A Reasonable Young Man
Title: I Had It All Figured Out Until You Came Along - Chapter Six
Author: m_buggie
Fandoms: “Generation Kill”/“Band of Brothers”/”Good Omens”
Pairings: past Colbert/Caroline, eventual Colbert/Fick, vaguely hinted Crowley/Aziraphale if you squint your eyes and tilt your head just slightly to the left
Word Count: 1,665 for Chapter Six
Rating: R
Standard Disclaimer: This is based off performances in the HBO miniseries, not the actual soldiers. The only thing I own is the computer I wrote this on. I make no profit and mean no disrespect so please don’t sue.
Author’s Note: This takes place in the world of the Big Damn Modern Day Crossover AU of Doom-verse…I think that says it all. Major credit goes to melliyna for being a huge influence on this, all of this.
~x~x~
There was one Starbucks coffee shop in particular that Nathaniel Fick kept coming back to. It had a really good wireless Internet connection, it was never too crowded, and it was far enough from campus that he didn’t have to worry about distractions like Dave McGraw being overly chatty or Casey Griego being a rude and vulgar pain in the ass. It was where Nate could go when he had a project that required his full and undivided attention.
Like right now, when he was working to finish two term papers, one of which was for the infamous Professor Sixta. The man was known to make at least one student cry per quarter. It was like a quota for him.
Nate sighed, rubbed his eyes. There were only so many hours in a row that he could stare at his laptop screen before a break was necessary. The migraine headaches from his freshman and sophomore years had taught Fick that. And with a double major he did double work.
His quadruple shot mint chocolate cappuccino was already cold but that didn’t matter much, seeing as how Nate was only in it for the caffeine and sugar anyway. He stretched his arms above his head, listening to his shoulders and back make popping noises that couldn’t possibly be good, and turned his attention to random things such as the music playing and the people around him.
The barista’s hair was green, for example. Nate seemed to recall it had been blue the week before and purple a month before that. He mused that maybe she was working her way through the colors of the rainbow in reverse. There were two high school age girls at a table not too far from his and he could hear them giggling every couple of minutes, making comments about some guy they thought was cute. A woman somewhere behind him was talking loudly on her cell phone about how she couldn’t believe her friend Cathy was still dating “that drunkard, Lewis.”
Nate propped his chin up on the heel of his hand and blew a puff of air into his bangs, ruffling them. Nope, nothing out of the ordinary today; at least, not until he came along…
Tall, blond, and brooding - that was what caught Nate Fick’s attention. The man was tall, blond, and brooding with a military-short haircut and blue eyes that seemed to stare a million miles away. He held his head up high and his back straight, like a soldier on parade, and walked with a crisp stride that set him apart from rest of the shuffling pretender boys and girls in the coffee shop. And he was handsome, very handsome. It kind of took Nate’s breath away.
Nate Fick was a reasonable young man. He was a dreamer, yes, an idealist and a hopeful soul, but he had enough common sense to know that such overdramatic things as love at first sight were the stuff of literature and not real life. Or at least, so he thought. He wasn’t so sure anymore, what with the way things were getting a little fuzzy and all he could think about was, Well, that does it: I’m gay. He’d been ambiguous about his sexuality since high school - dated a girl here, kissed a boy there - but judging by how Nate now felt like one of those giggling schoolgirls behind him? Yeah, he was gay.
Fick tried to be subtle about his gazing while he watched the tall blond stride up to the counter and order a black coffee. Nate had to smirk at that, such a basic request garnering a funny look from the barista.
“Nate!”
Nathaniel Fick sighed and resisted the impulse to flinch at the sound of his name being called out across the busy Starbucks. He looked at the familiar figure running up to him, maneuvering past other customers towards Nate’s table with the grace of a donkey, and grinned with equal parts embarrassment and amusement.
“Hi Henry,” Nate said with a little wave.
“Nate, thank God I found you,” Henry exclaimed. “We have a serious situation on our hands, one that could very well spell disaster for my college career.”
Nate delicately arched one eyebrow and tried not to laugh in the face of whatever the latest crisis was. Henry Jones IV had been Nate’s best friend and dormmate since their freshman year at Dartmouth, but the other young collegiate had something of a unique personality with plenty of quirks.
“Would this be a ‘we’re out of Red Bull and Reese’s Pieces’ emergency or more of a…”
“My computer just died,” Henry announced.
