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The desert stretches on in front of the Humvee. Just sand, sand, endless fucking sand. Ray thinks someone should really try making this place a little more interesting -- add some palm trees, dig a hole for water, have some dude randomly appear from behind a hill of sand wanting to wash their windows. Just something that isn't brown.
Ray sighs and casts a quick look around the Humvee. Rolling Stone is writing in his little notebook and Trombley is not speaking as they'd all laughed at one of Trombley's comments earlier -- it had been said like a joke, it had sounded like a joke, it just hadn't been a joke -- and now Trombley is sulking. Walt sounds like he's promising sweet, sweet rewards if only the Mark-19 doesn't jam in the next firefight, goddamn Jesus fucking Christ please. Ray would make fun if he wasn't aware that their survival in an ambush -- if there is one thin Ray has learned in this war, it's that there will always be a motherfucking ambush -- pretty much depends solely on it working properly, so instead he hopes Walt's gun whispering works.
Brad's looking at the Blue Force Tracker, occasionally glancing up and out the window for a few minutes to make sure the sand hasn't suddenly become, Ray guesses, an enemy force.
It's been silent for way too long since Brad is In A Mood today. The LT had pulled him aside shortly before they were Oscar Mike, and Ray has no idea what went down, but whatever it was, it must have involved some Hajji bug crawling up Brad's ass to die. It's nearing the half hour mark since Brad told Ray to shut up, and Ray waits until it's been thirty minutes exactly, before he turns his head a little towards Brad and says the first thing that comes to mind.
"You know, Brad, a banana would do you good."
The silence shifts subtly from we're invading a goddamn country, please let us concentrate and shut the fuck up to what the fuck now, you whiskey tango piece of shit?. This is mostly from Brad's side of the Humvee. The back has an innocent silence of what? we're totally not listening in. The back is fooling no one.
Finally, Brad gives in and says, "What?"
Ray's had some time in the meantime to figure out where exactly he was going with that comment, and though it's a conversation he'd been meaning to have when the kids are asleep, he figures he might as well do this now. "A banana," he says again, I think you should put some serious consideration into having one."
"A banana," Brad repeats flatly, and his expression adds on his behalf, in the words of the Queen of England, We are not amused. "Ray, we're in Iraq."
Ray nods. "Exactly, man! What if this is your last chance to have a banana? You're here, the banana is here, you should just fucking go for it while you can otherwise you'll just regret it for the rest of your life."
"Ray, there's more than one banana in the world," Brad says.
"Well, yeah," Ray agrees, "but I'm not talking about any banana. I'm talking about a specific one, man, one banana in particular which you should have."
"Which I will regret for the rest of my life if I don't," Brad repeats dubiously, and Ray smiles wide.
"Exactly!"
"Purely out of curiosity, and in the no doubt vain hope that you might actually shut up, where exactly would I find this banana?"
"In the Command Vehicle," Ray says, and Brad's face freezes like ice. The Iceman is a fitting nickname in more than one way, Ray thinks and he can admit to being a little nervous. Brad's face usually only freezes like that when he's about to take aim.
"The LT has a special banana?" Trombley asks, breaking the moment, because he's clearly not grasped the concept of sulking or pretending like he's not listening in.
"No," Brad says, voice flatter than this shitty country, before Ray can formulate an answer, busy as he is cracking the fuck up, but adds, "You're making one hell of an assumption, Corporal Person, that I even like bananas."
In the back, he hears Trombley whisper to Rolling Stone, "I don't get it."
Ray manages to get himself together and says, "You've given more indication that you do than that you don't like bananas. You should already be aware of this since you named me your RTO, but I'm not stupid."
"Doesn't everyone like bananas?" Rolling Stone asks, "They're universally well-liked fruit, aren't they?"
Ray nearly loses it again, and settles for a "You'd be surprised, Reporter" that makes Brad glare.
