Fic: Drown in Deeper Oceans
Title: Drown in Deeper Oceans
Author: echoing_dream
Fandom: Generation Kill
Pairing/character: Colbert/Fick
Length: 895
Rating: G
Summary: Once it's all over, the silence is too great for both of them.
Notes/Warnings: Based on HBO's Dramatisation, ergo, not mine. A little fluffy, I'm still trying to get the headspace.
The water scalds his shoulders, running almost black at first, then brown, fading through yellow until it finally runs clear and Brad's body is slowly sluiced clean of the desert. It's a full twenty minutes before he can shake himself from the stupor that finally being able to shower induces in him. He rolls his shoulders slowly, feels the tension in the muscle there ease just a little as the hot water hits his back, droplets smattering around the small shower-stall. It feels like fucking heaven, the water turned to its highest and strongest setting, pounding down on him, and for a long while he just stands under the spray and lets the water wash him clean.
His limbs are heavy, awkward when the water starts to cool and he shuts it off, climbs out of the shower. He has to curl both hands around the cold rim of the basin, locking his elbows out to steady himself until he can blink the tiredness away. It never properly hit him until after, once he's made sure everyone's home, safe. In the desert, he’d just have kept going, but once he’s away from all that it's as though all the exhaustion finally crashes in on him at once and takes him to his knees. Just because he stopped running.
Brad shakes his head hard to clear the grey fuzziness that threatens at the corners of his visions and forces himself to concentrate, towelling his body off roughly and switching out the light as he makes his way back into the bedroom. The temporary accommodation’s actually half-decent, despite the fact that the Marines are only holed up here for two days before they can be sent off on leave. He's got the room to himself, dragged the thin military beds together and stretched the sheets tight so the bed's just about comfortable. Cool air plays over Brad's damp skin and he's tempted just to crawl onto the bed and crash, but fate's a bitch and he's pissed her off far too many times to risk being tipped out into the cold at oh-dark-thirty, so he finishes towelling off his hair and tugs on a clean pair of boxers, still half-smelling the filthy MOPP Suit.
The quiet in his room is fucking weird, and for a long moment he considers wondering out into the corridor, checking on everybody just to make sure they're getting some sleep. But that's a stupid idea, especially as Brad really isn't in a position to do anything but sleep himself.
There's a soft tap at the door just as he's stripping the blankets off the bed. It's soft enough that he could ignore it if he wanted, pretend he's sleeping already, because fuck if he hasn't earned the right a thousand times over, but he finds himself walking to the door regardless. He's ready to growl as he tugs the door open, but stops short when he sees the LT stood there, the hand resting against the wall looking like it's all that's keeping him upright.
"Sir?" Nate looks ridiculously young in an oversized T-shirt and soft grey sweat pants, redness and dark smudges under his eyes out of place, stark against his pale face. The LT blinks a little too slowly, scrubbing the hand that's not holding him up over his face.
"I..." he tries to stifle a yawn, swaying just a little, and when Brad looks down he can see the mess of blisters and broken skin that covers Nate's feet, red and angry against the cool blue plastic matting of the hallway. "I wanted to check everyone was getting some sleep," he manages to get out eventually.
It occurs to Brad that knocking on doors might not be overly conducive to encouraging sleep, but mostly he's just impressed that the LT's still on his feet, despite the second jaw-cracking yawn that Nate can't quite check in time. Between receiving and re-writing orders and trying to unfuck them all from Encino Man, Nate was lucky to have regularly slept two hours in twenty.
"You should be sleeping too," he points out, putting a steadying hand on Nate's shoulder when he tries to cover the yawn with the hand that was holding him up. The LT kind of nods vaguely, and Brad stops fighting with words, fisting his other hand into Nate's T-shirt and tugging him bodily into the room, pushing the door shut behind him.
"Wha-" Nate starts to ask, but Brad just keeps him moving, just a little off balance so that Nate has to use all his concentration just to keep from falling, until he can push him down on one side of the bed. There's a protest half-formed on Nate's lips, but Brad just tosses his spare sheet over him and flicks out the light.
"Go to sleep," he says, voice just on the soft side of an order as he flops down on the other side of the bed. Nate barely even moves from where he fell, breathing evening out as sleep claims him, and Brad smiles at the dark as the quiet sound takes the edges off the silence. He shifts on the bed, Nate’s body-heat seeping through the gap between them, and Brad watched his sleeping form for a moment, curling in on himself a little as he finally lets the darkness pull him under.
