Fic | GK | Live Rounds
Generation Kill | Brad/Nate | R
//four days before shipping out
Nate isn't a small man by any means, but next to Brad anyone would feel just a little… slight. Out in the street, Brad turns heads, people intimidated and attracted in equal measure.
In bed, naked, Brad is a vision. The strong, unending expanse of muscles in his back, interspersed with old scars the stories of which Nate doesn't still all know, and scratches made by Nate's own fingernails the previous evening; during the night; at oh dark hundred, when Brad last fucked him.
They've not slept more than three hours, maybe, and back in the new-old life in the States, the routines barely familiar with more of clean sheets and less of their rifles by their side, it feels like too little, the thought of getting out of bed unappealing and unnecessary in favor of diving under the sheets and waking Brad up with his mouth on Brad's cock.
Not yet, though. Nate rarely gets to look in peace. In fact, it's a wonder Brad hasn't yet-
"Find something interesting?"
Brad's eyes are still closed, but then, Nate's in bed with a fucking Recon Marine, the best of the best - Brad's sixth sense has saved their lives more than once, Nate really shouldn't be surprised at Brad feeling the heat in Nate's eyes.
"Just admiring the AO."
"Far as I recall, you were the AO for most of last night." Brad opens his eyes, then, looking straight at Nate and quirking a familiar grin.
"Still plenty of time to turn that around," Nate mock-protests, smiling.
"You can try, sir."
"I should make sure I have prior claim, leave my mark."
The words crash into a stop as Nate hears what he's said, and the grin falls straight off of Brad's face, showing a hint of something Nate can't even name until Brad squares his features into a blank, the Iceman perfectly in place.
Nate's in mild shock, paused, trying to understand where the words came from, and the faint bitterness in them, and how the intimate, playful atmosphere of the morning has been so completely gunned down and replaced by achy freezing silence.
"And why would that be, sir?"
Nate flinches at the unemotional use of his rank, so different from the teasing way Brad usually says it.
Brad rarely sounds reluctant; he's too good a Marine, too good a man to do anything less than what needs to be done. Right then, though, Brad sounds like he's speaking the words against his will, like he doesn't want Nate's answer even though he's asking.
"Brad, I-I'm sorry," Nate isn't sure what he's saying, feels like he's walked into an ambush of his own making that's become a turning point in a war to be lost. He tries to breathe deep but his lungs aren't taking in air like they should; Brad's eyes are dark, distant.
"I-just, we both know what it's like," Nate finally manages. "I just meant, I'm not expecting you to… deny yourself."
Just like that, the shutters in Brad's eyes slam completely down, and if Nate had for a second hoped they'd get past his faux-pas, that hope is immediately and undeniably lost. The worst thing, though, is that Nate's not sure why he's being shut out for saying out loud what they both know. Brad's deployment will be a long one, six months, at least; and as long as Nate has known Brad, Brad has never shied away from the truth.
Telling Brad it would be okay to be with other people, to relieve the stress and, hell, just live his life like he has till then, before this thing between them that is still new and unnamed and undefined - has to be one of the hardest things Nate has ever had to do, up to and including having to pass along the fucked up orders of OIF; and even those hadn't hurt quite like this, hadn't made him want to crawl to the nearest toilet and empty his stomach.
So why is Brad the one pushing away, getting out of bed and telling Nate, his eyes cold and hard, "Good to know, sir."
//four months into the deployment
Brad doesn't talk to Ray often, or even with any sort of regularity, but every now and then his former RTO insists on being phoned up, Brad's USMC inbox spammed with increasingly demanding and irritating emails; Brad supposes it makes Ray feel important and cared for and less like the whiskey tango fuck-up that he is.
"I know you love your Ray-Ray even though you haven't admitted it to yourself," Person will quip when Brad tells him as much.
He forgives Ray his delusions since his rants do hold some amusement value, working to distract Brad when he's on tour, his days taken up by sand and PT and infrequent stake-outs and trying not to think about Nate all the fucking time.
Speaking of; Ray seems to read his mind, an annoying habit he's had since before Iraq.
"Hey, man, I saw Captain Fick the other day," he announces, and Brad's ears perk up in spite of himself.
