The Taste of Gasoline
By Kiley Sullivan (mackzazzle)
They sit in silence, Dex and Joe, and it's a heavy, palpable silence that has Dex's fingers jittering and jumping against the coarse beige cotton covering his knees. He chews his gum too loudly, worries at a hangnail on his thumb, and would sooner have a staring contest with a basilisk than risk a glance at Sky Captain.
He doesn't know why he's in the plane, and while he knows where they're going, he has no idea why they're going there, and yet he's too conscientious to say a word.
Joe, on the other hand, looks dashing and confident with his snappy aviator goggles, soft white scarf, and comfortably worn brown jacket. His long fingers steer the plane with careless ease, and his head bobs almost imperceptibly to music only he can hear. That's how it always is, Dex supposes. Joe dances to his own tune, and fuck all to anybody who can't figure out the steps quick enough to avoid tripping over their feet.
Dex still hasn't quite learned to keep up with Joe's erratic swing-time. He thought he had, at one point, but there he was, sitting in the backseat of Joe's plane, haring off to Amsterdam on twenty minutes' warning and without the faintest clue why. But it's Joe. It's Sky Captain. And of course Dex said yes.
They hit a pocket of turbulence, and the radio cracks loudly with static; Dex, already high-strung and now irrationally startled, sucks in a breath and promptly lodges a piece of thick pink gum in his oesophagus.
Joe twists around, gloved fingers gripping the back of his chair. "Dex? Are you – oh. Lovely."
Dex is a rather delightful shade of fuchsia that sets off the interior of the cabin quite nicely. He bangs against his chest with the heel of his palm, but it takes Joe pushing Dex's head down and giving his back a hearty wallop to shoot the offending Double Bubble from Dex's throat and onto the floor where it glistens innocently, abnormally pink and light in the sepia world of Sky Captain's cabin.
"Better?" asks Joe, and Dex risks a glance upwards, swallowing hard. He can feel the blood draining from his flushed face, and he must look blotchy, not to mention absolutely stupid for choking in the first place. But he nods, and Joe just flashes a grin at him, clasps his shoulder, and then settles back in his seat. "Good boy, Dex."
They still don't speak, but it's as if a leak has developed in the uncomfortable bubble that had surrounded them. Not too reassuring, though, Dex muses. All that serves to do is let all the glutinous, poisonous little thoughts seep in and pool around them, rising higher and higher, cold and thick and metaphorical around their ankles, then their knees.
Then Joe begins to hum, and Dex recognizes the song; it's the one from the new movie with the red ruby slippers, which a group of them had gone to see, but all that Dex can remember from it is that he tried very hard to pretend that Joe wasn't sitting behind him, in the corner of the theatre, and that Polly's hand wasn't down Joe's pants. Dex really hates his memory sometimes.
"Would you mind," he says slowly, gazing out the window at the clouds all rolling by, "not humming that song, Cap?"
Joe stops, the sound dying out like a crumpled accordion. "Why is that, Dex?" he asks cheerfully, but with a dark undertone, a sugarcoated bullet meant to interrogate, not wound.
Dex shrugs. "Not much of a fan."
"Have a request?" Joe asks, raking a hand through his hair and snapping his goggles with unnecessary finesse. The elastic cracks, and Dex winces as if it were a gunshot.
"Er, not really, no," he says vaguely, examining the side of the cabin with undue concentration. "Just, you know, if you wouldn't mind."
Joe doesn't say anything to that, and for a long, agonizing moment, Dex thinks he might have offended him. But then Joe shrugs, and says, "Okay, suit yourself," and Dex wilts against the back of the seat, forehead resting against the cool wall.
The rest of the trip passes in silence, although Dex is so antsy with curiosity and confusion that he drains at least two bottles of Milk of Magnesia, and Joe gives him a funny look, because Dex is the one with the stronger stomach.
Finally they land to refuel, on some little out-of-the-way island with an air force base and a village and little else. It's warm, and Dex takes of his jacket, and he's crouched beneath the plane doing a quick inspection when Joe returns from buying them some food, a small packet beneath one arm.
