Team Day, Prompt: Ceasefire, Ceasefire (1/2)
Title: Ceasefire
By: indyhat
Prompt: Ceasefire
Rating: R/NC-17? Use your judgement; I think it's on the cusp.
Warnings: As per the show, really. Although Ray almost merits a warning of his own.
Disclaimer: Based solely on the characters depicted in the HBO miniseries.
Summary: Brad and his emotions have an understanding: he doesn't talk about, or think about, anything that might affect his combat effectiveness, and his emotions do whatever the fuck he tells them to. 11,000 words.
A/N: I am indebted to oxoniensis for her awesome beta and ninja cheerleading skills, and everyone at After Action Report for the transcripts. All wrongness that remains is mine.
Brad and his emotions have an understanding: he doesn't talk about, or think about, anything that might affect his combat effectiveness, and his emotions do whatever the fuck he tells them to.
It's a perfectly reasonable arrangement.
Look at Person, for Christ's sake. Ray's a good Marine, and - Brad would never feed Ray's already-bloated ego by saying so - a goddamn genius RTO, but he simply has no filter between his brain and his mouth. Most days, Ray is just a high-school P.A. system for his subconscious, a conduit for the volcano of anally-expulsive lava that passes for rational thought in Ray's facile cesspit of a mind.
(Brad's own toilet-training was achieved painlessly and virtually overnight at the precocious age of seventeen months, thank you for asking.)
You need to keep that shit in check with a suitable show of force.
So back at Pendleton, when Brad's interest had briefly awakened by their new, barely-popped-his-cherry Lieutenant, Brad had squared that away immediately. Nothing good ever came of paying more attention to the cocksucking mouth of one's superior officer than to the words coming out of said cocksucking mouth. It hadn't been much of a struggle; Brad's emotions rolled over like the obedient little bitches they were, and Brad nodded and saluted and said, "Welcome to Bravo Company, sir".
"Thank you, Sergeant." Lieutenant Fick smiled, and if there was an extra twinkle in his eyes, Brad didn't see it - because if he didn't see it, it couldn't possibly have existed, and Brad always saw everything.
Clean and uncomplicated, just how Brad liked things.
//
By the time they left Oceanside, Brad was satisfied that their new platoon commander had a functioning brain, which was more than could be said for most of the battalion's officers. Brad had never fully understood the point of having the best-trained recon operators in the world if they weren't also supported by the smartest officers.
"They gotta keep us sharp, homes," Ray said, when Brad opined that half of command was constructed from some seriously retrograde genetic material. They were in the Humvee, in the desert outside Mathilda, getting used to training maneuvers that involved a lot more driving than actual recon. Despite this, Ray's hands spent nearly as much time gesticulating as they did on the wheel. "If our officers were actually intelligent, we'd just get complacent and fuck everything up. So command sends us Captain Fucknuts, to make sure we question every single order, and stay all pissy - ready to make war, not love."
As Ray's theories went, Brad had heard stranger - though he knew better by now than to say anything that Ray might interpret as encouragement.
"The LT seems okay though," Ray continued. "You know, in a totally homo, picking-up-soap-in-the-showers-at-prep-school kind of a way."
"The LT's a faggot?" Trombley asked.
"Fuck, no," Ray said. "Well, maybe he is, but I reckon he just grew those cocksucking lips to piss Brad off."
The small part of Brad's brain that had first noticed the LT's mouth snapped to attention at this statement, and contemplated ordering some kind of precision aerial strike on Ray - but since that part of Brad's brain was most likely just an aberration, at best statistical noise, Brad chose to ignore it.
Ignore it, and say, "Well Ray, if there's an expert on cocksucking in Bravo Company, then that would be you."
"Dude! I am a fucking expert at having my cocked sucked! My girlfriend-"
"-Please," Brad interrupted, "spare us your sordid tales of Susie Rottencrotch and your multifarious, antibiotic-resistant social diseases."
Ray had taken that opportunity to belt out a couple lines of Love Is Contagious, and evidently the subject was closed.
There was no subject, of course. It wasn't as though the LT was an actual topic. Nothing to see here, Marine. Move along.
//
"So check this out," Ray says, not long after they pass a sign that says Nasiriyah 35km. "Everyone always talks about 'the recon community', like we're one big happy family and have fucking barbecues together all the time and shit."
"We do have barbecues," Brad corrects. "You spilled sauce on my goddamn shirt."
Brad doesn't have a favorite shirt, because what kind of gay-ass Marine assigns a command structure to his clothing, for Christ's sake. But if he did have a favorite, it would have been the one Ray spilled - no, threw - sauce on at Poke's barbecue, rich red sauce that left a completely fucking immovable orange stain that wouldn't shift no matter how many times Brad laundered it.
(No, Brad is not drafting his mother on this one. He is not enabling that woman's caregiver fantasies any further, thank you very much.)
"Anyway," Ray says, ignoring him, "I was thinking - if you replace the word 'recon' with the word 'gay', nobody would believe we didn't all live in San Francisco together in a huge, pink, Big Gay Al house."
Brad wants Ray to keep talking - not because he has any particular interest in what Ray has to say, but because Ray's babbling keeps him awake and just the right side of cranky in a way that Brad's calculated as being more or less optimal for combat-readiness.
(Not that Brad gets cranky; he prefers to think of it as 'alert'.)
So he just lets Ray rabbit on about god knows what, lets it slide until Ray's halfway into some lame-ass tune about a pink hotel.
"That's enough, Ray."
"It's not even country," Ray protests. "I mean, it's not western either, unless you wanna play the California card. Shit, homes, this chick probably designed the California card. I bet she fucking knitted it while smoking a joint the size of the Golden Gate fucking bridge."
Brad gives Ray a look that, if there were any justice in the world, would be permanently embossed on Ray's forehead by now.
"Dude, it's fucking Joni Mitchell."
"Tell me," Brad says, glassing a berm some two hundred meters away, "why you think your friend Joni, from whatever special education class the state requires that you both attend, qualifies as an exception?"
"Fuck it, man, I don't know," Ray shrugs. "Live a little."
Brad turns his head towards Ray. "I am alive. You, on the other hand, are driving this piece-of-shit Humvee in a manner entirely consistent with a Marine who's been dead for half an hour. Watch the goddamn road."
