Generation Kill - (Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt - Brad/Nate, R)
I... really like this piece.
Generation Kill
Brad/Nate
Rated R
Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare
Brad sends one last e-mail before he leaves CTCRM for the train.
From: Brad Colbert
To: Nate Fick
Date: Sun, April 23, 2006 at 11:25 PM (GMT)
Subject: Observation
I fucking hate the rain.
After he hits send he looks up into three expectant faces. "What the fuck are you girls staring at?" he says mildly.
Specialist Greg Johns smirks. "Had to make sure the wife knew you were coming home and wasn't shagging the milkman on the kitchen table when you arrived?"
Brad smirks. "No, I had to make sure your wife knew I was coming. She said she'd never had a real man before. I told her to get ready, because it wasn't anything like fucking your limey ass."
Williams and Browning chuckle over Johns' shoulder.
"She said the same thing when I saw her last week," Browning says thoughtfully.
Brad just dodges Johns' paw-like hand swatting at his head. He grins and looks around his rack. He has everything. It's amazing how two years can fit into one pack. "I'd say I'd miss you-"
"But it'd be a fucking great lie," Williams finishes. "About the same size as your prick, I reckon."
Brad smirks as he slips his laptop into his pack and slings it on his back. "I know all you girls are jealous, but some day your balls might drop and then you can be a man like me."
"I should fucking well hope not," Johns says as he claps Brad on the back. "Who wants to grow up to be a Hebrew Viking Yank that looks like he was bred by the Nazis?"
Brad has to smile as he shakes his head.
"Look out for yourself, yeah?" Johns says, steering Brad towards the door and the Royal Marines transport waiting to take him to the train station at Lympstone.
Brad nods over his shoulder at Walter and David. "I meant what I said about coming out to Oceanside," he says. "The Queen knows you two inbred snaggle-tooth dicksucks could stand quality California Suzie Rottencrotch pussy. I'd say you were too ugly for American girls, but they'll fuck anything with an accent."
"Well, if they fuck you, they can't be that choosey, now can they?" Johns calls from the entryway as Brad walks out the door of the barracks and into England's idea of early summer, i.e. pouring rain.
Brad waves behind him as he climbs into the truck for the drive to the RM train station. From Lympstone he's off to Heathrow and then it's a 12-hour flight back to Oceanside.
He hasn't been home in two years.
It's been a long time.
He checks his email on his laptop at Heathrow.
There are five messages waiting: three are from Ray, one is from his sister. The only one he looks at says this:
From: Nate Fick
To: Brad Colbert
Date: Sun, April 23, 2006 at 5:34 PM (-600 GMT)
Subject: Re: Observation
Nobody made you go to the U.K. There's plenty of rain in Cambridge.
Brad grins at the screen, glancing around at the rumpled, greying civilians waiting with him in the mostly empty departures lounge.
From: Brad Colbert
To: Nate Fick
Date: Mon, April 24, 2006 at 4:05 AM (GMT)
Subject: Re: Observation
So you mean I should've come to Harvard instead. Interesting idea. I'd sooner neuter myself with a rusty KA-BAR and save the tuition to buy a new bike.
A plumy voice comes over the P.A. to announce that Brad's flight is preparing for boarding and around him people begin gathering their bags and sleeping children. He stares at the computer screen. Waiting.
Waiting.
His gmail refreshes with a little yellow bar on the lower right hand side of the screen. Brad clicks on the 'Update Conversation' link.
From: Nate Fick
To: Brad Colbert
Date: Sun, April 23, 2006 at 11:08 PM (-600 GMT)
Subject: Re: Observation
It's good to know you have an open mind, Brad.
Brad can hear Nate's wry tone in his head. The mocking voice that always sounds as though it's struggling to contain a laugh. Brad glances at the public telephone on the other side of the lounge.
He could ring -- call -- Nate right now. Tell him that Brad's tour is done. That he's coming home.
They haven't had this conversation yet. Brad's known for three months now though. He's had his training, done amphibious courses and missions, learned things that would give most of his old platoon a hard-on just hearing about them.
