Calm
Author: wanderingsmith
feb 19, 2015
Summary: Caesar and Toll both smirked
at Barney's warning tone, "You'd stepped out,
Tool, which I always kinda regretted, for your
sake." They gave the suddenly curious artist
grins, "You missed when Christmas walked into
the shop."
Rating: PG13
Disclaimer: I ain't got no money, and
nobody'd be daft enough to pay me for this. As
it is thought, so let it be said; you make the
toys, I play with 'em..
AN: For this prompt: For some reason
I'm thinking of the guys sitting around a
table talking about how calm Barney is and how
fucking annoying it is. And Barney's just
shaking his head. then someone brings lee up
and the ragging ensues
"Come on, Tool, admit it. You want to throw a
knife at him sometimes."
Tool chuckled indulgently, "Gunner, my friend, I
remember when he was young. And just as annoyingly
calm. If you think *this* is bad? You should have
tried to keep.. actually, he was worse." He met
Barney's eyes thoughtfully, "He was... much more
closed, back then. You couldn't ruffle him. Had to
work like hell to get a smile, even; forget about
anything stronger than a glare. Was maddening."
Doc snickered out loud, smirking at Barney's
rolled eyes. "I remember old Franklin was sure it
was a put-on. No one 20 years younger than *he*
was could be so fucking cool-headed in every
fucking situation. Including when *he* charged
Barney and got flipped on his back without even a
change of expression."
Caesar huffed a short laugh, grinning at Toll, "I
don't know, *I* remember Barney getting good and
thrown."
"Caesar..."
Caesar and Toll both smirked at Barney's warning
tone, "You'd stepped out, Tool, which I always
kinda regretted, for your sake." They gave the
suddenly curious artist grins, "You missed when
Christmas walked into the shop."
"Not walked," Toll corrected, eyes bright as
Barney covered his with a groan, "**Strutted**."
Caesar's head tilted in mock thought, but he
couldn't hold the pose for more than a couple
seconds before snickering, "Very true, thank you.
So there the three of us were, trying to chill in
a sweltering hot New Orleans afternoon, when in
struts this kid, still holding himself like a
soldier, bald as I am, skintight jeans -remember
those, Barney?-" Caesar leered fearlessly into
Barney's glare before smirking at the others, "And
an undone leather jacket. And I don't mean with a
shirt underneath."
"For fuck's sake Caesar-"
"No no, I want to hear this!" Gunner's smile
covered half his face.
And Galgo's nods looked like they might damage his
spine.
Caesar shrugged, "I can't disappoint them,
Barney."
Tool patted Barney's shoulder as the man sank down
in his seat with a glower for everyone at the
table.
"So, where was I?"
"Half-naked Christmas. You were probably about to
mention the foot-long blade he was flipping as he
walked."
Waiting out the assorted snorts and laughs at the
image, Caesar finally took up his story. "So this
cocky sod struts into Tool's shop, looks around
like he's already bored. Sees the target on the
wall, still with Barney's knife in one of the
skull's eyes." He grins and looks at his audience,
"Anyone want to guess what he does?"
Doc laughs out loud, "Threw his meat cleaver into
the other eye!"
Caesar nodded while everyone shook their heads,
"You got it. Perfect bull's eye. And suddenly," he
smirked at Barney, who was affecting a blank
expression, "Suddenly *this* one sits up. And when
I look over, Mr.Cool-Hand Luke is looking
somewhere between annoyed at the visitor's lack of
manners... and.. what would you call that, Toll?"
Toll looked upward for a sec, thinking back, "I'd
say.. 'intrigued'."
"Um.." Caesar rolled the word around and finally
shrugged, "Good enough. So our newly intrigued
boss gets up and walks over to the boy staring at
us all with open challenge and says-"
"Think you're good with that knife, do you?"
Toll's imitation gave the words plenty of cocky
challenge of their own.
"Yeah!" Caesar grinned, "That was *just* right!
And Christmas smirks and says 'Pretty good. Better
with these.' and pats his thighs." Caesar watched
Barney hunch down a little more, "And Barney
freezes for noticeable seconds before replying-"
"Huskily. I definitely remember he suddenly got
damned hard to understand."
