What Dreams May Come on the Other Side
Title: Blood on the Walls
Author: m_buggie
Fandoms: “Generation Kill”/”Band of Brothers”
Pairing: Colbert/Fick
Word Count: 2,515
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. The following can be considered a companion piece to Blood on the Altar. Precedes the events of O’er the Hills and Far Away. Thanks goes to melliyna for her inspiration and feedback.
~x~x~
This was supposed to be an easy job, a cushy assignment running security for some multi-million dollar pharmaceutical company. Brad Colbert hadn’t expected more than standing around for eight hours a day, looking ominous while folks in crisp white lab coats played Mr. Wizard with Erlenmeyer flasks and DNA. He hadn’t expected the company to have a darker side beyond all the beauty products and prescription pills. He certainly hadn’t anticipated his employers being secret government contractors. He hadn’t imagined in a thousand years that he’d end up falling in love with one of those scientists…let alone one by the name of Nathaniel Fick. And Brad sure as shit hadn’t expected one of the company’s government-sanctioned experiments to go horribly wrong and threaten his life, Nate’s life, and generally fuck up his day.
Now the zombies were closing in.
“Don’t call them that,” Nate grumbled half-heartedly.
Brad reloaded his Mossberg 500 shotgun and both his .357 Magnum Desert Eagle Mark XIX handguns, then double-checked that his trusty Bowie knife was still secure. The Boy Scouts had nothing on Brad Colbert when it came to being prepared. If he could’ve found a way to tote a Stinger missile along with him, he would have.
“Well, what else would you call those fucking things?” Brad inquired mildly, as though they were simply having a minor disagreement while on holiday somewhere and not trapped in a top secret medical facility fighting for their lives.
“They’re the unfortunate non-viable results of Dr. Schwetje’s failed project,” young Dr. Fick countered.
“You say poh-tay-toe, I say poh-tah-toe.”
“Brad…”
“Listen, we can argue about semantics all you want later but right now I’m more concerned with getting us both out of this shitstorm alive and in one piece, okay?”
“Right.” Nate nodded and reached over, wresting a slightly bloody Sig Sauer P229 handgun from the rigor mortised grip of a dead security guard sprawled out nearby. He checked the magazine and then cocked it, turning a determined gaze to Brad. “Let’s do this then, huh?”
Brad smirked. He probably shouldn’t have been so turned on by the sight of Nate handling a gun, but then again if Brad’s dick had behaved in the first place then he wouldn’t have ended up bending Nate over a steel examination table and fucking the younger man senseless. All in all, it had been one hell of a way to spend a lunch break.
“You sure you can handle that?” Brad asked, casual and smug at the same time.
Nate quirked one eyebrow, grinning with newfound ferocity, and replied, “Mr. Colbert, please keep in mind that I’m more than capable of defending myself if necessary.”
Brad smiled back and leaned in, kissing Nate deeply and passionately. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Now let’s get the hell out of here.” He looped an arm around Nate’s waist and pulled them both up.
And things had been going so well, too, right up until they were 100 yards from the exit where daylight and freedom were only a stone’s throw away.
“Just hang in there, Nate,” Brad urged, reloading his shotgun. Both Desert Eagles had been exhausted of ammunition and the Bowie knife was probably lodged in a zombie’s head somewhere behind them but this close to the way out none of that seemed to matter anymore. “Everything’s going to be okay. As soon as we get out of here I’m going to get you that antidote and you’ll be right as rain. Just stay strong for me, baby. Hang in there, we’re almost out.”
Then Brad heard the door close and lock.
He spun around, eyes wide. One moment Nate had been leaning against the wall, applying pressure to the massive bite wound on his arm that he’d sustained from one particularly nasty zombie - which had, in a previous life, been his former supervisor, Dr. Schwetje. The next moment Nate was on the other side of a reinforced titanium alloy door with a double-layer polycarbonate window with steel wire mesh between the plates.
“Nate? Nate!” Brad called, surging forward and trying to reopen the door.
“I’m sorry,” Nate responded, shaking his head. “I’m so sorry.”
Brad yanked on the handle, frowning when the clearance code he entered was denied and the door remained locked. He was in the highest tier of the company’s security force, his access codes could open just about every door in the building.
“Nate, what have you done?” Brad demanded.
“I changed the codes,” Nate said weakly, resting his forehead against the window and leaving a red smear from the gash beneath his hair.
“Why?”
