Fic: In This White Wave I Am Sinking - Part One
Title: In This White Wave I Am Sinking
Pairing:Brad/Ray
Wordcount: 23,521
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters nor have any connection with the real people the characters are based on. This is pure non-profit fiction.
Summery: He felt like he wasn’t really living, like he was in an in-between state, something that came between war and real life, something like purgatory.
Author's Note: I started writing this in a notebook on the 10th of February, five months later I'm posting it here. This fic is the result of a lot of hair-tearing and insomnia and frustration and insanity, and if I have to read it one more time I will scream, but. I'm proud of it. :D Also, it's very fondly dedicated to meeks00 , without whom it would never, ever have been finished. Her encouragement and amazingly kind words (and her taking up arms in the war to make me use full-stops instead of commas) are what brought this fic to life, and for that I can't possibly thank her enough. <3 Mika <3 Plus, a huge shout-out to schlicky , who bravely stepped up to the breach for a last second beta. Thanks again, bb! Title and cut text from Silence by Delirium feat. Sarah McLachlan
Part One: Home
Come on out, come on over
Help me forget
Keep the walls from falling on me
Tumbling in
This is Love, PJ Harvey
There were times in Iraq - not many, but they existed - when Brad had wanted to reach across to the seat next to him and forcibly gag Ray Person. As strange as it seemed back in the States, he still remembered those times, when the stress and the sleep deprivation and the constant fuckery of their superior officers all combined to tip him over the edge. In those moments, the thought of one more word from Ray’s mouth would make him grind his teeth, would make his finger twitch against his gun.
At home, the opposite was true. On the cab ride home from Pendleton, Brad was faced with the first of many silences the US would foist upon him. The driver darted him anxious sideways glances and barely opened his mouth except to ask for directions. There wasn’t even an asinine comment on the weather. It was like he saw Brad’s fatigues and felt the need to stay quiet out of respect, like at a funeral home.
It was fucking depressing.
His house was empty, smelled stale and dusty. He went around and opened all the doors and windows, threw his gear into the washing machine, half-heartedly swiped at the dust on the coffee table. It took him awhile to process the idea that he was home, that this was his home. He stared blankly around and knew he should be grateful, and he was, but it was the first time he’d been alone in months and all he could see was the emptiness.
All he could hear was the silence.
Brad was a loner, but he was self-aware enough to understand that being a loner when no one else is around is no fun. He was kind of appalled as he slowly discovered that sitting alone in his empty house had no appeal - the place he most wanted to be was by himself, surrounded by a platoon of Marines. It was a horrifying thought, yes, but it was so much fucking easier to be alone with Ray chattering away in the background, providing the soundtrack to his life. Now all he had was the sound of the beach, and yeah, it used to be enough. Now it didn’t even come close.
The day after he got home he went to see his parents and knew it was a mistake as soon as his mother laid eyes on him. She clamped her mouth shut and pulled him into a hug, smothering whatever she was going to say in his chest. His father just clapped him on the arm, once, twice, as if that was all that needed to be said. They ushered him into the kitchen and bustled around making lunch, leaving him to try to fill the silence with awkward small talk. That had never been his strong point - he had kind of been relying on them for that - and he faltered, let his mind drift off.
It was like the cab driver all over again. They thought Iraq had changed him, and it had, just not in the ways they expected. They thought he’d come home damaged and fragile, startled by loud noises and disturbed by too much chatter, like a stereotype of a Vietnam vet who was gonna snap and lay everyone out with his nine at the smallest provocation. They didn’t get that he’d spent months of his life surrounded by men and noise, and this sudden hushed-church respect was like being shunted into solitary confinement. His mother looked at him with worried eyes and avoided talking about the war, kept her voice soft. His father hardly looked at him at all.
Over dinner he realised with something like amusement at himself that he seriously missed Ray, that he wished he was here to fill in the gaps. His parents would love Ray, who could be as charming around mothers as he was obnoxious around everyone else in the world. She’d buzz around and worry about how skinny he was, feeding him pie, while Ray kept up a running commentary about everything and made Brad hide his laughter behind a fork.