Every time Brad calls Nate to tell him about the things he's learned, what they're doing, he can't stop talking about how fucking amazing the RM is. Late night calls and early morning calls. Any snatched phone time that wasn't spent promising his mom he wasn't letting his teeth rot out of his head was with Nate. He didn't let the other guys hear his excitement, though: the last thing the fucking British Empire needs is to have its ego inflated, but still.
Brad's loved being in East Devon. He's sorry to go, but he's happy to leave.
The plumy voice from before is replaced on the announcement system with a raspy male voice announcing that Virgin Atlantic is starting pre-boarding. Platinum members and families with children first.
Brad gives the telephone one more look.
He's tried to tell Nate that he's coming back to the states. He's tried to say that if Nate wants… maybe he could…maybe they could.
He never quite gets the words out.
He doesn't think he wants to.
He likes things the way they are now. The emails and the IM sessions at four in the morning when he's supposed to be asleep and Nate's supposed to be working on the final edits of his manuscript.
He can't lose this. That.
Brad changes flights at Logan. Actually, that's not quite true. Brad arranged to change flights in Boston. He could've gotten a direct flight to LAX and then hopped a Southwest flight down to Santa Ana. Or he could skip the Santa Ana leg and rent a bike and just take a ride down the 5. His mom's found him a small sublet on the beach. She tried to tell him about the views. About the tiling in the kitchen and color of paint on the walls.
He just asked if there was a bed and a place for him to put his surfboard and park his bike.
Brad doesn't need much, he never has.
He doesn't know why he deliberately arranged this stopover. Except that there's this slew of people exiting the plane ahead of him and at least two of them are wearing Harvard tee shirts. One of them looks old enough to have gone to school with Godfather, but there's a black guy: sharp cheekbones, shaved head and black plastic frames.
The Harvard shirt he's wearing is worn and threadbare at the neck. Brad's man enough to admit when another man is attractive. This is the sort of guy that probably gets all the girls. And guys.
Brad watches the man disembark, Brad's eyes glued to the way his shirt pulls across his shoulders. The way his jeans taper at his waist. There's a worn square on his jeans where he carries his wallet and it makes Brad think about where Nate carries his.
About khakis without worn patches and desert camo that was never threadbare.
Brad's fingers tangle in his pack as he gets off the plane, nodding to the stewardess and thinking about what could happen now.
It's Monday morning in America.
Brad could leave the airport, forget about his connecting flight to California. It's not as though he has luggage that has to be picked up on the other end. He could get a taxi to Cambridge or figure out the trams. It's barely seven in the morning. Nate's an early riser, but he should be back from his run right now. Brad knows he doesn't have a class until after ten. Nate likes to write in the morning. And at night. He's always near his computer or his cell phone. He's always there when Brad calls. When Brad manages to get a few seconds away from the other RM grunts at the pay phone or to borrow someone's mobile with a promise of the first round at the pub.
Brad's called Nate from anywhere and everywhere.
Brad could call Nate from a pay phone first. Make sure he's home.
Or Brad could just show up on Nate's doorstep. He's thought about it dozens of times. In the rain, in the heat, in the snow. Waiting outside the front door of Nate's undoubtedly second-class accommodations in his uniform. In his civilian clothes. Loitering outside a brown - no, red - no, blue -- front door, which he's sure has peeling paint and dented mailboxes beside it.
It would be a surprise. A surprise for Nate. A six-foot-four surprise that has memories of Nate's ears and fingers and the little quirk at the left side of his mouth parceled on shelves in his brain.
Except Brad hates surprises -- and he could get one of his own.
It could be, "surprise, Brad, meet my gorgeous supermodel girlfriend who I never told you about."
Or, "surprise, why are you here? We're just internet buddies."
Or, "surprise, I don't want you. I never wanted you. I was just being polite, because it's clear you miss being at home. Because it's clear you have feelings for me and I was just being nice. Tolerant."
