Expendables Hurricane Party
"That weatherman is crazy, if he thinks this storm's just going to blow right over us." Tool commented, sucking on his pipe and blowing out a plume of smoke right into Lee Christmas's face.
"Ay, watch it!" The Brit complained as he stalked by.
Tool waved him off and continued to stare at the TV mounted to the wall in his shop. The sharply dressed weatherman was giving out false hope over the air about the winds shifting and taking the storm elsewhere, but Tool knew his hometown, and if there was a hurricane to be found, it was going to hit New Orleans, without fail. The bad weather patterns were one of the only things he hated about Louisiana, but he was too stubborn to move, after having spent so much of his life moving from place to place.
"Cool it, Christmas," Barney growled from where he was perched on Tool's countertop, scratching the stubble on his jaw with a rasp. The indomitable leader of The Expendables was also watching the TV, but wasn't as involved in it as Tool, or as on edge as Lee.
Lee Christmas sighed. "Sorry. Storms always make me uptight."
"You mean more uptight than usual," Hale Caesar quipped. The muscular Black man busied himself with finishing up the last of his beer, with his back to Christmas, purposefully missing the bird his friend flipped him.
Yin Yang, who had been quietly checking the path of the storm on his computer, peeked his head out from behind the device and said, "This is no good. We better get out of here, before the winds pick up more. You have too many windows, Tool."
"Well, forgive me for wanting all you guys to get some vitamin D while you're here."
"Those windows let sunshine in, but we all know how darkness follows light. That's what we don't want." Toll Road preached from his usual spot towards the back of the room.
All six men startled when the enormous Swedish snoring machine known as Gunnar Jensen snort/coughed himself awake from where he'd been sound asleep slouched on his motorcycle.
"Damn, Gunnar." Caesar remarked, holding a hand to his heart, feigning fright.
The Swede grunted and rose to his full height. "What I miss?"
"I was just telling everyone it's time to head out." Yang said, annoyed that he'd had to repeat himself. "You would have known that if you had been awake."
"Yeah. How is it that you're able to sleep, snoring like a buzz saw, just about whenever you want to?" Toll Road inquired.
Gunnar folded his massive arms across his chest and shrugged, clearly flexing. "Just special, I guess."
"Yeah, if special is another name for crazy." Tool goaded with a grin.
"Watch it." Barney said, always the one to reel everyone in. "Let's quit talking and get going, like Yang said."
"Sounds good. Lacey is probably worried sick about me anyhow. I promised her I'd only be out for a little while, and I've been here with your ugly mugs for hours. How dumb am I, spending time with you lot instead of her?" Christmas asked rhetorically, grabbing his motorcycle helmet.
"Real dumb."
"I wasn't looking for an answer," he told Toll Road with a shake of his head.
"Well, I got a woman coming over in a little while, who's too scared of the storm to stay at her place alone, so if you'd leave, I could prepare for that." Tool said with a glint in his eye. "There are a lot of windows upstairs too, but hey. If I go out, at least it'll be the way I always wanted to, laying next to a woman."
"Sounds nice, Tool." Caesar said. "I'm going to make sure everything's secured at my place, and then catch my flight to Chicago before things get too bad around here. My sister's been asking me to come for a visit for months, I figured now was a good time to go."
Toll Road nodded. "Smart, getting out before the worst hits. I'm staying in Louisiana but leaving New Orleans."
"Let me guess, you're heading to Baton Rouge, to stay with a certain... analyst?" Barney asked.
Toll shrugged. "So, what if I am?"
"You know," Gunnar said with a crooked smile, "I'd go to therapy if I got to date my therapist."
Toll Road shook his head. "She only agreed to go out with me after I promised to see a different therapist. Told me that she wasn't allowed to date current patients."
"So, basically, now she just gets to deal with all your problems and wonderful personality but without getting paid. Smart lady." Christmas said sarcastically.
Yin Yang rolled his eyes. "Your lady is just as smart, staying with you, so you no talk about anyone else's."
"What about you, Yang? Got everything squared away for the storm?" Caesar asked.
He nodded. "Yes. I started preparing three days ago. It takes me longer, because I'm shorter."
