sailor-donatello prompted: Wash and Tucker with 5 or Grif and Simmons with 24?
A/N: It's been far too long since I wrote Grimmons so thank you for the prompt lol
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The Things I'll Do For Love
If Grif turned his head any further, his shoulder would have broke through to his eardrum.
Simmons nervously shifted his feet, feeling a little more awkward than he usually cared to feel. Which was a shame considering the eternal awkwardness that he found himself in. Especially after joining the military. Especially after meeting Grif.
And that was the way they stood in the driveway for nearly a minute. Simmons altered how much weight he shifted between his leg and the prosthetic, worrying a loose string on his sweater. Grif with his head nearly parallel to the ground as his eyes squinted further and further until Simmons wasn't even sure he was looking at the garage anymore. Really, knowing Grif, it was just as likely that he was sleeping instead.
The agonizing seconds ticked by, the freshly fallen snow in the yard blowing up with each passing hover car. The silence almost seemed to echo along the other identical houses in the neighborhood, all two story and sloped to a porch roof that only went as far out as the garage door to make the front lines of the house a perfect rectangle. Ideal size. Ideal shape. Conformity.
Of course, their house wasn't exactly matching the cookie cutter like the rest anymore due to the giant tree which had ripped free from the frozen earth of their side yard and landed promptly onto the tin roof of the garage. Which caved in to the attic. Which caved into floor of said attic. Which knocked the unused kayak from the roof of the garage. Which screeched rudder first into the electric car which had been charging in the garage. Which had caused the power to go out when the fuse blew. Which caused the heater to stop working. Which was why, even in only their sweaters and rashly slung on goulashes, Simmons was just as warm as he had been five minutes beforehand in the bedroom.
"Yeah," Grif finally announced, turning his head just enough to glare Simmons' way. "This is absolutely your fault."
Later, Simmons would blame his delayed response on the frostbite to his brain, but instead he was actually just sputtering for words.
Of course, it wasn't like he had anything all the original on the tip of his tongue dying to get free either.
"My fault? How the hell can this be my fault?" Simmons demanded. For additional benefit, he made large motions toward the tree which was hanging out in their garage. "Did I knock down the tree? Did I break the car? Did I overload the fusebox on purpose?"
"Might as well have," Grif shrugged, his breath lingering between them as if just to add extra sting to Simmons' badly bruised ego.
"How?" Simmons' voice peaked.
"Because you—"
"Oh my god," Simmons groaned, already knowing what Grif was getting at. He turned from Grif and glared at the damn garage and the damn tree and the damn everything because this fight was not happening again.
"—were the one—"
"Grif, this is going to make me kick your ass," Simmons warned. "If you say one more time that—"
"—that wanted to move to the suburbs!"
Without hesitation, Simmons turned and landed a heavy punch right for Grif's shoulder that didn't even make the other man flinch as he just stared expectantly back at Simmons.
"No more city life for good ol' Simmons. Why would we still be renting an apartment where the takeout's delivered to your door or where the movies are around the block. Why would we want to live like civilized human beings and not where fucking trees can come flying like a bat out of hell and destroy a mortgage," Grif mocked, shoving his fists into the pockets of his robe. "Good call, fuckface."
Despite himself, Simmons felt what was left warm of his blood swarm his cheeks, no doubt causing him to light up redder than the mittens Donut gave him for Christmas. "Grif! You can't just call me that in public," Simmons decreed, looking around nervously to the other houses. "We have neighbors."
"You know what we had in the city? In our apartment? Closer neighbors. Neighbors who shared a bedroom wall with us. And you still handcuffed me to the radiator that one time and put a freshly baked cake a foot out of my reach," Grif reminded him. "What you should say is that you don't give a damn about neighbors, you care about suburbanites who don't want to know that the reason we didn't immediately put the fire in our garage out was because you were determined to suck—"
"I hate you," Simmons hissed.
"And I hate the suburbs," Grif stated flatly.
They continued to stand, in underwear and sweatshirts and a robe and mild other adornments respectively, with their hot breath hanging between them.
The cold was starting to get to Simmons, but not as much as his irritation with Grif was.
"It's your kayak," he said lowly.
Grif didn't react for a moment before finally twitching a bit and looking Simmons' way. "What?"
"It's your kayak," Simmons reminded him. "I didn't want it. You were the one who thought we had room for it—"
"We did have room for it!" Grif cried out defensively.
"Where? Through the windshield of my car?" Simmons cried back.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Dick, how did I not anticipate that a goddamn tree would be taking up some space on the ceiling!" Grif responded in kind.
They fell silent at each other's points, the air between them filled nearly as much with steam as it was thickening breath. The anger was palpable. Which made what needed to be said next that much less inviting to say but, well, Simmons knew it needed to be said.
"You know you've got to call Sarge, right? He's got an electrician's license and there's no way anyone else is crazy enough to drive through this weather out to—"
"The suburbs and risk getting crushed by a tree," Grif finished sourly. "And abso-fucking-lutely not. You will call the old asshole and tell him to get out here. I'm going back to bed and finishing where we left off with or — preferably — without you."
"Oh, please, after coming out here with no layers? You've got nothing to work with," Simmons spat out before he even realized what he was saying. He stiffened up immediately and glanced sheepishly around to the other houses. They were definitely being watched by neighbors at that point.
"Neighbors," Grif said in mock warning.
"Oh, shut up," Simmons scoffed in return. "And no, you know I can't call Sarge and tell him that things are wrong! I'll get nervous and say the opposite and hang up because I can't deal with disappointment!"
"Yeah, it's pretty disappointing that you dropped that fucking tree on our house on the coldest goddamn day of the year," Grif snarked. "I am not calling Sarge." he glanced back to the other houses as well, running his thick fingers through his hair. "Aren't savages out in the suburbs always bitching about city people not being nice? Not a single one of these fuckers have offered to hook us up with some space heaters or an extension cord while we've been out here entertaining them."
"Maybe because we keep talking about dicks and sex while standing outside our house half naked," Simmons muttered, face heating up impossibly more.
"Ugh, fine. Fuck. Man. I hate everything," Grif groaned. "I'll call Sarge, but you know that we're still in the suburbs and he's gonna be, like, at least an hour away."
"Yeah. We'll have to figure out a way to keep warm until then," Simmons sighed.
They stood together for a few moments longer. Then, almost at the same time, they looked instead to each other
"Well… you know what they say about body heat," Simmons laughed awkwardly.
"Oh my god, I know it's your turn don't try to make some kind of setup that your delivery is gonna epically fail here," Grif groaned. "C'non. Let's get in and… you know. Some sort of suburbanite safe euphemism for a blow job."
"Yup. Good job, you nailed it, very PC," Simmons groaned.