It’s this thought more than any other that brought home the fact that he wasn’t ready for his war to be over because he wasn’t ready to function without Ray at his side, stepping up to take care of all the things Brad couldn’t. If Rudy were there, he might’ve said that Ray was the ying to Brad’s yang, but Rudy was as far away as the rest of his men, so all Brad knew was that yeah, crazy as it seemed, he missed his whisky-tango goat-fucked mess of an RTO.
~
The days passed too slowly. Brad was on leave, half his company had had leave saved up and scattered to all corners of the country, rushing home to girls and families and relearning how to be civilians. Nate and Poke were still around, but Ray and Walt had bolted back to their home states as soon as possible. Kocher had disappeared, Bryan had redeployed with another unit almost immediately. Trombley was…not someone Brad really felt the urge to hang out with.
And Brad was on his own, ranging around his house like something caught in a zoo, or spending hours in the surf until the sound of the ocean created a deafening white noise, blocking out the silence. He felt like he wasn’t really living, like he was in an in-between state, something that came between war and real life, something like purgatory. He got little glimpses into reality, e-mails from Ray telling him about how he was visiting with Walt. Nate called once, and Poke kept in touch, but Brad felt like he was looking at all this through a window, like they weren’t really in the same place.
Two weeks in, he caved, bought himself a bottle of Jameson’s, and set up shop on his back porch as the sun went down and the moon came up. There was nothing more pathetic than drinking alone. Brad knew this, understood it was the first step towards a long and slippery slope, but that understanding wasn’t enough to stop half the bottle from disappearing down his throat that night as he stared moodily out at the dark ocean. It was probably what made him pick up his phone and thumb down to Ray’s number.
Misery loved company; pathetic, drunken misery positively craved it.
He had one second of clarity before he pressed the call button. It was like the world was wavering in front of his eyes, swelling back and forth with the ocean, and then suddenly it stopped, crystal clear. It wasn’t that it was one in the morning, or that he was blind drink. It was the sheer neediness he felt, the desperation to hear another human voice, and for that voice to be Ray’s. Everything was frozen as he thought about that. Everything was soaked in drunk-logic, and suddenly it made perfect sense, after all.
He pictured Ray as he was when he first woke up, eyes bleary and automatically outraged, like he was already pissed off with the world and was prepared to tell it the fuck why in great detail. Ray could start talking before he was even completely awake, and Brad needed that. Needed those words.
He was listening to the phone ring before he even realised he’d pressed the button.
“Brad? What the fuck?”
Brad was slightly thrown, until he remembered the concept of caller ID. Way too much whiskey. He rubbed his eyes, moment of clarity long gone.
“Ray. Ray, it’s me.”
Ray’s pissiness seemed to vibrate right through the phone, and Brad finally felt some of his tension unwind itself.
“Yeah, I’ve established that, homes. I’m a fucking Recon Marine, remember? Any fucking reason why you’ve chosen to call me at oh-dark-thirty?” He paused and his voice sobered. “What’s happened?”
“Nothing - nothing’s happened,” Brad said, cursing himself. He should have known Ray wouldn’t be expecting good news at that time of night. “I just wanted to call and…” And what, Brad. He squeezed his eyes closed, head swimming. “And call.”
“Are you serious? What, you just wanted to call and hear my voice? I’m goddamned honoured, Iceman, I’m sure if it wasn’t three a-freaking-m I’d be jumping for joy and everything.”
Oh. Brad had forgotten about the time difference. He heard the flick of a lighter and then a long inhale as Ray lit up. “You smoking in bed, Ray?”
“Fuckin’ A I am, Brad. You’re lucky that’s all I’m doing. I could have been getting laid in here for all you know.”
Brad felt a pang at that, and consciously chose to ignore it. “You wouldn’t have answered the phone in the highly unlikely case of you actually getting laid,” he said, and he listened with interest to the way his voice was slurring. He gazed up at the sky, phone pressed against his cheek, and tried to see if he could catch the moon in motion.
“Wait, are you drunk?” Ray asked, sounding highly amused at this turn of events. Brad squinted one eye shut, he wasn’t sure if the moon was moving or just the clouds around it.
“No I’m not drunk,” he said, lying blatantly. Ray laughed.