"Good for you," he says, tone still flat, because Ray knows him damn well enough not to even expect anything else.
"Yeah, almost didn't fucking recognize him, sitting in Starbucks with this huge dude in a leather jacket, tattoos all the way up to his neck - I'm telling you, homes, no straight-laced Ivy Leaguer or even a good little Marine captain should keep company that fucking looks like a fucking faggot from a biker gang…"
The continuing noise from Ray gets further and further away as Brad's grip on the phone tightens until the skin over his knuckles is white and stretched thin, his gut clenching in nausea and anger that's very different from the anger he feels towards his enemies, anger that's not impersonal and detached but so fucking far over the border of impotent rage that it's nearing insanity.
Nate might look like an altar boy who enjoys cuddling and kisses and long conversations in front of the fire, but Brad knows better; knows that Nate gets so fucking turned on from being pushed down into a mattress and kept there with hard muscle and body weight, knows that sometimes all it takes is that feeling of semi-unwilling surrender to get Nate to the brink of coming - has made Nate come in his pants just by trapping him on his stomach and lying on top of him, fists tight around Nate's wrists against the bedspread, sucking and biting on the back of Nate's neck and whispering in his ear, low and rough.
Involuntarily, he imagines it: sees Nate taking the tall biker to his apartment, leading him up to the bedroom; the man grabbing Nate by the waist and throwing him down on the bed where Brad fucked Nate four months ago.
The same bed where Nate offered him no strings attached with big green eyes and Brad couldn't quite bring himself to ask why, and whether Nate was planning on doing the same. He has his answer now.
Ray's babbling through the phone line is indistinct, masked by the roar in Brad's ears and he hangs up with barely a word, makes his way outside and runs the perimeter until it's dark and he can claim not to be thinking of anything at all, and the pulsing in his temples is caused simply by the adrenaline of exercise.
//five months into the deployment
They say keeping busy is the key, make it sound too much like surviving something Nate doesn't even want to think about. They don't realize that no matter how busy you keep yourself during the day, no matter how thoroughly your hours are filled, there's still the night - and no matter if you run yourself to the ground, literally or figuratively, there's still too much time spent awake in that bed needing something that (someone who) isn't there.
Perhaps it wouldn't be so fucking hard if he even had the amount of contact they used to have, back when they mostly were just some obscure version of friends, always hovering on the edge of something else but, still, solid in their knowledge of each other.
Some of that knowledge, that knee-jerk familiarity is gone, or hiding - when Brad still used to call they at least talked, joked with each other, made the effort, and Nate was almost sure nothing was unsalvageable, not with them, with their history.
Now, Brad hasn't called in four weeks, the silence preceded by an email so short it was fucking wrong even compared with Brad's usual taciturnity. Busy, talk to you later. Not signed, not even with just a name. Like they were strangers, or acquaintances at best, like it didn't matter if Nate knew whether Brad was okay or not; completely fucked over by command or not; coming back home or not.
//day 1
It's still dark, the sun almost an hour from rising. Brad lets himself in and closes the front door silently. Before letting the duffel drop to the floor Brad scans the row of shoes, holding in a breath before finally exhaling in shaky, unwilling relief - all familiar, all Nate's.
He climbs the stairs without calling out but pauses behind the bedroom door, half aware of the M9 Nate keeps in the room and half stalling, despite having made his decision.
Finally inching open the door, he's about to call Nate by his name but the sound gets caught in his throat as he sees the form on the bed, his mouth suddenly dry and his head spinning from immediate, helpless arousal.
The image is like something that should be in a porn magazine, the combination of bare skin and scant cover of bed sheets the sort of artful cock-tease that's not really possible in real life, unless of course you've managed to get yourself involved with one Nathaniel Fick, whose sole mission in life seemingly is to torment Brad.
Nate is facing away from Brad, half on his stomach and half on his side; head pillowed on his right bicep and the palm and wrist of his left hand disappearing into the shadow of his hips. The sheet lingers on the swell of Nate's ass, only his left knee peeking out where the leg is hooked up, providing a clear picture of the spread, naked position Nate must have under the sheet.
