Blue Moon
[DAY 21]
Evan splashes water onto his face to wash away the remnants of sleep. After he dries himself, he enters the kitchen and dining room where Giorgio has set two plates and ceramic dishes on the table.
The blonde happily thanks his partner for the food and plops himself down. He looks at the ceramic dish and freezes in abject horror with his mouth open. NON! BAKED EGGS?! Our petite [little] Gnocchi!
Giorgio is about to take a seat when he realises what Evan is thinking. With a finger he pushes Evan's gasping jaw upwards to close it. "Relax. None of the eggs are our Gnocchi. She's in the fridge where she'll keep for longer." He honestly dreaded the day when they'd have to throw her out… Eggs don't last forever Evan. His partner was going to be crushed, but the brunette will deal with that day when it comes...
Evan's shoulders drop and he lets himself breathe.
"Trust me."
"I do… Just had a knee-jerk reaction there…"
The blonde happily starts eating the yolky baked eggs, enjoying the tomato-coated, melty mozzarella with a bumpy looking crusty bread bun. The soft inside of the bread has many caverns to fill with the deliciously herbed liquid with. "Mmmm perfect choice of bread." Evan hums.
"Thank you. It's called michetta, the poster-boy bread of Milano. I like having it with saucy things like this, but you can use it for sandwiches or even just stuff them full with Nutella." Giorgio explains.
Evan looks at Giorgio with stars in his eyes. "Giorgio Bruno, veux-tu m'épouser?" [will you marry me?]"
"Hm?"
With breakfast cleaned up, the two scan the letter Keith and Robert had given them yesterday.
"'All underperforming teams are subject to this remedial class to improve team cohesion.'" Giorgio reads.
"I wonder how hardcore the exercises will be." Evan wonders, shifting restlessly in excitement.
"Don't underestimate it." Giorgio warns. "It will be a gruelling drill if the aim is to achieve a leap in combat skills."
Evan nods. They had gotten up two hours before the appointed time in order to ensure they ate breakfast well before— in order to prevent any possible vomiting.
Tensions high, they entered Room 9-S ready for the Drill Sergeant from hell itself. All their training, all the preparation they had put in maintaining their weapons, steeling themselves mentally beforehand- all of this had been completely undone by what they saw.
"A… a dance class?" Evan asks.
There was an assortment of agents dancing with their partners in the gymnasium-spaced room. A pair of agents begrudgingly doing the foxtrot clumsily with each other, contrasting a female pair across in another corner of the room happily tapping and kicking their feet to swing music.
Both men looked at each other with eyebrows raised before looking at the sight before them again.
"Uhhh maybe we have the wrong room." Giorgio suggested. Though the tag by the doorway was unmistakably '9-S', but he refused to believe.
"Yeah… Let's go to some actual training rooms to train… How about some sniping practice, or something?" Evan asked, still a bit everywhere.
Giorgio nodded. Somewhat let down by what they had seen. They turned around and started making their way back to the door.
"Attendez! Wait messieurs!" A heavily accented voice calls out towards them.
"Walk faster." Giorgio hisses under his breath.
An older, but well-muscled man slides in front of them with a smooth motion. "Ahh! The infamous duo I have been told to keep my eyes on!" He exclaims with his heavy French accent.
"Pardon [Sorry]… But we have entered the wrong room." Evan says as they inch closer towards the door past the flamboyant man.
"Non, non, non! I will not believe this! That a fellow Frenchman is fleeing like a coward, like all those stereotypical insults suggest!"
Evan stops and turns around. "Now look here, you…"
Giorgio turns to retrieve his stalling partner. "Evan, don't fall for his cheap provocations. Let's go for some rifle practice."
The dance instructor frowns and pretends to look at the non-existent dirt under his well-kept fingernails. "Oh… perhaps I was wrong then. Our Italian neighbours are not similar to us French after all. They simply cannot dance, as they lack 'la passion.'"
Giorgio narrows his eyes at the taunting man, tempted to turn the square scarf tied around his neck into a noose.