Brad freezes on the concourse between the exit and the sign pointing to his connecting flight to L.A. People stream around him, pulling rolling carriers and pushing strollers like ants ignoring an obstruction on the sidewalk.
It could be, "surprise, I've missed you. I've wanted to see you. I think about you all the time and sometimes I jerk off when we're on the phone. Sometimes I close my eyes at night and all I think about is you over me, saying my name. You curled up beside me. Your knees pressed against the back of mine. Your arm around my waist. You inside me, hot and tight and so unforgivingly there and unable to be denied. You fucking me until I can't think, can't breathe, can't process another thought and don't want anything besides you."
Brad's lips are dry. Cracked. He licks them feeling the skin give under the weight of his tongue. His body is alternating rapidly between hot and cold and he blinks at the signs telling him where to go for food or luggage or the bathroom.
Brad stands there waiting for something or someone to tell him where to go or what to do.
And then he makes up his own mind.
California is hot. Dry. Some things never change.
The first thing Brad does when he gets home is see his mom and dad. The second thing he does is get the keys for his bungalow rental. He retrieves his bike from the garage and makes arrangements for his dad to bring his surfboard over whenever he's got a free second.
And then Brad gets on his bike and he rides. He takes the 5 up to L.A. and arrives just as lunch hour traffic gridlocks like the clogged arteries of all the fuckers sitting in their Nazi sleds pretending that Brad and Poke and Ray didn't go to war to protect their rights to be lazy, vegan communist ass-bandits.
Brad pulls over at a gas station just outside the city. There's a pay phone and he finds himself dialing Nate by rote.
The phone rings and rings and then Brad remembers that Nate has a seminar on Monday and Wednesday afternoons: Management, Finance, and Regulation of Public Infrastructure.
The answering machine picks up and Brad waits. Waits through the message that Nate's not home. That Brad missed out in more ways than one.
After the beep he opens his mouth to say, "I'm home. I want to see you."
What comes out is, "Hey, it's me."
There's a beep followed by another beep. "Hey, me," Nate teases into the receiver, his voice breathless.
Brad's own breath gets caught his throat. This is how he thinks Nate sounds after strenuous physical exertion: running, fighting, fucking.
"Did I interrupt something?" Brad's going for dry, but his voice feels tight, strangled in his airway.
Nate's laugh is almost a wheeze. "Apart from the fact that I nearly broke down the door to get to the phone? No, not really."
Brad smirks at the industrial gray metal of the AT&T phone booth. "All that effort for me? I'm touched."
"Actually, I'm waiting for Angelina Jolie to call me," Nate says. "She's leaving Brad for me. We just have to figure out what to do with her fifteen thousand kids."
"Well, sir, I've heard big families are like money in the hand for politicians. You can sell them to pay off your campaign debts."
Nate's laugh rings in Brad's ears, sending heat down to his groin and causing his fingers to grip the phone too hard.
A big rig pulls into the gas station, throwing up dust and noise. Brad shades his eyes and blinks down at the coin slot of the phone. He could be in Cambridge right now. They could be having this conversation face-to-face.
"Where are you?" Nate says. "I swear it sounds like you're at a truck stop."
Brad bites his lip. He could just say it. Say it now. "You need to clean out your ears, sir. They've become congested with liberal lies. It's affecting your combat readiness."
Nate chuckles. "I'll keep that in mind, Brad."
From: Brad Colbert
To: Nate Fick
Date: Thu, April 27, 2006 at 1:05 AM (-900 GMT)
Subject: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Do you still call it insomnia if you don't want to sleep?
--
From: Nate Fick
To: Brad Colbert
Date: Thu, April 27, 2006 at 4:08 AM (-600 GMT)
Subject: Re: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
The war's over for us now. It's okay to sleep. We're on zero percent watch.
--
From: Brad Colbert
To: Nate Fick
Date: Thu, April 27, 2006 at 1:11 AM (-900 GMT)
Subject: Re: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
What if I miss something?