“Because I’m not going to watch you die if I can prevent it.”
Brad shook his head and began throwing his body weight against the door. It was an exercise in futility, he of all people knew how impossible it was to force the door open in that manner but he had to do something and couldn’t bear to feel so helpless when the man he loved was on the other side.
“What the fuck are you talking about? Open this fucking door right the fuck now, Nathaniel!”
“There is no antidote.”
If Brad’s heart had fallen when the door closed it went through the floor with those words. He breathed deeply, willing himself not to punch a wall. “What?”
“There is no antidote,” Nate repeated quietly, gritting his teeth as a fresh wave of pain traveled through him. “It was in development as of last month but then something went wrong.”
“That seems to happen a lot around here,” Brad muttered.
A ghost of a smile flickered across Nate’s lips. “Yeah, tell me about it.”
“Nate, please, open the fucking door,” Brad said.
“No.” Nate shook his head, the blood streak on the window spreading as he did so.
“God fucking damn it, Nathaniel…”
“I told you, Brad, there’s no antidote. There’s no antidote and I’ve been bitten, which means it’s only a matter of time before I turn into one of those monsters and I’m not going to put you or anyone else in that kind of danger.” He swallowed, tears welling in his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Brad. I should’ve put an end to all this when I had the chance. I knew what Dr. Schwetje was doing, I should’ve stopped him…I should’ve…”
“Coulda, woulda, shoulda,” Brad remarked, trying to smile even as his own eyes were misting over. “Don’t go blaming yourself for that Neanderthal asshole’s stupidity.”
There was a sound somewhere in the distance, down the corridor behind Nate. The young scientist glanced over his shoulder and Brad craned his neck to see before they turned back to one another, knowing full well what was heading in their direction.
“They’re coming,” Dr. Nate Fick murmured. “You should leave now, Brad. This door will hold them but you should still get out while you can.”
Security officer Brad Colbert shook his head, jaw clenched and one hand white knuckling his shotgun. “Nate…please, don’t do this.”
Nate forced a grin on his face even as the tears slipped down his cheeks. “I love you, you know?” He laughed a little, wincing at the pain of his wounds. “I know that sounds silly because we haven’t even known each other for very long, but I really do love you, Brad.”
“I love you, too, Nate,” Brad said quietly, resting his forehead against the other side of the window. “I fell in love with you the moment I laid eyes on you.” He sighed, a shudder travelling through his body at the realization that this was a goodbye. “I will always love you.”
Nate raised one hand and pressed it to the window, leaving another smear of blood. “I’m sorry we didn’t get to have more time together.”
Brad mirrored the gesture, wishing like hell that he could twine his fingers with Nate’s or feel the other young man’s forehead against his own. He cursed the door and the double-layered window and everything that stood between him and Nate. “I’m sorry I didn’t get us out of here sooner. I’m sorry I didn’t protect you better.”
“It’s okay…”
“No, it’s not,” Brad countered, emotion seeping into his voice and his eyes growing wetter by the moment. “It’s not okay because I failed at my fucking job, Nate. I was supposed to protect you, I was supposed to keep you safe. Your life was in my hands and I let you down. I should’ve been there, baby, I shouldn’t have left you alone. If I had been there then you wouldn’t have been injured and you’d be on this side of the door with me instead of on that side with them. I should be fucking apologizing to you, Nate. You’re the most precious thing in my life and I let you down.”
“Brad, don’t talk like that.”
“I swear to fucking God, Nate, if I could change places with you right now I would. I would do it in a heartbeat. I’d give my life for you.”
“Well you don’t have to because I’m going to give my life for you, okay?”
“No.” Brad shook his head. “No, Jesusfuck, Nate…don’t do this. Don’t leave me, please. Just open the door and we’ll find a way to deal with the infection. Just, please, don’t do this. I love you, don’t do this to me.”
Meanwhile, the zombies had broken down the barricade behind Nate and were staggering forward, groaning and snarling with hollow inhuman voices as they closed in on the injured young research scientist. Brad Colbert was openly weeping now, pleading with his lover to open the door, but Nathaniel Fick simply smiled serenely, mournfully, at his acceptance of the sacrifice.
“I love you,” Nate uttered before coughing up blood and moaning in pain.
“I love you, too,” Brad answered.
At which point Nate revealed he was holding Brad’s Bowie knife.
“I don’t want to turn into one of those monsters,” Nate confessed.