“You are! You fucking drunk dialed me, that’s precious.” Brad could hear him shifting around in bed, juggling the phone around. “What, did your finger slip when you tried to call the LT?”
Brad thought about that for a second, thought about calling Nate when he was like this. The idea of Nate seeing anything other than the best of him made him want to cringe. Nate was a man you stood up straight for. Nate brought out the good in everyone, he made Brad want to be a better Marine, a better person.
Ray just made Brad want to be Brad. Warts and all.
“No,” he said slowly. “No, I definitely wanted to talk to you, Ray.”
Silence for a second.
“Well, fuck, Iceman,” Ray said, both of them surprised at Brad’s honestly. Brad leaned against the porch railing and just listened to Ray smoking for a little while, he could picture him lying there, cigarette tip glowing in the gloom.
“You should quit,” he found himself saying, inanely. He didn’t really care if Ray wanted to smoke.
Ray snorted. “Yeah, my girlfriend told me to give up, too,” he said. “Right before she fucking dumped me.”
“Your girlfriend dumped you?” Brad thought he saw the moon slip behind a tree branch, but it could have just been the wind. He kept his eye on it.
“Yeah, like, yesterday. It’s not me, though, you’ll be happy to know. Apparently it’s her.”
Brad didn’t really know what to say, so he went with the obvious. “Bitch.”
Ray sighed, sending it through the phone until Brad almost felt it against his ear. “Nah, she ain’t a bitch. She’s actually kind of amazing, just smarter than I gave her credit for being. Didn’t need to be with a dumb fucking grunt like me.”
That was the stupidest thing Brad had ever heard Ray say. He wanted to write a book about Ray’s genius, wanted to get up with a megaphone and tell the whole world, except he didn’t have the words for it, especially not tanked off half a bottle of Jameson’s. If some stupid hick chick didn’t know what she had, then too fucking bad for her, in Brad’s opinion.
He thought about how to tell all this to Ray, and came up with a blank. And then he was speaking anyway. “You should come back out to Cali, Ray. Clean your palate.”
Ray laughed again. “You want me to voluntarily come out to the land of wheat-grass dick sucks to clean my palate? Are you fucking high as well as drunk? Fucking hippy-ass state - do they remove your nuts on entry or is it more of a gradual thing, Brad, tell me because the Marines have protected me so far but I’m really interested in that aspect of turning into a lesbian and I figure you’re the expert…”
And he was off. Brad dropped back until he was lying flat, head resting on the doormat, and just listened to Ray rant in one ear and the shush of the waves in the other. He didn’t even notice he was starting to drift off until the tone of Ray’s voice changed.
“Brad? Brad, are you fucking sleeping? I’m fucking wounded, dude.”
“What? No, I’m awake. I’m good.”
“You idiot.” Ray sounded fond, exasperated. “Hang the fuck up and go to bed.”
Brad lumbered to his feet, heading inside. “No, no, I’m fine,” he said, repositioning himself on the couch. “Keep talking.”
The neediness in his tone frightened him for a second. He thought that meant he was starting to sober up, but yeah - the idea of being left in his house with nothing but the silence for company scared him.
Maybe Ray picked up on it. Brad hoped he did, and then immediately hoped he didn’t. Either way, he didn’t hang up.
“Fine, fucknuts. If you wanna pay to hear me talk shit, I’m happy to oblige. You got it for free all through Iraq, but whatever, Ray-Ray lives to give. It doesn’t matter that it’s the middle of the night and I have to get up early - before ten - tomorrow to do some hardcore family reunion bullshit, if you need me to sing you to sleep, I got your back…”
It took Brad maybe another three minutes to fall asleep to the sound of Ray babbling about shit, his voice snaking into his head until he was dreaming about being back in Iraq, except this time it was just the two of them and Brad was holding a phone instead of a gun, and instead of staring out the window he couldn’t stop staring at Ray’s mouth.
He woke up six hours later to the sound of his phone beeping tiredly at him and the sun shining directly through his skull, like his head was made of glass. He groaned and sat up, rubbing at his eyes. His phone told him he had six new voice mails. He pressed some buttons, and listened to Ray bitch him out in each one. By the end, his headache was still there, but the sun was a little easier to deal with.
