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Church is getting real fucking tired of Tucker’s bullshit.
Granted, Tucker has always clung to hyper-masculinity like it was the only thing keeping the laws of physics in motion. Like if anyone in the universe thought that he wasn’t straight for 0.00001 of a second then gravity would stop working and the planet would explode. It never really bothered Church much; that was just who Tucker was. He’d expected assholes in the army, and this was the one he was stuck with. At least the dude didn’t beat him up daily. And it had never really been toxic, so Church just went along with it, occasionally making disgusted noises when he got graphic. It was a fine system.
But lately, Tucker was getting annoying.
Every ten seconds was a new sexual joke. More frequent and graphic than usual. There was one so lewd that Church felt the urge to call his mom and apologize for having heard it, and he barely remembered his mother’s name half the time. Anytime Church or Caboose so much as handed him something, he’d declare “no homo.” At one point, he walked in on Tucker blacking out the face of the Admiral on the Captain Crunch box with a sharpie because “having a dude watch you eat is all kinds of gay.”
In retrospect, Church could trace it back to the day they realized that the dude in pink armor was, well, a dude. Tucker always claimed he knew a chick from 40 miles off, but apparently – and Church really fucking hates that he knows this – he’d spent a significant amount of time whacking it to Donut, so the past month has been insufferable as Tucker desperately tried to convince someone that he’s straight. Church still has no idea who he thinks he’s trying to prove it to. Must be some omnipresent entity who gives more fucks than Church ever will, or maybe even the Reds, because god knows Caboose hates Tucker regardless of his sexuality, and, again, Church could not possibly care less.
But this morning, Church finally snaps.
“That’s gay,” Tucker says.
“What?” Church says irritably.
“That. That’s gay,” he nods in Church’s general direction.
Church looks around, trying to figure out what the fuck he’s talking about, before his gaze eventually settles on the mug he’s currently mixing.
“Are you talking about my coffee?”
“Yeah, dude. That’s gay.”
Church sighs.
“Tucker, how the fuck would my coffee be gay.”
Tucker shrugs and takes a seat.
“No self-respecting dude puts in that much cream, and they sure as hell don’t mix it with a fucking teaspoon. Gay.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Gay.”
Church sighs. Again.
You know what? Fuck it.
He slams said gay teaspoon down on the counter.
“You know I’m not straight, right?”
Tucker looks at him like he’s grown a second head. (Knowing Tucker, he assumed his entire life that that expression refers to the head that isn’t on his shoulders.) His stool whines as he scoots backwards in a physical display of homophobia.
Church vaguely feels a part of his soul chip away and sink into the existential void that hangs below it, like a few rocks on a cliff succumbing to gravity and dropping into the ocean. On the one hand, he really doesn’t give two fucks about what Tucker thinks of him; Church is literally dead, and Tucker isn’t even really his friend, just the only dude in the canyon where his immortal soul is tethered that isn’t a complete fucking moron or red.
On the other hand, he’d never really come out to anyone. Ever. And he sure as fuck didn’t want to.
It’s not internalized homophobia or some shit, because Church knows he’s not straight. Something in his mind has always indicated that he is bisexual, like it was programmed into him or something. But he also has literally no clue when he would have figured that out. The only person he’s ever dated was Tex. He doesn’t remember much from before the army – no dramatic realization that he likes dudes – but if he doesn’t remember, it clearly wasn’t important. And he sure as hell didn’t discover it here, because he hates literally everyone in this canyon. If they weren’t dumb or gross as fuck, they’ve actively killed his girlfriend.
But yeah, Tucker was getting too “no homo” for his own good, and this is probably the only way Church is going to knock him down a peg.
However, that’s assuming he doesn’t think Church wants to peg him. Tucker looks like he’s getting ready to vault over the counter and make for the base’s exit.
“Oh, sit the fuck down, you big baby. You’re the last dick in the universe anyone would want to suck. Probably have, like, at least 30 STDs.”