Brad shook his head, filled with desperation and not wanting to admit this final defeat. “No, Nathaniel, please, no…”
The blade slipped between Nate’s ribs, into his heart.
And Brad let out a broken howl to rival any sound the zombies made.
~
“Jesus H. fucking Christ on a cracker, Brad, are you okay?”
Brad Colbert’s eyes snapped open and he sat up in bed, drenched in a cold sweat and breathing hard through clenched teeth. There was no lab, no zombies, and no blood on the walls. It had all been just a dream. Instead there was a motel room filled with empty pizza boxes and scattered beer cans, plus his best friend Ray Person glaring at him with a mixture of exhaustion, annoyance, and concern all at the same time.
“Shit, holmes, you sounded like you were being murdered in your sleep or something,” Ray said.
Brad shook his head, taking a deep breath. “It’s nothing.” He wiped his face and realized it was damp from tears as much as sweat.
“The fuck that shit was nothing,” Ray retorted.
“Go to sleep, Ray.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? Shit, Brad, I was asleep - I was drunk-ass passed-out asleep - when your fucking roar of discontent woke me the fuck up.”
“Sorry about that, now shut up and go to sleep.”
“No way, man, not after the fucking ruckus that you just made.” Ray shook his head and walked over to his own bed, plopping down on the edge. “Shit, fucking PTSD vets from Nam get night terrors like that. What the hell’s eating you alive that you sound like an army of fucking necromancers was coming after you?”
Brad smirked in spite of himself. “They were zombies, actually.”
Ray frowned. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Yeah, you keep saying nothing and I keep saying bullshit.”
Brad grunted something angry and possibly vulgar under his breath as he headed for the bathroom. He splashed some water on his face, stared at his reflection in the mirror. Not a week went by that Nathaniel Fick didn’t cross Brad’s mind but that dream, that nightmare had been the most vivid thought of the other young man that Brad had experienced in a while.
Two years had done nothing to diminish the ardor of Brad’s feelings for Nate.
When Brad walked out of the bathroom it was to find a sleepy and cranky but concerned Ray still waiting up for him, sitting cross-legged on the opposite bed in his Batman pajamas with an open can of Pabst’s Blue Ribbon beer in one hand.
“Seriously, holmes, what’s bothering you?” Ray asked. “And don’t even think of telling me that it’s nothing because I damn well fucking know that it’s something.”
“Just a bad dream,” Brad muttered, stretching out on his bed and staring up at the ceiling.
“Now there’s a fucking understatement.” Ray paused, gulping down some beer. “Let me guess: a pair of pretty green eyes were involved?”
Brad just sighed and rubbed his face.
“I’ll take your silence to mean ‘yes’ on that,” Ray said.
“I dreamt that he died,” Brad remarked quietly. “Nathaniel…I dreamed that I was supposed to protect him and I failed so he died.”
“Wow, that sucks.”
Brad opened his mouth to say something but Ray cut him off before any words could get out.
“That sucks but it was just a dream and there’s no point in you getting all worked up over something that didn’t even happen. Besides, you really ought to be over him by now.”
Brad sighed again. There was no way he could explain it to Ray without sounding like a broken record hopeless romantic but Brad knew that he would never get over Nate for as long as he lived. It was just one of those things. Birds flew, fish swam, and Brad Colbert loved Nathaniel Fick.
“I tell you what, Brad,” Ray said, “why don’t you come with me back to Nevada? I know there ain’t much glamour in Missouri but my cousin George is in town and you’re totally welcome to hang out and have dinner with us.”
A faint grin crossed Brad’s face. Good old Ray, always trying to cheer him up. “Sure, why not?” he uttered. “Can’t think of anything better to do.”
Ray smiled and swallowed down the last of the Pabst’s, tossing aside the empty can with a loud belch. “Kickass, holmes. I’ll call George in the morning and let him know we’re on our way.” He got up, turned the light off. “Night, Brad.”
“Goodnight, Ray.”
Ray Person’s snores were echoing in the motel room after no more than fifteen minutes but Brad Colbert lay awake on the other side of the room for at least another half hour.
When Brad did fall asleep he dreamed of the desert. He dreamed of charging across the dunes atop a horse with Nate’s arms wrapped around his waist, riding away from a violent battlefield as fast as their mount could take them. He dreamed of a brilliant smile and open eyes, of Damascus roses and Nathaniel’s tender lips against his own.
