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“What did you just say to me? Are you sayin’ I won’t make you do one hundred push-ups right now? Because I will!”
“Sarge, come on. We all know that the odds of me doing the push-ups are greater than you actually ordering me to do them. Now if you’ll excuse me –”
“Well, you’d better be excusing yourself to warm up, because I want two hundred before you even set foot in our mess hall! Get moving!”
The tone in Sarge’s voice was final, and Grif’s shocked face couldn’t be more hilarious to Simmons. He could practically feel the nervous sweat forming on the man’s neck from where he stood. Simmons grinned – this was going to be very interesting to watch.
Grif’s footsteps were heavy and loud, as if he were trying to drag himself into the ground. “I can’t believe he’s actually making me do this.”
“Come on, Grif. He’s made you do this shit before. What else do you think we do in the army, shoot fucking aliens and diffuse atom bombs? No, we train until we get called to duty,” Simmons said as Grif shot him the laziest eyeroll he could muster.
“It’s not like we’ve ever seen any action in this damn canyon, though. All we ever do is train when both you and I know that nobody is coming around.” They turned a sharp left into the training hall, which was usually devoid of any person with the name Dexter Grif. Simmons abruptly stopped in front of one of the treadmills, but didn’t step anywhere near it. He was here to observe, not do training.
“Just do the damn push-ups you whiner.”
Grif sighed loudly and got on the ground, hands pushing some metal boxes away with a clang and his body fixing itself into the standard position for the exercise he had to do. A second went by, then five, then just a minute of the man having remained in the same position. Simmons slapped his forehead. “When are you going to do the pushups, then?”
“Shut up, I’m focusing.” A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead.
“You’re wasting your energy, idiot! Do the fucking push-ups already!”
Grif begun panting; “Alright, here goes.” His elbows made a loud crack as his arms slowly lowered to the ground. “One.” Simmons waited for him to come back up, but the man was stuck chin length from the floor. “O-one. Fucking – how do I get back up?”
“It’s called a push UP, you moron, push yourself back up.” Grif’s arms were shaking. “Oh my god, seriously?”
“Stop fucking nagging me!” He fell down to the lightly carpeted floor, his body making loud contact and his cry of protest reverberating through the room. “Fuck.”
There was a knock at the entrance of the room. “You better be doin’ those push-ups! If your arms aren’t achin’ by tomorrow morning you’ll be sent straight to the front lines, y’hear me?” Sarge yelled from the other side of the door. “Simmons, give him a little motivation or something.”
“You got it, sir!” He nudged Grif with his foot who responded with an annoyed grunt. “You heard him, get moving.”
“That’s not motivation,” he said, voice muffled by the thin carpet. Simmons watched as Grif didn’t move, a bright, motionless tanned blob against the dingy gray atmosphere. He was too tired to deal with this shit; instead of prodding him further, Simmons lied down on the ground and covered his eyes with an arm.
“What are you doing?”
He glanced over to Grif, who was staring at him with large brown eyes. “I’m laying down. Can I not do that?”
“You’re not the one doing exercises,” he whined, jostling around until he was sitting up.
“You did one push-up. One!” His arms went behind his head and he closed his eyes, ignoring any reaction Grif may have displayed. “Now, do one hundred and ninety nine more so that I can go help Sarge out.”
“You know what?” Simmons heard Grif shuffle and stand, then saw from behind his eyelids that the light in the room was being blocked. He opened his eyes once more and nearly jumped – Grif had assumed the standard push-up position directly above him, their noses almost a foot away, faces bound to touch if the man above him decided to go through with the exercise. “If you’re not gonna give me the motivation, I guess I’ll have to improvise.”
“What the fuck are you –”
Simmons did not finish his question, as Grif performed one push-up and, in the process, made their lips connect. It was short and left Simmons slightly lifting his chin as the contact dissipated. A heavy blush burned on his cheeks, but he said nothing to object. Grif lowered himself once more and, this time, there was slight anticipation on Simmons’ end.
“Any objections before I do one hundred and ninety seven more?”
“Listen, I’m here to object if you don’t do all two hundred, so you – you better keep going. Or else.”
“Fine.”
Each one was delicate and all-too-quick for Simmons, who was counting down the numbers for Grif; said man had sweat accumulating on his forehead and in his curly brown hair, a sight that Simmons rarely got to see. Between the ups and downs that Grif made with his arms, he observed the dimples forming next to his mouth, the variations of earth tones darkening in his hair, and the endless sparkle of mischief and mirth in perfect brown eyes. “Two more,” he said when Grif exhaled, a sign of fatigue. “Two more and you can be done.”
Arms shaking, Grif closed his eyes and allowed the fatigue to claim whatever it wanted. As a result, the connection of their lips did not stop as it should have. Instead, his knees supported his body and one of his hands held Simmons’ neck as the kiss deepened.
The number two hundred was lost somewhere in the blonde’s mind, but he didn’t care. The contact was electric and exciting and he reached his arms around Grif, fully intending to drawl this out as long as he could. At least, until the door to the room opened and slammed against the wall.
“Hey, are you ‘bout finished in – Simmons! I told you to motivate him, not do the freaky jive with him!”
“Sarge, sir, I can explain, wait! Grif, stop laughing!”
Grif was so doing this again.