Tucker lowers himself back onto the stool – which he had apparently been halfway out of – and continues staring warily at Church.
“You’re… not straight,” Tucker says slowly.
“Yeah, dipshit.”
“But you dated Tex!” Tucker shouts triumphantly, like he’s disproven some grand theorem.
“People can like two things, Tucker,” he says dryly.
Tucker frowns and Church can practically see the little men in his head trying to put out the numerous fires that have started in his brain upon hearing that the world is not perfectly divided into “straight” and “gay.”
“You’re…”
“Bi.”
Tucker continues to stare silently and make this weird.
“Bi-sex-u-al,” Church enunciates slowly, nodding with the word and eyeing Tucker to make sure the dude isn’t having a stroke.
The imaginary buffering animation over Tucker’s head eventually stops spinning as he finally cobbles together a response.
“So, when I called your coffee gay…”
“Yeah, that wasn’t really insulting as much as pretty goddamn annoying. Normally, I wouldn’t care, but if I’m doing this anyway, I’m gonna put all my cards on the table and let you know that your usual over-compensating heterosexual bullshit has really gotten on my nerves lately.”
“Um,” Tucker says gracefully.
“Cool,” Church decides to take charge of this conversation in fear of sitting at the counter all day with a supposedly gay coffee that he can’t even actually drink, trying to explain the spectrum of sexuality to Tucker. “So, agree to dial it back and we literally never have to bring this up again.”
Tucker still looks lost. “Y-yeah. Yeah. I’ll do that,” he stammers.
Church is pretty sure that Tucker’s going to be a little fucked up for a few hours, but that also means he won’t be made physically uncomfortable by borderline-predatory innuendos for at least the rest of the morning, so he decides it’s in everyone’s best interest to pick up his gay coffee and sit on the roof of the base while the porn-virus-infected dial-up modem in Tucker’s brain tries its damndest to reboot.
Church should have known that any effort he makes to fix any problem ever could only inevitably backfire.
Tucker gives him a minimum berth of 5 feet at all times. Skirts around him like he’s on fire or something. They still shoot the shit on the roof as usual, but Tucker (shockingly) has few conversation starters that don’t involve his critical analysis of masturbation material, and suddenly he’s avoiding talking about it like the plague. Or maybe AIDs would be a more appropriate analogy.
Normally, Church wouldn’t mind, because he still doesn’t give two shits about Tucker’s fragile masculinity, and talking about porn to your buddy is fucking weird regardless of anyone’s sexualities. But like. It was getting boring. And uncomfortable. At one point the orange dude rolled up in the Reds’ jeep just to tell them their awkwardness was so tangible that it woke him from his nap.
They just shot at him until he left.
Honestly, though, Grif wasn’t wrong. It was fucking painful. And Tucker is too much of a baby to ever acknowledge it, which means that Church has to do everything around here and bring it up himself.
They stand on the roof of the base, as usual, watching Caboose “negotiate terms of surrender” with the red sergeant after the idiot accidentally wandered too far into the other side of the clearing. The sad part is that Caboose seemed to be winning.
Tucker takes yet another tiny shuffle away from him for seemingly no reason.
Church sighs, as he often does when having to talk to other people.
“Would you stop being so weird? Seriously man, what is up with you lately? This is almost worse than you trying to convince me to call command for skin mags all day.”
“Weird? I’m not weird. You’re weird! Shut up!” Tucker says weirdly.
“Right. This is just totally normal then.”
“Hell yeah it is! Just a couple of guys being bros. On the roof. Like normal.”
“Tucker, you’re barely even on the roof at this point.”
Sure enough, Tucker stood on the lip of the roof, one more homophobic shuffle away from falling off and breaking his neck.
“I’m not weird! I’m fine! I’m fine with it!”
“Tucker, what the fuck.”