Nate’s jaw dropped and he sat up. “What?”
“My computer is dead,” Henry Jones IV repeated, sitting down across from his best friend. “It’s done, ceased to be, shuffled off the mortal coil and joined the choir invisible.”
“Are you sure it’s not just pining for the fjords?”
“I got the blue screen of death.”
Fick grimaced. “Yeesh.”
“I know.” Henry nodded gravely.
“Can it be fixed?”
“I don’t know, I hope so, I don’t know what I’m going to do if I can’t get the data recovered off that laptop...”
While Henry rattled on about fried hard drives and unmountable boot volumes, Nate dared a glance back over at the tall blond man. He was now sitting at a table on the other side of the coffee shop with two other people, talking. Nate couldn’t help but think the guy looked uncomfortable even while he was trying to appear relaxed and at ease.
“…and I swear to God, none of this would be a problem if I could find my external hard drive,” Henry said, reclaiming Nate’s attention. “I can’t believe someone stole it.”
Fick tilted his head and frowned. “Your backup’s missing?”
“Yeah and I have no idea how I could’ve possibly lost it,” Henry replied. “It never leaves the apartment and I always keep it right on top of my desk.”
“And it’s nowhere in the dorm?”
“No, I cleaned the whole place from top to bottom today looking for it. I found a dozen other things that I’d thought were lost forever but no external hard drive.”
Nate’s frown deepened and he leaned back, folding his arms. “I think I know what happened to your backup, Henry. Dave took it.”
Henry’s eyes narrowed. “Dave? Dave as in David McGraw?”
Nate nodded.
“How the hell would he get it? I mean, I know the guy’s a nutjob but I didn’t think he’d go so far as to start breaking into dorms.”
“He didn’t break in. He came over last night while you were out.”
“And you actually let him in?”
“He needed help with the Sixta paper.” Nate shrugged.
“I’m just going to repeat myself and say, you let him in?”
“Dave’s really not that bad a guy, Henry. He can be a real douche but I think that’s because he doesn’t have any friends. I don’t know, I kind of feel sorry for him…even if he is a blundering idiot, you know?”
“So you let him steal my external hard drive because you felt sorry for him?”
“No, I went into my room to get my notes and when I came out he was pacing around the common room and acting funny. You left your laptop on the coffee table.”
Henry threw his hands up. “And my external was sitting next to my laptop. Damn it.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll talk to Dave later and get it back.”
“Do you honestly think he’ll give it back to you?”
“Considering the fact that I’m pretty much the closest thing he’s got to an actual friend? Yeah, I think so. Besides, he listens to me…most of the time.”
Henry shook his head. “I swear, Nate, I don’t know how you deal with him. You’re too good a person sometimes, you know? Everyone else just tells him to fuck off.”
Nate laughed out loud, mostly at Henry’s use of profanity. He also surreptitiously glanced back over to the tall blond, who was still talking to the two other people and still looking vaguely uncomfortable.
“Jesus Christ, Nate,” Henry sighed. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. My whole life was in that laptop and now I don’t even have my backup hard drive. What the hell am I going to do?”
After a few moments of clicking, Nate Fick slid his laptop across the table. “Just use my computer.”
Henry gaped. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah, it’s fine. I’ll talk to Dave tonight and get your external back then you can use my laptop until you get yours fixed or whatever, okay?”
“Can I borrow it right now?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I take it to the library and write my paper for Costigan’s class on it right now?”
“Yes, Henry, you can. I told you, it’s fine. I don’t mind.”
Henry Jones IV’s face lit up like Christmas morning and he graciously accepted the laptop, placing it in his backpack like it was nothing short of the Holy Grail.
“I swear to God, Nate, you’re the best friend I’ve ever had and I give you my word that I will take the best possible care of your computer,” he said. “I’m going to make this up to you one day, mark my words. I’m in your debt for this.”
Nate just chuckled and waved it away.
“You’re a saint,” Henry decided. He stood then, and pointed to Nate Fick, declaring loudly enough that the entire Starbucks coffee shop could hear, “This man is a saint. Saint Nathaniel. Saint Nathaniel!”
And with that, Henry Jones IV left the building.
Nathaniel Fick shook his head, blushing at the attention but laughing to himself about it at the same time. He also hazarded a peek to the table on the other side of the room. The tall blond was gone and so was the couple he’d been talking to. Nate sighed. So much for that.
