Generation Kill fic: an endless recovery
There is so much brilliant Generation Kill fic showing up these days - it's bliss as a reader and scary as a writer! Anyway, this is a wee gift for shoshannagold (who wanted Nate recovering post OIF) and trolleys (who wanted Nate drunk-dialing Brad and also Brad breaking his leg, Nate stopping by to see he's okay and ending up practically moving in). I managed the first two, and the third is sort of there in an upside-down way. Upside-down, back-to-front, and then squint a bit...
Title: an endless recovery
Fandom: Generation Kill
Pairing: Brad/Nate
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 5,420 words
Disclaimer: A work of fiction based on characters from the HBO miniseries Generation Kill.
Warnings: None. amberlynne-safe.
Summary: There are some moments that he's never going to be able to write about. Most of them involve Brad.
A/N: A huge thank you to indyhat for her mad beta skills, to innie_darling for bravely Ameripicking a fandom she didn't know (and not getting too phased by 'Screwby'), and to shoshannagold for looking over her own gift at an early stage when I got totally stuck.
Life afterwards is an endless recovery, or so it feels.
The logical part of Nate's brain tells him that this is temporary, this weaving across the road when he drives under bridges, this reaching for a non-existent weapon when he hears a car backfire, and this crying (actual fucking sobs on one occasion) for no reason. He writes it on a square of scrap paper, cut from the back of a used envelope - this is temporary it says, because messages should be clear and concise - and sticks it on his fridge with an Eiffel Tower magnet. He says it as a mantra into his shaving mirror each morning, like he's some yoga-loving, herbal-tea-drinking pussy-whipped hippie (he hears the words in Brad's dry tones, and it's possible that's why he keeps saying his mantra, not because he has any sort of faith in its ability to fix things but because the tenuous link to Brad amuses him).
And yet.
And yet he still wakes up each morning and expects more of himself. He reads each setback as a failure.
He hasn't made plans yet. There are ideas - possibilities - floating inside his head, but he doesn't gather them together and mold them into the shape of a life. So for now, his life consists of dumping everything he's been for the last five years in a box neatly labelled PAST.
He has no idea what lies ahead.
*
"Yes, Mom, I'm fine."
"You're just avoiding the issue, darling. I know you." His mother's voice is full of concern. He knows that if she weren't on the other side of the country she'd be here right now, trying to make things better. Trying to fix him.
"Are you trying to get me to tell you I'm not fine?" Nate doesn't exactly mean to go on the offensive, but he's had this same conversation with his sisters and he just wishes for once they'd accept it when he says he's fine.
"I just want the truth, darling. I want to know how you are."
Nate takes a deep breath, keeps his voice low and calm. "And I told you. I'm fine."
His mother sighs.
He's not even lying. Not really. He's actually fine with his life being a blank slate, fine with the temporary uncertainty. He's still young. So far, he's done everything he planned, apart from settling down and having a family, and that, somehow, just doesn't figure in his wants anymore. So if he drifts for a while until he gets his bearings again, that's okay.
He just can't convince his mother.
*
His hair is more certain of itself. It grows long and determined, curling at the ends in blatant disregard of the grooming standard. It feels like a fuck you to the petty rule-bound authorities, even though it's nothing of the sort. Just apathy, not finding time in his empty days to visit a barber. And the vague feeling that now he's no longer serving (he can't bring himself to say he's no longer a Marine - that isn't going to happen, because it's in him now, not a job or a title, but a part of him) he should look less like a Marine.
The feeling crystalizes when he runs into Brad. In a Kroger, of all places, both of them with carts full of microwave meals and fruit and bottles of whiskey (Nate) and cans of beer (Brad). Ridiculously domestic. Nate snorts, and that's when Brad looks up.
"You still look like a Marine even with surfer hair," Brad greets him - not hello like anyone else would when they hadn't crossed paths with him in weeks - and that's when Nate comes face-to-face with the idea that he's trying to look like someone - something - else. And that's where he's going wrong. Not in growing his hair, or even looking different, but in trying to be someone new.
He'd thought he could finish one life and start a new one and everything would be different, including himself. But he's the same man he was a week ago, a month ago, six months ago when he was still riding in a Humvee with a perpetually numb ass and a filthy, stinking body. Just cleaner, and his ass is only numb when he spends too long on his couch having Die Hard marathons.
Nate can't bring himself to throw a sarcastic response at Brad, too busy feeling grateful that he's finally worked out that he doesn't need to recover, that the determination to recover and change and be the new Nate is what's prevented him from actually doing something from his life. He couldn't see a future that made sense, because he was trying to fit someone new into it, and that isn't going to happen. He needs a future that he'll fit into, as the man he is, flawed and scarred (not literally, but they still feel shockingly visible) and angry. He needs to make all those things work for him.
"I'm still the same man," he tells Brad, sharing his newfound understanding even though there's no reason Brad should have a clue what the fuck Nate's on about.
They wheel their carts to the checkout, and Nate grins at the thought that his great epiphany came here, in the middle of the cereal aisle.
"Care to help me drink some of these?" Brad says, waiting while Nate packs his shopping. "Save me from getting drunk alone."
Nate can say yes now. To the question Brad's asking, and to the question he isn't asking, but that Nate thinks might be there, underneath the words Brad's saying. So he does.
*
He doesn't get drunk that night with Brad. He's always been sensible, weighing up consequences before he acts, and he's insufficiently sure that the consequences here would be good, or even something he could live with, so he leaves still sober enough.
He gets drunk the next night instead. In some bar he's never been to before, on his own, because every rule is there to be broken, it's just all about choosing the time to break them. So he figures getting drunk this evening is a safe bet.
He forgot to factor phones into his decision-making. Namely their easy availability - there's a payphone just inside the bar, so it doesn't matter that he forgot to charge his cell - and Brad's willingness to answer an unknown number.
"You're such a fucking tease, you know that. A fucking, fucking tease." Nate's extremely lucid and collected and manages to get every word out distinctly.
Brad just grunts, which pisses Nate off, because Brad isn't drunk, so the least he could do is say something.
"You never stopped looking," Nate says, every bit of pent-up frustration in his tone. "Never said anything, just looked at me like I was sup-supposed to know what every fucking look meant." He only stutters because the phone keeps slipping through his fingers.
"Where are you?" Brad asks.
"In hell," Nate says, and snorts, because it's true.
"Does hell have a grid reference?" Brad asks, but Nate doesn't hear any more because the phone slips right out of his hand and dangles somewhere out of sight, and even when Nate gets down on his hands and knees he can't find it because it's too dark and he hasn't got his night vision goggles, or maybe he hasn't got enough batteries. No, he looks, no goggles. So he sits down instead.