--
From: Nate Fick
To: Brad Colbert
Date: Thu, April 27, 2006 at 4:12 AM (-600 GMT)
Subject: Re: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Like what? The second coming of the Messiah? You don't believe anyway. He's not going to take your calls.
--
From: Brad Colbert
To: Nate Fick
Date: Thu, April 27, 2006 at 1:13 AM (-900 GMT)
Subject: Re: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Fucking atheists. Always ruining shit for everybody else.
--
From: Nate Fick
To: Brad Colbert
Date: Thu, April 27, 2006 at 4:14 AM (-600 GMT)
Subject: Re: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
You know you love me.
--
From: Brad Colbert
To: Nate Fick
Date: Thu, April 27, 2006 at 1:15 AM (-900 GMT)
Subject: Re: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
In your dreams, sir.
--
From: Nate Fick
To: Brad Colbert
Date: Thu, April 27, 2006 at 4:16 AM (-600 GMT)
Subject: Re: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
I'm not the one having problems sleeping.
--
From: Brad Colbert
To: Nate Fick
Date: Thu, April 27, 2006 at 1:19 AM (-900 GMT)
Subject: Re: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Then why are you talking to me at four in the morning?
--
From: Nate Fick
To: Brad Colbert
Date: Thu, April 27, 2006 at 4:20 AM (-600 GMT)
Subject: Re: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Point. Go to sleep.
And this is what Brad does for his first two weeks back in the States: he rides his bike and calls Nate from random places at random times and they email just as much as ever.
The emails are stupid things about pop culture and politics and Harvard professors and the horrible stuff on TV that passes for programming. At one point Brad finds himself talking about this series called The Wire, which is probably the only decent thing that's been made since he's been gone. When he mentions this to Nate there's a long pause down the line.
"You're watching The Wire? I didn't know that was on in the UK."
"Illegal downloads," Brad lies smoothly. "We're closer to civilization than you'd think."
After that Brad polices himself a lot better. He doesn't mention the morning surfing, or the fact that he's teaching his sister's eldest boy how to stand on his board. He doesn't mention that he has to remind himself he can't call Nate every day. That he has to space things out better. Make them more random. He doesn't mention the barbeques his mom throws for the first four days straight that he's back in Oceanside.
He keeps his head down until the second Sunday he's home and his mom mentions that Brad's sister, Lisa, ran into Poke's wife, Gina, in L.A. and mentioned that Brad was home and gave her the number of Brad's rental.
He knows it's all downhill from here.
On Monday night, Brad calls Nate from a pay phone at the Borders in San Diego. It's quiet and air-conditioned. Brad's wearing flip-flops on his skim milk white feet and a faded blue polo shirt and olive green board shorts.
He's been working his way through a book called Making the Corps by Tom Ricks. He picked it up because he knows Ricks is Nate's advisor in some way or another and he wants to know what Nate sees in this guy. What makes Nate respect him. Why Nate chose Ricks and not somebody else.
Nate picks up on the first ring. "Hey," Brad says conversationally.
"I was just thinking about you," Nate replies.
Something dings loudly in the back of Brad's mind, but he misses it for the flare of heat in his stomach. "Sir, I'm not that kind of guy," he teases instead.
"That's too bad," Nate says. "Because after exams are over I was thinking I'd come and see you. You think you could get a few days off to show me around?"
Brad's mouth opens and there's a shrill scream from a girl on the main floor about some vampire with sparkling eyes. Or eggs or whatever. "When were you thinking about coming?"
"Soon."
"Can you be a little bit more specific than soon?" Brad tries for mocking. "I know the Corps didn't teach you to be this vague."
"Where are you?" Nate asks.
"A bookstore." The easiest lies are the ones that are close to the truth.
"They have bookstores in CTCRM?"
"I'm in East Devon." Lie. "Shockingly enough they have children here." True.
Nate makes a noncommittal sound. "So, you never answered my question."
Brad blinks at the eggshell colored walls and the signs with arrows for the restrooms. A door swings open and a little girl in a pink dress rushes out. She has huge dark eyes and dark curls. She reminds Brad of Poke's youngest daughter.