Author: m_buggie
Fandoms: “Generation Kill”/“Band of Brothers”/”Good Omens”
Pairings: past Colbert/Caroline, eventual Colbert/Fick, vaguely hinted Crowley/Aziraphale if you squint your eyes and tilt your head just slightly to the left
Word Count: 1,665 for Chapter Six
Rating: R
Standard Disclaimer: This is based off performances in the HBO miniseries, not the actual soldiers. The only thing I own is the computer I wrote this on. I make no profit and mean no disrespect so please don’t sue.
Author’s Note: This takes place in the world of the Big Damn Modern Day Crossover AU of Doom-verse…I think that says it all. Major credit goes to melliyna for being a huge influence on this, all of this.
~x~x~
There was one Starbucks coffee shop in particular that Nathaniel Fick kept coming back to. It had a really good wireless Internet connection, it was never too crowded, and it was far enough from campus that he didn’t have to worry about distractions like Dave McGraw being overly chatty or Casey Griego being a rude and vulgar pain in the ass. It was where Nate could go when he had a project that required his full and undivided attention.
Like right now, when he was working to finish two term papers, one of which was for the infamous Professor Sixta. The man was known to make at least one student cry per quarter. It was like a quota for him.
Nate sighed, rubbed his eyes. There were only so many hours in a row that he could stare at his laptop screen before a break was necessary. The migraine headaches from his freshman and sophomore years had taught Fick that. And with a double major he did double work.
His quadruple shot mint chocolate cappuccino was already cold but that didn’t matter much, seeing as how Nate was only in it for the caffeine and sugar anyway. He stretched his arms above his head, listening to his shoulders and back make popping noises that couldn’t possibly be good, and turned his attention to random things such as the music playing and the people around him.
The barista’s hair was green, for example. Nate seemed to recall it had been blue the week before and purple a month before that. He mused that maybe she was working her way through the colors of the rainbow in reverse. There were two high school age girls at a table not too far from his and he could hear them giggling every couple of minutes, making comments about some guy they thought was cute. A woman somewhere behind him was talking loudly on her cell phone about how she couldn’t believe her friend Cathy was still dating “that drunkard, Lewis.”
Nate propped his chin up on the heel of his hand and blew a puff of air into his bangs, ruffling them. Nope, nothing out of the ordinary today; at least, not until he came along…
Tall, blond, and brooding - that was what caught Nate Fick’s attention. The man was tall, blond, and brooding with a military-short haircut and blue eyes that seemed to stare a million miles away. He held his head up high and his back straight, like a soldier on parade, and walked with a crisp stride that set him apart from rest of the shuffling pretender boys and girls in the coffee shop. And he was handsome, very handsome. It kind of took Nate’s breath away.
Nate Fick was a reasonable young man. He was a dreamer, yes, an idealist and a hopeful soul, but he had enough common sense to know that such overdramatic things as love at first sight were the stuff of literature and not real life. Or at least, so he thought. He wasn’t so sure anymore, what with the way things were getting a little fuzzy and all he could think about was, Well, that does it: I’m gay. He’d been ambiguous about his sexuality since high school - dated a girl here, kissed a boy there - but judging by how Nate now felt like one of those giggling schoolgirls behind him? Yeah, he was gay.
Fick tried to be subtle about his gazing while he watched the tall blond stride up to the counter and order a black coffee. Nate had to smirk at that, such a basic request garnering a funny look from the barista.
“Nate!”
Nathaniel Fick sighed and resisted the impulse to flinch at the sound of his name being called out across the busy Starbucks. He looked at the familiar figure running up to him, maneuvering past other customers towards Nate’s table with the grace of a donkey, and grinned with equal parts embarrassment and amusement.
“Hi Henry,” Nate said with a little wave.
“Nate, thank God I found you,” Henry exclaimed. “We have a serious situation on our hands, one that could very well spell disaster for my college career.”
Nate delicately arched one eyebrow and tried not to laugh in the face of whatever the latest crisis was. Henry Jones IV had been Nate’s best friend and dormmate since their freshman year at Dartmouth, but the other young collegiate had something of a unique personality with plenty of quirks.
“Would this be a ‘we’re out of Red Bull and Reese’s Pieces’ emergency or more of a…”
“My computer just died,” Henry announced.
Nate’s jaw dropped and he sat up. “What?”
