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gonerunningaway) wrote2012-08-30 04:30 am
gonerunningaway) wrote2012-08-30 04:30 am
Tide-Water Dogs, Chapter Nine
Title: Tide-Water Dogs, Chapter Nine
Fandom: The Departed
Rating: NC-17
Word Count (this chapter): 2,061
Warnings this chapter (highlight to view): Explicit sex.
Chapter Nine
Robert greets Sean on Saturday with, “I don’t have a nail gun.”
“Two hammers?” Sean asks.
“Yeah. I didn’t see the point in getting a gun. We can both swing them.”
“Damn right,” Sean agrees.
“Everything’s already in the garage. Come on in.” Robert steps back. “I’ll get my shoes and be right out.”
Sean nods and opens the garage door and examines the boards and walls. Exposed rafters above, so that’s probably where he’s planning to connect the support posts, exposed studs on the walls… yeah, they can do this with no problem. And there’s the circular saw and sawhorses by the workbench, the hammers and measuring tape on it, the lumber stacked at the front of the garage.
Robert joins him a moment later and gestures. “I marked the wood already with the cut lines. I just feel better actually cutting when there are two people.”
“Smart.” Sean grabs the sawhorses and starts to leave the garage. “On the lawn?”
“Yep.” Robert takes down a coiled extension cord and, a moment later, comes out with the saw, unraveling the cord as he walks. “We need to cut some of the four-by-fours and four of the one-by-twelves. The beams in the back are already the right length.
“Ten foot?” Sean asks. “Connecting to the rafters?”
“That’s what I was thinking, and then the other four-bys as support from the posts to the studs, and one-bys for the actual shelving.”
“That sounds like the best way to do it. Should be perfectly stable,” Sean agrees. “You have a drill, right?”
“Yeah. I wasn’t planning to hammer straight into studs without pilot holes.”
Sean snorts. “Not that we couldn’t, but it would’ve been a real bitch. You have brackets already?”
“They’re in the workbench, with the nails.”
Sean and Robert both go back in then and each pick up a couple of four-bys. Sean can see a smooth, straight pencil line on one of them. “So are you planning to seal these, or leave them bare board?” he asks as they walk back out.
“Bare board for now. I may seal them later, but they should be fine. I don’t have termites.”
Sean holds in an offer to do it for him. Maybe later. “I’ll hold,” he says instead. “Don’t cut off your finger. Been a long time since I took any first aid.”
“Put it on ice and call 911. Don’t try to sew it on by yourself.” Robert sets down all but one of his four-bys and instead puts that one across the sawhorses.
“I wouldn’t. I can’t sew straight to save my life.”
Robert smirks. “There’s going to be some scrap wood. I have no idea what I’m doing with that.”
“Shove it somewhere,” Sean says, straight-faced, and stands beside him, holding the post. Robert laughs and fires up the saw, and once the first section is cut, they move the post, he cuts the next one, and they keep going.
They have a good pile of twenty-four-inch-long sections of four-by-fours when they’re done. The one-by-twelves go much faster. Only four of them actually need to be trimmed, eight feet down to six. Sean figures those are going to be at the front of the garage, near the door into the house.
“You’re sure you don’t want to seal these?” Sean asks when they’re done. “Single-coat seal wouldn’t take long. If we do the posts first, we’ll be able to get them in by the time we’re done sealing the rest of these.”
“Do you think it needs it?” Robert asks.
Sean shrugs. “It sure as hell wouldn’t hurt, and it would help keep the boards from warping if it gets too muggy. It’d also help protect the posts if your garage floods.”
“That’s a good point.” Robert studies the wood. “I guess I’m getting sealant. Help yourself to a drink or something to eat, if you want. I’ll be back soon.” He heads inside, and Sean follows, drawing a glass of water before going back out to investigate the garage as Robert leaves, keys in hand. He calls from the street, “Drop cloths and brushes are in one of the rafter boxes.”
That question answered, Sean puts his glass on the workbench. He sets the ladder in the middle of the garage, tests its steadiness, and climbs to snoop. Not too much, but he does glance in the boxes marked as Christmas decorations and one of the childhood stuff ones. When he finds the painting supplies box, he carefully climbs down the ladder with it.