"All right, fuck," Ray says, smacking the heel of his hand on the wheel. "I was only trying to cheer you up, dude."
"I'm quite cheerful," Brad says, favoring Ray with a shit-eating grin.
"Whatever, homes," Ray says, in that way he has of saying-without-saying.
(And isn't that exactly what Brad needs, yet another goddamn mother.)
Brad gives Ray the look he spares for special idiot children. "Were you actually born retarded, or did your illiterate, under-age mother drop you repeatedly on your head as a child?"
"Nah, my mom was cool," Ray says. "This one time, she let me cut school so we could drive over to Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum in Branson. That was fuckin' awesome."
"Cut to the present day, and here you are, years later, driving a tin-plated Humvee, taking orders from cretins, and fucking underage wildlife in the ass." Brad shakes his head. "Truly a touching human story."
"Fuck, man, that antelope totally told me she was eighteen! Wait ... if she lied about that, what else might she have lied about? Shit, homes, maybe she's not even an antelope! Maybe she's a fucking gazelle!"
Brad sighs. "Ray, you watch too much Discovery Channel."
Ray leans back, talking over his shoulder. "See, Brad's parents never let him watch anything on TV except 60 Minutes."
"Damn, Sergeant," says Trombley. "That must've really sucked."
"We watched television," Brad objects.
"Yeah, shows for middle-aged, liberal dick-sucks," Ray says scornfully. "Name one MTV presenter, I fuckin' dare you."
"MTV is gay-ass television for pathetic, wrist-slashing rock-band wannabes who fantasize about being famous as though it were a career choice, and frat boys who suck dick on spring break," Brad says.
"Ah, but he does not deny the hotness of Shakira," Ray notes.
"I do not deny the hotness of Shakira," Brad concedes. "But growing up watching that shit twenty-four seven damages your brain-" he smiles at Ray, "- so it's too bad your crack-whore, whisky-tango mother didn't know any better, or you might actually have been a functioning member of society."
"Yeah, well, at least my mom never gave me away," Ray says, and then quickly finds something interesting to look at on the other side of the Humvee.
(This is what Brad means by Ray not having a filter. Brad actually finds it quite amusing, but that's not something he feels like sharing with anyone - especially Ray.)
He considers for a moment whether Ray's comment deserves retribution of some kind, or whether that's exactly what Ray is expecting (or even hoping for, the twisted little fucker). But this time, Brad just shoulders his M4 again, eye to the scope, and says, "No more Joni Mitchell, Ray."
"My mom was cool too," Garza offers, from up in the turret. "She taught me to read."
The radio buzzes. "Hitman Two One, this is Hitman Two, take the left turn in approximately one hundred meters, how copy?"
"Roger that, Hitman Two," Brad acknowledges. "They don't teach basic literacy in Mexican school, Garza?"
"Nah, man, it wasn't like that. My mom's smarter'n me - she started trying to teach me to read when I was about five years old. I didn't even go to school 'til I was seven."
"How come, homes?" Ray asks.
"I dunno," Garza says, his voice just audible between crunches as Ray cuts the turn and the Humvee drives over something hard and gravelly. "I guess I was just too scared to go, you know?"
Ray nods. "That's cool, yo. I didn't learn jack in grade school. Fuck, I had to wait 'til junior high to see a woman with tits who wasn't either related to me or older than my grandma."
"You were scared to go to school?" Trombley asks Garza.
"Yeah, man," Garza says. "I was this scrawny little kid, and I was scared the other kids were going to mess me up."
"You could fuck 'em up now, though," Trombley says. He aims the SAW out of the window. "Bam."
Brad and Ray exchange looks while Trombley sits behind them in serene, oblivious belligerence.
Ray shakes his head and gets on the radio. "Two One Bravo, this is Two One Alpha. Did anyone enjoy elementary school?"
"Hell, no" comes Poke's voice. "It was like a six-year indoctrination into the white man's version of history. Learn about this white motherfucker. Learn about that white motherfucker. I was fifteen years old before I figured out that the only reason we learned about Martin Luther King in elementary school was that the state said we had to cover the 1960s, and all y'all white motherfuckers were so stoned back then that you couldn't get shit done. Fuck elementary school, dawg - I grew up thinking my people didn't have a history."
"You heard the man," Ray says. "Elementary school sucks the devil's asshole."
Brad permits himself a minute shake of the head, because it's entirely possible that Bravo Two's quotient of fuckups and the terminally dysfunctional actually exceeds Marine Corps specifications.
(Unlike his sister and her retarded insistence on seeing a therapist, Brad has no time for all that psychoanalytic, navel-gazing bullshit. Brad's perfectly in touch with his needs: a bike, a surfboard, a PCB and a soldering iron, good pussy once in a while, and plenty of room to breathe.)
Ray, though, apparently interprets Brad's gesture as a commentary on the nation's schooling. "Brad! Buddy! Have you been holding out on us? Admit it, dude, you fucking loved elementary school. I bet you were, like, totally the teacher's pet."
As it happens, Brad did enjoy elementary school. He had a big crush on Miss Kaplinsky, his second- and third-grade teacher. He was almost always top of his class. It was in elementary school that Brad had his first proper kiss, aged ten, with Sally McNamara. With tongues. Damn it, Brad loved elementary school.
(Except Music. That was seriously gay. Learning to play the recorder is not, as far as Brad has able to discern, a meaningful life skill.)
But Brad doesn't talk about these things, not least because getting dewy-eyed over some goddamn pre-pubescent smooching from eighteen years ago is really fucking gay.
He's saved from having to answer when the radio buzzes again. "All Hitman Two Victors, pull over after the intersection and align off Two One Alpha."
"Copy that, Hitman Two." They roll across the intersection, and Brad gestures to their left. "Person, park it there."
"Roger that, Sergeant." Ray pulls the Humvee around in a half-circle. "Hey Brad, were any of your teachers hotties? Or, like, where you know she's totally diggin' you, even though you've barely hit puberty?"
Brad tunes Ray out, and climbs out of the Humvee to assess their surroundings. The desert is an endless vista of bleached scrub and sand under acres of cloudless sky, and there's a small low-lying settlement on the horizon to the north.