She gives Brad a toothy smile and waves. He waves back just as a woman sprints out of the bathroom and grabs the little girl up in her arms, berating her in rapid-fire Spanish. Brad doesn't know what she's saying, but he can guess.
"Brad… Brad?"
Brad shakes his head. "Sorry, Nate, what?"
"Where are you? What are you doing?"
And it's right there again. All Brad has to do is say where he is. What's he's doing. Why he's doing it. But he just can't.
"We, uh, we have some training missions coming up," he lies again. "I don't know what my schedule is going to be like. Maybe you can visit later in the year."
There's something brittle in Nate's voice when he says, "okay."
"Sorry," Brad replies, apologizing for more than he can ever say.
Brad doesn't sleep well that night, but he doesn't sleep well most nights. He's become so accustomed to not being able to sleep when he wants that he can't even take advantage when he can sleep at will.
The mattress in the sublet is incredibly comfortable -- of course when compared with RM racks and Iraqi graves, sleeping in the chairs at the airport is a break. Brad breathes in the clean cotton of the sheets his mother bought him and tries not to think about Nate.
Brad hasn't seen him in two years. He could be flabby and pimply and pasty. He could be a card-carrying raging PETA member. He could have put on 30 pounds, developed cataracts and scoliosis and be impotent… and Brad would still want him for his voice and what's in his head. For his intellect and the way he can calm Brad down with just a few words.
Brad's cock thickens at the mere thought of Nate's hands. Of long tapered fingers and the calluses on his fingertips. Brad hooks his fingers into the waistband of his briefs and tugs them down over his erection, letting the elastic stretch against his thighs.
He strokes himself with his left hand instead of his right, thinking of green eyes the color of cut glass and a wide mouth that smiled at him even when the entire world was falling down around their ears.
He thinks of Nate's voice in his ear, reciting Homer in the original Greek and passages from Shakespeare late at night on disposable cell phones when Brad couldn't sleep.
His cock twitches in his hand. He keeps waiting for the pornographic thoughts to come, thoughts of Nate's mouth wrapped around his cock, of Nate's cock up his ass, filling him and making his eyes roll back in his head. He's waiting for the images of Nate riding his cock, of him stretching Nate open with three fingers, four, too much for anyone and not enough for Nate. Brad can taste the salt in the small of Nate's back, feel the sweat on the crease of Nate's knees when he holds himself open for Brad's cock.
But the images don't come.
Or they're not what make Brad come.
Brad gets off to the idea of Nate in bed beside him. Of Nate there when he wakes up. Of Nate wanting him in Cambridge and smiling at him over tables and kitchen counters and the heads of Brad's nieces and nephews at family get-togethers.
This is what Brad wants.
But Brad's not foolish enough to think you get what you want.
Only children and religious zealots believe that.
He goes surfing early. Earlier than he normally does. The sun is barely cresting when Brad hits the water and he's not alone. There've been reports of inclement weather on the horizon and there's nothing surfers love more than storm systems churning up the ocean currents.
The waves are stronger than normal, higher, there are more falls, more successes. Brad doesn't know the other surfers' last names or home addresses. They don't exchange cooking tips or emails, but they know names and faces. They know skills. They applaud and boo each other in the way that ramshackle families do. They talk shit and offer tips. Men and women clad in wetsuits trying to take on something greater than themselves.
Brad doesn't come out of the water for almost five hours.
He can't remember the last time he surfed this long or this hard.
He waves from the sand as he unzips the top of his wetsuit and strips it down to his waist. His bungalow is less than a block from the beach, and he walks home barefoot with sand between his toes and his surfboard under his arm. He can feel the light sunburn on his cheeks and he thinks he'll go to the grocery store and make something insanely decadent for lunch. His mom taught him how to make a calamari salad - some things defy kosher laws -- maybe he'll make a huge serving and bring her half.
