The Go-Between
"...And if you wanna kill them clean, hold the gun like this," Brock tilted his Glock to the right, and a ninety degree angle. "It'll go through his neck, sever the carotid. Poor bastard'll be dead in two and a half minutes." He glanced at Triana. "I'd try to teach you how to break a neck, but you don't look strong enough."
Triana watched Brock, her posture defensive. "Soo, I shouldn't point the muzzle at myself."
Brock glared over her shoulder at him, and she only gave the smallest hint of a smirk back. He let out a puff of tobacco. "Do you wanna learn something about knives?"
Triana just shifted her shoulders an began playing with the pearl handle of the dagger strapped to her hip. "My dad told me to point at the jugular. Right?"
"Right, but there are at least four points on the body that'll cause him to bleed out faster."
"And you know them all?" She laughed, answering her own question.
Brock holstered his gun, then plucked his Bowie knife from its scabbard. "This isn't about self defense." He dreaded asking her but knew he needed to know.
She sighed. "Will you promise not to tell my dad?"
He crossed his arms over his chest. "Look, kid, I don't know anything about...girl stuff. So I don't know how much help I'll be..."
Triana's expression turned dry and slightly bemused. "It's about Dean."
Brock sheathed his knife and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. "Should've guessed." He reaches into his front pocket, proffering Triana a smoke.
She eyed it. "You're not supposed to know about those."
He lit a match, lit a cigarette for himself and one for her. "You started after you got back from your mom's. I can smell a Winston coming a mile away," he leaned back against the wall of the panic room. "So. Dean."
"Uh yeah," she took a quick drag. "You know how he is...so..."
"...Different?" Brock offered.
"Nice," offered Triana. "I don't understand the way he acts around me, though. Like I'm the only girl he's ever seen..."
Brock choked back a laugh. Triana had no idea how close to the truth she'd landed. "You know how Doc is with the boys. He trained them to be nice. Kinda...respectful."
"Yeah, my dad taught me to be nice too. It's not like I listen to him." She took a drag off of her cigarette. "So you're saying I shoulllldd?"
"I don't know," Brock groaned. This was dangerously close to virgin territory for him, as the last interaction he'd had with a woman that one could call a relationship had ended in tears over ten years ago. And he didn't know what the hell to call what he had with Mol...
"Mister Samson?"
Brock stared out of his reverie. "Ask him if he'd like to go out on a date. Without Hank."
"You're okay with that?" she teased. "You might have to pull double-duty."
"I'll just dump Hank over at Dermott's place. He's got one of those new Sega-Nintento whateverthehells." Brock extinguished his cigarette against the heel of his hand, then tucked it behind his ear. "Do you want to know how to kill a guy with your heel?"
Triana grinned, extinguishing her own cigarette on the floor of the garage. "Hell yes."
***
"Woah, Dean!" Brock put out a protective hand, pressing it to Dean's head. That, unfortunately, didn't stop the wind milling of Dean's spaghetti-thin arms; one small fist hit, firmly, into the sensitive flesh of Brock's solar plexus.
Only his fondness for the boy stopped Brock from cold-cocking the young boy. He simply kept up the steady pressure of his hold on Dean's head until he stopped struggling.
"You might wanna try hitting below the belt," Brock suggested.
"Gosh," Dean said, his eyes widening, "that'd be awfully unsportsmanlike, Brock!"
"There's no such thing as sportsmanship when you have a bunch of frogmen with cigars bearing down on you," Brock declared. "You've gotta be prepared."
"Speaking of prepared..." Dean paused, scratched his ears. Brock sighed.
"It's Triana, isn't it?"
"Kinda," he tucked his hands into the front pockets of his pants. "I've been thinking about asking Triana out."
"Good. Do it," Brock grumbled.
"But Brock..."
The older man grunted - that tone of voice from Dean meant more questions. "So don't ask her out!"
Dean cowered. "You don't have to yell."
"I wasn't yelling," Brock groaned, scrubbing a hand over his face. "What's the problem?"
Dean shuffled his feet. "I don't want to leave Hank behind."
Brock grumbled. The boys had suffered their share of tribulations since Brock's return; Hank was in the middle of a rebellion and seemed to prefer the company of Dermott to that of his twin Dean was getting lost in the shuffle even though his father was in the middle of yet another attempt at making the kid his double. "Growing up's a bitch." He really feels guilty for abandoning them temporarily. "You can't help it. He's gotta go his way, and you've gotta go yours."
"Yeah. But that doesn't make it easy."
"I know," Brock admitted. "I'll take care of Hank for you, just...go ask Triana out."
"You think she'd go? Without Hank?"
Brock shook his head. "When she went out with you the first time, it wasn't Hank she was interested in."
Dean frowned thoughtfully. "I'll try. After we finish sparring!"
"We're finished sparring," Brock declared.
"Why?" Dean wondered.
"You don't wanna go on a date with broken bones."
***
H.E.L.P.eR. chirruped beside Brock as she started working on his brand-new Trans-Am.
"...Nah, I think they'll be okay," he insisted, tightening a lugnut deep within the chassis of the car. "She likes him, he likes her. Someone just had to give them a boot in the ass and..."
H.E.L.P.eR.'s beeping grew less staccato as he held out a shiny new hand, a wrench in his grip.
"What do you know about romance? Last time I checked you weren't even anatomically correct." Panicked beeping. "No, I wasn't looking..." Brock handed the wrench back to H.E.L.P.eR. "Don't tell anybody, but I missed this place."
Another series of beeps, then a metal hand patted the middle of his back.
Brock winced. "Yeah. Don't touch the shirt."