“My computer is dead,” Henry Jones IV repeated, sitting down across from his best friend. “It’s done, ceased to be, shuffled off the mortal coil and joined the choir invisible.”
“Are you sure it’s not just pining for the fjords?”
“I got the blue screen of death.”
Fick grimaced. “Yeesh.”
“I know.” Henry nodded gravely.
“Can it be fixed?”
“I don’t know, I hope so, I don’t know what I’m going to do if I can’t get the data recovered off that laptop...”
While Henry rattled on about fried hard drives and unmountable boot volumes, Nate dared a glance back over at the tall blond man. He was now sitting at a table on the other side of the coffee shop with two other people, talking. Nate couldn’t help but think the guy looked uncomfortable even while he was trying to appear relaxed and at ease.
“…and I swear to God, none of this would be a problem if I could find my external hard drive,” Henry said, reclaiming Nate’s attention. “I can’t believe someone stole it.”
Fick tilted his head and frowned. “Your backup’s missing?”
“Yeah and I have no idea how I could’ve possibly lost it,” Henry replied. “It never leaves the apartment and I always keep it right on top of my desk.”
“And it’s nowhere in the dorm?”
“No, I cleaned the whole place from top to bottom today looking for it. I found a dozen other things that I’d thought were lost forever but no external hard drive.”
Nate’s frown deepened and he leaned back, folding his arms. “I think I know what happened to your backup, Henry. Dave took it.”
Henry’s eyes narrowed. “Dave? Dave as in David McGraw?”
Nate nodded.
“How the hell would he get it? I mean, I know the guy’s a nutjob but I didn’t think he’d go so far as to start breaking into dorms.”
“He didn’t break in. He came over last night while you were out.”
“And you actually let him in?”
“He needed help with the Sixta paper.” Nate shrugged.
“I’m just going to repeat myself and say, you let him in?”
“Dave’s really not that bad a guy, Henry. He can be a real douche but I think that’s because he doesn’t have any friends. I don’t know, I kind of feel sorry for him…even if he is a blundering idiot, you know?”
“So you let him steal my external hard drive because you felt sorry for him?”
“No, I went into my room to get my notes and when I came out he was pacing around the common room and acting funny. You left your laptop on the coffee table.”
Henry threw his hands up. “And my external was sitting next to my laptop. Damn it.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll talk to Dave later and get it back.”
“Do you honestly think he’ll give it back to you?”
“Considering the fact that I’m pretty much the closest thing he’s got to an actual friend? Yeah, I think so. Besides, he listens to me…most of the time.”
Henry shook his head. “I swear, Nate, I don’t know how you deal with him. You’re too good a person sometimes, you know? Everyone else just tells him to fuck off.”
Nate laughed out loud, mostly at Henry’s use of profanity. He also surreptitiously glanced back over to the tall blond, who was still talking to the two other people and still looking vaguely uncomfortable.
“Jesus Christ, Nate,” Henry sighed. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. My whole life was in that laptop and now I don’t even have my backup hard drive. What the hell am I going to do?”
After a few moments of clicking, Nate Fick slid his laptop across the table. “Just use my computer.”
Henry gaped. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah, it’s fine. I’ll talk to Dave tonight and get your external back then you can use my laptop until you get yours fixed or whatever, okay?”
“Can I borrow it right now?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I take it to the library and write my paper for Costigan’s class on it right now?”
“Yes, Henry, you can. I told you, it’s fine. I don’t mind.”
Henry Jones IV’s face lit up like Christmas morning and he graciously accepted the laptop, placing it in his backpack like it was nothing short of the Holy Grail.
“I swear to God, Nate, you’re the best friend I’ve ever had and I give you my word that I will take the best possible care of your computer,” he said. “I’m going to make this up to you one day, mark my words. I’m in your debt for this.”
Nate just chuckled and waved it away.
“You’re a saint,” Henry decided. He stood then, and pointed to Nate Fick, declaring loudly enough that the entire Starbucks coffee shop could hear, “This man is a saint. Saint Nathaniel. Saint Nathaniel!”
And with that, Henry Jones IV left the building.
Nathaniel Fick shook his head, blushing at the attention but laughing to himself about it at the same time. He also hazarded a peek to the table on the other side of the room. The tall blond was gone and so was the couple he’d been talking to. Nate sighed. So much for that.