"True, true." Caesar nodded thoughtfully, "So he
replies 'Yeah? On three, try to mirror those
shots' and turns to the table next to him to
deliberately pick up and put on his gunbelt." He
gave Barney a smile, "If it makes you feel better,
Christmas' mouth dropped open when he saw what you
were doing."
"And a little longer than that too..." Toll
snickered at the memory and gave Galgo a wry look
for his wide-eyed stare.
"That he did. So then Barney counts down, draws
his guns and shoots right along the inside of the
two knives, and Christmas draws and throws his
thigh knives. And I swear, if I hadn't seen with
my own eyes that Christmas' knife tips were
*inside* bullet holes, I'd never have been
convinced which of them got the target first." He
smiled thoughtfully, shaking his head, "Kid was
good." He met Barney's reluctant eyes.
"Damn good."
Barney's agreement made Caesar smile wider,
knowing it was tacit permission to go on. "And he
knew it. Christmas' smile about covered his face,
even when he walked over to the target and saw the
bullet holes, good-natured cocky sod," he never
looked away from Barney, "Barney was still staring
at him, frozen, when Christmas started laughing
and walked back to him. 'That's some *nice*
shooting, old man. You part of the Expendables I'm
supposed to meet?'." Caesar's smile faded a bit,
more thoughtful, "You know something? I think that
was the first time I really saw you grin, Barney."
" *I*'d sure as fuck never heard him laugh like
that. How many games did they play?"
Caesar snorted, "They shot and knifed up all four
dartboards Tool had." And Tool suddenly looked
quite enlightened. "Hugged each other about a
dozen times-"
"Don't forget the dance!"
They both ignored Barney's groan.
"Oh fuck yeah," Caesar's smile came back so wide
it hurt his cheeks, "When the second board fell to
pieces. God only knows *why*, but they locked an
elbow and started doing what looked like a fucking
*raindance*, spinning around each other and
laughing like loons."
At that point, everyone but Tool and Barney were
staring at them like they were mad.
"No, seriously! He's not even *slightly*
exaggerating." Toll tried to sound convincing, but
he knew it was a tough buy and didn't expect much;
that playful Barney hadn't stuck around past that
day, for all that Lee's presence *had* made him
more animated.
"Barney??" Doc's voice was incredulous as he
stared at the man hiding his face behind his
splayed hand as his head shook slowly from side to
side.
Barney finally gave in to the demanding silence
and looked up. It wasn't that he was.. well. His
eyes unfocused as he thought. He *did* try to be
calm. He was their leader and a good leader kept
his cool. And the shit didn't get simpler if you
lost it; *some* one had to be thinking straight to
fix things and it was *his* job. It didn't mean he
never let himself go. It *didn't*! It just..
didn't happen often.
And yeah, it was Lee that got him going more often
than not.
*That*.. had been.. a particularly.. spectacular..
*letting go*.
"I don't remember why we did that particular
dance. The rest," he shrugged, pretending not to
be wincing as he remembered not being able to
speak the next day after all that laughing, "Is
close enough."
"Because we brought the pieces of the board
raining down."
Barney's eyes closed again at the quiet voice
behind his chair. This should be good. "How long
have you been standing there?"
"Heard my name as I walked in." Familiar hands
landed on his shoulders with a proprietary feel,
making him glad his eyes were closed so he didn't
see the expressions that were likely around them.
"Didn't realize you used to be such a grouch."
Toll spoke up, sounding a lot quieter to Barney's
ears, "He wasn't a grouch. Just.. calm."
"Quiet." Doc added his two cents, as usual. "All
the time."
Lee's hands tightened on his shoulders, massaging
without being obvious, a protective growl
appearing in his voice, "Yeah? Well keeping you
lot in line would wear out a saint. And he ain't
one of them."
Enough. Barney reached up and patted one of Lee's
hands before slowly getting up, giving the man
time to move back. He gave the tableful of
mercenaries a wry look, "How about I just let you
go down memory lane without me? You can make all
the commentary you want without my having to think
of them the next time I have to split up the
dough."
"Very calm answer, boss." Toll grinned at him as
he said it.
An arm landed across his shoulders, drawing his
eyes to his erstwhile right-hand; Lee grinned back
at him, "Come on Barney, let's go do a raindance
somewhere they won't be shocked."
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