Brad's hands are balled into tight fists, his dick so hard it's already leaking. He thinks about kneeling on the bed behind Nate and sliding the sheet away, and his mouth waters; thinks about gripping two bruising handfuls of Nate's ass, thumbs just inside the crack, and spreading Nate even more, thrusting his tongue right inside and making Nate jerk, licking inside and fucking Nate with his mouth. Forcing Nate up on his knees, his dick touching nothing but air, and not letting him touch himself, not letting Nate come until he's gone past desperate and past shaking and wrecked, not until Nate is only capable of repeating his name in his hoarse, beautiful whispers; not until Brad Colbert is the only name Nate knows.
Brad's still rooted to the spot at the doorway, his stomach tight and cock pushing angrily against the damp material of his shorts, when Nate stirs on the bed. It takes only a few seconds for him to go from half asleep to sharp-eyed and alert, the way all Marines wake up. That's when he cranes his neck and sees Brad on the doorway.
They hold eye contact for 30 seconds, a minute. Then Nate grasps the edge of his cover and flings it away; pushes himself up to his hands and knees, and hangs his head.
Complete trust. Complete submission. Like Brad's fantasy a moment before, but better, because with Nate, reality is always, impossibly, better.
Brad has to take a moment to close his eyes and breathe, to check his body's control; he still fucking sees Nate. He starts peeling off his clothes, careful but as quick as possible; he's cautious about inadvertently touching himself too much.
Getting on the bed finally, his cock demands only a preliminary prep, beyond eager to get inside the heat he still remembers and dreamed about every time his sleep lasted longer than the fifteen-minute chunks that are the default in theater. Even more than that, though, Brad needs to fucking be touching Nate right now. He pulls Nate upright, ignoring Nate's questioning sound for the moment, and shuffles on his knees up into him; presses against his back and trails his hands from Nate's neck to his nipples and down his thighs, scratching the insides of them. Nate shivers, cock already hard and twitching, and twines his fingers together with Brad's.
//day 1 + 20 minutes
The first push inside is almost enough to finish it, and Brad's lube-slick fingers scramble to hold Nate's hips, the edge of bones and taut muscle. He moves carefully, slowly, and Nate's mouth falls open, lips shining with spit and bitten red.
"Let me have this," he chokes, hand curling around Nate's dick. Nate gasps, pushes back into him.
"You-you do," Nate pants.
"No," his voice is a growl now, and he's almost scared of the wave of possessiveness that burns underneath his ribs. "No," he repeats, gasping, his words punctuated with short, jabbing thrusts, "let me have this, all of it. Only me. Let only me have it."
Clearly, his Iceman persona is nowhere near in the room with them, but Brad can't make himself care. What the fuck does it matter that he lays himself bare if it'll get him this, get him Nate and get rid of the thoughts of who else might have him like this, have the skin and the sweat and the saliva that belong to Brad.
He might've let someone go before, without fighting for her - then, he had a choice. With Nate, it doesn't feel like he does.
Nate places his hand on top of Brad's, where it's grasping Nate's hip. The press of it stills Brad, something important coming, as Nate turns to look Brad in the eye. He says, "You do," he says, "Brad, only you have it, have had it. For the last eight mont-"
Nate's words get cut off. Brad's mouth on his is violent and elated and wild.
//day 2
They've fucked and ordered take out and fucked, and eaten the cold food hours after the delivery, and showered together and fucked in the bathroom and then again as soon as they stepped back into Nate's bedroom.
They've slept a few hours, and they've talked very little. Words aren't important, not when he can look at Brad again and see what he's thinking, know him, and feel him hot and hard and familiar in his bed.
Brad's face is back to open for him, and Nate's even given up the guilt, bled the regret into an i'm sorry whispered into Brad's skin, Brad palming his jaw and kissing him slow and wet for a long time.
At the moment, Brad is pressed tight against Nate's back, playing with his left hand - with intent, as Nate eventually notices. Brad's long fingers are stroking Nate's ring finger, and when he's sure the gesture has Nate's undivided attention, Brad says,
"Before my next deployment,"
and Nate doesn't need to hear the end of it before agreeing, "Yes."