By the time Robert gets back with a gallon of sealant, Sean has a plastic drop cloth spread on the garage floor and the posts laid out, the scrap wood from cutting the one-by-twelves pinning down the corners of the plastic. There’s a second one on the driveway with the two-foot-long pieces spread out, and Robert smiles at him. “Thanks.”
“I said I’d help.” Sean finds the flathead screwdriver he saw in the workbench and offers it, handle-first, to Robert. While Robert opens the sealant and stirs it, Sean grabs two brushes from the box.
“So we’re protecting wood before we hammer it,” Robert muses, and Sean snickers. He dips his brush in and gets started on one of the posts in the middle, and Robert works on the one next to it.
“Do I get paid back for this work?” Sean teases.
“I’ll hammer your wood,” Robert mutters, and Sean laughs.
“I’ll probably take you up on that.”
“So where is this going?”
Sean glances over, but Robert’s eyes are steadfastly on the post he’s sealing. “What?”
“If you want it to just be fucking and spending time together,” Robert continues, “that’s fine. I have absolutely no problem with that. I just want to know where we stand.”
Sean blinks. “I thought we were dating.”
Robert glances at him. “Which raises the question of if it’s exclusive dating or not.”
Sean dips his brush again and applies a few strokes to the post before answering. “I want it to be.” He glances up in time to see Robert relax.
“Glad we’re on the same page.”
That fortunately done, Sean asks, “For an MFA, do you have to actually produce art?”
Robert laughs. “Ah, yes, you do.”
“What did you do?” Sean finishes his post and moves on to another.
“I could show you, if you want. There’s a framed drawing in the guest room that I did, actually.”
“That would be cool,” Sean agrees. “You were good, weren’t you?”
He can almost hear Robert’s smile. “That might be bragging.”
“It’s not bragging if it’s true.” That’s always been Sean’s logic.
“Some of my classmates were better, but I’m all right.”
“Am, huh? You still draw?”
“It’s cheap for birthday or Christmas presents,” Robert says. “And I like to keep my hand in. It’s fun.”
“Nothing wrong with having fun.” Sean’s hands are getting sticky from the sealant. “So once the tops and sides of these are done, I thought we’d flip them and do the ends and backs.”
“Sure, then tackle the others?”
“Yeah. I saw another drop cloth in that box, so we could spread it and put the boards down. One of us can do those and the other does the four-bys while these dry. Then we can work on getting these posts hammered in.”
“I’ll go up on the ladder, if you’re okay holding it. The drill should be charged. It has a cord in case it isn’t, but that’s a pain compared to the battery.”
“Okay. You think we can finish today?”
“I’m pretty determined, but if we don’t, do you just want to stay the night so we can do it in the morning?” Robert’s voice is far more innocent than that sentence probably deserves.
“I think we can do it tonight and in the morning,” Sean says, keeping his voice just as level. “We should be done with all that hammering and pounding by lunch tomorrow .”
Robert’s the first to break, leaning over across the wood to kiss Sean when they both stop laughing. Sean kisses him back. Then he remembers the garage door is open and anyone could see, and he decides he really does not give a rat’s ass and wouldn’t even if half the force lived on Robert’s street.
By the time everything is sealed, they have to peel the poles away from the plastic, and they’re a little tacky but still workable. They line the poles up with the studs. Sean holds them in place with one hand and keeps the other on the ladder while Robert drills into the rafter beam and then the pole to secure them together.
“Having fun drilling the wood?” Sean asks him during a pause.
He laughs. “I’d have more fun drilling you.”
“I wouldn’t object to that,” Sean says, grinning up at him.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Then Robert’s drilling again, into the rafter.
By the time all the poles are up, the cut sections of four-by-four are mostly dry. They take turns holding those in place while the brackets are hammered in underneath for both levels of shelving.
“It’s fucking hot,” Sean mutters around four, when the humidity has really settled in.
Robert glances at him. “Want to stop? We could take a break to eat, or just end for the night.”
Sean shrugs. “Let’s eat, then come back. You have a box fan or anything we could set up?”
“Oh, yeah, I do. I’ll grab it before we come back out. That would help.”
Sean hefts the hammer again and twists to work on the bracket going into the brace. “Soon as this one’s done,” he suggests. “I’m getting hungry anyway.”