He tossed his phone onto the couch and went to go get his board. It looked like a good morning for a surf.
~
That afternoon, Nate dropped by.
Brad had just come in from the waves, still all salty and sandy, and Nate laughed at him for tracking half the beach into his house.
“I always thought you were the anal retentive type, Brad,” he said, standing in the doorway, watching Brad half-heartedly try and swipe the sand around with his feet. “Good to know you’re human after all.”
“Like you’d know, LT,” Brad said, ushering him through to the back porch. The bottle of whiskey from the night before was still sitting on the step, and Nate raised an eyebrow. Brad just shrugged.
“You want a drink?”
“You got anything that isn’t forty proof?”
Brad grinned. “I’ve got coffee brewing. Rudy gave me this yuppie Blue Mountain blend, told me if he ever caught me drinking anything else he’d put me in a sleeper hold. You want?”
Nate smiled back, the smile that kind of broke Brad’s heart, the one that made him want to tear down the world and build it better, build it to Nate’s requirements. “Sounds good.”
The conversation with Nate went pretty much like Brad expected it to. They reminisced about Iraq, mostly, bitched about their superiors, Brad got to talking about surfing, which made Nate talk about running. It was easy, light, but there was an edge underneath that told Brad that it was going to twist, soon. Marines, in Brad’s experience, didn’t do easy.
“At one point I thought Ray was going to drive us all insane, and then I realised that without him we would have been a lot fucking worse,” Nate was saying, and Brad glanced at him.
“That’s probably true,” he said, “I didn’t think you’d picked up on it, though.”
Nate smiled dryly. “I was there, Brad. I was in it. I saw how he was with Walt, especially. He fixed him better than you could have. A lot better than I could have.”
Brad’s coffee was cold. He dipped a finger into it and tried to squeak it around the cup, but it was the wrong kind of china - or was it crystal that did that? He didn’t know what to say.
“Sir, without you there we would have all been fucking dead. That’s just facts.”
Nate nodded, and Brad realised he looked tired, worn down, like Iraq hadn’t been entirely rubbed off his skin.
“I think I’m leaving the Marines,” he said, and Brad had to look away real quick, because he didn’t want to see what Nate’s face looked like when he said that.
“Sir?”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Nate shake his head in frustration. “Call me Nate, Brad. I don’t want to be sir. I don’t want-” He cut himself off and sighed. Brad steeled himself and turned back to him.
“Nate. I don’t know…”
“It’s ok,” Nate said, and visibly tried to pull himself together. “My girlfriend flew out to meet me at my place. She sat on the front steps and waited for me for hours because I was late getting home. Didn’t have a phone.” He smiled, and his face softened, thinking about her. “I got there and saw her, and thought, I’ve killed a lot of people I don’t care about, and I almost got a lot of people I do care about killed, and why the hell would I want to do that? I don’t want to be the kind of person who kills people any more. I don’t want my girlfriend to look at me and see a murderer.”
“She better be perfect,” Brad said without thinking. Nate looked at him in surprise, and Brad shifted uncomfortably. “I mean, Nate, you’re the best officer I’ve ever had. Anyone that takes you away from us better be damn worth it.”
Nate’s cheeks went pink, and Brad had to smile a little to see it. “I’m honoured, Brad. But it’s not really her that’s doing it; it was just her that made me wake up.” He leaned back in his seat and looked at Brad frankly. “I don’t want to look in the mirror and see a murderer. Next time in theatre I might issue an order that gets one of my men dead. That keeps me up at night. I can justify it away all I want, but the thought of coming home without one of you, the thought of my girlfriend looking at someone who can’t keep his men safe - yeah, I think it’s time to get out.”
Brad wanted to go dive back into the ocean, swim out as far as he could and just let himself tumble in the waves. He didn’t know how to cope with a Nate who was less than perfect, he felt like the ground had shifted beneath him. He didn’t put people up on pedestals, he was too smart for that, but Nate had come with his pedestal pre-equipped.
“We’ll miss you, LT,” he said, and it sounded weird and stilted to his own ears. He didn’t have the right words, didn’t know if they even existed. He coughed and frowned and looked out to sea.