The floor is very friendly. It hugs him. He loves the floor.
*
Next morning he wakes up and wishes he'd died in Iraq. The feeling doesn't last long, just all morning and part of the afternoon, and by then it fades into a general discontentment with life and a mild case of self-pity. That lasts until the next day, and a double circuit around his favorite five-mile run - it's hard to feel unhappy when running comes so freely.
He's certain he dreamed the phone call.
*
Driving to San Pasqual Battlefield one morning, he listens to a radio debate. The reasons OIF was justified, the reasons it should never have happened, the proof it was a success, the proof it was a failure. Words like 'shame' and 'blame' and 'innocent' and 'WMDs' are bandied around by fucking idiots who don't know what the hell they're talking about.
He turns the radio off, snapping the knob to the left so sharply that it comes off in his hand. He has to pull over to calm down. It's half an hour before he trusts himself to drive again.
He feels no shame, regardless of whether some ignorant radio presenter tells him he should.
After all, he tells himself, no one died. None of his men, and he's fucking proud of that.
He can't have any regrets, and certainly no shame.
'No regrets' becomes his new mantra.
*
Nate's yard is bare: cracked concrete, a high wooden fence that neatly precludes any type of friendly conversation with his neighbors, and a solitary shrub that's trying its damnedest to become a tree. Nate admires its pluck. It's covered in long purple flowers, and the flowers are covered in butterflies, even this late in the season.
The butterflies fascinate him.
When they were camped at Al Kut, a butterfly had landed on Christeson's leg. Nate had expected him to catch it or kill it, but instead Christeson sat perfectly still, watching it.
"Yo, LT, fucking butterfly thinks Christeson here's a flower."
Christeson just shrugged, unperturbed, and kept his leg motionless, eyes focused on the butterfly.
Q-Tip looked oddly disappointed when it flew away. "Screwby," he said.
"What sort of butterfly was it, sir?" Christeson asked, no doubt that Nate would have the answer.
"I believe it was a Monarch," Nate said, and Christeson looked impressed - whether by the name or Nate's knowledge or the pluckiness of a butterfly invading a Marine camp, Nate didn't know.
His father had taught him the names of all the butterflies in Maryland. They used to go on nature walks, and Nate would look up anything he didn't recognize in a little handbook he'd gotten for his eighth birthday. But when he sees butterflies now, it's the Monarch at Al Kut that he always remembers.
*
Nate's not sure at what point his vague idea of writing a book becomes a plan.
He rereads his notebooks and diaries in the idle weeks after leaving the Corps. He revisits all the lessons he's learned, and wishes he'd learned some of them in advance. He still doesn't think of himself as able to teach those lessons to others, to help others avoid his mistakes. Even when he starts writing, he's writing more for himself than anyone else. If he went to a shrink, they'd probably tell him it's a cathartic exercise, though, honestly, writing down some of the shit that happened makes his blood pressure rise far more than it did at the time.
But after a while, he stops writing just for himself. He starts to add explanations, to tone down the fury and channel his frustrations into something positive.
This isn't his entire future. But as a stopgap, it's pretty satisfying.
*
The butterfly isn't in his notes - just a vivid memory - and it isn't going to make it into his book. There are some moments that he's never going to be able to write about.
Most of them involve Brad. Things that didn't happen, but which he thought about or wanted to happen.
He still thinks about them.
*
He breaks his arms. It's a freak accident, the kind that leaves him mumbling an explanation to the ER doctor and hoping he won't have to repeat it.
He does, of course. Everyone wants to know how he broke both arms in his own home, when he came back from both Afghanistan and Iraq without so much as a bruise. Nate tells the story with a defensive glare that defies anyone to laugh.
"I dropped the butter and slipped on it," he says, leaving out the part where he was up in the middle of the night because he couldn't sleep, and couldn't see the butter on the kitchen floor because he hadn't bothered to turn the lights on, and hadn't been sufficiently alert to break his fall properly. He'd assumed he was capable of making toast in the dark. Apparently not.
Nate must have lost his air of authority when he took off his stripes, because so far every single person has laughed at him. Without fail. Even perfect strangers.
"Butter?" his sister says, nearly choking on the other end of the phone, and can't get another word out for laughing. Apparently butter is hilarious.
Nate's having his toast dry in future.
*
He doesn't tell anyone. Not his family, not friends, and most definitely no-one in the Corps.
Mike's the first to phone. Nate puts the phone on speaker - it's easier.
"Hi, Mike," Nate says.
"How's it going?"
Nate chooses to take that as an inquiry about his book. "Cathartic," he says. "Hindsight's an interesting view." He neglects to mention that he hasn't written anything in days because he came close to throwing his keyboard across the room last time he tried. "How's Captain Morel?"
He regrets the question as soon as the words are out. He's let go. They're not his platoon any more. Not his men. (Except they are. Always will be. A burden and a pleasure he'll always carry.)
"Don't change the subject," Mike says, ignoring Nate's question. "I asked you how you are."
"You asked me how it's going."
"And you wilfully misinterpreted my words."
"Are you training to be a SERE instructor?"
"I'll stop when I get an honest answer."
"I'm fine."
"Managing okay?"
"Of course."
"Liar."
"I'm-"
" A stubborn, obstinate son of a bitch who's too proud to ask anyone for help."
Nate sighs and gives up pretending. "How'd you find out?"
Mike laughs. " You really thought we weren't gonna find out?"
Nate had. It was naïve; he knows that now.
"Cara wants to come around with food for you. She said she don't want you starvin' on account of your bein' too damn proud to ask for help."
"I can feed myself."
"I told her that. But you know Cara."
Nate does. And he knows her cooking. It's worth capitulating.
*
"Hey, sir, heard you had a bit of an accident."
Nate groans out loud. He shouldn't have picked up the phone.
"It's okay, sir, we don't think any the less of you for it. Everyone gets drunk sometimes."
"I wasn't drunk."
There's silence at the other end of the line. Then the sound of Ray hushing someone in the background. "Really?" Ray asks eventually, when the silence apparently gets too much for him. Ray and silence have always been mutually exclusive.
"Really," Nate confirms.
"Huh. That's just really path-um, sad, sir."
Nate can't disagree.
*
Brad doesn't laugh. Brad doesn't so much as mention the plaster casts. Brad just breaks into Nate's apartment while Nate's out and unpacks his bag and makes himself at home.
"Clearly you can't be trusted to your own devices," he says, in lieu of anything that resembles an explanation or a request to stay. Apparently Brad doesn't feel the need to ask. Nate could be troubled by that, but finds he isn't. He's equally untroubled by the realization that Brad fits, that having him here doesn't feel uncomfortable or awkward.
Though that might be the Vicodin.