Then Brad sees the old man's body, crumpled like carelessly-folded clothes into the ditch that runs along beside the road.
Ray sees it too; Brad can tell from Ray's lopsided squint, the too-long pause before he starts talking trash about some TV show Brad has no interest in.
He recognizes that this is, on some level, entirely, retardedly fucked up. That they're eating Skittles and bitching about MTV while someone's grandfather is lying dead in a ditch ten meters away.
It's just plain uncivilized.
Brad sees Trombley gawking at the body. A small part of him wonders if that's the reaction he's supposed to have. But Brad's a Recon Marine. His role is merely to observe.
"Trombley, come and read the map," he says, sharply.
"Okay, Sergeant." Trombley walks around the Humvee with one last long glance towards the ditch.
Brad's not protecting Trombley - Marines don't need coddling. And it's not that Brad doesn't care about the old man. But it's just smarter not to surrender to all that emotional involvement bullshit. There's really nothing they can do for the old man now, except clean up this fucking country so people can go back to herding their goddamn goats or doing whatever passes for a living here. Action's the only possible recourse; caring too much weakens your protective posture and compromises combat effectiveness.
Brad's seen that shit wear out perfectly good Marines.
//
Afghanistan was good. In Afghanistan, command just sat back and let Bravo do its goddamn job.
Here, though, command appears to have been lobotomized. Brad's not pissed off enough yet to confront Encino Man - but fuck, Bravo Company's commander is seriously retarded. Brad would have more confidence in bootfuck Trombley to do the job.
(Not that Brad's means to insult Trombley; Brad thinks Trombley will probably make a decent Marine one day. That cold-eyed attitude that freaks Ray out will most likely prove invaluable in combat -Trombley's got some genuine potential, if he can just start exhibiting some goddamn humanity. Brad really, really hopes there's actually some in there to begin with.)
Brad does briefly consider making a stand against their shit-for-brains company commander, but a small shake of the LT's head tells him this isn't the time. Fine - if Schwetje wants to pin this one crappy little mistake on him, Brad will just suck it up.
He won't forget, though; Brad doesn't forget things. But he'll square it away, because you can't be expected to prosecute a fucking war while resenting the fuck out of your CO.
Any more than you can go to war while thinking inappropriate thoughts about your platoon commander.
So Brad doesn't do that.
At all.
//
Al Gharraf isn't exciting, exactly (exciting's not really a word Brad likes to use, mostly because it makes him sound like a goddamn reservist POG), but it does break up the monotony of driving through tiny villages in the middle of ass-backwards nowhere.
They careen away from the town, dust kicking up behind the vehicle and a sudden explosion of chatter on comms. Person doesn't even slow the vehicle below fifty until they're three klicks out and the general mood of hysteria in the Humvee is beginning to abate.
(Brad feels the same way about the word 'hysteria' as he does about 'excited'. But from time to time, it's good to experience things that remind you you're alive.)
(Brad misses his bike.)
He checks them all, makes sure everybody's okay. Rolling Stone's expression is amusingly post-coital.
Ray sneaks a look back, his foot still pressing hard on the gas. "How's it feel, Reporter? The first time I got shot at, I was high as a fucking kite for, like, two days afterwards."
"Weren't you already high anyway?" Brad asks.
"Yeah, but my point is, it was really fucking intense. That's why there's so much war poetry, homes - next to pussy, it's the most intense fucking experience there is." Ray pauses to spit tobacco juice out of the window. "I mean, take War Scribe here - we just came as close to death as most civilians ever get, but does he look like someone who just shit his pants? No way, homes. Dude looks like he just got blown by a whole fucking battalion of Playboy bunnies. Death and pussy, man - all that circle of life bullshit, it's all part of the same thing."
"Hey, maybe next time we could ask those bunnies to, uh, form an orderly line," Reporter says, weakly.
Ray laughs. "Dude, we just bust Rolling Stone's war cherry! We gotta celebrate." He leans back and passes Reporter the dip.
"We fuckin' showed 'em," Trombley says.
Walt says, "Yeah, no thanks to this piece-of-shit Mark-19," but even over the rumble of tires on sand and asphalt, Brad can tell from Walt's voice that he's wearing the same glazed, fucked-out expression as everyone else.
When they pull into camp, Alpha and Bravo Three are already setting up. Ray guides the Humvee into a space beside Kocher's victor, and everyone gets out.
The mood in camp is buoyant, almost giddy: voices a little too loud and aggressive, the physical swagger that's been diminishing in small ways since they went over the LOD now firmly back in every Marine's stride.
Brad's not really into the whole after-action bravado thing, but he allows Eric to pat him on the back, and grins dutifully in all the right places while Rudy tells him, again, about Manimal's wall of fire.
"You okay, homes?" Ray asks him as they roll down the Humvee's cammie nets. The sun's going down, and Brad can feel his body slowing down a little after the day's events. He's tired, of course, but they all are. You have to learn to manage the ebb and flow of combat and respite; it's just basic physical discipline.
"I'm fine," Brad says, which is true in all the ways that matter.
Ray shrugs. "I dunno, man, you just seem a little off." He squints at Brad. "I got baby wipes, homes ..."
"I'm fine," Brad repeats, because whatever's wrong with him, jacking off seems unlikely to fix it. "You should get some sleep."
"Yeah, in a minute," Ray says. "I gotta take a piss. And I need some more Ripped Fuel."
Brad blinks. "How the fuck are you supposed to sleep after that?"
"Fuck if I know," Ray shrugs. "It totally helps, though. It's like fucking Xanax or some shit."
"You are a dirty little junkie," Brad says, shaking his head.
"Dude, I can't help it if you're too tight to buy your Ray-Ray the good shit," Ray says, and takes off toward the bushes.
Fick's been off in a huddle with Gunny since they made camp, but now he lopes over towards Team One's Humvees.
Not that Brad's been watching him.
"Team all okay, Brad?"
"All fine, sir."
"Good. We're on twenty-five per cent watch tonight, so get some shut-eye. Might not have a lot of time for that farther up the road."
"Roger that, LT." But Brad's tiredness has shifted now, burned through into a kind of relaxed alertness. It's not entirely unpleasant.
"Quite a day," Fick observes, as they watch Marines, still high from combat, high-fiving each other in the evening light.
