*****

A bar, somewhere. No one cares where. Two men are leaning against the bar. One is tall brunette with deep chocolate eyes and lanky frame, the other is also brown-haired, but short, with muscled body and merry features.

"Being a goof sucks," the taller one says, drowning a shot of tequila. "Always 'Xander, fetch this, Xander fetch that, get out of the way, Xander. No-one respects me. And why? Because I tell joke. Lame ones."

"Ha!" the shorter one snorts. "Try being a prankster and a soldier. I'm probably going to be in kitchen duty until I'm forty if our commander keeps treating me like he does. And All I did was to pretend we had an Ewok at the base�" he drinks a shot of foul-smelling, bubbling purple liquid.

The two men keep complaining and comparing experiences. Soon both are more drunk than they intended.

"Hey, Janson," the tall one, Xander, says. "What if we go to my place�"

The shorter man just grabs his head and pulls the taller man into a kiss. Together they stumble away.

Heat. Passion. Tangled limbs. Two people tired of being thought as the goofy ones relieving the tension. Moans. Pants. Strangled cries.

"Xander!"

"Wes!"

A sweaty heap of sated flesh. Two men, content, laying on each other's arms, drifting to sleep.

Next morning, Xander is at school again, ready to be the goofball of the gang, once again. The one who tells the lame jokes. The unbrave one. The one everyone ignores. But there's a bounce in his step, a smile to his lips�.

0700 Ship time, Wes Janson reports into a Rogue briefing. No one notices the fact that his eyes shine, that his merry smile has subtext. But they notice that he has new ideas�.

~fin~