Everyone groaned at that, as Yang mentioning his height was similar on the annoyance scale to Toll Road brining up his cauliflower ear.
"I going to stay across the street from my house, with an older woman who did not want to be alone during bad weather." Yin Yang added.
"An older woman, huh? Best you're gonna get." Gunnar joked.
"Yang still has more game than you, big guy." Barney pointed out good naturedly.
The Swede scowled. "I'll have you know that I'm expecting female company later tonight."
"Oh yeah? Is she human?" Christmas asked, aware that the big lug had a thing for stray animals.
"Yes, she's human." He replied, defensively. "It's Maggie."
Stunned silence filled the room. "Maggie, like Maggie Chen, the CIA agent who helped us take down the Sangs years ago?"
Gunnar winked. "That very one. She came into town a few weeks ago, and I ran into her at a bar, and well, turns out sometimes my charm does work. She remembered how much I was into her back then, only this time, she was into me too."
"Well, ain't that a surprise." Caesar said with a chuckle, that the rest of the team shared.
Barney got on his Harley and revved it, causing everyone to stare at him, and then one by one, they all realized that they didn't know what their boss was going to do during the hurricane.
"What are your plans, Barney?" Tool asked, wiping his hands on his well-worn, low-slung jeans.
Barney rolled his shoulders forward and replied, "Just going to wait it out at the hangar. It's big, safe, and has very few windows."
"Probably why you have such a pasty color," Christmas joked. His friend and leader rarely ever lost his dark, nearly reddish tan, much to the frustration of his fairer-skinned counterparts.
He chuckled. "Must be why. See you all after it hits and keep safe."
With that, everyone except Tool left the shop on their bikes, roaring into the darkening night, all hoping to get where they needed to go before the hurricane made landfall.
Barney Ross entered his house, accessible to very few, considering you had to walk through the hangar to get to the door, and sighed. Dropping his helmet on the table, he headed to the box of Cuban cigars he kept in the kitchen and pulled one out.
Taking a seat on the well-worn couch in his living room, Barney lit up the stogie with his skull-covered Zippo lighter, and took a long, soothing drag, letting the smoke warm his insides and calm his nerves.
Storms like the hurricane projected for New Orleans never made him comfortable, but knowing that his team was going to be safe did a lot to reassure him that everything was going to be fine.
He was slightly bothered by the fact that every one of his buddies had somewhere to go and someone special to spend time with during the worst of the weather, but Barney wasn't one to wallow for long, and worked on snapping himself out of it.
Deciding to put on a movie to distract himself, the weathered man got up, flipped through his old VHS tapes, and picked a western that he knew would provide entertainment, but wouldn't require too much thought, like so many contemporary movies did.
Two hours later, after the cigar was long gone, and the western was nearly over, Barney saw the first lightening bolt strike nearby, and heard the first loud crack of thunder. He stiffened, but then forced himself to relax. He was safe, his property was safe, his team was safe, there was no reason to worry.
Facing down entire countries' worth of scumbags was certainly more harrowing than dealing with a bad storm, and as soon as he reminded himself of that, he felt better.
That was, until Barney's thoughts shifted to Gunnar. Hearing that the big man had reconnected with Maggie Chen brought forth some emotions that he wasn't sure he wanted to deal with. Maggie had been a bright ray of sunshine in an otherwise pitch-black time in his life, after Billy had been killed, and while they were tracking the man who'd killed him, and it had nearly killed Barney to let her walk away.
Not to mention the fact that originally, she'd professed interest in him, quite obviously, by referencing his ethnicity during a heated conversation about last meals and had seemed quite off-put by Gunnar. What had changed? It shouldn't have bothered him that she'd picked Gunnar over him, hell, it wasn't like they were in high school trying to ask the same girl out to prom, but it still stung more than he wanted to admit.
Recognizing that sitting on the couch dwelling on things that could have been wasn't productive or healthy, Barney got up, the change in air pressure outside allowing him to feel every poor decision he'd ever made with his body and sighed. It was going to be a long night.
It wasn't like he ever had anyone over to spend the night anyway, and that didn't usually irritate him, but there was just something about not wanting to be alone during bad weather that he couldn't seem to shake, no matter how old he got.