//four days before shipping out
Nate isn't a small man by any means, but next to Brad anyone would feel just a little… slight. Out in the street, Brad turns heads, people intimidated and attracted in equal measure.
In bed, naked, Brad is a vision. The strong, unending expanse of muscles in his back, interspersed with old scars the stories of which Nate doesn't still all know, and scratches made by Nate's own fingernails the previous evening; during the night; at oh dark hundred, when Brad last fucked him.
They've not slept more than three hours, maybe, and back in the new-old life in the States, the routines barely familiar with more of clean sheets and less of their rifles by their side, it feels like too little, the thought of getting out of bed unappealing and unnecessary in favor of diving under the sheets and waking Brad up with his mouth on Brad's cock.
Not yet, though. Nate rarely gets to look in peace. In fact, it's a wonder Brad hasn't yet-
"Find something interesting?"
Brad's eyes are still closed, but then, Nate's in bed with a fucking Recon Marine, the best of the best - Brad's sixth sense has saved their lives more than once, Nate really shouldn't be surprised at Brad feeling the heat in Nate's eyes.
"Just admiring the AO."
"Far as I recall, you were the AO for most of last night." Brad opens his eyes, then, looking straight at Nate and quirking a familiar grin.
"Still plenty of time to turn that around," Nate mock-protests, smiling.
"You can try, sir."
"I should make sure I have prior claim, leave my mark."
The words crash into a stop as Nate hears what he's said, and the grin falls straight off of Brad's face, showing a hint of something Nate can't even name until Brad squares his features into a blank, the Iceman perfectly in place.
Nate's in mild shock, paused, trying to understand where the words came from, and the faint bitterness in them, and how the intimate, playful atmosphere of the morning has been so completely gunned down and replaced by achy freezing silence.
"And why would that be, sir?"
Nate flinches at the unemotional use of his rank, so different from the teasing way Brad usually says it.
Brad rarely sounds reluctant; he's too good a Marine, too good a man to do anything less than what needs to be done. Right then, though, Brad sounds like he's speaking the words against his will, like he doesn't want Nate's answer even though he's asking.
"Brad, I-I'm sorry," Nate isn't sure what he's saying, feels like he's walked into an ambush of his own making that's become a turning point in a war to be lost. He tries to breathe deep but his lungs aren't taking in air like they should; Brad's eyes are dark, distant.
"I-just, we both know what it's like," Nate finally manages. "I just meant, I'm not expecting you to… deny yourself."
Just like that, the shutters in Brad's eyes slam completely down, and if Nate had for a second hoped they'd get past his faux-pas, that hope is immediately and undeniably lost. The worst thing, though, is that Nate's not sure why he's being shut out for saying out loud what they both know. Brad's deployment will be a long one, six months, at least; and as long as Nate has known Brad, Brad has never shied away from the truth.
Telling Brad it would be okay to be with other people, to relieve the stress and, hell, just live his life like he has till then, before this thing between them that is still new and unnamed and undefined - has to be one of the hardest things Nate has ever had to do, up to and including having to pass along the fucked up orders of OIF; and even those hadn't hurt quite like this, hadn't made him want to crawl to the nearest toilet and empty his stomach.
So why is Brad the one pushing away, getting out of bed and telling Nate, his eyes cold and hard, "Good to know, sir."
//four months into the deployment
Brad doesn't talk to Ray often, or even with any sort of regularity, but every now and then his former RTO insists on being phoned up, Brad's USMC inbox spammed with increasingly demanding and irritating emails; Brad supposes it makes Ray feel important and cared for and less like the whiskey tango fuck-up that he is.
"I know you love your Ray-Ray even though you haven't admitted it to yourself," Person will quip when Brad tells him as much.
He forgives Ray his delusions since his rants do hold some amusement value, working to distract Brad when he's on tour, his days taken up by sand and PT and infrequent stake-outs and trying not to think about Nate all the fucking time.
Speaking of; Ray seems to read his mind, an annoying habit he's had since before Iraq.
"Hey, man, I saw Captain Fick the other day," he announces, and Brad's ears perk up in spite of himself.