He's halfway up the pathway to his bungalow, trying to remember what's involved in the dressing for the salad, when he sees the figure camped out on his doorstep.
Brad drops his surfboard on the grass.
Nate licks his lips, but doesn't change the sprawl of his shorts-clad legs. "Brad."
Brad opens his mouth and then just shakes his head. He can't say he didn't see this coming. Can't say he didn't know somewhere in the back of his mind that he was just daring Nate to call him on all his shit. He exhales and smiles ruefully before crouching down and retrieving his surfboard.
"The element of surprise," he says, stopping between the V of Nate's legs and looking down at long sandy blond hair and aviator sunglasses. "I see you aced that section at OCS."
Nate removes his shades, his eyes just as luminous and piercing as Brad remembers. "You know what else I aced at OCS?" he asks, getting to his feet smoothly. "Evasive techniques, Interrogation and Bullshit Detecting."
"OIF must've been a real treat for you then," Brad says dryly.
Nate purses his lips and Brad studies him openly. He's not pimply or pasty or bloated or going blind. His exposed forearms are lean muscle and fine hairs. His hair is just long enough to be pushed behind one ear and his mouth is soft and pink. His lips aren't cracked and dry like Brad's at all.
Brad licks his lips instinctively, tasting salt.
Nate narrows his eyes. "We're going in the house now," he says brusquely.
"You do know you're not my commanding officer anymore?" Brad says even as he hands Nate his board and slides a hand inside his wetsuit for the hidden pocket with his house keys. "I'm not required to take orders from you."
Nate steps directly between Brad and the front door, his free hand on Brad's chest stopping Brad more effectively than any forty mike-mike. "You've been dicking me around, Sergeant. I've had enough."
Brad can feel his eyes going wide. His instinctive need to defend himself submitting without a second thought. "I don't know what you're referring to," Brad says, white-knuckling the key in his fingers.
Okay, so Brad doesn't automatically submit to anybody. Even Nate.
Nate steps in further. There are flares of color in his cheeks. He smells like toothpaste and coffee and it occurs to Brad that Nate must've just arrived. That he must've taken a red eye last night after they talked. After Brad lied to Nate about being home.
Oh.
"Brad."
There's a curt tinge to Nate's voice that Brad hasn’t heard in a very long time. Not since they sat up in an amusement park and Nate refused to let Encino Man get them all killed.
Brad's eyes flitter over the set of Nate's jaw, the twitch of a muscle in his temple. "Look at me," Nate's voice is hard and Brad's eyes automatically snap to center. "Open the door," Nate says, removing his hand from Brad's chest and swinging the board upright.
Moments later Brad's inside his rented living room, looking at pale blue walls and Ikea furniture. The floor is hardwood and cool under his bare feet. The air conditioning that he forgot to turn off this morning is like a blast from Afghani snow and his skin crawls and his nipples harden.
He turns back around to see the door closed and his board propped up in the corner. Nate's leaning back against the front door, arms crossed and a duffel bag at his feet.
Brad's never experienced a blackout before, but he doesn't remember how they got here at all.
"So, were you going to tell me you were home, or were you just going to let me keep worrying like a fucking yenta?" Nate's voice is hard, edged. There's no mistaking his anger.
Brad blinks. "I…"
"Do you know how much I fucking worried about you when you were over there?" Nate rails. "That you'd get fucked up in some training exercise or that they'd send you back to Afghanistan like that last fucking mission where you tried to tell me you'd been in fucking Malaysia? There's no fucking war in Malaysia, Brad!"
"I - I couldn't tell you about that," Brad protests.
"I'm not some sac-less civilian who doesn't know what this is like," Nate snaps. "Do not treat me like some pussy liberal dick-suck who doesn't know what happens to fucking Marines!"
"I didn't… you worried?" Brad can't process this. People don't worry about him. Well, at least not people besides his family. Nate doesn't have to worry about him. He… "I can take care of myself," he retorts belatedly.
"Wrong. Answer." Nate's words are as sharp as the steps he takes into Brad's personal space and then there are hands on Brad's wrist and he's being spun and pushed into the wall next to the door face first.