They order in, because Brad didn't bring any food and Nate's run out of anything lacking nutritional value. Brad controls the remote - Nate isn't sure how that happened, but he can't ask for it back or he'd have to admit he was out-maneuvered - and so they watch a steady progression of Tarantino movies. Nate discovers that Brad loathes John Wayne - and any and all wannabe gun-slinging cowboys - and that he's harbored a long-standing crush on Uma Thurman.
He's not sure what Brad discovers about him.
*
"Are you applying for a permanent position? Because you should probably know that I'm currently unemployed. And temporarily unemployable," he adds, looking at his arms ruefully. He can manage most things, but everything is slow and frustrating, and even slower when he's taking a soothing combination of beer and painkillers.
"Are you saying you can't afford me?" Brad manages to sound like a hooker with a troublesome non-paying john.
Nate casts that idea as far away as possible.
"Yes," he says, because simple is best.
"Or would you secretly rather have a large-assed Latina in a skimpy nurse's outfit take care of you?"
Nate ignores the part of the question that implies he needs taking care of. "That goes without saying. Although at least your skinny ass only blocks half the television screen," he says.
Brad moves an inch to the left. It barely makes a difference to the amount of the TV screen Nate can see, but he wasn't watching it anyway. He couldn't even say what's on.
He thinks he might have been watching Brad's ass.
*
Nate's hands shake sometimes. He doesn't even notice it until he spills a drink or his handwriting skids across the page in one long track. He has a record of it in his notebook, the one he's using to rough out his story in now that typing is a bitch. His story is neat, rational words punctuated by black scratches and the occasional angry outburst. He'll edit out the anger when he types it up; for now, he needs the release.
Brad's calm. Brad's been through the same war Nate's been through, and he sleeps through the night and only drinks when he wants to, not when he has to.
"Do you ever-?" Nate starts, but he doesn't know what question he wants to ask, let alone how to ask it. No regrets. That's Nate's mantra, so there's no point looking back. No point wondering if he could have done anything better.
Brad doesn't press for the rest of the question, just goes into the kitchen and grabs two beers. They drink them in silence, and Brad doesn't comment when Nate refuses a second.
Nate doesn't want to need it.
*
The casts itch like fuck. Somehow Nate avoided broken bones as a boy, and he's never been wounded in combat, so this is new.
He grits his teeth and puts up with it. It's no worse than sand in his boots and sweat pooling around his balls, and a scalp so filthy he used to rub sand in it to try to clean it. He complains about the quality of the cheese on the pizza and the temperature of the beer Brad hands him, and the lump in his sofa that he'd swear is following him around, but he doesn't complain about the itching.
Apparently he didn't need to. Brad disappears for half an hour and comes back with a small brown paper bag. He hands it to Nate and stands over him, watching with a pleased look on his face, like it's Christmas and he's found the perfect gift.
The gift's a knitting needle. For a stupid moment Nate thinks Brad's suggesting he should take up knitting, and is about to treat the suggestion with the scathing contempt it deserves, and then sense kicks in and he works it out. He shoves the knitting needle down one cast and scratches blissfully. It's awkward, with both arms half out of commission, but it's the best feeling since he broke them.
"As a wise man once said, not to get homoerotic about this, but I could kiss you," he says, pulling the needle out.
Brad stares at him, unblinking. "I think you're all talk."
Nate knows when he's being challenged. He's never been the kind of guy who had to respond to every challenge he received. He doesn't have to respond to this.
He wants to. This is a challenge he wants to take all the way.
"I have to admit, though, scratching my arms feels pretty fucking good right now," he says, taking the challenge and throwing it back. He's spoiling for this, and maybe it's time to damn the consequences. Or trust his gut, which is telling him that the consequences might just be everything he wants. "I'm not sure anything else could feel better." He scratches the other arm and lets out an exaggerated bliss-drunk sigh. It really is a relief.
"Sounds to me like you've not had the right experience yet." Brad leaves an unsubtle pause before the last word. It echoes in Nate's head.
Nate's at a disadvantage. He's seated, Brad's standing. He has two broken arms and a knitting needle in his hand; Brad's empty-handed. Nate's worked at a disadvantage before, has devised tactics to ensure the inferior force wins. This might not be exactly the sort of occasion his training was designed for, but he's adaptable.
He lifts his right leg quickly and hooks Brad in the back of the knee. He has surprise on his side. Brad stumbles, reaches out his hands, then visibly hesitates. The hesitation is long enough to bring him to rest, knees against the couch on either side of Nate. Close enough for Nate's purposes. Nate reaches out with one clumsy arm and tugs him in closer by his shirt sleeve.
Brad doesn't help him out at all. Just smirks at Nate's clumsiness.
Nate wishes he could claim that the first kiss he manages to land on Brad thoroughly disabuses Brad of the idea that he's not had the right experience. Considering that it lands somewhere to the left of Brad's mouth and only lasts until the knitting needle falls between his legs and stabs him in the nuts, it's probably not that convincing. That's okay. Nate calmly removes the knitting needle, throws it on the floor, manhandles Brad into a more convenient position and tries again.
This time it lasts a lot longer. Long enough that even Brad starts to sound breathless. Nate tries not to think of that as an achievement.
"I take it back. You're not all talk after all."
"Very noble of you to admit when you're wrong."
"Though my error was entirely due to being misled by you. The evidence was all pretty damning." Brad is smirking again. Nate casts around, trying to dredge up something - anything - that will tell him what the fuck Brad's referring to.
He fails. "Evidence?" he asks.
"You called me a fucking tease, and then did nothing about it. Like I said, pretty damning evidence."
"I called you a-" Nate stops short of his question. He called Brad a fucking tease. The drunken phone call wasn't a dream.
He's beginning to make a habit of imagining he dreamed something that actually happened. A dangerous habit.
"I would like the opportunity to set the record straight and demonstrate that, while some of the drunken expletives I've been called have been on or around the mark, a fucking tease is most definitely not accurate." Brad manages to sound extremely dignified even while sprawled across Nate's sofa.
"I'm willing to be proven wrong," Nate offers magnanimously.
"Seems to be the day for that."
"You haven't provided sufficient evidence for me to change my mind, though," Nate points out. "In fact, so far you've been all talk, no action, and that-"
Brad goes into action, and Nate has no choice but to shut up. That's fine with him.
*
They make it to the bedroom eventually, Nate rumpled but still fully dressed, Brad unruffled but naked. Nate's seen him naked before, shivering slightly under a rigged-up shower outside Baghdad, dirt streaming off him and trickling into cracks in the concrete. That was quick and purposeful; come to think of it, so is this. And yet entirely different. Not least because this time they're alone, and Brad's hard, and his stare is distinctly possessive.