Before he could sink any further into self-pity that he was alone while everyone else was with someone, there was a loud knock on his door.
Eyeing the Kimber Gold Combat II pistols he kept in his belt holster hanging on the kitchen wall, Barney looked through his peephole, and stepped back in surprise.
"What are you guys doing here?" he asked, pulling open the door to reveal Lee Christmas, and his wife, Lacey.
Christmas rubbed his bald head and said, "We were in an evac zone, can you believe that? We've lived there for years without issue during hurricanes, and this time, they told us to get out."
"The storm must be traveling a different path than ones we've gotten before," Barney surmised, "probably a good thing, letting some areas that aways get hammered have a break."
Lee snorted. "Yeah, probably. So we're staying with you."
"Lee," Lacey said, smacking him on the chest, "what he meant to say was, would you mind if we stayed here?"
Barney shook his head. "No, of course not. I've got some sleeping bags you can borrow. It's not much, but I don't usually have guests over."
Assuring him that that was fine, Lacey let Lee lead her to where the equipment was, as he knew his way around almost as well as Barney did, considering he'd been there when his friend had bought the place.
Just as he was shutting the door, a foot forced it back open. "Hey, what's the big idea? Keeping me out?" Gunnar asked, barging his way inside, with a sleeping bag rolled up under one arm, and a flask in his hand.
Barney's eyebrows knitted together. "Gunnar? What's going on?"
The larger man dumped his belongings on the couch and took a swig from his flask. He hiccupped, and then replied, "Maggie stopped by. We talked about the things we went through together a long time ago, but when I tried to kiss her, she put some distance between us, and told me that she just wanted to reconnect with old friends. Friends. She never wanted me, she just wanted to talk to someone from her past while she was in town.
"I got upset and took off. I think she stayed at my place, but she might have left. I don't really care, there's nothing important in there, and I don't expect her to take anything. I just needed to deal with her rejection somewhere else."
"So, you came here." Barney said.
He nodded and placed a heavy hand on Barney's shoulder. "Yep. Figured the best place to lick my wounds was with the man who always helped me get back on my feet."
Feeling honored, and slightly happy that Maggie hadn't been interested in Gunnar, for reasons he'd unpack later, Barney smiled. "Make yourself at home, it's going to be a doozy."
Gunnar moved further into the house, surprised when he ran into Christmas and Lacey. Barney could hear them talking about why they were in his house to begin with and decided to wait a moment before closing the door.
He'd survived decades of guerrilla warfare chiefly because of his reflexes and instincts, and those instincts were telling him that he might not be done receiving guests.
Sure enough, Caesar and Yin Yang rolled up on their motorcycles at nearly the same time, and started laughing, when they realized they'd both had the same idea.
"Can I help you?" Barney asked lazily, leaning on the doorjamb, hands stuffed into the front pockets of his dark wash jeans.
Caesar replied, "They closed the airport two minutes before my flight was supposed to take off. Can you believe that?"
Barney could. "The storm is looking like it's going to be bad really soon, Caesar. The airport probably didn't want their pilots out in it. I'm surprised it stayed open for as long as it did."
Caesar harrumphed. "Well, I was going to just head back home, when I realized I didn't have enough gas in the tank to get from the airport all the way back to my place. Yours was closer."
"Grab a sleeping bag in the back and take your place on the floor." Barney instructed. At Caesar's confused stare, he added, "You'll see what I'm talking about in a second."
Yin Yang approached and said, "The old lady I was going to keep company forgot she'd asked me to stay with her and had a friend over."
At the Asian's shudder, Barney chuckled. "Oh really? And how old was this friend?"
"Her age at least." Yang replied, looking more traumatized at having witness old people enjoying each other's company than he did after most of their jobs. "I could not stay at my house, knowing they were across the street doing that." He paused, and then added, "And you have the best alcohol."
Stepping aside to let Yin Yang in, Barney ran a hand through his hair, and breathed in the scents of the storm approaching.
"You gonna stand there sniffing the air all night?"
Barney turned his head to face Toll Road, who had a sleeping bag slung over one shoulder, and a deep frown on his face.
"What made you so upset? And why are you here, instead of almost to Baton Rouge, to be with your former therapist-slash-current-girlfriend?"