He dreamed of love.
Author: m_buggie
Fandoms: “Generation Kill”/”Band of Brothers”
Pairing: Colbert/Fick
Word Count: 2,515
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. The following can be considered a companion piece to Blood on the Altar. Precedes the events of O’er the Hills and Far Away. Thanks goes to melliyna for her inspiration and feedback.
~x~x~
This was supposed to be an easy job, a cushy assignment running security for some multi-million dollar pharmaceutical company. Brad Colbert hadn’t expected more than standing around for eight hours a day, looking ominous while folks in crisp white lab coats played Mr. Wizard with Erlenmeyer flasks and DNA. He hadn’t expected the company to have a darker side beyond all the beauty products and prescription pills. He certainly hadn’t anticipated his employers being secret government contractors. He hadn’t imagined in a thousand years that he’d end up falling in love with one of those scientists…let alone one by the name of Nathaniel Fick. And Brad sure as shit hadn’t expected one of the company’s government-sanctioned experiments to go horribly wrong and threaten his life, Nate’s life, and generally fuck up his day.
Now the zombies were closing in.
“Don’t call them that,” Nate grumbled half-heartedly.
Brad reloaded his Mossberg 500 shotgun and both his .357 Magnum Desert Eagle Mark XIX handguns, then double-checked that his trusty Bowie knife was still secure. The Boy Scouts had nothing on Brad Colbert when it came to being prepared. If he could’ve found a way to tote a Stinger missile along with him, he would have.
“Well, what else would you call those fucking things?” Brad inquired mildly, as though they were simply having a minor disagreement while on holiday somewhere and not trapped in a top secret medical facility fighting for their lives.
“They’re the unfortunate non-viable results of Dr. Schwetje’s failed project,” young Dr. Fick countered.
“You say poh-tay-toe, I say poh-tah-toe.”
“Brad…”
“Listen, we can argue about semantics all you want later but right now I’m more concerned with getting us both out of this shitstorm alive and in one piece, okay?”
“Right.” Nate nodded and reached over, wresting a slightly bloody Sig Sauer P229 handgun from the rigor mortised grip of a dead security guard sprawled out nearby. He checked the magazine and then cocked it, turning a determined gaze to Brad. “Let’s do this then, huh?”
Brad smirked. He probably shouldn’t have been so turned on by the sight of Nate handling a gun, but then again if Brad’s dick had behaved in the first place then he wouldn’t have ended up bending Nate over a steel examination table and fucking the younger man senseless. All in all, it had been one hell of a way to spend a lunch break.
“You sure you can handle that?” Brad asked, casual and smug at the same time.
Nate quirked one eyebrow, grinning with newfound ferocity, and replied, “Mr. Colbert, please keep in mind that I’m more than capable of defending myself if necessary.”
Brad smiled back and leaned in, kissing Nate deeply and passionately. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Now let’s get the hell out of here.” He looped an arm around Nate’s waist and pulled them both up.
And things had been going so well, too, right up until they were 100 yards from the exit where daylight and freedom were only a stone’s throw away.
“Just hang in there, Nate,” Brad urged, reloading his shotgun. Both Desert Eagles had been exhausted of ammunition and the Bowie knife was probably lodged in a zombie’s head somewhere behind them but this close to the way out none of that seemed to matter anymore. “Everything’s going to be okay. As soon as we get out of here I’m going to get you that antidote and you’ll be right as rain. Just stay strong for me, baby. Hang in there, we’re almost out.”
Then Brad heard the door close and lock.
He spun around, eyes wide. One moment Nate had been leaning against the wall, applying pressure to the massive bite wound on his arm that he’d sustained from one particularly nasty zombie - which had, in a previous life, been his former supervisor, Dr. Schwetje. The next moment Nate was on the other side of a reinforced titanium alloy door with a double-layer polycarbonate window with steel wire mesh between the plates.
“Nate? Nate!” Brad called, surging forward and trying to reopen the door.
“I’m sorry,” Nate responded, shaking his head. “I’m so sorry.”
Brad yanked on the handle, frowning when the clearance code he entered was denied and the door remained locked. He was in the highest tier of the company’s security force, his access codes could open just about every door in the building.
“Nate, what have you done?” Brad demanded.
“I changed the codes,” Nate said weakly, resting his forehead against the window and leaving a red smear from the gash beneath his hair.
“Why?”