"Fucking casts," Brad complains as he pulls ineffectively at Nate's sleeves, caught on the plaster.
Nate laughs, a little high because he's frustrated too. "Finally, something that bests the Iceman."
"If you think I'd give up this easily," Brad says, eyebrows raised, "you're clearly not as perceptive a man as I've always believed you to be."
"I would be disappointed in you if you were to give up this easily." Nate's leaning against his dresser, arms out awkwardly. He's tempted to resort to the scissors that he knows are in the second drawer down, but he's too pragmatic for that - it's a decent shirt with plenty of wear left in it, and he's no horny teenager who can't cope with drawing this out any longer. One sleeve at a time - they're a tight fit over the casts, but slow and patient will do it.
Brad watches him. He strokes himself idly, as though he's not even aware of doing so. He looks patient, but Nate knows that look. He's seen it on Brad when he's been waiting for a mission. The patience is a good façade, but fake nonetheless. Nate would be certain of that even if it weren't for Brad's irritable hurry up.
Nate takes it even slower. Brad's not the only fucking tease in the room. Brad grits his teeth and narrows his eyes when he sees what Nate's doing, and Nate stares straight back at him, challenging Brad to order him to hurry up again. He doesn't.
*
Nate understands making do and improvising and making the impossible work. It's what he does.
That said, having sex with both arms in a cast is fucking awkward. And frustrating. He wants to touch Brad, he wants to control this, but that's not going to happen.
"Just fucking lie down and shut up already," Brad says, after Nate's made another futile attempt at taking over and giving Brad a handjob.
Nate hadn't said a word, but apparently his silence had spoken volumes. "Yes, sir," he says, mocking.
The corner of Brad's mouth twitches. "Goddamn officers," he mutters, and Nate would respond, but Brad's thigh is sliding between Nate's, and Brad's nipping at the junction between Nate's shoulder and neck, so Nate settles for a wordless exclamation. He could probably come like this.
Brad doesn't let him. Once he's got what he wants - Nate sprawled out on the bed, arms to one side and thighs open so far Nate would feel too exposed with anyone else - Brad takes his time. Nate might have been drunk at the time of his initial declaration, but Brad is a fucking tease, and currently doing nothing to disabuse Nate of that notion. He kisses like he'd be content doing nothing else all evening, cupping Nate's ass and holding their bodies close but still. It's nothing like Nate might have expected if he'd ever had the imagination to picture this. It's slow and quiet and strangely endearing.
"I don't actually need hours of foreplay to get me going," Nate says eventually. Which is stating the obvious, because his cock is hard and leaking, and the intermittent noises breaking up the quiet aren't the bed squeaking.
"Condoms?" Brad asks, and Nate shakes his head. They weren't a priority until now. And apparently Brad wasn't sufficiently certain of his degree of welcome to bring some. Fuck.
"Guess we'll have to make do," Brad says, and Nate flashes back to the desert, all the little things he tried to do for Brad to ensure he didn't have to make do all the time.
"Sorry," he says.
"Don't fucking apologize, Nate," Brad says, and slides back off him. He tugs Nate gracelessly by the ankles until he's on the edge of the bed, Brad kneeling between his legs.
He takes Nate's dick like a pro. Nate's having trouble sitting upright, his fucking arms aching under his weight, but he holds himself steady. He wants to see.
Brad pulls back off Nate's dick. Not far, but at this angle Nate can see Brad tugging on his own dick, hand disappearing into the shadows between his legs, his dick sliding in and out of view. "I like pussy, you know," Brad says, like he's making conversation, not as though he feels he has anything to prove. "I like the feel of it on my tongue, all slick and wet, and the little noises women make, all high and desperate, and the way their clit flutters when they come." He leans forward a fraction and licks the tip of Nate's dick. "And the taste," he says. "Some guys don't, but I like the taste."
"I don't have a pussy or a clit," Nate says. He wants to push his dick further into Brad's mouth. He wants to fuck Brad's mouth.
Brad shrugs. "I could get used to this," he says, and Nate just barely resists rolling his eyes, because even the least observant man in the world could tell this is a lot more than Brad getting used to it. This is Brad wanting it as much as Nate does, and Nate wants this more than he can articulate right now.
Brad swallows when Nate comes, except at the end, when Nate jerks away, his dick getting too sensitive for the pressure of Brad's tongue, and the last bit of come hits the side of Brad's face, a white streak on his tan.
Two minutes later Brad's come is coating Nate's belly and his softened cock. Brad leans against his shoulders and Nate takes the weight of both of them for a moment. Brad's warm and heavy and Nate wonders how he managed to wait so long for this.
*
It's late enough that there's a faint chill in the air. Nate throws the washcloth Brad brought him on the floor and crawls under the bedclothes before he falls asleep on top of them.
"I'd like to stay - is that okay?" Brad asks. He doesn't wait for an answer, climbing into bed next to Nate. It is okay, of course, more than okay. Nate would have been disappointed if he'd left.
The way Brad curls up against him is as unexpected as the kissing earlier, but just as welcome. Brad rests one arm over Nate, fingers resting comfortably against his pecs. He's asleep in seconds, snoring softly. Nate doesn't take much longer.
*
They both wake early, oh dawn thirty. It's a habit, and Nate still hasn't shed it. He can tell Brad's awake by the rhythm of his breathing, not quite slow and steady enough for sleep.
There are things that need saying. Nate could wait until this thing between them is less new, but he knows he's not going to feel any different, and he's not one to pussyfoot around saying what he means.
He fumbles around on his bedside table, cursing at his own clumsiness, and turns on a light. He doesn't want to do this in the dark. He wants Brad to see his face, and he needs to see Brad's.
"Full disclosure," Nate says, because he feels it's only fair to give Brad due warning. Brad doesn't flinch. "I'm in love with you. I want this - you and me - I want this more than anything."
Brad nods, full eye-contact. "Good," he says eventually.
Nate doesn't ask him to elaborate. The translation is easy. Brad feels the same way, it's good that it's mutual, nothing more needs to be said.
Of course, later, there'll be more to say. When there's no excuse that's valid to the rest of the world for Brad to be here, when there are decisions to be made. There'll be battles, Nate has no doubt. With the world, and with each other. Neither of them is an easy man to live with. They're Recon Marines.
He looks forward to all of it. He's going back to school when his book is done - he decided that the night before last, lying awake because his cast itched - he's going to have sex and fights and breakfast and lunch and dinner and a life with Brad. He has plans. He's filling in the blanks, and though his future is looking nothing like he might have anticipated ten years, five years, even one year ago, he's certain he's making the right decisions. Growing into the man he's meant to be.
He's still recovering, but it doesn't feel endless anymore.