"If you say so, sir,"
Fick tilts his head to look sideways at Brad. "You don't think so?"
Brad shrugs. "We got fucking lit up today, I can't deny that. But I don't need to talk about my feelings, sir, if that's what you're suggesting."
Fick says nothing for a minute, just carries on looking sidelong at Brad, his expression unreadable. Brad doesn't know if the LT is amused, or unimpressed, or merely weighing him up - training keeps him motionless and expressionless, waiting to act on whatever comes down from above.
"You know, Brad," Fick says after a moment, "Gunnery Sergeant Griego is a fully certified combat stress instructor ..."
"Gunnery Sergeant Griego can kiss my goddamn ass, sir," Brad says, with possibly a little too much heat.
Fick does grin then, the cocky bastard.
"Fuck you, sir." It's daring, but Brad's never been a pussy about taking risks.
Fick's mouth twitches and he claps Brad on the shoulder. "Glad today's combat isn't affecting your emotions, Brad."
"Sir, what exactly does the strategic plan say about goading your men?"
The LT's grin is brief but brilliant. "I have it from Godfather that this information is strictly need-to-know." Then his expression turns serious again. "Saddam's fighters have shown us they have no compunctions about blending in with the local populace. We need to limit the enemy's opportunity to create that situation - but we have to be prepared for the possibility of civilian casualties, so keep an eye on your team. I don't want undisciplined shooting in my platoon, Brad. I'm counting on your team to set an example."
"Roger that, sir."
"And Brad?"
"LT?"
"Get some fucking sleep." Fick's tone is light, but Brad knows an order when he hears one.
//
Fuck, he shouldn't have given Trombley the order to shoot.
(Part of Brad is thinking How the fuck did the little psycho manage to hit two kids at that range? How can Trombley not have noticed they were children? But another, much louder part of Brad's mind knows that he's responsible for everything that happens in and around his Humvee. That this is not, in any real sense, Trombley's fault.)
This boy is bleeding from his abdomen and there's not a damn thing Brad can do about it, except stand around while Doc Bryan reassures two scared Iraqi women that the children are strong, that they will be okay.
The kids don't look okay. Especially the one with holes in his chest.
Brad's emotions mount an unexpected push over the top. He chokes them back, swallows them down like a peanut butter MRE and no water. They sit in a lump in his throat and Brad fights them with everything he has, because he is a Recon Marine, and Recon Marines do not fucking cry.
He lingers, trying to do something, anything, until Doc snaps, "Stay out of the damn way, Colbert," and Brad retreats to hover, helpless, at the fringes. Useless.
(Brad hates feeling useless. It's just not something he's had a lot of practice with.)
He cries one tear. One fucking tear. That's it; that's all this shitty, flea-infested sandpit of a war is getting out of Sergeant Brad Colbert. His emotions can stand the fuck down.
//
Night finds Brad out past the edges of the airfield. He can hear the distant rumble of ordnance being dropped, patches of daylight flaring against the night sky.
He's held it in all day, but Brad's a fucking mess. Being emotional will soften the whole team's posture - this is unacceptable. He needs to square this shit away. Brad breathes in deeply; thinks about the ocean.
He becomes aware of a figure behind him. The faint tread of boots on grass and sand.
"Sir," Brad says dutifully, because he honestly has nothing to say to anyone just now, not even the LT.
"Bad day," Fick says carefully.
"Sir, that Iraqi family is having a bad day. I'm fine."
"Not that I doubt you, Brad, but indulge me for wanting to assess that for myself."
"Well sir, here I am." Brad turns to face the LT, arms spread wide. "One U.S. Marine Sergeant, present and correct."
Fick's expression is half-hidden in the darkness. "I have no doubt you're correct, Sergeant, but present?"
"Semper fi, sir." It's suddenly hard to keep his voice from catching, and fuck, if there's one thing Brad doesn't need right now it's a goddamn native uprising. For the second time today, he polices his emotions, pursues the little fuckers with extreme prejudice.
This time, at least, his eyes stay dry, so maybe feelings are still Brad's bitch after all.
"Brad," and the LT's voice actually sounds kind, for fuck's sake. Brad won't risk looking; doesn't need to see pity when he can already fucking hear it.
"I'm fine, sir," he repeats, but the words come out with an edge he didn't intend, and Brad realizes with a sort of grim hopelessness that Fick's not going to miss that. Fick doesn't miss things; it's one of several reasons Brad respects the LT's command.
"So I see," Fick says, dryly. "It's okay, Brad. We train for this, but it's never like the real thing."
Brad closes his eyes for just moment. Debates with himself the dubious merits of tearing into his platoon commander for trying to teach a Recon Marine how to suck eggs, when he knows Fick's just trying to be a goddamn human being. "Sir, do you ... "
"Do I wish we'd done things differently today? Absolutely. But we can't go back, Brad. There's nothing we can do right now to fix this."
"That's a conveniently tidy summary, sir," Brad says.
Fick's head is tilted to one side, his face sympathetic. "You know, Brad, I understand if you're angry with me right now. I do care more about my Marines than I do about that family today. I have to. Can't be a good platoon commander if I'm still worrying about what happened earlier today, or yesterday. Got to move forward."
"I understand." And intellectually, he does; in the LT's boots, Brad knows he'd look to his men first.
Unfortunately, Brad's intellect is currently in danger of being overrun.
"Being upset is okay," Fick says. "It's important we don't lose our humanity out here."
Brad dredges up, from somewhere, the corpse of a smile. "I don't think there's much danger of that, sir."
"You'd be surprised," Fick tells him, with a rueful expression. He holds Brad's gaze for a long moment; evidently the LT doesn't feel the need to blink very often.
"Sir?"
Fick's expression slides into something more resolute, easier to read. "We will do better, Brad. I can assure you of this."
"Sir, it's not your assurances I'm questioning. It's-"
"-Don't worry about it." Fick rests a hand on Brad's shoulder. "Take as much time as you need. Got to have my team leader in working order."
Brad's still not sure how he came to be broken.
//
He's been in his grave for nearly two hours when Walt comes over the berm yelling that they're being overrun by T-72s. Brad doesn't think he was sleeping; he doesn't know where he was. His brain feels like a rock.
They bomb the shit out of nothing. You really couldn't wish for a better metaphor.