"Good for you," he says, tone still flat, because Ray knows him damn well enough not to even expect anything else.
"Yeah, almost didn't fucking recognize him, sitting in Starbucks with this huge dude in a leather jacket, tattoos all the way up to his neck - I'm telling you, homes, no straight-laced Ivy Leaguer or even a good little Marine captain should keep company that fucking looks like a fucking faggot from a biker gang…"
The continuing noise from Ray gets further and further away as Brad's grip on the phone tightens until the skin over his knuckles is white and stretched thin, his gut clenching in nausea and anger that's very different from the anger he feels towards his enemies, anger that's not impersonal and detached but so fucking far over the border of impotent rage that it's nearing insanity.
Nate might look like an altar boy who enjoys cuddling and kisses and long conversations in front of the fire, but Brad knows better; knows that Nate gets so fucking turned on from being pushed down into a mattress and kept there with hard muscle and body weight, knows that sometimes all it takes is that feeling of semi-unwilling surrender to get Nate to the brink of coming - has made Nate come in his pants just by trapping him on his stomach and lying on top of him, fists tight around Nate's wrists against the bedspread, sucking and biting on the back of Nate's neck and whispering in his ear, low and rough.
Involuntarily, he imagines it: sees Nate taking the tall biker to his apartment, leading him up to the bedroom; the man grabbing Nate by the waist and throwing him down on the bed where Brad fucked Nate four months ago.
The same bed where Nate offered him no strings attached with big green eyes and Brad couldn't quite bring himself to ask why, and whether Nate was planning on doing the same. He has his answer now.
Ray's babbling through the phone line is indistinct, masked by the roar in Brad's ears and he hangs up with barely a word, makes his way outside and runs the perimeter until it's dark and he can claim not to be thinking of anything at all, and the pulsing in his temples is caused simply by the adrenaline of exercise.
//five months into the deployment
They say keeping busy is the key, make it sound too much like surviving something Nate doesn't even want to think about. They don't realize that no matter how busy you keep yourself during the day, no matter how thoroughly your hours are filled, there's still the night - and no matter if you run yourself to the ground, literally or figuratively, there's still too much time spent awake in that bed needing something that (someone who) isn't there.
Perhaps it wouldn't be so fucking hard if he even had the amount of contact they used to have, back when they mostly were just some obscure version of friends, always hovering on the edge of something else but, still, solid in their knowledge of each other.
Some of that knowledge, that knee-jerk familiarity is gone, or hiding - when Brad still used to call they at least talked, joked with each other, made the effort, and Nate was almost sure nothing was unsalvageable, not with them, with their history.
Now, Brad hasn't called in four weeks, the silence preceded by an email so short it was fucking wrong even compared with Brad's usual taciturnity. Busy, talk to you later. Not signed, not even with just a name. Like they were strangers, or acquaintances at best, like it didn't matter if Nate knew whether Brad was okay or not; completely fucked over by command or not; coming back home or not.
//day 1
It's still dark, the sun almost an hour from rising. Brad lets himself in and closes the front door silently. Before letting the duffel drop to the floor Brad scans the row of shoes, holding in a breath before finally exhaling in shaky, unwilling relief - all familiar, all Nate's.
He climbs the stairs without calling out but pauses behind the bedroom door, half aware of the M9 Nate keeps in the room and half stalling, despite having made his decision.
Finally inching open the door, he's about to call Nate by his name but the sound gets caught in his throat as he sees the form on the bed, his mouth suddenly dry and his head spinning from immediate, helpless arousal.
The image is like something that should be in a porn magazine, the combination of bare skin and scant cover of bed sheets the sort of artful cock-tease that's not really possible in real life, unless of course you've managed to get yourself involved with one Nathaniel Fick, whose sole mission in life seemingly is to torment Brad.
Nate is facing away from Brad, half on his stomach and half on his side; head pillowed on his right bicep and the palm and wrist of his left hand disappearing into the shadow of his hips. The sheet lingers on the swell of Nate's ass, only his left knee peeking out where the leg is hooked up, providing a clear picture of the spread, naked position Nate must have under the sheet.
