"And then I had to tell him, no you can not eat…" Krista paused mid sentence and Drew glanced up at her. Her eyes fixed on something behind him, a smile starting to spread across her face.
"What?"
"Drew." She pointed behind him. "Look."
Short hair. Actually a touch beyond regulation. Dark green shirt, sleeves rolled, camo pants, tan boots. Blue eyes. Drew swore he could see them through sunglasses but that might be his imagination because he spend so much time watching them. Huge smile, wanting for him to stop being enamored and react. Rick.
"You're home. You're okay." He said quietly. He jumped. "You're home. You're okay." It took about two seconds for Drew to have Rick in his arms. His husband's hands were knotted between his shoulder blades and Drew had to resist the urge to jump and down. He was an adult. That doesn't mean he couldn't be so extremely relieved he wanted to laugh out loud. He slotted his chin over Rick's shoulder, the collar right under his chin. Running a hand down Rick's back, the loop on the back of the shirt caught his finger before he grabbed Rick under the ribs. For a second all he was smell was stale sand, stale airplane air and stale shampoo. In the next second, Drew shifted so he could see Rick's face.
"Are you actually okay? You weren't attacked by a pack of ravage dogs or something on the way here?"
Drew heard Rick laugh at that, but mainly he was watching every line of his face curve into a smile.
"I'm actually okay. There were not…." Even when Drew had turned to face him, he had not stepped back so he was tucked into Rick's side and he took advantage of that now.
"Okay, good." Drew murmured, cutting Rick off when he touched their lips together. He managed to avoid knocking their teeth together, which they had screwed up when Drew got home the second time. Even though they were standing right in front of each other, Drew still wanted to be closer to him, close enough to hear him breathing, hear his heart beating, close enough to hear him being alive. It was very reassuring. In that spirit, Drew ghosted his hand down the side of Rick's head, who shifted a little and laughed, twisting in his fingers into Drew's and pulling their hands down.
"Okay" He muttered, their faces still close together. "The tops of my ears are sunburnt."
Drew used his free hand to pull Rick's head down and look at the top of it.
"No, just my ears."
Drew shoved Rick's chest. "You're a lot of work. Every time you call, you have some new bizarre injury. Seriously." Drew said turning to Krista. "Like he sprained his ankle playing soccer but not the normal way by falling down, like he kicked a soccer ball so hard it messed up his ankle."
"That's just talent." Krista complimented him.
"Or he walked into a door and sliced his face open or something landed on him and he has a bruise the shape of Montana or he got pushed into a table but right in between his ribs so the muscle is bruised and not the bone or he got an ear infection because he fell asleep in the rain, which I think is only a thing that happens to you."
"Yea, the doctors there said it was new to them too."
"But I mean there was a two month period where every time I picked up the phone, you were telling me about some new way you had managed to end up in the med tent. First slamming your fingers into a car door, then getting burned by a coffee pot…"
"No, that was someone spilling hot coffee on me. That's not my fault. "
"And after the coffee thing..." Drew continued, not looking at Rick but leaving his arm wrapped around his waist. "He had some allergic reaction to bug bites and then he got stitches for getting half way shot and he somehow got into a minor car wreck and strained his neck, luckily not too badly and then to top it all off, one day I pick up the phone and he greets me by going 'Hey Drew. Almost got my head chopped off by a helicopter. How are you?'"
"Yea, I kinda surprised that you didn't have a stronger reaction to that one."
"I muted the phone and started banging my head against the wall." Drew admitted, mimicking banging his head against the wall.
"That explains it." Rick nodded.
"I mean after awhile I started having mixed feelings about answering the phone because most of me wanted to talk to you but there was this small part of me…" Drew said, holding his fingers about a centimeter apart. "That was like oh great, what new thing to do I have to worry about?"
"I'm insulted by that." Rick said, his face showing a goofy version of a genuine affronted expression. "If I didn't tell you, you would somehow be able to tell anyway so I may as well save you the trouble. Plus, I would want you to tell me if you got hurt ."
"I might have missed the sunburn on the ears." Drew admitted, appreciating the sentiment, grateful for the honesty in their relationship.
"Yea, I doubt that." Rick leaned in to whisper to Drew, maybe loud enough for Krista to hear but he didn't think so. "Because you have this thing about touching the side of my head every time you kiss me." Rick grinned when Drew flushed. "So I have a feeling you would have caught on eventually."
