Are We There Yet?

Title: Are We There, Yet?
Rating: Eventual NC-17
Warnings: Slash (hah - like it's a *real* warning in a place like this), WIP, Armor!sex
Summary: Church, Tucker, and one very unfortunate Warthog.

Chapter Two: Turbulence

Church had never before been so certain that he was going to die. Moments after acceleration he realized that he'd forgotten to put on his seat belt. As they careened towards the opening of the tunnel that lead out to the valley, the commanding Blue scrambled to hook the latch, panic making his movements jerky. Or was it all the bumps and rocks that Tucker seemed to be purposefully hitting? He couldn't tell.

Tucker, on the other hand, had never felt so alive. His breath was coming harsh and fast behind his mouthpiece, blasting a thin mist of vapor against his visor on every exhale. He felt awake, he felt high, he felt fucking good.

The echoing rumble of the engine had roused the Reds, who now stood out on the roof watching the Blue's Warthog spin messy donuts in the dirt outside of their base. Sarge growled and cocked the shotgun in his hands, furious that his team wasn't the only one in the Gulch with a Warthog anymore. And the tank...he didn't like thinking about the tank. It made his guts itch.

Church watched Griff lazily heft his gun over his shoulder and peer down at them with a mildly interested cock of his head. Simmons had perched himself behind Sarge, probably trying to convince the man not to fire shots at the Blue's vehicle. Church raised an eyebrow at Donut, who was making wild gesticulations and screaming at them to stop damaging the exterior of the base. He snuffed. The tires weren't flinging the pebbles *that* hard.

“Tucker, come on,” he finally hissed. “As much fun as it is to aggravate the reds, I don't want to be in this car with you any longer than is absolutely necessary.” He was also feeling a little bit sick from all the spinning. But Tucker didn't need to know that.

Whooping, Tucker spun out of the donut and headed towards the caves. The headlights switched on automatically, adjusting to the dim light of the caverns. The aqua soldier swung around precariously hanging stalagmites and dodged boulders with an almost haughty grace. Church admitted, a little begrudgingly, that the private wasn't that bad of a driver. Again, Tucker didn't need to know that.

The tunnel only ran for about a mile before spitting them out in a forest near a wide stretch of beach. The Blue barreled through thick underbrush, making his own path through the foliage. Eventually they were driving at an incline, up the side of a slight plateau, and leveling out in the desert. If this were earth, the rapid climate change would have been startling. But this wasn't earth.

Now that there were no rocks to hit or ditches to jump, Tucker was simply pressing his foot down as hard as he could. Church leaned over and took a look at the speedometer. It read upwards of one hundred and fifty kilos.

“Tucker!” Church shouted over the roar of the wind on the uncovered car. “Are you crazy! This bitch'll overheat if you ride her like that!”

“I know how to ride my bitches, dickface! She'll be fine!” Tucker shouted back, letting out a ‘weeeeeee' as he swerved around the skeletal frame of what was once a tree.

“You do know it’s about fifty degrees out here, don't you?!”

“Oh shit.” Tucker hissed and immediately let off the gas, slowing the car to a much more reasonable speed. “I forgot about the suits.”

Church stared blankly at his teammate.

“You are a fucking idiot.”

“Eat a cock. It's an easy thing to forget.” He grumbled in response.

“No, Tucker. It's an easy thing for *you* to forget because *you* are a fucking idiot! Only a moron could forget that these suits are climate controlled! What'll we do if the Hog breaks down, huh? Sit out here in the desert and play with our dicks until Caboose comes and rescues us!?” Church collapsed against his seat, face red and heart pounding fast with anger.

“Jesus, relax,” Tucker mumbled. “Jerk.”

“Shut up. Just get us there.” Church tapped in a few rapid commands on a tiny screen below the dash and a blinking beacon appeared. “They dropped off our package about an hour ago. I don't want something – or someone – getting to it before we do. Fucking command. Stupid pieces of shit. They can deliver a damn Warthog straight to the base, but if you want food you have to go find it in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere.” He growled.

“You know, you're gonna combust one of these days and it's not going to be my fault.” Tucker glanced at the reclining private.

“I told you to shut up, Tucker. Now just let me try to sleep and not think about Caboose freakin' inviting the reds into our base. That orange one will eat everything.”

“You mean whatever you left behind, fatty,” the aqua soldier said under his breath.

Church shot up in his seat.

“What did you just say?” his voice was cold. Dangerous.

“What? Me? Nothing! I don't know what you're talking about.” Tucker cleared his throat, tapped his fingers on the wheel, and hummed some obnoxious tune. Church snorted, leaned back in his seat, and polarized his visor to its darkest setting.

“I don't want to feel this thing speed up,” he warned. He was met with silence.

The two plowed wordlessly through the endless desert sand.

* * *

“That's it? Are you fucking me?” Church stared down at the parcel, smaller than the crate Caboose had stuck in the back of the car. “That's absolutely pathetic.”