"Dex?" he asks, and as Dex crawls out and stands up, he notices an ever-so-brief flicker of something on Joe's face, in his eyes. But it's gone when Dex tries to take a closer look, pushing sweat-damp hair out of his face. He's flushed, and his beige shirt is clinging to him, and he rubs his wrists nervously, uncomfortably.
Joe smiles his irrepressible Sky Captain smile, and jerks his head, a silent beckoning, and the two of them walk a ways off the tarmac to a dusty patch of grass at the edge of the cliff. Joe tosses Dex one of the packets, which turns out to be a sandwich (tuna, which is Polly's favourite, but Dex can't stand it), which Dex nevertheless unwraps and begins to eat without a sound of protest.
"Nice view," says Joe idly, eating his own sandwich, which is chicken. He's standing at the edge of the cliff, his hair gusting in the breeze, sunlight casting his stature a brilliant bronze, and Dex says, "Mmhmm," wholeheartedly, although it's not until a few moments later that he realizes that Joe was talking about the skyline, and not about himself.
Dex concentrates on his sandwich, swallowing hard and pretending not to taste it. Bite, chew, swallow. Every so often the sandwich contains the echo of another flavour, such as cigarette smoke when he catches a whiff off of Joe's jacket, or motor oil smudged on Dex's hand. He doesn't care. It doesn't matter. He'd drink gasoline if it meant being here, with Joe.
Joe turns suddenly, eyes narrowed. "Dex," he says sharply.
Dex concentrates hard, then swallows, trying to avoid another unfortunate choking incident. "Yes, Cap?" he says after a long moment, still feeling the lump of sandwich as it slides down his throat.
"You don't like tuna, do you?"
Dex blinks. "Er, no, not really," he says uncertainly, looking down at the sandwich. He doesn't say anything, and neither does Joe, and when Dex finally looks up again, Joe is staring at him, eyes bright and thoughtful and confused. "What?" asks Dex. No answer. The strangest expression is on Joe's face, and it makes Dex both nervous and excited. It's difficult work to convince his already-ingested lunch to stay put.
Then Joe notices the burns.
"What are those?" he demands, grabbing the rest of Dex's sandwich and tugging it from his hands. They drop to the ground, but Joe's hands are already sliding up to encircle Dex's wrists, running callused thumbs lightly against the spotted red marks on Dex's hands.
Dex licks his lips and swallows hard. "Just burns, Cap," he says, hoping that an offhand tone will put Joe off. "Nothing to worry about." He tugs ineffectually at his wrists, but Joe holds fast, tilting his head to look long and searchingly into Dex's eyes.
And he says, slowly, with painful humility, "Why didn't you tell me?"
"They're just burns, Cap..." Dex says warily, eyes wide.
Joe shakes his head firmly, once, twice. "Not just about this," he says. "About the sandwich. About the song. About lots of things, Dex."
"I don't understand..." Dex says, bewildered, and Joe drops his wrists with something that might be disgust, but not at Dex, or despair, or even disappointment. Dex can't tell. All he knows is that when Joe turns away, hands shoved in his pockets, he feels a wrenching twist somewhere in his chest, and he can't even breathe as he watches Joe walk away, back across the tarmac.
By the time his brain and motor functions are working in sync again, he has to jog to catch up with Joe, and reaches him just as Sky Captain reaches the plane. "Joe—" he begins, but Joe cuts him off with a short shake of his head.
"Not now, Dex," he says wearily. "I'm too tired to talk about it." He grabs each of their bags from the back of the plane, tossing Dex's to him.
Dex barely catches it, momentarily winded. "Talk about what?" he manages after a moment, but Joe just gives him a cocky little grin and a mock salute.
"You'll figure it out when you're older," says Joe with a wink, and hoists his bag up on his shoulder. "Now let's go get some sleep, shall we?"
He heads off towards the small guest barracks, humming under his breath, and it's a different song this time. It's one that Dex knows. But as he hurries to catch up with Joe, he wonders, and he thinks. And he still doesn't understand.
A/N: As always, I'm obligated to point you towards the skycaptainslash community (livejournal dot com / community / skycaptainslash) for more of the same, and some even better!