FIN
Author: echoing_dream
Fandom: Generation Kill
Pairing/character: Colbert/Fick
Length: 895
Rating: G
Summary: Once it's all over, the silence is too great for both of them.
Notes/Warnings: Based on HBO's Dramatisation, ergo, not mine. A little fluffy, I'm still trying to get the headspace.
The water scalds his shoulders, running almost black at first, then brown, fading through yellow until it finally runs clear and Brad's body is slowly sluiced clean of the desert. It's a full twenty minutes before he can shake himself from the stupor that finally being able to shower induces in him. He rolls his shoulders slowly, feels the tension in the muscle there ease just a little as the hot water hits his back, droplets smattering around the small shower-stall. It feels like fucking heaven, the water turned to its highest and strongest setting, pounding down on him, and for a long while he just stands under the spray and lets the water wash him clean.
His limbs are heavy, awkward when the water starts to cool and he shuts it off, climbs out of the shower. He has to curl both hands around the cold rim of the basin, locking his elbows out to steady himself until he can blink the tiredness away. It never properly hit him until after, once he's made sure everyone's home, safe. In the desert, he’d just have kept going, but once he’s away from all that it's as though all the exhaustion finally crashes in on him at once and takes him to his knees. Just because he stopped running.
Brad shakes his head hard to clear the grey fuzziness that threatens at the corners of his visions and forces himself to concentrate, towelling his body off roughly and switching out the light as he makes his way back into the bedroom. The temporary accommodation’s actually half-decent, despite the fact that the Marines are only holed up here for two days before they can be sent off on leave. He's got the room to himself, dragged the thin military beds together and stretched the sheets tight so the bed's just about comfortable. Cool air plays over Brad's damp skin and he's tempted just to crawl onto the bed and crash, but fate's a bitch and he's pissed her off far too many times to risk being tipped out into the cold at oh-dark-thirty, so he finishes towelling off his hair and tugs on a clean pair of boxers, still half-smelling the filthy MOPP Suit.
The quiet in his room is fucking weird, and for a long moment he considers wondering out into the corridor, checking on everybody just to make sure they're getting some sleep. But that's a stupid idea, especially as Brad really isn't in a position to do anything but sleep himself.
There's a soft tap at the door just as he's stripping the blankets off the bed. It's soft enough that he could ignore it if he wanted, pretend he's sleeping already, because fuck if he hasn't earned the right a thousand times over, but he finds himself walking to the door regardless. He's ready to growl as he tugs the door open, but stops short when he sees the LT stood there, the hand resting against the wall looking like it's all that's keeping him upright.
"Sir?" Nate looks ridiculously young in an oversized T-shirt and soft grey sweat pants, redness and dark smudges under his eyes out of place, stark against his pale face. The LT blinks a little too slowly, scrubbing the hand that's not holding him up over his face.
"I..." he tries to stifle a yawn, swaying just a little, and when Brad looks down he can see the mess of blisters and broken skin that covers Nate's feet, red and angry against the cool blue plastic matting of the hallway. "I wanted to check everyone was getting some sleep," he manages to get out eventually.
It occurs to Brad that knocking on doors might not be overly conducive to encouraging sleep, but mostly he's just impressed that the LT's still on his feet, despite the second jaw-cracking yawn that Nate can't quite check in time. Between receiving and re-writing orders and trying to unfuck them all from Encino Man, Nate was lucky to have regularly slept two hours in twenty.
"You should be sleeping too," he points out, putting a steadying hand on Nate's shoulder when he tries to cover the yawn with the hand that was holding him up. The LT kind of nods vaguely, and Brad stops fighting with words, fisting his other hand into Nate's T-shirt and tugging him bodily into the room, pushing the door shut behind him.
"Wha-" Nate starts to ask, but Brad just keeps him moving, just a little off balance so that Nate has to use all his concentration just to keep from falling, until he can push him down on one side of the bed. There's a protest half-formed on Nate's lips, but Brad just tosses his spare sheet over him and flicks out the light.
"Go to sleep," he says, voice just on the soft side of an order as he flops down on the other side of the bed. Nate barely even moves from where he fell, breathing evening out as sleep claims him, and Brad smiles at the dark as the quiet sound takes the edges off the silence. He shifts on the bed, Nate’s body-heat seeping through the gap between them, and Brad watched his sleeping form for a moment, curling in on himself a little as he finally lets the darkness pull him under.
FIN