“Uh…” Tucker searches for something to cover his Freudian slip, “By ‘it’ I mean… Being on the edge of the roof!” he finally exclaims, sounding pretty proud of himself under his helmet.
Church doesn’t grace that with a response.
Tucker shuffles nervously on reflex and falls off the roof with a loud thud. There’s a few seconds of silence before Tucker starts screaming bloody murder.
“AHHHHH! AHHH OH MY GOD, MY LEG!” Tucker’s voice pitches the radio frequency in Church’s robotic ears and he cringes before shutting them off and walking down through the base to scrape Tucker off the ground.
So now that he knows Tucker would literally rather hurl himself off a building than directly address his own homophobia, Church decides he’s going to have to hold the motherfucker captive and explain exactly what all of this means.
Ideally, it would mean nothing, but now the whole situation has bloated it into something that he has to address before Tucker gets so jumpy that he accidentally shoots Church in a subconscious hate crime – or, like, ignorance crime.
He decides to enlist Caboose for help, though “enlist” isn’t the correct word. Church breathes in the same hemisphere as Caboose and the dude is already doing anything he says without hesitation.
“Hey, Caboose,” Church says one morning, a few days after Tucker’s swan dive off the base. They’re all in the kitchen, more or less, with Church at the counter, Tucker as far away from him as possible on the other side, and Caboose in the doorway behind him.
“Yes, Church?” Caboose asks eagerly.
“Can you pin Tucker for me?” he asks, voice dripping with a brand of condescending sweetness that he’s honestly quite proud of. Caboose’s fucked up brain picks up the frequency as “best friend asking nicely,” while Tucker gets to hear it as the bald-faced brag it truly is, because Church has already won.
Tucker wastes no time. He drops his cereal immediately, the ceramic bowl full of milk and Captain Crunch hitting the ground, shattering, and splashing everywhere as Tucker actually vaults over the table this time. Church has to admit; the dude is fast. He makes it past the couch in the otherwise empty area they half-heartedly call the lounge before Caboose catches him by the collar of his t-shirt and yanks him to the floor, probably a lot harder than it should have been on concrete and out of armor. Tucker, already stunned, flinches as Caboose plants one knee on his chest.
And then Caboose puts his hand around Tucker’s throat and holds it there while the dude chokes for air.
“CABOOSE! STOP! What the fuck? Don’t kill him!” Church screeches.
Caboose removes his hand. Tucker takes in a desperate breath and starts coughing uncontrollably.
“Why not?” Caboose asks, clearly disappointed he doesn’t get to murder Tucker in cold blood.
“Be-because-” Church sputters as he tries to think of a good answer. It’s super fucked, but he currently can’t think of a legitimate reason not to kill Tucker. It’s not as though Church hasn’t died before. Everything would probably be exactly the same as it is now. But, like, it also seemed kind of rude, killing someone without their consent. Tucker would probably find a way to be more pissed than Church was about dying. Plus, Caboose wasn’t competent enough to dig a grave, so Church would have to do it himself.
“I just wanted to talk to him!” Church finally decides is a good enough reason.
“So later?” Caboose asks, hopeful.
“La-What? No! Just- Look. Just sit on top of him while we talk,” Church orders.
Caboose flops to a sit on Tucker’s stomach in a way that very much resembles a Saint Bernard. Tucker gets what little wind he had regained knocked out of him and starts coughing again.
“For fuck’s sake, Caboose, sit on his legs.”
Caboose scoots over and Tucker’s coughing subsides enough for him to start breathing again.
Church gives him a second to let his body return to normal. When Tucker starts glaring daggers at Caboose, he decides the pervert is alive enough to start.
“I hate this,” Church sighs, mentally preparing himself for the conversation.
“Something tells me I hate this a little more,” Tucker says through his teeth, turning the glare at him now.
“Yeah, well, you’re the one going around being, like, blatantly homophobic.”
“I am not!”