Nate set his empty cup down on the porch with a soft clink, and gave Brad an unreadable look. “Oh yeah, and they just promoted me. It’s Captain now.”
~
The next day Brad was snoozing on his couch with the TV turned up loud when he got a call from Ray. He almost dropped his phone as he fumbled it out of his pocket, the ring tone going through his head like a laser, like something calling him to wake up properly and rejoin the world.
And then Ray. “Oh, Brad, is that you? I was trying to call your mom for a booty call - must have pressed the wrong button. If she’s there, can you tell her to bring the edible panties?”
“Hello, Ray,” Brad said, a grin curling his mouth without his permission. He pointed his remote at the TV and hit mute, watched Dr. Cox’s mouth keep moving in the sudden silence. “My mom’s not here right now, but if I can get your grandma’s mouth off my nuts for a couple of seconds I’m sure she’d like to say ‘hi.’”
Ray laughed in delight, and Brad could hear him crashing around, doing something noisy. “Good to see you back on form, Bradley. How was the hangover?”
Brad thought about lying, but Ray knew him too well for that. “Epic,” he admitted. “And then Nate came round and saw me all fucked up. I almost had to commit hari-kari.”
“Mmm,” Ray said, and Brad listened to him microwaving something, slamming the door and punching buttons. “So tell me. Were you serious about having me out to visit, or was it just the liquor talking?”
If Brad lied with his head on one arm of the love seat, he could hook his knees over the other and almost touch the floor. He did this now and stared at the ceiling.
“Poke’s having a BBQ,” he said, for some stupid reason, “You could come out for that and stay until your leave’s up. Get some fucking culture.”
Ray snorted, and Brad counted cracks and water stains and marks on the ceiling.
“Brad, are you seriously suggesting I come out to that liberal hippy cesspool of a city to drown in the scent of patchouli and unshaved armpits in the name of culture? The fuckin’ second-hand dope smoke really is getting to you, homes.”
“We got more culture than that little backwards hick hole-in-the-road town you call home, Ray - unless you count three dollar strip shows and cockfighting culture. Which maybe you NASCAR-loving freaks do. I don’t know.”
“Shut up, Brad.” Ray’s voice was easy, light, and Brad felt something in himself lighten in response.
“That’s my line,” he said. “So, you coming?”
There was a pause. Brad heard his microwave beep, but not the sound of Ray taking whatever was in it out.
“Brad,” Ray said, and the lightness was gone, quick as it came. “Brad, I’m gonna talk atcha for a second here.”
Brad frowned, trying to remember if Ray had ever given him warning before. “Ok…”
Ray took a deep breath. “Yeah. Being home is not what I expected.” There was the scrape of a stool across a linoleum floor, Ray sitting down. “Walt’s off home with his girl, and I feel like I’m stuck here by myself, you know? And my mom’s been talking to me like I got back from Iraq with irreversible brain damage. She keeps wanting to feed me soup for whatever fucking reason.”
The sound of his laughter was bitter, and Brad railed against anything that could make Ray sound that defeated.
“Then she invited my aunt and cousins over for dinner and it was a goddamn torture session,” Ray continued. “I got a ten-year-old cousin, and all he wants to know is what it’s like to shoot someone, what it’s like to kill. I feel like I’m raising another little Trombley.”
“Jesus,” Brad said, and pointed his toes, trying to brush the carpet.
“Yeah. And fuckin’…” another pause, like Ray was actually struggling to find his words. Brad’s calves were tensing up as he struggled to touch the floor.
“This is a small town - you got that right. I walk down the street and run into sixteen people from high school, half of ‘em pretend not to see me. The other half wants to hug me, shake my hand like I’m a damned superhero. How fucked up’s that?”
“You need to come out here,” Brad said explicitly. His mouth was kind of dry. “No one here knows who the fuck you are.”
“You know who I am,” Ray pointed out. Brad closed his eyes. He could just feel the fibres of the carpet against his bare toes.
“Yeah, I’m the only one who does,” he said. “There’s that.”
Silence.
And then, “Fuck it, I’m coming. Put the pinkos on notice - Ray-Ray’s on his way.”