Brad's hands are balled into tight fists, his dick so hard it's already leaking. He thinks about kneeling on the bed behind Nate and sliding the sheet away, and his mouth waters; thinks about gripping two bruising handfuls of Nate's ass, thumbs just inside the crack, and spreading Nate even more, thrusting his tongue right inside and making Nate jerk, licking inside and fucking Nate with his mouth. Forcing Nate up on his knees, his dick touching nothing but air, and not letting him touch himself, not letting Nate come until he's gone past desperate and past shaking and wrecked, not until Nate is only capable of repeating his name in his hoarse, beautiful whispers; not until Brad Colbert is the only name Nate knows.
Brad's still rooted to the spot at the doorway, his stomach tight and cock pushing angrily against the damp material of his shorts, when Nate stirs on the bed. It takes only a few seconds for him to go from half asleep to sharp-eyed and alert, the way all Marines wake up. That's when he cranes his neck and sees Brad on the doorway.
They hold eye contact for 30 seconds, a minute. Then Nate grasps the edge of his cover and flings it away; pushes himself up to his hands and knees, and hangs his head.
Complete trust. Complete submission. Like Brad's fantasy a moment before, but better, because with Nate, reality is always, impossibly, better.
Brad has to take a moment to close his eyes and breathe, to check his body's control; he still fucking sees Nate. He starts peeling off his clothes, careful but as quick as possible; he's cautious about inadvertently touching himself too much.
Getting on the bed finally, his cock demands only a preliminary prep, beyond eager to get inside the heat he still remembers and dreamed about every time his sleep lasted longer than the fifteen-minute chunks that are the default in theater. Even more than that, though, Brad needs to fucking be touching Nate right now. He pulls Nate upright, ignoring Nate's questioning sound for the moment, and shuffles on his knees up into him; presses against his back and trails his hands from Nate's neck to his nipples and down his thighs, scratching the insides of them. Nate shivers, cock already hard and twitching, and twines his fingers together with Brad's.
//day 1 + 20 minutes
The first push inside is almost enough to finish it, and Brad's lube-slick fingers scramble to hold Nate's hips, the edge of bones and taut muscle. He moves carefully, slowly, and Nate's mouth falls open, lips shining with spit and bitten red.
"Let me have this," he chokes, hand curling around Nate's dick. Nate gasps, pushes back into him.
"You-you do," Nate pants.
"No," his voice is a growl now, and he's almost scared of the wave of possessiveness that burns underneath his ribs. "No," he repeats, gasping, his words punctuated with short, jabbing thrusts, "let me have this, all of it. Only me. Let only me have it."
Clearly, his Iceman persona is nowhere near in the room with them, but Brad can't make himself care. What the fuck does it matter that he lays himself bare if it'll get him this, get him Nate and get rid of the thoughts of who else might have him like this, have the skin and the sweat and the saliva that belong to Brad.
He might've let someone go before, without fighting for her - then, he had a choice. With Nate, it doesn't feel like he does.
Nate places his hand on top of Brad's, where it's grasping Nate's hip. The press of it stills Brad, something important coming, as Nate turns to look Brad in the eye. He says, "You do," he says, "Brad, only you have it, have had it. For the last eight mont-"
Nate's words get cut off. Brad's mouth on his is violent and elated and wild.
//day 2
They've fucked and ordered take out and fucked, and eaten the cold food hours after the delivery, and showered together and fucked in the bathroom and then again as soon as they stepped back into Nate's bedroom.
They've slept a few hours, and they've talked very little. Words aren't important, not when he can look at Brad again and see what he's thinking, know him, and feel him hot and hard and familiar in his bed.
Brad's face is back to open for him, and Nate's even given up the guilt, bled the regret into an i'm sorry whispered into Brad's skin, Brad palming his jaw and kissing him slow and wet for a long time.
At the moment, Brad is pressed tight against Nate's back, playing with his left hand - with intent, as Nate eventually notices. Brad's long fingers are stroking Nate's ring finger, and when he's sure the gesture has Nate's undivided attention, Brad says,
"Before my next deployment,"
and Nate doesn't need to hear the end of it before agreeing, "Yes."