“Because I’m not going to watch you die if I can prevent it.”
Brad shook his head and began throwing his body weight against the door. It was an exercise in futility, he of all people knew how impossible it was to force the door open in that manner but he had to do something and couldn’t bear to feel so helpless when the man he loved was on the other side.
“What the fuck are you talking about? Open this fucking door right the fuck now, Nathaniel!”
“There is no antidote.”
If Brad’s heart had fallen when the door closed it went through the floor with those words. He breathed deeply, willing himself not to punch a wall. “What?”
“There is no antidote,” Nate repeated quietly, gritting his teeth as a fresh wave of pain traveled through him. “It was in development as of last month but then something went wrong.”
“That seems to happen a lot around here,” Brad muttered.
A ghost of a smile flickered across Nate’s lips. “Yeah, tell me about it.”
“Nate, please, open the fucking door,” Brad said.
“No.” Nate shook his head, the blood streak on the window spreading as he did so.
“God fucking damn it, Nathaniel…”
“I told you, Brad, there’s no antidote. There’s no antidote and I’ve been bitten, which means it’s only a matter of time before I turn into one of those monsters and I’m not going to put you or anyone else in that kind of danger.” He swallowed, tears welling in his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Brad. I should’ve put an end to all this when I had the chance. I knew what Dr. Schwetje was doing, I should’ve stopped him…I should’ve…”
“Coulda, woulda, shoulda,” Brad remarked, trying to smile even as his own eyes were misting over. “Don’t go blaming yourself for that Neanderthal asshole’s stupidity.”
There was a sound somewhere in the distance, down the corridor behind Nate. The young scientist glanced over his shoulder and Brad craned his neck to see before they turned back to one another, knowing full well what was heading in their direction.
“They’re coming,” Dr. Nate Fick murmured. “You should leave now, Brad. This door will hold them but you should still get out while you can.”
Security officer Brad Colbert shook his head, jaw clenched and one hand white knuckling his shotgun. “Nate…please, don’t do this.”
Nate forced a grin on his face even as the tears slipped down his cheeks. “I love you, you know?” He laughed a little, wincing at the pain of his wounds. “I know that sounds silly because we haven’t even known each other for very long, but I really do love you, Brad.”
“I love you, too, Nate,” Brad said quietly, resting his forehead against the other side of the window. “I fell in love with you the moment I laid eyes on you.” He sighed, a shudder travelling through his body at the realization that this was a goodbye. “I will always love you.”
Nate raised one hand and pressed it to the window, leaving another smear of blood. “I’m sorry we didn’t get to have more time together.”
Brad mirrored the gesture, wishing like hell that he could twine his fingers with Nate’s or feel the other young man’s forehead against his own. He cursed the door and the double-layered window and everything that stood between him and Nate. “I’m sorry I didn’t get us out of here sooner. I’m sorry I didn’t protect you better.”
“It’s okay…”
“No, it’s not,” Brad countered, emotion seeping into his voice and his eyes growing wetter by the moment. “It’s not okay because I failed at my fucking job, Nate. I was supposed to protect you, I was supposed to keep you safe. Your life was in my hands and I let you down. I should’ve been there, baby, I shouldn’t have left you alone. If I had been there then you wouldn’t have been injured and you’d be on this side of the door with me instead of on that side with them. I should be fucking apologizing to you, Nate. You’re the most precious thing in my life and I let you down.”
“Brad, don’t talk like that.”
“I swear to fucking God, Nate, if I could change places with you right now I would. I would do it in a heartbeat. I’d give my life for you.”
“Well you don’t have to because I’m going to give my life for you, okay?”
“No.” Brad shook his head. “No, Jesusfuck, Nate…don’t do this. Don’t leave me, please. Just open the door and we’ll find a way to deal with the infection. Just, please, don’t do this. I love you, don’t do this to me.”
Meanwhile, the zombies had broken down the barricade behind Nate and were staggering forward, groaning and snarling with hollow inhuman voices as they closed in on the injured young research scientist. Brad Colbert was openly weeping now, pleading with his lover to open the door, but Nathaniel Fick simply smiled serenely, mournfully, at his acceptance of the sacrifice.
“I love you,” Nate uttered before coughing up blood and moaning in pain.
“I love you, too,” Brad answered.
At which point Nate revealed he was holding Brad’s Bowie knife.
“I don’t want to turn into one of those monsters,” Nate confessed.