//
Part 2/2
By: indyhat
Prompt: Ceasefire
Rating: R/NC-17? Use your judgement; I think it's on the cusp.
Warnings: As per the show, really. Although Ray almost merits a warning of his own.
Disclaimer: Based solely on the characters depicted in the HBO miniseries.
Summary: Brad and his emotions have an understanding: he doesn't talk about, or think about, anything that might affect his combat effectiveness, and his emotions do whatever the fuck he tells them to. 11,000 words.
A/N: I am indebted to oxoniensis for her awesome beta and ninja cheerleading skills, and everyone at After Action Report for the transcripts. All wrongness that remains is mine.
Brad and his emotions have an understanding: he doesn't talk about, or think about, anything that might affect his combat effectiveness, and his emotions do whatever the fuck he tells them to.
It's a perfectly reasonable arrangement.
Look at Person, for Christ's sake. Ray's a good Marine, and - Brad would never feed Ray's already-bloated ego by saying so - a goddamn genius RTO, but he simply has no filter between his brain and his mouth. Most days, Ray is just a high-school P.A. system for his subconscious, a conduit for the volcano of anally-expulsive lava that passes for rational thought in Ray's facile cesspit of a mind.
(Brad's own toilet-training was achieved painlessly and virtually overnight at the precocious age of seventeen months, thank you for asking.)
You need to keep that shit in check with a suitable show of force.
So back at Pendleton, when Brad's interest had briefly awakened by their new, barely-popped-his-cherry Lieutenant, Brad had squared that away immediately. Nothing good ever came of paying more attention to the cocksucking mouth of one's superior officer than to the words coming out of said cocksucking mouth. It hadn't been much of a struggle; Brad's emotions rolled over like the obedient little bitches they were, and Brad nodded and saluted and said, "Welcome to Bravo Company, sir".
"Thank you, Sergeant." Lieutenant Fick smiled, and if there was an extra twinkle in his eyes, Brad didn't see it - because if he didn't see it, it couldn't possibly have existed, and Brad always saw everything.
Clean and uncomplicated, just how Brad liked things.
//
By the time they left Oceanside, Brad was satisfied that their new platoon commander had a functioning brain, which was more than could be said for most of the battalion's officers. Brad had never fully understood the point of having the best-trained recon operators in the world if they weren't also supported by the smartest officers.
"They gotta keep us sharp, homes," Ray said, when Brad opined that half of command was constructed from some seriously retrograde genetic material. They were in the Humvee, in the desert outside Mathilda, getting used to training maneuvers that involved a lot more driving than actual recon. Despite this, Ray's hands spent nearly as much time gesticulating as they did on the wheel. "If our officers were actually intelligent, we'd just get complacent and fuck everything up. So command sends us Captain Fucknuts, to make sure we question every single order, and stay all pissy - ready to make war, not love."
As Ray's theories went, Brad had heard stranger - though he knew better by now than to say anything that Ray might interpret as encouragement.
"The LT seems okay though," Ray continued. "You know, in a totally homo, picking-up-soap-in-the-showers-at-prep-school kind of a way."
"The LT's a faggot?" Trombley asked.
"Fuck, no," Ray said. "Well, maybe he is, but I reckon he just grew those cocksucking lips to piss Brad off."
The small part of Brad's brain that had first noticed the LT's mouth snapped to attention at this statement, and contemplated ordering some kind of precision aerial strike on Ray - but since that part of Brad's brain was most likely just an aberration, at best statistical noise, Brad chose to ignore it.
Ignore it, and say, "Well Ray, if there's an expert on cocksucking in Bravo Company, then that would be you."
"Dude! I am a fucking expert at having my cocked sucked! My girlfriend-"
"-Please," Brad interrupted, "spare us your sordid tales of Susie Rottencrotch and your multifarious, antibiotic-resistant social diseases."
Ray had taken that opportunity to belt out a couple lines of Love Is Contagious, and evidently the subject was closed.
There was no subject, of course. It wasn't as though the LT was an actual topic. Nothing to see here, Marine. Move along.
//
"So check this out," Ray says, not long after they pass a sign that says Nasiriyah 35km. "Everyone always talks about 'the recon community', like we're one big happy family and have fucking barbecues together all the time and shit."
"We do have barbecues," Brad corrects. "You spilled sauce on my goddamn shirt."
Brad doesn't have a favorite shirt, because what kind of gay-ass Marine assigns a command structure to his clothing, for Christ's sake. But if he did have a favorite, it would have been the one Ray spilled - no, threw - sauce on at Poke's barbecue, rich red sauce that left a completely fucking immovable orange stain that wouldn't shift no matter how many times Brad laundered it.
(No, Brad is not drafting his mother on this one. He is not enabling that woman's caregiver fantasies any further, thank you very much.)
"Anyway," Ray says, ignoring him, "I was thinking - if you replace the word 'recon' with the word 'gay', nobody would believe we didn't all live in San Francisco together in a huge, pink, Big Gay Al house."
Brad wants Ray to keep talking - not because he has any particular interest in what Ray has to say, but because Ray's babbling keeps him awake and just the right side of cranky in a way that Brad's calculated as being more or less optimal for combat-readiness.
(Not that Brad gets cranky; he prefers to think of it as 'alert'.)
So he just lets Ray rabbit on about god knows what, lets it slide until Ray's halfway into some lame-ass tune about a pink hotel.
"That's enough, Ray."
"It's not even country," Ray protests. "I mean, it's not western either, unless you wanna play the California card. Shit, homes, this chick probably designed the California card. I bet she fucking knitted it while smoking a joint the size of the Golden Gate fucking bridge."
Brad gives Ray a look that, if there were any justice in the world, would be permanently embossed on Ray's forehead by now.
"Dude, it's fucking Joni Mitchell."
"Tell me," Brad says, glassing a berm some two hundred meters away, "why you think your friend Joni, from whatever special education class the state requires that you both attend, qualifies as an exception?"
"Fuck it, man, I don't know," Ray shrugs. "Live a little."
Brad turns his head towards Ray. "I am alive. You, on the other hand, are driving this piece-of-shit Humvee in a manner entirely consistent with a Marine who's been dead for half an hour. Watch the goddamn road."
