#raywalt

Joe finds himself rolling his eyes lovingly as he grabs George by the hand, gently pulling him out of their apartment before he started rambling about himself.

They arrive at the old bar a little after nine, Joe scanning the room looking for his Marine buddies.

“Toye, you blind dickhead! Over here!”

Joe turns his head to see Ray waving him over, Brad rolling his eyes as he finishes his beer. Joe smiles, the familiar faces of his friends settling any nerves he had about introducing his boyfriend to them. He thought he was the only one in their platoon who wasn’t straight until he caught Brad and Nate in the back of their humvee making out like teenagers. And he definitely can’t erase the mental image of Ray and Walt doing it in the middle of the damn desert like the whiskey tango trash they are.

“Did both your boyfriends leave you? Because I don’t blame them, honestly. I wouldn’t want to wake up to either of your ugly faces in the morning,” Joe greets them, laughing as they stand up and greet him with a one-arm hug.

“Now, Joey, you’ve got to play nice in front of your boyfriend, who might I add is absolutely gorgeous,” Ray starts, ignoring Joe’s glare. He sticks his hand out to shake George’s, “Ray. Ray Person.”

“George Luz,” George responds, already liking Joe’s friend.

“I’m Brad, the unlucky son of a bitch responsible for keeping these idiots alive,” Brad introduces himself.

George sits down, accepting a beer from the new man who had also just sat down. “Well, I appreciate you keeping him alive, I know it’s not easy. He’s stubborn as all hell,” George grins, taking a drink. The new man introduced himself as Nate and the man next to Ray was Walt. George knew most of these guys from Joe’s stories, but it was nice to finally put a face to a name.

“I am not stubborn,” Joe argues.

Ray and George reply at the same time, “yeah you are.” Both men look at each other and grin.

“I’m just going to get bullied this entire night, aren’t I?” Joe asks, rolling his eyes.

“Welcome to what I put up with every damn day with you all,” Brad mumbles in response, looking between Ray, Joe and Nate. There wasn’t enough alcohol in this bar, Joe thinks, especially split between four Marines and George Luz.

A couple of drinks later and everyone’s eased up, the awkward tension of first meetings have dissipated. Mainly thanks to Ray’s endless rambling and George’s jokes.

“There’s no way you did it in the middle of the fuckin’ desert!” George exclaims, shaking his head as Ray tells him the Great Awakening of 2017.

“Hell yeah I did, homes. I wasn’t about to wait until we got back to base camp-.”

“Believe me, I was the unfortunate soul who saw them,” Joe sighs, the image still fresh in his mind.

“And I was the one who heard them,” Brad mumbles, refusing to look at Ray and Walt.

Walt was turning bright red, all of a sudden very interested in the writing at the side of his beer bottle. Ray, however, was grinning like an idiot, unabashedly proud of himself. The corner of his lip slowly turns down, “the sand was another issue. When I say that shit gets everywhere, I mean everywhere. I’m pretty sure I was shittin’ sand for weeks, my di-.”

“Shut up, Person,” Brad says, almost out of instinct.

“What? It was even worse for poor Walt here, he still has sand in his ass-,”

“Shut up, Person,” Walt repeats and Ray lets out a small yelp, indicating he had just been kicked under the table. Thankfully the conversation shifts and they’re onto something else.

“There’s no way Joe ‘Stone Cold’ Toye cried watching Tangled!” Ray howls with laughter. “Scary Marine, my ass!”

“Like a baby, he thought Eugene was dead for good,” George laughs, adding more to the story and slowly chipping away at Joe’s hard-earned reputation.

“Shut up, Luz,” Joe elbows him, but this only encourages him further.

“Did Joe ever tell you the story of his childhood dog? Who ran away?” George asks and Joe knows exactly where this was going.

“Luz, shut it,” Joe says halfheartedly, he kind of didn’t mind the banter but the protest was necessary to save face.

The men around him shake their heads and George has the floor and takes it eagerly. He loved being the centre of attention and telling a slightly embarrassing story about Joe was his favourite thing to do.

When all men eventually stumble out of the bar, several hours and stories later, Joe feels a warmness in his chest that wasn’t there before. For so long he was worried about letting these two parts of his life meet each other but tonight was proof that it could go well.

“You better send me that meme you showed us!” Ray calls out to George as they leave.

“I’ll send you all of them!” George calls back, grinning when he turns back around to face Joe, who had a soft look in his eyes. “What?”

“Nothin’,” Joe mumbles, “I’m happy, that’s all.”

“Of course you are, you get to go home with me,” George smirks and Joe kisses him quickly, the sound of his loved one's laughter still ringing in his ears.