Tucker climbed out of the driver's seat and stood beside his superior, the ruins of an old desert base crumbling behind them. Rubbing his chin, Tucker looked down upon the offending box. They both knew the food inside wouldn't be enough to last for more than a few weeks. Furious, Church snapped on his connection with Blue Command – or Red Command, whatever the fuck they wanted to call themselves. A sizzle of static washed in his ears, and that way-too-comfortable-with-my-job voice popped onto the receiver.

“Yo, yo, dude. This is Vic. How may I be of assistance?”

“Vic, this is Church.”

“Hey, angry Blue dude! What's caught in yer knickers, this time, yo?”

“Cut the shit, Vic. What the hell did command just send us? You know we're going to need more food than this. Unless there's another drop I wasn't aware of?”

“No dude, sorry. Most of the supplies were sent out to deep space, Delta Quad. Let me tell you, there is some real shit happening out there. Something about aliens, man. And the end of the human race. I'll send out a message for some more, but to tell you the truth, you guys might be on your own for a while.”

“This fucking sucks. Thanks, Vic.” Church clicked off the com and sighed. “Well, let's load it up. We might have to learn to hunt or something if it really comes down to it.”

Tucker groaned and reached down to grab the stupidly light package. He lifted it easily and swung it into the back next to their survival pack.

“Hunt what, Church? Those annoying little squirrels that like to bounce on us during watch? I bet they taste like shit.” he spat, annoyed.

“You obviously weren't paying attention to all the deer in the forest you were banging through, stupid.”

“Oh. Good call.” Instantly pacified, Tucker jumped back behind the wheel and called for Church to hop in. Shaking his head, the cobalt soldier took his seat and tapped in the coordinates for the base. Hesitating, he flipped a tiny switch next to the screen and music jumped from the car's speakers.

He could practically see Tucker's jaw drop in either shock or anger.

“You son of a whore. You knew that was there the whole time! And you let me drive around listening to nothing while you SLEPT! Unbelievable bastard!”

Anger it was, then.

“You spend so much friggin' time in here I thought for sure your dumb ass would have found it by now.” Church smiled freely behind his visor, clicking his seat-belt into place.

Tuckers jaw worked, but no words came out. Teeth clinked together as he closed his mouth. Mumbling something that sounded suspiciously like 'cockbite' and 'assmunch', the private started the hog and stepped on the gas. Sand fountained from beneath the tires.

Music blared and Church tilted his face up to the sky. Stars were beginning to pepper the darker half of the canvas above him and he cursed. It was going to be dark well before they returned. Tucker didn't seem to really mind that it was getting dark; he took the rapidly dropping temperature and pounding music as an excuse to speed up.

Nostalgia hit Church like a plasma bolt to the stomach. Only a few years ago he'd been driving aimlessly up and down the main drag of his small town, his friends mooning pedestrians out of the back windows of his beat up Mercedes. Back then, cops merely flickered their lights at them in warning because they were secretly too amused to bust them. Tucker reminded him so much of the friends he used to have in school, with that same fuck-the-world attitude they all had.

The opening notes to an achingly familiar song kicked into play, deepening Church's creeping depression. Unexpectedly, Tucker's voice rang clear with the lyrics and startled Church out of his reverie.

“Just a small town girl, livin' in a lonely woooooorld! She took the midnight train goin aaaanywhere!” Tucker howled, swaying his head to the words.

“Just a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit. He took the midnight train going anywhere.” Church sang softly under Tucker's yowls.

“Wait, what was that I just heard? Was that Church singing?” The aqua soldier mock-gasped and looked over to the commanding private.

“What? No. No way. I don't sing.” Church grumbled and flushed pink behind his helmet, embarrassed that he'd been caught. Even still, he started to feel the flicker of what *might* be an affinity for the blue shithead.

“Fuck you! I heard a melodious little mumble just a second ago!” Tucker jeered, focusing intently on how uncomfortable he was making the other man.

“Tucker-” Church growled, folding his arms and curling further into the seat.

“Don't try to weasel out of it. I heard it.”

“Tucker-”

“Journey's the shit and you just couldn't help singing along-”

“TUCKER!” Church suddenly screamed and leapt towards the wheel, catching it with his fingertips and jerking it to the side. Confused, Tucker yanked it back, then actually looked over the hood of the Hog. A millisecond later, the hood crumpled, his seat belt snapped, glass shattered in front of his visor, and blackness enveloped him.

* * *

Church blinked, hanging limply against the straining nylon strap across his shoulder. He groaned, lifted his head, and switched on his visor's night vision.

Smoke curled softly from the mangled hood of the Warthog. The vehicle's nose had smashed firmly into one of the dead trees on the border of the desert. Great, he thought. Fantastic.

“Mn, Tucker?” Dazed, Church glanced over at the driver's seat.

It was empty.