"Good," Nate echoes, and Brad smiles.
"Yeah," he says, and pulls Nate back in towards him.
//
note: the injury might seem crazy, but it's an actual tru-fax injury to a tough guy. Just not Nate Fick, as far as I know! *g*
Title: an endless recovery
Fandom: Generation Kill
Pairing: Brad/Nate
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 5,420 words
Disclaimer: A work of fiction based on characters from the HBO miniseries Generation Kill.
Warnings: None. amberlynne-safe.
Summary: There are some moments that he's never going to be able to write about. Most of them involve Brad.
A/N: A huge thank you to indyhat for her mad beta skills, to innie_darling for bravely Ameripicking a fandom she didn't know (and not getting too phased by 'Screwby'), and to shoshannagold for looking over her own gift at an early stage when I got totally stuck.
Life afterwards is an endless recovery, or so it feels.
The logical part of Nate's brain tells him that this is temporary, this weaving across the road when he drives under bridges, this reaching for a non-existent weapon when he hears a car backfire, and this crying (actual fucking sobs on one occasion) for no reason. He writes it on a square of scrap paper, cut from the back of a used envelope - this is temporary it says, because messages should be clear and concise - and sticks it on his fridge with an Eiffel Tower magnet. He says it as a mantra into his shaving mirror each morning, like he's some yoga-loving, herbal-tea-drinking pussy-whipped hippie (he hears the words in Brad's dry tones, and it's possible that's why he keeps saying his mantra, not because he has any sort of faith in its ability to fix things but because the tenuous link to Brad amuses him).
And yet.
And yet he still wakes up each morning and expects more of himself. He reads each setback as a failure.
He hasn't made plans yet. There are ideas - possibilities - floating inside his head, but he doesn't gather them together and mold them into the shape of a life. So for now, his life consists of dumping everything he's been for the last five years in a box neatly labelled PAST.
He has no idea what lies ahead.
*
"Yes, Mom, I'm fine."
"You're just avoiding the issue, darling. I know you." His mother's voice is full of concern. He knows that if she weren't on the other side of the country she'd be here right now, trying to make things better. Trying to fix him.
"Are you trying to get me to tell you I'm not fine?" Nate doesn't exactly mean to go on the offensive, but he's had this same conversation with his sisters and he just wishes for once they'd accept it when he says he's fine.
"I just want the truth, darling. I want to know how you are."
Nate takes a deep breath, keeps his voice low and calm. "And I told you. I'm fine."
His mother sighs.
He's not even lying. Not really. He's actually fine with his life being a blank slate, fine with the temporary uncertainty. He's still young. So far, he's done everything he planned, apart from settling down and having a family, and that, somehow, just doesn't figure in his wants anymore. So if he drifts for a while until he gets his bearings again, that's okay.
He just can't convince his mother.
*
His hair is more certain of itself. It grows long and determined, curling at the ends in blatant disregard of the grooming standard. It feels like a fuck you to the petty rule-bound authorities, even though it's nothing of the sort. Just apathy, not finding time in his empty days to visit a barber. And the vague feeling that now he's no longer serving (he can't bring himself to say he's no longer a Marine - that isn't going to happen, because it's in him now, not a job or a title, but a part of him) he should look less like a Marine.
The feeling crystalizes when he runs into Brad. In a Kroger, of all places, both of them with carts full of microwave meals and fruit and bottles of whiskey (Nate) and cans of beer (Brad). Ridiculously domestic. Nate snorts, and that's when Brad looks up.
"You still look like a Marine even with surfer hair," Brad greets him - not hello like anyone else would when they hadn't crossed paths with him in weeks - and that's when Nate comes face-to-face with the idea that he's trying to look like someone - something - else. And that's where he's going wrong. Not in growing his hair, or even looking different, but in trying to be someone new.
He'd thought he could finish one life and start a new one and everything would be different, including himself. But he's the same man he was a week ago, a month ago, six months ago when he was still riding in a Humvee with a perpetually numb ass and a filthy, stinking body. Just cleaner, and his ass is only numb when he spends too long on his couch having Die Hard marathons.
Nate can't bring himself to throw a sarcastic response at Brad, too busy feeling grateful that he's finally worked out that he doesn't need to recover, that the determination to recover and change and be the new Nate is what's prevented him from actually doing something from his life. He couldn't see a future that made sense, because he was trying to fit someone new into it, and that isn't going to happen. He needs a future that he'll fit into, as the man he is, flawed and scarred (not literally, but they still feel shockingly visible) and angry. He needs to make all those things work for him.
"I'm still the same man," he tells Brad, sharing his newfound understanding even though there's no reason Brad should have a clue what the fuck Nate's on about.
They wheel their carts to the checkout, and Nate grins at the thought that his great epiphany came here, in the middle of the cereal aisle.
"Care to help me drink some of these?" Brad says, waiting while Nate packs his shopping. "Save me from getting drunk alone."
Nate can say yes now. To the question Brad's asking, and to the question he isn't asking, but that Nate thinks might be there, underneath the words Brad's saying. So he does.
*
He doesn't get drunk that night with Brad. He's always been sensible, weighing up consequences before he acts, and he's insufficiently sure that the consequences here would be good, or even something he could live with, so he leaves still sober enough.
He gets drunk the next night instead. In some bar he's never been to before, on his own, because every rule is there to be broken, it's just all about choosing the time to break them. So he figures getting drunk this evening is a safe bet.
He forgot to factor phones into his decision-making. Namely their easy availability - there's a payphone just inside the bar, so it doesn't matter that he forgot to charge his cell - and Brad's willingness to answer an unknown number.
"You're such a fucking tease, you know that. A fucking, fucking tease." Nate's extremely lucid and collected and manages to get every word out distinctly.
Brad just grunts, which pisses Nate off, because Brad isn't drunk, so the least he could do is say something.
"You never stopped looking," Nate says, every bit of pent-up frustration in his tone. "Never said anything, just looked at me like I was sup-supposed to know what every fucking look meant." He only stutters because the phone keeps slipping through his fingers.
"Where are you?" Brad asks.
"In hell," Nate says, and snorts, because it's true.
"Does hell have a grid reference?" Brad asks, but Nate doesn't hear any more because the phone slips right out of his hand and dangles somewhere out of sight, and even when Nate gets down on his hands and knees he can't find it because it's too dark and he hasn't got his night vision goggles, or maybe he hasn't got enough batteries. No, he looks, no goggles. So he sits down instead.
The floor is very friendly. It hugs him. He loves the floor.
*
Next morning he wakes up and wishes he'd died in Iraq. The feeling doesn't last long, just all morning and part of the afternoon, and by then it fades into a general discontentment with life and a mild case of self-pity. That lasts until the next day, and a double circuit around his favorite five-mile run - it's hard to feel unhappy when running comes so freely.