Brad shook his head, filled with desperation and not wanting to admit this final defeat. “No, Nathaniel, please, no…”
The blade slipped between Nate’s ribs, into his heart.
And Brad let out a broken howl to rival any sound the zombies made.
~
“Jesus H. fucking Christ on a cracker, Brad, are you okay?”
Brad Colbert’s eyes snapped open and he sat up in bed, drenched in a cold sweat and breathing hard through clenched teeth. There was no lab, no zombies, and no blood on the walls. It had all been just a dream. Instead there was a motel room filled with empty pizza boxes and scattered beer cans, plus his best friend Ray Person glaring at him with a mixture of exhaustion, annoyance, and concern all at the same time.
“Shit, holmes, you sounded like you were being murdered in your sleep or something,” Ray said.
Brad shook his head, taking a deep breath. “It’s nothing.” He wiped his face and realized it was damp from tears as much as sweat.
“The fuck that shit was nothing,” Ray retorted.
“Go to sleep, Ray.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? Shit, Brad, I was asleep - I was drunk-ass passed-out asleep - when your fucking roar of discontent woke me the fuck up.”
“Sorry about that, now shut up and go to sleep.”
“No way, man, not after the fucking ruckus that you just made.” Ray shook his head and walked over to his own bed, plopping down on the edge. “Shit, fucking PTSD vets from Nam get night terrors like that. What the hell’s eating you alive that you sound like an army of fucking necromancers was coming after you?”
Brad smirked in spite of himself. “They were zombies, actually.”
Ray frowned. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Yeah, you keep saying nothing and I keep saying bullshit.”
Brad grunted something angry and possibly vulgar under his breath as he headed for the bathroom. He splashed some water on his face, stared at his reflection in the mirror. Not a week went by that Nathaniel Fick didn’t cross Brad’s mind but that dream, that nightmare had been the most vivid thought of the other young man that Brad had experienced in a while.
Two years had done nothing to diminish the ardor of Brad’s feelings for Nate.
When Brad walked out of the bathroom it was to find a sleepy and cranky but concerned Ray still waiting up for him, sitting cross-legged on the opposite bed in his Batman pajamas with an open can of Pabst’s Blue Ribbon beer in one hand.
“Seriously, holmes, what’s bothering you?” Ray asked. “And don’t even think of telling me that it’s nothing because I damn well fucking know that it’s something.”
“Just a bad dream,” Brad muttered, stretching out on his bed and staring up at the ceiling.
“Now there’s a fucking understatement.” Ray paused, gulping down some beer. “Let me guess: a pair of pretty green eyes were involved?”
Brad just sighed and rubbed his face.
“I’ll take your silence to mean ‘yes’ on that,” Ray said.
“I dreamt that he died,” Brad remarked quietly. “Nathaniel…I dreamed that I was supposed to protect him and I failed so he died.”
“Wow, that sucks.”
Brad opened his mouth to say something but Ray cut him off before any words could get out.
“That sucks but it was just a dream and there’s no point in you getting all worked up over something that didn’t even happen. Besides, you really ought to be over him by now.”
Brad sighed again. There was no way he could explain it to Ray without sounding like a broken record hopeless romantic but Brad knew that he would never get over Nate for as long as he lived. It was just one of those things. Birds flew, fish swam, and Brad Colbert loved Nathaniel Fick.
“I tell you what, Brad,” Ray said, “why don’t you come with me back to Nevada? I know there ain’t much glamour in Missouri but my cousin George is in town and you’re totally welcome to hang out and have dinner with us.”
A faint grin crossed Brad’s face. Good old Ray, always trying to cheer him up. “Sure, why not?” he uttered. “Can’t think of anything better to do.”
Ray smiled and swallowed down the last of the Pabst’s, tossing aside the empty can with a loud belch. “Kickass, holmes. I’ll call George in the morning and let him know we’re on our way.” He got up, turned the light off. “Night, Brad.”
“Goodnight, Ray.”
Ray Person’s snores were echoing in the motel room after no more than fifteen minutes but Brad Colbert lay awake on the other side of the room for at least another half hour.
When Brad did fall asleep he dreamed of the desert. He dreamed of charging across the dunes atop a horse with Nate’s arms wrapped around his waist, riding away from a violent battlefield as fast as their mount could take them. He dreamed of a brilliant smile and open eyes, of Damascus roses and Nathaniel’s tender lips against his own.
He dreamed of love.