“The thought of being too close to me, a non-straight person, was enough to make you jump off a building.”
“Okay, well when you put it like that it sounds-”
“Seriously, dude. If you’re going to be weird, I’m going to keep you here until you have the fucking definition of tolerance memorized.”
“Why doesn’t Caboose get this talk?” Tucker asks indignantly.
Church angles his helmet towards Caboose.
“Caboose, you cool with me being bisexual?”
Caboose is floored. “Oh, oh, oh! I love bisexuals! What color is it? Does it have a little bell? Or a basket? Can I have one too?”
“See.”
“He thinks you’re talking about a bicycle!”
“Not my problem. Point is, you’re the only one being weird about it.”
Tucker scowls.
“I’m not like, doing it on purpose!” he argues.
“Ok, but you’re still doing it. I have done literally nothing different! Why the fuck you gotta make it weird, man? You can’t keep jumping off the roof; Caboose ate the last of the biofoam on Tuesday.”
“I love cotton candy for breakfast,” Caboose agrees.
“That was one time!” Tucker defends himself, “And it’s not- it’s not that you’ve changed or anything it’s just… I don’t know man I feel weird about you now.”
“Tucker, I’m flattered, but I would rather die another 20 times and end up in hell than-“
“I’m not gay for you! Jesus, Church, even if I swung that way, I have some standards.”
“Last week you told me the cliff face that looks like a nipple got you half hard.”
“That quote is out of context and you know it! Besides, that’s not… this is exactly what I’m talking about. This is why it’s weird.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Tucker sighed.
“Because you’re... you! I talk to you all day. About everything I can think of. And almost all of it is about sex! I’m an open book dude, but I feel like talking about sex is weird now. Like I’m crossing some weird boundary! I don’t care when the Reds are gay, because, like, I don’t talk to them anyway. And I don’t really care about you being gay – or half gay, whatever – except that like, I sure as hell don’t know what it’s like to be into dudes, and now I feel like everything I say is gonna be shitty to you!”
At that moment, Church realizes that in his own weird roundabout method, Tucker just admitted that Church was his friend, or at least vaguely cares about offending him.
He decides not to think about it.
“Tucker, I promise, even if I was straight you would have already crossed all the boundaries.” He pauses. “Also, it’s only the pink Red that’s gay.”
“Nuh-uh dude. I’m like, 100% sure the dark one and the orange one are fucking.”
“Really? Huh. Good for them. Only people in this goddamn canyon who will ever get any action.”
Tucker scoffs.
“If the tank-whisperer over here didn’t fuck up Sheila, I’d be swimming in ladies.”
“You still don’t know how to drive a tank, Tucker.”
“Details, details,” Tucker shrugs, “So it’s cool if I go back to being my charming sensual self?”
Church doesn’t even grace that with an answer, he decides to just glare through his visor.
Tucker wiggles his eyebrows.
Church sighs, reaching his predicted number of sighs for this conversation.
“If that’s what you wanna call it, Tucker, sure. I don’t actually care.”
Tucker lights up like a Christmas tree.
“Hell yeah!” he pumps his fist in the air, “Cuz the other day I got one bar of cell service for a solid 25 seconds and managed to open 4 new tabs. Did you know Pornhub hired the guy who hacked Google to reprogram their search engine? So this time when I searched–”
“Hey, Caboose? Why don’t you go ahead and sit in Tucker’s legs for the rest of the morning. I’d really appreciate it.”
Tucker’s eyes widen in fear.
“Wait, no-”
“I’D LOVE TO!” Caboose yells.
“Church, please, my legs are falling asleep-”
“See you two later. I’m going to have my breakfast outside.”
“CHURCH, DON’T-”
Church closed the base door behind him.
“I’M NOT SETTING YOU UP WITH DONUT, THEN!” Tucker called in vain.
If he still had a face under his helmet, Church would have taken a nice long, slow sip of his gay coffee.