He's certain he dreamed the phone call.
*
Driving to San Pasqual Battlefield one morning, he listens to a radio debate. The reasons OIF was justified, the reasons it should never have happened, the proof it was a success, the proof it was a failure. Words like 'shame' and 'blame' and 'innocent' and 'WMDs' are bandied around by fucking idiots who don't know what the hell they're talking about.
He turns the radio off, snapping the knob to the left so sharply that it comes off in his hand. He has to pull over to calm down. It's half an hour before he trusts himself to drive again.
He feels no shame, regardless of whether some ignorant radio presenter tells him he should.
After all, he tells himself, no one died. None of his men, and he's fucking proud of that.
He can't have any regrets, and certainly no shame.
'No regrets' becomes his new mantra.
*
Nate's yard is bare: cracked concrete, a high wooden fence that neatly precludes any type of friendly conversation with his neighbors, and a solitary shrub that's trying its damnedest to become a tree. Nate admires its pluck. It's covered in long purple flowers, and the flowers are covered in butterflies, even this late in the season.
The butterflies fascinate him.
When they were camped at Al Kut, a butterfly had landed on Christeson's leg. Nate had expected him to catch it or kill it, but instead Christeson sat perfectly still, watching it.
"Yo, LT, fucking butterfly thinks Christeson here's a flower."
Christeson just shrugged, unperturbed, and kept his leg motionless, eyes focused on the butterfly.
Q-Tip looked oddly disappointed when it flew away. "Screwby," he said.
"What sort of butterfly was it, sir?" Christeson asked, no doubt that Nate would have the answer.
"I believe it was a Monarch," Nate said, and Christeson looked impressed - whether by the name or Nate's knowledge or the pluckiness of a butterfly invading a Marine camp, Nate didn't know.
His father had taught him the names of all the butterflies in Maryland. They used to go on nature walks, and Nate would look up anything he didn't recognize in a little handbook he'd gotten for his eighth birthday. But when he sees butterflies now, it's the Monarch at Al Kut that he always remembers.
*
Nate's not sure at what point his vague idea of writing a book becomes a plan.
He rereads his notebooks and diaries in the idle weeks after leaving the Corps. He revisits all the lessons he's learned, and wishes he'd learned some of them in advance. He still doesn't think of himself as able to teach those lessons to others, to help others avoid his mistakes. Even when he starts writing, he's writing more for himself than anyone else. If he went to a shrink, they'd probably tell him it's a cathartic exercise, though, honestly, writing down some of the shit that happened makes his blood pressure rise far more than it did at the time.
But after a while, he stops writing just for himself. He starts to add explanations, to tone down the fury and channel his frustrations into something positive.
This isn't his entire future. But as a stopgap, it's pretty satisfying.
*
The butterfly isn't in his notes - just a vivid memory - and it isn't going to make it into his book. There are some moments that he's never going to be able to write about.
Most of them involve Brad. Things that didn't happen, but which he thought about or wanted to happen.
He still thinks about them.
*
He breaks his arms. It's a freak accident, the kind that leaves him mumbling an explanation to the ER doctor and hoping he won't have to repeat it.
He does, of course. Everyone wants to know how he broke both arms in his own home, when he came back from both Afghanistan and Iraq without so much as a bruise. Nate tells the story with a defensive glare that defies anyone to laugh.
"I dropped the butter and slipped on it," he says, leaving out the part where he was up in the middle of the night because he couldn't sleep, and couldn't see the butter on the kitchen floor because he hadn't bothered to turn the lights on, and hadn't been sufficiently alert to break his fall properly. He'd assumed he was capable of making toast in the dark. Apparently not.
Nate must have lost his air of authority when he took off his stripes, because so far every single person has laughed at him. Without fail. Even perfect strangers.
"Butter?" his sister says, nearly choking on the other end of the phone, and can't get another word out for laughing. Apparently butter is hilarious.
Nate's having his toast dry in future.
*
He doesn't tell anyone. Not his family, not friends, and most definitely no-one in the Corps.
Mike's the first to phone. Nate puts the phone on speaker - it's easier.
"Hi, Mike," Nate says.
"How's it going?"
Nate chooses to take that as an inquiry about his book. "Cathartic," he says. "Hindsight's an interesting view." He neglects to mention that he hasn't written anything in days because he came close to throwing his keyboard across the room last time he tried. "How's Captain Morel?"
He regrets the question as soon as the words are out. He's let go. They're not his platoon any more. Not his men. (Except they are. Always will be. A burden and a pleasure he'll always carry.)
"Don't change the subject," Mike says, ignoring Nate's question. "I asked you how you are."
"You asked me how it's going."
"And you wilfully misinterpreted my words."
"Are you training to be a SERE instructor?"
"I'll stop when I get an honest answer."
"I'm fine."
"Managing okay?"
"Of course."
"Liar."
"I'm-"
" A stubborn, obstinate son of a bitch who's too proud to ask anyone for help."
Nate sighs and gives up pretending. "How'd you find out?"
Mike laughs. " You really thought we weren't gonna find out?"
Nate had. It was naïve; he knows that now.
"Cara wants to come around with food for you. She said she don't want you starvin' on account of your bein' too damn proud to ask for help."
"I can feed myself."
"I told her that. But you know Cara."
Nate does. And he knows her cooking. It's worth capitulating.
*
"Hey, sir, heard you had a bit of an accident."
Nate groans out loud. He shouldn't have picked up the phone.
"It's okay, sir, we don't think any the less of you for it. Everyone gets drunk sometimes."
"I wasn't drunk."
There's silence at the other end of the line. Then the sound of Ray hushing someone in the background. "Really?" Ray asks eventually, when the silence apparently gets too much for him. Ray and silence have always been mutually exclusive.
"Really," Nate confirms.
"Huh. That's just really path-um, sad, sir."
Nate can't disagree.
*
Brad doesn't laugh. Brad doesn't so much as mention the plaster casts. Brad just breaks into Nate's apartment while Nate's out and unpacks his bag and makes himself at home.
"Clearly you can't be trusted to your own devices," he says, in lieu of anything that resembles an explanation or a request to stay. Apparently Brad doesn't feel the need to ask. Nate could be troubled by that, but finds he isn't. He's equally untroubled by the realization that Brad fits, that having him here doesn't feel uncomfortable or awkward.
Though that might be the Vicodin.
They order in, because Brad didn't bring any food and Nate's run out of anything lacking nutritional value. Brad controls the remote - Nate isn't sure how that happened, but he can't ask for it back or he'd have to admit he was out-maneuvered - and so they watch a steady progression of Tarantino movies. Nate discovers that Brad loathes John Wayne - and any and all wannabe gun-slinging cowboys - and that he's harbored a long-standing crush on Uma Thurman.