“Me too,” Robert says. “Mind if we just order something?”
“Right now, I’ll eat sawdust and grass clippings if you dress them up.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
While they eat, Sean tries to ignore the thought gnawing at the edge of his mind: what’s he going to call Robert? Not “boyfriend”; that conjures high school and jeering kids. Not “significant other”; that sounds like he’s playing games about the gender of his… whatever. Not “partner”; they haven’t been dating anywhere near long enough, and anyway, “partner” means something different to him. “The guy I’m dating” is just too long.
Not that there is anyone he should call Robert anything to, and if he did, they’d know who Robert is anyway. Queenan does.
“You done?” Robert asks after a few minutes of eating in silence, and Sean realizes his plate is clean.
“Yeah.” He stands and starts closing cartons. “You think we can finish today?”
“Probably.” Robert stacks their plates and shrugs. “If not, we can get all the beams up and hammer on the shelving in the morning. That won’t take long.”
Sean nods, considering that. “I thought I’d stay the night.”
Robert smiles, looking pleased. “I hoped you would.”
They sleep tangled together, a mass of limbs, and Sean’s sleep is heavy and dreamless. In the morning, he wakes because he’s rocking his hips against Robert’s, and Robert stirs a moment later. They’re both still half-asleep as they rut together, and Sean doesn’t really wake up until he comes, his cock flush against Robert’s, and Robert finishes a second later, both their hips still moving.
“Guess we’re starting the day with a shower,” Sean mutters, and Robert kisses him.
“We’ll save water.”
They don’t, really, but Sean doesn’t mind. Neither does Robert, who has to foot the bill. And after they finish the shelves, they shower off sweat and dust together instead of sweat and come.
He doesn’t leave until almost four, even though the shelves are done before noon. As he drives back to his apartment, he tries to figure out just when he got to the point of being able to spend time with someone, doing nothing in particular. Near as he can figure, it happened somewhere between getting out of undercover in September and meeting Robert in May. It sure as shit isn’t something he could safely do for those five years. Even the girls he fucked then, he met them in a bar, went back to their places, and wham bam thank you ma’am.
The shrink would probably try to take credit for Sean’s ability to interact with people. He wouldn’t deserve it.
Fandom: The Departed
Rating: NC-17
Word Count (this chapter): 2,061
Warnings this chapter (highlight to view): Explicit sex.
Robert greets Sean on Saturday with, “I don’t have a nail gun.”
“Two hammers?” Sean asks.
“Yeah. I didn’t see the point in getting a gun. We can both swing them.”
“Damn right,” Sean agrees.
“Everything’s already in the garage. Come on in.” Robert steps back. “I’ll get my shoes and be right out.”
Sean nods and opens the garage door and examines the boards and walls. Exposed rafters above, so that’s probably where he’s planning to connect the support posts, exposed studs on the walls… yeah, they can do this with no problem. And there’s the circular saw and sawhorses by the workbench, the hammers and measuring tape on it, the lumber stacked at the front of the garage.
Robert joins him a moment later and gestures. “I marked the wood already with the cut lines. I just feel better actually cutting when there are two people.”
“Smart.” Sean grabs the sawhorses and starts to leave the garage. “On the lawn?”
“Yep.” Robert takes down a coiled extension cord and, a moment later, comes out with the saw, unraveling the cord as he walks. “We need to cut some of the four-by-fours and four of the one-by-twelves. The beams in the back are already the right length.
“Ten foot?” Sean asks. “Connecting to the rafters?”
“That’s what I was thinking, and then the other four-bys as support from the posts to the studs, and one-bys for the actual shelving.”
“That sounds like the best way to do it. Should be perfectly stable,” Sean agrees. “You have a drill, right?”
“Yeah. I wasn’t planning to hammer straight into studs without pilot holes.”
Sean snorts. “Not that we couldn’t, but it would’ve been a real bitch. You have brackets already?”
“They’re in the workbench, with the nails.”
Sean and Robert both go back in then and each pick up a couple of four-bys. Sean can see a smooth, straight pencil line on one of them. “So are you planning to seal these, or leave them bare board?” he asks as they walk back out.
“Bare board for now. I may seal them later, but they should be fine. I don’t have termites.”