"All right, fuck," Ray says, smacking the heel of his hand on the wheel. "I was only trying to cheer you up, dude."
"I'm quite cheerful," Brad says, favoring Ray with a shit-eating grin.
"Whatever, homes," Ray says, in that way he has of saying-without-saying.
(And isn't that exactly what Brad needs, yet another goddamn mother.)
Brad gives Ray the look he spares for special idiot children. "Were you actually born retarded, or did your illiterate, under-age mother drop you repeatedly on your head as a child?"
"Nah, my mom was cool," Ray says. "This one time, she let me cut school so we could drive over to Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum in Branson. That was fuckin' awesome."
"Cut to the present day, and here you are, years later, driving a tin-plated Humvee, taking orders from cretins, and fucking underage wildlife in the ass." Brad shakes his head. "Truly a touching human story."
"Fuck, man, that antelope totally told me she was eighteen! Wait ... if she lied about that, what else might she have lied about? Shit, homes, maybe she's not even an antelope! Maybe she's a fucking gazelle!"
Brad sighs. "Ray, you watch too much Discovery Channel."
Ray leans back, talking over his shoulder. "See, Brad's parents never let him watch anything on TV except 60 Minutes."
"Damn, Sergeant," says Trombley. "That must've really sucked."
"We watched television," Brad objects.
"Yeah, shows for middle-aged, liberal dick-sucks," Ray says scornfully. "Name one MTV presenter, I fuckin' dare you."
"MTV is gay-ass television for pathetic, wrist-slashing rock-band wannabes who fantasize about being famous as though it were a career choice, and frat boys who suck dick on spring break," Brad says.
"Ah, but he does not deny the hotness of Shakira," Ray notes.
"I do not deny the hotness of Shakira," Brad concedes. "But growing up watching that shit twenty-four seven damages your brain-" he smiles at Ray, "- so it's too bad your crack-whore, whisky-tango mother didn't know any better, or you might actually have been a functioning member of society."
"Yeah, well, at least my mom never gave me away," Ray says, and then quickly finds something interesting to look at on the other side of the Humvee.
(This is what Brad means by Ray not having a filter. Brad actually finds it quite amusing, but that's not something he feels like sharing with anyone - especially Ray.)
He considers for a moment whether Ray's comment deserves retribution of some kind, or whether that's exactly what Ray is expecting (or even hoping for, the twisted little fucker). But this time, Brad just shoulders his M4 again, eye to the scope, and says, "No more Joni Mitchell, Ray."
"My mom was cool too," Garza offers, from up in the turret. "She taught me to read."
The radio buzzes. "Hitman Two One, this is Hitman Two, take the left turn in approximately one hundred meters, how copy?"
"Roger that, Hitman Two," Brad acknowledges. "They don't teach basic literacy in Mexican school, Garza?"
"Nah, man, it wasn't like that. My mom's smarter'n me - she started trying to teach me to read when I was about five years old. I didn't even go to school 'til I was seven."
"How come, homes?" Ray asks.
"I dunno," Garza says, his voice just audible between crunches as Ray cuts the turn and the Humvee drives over something hard and gravelly. "I guess I was just too scared to go, you know?"
Ray nods. "That's cool, yo. I didn't learn jack in grade school. Fuck, I had to wait 'til junior high to see a woman with tits who wasn't either related to me or older than my grandma."
"You were scared to go to school?" Trombley asks Garza.
"Yeah, man," Garza says. "I was this scrawny little kid, and I was scared the other kids were going to mess me up."
"You could fuck 'em up now, though," Trombley says. He aims the SAW out of the window. "Bam."
Brad and Ray exchange looks while Trombley sits behind them in serene, oblivious belligerence.
Ray shakes his head and gets on the radio. "Two One Bravo, this is Two One Alpha. Did anyone enjoy elementary school?"
"Hell, no" comes Poke's voice. "It was like a six-year indoctrination into the white man's version of history. Learn about this white motherfucker. Learn about that white motherfucker. I was fifteen years old before I figured out that the only reason we learned about Martin Luther King in elementary school was that the state said we had to cover the 1960s, and all y'all white motherfuckers were so stoned back then that you couldn't get shit done. Fuck elementary school, dawg - I grew up thinking my people didn't have a history."
"You heard the man," Ray says. "Elementary school sucks the devil's asshole."
Brad permits himself a minute shake of the head, because it's entirely possible that Bravo Two's quotient of fuckups and the terminally dysfunctional actually exceeds Marine Corps specifications.
(Unlike his sister and her retarded insistence on seeing a therapist, Brad has no time for all that psychoanalytic, navel-gazing bullshit. Brad's perfectly in touch with his needs: a bike, a surfboard, a PCB and a soldering iron, good pussy once in a while, and plenty of room to breathe.)
Ray, though, apparently interprets Brad's gesture as a commentary on the nation's schooling. "Brad! Buddy! Have you been holding out on us? Admit it, dude, you fucking loved elementary school. I bet you were, like, totally the teacher's pet."
As it happens, Brad did enjoy elementary school. He had a big crush on Miss Kaplinsky, his second- and third-grade teacher. He was almost always top of his class. It was in elementary school that Brad had his first proper kiss, aged ten, with Sally McNamara. With tongues. Damn it, Brad loved elementary school.
(Except Music. That was seriously gay. Learning to play the recorder is not, as far as Brad has able to discern, a meaningful life skill.)
But Brad doesn't talk about these things, not least because getting dewy-eyed over some goddamn pre-pubescent smooching from eighteen years ago is really fucking gay.
He's saved from having to answer when the radio buzzes again. "All Hitman Two Victors, pull over after the intersection and align off Two One Alpha."
"Copy that, Hitman Two." They roll across the intersection, and Brad gestures to their left. "Person, park it there."
"Roger that, Sergeant." Ray pulls the Humvee around in a half-circle. "Hey Brad, were any of your teachers hotties? Or, like, where you know she's totally diggin' you, even though you've barely hit puberty?"
Brad tunes Ray out, and climbs out of the Humvee to assess their surroundings. The desert is an endless vista of bleached scrub and sand under acres of cloudless sky, and there's a small low-lying settlement on the horizon to the north.
Then Brad sees the old man's body, crumpled like carelessly-folded clothes into the ditch that runs along beside the road.