He's not sure what Brad discovers about him.
*
"Are you applying for a permanent position? Because you should probably know that I'm currently unemployed. And temporarily unemployable," he adds, looking at his arms ruefully. He can manage most things, but everything is slow and frustrating, and even slower when he's taking a soothing combination of beer and painkillers.
"Are you saying you can't afford me?" Brad manages to sound like a hooker with a troublesome non-paying john.
Nate casts that idea as far away as possible.
"Yes," he says, because simple is best.
"Or would you secretly rather have a large-assed Latina in a skimpy nurse's outfit take care of you?"
Nate ignores the part of the question that implies he needs taking care of. "That goes without saying. Although at least your skinny ass only blocks half the television screen," he says.
Brad moves an inch to the left. It barely makes a difference to the amount of the TV screen Nate can see, but he wasn't watching it anyway. He couldn't even say what's on.
He thinks he might have been watching Brad's ass.
*
Nate's hands shake sometimes. He doesn't even notice it until he spills a drink or his handwriting skids across the page in one long track. He has a record of it in his notebook, the one he's using to rough out his story in now that typing is a bitch. His story is neat, rational words punctuated by black scratches and the occasional angry outburst. He'll edit out the anger when he types it up; for now, he needs the release.
Brad's calm. Brad's been through the same war Nate's been through, and he sleeps through the night and only drinks when he wants to, not when he has to.
"Do you ever-?" Nate starts, but he doesn't know what question he wants to ask, let alone how to ask it. No regrets. That's Nate's mantra, so there's no point looking back. No point wondering if he could have done anything better.
Brad doesn't press for the rest of the question, just goes into the kitchen and grabs two beers. They drink them in silence, and Brad doesn't comment when Nate refuses a second.
Nate doesn't want to need it.
*
The casts itch like fuck. Somehow Nate avoided broken bones as a boy, and he's never been wounded in combat, so this is new.
He grits his teeth and puts up with it. It's no worse than sand in his boots and sweat pooling around his balls, and a scalp so filthy he used to rub sand in it to try to clean it. He complains about the quality of the cheese on the pizza and the temperature of the beer Brad hands him, and the lump in his sofa that he'd swear is following him around, but he doesn't complain about the itching.
Apparently he didn't need to. Brad disappears for half an hour and comes back with a small brown paper bag. He hands it to Nate and stands over him, watching with a pleased look on his face, like it's Christmas and he's found the perfect gift.
The gift's a knitting needle. For a stupid moment Nate thinks Brad's suggesting he should take up knitting, and is about to treat the suggestion with the scathing contempt it deserves, and then sense kicks in and he works it out. He shoves the knitting needle down one cast and scratches blissfully. It's awkward, with both arms half out of commission, but it's the best feeling since he broke them.
"As a wise man once said, not to get homoerotic about this, but I could kiss you," he says, pulling the needle out.
Brad stares at him, unblinking. "I think you're all talk."
Nate knows when he's being challenged. He's never been the kind of guy who had to respond to every challenge he received. He doesn't have to respond to this.
He wants to. This is a challenge he wants to take all the way.
"I have to admit, though, scratching my arms feels pretty fucking good right now," he says, taking the challenge and throwing it back. He's spoiling for this, and maybe it's time to damn the consequences. Or trust his gut, which is telling him that the consequences might just be everything he wants. "I'm not sure anything else could feel better." He scratches the other arm and lets out an exaggerated bliss-drunk sigh. It really is a relief.
"Sounds to me like you've not had the right experience yet." Brad leaves an unsubtle pause before the last word. It echoes in Nate's head.
Nate's at a disadvantage. He's seated, Brad's standing. He has two broken arms and a knitting needle in his hand; Brad's empty-handed. Nate's worked at a disadvantage before, has devised tactics to ensure the inferior force wins. This might not be exactly the sort of occasion his training was designed for, but he's adaptable.
He lifts his right leg quickly and hooks Brad in the back of the knee. He has surprise on his side. Brad stumbles, reaches out his hands, then visibly hesitates. The hesitation is long enough to bring him to rest, knees against the couch on either side of Nate. Close enough for Nate's purposes. Nate reaches out with one clumsy arm and tugs him in closer by his shirt sleeve.
Brad doesn't help him out at all. Just smirks at Nate's clumsiness.
Nate wishes he could claim that the first kiss he manages to land on Brad thoroughly disabuses Brad of the idea that he's not had the right experience. Considering that it lands somewhere to the left of Brad's mouth and only lasts until the knitting needle falls between his legs and stabs him in the nuts, it's probably not that convincing. That's okay. Nate calmly removes the knitting needle, throws it on the floor, manhandles Brad into a more convenient position and tries again.
This time it lasts a lot longer. Long enough that even Brad starts to sound breathless. Nate tries not to think of that as an achievement.
"I take it back. You're not all talk after all."
"Very noble of you to admit when you're wrong."
"Though my error was entirely due to being misled by you. The evidence was all pretty damning." Brad is smirking again. Nate casts around, trying to dredge up something - anything - that will tell him what the fuck Brad's referring to.
He fails. "Evidence?" he asks.
"You called me a fucking tease, and then did nothing about it. Like I said, pretty damning evidence."
"I called you a-" Nate stops short of his question. He called Brad a fucking tease. The drunken phone call wasn't a dream.
He's beginning to make a habit of imagining he dreamed something that actually happened. A dangerous habit.
"I would like the opportunity to set the record straight and demonstrate that, while some of the drunken expletives I've been called have been on or around the mark, a fucking tease is most definitely not accurate." Brad manages to sound extremely dignified even while sprawled across Nate's sofa.
"I'm willing to be proven wrong," Nate offers magnanimously.
"Seems to be the day for that."
"You haven't provided sufficient evidence for me to change my mind, though," Nate points out. "In fact, so far you've been all talk, no action, and that-"
Brad goes into action, and Nate has no choice but to shut up. That's fine with him.
*
They make it to the bedroom eventually, Nate rumpled but still fully dressed, Brad unruffled but naked. Nate's seen him naked before, shivering slightly under a rigged-up shower outside Baghdad, dirt streaming off him and trickling into cracks in the concrete. That was quick and purposeful; come to think of it, so is this. And yet entirely different. Not least because this time they're alone, and Brad's hard, and his stare is distinctly possessive.
"Fucking casts," Brad complains as he pulls ineffectively at Nate's sleeves, caught on the plaster.
Nate laughs, a little high because he's frustrated too. "Finally, something that bests the Iceman."
