure as hell wouldn't be showing up," he lies, because he'd totally show up at the asscrack of dawn if that was the time the General wanted to meet. "I don't even get off until two-thirty. I think his shift starts at two tomorrow, though, so any time after that?"

[ninefox]

"Three? Not to get in the way of the changing of the guard." And Fives said it was close enough that it surely won't inconvenience him to arrive separately from Echo, if he doesn't want to wait around the whole hour.

[callmefives]

"Yeah, uh, three sounds good." Gods, if he was shifted his damn tail would be wagging right now and Echo would laugh at him so hard. Probably will tomorrow. Rex will likely just facepalm. And poke him a lot. He can't wait. He grins impishly. "It's a date."

[ninefox]

Heavens, but he's cute. Jedao beams right back.

"I suppose you don't dance on duty, either."

[callmefives]

"Nope, sorry." He's still grinning, briefly neglecting his duty as he decides what the hell, and takes another chance. "But I'm not working tomorrow night, if you want to go somewhere and dance after dinner." Because Rex and Echo will want the General fed before they let him escape their clutches.

[ninefox]

"I don't really know the city anymore. You'll have to show me around," Jedao elaborates.

[callmefives]

"I can do that," he agrees, quick and eager, and again hears Rex berating him in his mind. Which doesn't do a damn thing to change his mind. "We've been here since we were decommissioned, I know most of the city now." He's very proud of this fact. He'd never known anything but barracks and weapons before, a city full of people, places to explore, things to do still hasn't stopped being exciting.

[ninefox]

"Splendid." Jedao murmurs, quite sincerely. But then the music changes, and something about it hooks his attention, and he eels back onto the dance floor without another word. In fairness, it isn't particularly any more abrupt than some of his departures as a general.

And he does turn up at the coffee shop the next day, right on time, in different clothes but still with a bit of glitter in his hair, even though Fives never got around to saying which coffee shop, exactly.

[callmefives]

Fives watches the General disappear into the crowd of writhing bodies on the dance floor and pushes down the surge of disappointment as he realizes he'd never given him directions to Echo's coffee shop. Oh well, he'd probably been deluding himself that he was more than a few minutes' diversion, and he can just hear Rex's lecture on the subject if he were to find out how he'd behaved. He gives himself a moment, then starts making his rounds again, and refuses to think about the encounter for the rest of the night, a resolution that's made at least a little easier to keep by the fact he doesn't catch sight of the Fox General again.

He almost doesn't bother showing up at the coffee shop the next day. It's not like he'll be there, after all. But Echo being on shift is as good a reason as any, and he walks to work with his brother then claims one of the overstuffed chairs in the corner to sit with his coffee and a book he'd brought.

As it gets close to three he starts looking up every time the door opens, and every time tells himself he's not waiting for the General to show up, because clearly he isn't. How could he when he never even found out where this place is? And yet, at three o'clock almost exactly the bell on the door chimes and he looks up reflexively... to the sight of the General in the doorway, looking somehow more out of place in this common, everyday environment than he had in the pulsing lights of the club last night.

Fives doesn't even realize he's stood up until he's already across the room in front of the General, grinning like a damn pup, and completely ignoring the shocked look Echo's giving him from behind the bar. "I didn't think you'd come," he admits. "Since I never actually told you where this place is."

[ninefox]

"Oh, didn't you?" Jedao asks, with approximately the same caliber of surprise as I don't think I have a phone. "Well, details," he says, perhaps by way of dismissal, since it certainly isn't an explanation and he doesn't offer one, either.

"Will you let me buy you a drink this time? Oh, and there's Echo, he looks so much better than last time, thank goodness."

[callmefives]

"No, I didn't." He huffs in amused exasperation; the General's obviously just as quixotic and mysterious now as he had been back in the day, which means there's no point in pursuing the issue. Besides, he has no interest in irritating their little General, he very much wants to keep him around.

"I think I can do that," he allows, then adds, "If you let me buy you a drink when we go out dancing." Because he's made it this far, he might as well try and hold him to that as well.