Brad let himself relax, finally. Dr. Cox was yelling at someone else on the TV, and all of Brad’s muscles loosened up. He let his feet swing gently back and forth as he and Ray discussed flight times and BBQ food and cab drivers and whatever else Ray wanted.
It was more of a relief than Brad was ready to admit.
~
Ray was coming out in two days and Brad was standing in a supermarket feeling like a recon alien set down on a new planet. He knew about this cliché, the returning vet who freaked out in the supermarket, overwhelmed by the variety of choice when for months he’d had all choice stripped from him. He hadn’t expected to be living it. He couldn’t decide if it was more or less pathetic than getting trashed and drunk dialing Ray, more or less pathetic than how bad he missed his RTO, more or less pathetic than sitting at home with three recipe books planning out stuff to cook for Ray’s visit. It was definitely up there.
He was fine in the cereal aisle, at least, Ray had given him pretty strict instructions in that regard. The Cocoa Puffs had gone in his cart first thing; it was everything else that was fucking baffling.
He was standing in the toiletries aisle sniffing at different shower gels when Tony called.
“What is that weak-ass white bread music you are listening to, dawg?”
Brad grinned into the phone, smelling something in a red bottle called Pomegranate Passion.
“I’m at a supermarket, Poke. White people like to go to places like this to buy food and supplies. You’ll find out all about it when your people finally evolve from a fucking trading culture.”
Tony laughed and Brad put something called Orange Blossom and Vanilla Bean Shower Cream into his cart. He could hear delighted shrieking in the background, Tony’s daughter, Daniela.
“You’re lucky I got my little girl here, Colbert, or you would be getting one hell of a schooling - no, honey, honey-”
“Daddy said ‘hell!’ Mommy, Daddy said ‘HELL’!’”
Brad wandered up to the fresh produce section as Poke tried to calm down his kid, then his wife. “Having fun?” he asked, contemplating an avocado.
“…I’ma call you back.”
Brad smirked and put the avocado in his basket. By the time Ray got in, it’d be ripe enough for guacamole.
Poke called back that afternoon as Brad settled down onto the back porch with a bottle of beer and the sun in his eyes.
“You know, dawg,” he said, sounding a lot more relaxed than he had that morning. “I think I’ve found the secret to happiness.”
“Oh yeah?” Brad took a swig of beer and set it down carefully on the step, cradling the phone against his shoulder. “What’s that?”
“When I got home, my wife could hardly look at me at first, you know? I know I looked all kinds of fucked up, I didn’t even blame her. And my brother, man, he almost started crying. But my little girl, Brad.” Tony paused. “My little girl ran right up to me with her arms out yelling ‘Daddy, Daddy.’ I picked her up and held her and thought, ‘fuck everything else’, you know? Fuck everything except this right here.”
Brad stared at the bright green grass, the bright blue sky. Everything seemed over saturated, like he was living in a TV show. “Yeah, well, that’s you, Tony. I don’t think I’m going to have any little people running up to me calling me ‘daddy’ any time soon.”
Tony chuckled. “I don’t know about that, Brad. You got Person coming round, don’t you?”
~
Ray called one more time before he arrived - about an hour before he was due to get on his plane. Brad stared at his phone blankly as it rang. He felt like he’d had it surgically attached to his ear, like it was his only lifeline to the outside world. He kind of wanted to throw it into the ocean.
After Ray got there safely.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at the airport?” he asked, ignoring the annoying knot of tension that was suddenly in his gut. He was watering his plants, but he was pretty sure they were all dead.
“I am, settle down,” Ray said, his voice fuzzy, and Brad let himself hear the background noises, then. It was obvious he was at an airport.
“So why’re you calling? You want me to pick you up at LAX after all?”
“Fuck no.” Brad’s car was in the shop, and Ray had freely admitted he was too much of a pussy to get on the back of Brad’s bike. Brad had told him he was heartbroken, and he was mostly joking. “I just spoke to Walt.”
“How is he?” Brad hesitated with his watering can over a little cactus. He couldn’t remember if it even needed water, or if it did better without.