"If you think I'd give up this easily," Brad says, eyebrows raised, "you're clearly not as perceptive a man as I've always believed you to be."
"I would be disappointed in you if you were to give up this easily." Nate's leaning against his dresser, arms out awkwardly. He's tempted to resort to the scissors that he knows are in the second drawer down, but he's too pragmatic for that - it's a decent shirt with plenty of wear left in it, and he's no horny teenager who can't cope with drawing this out any longer. One sleeve at a time - they're a tight fit over the casts, but slow and patient will do it.
Brad watches him. He strokes himself idly, as though he's not even aware of doing so. He looks patient, but Nate knows that look. He's seen it on Brad when he's been waiting for a mission. The patience is a good façade, but fake nonetheless. Nate would be certain of that even if it weren't for Brad's irritable hurry up.
Nate takes it even slower. Brad's not the only fucking tease in the room. Brad grits his teeth and narrows his eyes when he sees what Nate's doing, and Nate stares straight back at him, challenging Brad to order him to hurry up again. He doesn't.
*
Nate understands making do and improvising and making the impossible work. It's what he does.
That said, having sex with both arms in a cast is fucking awkward. And frustrating. He wants to touch Brad, he wants to control this, but that's not going to happen.
"Just fucking lie down and shut up already," Brad says, after Nate's made another futile attempt at taking over and giving Brad a handjob.
Nate hadn't said a word, but apparently his silence had spoken volumes. "Yes, sir," he says, mocking.
The corner of Brad's mouth twitches. "Goddamn officers," he mutters, and Nate would respond, but Brad's thigh is sliding between Nate's, and Brad's nipping at the junction between Nate's shoulder and neck, so Nate settles for a wordless exclamation. He could probably come like this.
Brad doesn't let him. Once he's got what he wants - Nate sprawled out on the bed, arms to one side and thighs open so far Nate would feel too exposed with anyone else - Brad takes his time. Nate might have been drunk at the time of his initial declaration, but Brad is a fucking tease, and currently doing nothing to disabuse Nate of that notion. He kisses like he'd be content doing nothing else all evening, cupping Nate's ass and holding their bodies close but still. It's nothing like Nate might have expected if he'd ever had the imagination to picture this. It's slow and quiet and strangely endearing.
"I don't actually need hours of foreplay to get me going," Nate says eventually. Which is stating the obvious, because his cock is hard and leaking, and the intermittent noises breaking up the quiet aren't the bed squeaking.
"Condoms?" Brad asks, and Nate shakes his head. They weren't a priority until now. And apparently Brad wasn't sufficiently certain of his degree of welcome to bring some. Fuck.
"Guess we'll have to make do," Brad says, and Nate flashes back to the desert, all the little things he tried to do for Brad to ensure he didn't have to make do all the time.
"Sorry," he says.
"Don't fucking apologize, Nate," Brad says, and slides back off him. He tugs Nate gracelessly by the ankles until he's on the edge of the bed, Brad kneeling between his legs.
He takes Nate's dick like a pro. Nate's having trouble sitting upright, his fucking arms aching under his weight, but he holds himself steady. He wants to see.
Brad pulls back off Nate's dick. Not far, but at this angle Nate can see Brad tugging on his own dick, hand disappearing into the shadows between his legs, his dick sliding in and out of view. "I like pussy, you know," Brad says, like he's making conversation, not as though he feels he has anything to prove. "I like the feel of it on my tongue, all slick and wet, and the little noises women make, all high and desperate, and the way their clit flutters when they come." He leans forward a fraction and licks the tip of Nate's dick. "And the taste," he says. "Some guys don't, but I like the taste."
"I don't have a pussy or a clit," Nate says. He wants to push his dick further into Brad's mouth. He wants to fuck Brad's mouth.
Brad shrugs. "I could get used to this," he says, and Nate just barely resists rolling his eyes, because even the least observant man in the world could tell this is a lot more than Brad getting used to it. This is Brad wanting it as much as Nate does, and Nate wants this more than he can articulate right now.
Brad swallows when Nate comes, except at the end, when Nate jerks away, his dick getting too sensitive for the pressure of Brad's tongue, and the last bit of come hits the side of Brad's face, a white streak on his tan.
Two minutes later Brad's come is coating Nate's belly and his softened cock. Brad leans against his shoulders and Nate takes the weight of both of them for a moment. Brad's warm and heavy and Nate wonders how he managed to wait so long for this.
*
It's late enough that there's a faint chill in the air. Nate throws the washcloth Brad brought him on the floor and crawls under the bedclothes before he falls asleep on top of them.
"I'd like to stay - is that okay?" Brad asks. He doesn't wait for an answer, climbing into bed next to Nate. It is okay, of course, more than okay. Nate would have been disappointed if he'd left.
The way Brad curls up against him is as unexpected as the kissing earlier, but just as welcome. Brad rests one arm over Nate, fingers resting comfortably against his pecs. He's asleep in seconds, snoring softly. Nate doesn't take much longer.
*
They both wake early, oh dawn thirty. It's a habit, and Nate still hasn't shed it. He can tell Brad's awake by the rhythm of his breathing, not quite slow and steady enough for sleep.
There are things that need saying. Nate could wait until this thing between them is less new, but he knows he's not going to feel any different, and he's not one to pussyfoot around saying what he means.
He fumbles around on his bedside table, cursing at his own clumsiness, and turns on a light. He doesn't want to do this in the dark. He wants Brad to see his face, and he needs to see Brad's.
"Full disclosure," Nate says, because he feels it's only fair to give Brad due warning. Brad doesn't flinch. "I'm in love with you. I want this - you and me - I want this more than anything."
Brad nods, full eye-contact. "Good," he says eventually.
Nate doesn't ask him to elaborate. The translation is easy. Brad feels the same way, it's good that it's mutual, nothing more needs to be said.
Of course, later, there'll be more to say. When there's no excuse that's valid to the rest of the world for Brad to be here, when there are decisions to be made. There'll be battles, Nate has no doubt. With the world, and with each other. Neither of them is an easy man to live with. They're Recon Marines.
He looks forward to all of it. He's going back to school when his book is done - he decided that the night before last, lying awake because his cast itched - he's going to have sex and fights and breakfast and lunch and dinner and a life with Brad. He has plans. He's filling in the blanks, and though his future is looking nothing like he might have anticipated ten years, five years, even one year ago, he's certain he's making the right decisions. Growing into the man he's meant to be.
He's still recovering, but it doesn't feel endless anymore.
"Good," Nate echoes, and Brad smiles.
"Yeah," he says, and pulls Nate back in towards him.
//
note: the injury might seem crazy, but it's an actual tru-fax injury to a tough guy. Just not Nate Fick, as far as I know! *g*