"Hmmm! Non, not quite mes amis [my friends]." Jean says as he observes the pair slowly pick up the pace with their prescribed dance. Chests pressed against each other, left hands entwined, they dance the waltz.
[Blue moon you saw me standing alone. Without a dream in my heart, without a love of my own.]
At the moment it looks clunky and awkward. It doesn't help that they are both trying to lead the steps.
The instructor laughs. "You are two stags fighting for dominance. But in the waltz, there are no stags- only swans. One which follows after its mate with grace as they float across the pond."
"But I thought swans were a ballet thing?" Asks Evan.
"Shush you." Jean chides. "That's it Monsieur Bruno, let Bernard lead. Follow his steps. Do not thrash, glide across the pond."
With a new manoeuvre, the turning lock, Instructor Romée sees the pair looking stiff again.
"Ah ah ah, the bad 'abit is showing again, Monsieur Bruno. You are too rigid. You need to lean against your partner's hand on your back. Let him hold your weight."
Giorgio stops to collect himself, he's not used to sucking so badly at something. And he's certainly not used to depending on someone else for anything, let alone keeping upright balance.
Evan gives an encouraging smile to his partner. "Think of it as a hug." He says holding his arms out.
Progress resumes again.
[And then there suddenly appeared before me. The only one my arms will ever hold.
I heard somebody whisper "please adore me". And when I looked, the moon had turned to gold!]
"That it! That it! Un, deux, trois, quatre! Un, deux, trois, quatre!" Jean claps excitedly. "And now— DIP!"
With the sudden exclamation, Evan dips Giorgio.
Being taken completely by surprise, Giorgio lets go of Evan and whirls his arms over his head in an attempt to perform a yoga bridge. It's a reflexive action to the sensation of falling backwards, but it makes Jean groan and hide his eyes behind a hand at the poor dance form.
Evan chuckles as he lifts his partner back up. "Trust me!" He says earnestly to his partner.
After a while, Jean slowly raises his head from the hand he is hiding behind when he hears steps again in the one to four rhythm. ?... Oh! Bon! [Good!]
With a few more twists and turns gracefully across the floor, the pair share a silent agreement when the music reaches a break and Giorgio leans back as Evan dips him fairly low.
[Blue moon! Now I'm no longer alone, without a dream in my heart. Without a love of my own.]
That ought to impress him. "Voilà!" Exclaims Evan. "When are we done with the lesson, Instructor Romée?"
The man smiles fondly at the visible improvement from the pair, the duo finally showing they could move beautifully as a single entity. "Until it is no longer shit."
Drill Sergeant Jean Romée was a perfectionist after all.
The duo mentally groan.
Evan finds it amusing as Giorgio's hair sways with the twists and turns they perform.
"What are you grinning about?" Giorgio asks. "Have you finally gone crazy from hearing 'Blue Moon' over and over again?"
Evan snorts at the scepticism of his sanity. "You know, for a guy… you have really pretty hair."
Expecting to be chided or sassed for the comment, Evan is surprised when Giorgio gives him a soft expression he hasn't seen before.
"Thank you. It was a gift from my mother's side."
The pair share a moment of fondness with each other, which is suddenly ruined when a scream with a Spanish accent can be heard.
"Mr Alvarez, calm dow—" A different pair's instructor soothes.
"No!" Screams Santiago. "I have been calm enough! Having such a weak partner is bad enough, but this pendejo [fucktard] cannot even learn a simple dance. I will NOT have my suffering prolonged by this retard!"
The berated man looks down at the ground, feeling so very small.
"Monsieur Bernard. Stay where you are." Jean orders to Evan who had started walking towards the abused man.
"But he—"
"Do not forget that we are all soldiers here. You are to complete my drills until I dismiss you both." Jean says sternly. His expression softens a little. "Do not worry about that… mess. My colleague is more than capable of sorting it out.
"Poor Rúben…" Evan mumbles as he and Giorgio take their positions again. Guess we found out which poor guy is Santiago's partner.
Much to their displeasure it would be a total of five hours before they are given a satisfactory completion status of the remedial class.
Jean watched happily watched the duo grumble towards the doorway, as they were finally dismissed from his class and allowed their freedom. "Ahh, don't they remind you of us?"