"That right there is what made me so upset," Toll replied. "I was a quarter of the way down there when Sadie called and begged me to stay put, saying that she'd just watched a news story about a guy on a motorcycle who'd lost control of his bike trying to ride through hurricane force winds. She was hysterical, and man, I didn't want to make her upset.
"So, I turned around, and decided on coming over here instead of riding more than I had to, to get home. The exit for your place was closer than the one for mine, due to where I was riding."
Nodding, Barney agreed that upsetting a woman was never a bright idea and welcomed the ex-wrestler into his home.
Wondering if that was the last of his impromptu company, Barney shut the door, stared at Gunnar and Yin Yang elbowing each other out of the way for the better spot on his cement floor, and chuckled.
"Barney! Open the damn door!" Tool rasped, knocking loudly.
Startled, Barney spun and reached for the gun that wasn't in the back of his waistband, before taking a breath and opening the door, glad for once that he hadn't been armed.
"Tool, I almost shot you."
The long-haired man grinned. "Aww, you wouldn't have shot me."
"Don't be so sure. Why are you here? I thought you were going to be with that woman you mentioned."
Tool shrugged in an attempt to look unbothered, which only made him look more bothered. "Ah, man, you know how it is. Lady said she wasn't looking for something serious, I took her at her word, assured her that was just fine with me, but what I didn't count on was her cheating on me and then telling me that she was late because she'd been out on a date."
"What?" Barney asked, incredulous.
Tool nodded. "Ain't that something? Now, I know I'm laid back when it comes to what people want to do in their free time, but I don't want to be with a woman who cheats, let alone does it so cavalierly and doesn't think about how others might react to her actions." He paused and kicked his boot on the doorjamb.
"Is there something fundamentally wrong with me, brother? Like, why is it that every woman I'm with up and decides to leave me, sometimes not even waiting until they've cut ties to start seeing someone else?"
Barney felt for his old friend. Looking at Tool, one might assume that he was the one who broke women's hearts by keeping them at a distance and switching them out often, but that wasn't the case. He happened to know that Tool was extremely loyal, and quite tender when he wanted to be, and really couldn't understand why women treated him so poorly.
"I can't tell you why she cheated, but there's nothing wrong with you." Barney stopped, shook his head, and added, "Well, nothing wrong with you in that sense, anyway."
Tool punched Barney in the arm and let himself in without waiting for an invitation.
Closing the door with finality, seeing as though everyone he knew was now inside, with the exception of Trench, who was on a job somewhere far away from the storm, Barney turned to face his friends.
Christmas was stroking Lacey's hair lovingly, still sickeningly infatuated with her, despite their rocky beginnings; Gunnar was sharing his flask with Tool as they complained about their bad luck with women; and Yang was drinking directly from a nearly empty bottle of Barney's best whiskey, cracking Caesar and Toll up about what he'd seen at his neighbor's house.
The atmosphere, which had seemed so dull and bleak before, was now lively and colorful, just how Barney liked it. He went to his radio, and turned it to his favorite station, Bill Withers's "Lean on Me" filtering quietly into the room. Barney shook his head and smiled at the perfect timing of the 70s song about friendship, before heading to the kitchen and grabbing the beers he had in the fridge.
There were only three left, but Christmas and Lacey preferred fancier drinks, Yang was depleting his whiskey bottle, and Gunnar still had enough of whatever was in his flask to drink and share with Tool, so three was all that were needed.
"Drink up, incase the storm knocks the power out, don't want these to go bad."
Taking the beers with matching grins, Caesar, Toll Road, and Barney clinked bottles, and proposed a toast, along with Yin Yang's bottle and Gunnar's flask. "To the storm giving us all she's got, and to us giving all we got to fixing whatever she destroyed, once she's done."
So, when the hurricane struck in the dead of night, rattling the hangar and rousing everyone in it, aside from the snoring Swede, Barney, who'd fallen asleep half on his couch and half on Caesar's arm, despite being the only one there who actually had a bed to rest in, wasn't panicked, or even slightly worried. He had everything he needed right here, and, like the song had said earlier, someone -make that multiple someone's- to lean on.
The End