A/N: Written for the International Fanworks Day 2016 from AO3, crossposting here for reasons, I guess. Compliant with the setting of my Big Damn AU I'm currently in the process of rewriting, but contains no spoilers.
"How do you even watch this stuff, man?" Rex glared up at Noah when he spoke, who had busied himself rummaging through the cooler for one of the sodas they kept stashed, sitting two on the table in front of Rex and Calan. Rex had stripped to the waist, holding a cold pack against his shoulder as it bruised faster than his Nanites were able to compensate, ignoring the throbbing pain from Calan having popped the joint back into socket. The television had been left on El Amor De La Pasión El Amor, though thankfully for everyone else's sanity, Rex had had the decency to turn the volume down and the captions on. "I mean, seriously, my mom watches this shit, it's all about people fucking their cousins or something."
"No it's not!" he responded, throwing his cold pack at Noah's head as he sat down in the chair across the room, but instantly regretting it when his shoulder gave a particularly painful throb. Noah threw it back at him and raised his soda in acknowledgment of the unspoken thank you before cracking it open. "They have a deeply respectable story line about how Carmen and Isabella are fighting for the affections of Reynaldo! Who is actually th… yeah, it's awful, but you don't get to complain about it."
"Why the hell not?"
"Because it's my culture, if anyone's gonna shit on it, it's me." Rex leaned back against the couch cushions to keep the ice pack in place, turning the volume up enough to hear so he could close his eyes for a bit.
"Soaps aren't culture, man, and if you're going to sleep, I'm changing the channel." Noah said, lunging for the remote faster than Rex could react to stop him. "I don't speak this foreign gobbledygook."
Rex shot back up with an angry expression, but before he could open his mouth, Noah was sitting on the back of his chair, a knife sticking out of the spot where his lungs had been a moment before. His eyes followed the line it'd traveled, noticing the empty sheathe on Calan's hip. Neither of them had seen him move.
"Idiots with prejudices don't last in this business, boy." Calan said simply, holding his hand out in a clear signal he wanted his knife back
Noah, eyes still latched onto the offending weapon, eased his way off the back of the chair, pulling the knife from the cushions and walking it, cautiously, back to him. He'd managed to stop his hands from shaking by the time he handed it over. "Good. I thought I'd have to bandage your balls up again."
Rex chuckled, and because of it, he reacted slower, the knife just barely grazing the back of his uninjured arm as he threw himself to the left to avoid it. "Oh come on, you have to admit him taking a knife to the nuts was funny!"
Calan chuckled too, but still managed to grab the smack aimed at his head.