Ray sees it too; Brad can tell from Ray's lopsided squint, the too-long pause before he starts talking trash about some TV show Brad has no interest in.
He recognizes that this is, on some level, entirely, retardedly fucked up. That they're eating Skittles and bitching about MTV while someone's grandfather is lying dead in a ditch ten meters away.
It's just plain uncivilized.
Brad sees Trombley gawking at the body. A small part of him wonders if that's the reaction he's supposed to have. But Brad's a Recon Marine. His role is merely to observe.
"Trombley, come and read the map," he says, sharply.
"Okay, Sergeant." Trombley walks around the Humvee with one last long glance towards the ditch.
Brad's not protecting Trombley - Marines don't need coddling. And it's not that Brad doesn't care about the old man. But it's just smarter not to surrender to all that emotional involvement bullshit. There's really nothing they can do for the old man now, except clean up this fucking country so people can go back to herding their goddamn goats or doing whatever passes for a living here. Action's the only possible recourse; caring too much weakens your protective posture and compromises combat effectiveness.
Brad's seen that shit wear out perfectly good Marines.
//
Afghanistan was good. In Afghanistan, command just sat back and let Bravo do its goddamn job.
Here, though, command appears to have been lobotomized. Brad's not pissed off enough yet to confront Encino Man - but fuck, Bravo Company's commander is seriously retarded. Brad would have more confidence in bootfuck Trombley to do the job.
(Not that Brad's means to insult Trombley; Brad thinks Trombley will probably make a decent Marine one day. That cold-eyed attitude that freaks Ray out will most likely prove invaluable in combat -Trombley's got some genuine potential, if he can just start exhibiting some goddamn humanity. Brad really, really hopes there's actually some in there to begin with.)
Brad does briefly consider making a stand against their shit-for-brains company commander, but a small shake of the LT's head tells him this isn't the time. Fine - if Schwetje wants to pin this one crappy little mistake on him, Brad will just suck it up.
He won't forget, though; Brad doesn't forget things. But he'll square it away, because you can't be expected to prosecute a fucking war while resenting the fuck out of your CO.
Any more than you can go to war while thinking inappropriate thoughts about your platoon commander.
So Brad doesn't do that.
At all.
//
Al Gharraf isn't exciting, exactly (exciting's not really a word Brad likes to use, mostly because it makes him sound like a goddamn reservist POG), but it does break up the monotony of driving through tiny villages in the middle of ass-backwards nowhere.
They careen away from the town, dust kicking up behind the vehicle and a sudden explosion of chatter on comms. Person doesn't even slow the vehicle below fifty until they're three klicks out and the general mood of hysteria in the Humvee is beginning to abate.
(Brad feels the same way about the word 'hysteria' as he does about 'excited'. But from time to time, it's good to experience things that remind you you're alive.)
(Brad misses his bike.)
He checks them all, makes sure everybody's okay. Rolling Stone's expression is amusingly post-coital.
Ray sneaks a look back, his foot still pressing hard on the gas. "How's it feel, Reporter? The first time I got shot at, I was high as a fucking kite for, like, two days afterwards."
"Weren't you already high anyway?" Brad asks.
"Yeah, but my point is, it was really fucking intense. That's why there's so much war poetry, homes - next to pussy, it's the most intense fucking experience there is." Ray pauses to spit tobacco juice out of the window. "I mean, take War Scribe here - we just came as close to death as most civilians ever get, but does he look like someone who just shit his pants? No way, homes. Dude looks like he just got blown by a whole fucking battalion of Playboy bunnies. Death and pussy, man - all that circle of life bullshit, it's all part of the same thing."
"Hey, maybe next time we could ask those bunnies to, uh, form an orderly line," Reporter says, weakly.
Ray laughs. "Dude, we just bust Rolling Stone's war cherry! We gotta celebrate." He leans back and passes Reporter the dip.
"We fuckin' showed 'em," Trombley says.
Walt says, "Yeah, no thanks to this piece-of-shit Mark-19," but even over the rumble of tires on sand and asphalt, Brad can tell from Walt's voice that he's wearing the same glazed, fucked-out expression as everyone else.
When they pull into camp, Alpha and Bravo Three are already setting up. Ray guides the Humvee into a space beside Kocher's victor, and everyone gets out.
The mood in camp is buoyant, almost giddy: voices a little too loud and aggressive, the physical swagger that's been diminishing in small ways since they went over the LOD now firmly back in every Marine's stride.
Brad's not really into the whole after-action bravado thing, but he allows Eric to pat him on the back, and grins dutifully in all the right places while Rudy tells him, again, about Manimal's wall of fire.
"You okay, homes?" Ray asks him as they roll down the Humvee's cammie nets. The sun's going down, and Brad can feel his body slowing down a little after the day's events. He's tired, of course, but they all are. You have to learn to manage the ebb and flow of combat and respite; it's just basic physical discipline.
"I'm fine," Brad says, which is true in all the ways that matter.
Ray shrugs. "I dunno, man, you just seem a little off." He squints at Brad. "I got baby wipes, homes ..."
"I'm fine," Brad repeats, because whatever's wrong with him, jacking off seems unlikely to fix it. "You should get some sleep."
"Yeah, in a minute," Ray says. "I gotta take a piss. And I need some more Ripped Fuel."
Brad blinks. "How the fuck are you supposed to sleep after that?"
"Fuck if I know," Ray shrugs. "It totally helps, though. It's like fucking Xanax or some shit."
"You are a dirty little junkie," Brad says, shaking his head.
"Dude, I can't help it if you're too tight to buy your Ray-Ray the good shit," Ray says, and takes off toward the bushes.
Fick's been off in a huddle with Gunny since they made camp, but now he lopes over towards Team One's Humvees.
Not that Brad's been watching him.
"Team all okay, Brad?"
"All fine, sir."
"Good. We're on twenty-five per cent watch tonight, so get some shut-eye. Might not have a lot of time for that farther up the road."
"Roger that, LT." But Brad's tiredness has shifted now, burned through into a kind of relaxed alertness. It's not entirely unpleasant.
"Quite a day," Fick observes, as they watch Marines, still high from combat, high-fiving each other in the evening light.
"If you say so, sir,"
Fick tilts his head to look sideways at Brad. "You don't think so?"