“He’s fucking fantastic, homes. He’s getting married.” Ray sounded agitated, for whatever reason. Brad sprinkled water over an African Violet his mother had brought round. All the flowers on it had immediately wilted, and it was now just a sad bundle of sticks and brownish leaves.
“That’s wonderful news, if he’s happy being broke for the rest of his life. Why do you sound like he’s got a terminal illness?”
“Because he wants me to be the best man, Brad!”
Brad paused, then grinned. “You serious?”
“Yes I’m fucking serious! Look, we all know I’m fucking awesome, but if you looked at our platoon and thought ‘best man’ would you come up with me?”
Privately, Brad probably would. Out loud he said, “Best goat-fucker, maybe. Best Hick in Show for sure-”
“Oh, shut up,” Ray sighed. “Best man. Fuck.”
“Why’s he getting married anyway? He’s like, twelve.”
Ray tsked. “He said something about getting home and not being able to forget about the guy he shot, you know, at the roadblock?”
Brad knew. He bypassed the next cactus and half-heartedly sprinkled a few drops of water over a hanging fern - gift from his sister.
“And then he says he saw her and forgot after all, just for a second. And right then and there he dropped to his knees like a fucking pussy and proposed. Didn’t even have a ring, he gave her his damned dog tags.” Ray sounded morose, like the fact that such fuckery even existed in the world was making him depressed.
“Well that’s just adorable,” Brad said. “Did he say why, in his infinite wisdom, he was making you in charge of this whole mess?”
Silence. Through the phone Brad could hear people yelling, announcements flying through the air. He waited.
“He said it was because I made him forget, too.” Ray finally said, and his voice sounded a little wrecked. “I was the first one who made him forget.”
Brad’s stomach felt tight again, the sun was hurting his eyes. He wanted to see Ray in front of him, see that he was whole and good and real.
“You’re a good person, Ray,” he said hesitantly, balancing his can on the railing of the porch. “You’ll do fine-”
“Don’t be a pansy, Iceman,” Ray cut in, and Brad could hear the smile back in his voice. “Cali breeds ‘em soft, huh? Lookit - I gotta go. I’ll see you in a hot minute, ok?”
“I’ll fucking show you soft,” Brad said, but Ray was already gone. Brad hung up, but as he turned to go inside, something caught his eye.
There were a few buds growing on the violet, small and sickly looking, but definitely there. He wasn’t such a black thumb after all.
Brad smiled, and went inside to make up the spare bed.
~
Brad had two steaks the size of his head laid out and ready to go and two six packs stuffed into his freezer when he heard a knock at the door. His heart jolted, and he smirked at his reflection in the kitchen window. Laughing at himself to play down the anticipation. It didn’t really work.
Ray was standing on his front porch with his dufflebag at his feet and a cigarette wedged into his mouth. He looked pale and scrawny, like his muscles were plastered right onto his bones with no padding. He was shiny with sweat from the humidity. His wifebeater was sticking to his chest, his hair was growing out already, and also, he needed a shave.
Brad just looked. He didn’t know what to say, but everything he’d been dreading, everything he’d been ignoring, everything he’d been putting down to loneliness and combat stress and PTSD was coming out of hiding and performing parade maneuvers in his stomach.
He was fucked.
“You’re not smoking in my house,” he finally said, voice low.
Ray pushed his sunglasses on top of his head and gave Brad a pained look. “That’s all you got? Where’s my hug, bitch?”
Brad reached out and plucked the cigarette from Ray’s mouth, tossing it over the railing. Ray let him, a little smile on his face, then stepped in and gave Brad a quick, one armed hug. Brad stopped breathing for an instant, and then inhaled deep, skin burning everywhere Ray was touching him.
“I got steaks and beer,” he said, letting Ray go and stepping aside. “You need a shower. You smell like my ball sweat.”
Ray hoisted up his bag and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I missed you too, Iceman.” He pushed his way inside and grinned over his shoulder. “Get those steaks cooking, woman. I’m hungry as a motherfucker!”
Brad couldn’t stop himself from grinning back as he shoved Ray ahead of him and listened to him filling up the house with noise and life and words.
It felt like his heart was beating for the first time since he’d been home.
Part Two