Another grey-haired instructor clicked his tongue. "I take offense in you suggesting Italians lack 'la passion'.
"Ha ha ha! Now, now, Monsieur Bardi. That was just bait to get him to dance. I know how fiery Italians are from experience." Jean grinned holding out his hands. "Now! Shall we dance, my dear partner?"
[DAY 22]
They are in a labyrinth modelled after a warehouse today with pop-up targets. To add some danger to it, most of the targets have fitted motion detectors which activate paint guns to fire. When sufficiently hit, the paint gun deactivates while the pressure plates feed a score into a computer.
It's not to say they were slow in improving before being subjected to the horrors of eternal dancing, but their movement have a flow previously unseen.
Rather than trying to carry the team himself, Giorgio does the unthinkable, and lets his partner take point and have his pick of oncoming targets.
Evan relishes diving head first into the fray to mow down any immediate targets with his rapid fire. It suits his confident, albeit brash nature.
In their formation, Giorgio covers Evan's flank and takes out targets from a longer range utilising his high precision skills. It's as though they glided rather than battled through the training room.
"Phew! That felt waaaay easier than usual. It wasn't set to super easy or something, was it?" Evan says as they enter the review room.
Giorgio looks at a monitor. "No... Looks like it's set to the usual A-rank difficulty. Hey, we finished it in a little over three minutes."
Evan grins at his partner. When they had first started, it took roughly ten minutes for a warehouse this size.
Giorgio smiles back at his partner. "How about that banquet I promised you to celebrate tomorrow night?"
[DAY 23]
Evan poked his head in the fridge. "Ahhh… I think you got too excited."
There was literally no room to move anything.
Meats, vegetables, fruits and cheese were stacked neatly against each other as if they were blocks in a Tetris game. Should he remove the little tub of honey yoghurt he wanted, the structural integrity would be compromised and everything would collapse in an edible landslide.
Giorgio clicked his tongue as he acknowledged the dilemma. "Okay, I might have gotten a little carried away when I heard the word 'banquet'. How about I invite a couple of my friends over? I reckon you'll get along like a house on fire with the red of that pair especially."
Wesley knocks on the door. "Hey Giorgio! I know we're early, but we thought we'd help out. By 'we', I mean me."
The door opens to reveal a pleasantly surprised Evan when recognition dawns on his face. "Alan! Wesley!"
Having found out that Alan's civilian job is as an underground DJ, Evan excitedly talks with him about music on the sofa.
Wesley helps Giorgio with cutting vegetables in the kitchen.
"Well, this is a pleasant surprise. Unlike the one I got before we were suddenly deployed. Alan told me you and Evan got into a massive fight."
Giorgio let out an amused sigh. "Yes mum, we're getting along now."
Wesley crosses his arms at the jibe.
"We even hold hands when we're watching EuroVision together." The Italian snarks.
Wesley breaks and laughs at the sarcasm. "But seriously, have you both apologised to Ted? You know— for terrorising the poor man who had no idea what was even going on?"
"Yes we did. I even gave him a bottle of red I was saving." Giorgio smiled back earnestly. Goodbye my beautiful bottle of Masseto.
Wesley looks proud of the other man, and notices something on his friend's neck. "Say… why do you have a bite mark on your throat?"
Evan jolts as he overhears the question.
Alan has a shit eating grin on his face. Oh yeah. Forgot to mention that part to Wes.
"Well... I tried to feed this bear… some eggs. …And then it mauled me." Giorgio answers with a straight face, side-eyeing Evan.
"Huh?" Wesley says, confused.
Evan scratches the back of his head in embarrassment and turns away to look at some decor.
Alan cackles with laughter.
Author's Note:
-A big thank you to June Ellie for spotting all the spilling/grammar errors x_x Why did I think I could do a quick release...
-Blue Moon: The version by Frank Sinatra is my favourite~ It's very 'old world romance'.
-EuroVision: An international singing competition. I gave up on it because the 'Russian Grannies' never won.
-Masseto: A Tuscan merlot wine that has been aged in French oak barrels. It averages 600 Euros in pricing…