Sean holds in an offer to do it for him. Maybe later. “I’ll hold,” he says instead. “Don’t cut off your finger. Been a long time since I took any first aid.”
“Put it on ice and call 911. Don’t try to sew it on by yourself.” Robert sets down all but one of his four-bys and instead puts that one across the sawhorses.
“I wouldn’t. I can’t sew straight to save my life.”
Robert smirks. “There’s going to be some scrap wood. I have no idea what I’m doing with that.”
“Shove it somewhere,” Sean says, straight-faced, and stands beside him, holding the post. Robert laughs and fires up the saw, and once the first section is cut, they move the post, he cuts the next one, and they keep going.
They have a good pile of twenty-four-inch-long sections of four-by-fours when they’re done. The one-by-twelves go much faster. Only four of them actually need to be trimmed, eight feet down to six. Sean figures those are going to be at the front of the garage, near the door into the house.
“You’re sure you don’t want to seal these?” Sean asks when they’re done. “Single-coat seal wouldn’t take long. If we do the posts first, we’ll be able to get them in by the time we’re done sealing the rest of these.”
“Do you think it needs it?” Robert asks.
Sean shrugs. “It sure as hell wouldn’t hurt, and it would help keep the boards from warping if it gets too muggy. It’d also help protect the posts if your garage floods.”
“That’s a good point.” Robert studies the wood. “I guess I’m getting sealant. Help yourself to a drink or something to eat, if you want. I’ll be back soon.” He heads inside, and Sean follows, drawing a glass of water before going back out to investigate the garage as Robert leaves, keys in hand. He calls from the street, “Drop cloths and brushes are in one of the rafter boxes.”
That question answered, Sean puts his glass on the workbench. He sets the ladder in the middle of the garage, tests its steadiness, and climbs to snoop. Not too much, but he does glance in the boxes marked as Christmas decorations and one of the childhood stuff ones. When he finds the painting supplies box, he carefully climbs down the ladder with it.
By the time Robert gets back with a gallon of sealant, Sean has a plastic drop cloth spread on the garage floor and the posts laid out, the scrap wood from cutting the one-by-twelves pinning down the corners of the plastic. There’s a second one on the driveway with the two-foot-long pieces spread out, and Robert smiles at him. “Thanks.”
“I said I’d help.” Sean finds the flathead screwdriver he saw in the workbench and offers it, handle-first, to Robert. While Robert opens the sealant and stirs it, Sean grabs two brushes from the box.
“So we’re protecting wood before we hammer it,” Robert muses, and Sean snickers. He dips his brush in and gets started on one of the posts in the middle, and Robert works on the one next to it.
“Do I get paid back for this work?” Sean teases.
“I’ll hammer your wood,” Robert mutters, and Sean laughs.
“I’ll probably take you up on that.”
“So where is this going?”
Sean glances over, but Robert’s eyes are steadfastly on the post he’s sealing. “What?”
“If you want it to just be fucking and spending time together,” Robert continues, “that’s fine. I have absolutely no problem with that. I just want to know where we stand.”
Sean blinks. “I thought we were dating.”
Robert glances at him. “Which raises the question of if it’s exclusive dating or not.”
Sean dips his brush again and applies a few strokes to the post before answering. “I want it to be.” He glances up in time to see Robert relax.
“Glad we’re on the same page.”
That fortunately done, Sean asks, “For an MFA, do you have to actually produce art?”
Robert laughs. “Ah, yes, you do.”
“What did you do?” Sean finishes his post and moves on to another.
“I could show you, if you want. There’s a framed drawing in the guest room that I did, actually.”
“That would be cool,” Sean agrees. “You were good, weren’t you?”
He can almost hear Robert’s smile. “That might be bragging.”
“It’s not bragging if it’s true.” That’s always been Sean’s logic.
“Some of my classmates were better, but I’m all right.”
“Am, huh? You still draw?”
“It’s cheap for birthday or Christmas presents,” Robert says. “And I like to keep my hand in. It’s fun.”
“Nothing wrong with having fun.” Sean’s hands are getting sticky from the sealant. “So once the tops and sides of these are done, I thought we’d flip them and do the ends and backs.”
“Sure, then tackle the others?”