"Maybe, as my RTO, you shouldn't be thinking about whether or not I like bananas," Brad says, ignoring the back completely. "Plural or otherwise, as it's none of your fucking business."
"But if I don't, you won't ever have this banana," Ray says, "and the world will be a very sad place. Sadder than if the world became bereft of pussy. Okay, that's not true, that would be so fucking tragic I might actually have had to kill myself."
"You'd have done the world a favor," Brad says, "and then I wouldn't have to go to prison for emptying the clip in my gun in your body. No doubt I wouldn't be there long since there's no court in the world that'd convict me."
"That wounds me," Ray tells him, tapping his chest. "Right here."
"Not as much as I'd like."
"All this over a banana?" Rolling Stone asks, his little journalistic face all scrunched up and confused. "That seems an excessive reaction."
"You see, Brad?" Ray asks, "You see? Rolling Stone agrees with me."
"He has no idea what he's agreeing to," Brad says, "and that was not agreement."
"I'm just performing my duties as your best pal," Ray says. "I'm concerned for you and the banana. It'll end up all brown and soggy without you. It's not right."
"Ray, I can't believe I have to repeat this, but it's none of your fucking business." Brad snaps, "Shut up and drive."
"Fine," Ray snaps back, "You know what, fuck you, Brad."
He hits the brake briefly before pressing back down on the gas. A couple of minutes later, he does it again.
"Must be one hell of a banana," Walt's voice drifts down. Brad twitches in his seat.
The last leg of the trip is a bumpy one that has Poke and Rudy repeatedly on the comms telling Brad to just fucking apologize, already.
Abso-fucking-lutely no one in Team One Alpha is in a good mood when they stop for the day. Their glares are mostly directed at Brad, though, but they're also subtle and very confused. Ray is currently in the victor with an MRE wondering if anyone is aware of just how unappreciated his efforts are in this place, maybe he should write a letter to some magazine and tell them, when Brad slides into the other seat and says, "It's not up to me whether or not I have a banana. We're the invading force in a foreign country. Some things are out of my hands."
"Not this," Ray says with confidence, giving him a look. "The banana is all ready for your taking."
"Might I inquire as to what makes you so sure?"
Ray spreads his hands and gives Brad a look, but since an actual response is required, he eventually drops them and says, "Same way I knew you wanted the banana. Observation, a certain special view on the world and a good working knowledge of the minds in question. Oh, and also," He waits for a long moment, drawing it out until Brad starts to open his mouth, "I may have stumbled upon a scene on my way to a combat jack a few nighths ago. But don't worry, Brad, I haven't told a soul and I won't either. I'm your pal Ray-Ray; your secret's safe unless you don't fix this by tomorrow. You worry the kids."
Brad's face does something both interesting and hilarious. "I think it's your driving that worries them," Brad says, "Them and the rest of the platoon."
Ray smirks. "Then you should just go apologize to him – sorry, I mean to the banana -- and it will be problem fucking solved."
"Ray, need I remind you --"
"-- that the LT is twelve seconds from your side of the vehicle?" Ray supplies, "Tell him we're in a war zone and mood changes are par the fucking course and that you're sorry for whatever the fuck it was you did that made him mad in the first place. Maybe give him part of your Soldier Fuel to show you mean it."
He hops out of the victor just as the LT gets there, considering hiding out somewhere to make sure it all goes alright, and he's trying to find a spot that's close and hidden, when Poke shouts out from the other side of camp, "Yo, Person, is it your time of the month already?"
It would just look suspicious if he didn't go defend his supposedly threatened manhood and deliver a comeback, so with a final glance at where the LT and Brad are, thank you God, conversing; he heads over to the others to tell them what he did to Poke's mom last time he was on leave.
The fact that it completely distracts the attention from where it might be unwanted is just a bonus. Ray's an unappreciated genius, there's no fucking doubt about it, but then again -- he works better when no one sees him coming.