"Well, you see" Drew said looking down, embarrassed, but still happy enough to not really care. "They're in the middle of your head…"
"Excellent observation." Rick teased.
"And…" Drew continued looking at him, "You're taller than me and…" What Drew meant was that, because he was shorter, he felt like he was being kissed, not participating in the act of kissing so he solved that by reaching up and pulling Rick toward him a little. It really had nothing to do with ears; Rick just didn't have any hair he could work with.
"Shut up." Drew muttered after a second of Rick right there, breathing on him because his mouth leveled with Drew's ear ironically.
"And wait I forgot the best one." Drew said, turning his shoulders so he wasn't entirely facing Rick. "He ripped one of his fingernails clean off his hand." Because Rick was still holding one of his hands, he yanked it toward him to examine the nails. "Expect your hand looks fine."
Rick offered Drew his other hand. On his third finger, the nail was half grown back, the skin there already calloused because there wasn't nail to protect it.
"It was a really interesting color of purple when I did it." Rick commented casually.
"Geez, you stress me out." Drew critiqued sarcasmly, making Krista laugh. "I'm so glad you're back." Drew said, tipping his head back onto Rick's shoulder. That made Krista laugh even harder.
"Careful Rick." She commented. "After the table incident, he threatened to wrap you in bubble wrap."
"Yea, I was thinking you could just stay inside the house where you can't get hurt." Drew followed up.
"When pigs fly is that ever going to happen." Drew and Krista exchanged a mischief glance and Drew dug something out of his pocket.
"Hold on, I have the perfect thing for this." He exclaimed, hanging the object in front of Rick's face, who reached up and took it from him. When he flipped it over in his hands, he saw pink with wings and burst out laughing.
"That is your favorite saying, so now I have a keychain with a pig on it and if you look closely, you can spot some wings on this pig and if you pay even closer attention…" Drew trailed off, and took it back to swing it around again. "You see that the pig is flying."
Rick shook his head and kept laughing so hard he didn't answer.
"So this means that I get to make you a hat made of bubble wrap for you to wear if you walk past baseball fields."
Rick rubbed his hands over his face and took a deep breath. "Not going to happen."
"If you get hit in the head with a baseball, don't say I didn't warn you."
"If I get hit in the head with a baseball, that is going to be the first thing I say: Drew, you didn't warn me about these baseball fields." Rick shot back.
"Or you could just create a suit of bubble wrap." Krista suggested.
"You two realize I have combat gear, right?"
"Yea, that doesn't seem to be working so we are replacing it with bubble wrap." Drew quarked.
"That's a foolproof plan if I ever heard one."
"Or maybe like a tent of bubble wrap and you can shuffle around with your feet so that way you have a pocket of air to cushion the blow."
"Never in a million years am I walking around in a tent made out of bubble wrap."
"Pigs are flying, Rick." Drew said loudly, waving the keychain around again.
"You realize I can just find a different saying, don't you?" Rick asked, already coming up with one.
"Yes, but until then, swine are taking to the sky and Sealed Air Corporation makes your outerwear."
"You looked up the name of a bubble wrap company to make that joke. Please tell me you don't know these things off the top of your head."
"I ordered in bulk."
"Drew, I swear if our house is filled with bubble wrap, you're constructing a bedroom set out of it."
"Bubble wrap stacked to the ceiling." Drew demonstrated the height with his hand.
"No way."
"Bubble wrap in every direction as far as the eye can see." Drew continued.
"Great my kingdom is filled with bubble people"
"Oh, that's a better idea. I build an army of people make out of bubble wrap and have them march around you."
"I have always imagined my sacrificial army plated in bronze" Rick mused.
Drew grinned and turned so he was facing Rick again, pulled himself onto his toes and put his arms over Rick's shoulders. In response, his husband squared his shoulders, the muscles shifting under Drew's forearms and this time Rick leaned in to kiss him.
"I love you." He muttered.
"Even after I filled that the house with bubble wrap?"
"I'm getting rid of the bubble wrap." Rick said decisively.
"I love you too." Drew replied. "And you can't get rid of it until I ship Marty's car parts."
Rolling his eyes, Rick took a step back. "You are ridiculous."
That year for Christmas Drew received a keychain with hell spelled out in lower case letters and etchings of engraved snow and frost on the sides of the letters.