“Yeah. I saw another drop cloth in that box, so we could spread it and put the boards down. One of us can do those and the other does the four-bys while these dry. Then we can work on getting these posts hammered in.”
“I’ll go up on the ladder, if you’re okay holding it. The drill should be charged. It has a cord in case it isn’t, but that’s a pain compared to the battery.”
“Okay. You think we can finish today?”
“I’m pretty determined, but if we don’t, do you just want to stay the night so we can do it in the morning?” Robert’s voice is far more innocent than that sentence probably deserves.
“I think we can do it tonight and in the morning,” Sean says, keeping his voice just as level. “We should be done with all that hammering and pounding by lunch tomorrow .”
Robert’s the first to break, leaning over across the wood to kiss Sean when they both stop laughing. Sean kisses him back. Then he remembers the garage door is open and anyone could see, and he decides he really does not give a rat’s ass and wouldn’t even if half the force lived on Robert’s street.
By the time everything is sealed, they have to peel the poles away from the plastic, and they’re a little tacky but still workable. They line the poles up with the studs. Sean holds them in place with one hand and keeps the other on the ladder while Robert drills into the rafter beam and then the pole to secure them together.
“Having fun drilling the wood?” Sean asks him during a pause.
He laughs. “I’d have more fun drilling you.”
“I wouldn’t object to that,” Sean says, grinning up at him.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Then Robert’s drilling again, into the rafter.
By the time all the poles are up, the cut sections of four-by-four are mostly dry. They take turns holding those in place while the brackets are hammered in underneath for both levels of shelving.
“It’s fucking hot,” Sean mutters around four, when the humidity has really settled in.
Robert glances at him. “Want to stop? We could take a break to eat, or just end for the night.”
Sean shrugs. “Let’s eat, then come back. You have a box fan or anything we could set up?”
“Oh, yeah, I do. I’ll grab it before we come back out. That would help.”
Sean hefts the hammer again and twists to work on the bracket going into the brace. “Soon as this one’s done,” he suggests. “I’m getting hungry anyway.”
“Me too,” Robert says. “Mind if we just order something?”
“Right now, I’ll eat sawdust and grass clippings if you dress them up.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
While they eat, Sean tries to ignore the thought gnawing at the edge of his mind: what’s he going to call Robert? Not “boyfriend”; that conjures high school and jeering kids. Not “significant other”; that sounds like he’s playing games about the gender of his… whatever. Not “partner”; they haven’t been dating anywhere near long enough, and anyway, “partner” means something different to him. “The guy I’m dating” is just too long.
Not that there is anyone he should call Robert anything to, and if he did, they’d know who Robert is anyway. Queenan does.
“You done?” Robert asks after a few minutes of eating in silence, and Sean realizes his plate is clean.
“Yeah.” He stands and starts closing cartons. “You think we can finish today?”
“Probably.” Robert stacks their plates and shrugs. “If not, we can get all the beams up and hammer on the shelving in the morning. That won’t take long.”
Sean nods, considering that. “I thought I’d stay the night.”
Robert smiles, looking pleased. “I hoped you would.”
They sleep tangled together, a mass of limbs, and Sean’s sleep is heavy and dreamless. In the morning, he wakes because he’s rocking his hips against Robert’s, and Robert stirs a moment later. They’re both still half-asleep as they rut together, and Sean doesn’t really wake up until he comes, his cock flush against Robert’s, and Robert finishes a second later, both their hips still moving.
“Guess we’re starting the day with a shower,” Sean mutters, and Robert kisses him.
“We’ll save water.”
They don’t, really, but Sean doesn’t mind. Neither does Robert, who has to foot the bill. And after they finish the shelves, they shower off sweat and dust together instead of sweat and come.
He doesn’t leave until almost four, even though the shelves are done before noon. As he drives back to his apartment, he tries to figure out just when he got to the point of being able to spend time with someone, doing nothing in particular. Near as he can figure, it happened somewhere between getting out of undercover in September and meeting Robert in May. It sure as shit isn’t something he could safely do for those five years. Even the girls he fucked then, he met them in a bar, went back to their places, and wham bam thank you ma’am.
The shrink would probably try to take credit for Sean’s ability to interact with people. He wouldn’t deserve it.