Brad shrugs. "We got fucking lit up today, I can't deny that. But I don't need to talk about my feelings, sir, if that's what you're suggesting."
Fick says nothing for a minute, just carries on looking sidelong at Brad, his expression unreadable. Brad doesn't know if the LT is amused, or unimpressed, or merely weighing him up - training keeps him motionless and expressionless, waiting to act on whatever comes down from above.
"You know, Brad," Fick says after a moment, "Gunnery Sergeant Griego is a fully certified combat stress instructor ..."
"Gunnery Sergeant Griego can kiss my goddamn ass, sir," Brad says, with possibly a little too much heat.
Fick does grin then, the cocky bastard.
"Fuck you, sir." It's daring, but Brad's never been a pussy about taking risks.
Fick's mouth twitches and he claps Brad on the shoulder. "Glad today's combat isn't affecting your emotions, Brad."
"Sir, what exactly does the strategic plan say about goading your men?"
The LT's grin is brief but brilliant. "I have it from Godfather that this information is strictly need-to-know." Then his expression turns serious again. "Saddam's fighters have shown us they have no compunctions about blending in with the local populace. We need to limit the enemy's opportunity to create that situation - but we have to be prepared for the possibility of civilian casualties, so keep an eye on your team. I don't want undisciplined shooting in my platoon, Brad. I'm counting on your team to set an example."
"Roger that, sir."
"And Brad?"
"LT?"
"Get some fucking sleep." Fick's tone is light, but Brad knows an order when he hears one.
//
Fuck, he shouldn't have given Trombley the order to shoot.
(Part of Brad is thinking How the fuck did the little psycho manage to hit two kids at that range? How can Trombley not have noticed they were children? But another, much louder part of Brad's mind knows that he's responsible for everything that happens in and around his Humvee. That this is not, in any real sense, Trombley's fault.)
This boy is bleeding from his abdomen and there's not a damn thing Brad can do about it, except stand around while Doc Bryan reassures two scared Iraqi women that the children are strong, that they will be okay.
The kids don't look okay. Especially the one with holes in his chest.
Brad's emotions mount an unexpected push over the top. He chokes them back, swallows them down like a peanut butter MRE and no water. They sit in a lump in his throat and Brad fights them with everything he has, because he is a Recon Marine, and Recon Marines do not fucking cry.
He lingers, trying to do something, anything, until Doc snaps, "Stay out of the damn way, Colbert," and Brad retreats to hover, helpless, at the fringes. Useless.
(Brad hates feeling useless. It's just not something he's had a lot of practice with.)
He cries one tear. One fucking tear. That's it; that's all this shitty, flea-infested sandpit of a war is getting out of Sergeant Brad Colbert. His emotions can stand the fuck down.
//
Night finds Brad out past the edges of the airfield. He can hear the distant rumble of ordnance being dropped, patches of daylight flaring against the night sky.
He's held it in all day, but Brad's a fucking mess. Being emotional will soften the whole team's posture - this is unacceptable. He needs to square this shit away. Brad breathes in deeply; thinks about the ocean.
He becomes aware of a figure behind him. The faint tread of boots on grass and sand.
"Sir," Brad says dutifully, because he honestly has nothing to say to anyone just now, not even the LT.
"Bad day," Fick says carefully.
"Sir, that Iraqi family is having a bad day. I'm fine."
"Not that I doubt you, Brad, but indulge me for wanting to assess that for myself."
"Well sir, here I am." Brad turns to face the LT, arms spread wide. "One U.S. Marine Sergeant, present and correct."
Fick's expression is half-hidden in the darkness. "I have no doubt you're correct, Sergeant, but present?"
"Semper fi, sir." It's suddenly hard to keep his voice from catching, and fuck, if there's one thing Brad doesn't need right now it's a goddamn native uprising. For the second time today, he polices his emotions, pursues the little fuckers with extreme prejudice.
This time, at least, his eyes stay dry, so maybe feelings are still Brad's bitch after all.
"Brad," and the LT's voice actually sounds kind, for fuck's sake. Brad won't risk looking; doesn't need to see pity when he can already fucking hear it.
"I'm fine, sir," he repeats, but the words come out with an edge he didn't intend, and Brad realizes with a sort of grim hopelessness that Fick's not going to miss that. Fick doesn't miss things; it's one of several reasons Brad respects the LT's command.
"So I see," Fick says, dryly. "It's okay, Brad. We train for this, but it's never like the real thing."
Brad closes his eyes for just moment. Debates with himself the dubious merits of tearing into his platoon commander for trying to teach a Recon Marine how to suck eggs, when he knows Fick's just trying to be a goddamn human being. "Sir, do you ... "
"Do I wish we'd done things differently today? Absolutely. But we can't go back, Brad. There's nothing we can do right now to fix this."
"That's a conveniently tidy summary, sir," Brad says.
Fick's head is tilted to one side, his face sympathetic. "You know, Brad, I understand if you're angry with me right now. I do care more about my Marines than I do about that family today. I have to. Can't be a good platoon commander if I'm still worrying about what happened earlier today, or yesterday. Got to move forward."
"I understand." And intellectually, he does; in the LT's boots, Brad knows he'd look to his men first.
Unfortunately, Brad's intellect is currently in danger of being overrun.
"Being upset is okay," Fick says. "It's important we don't lose our humanity out here."
Brad dredges up, from somewhere, the corpse of a smile. "I don't think there's much danger of that, sir."
"You'd be surprised," Fick tells him, with a rueful expression. He holds Brad's gaze for a long moment; evidently the LT doesn't feel the need to blink very often.
"Sir?"
Fick's expression slides into something more resolute, easier to read. "We will do better, Brad. I can assure you of this."
"Sir, it's not your assurances I'm questioning. It's-"
"-Don't worry about it." Fick rests a hand on Brad's shoulder. "Take as much time as you need. Got to have my team leader in working order."
Brad's still not sure how he came to be broken.
//
He's been in his grave for nearly two hours when Walt comes over the berm yelling that they're being overrun by T-72s. Brad doesn't think he was sleeping; he doesn't know where he was. His brain feels like a rock.
They bomb the shit out of nothing. You really couldn't wish for a better metaphor.
//
Part 2/2