"You don't get to treat me like this, Brad," Nate's tone is low, dangerous. His grip on the arm he's holding behind Brad's back just tight enough to get his point across.
The wall is cool against Brad's cheek, like a slap to the face.
"I'm not her," Nate says quietly. "You don't get to act like I broke you when I didn't."
Brad looks at Nate out the corner of his eye. At the tight face and the down-turned mouth. He can feel the anger radiating out of every pore. "Let go, Nate."
And just like that Nate lets him go and steps away.
He follows orders like a Marine.
Brad turns around. "What do you want me to say?" he sighs, letting the wall support his weight.
"Why didn't you tell me you were coming home?" Nate's tone has changed, shifted, the anger has bled into something softer. Almost plaintive.
"Would you have wanted to see me?"
Nate stares at him. And keeps staring. After a while it becomes incredibly uncomfortable. Brad shifts. His wetsuit is, well, wet. And it's really cold in here.
"Is that a trick question?" Nate asks, disbelief apparent.
"No," Brad blurts out. A pause. "No," he repeats, more strident.
Nate sits down on the arm of the dark green cloth sofa and rubs his face with the heels of his hands. "Brad," he sounds tired when he says Brad's name. "Why do you think I'm here in the first place? I have finals next week. Do you think I would've flown across the country to see you the minute I found out you were home if I didn't want to be here?"
"No?" Brad wishes he sounded less uncertain. But he doesn't.
This is how he is.
"That's the third 'no' you've given me in the last minute," Nate says. "Should I be worried?"
This is all very new terrain for Brad. It would've been nice if he'd had a chance to do some recon first. And then his brain wonders what the fuck he's been doing for the last two years.
He studies the distressed look on Nate's face and the duffle bag at his own feet and finds himself walking over to the sofa. He nudges Nate's legs apart with his knee so he can stand in front of him and he quivers when Nate looks up at him intently, his hands curling around Brad's hips. Brad's skin is cool and clammy and Nate's hands are warm and dry.
"I liked how things were," Brad tries to explain. "I liked the email and the phone calls. If I was home, I - why would you bother?"
Nate's forehead furrows, his lips move for a minute without forming words and then his fingers tighten on Brad's hips and he presses his forehead to Brad's bare stomach. Brad's entire body goes into some sort of shock, every muscle cramping up. Nate's skin is hot and when he exhales the air ripples across Brad's navel and abdominals.
"You cannot be this dense," Nate mutters, his left thumb stroking the skin just above the fold of Brad's wetsuit.
Brad stiffens. "What?"
Nate pulls back. "Please tell me you are not this dense," he pleads.
Brad can feel his lips thinning into a line and then Nate's up, his hands off of Brad's hips and cupping his face. Nate's thumbs brush over Brad's cheekbones and Brad can feel the violent rush of heat all the way down to his knees. His fingers curl into the fabric of Nate's shirt, holding him close, feeling the body heat darting back and forth between them.
One minute Nate's breathing against his bare stomach and the next his lips are brushing against Brad's, and Brad's being pulled into a kiss that's hard and gorgeous. Nate's mouth presses against Brad's own, and then he bites at Brad's lips sharply enough bruise, to draw blood and make memory. Hard enough to make sure Brad will remember that this has happened. That the next time he thinks he's alone -- he's not.
And then Nate's mouth parts as though giving a silent order for Brad's mouth to do the same and there's a slick tongue sliding between Brad's lips, stroking his tongue and chasing away the chill under his skin and replacing it with something hot and aching.
Brad tilts his head where Nate directs, less to the right, more to the left, soft, sucking kisses mingling with harder, brutal ones. Gasps for breath that are just an exchange of air back and forth. Brad chases Nate's tongue back into his mouth and then sucks on Nate's lower lip when he pulls away.
He opens his eyes to find Nate watching him, a curl at the corners of his mouth.
"I've been waiting two years for that," Nate says, rubbing Brad's mouth with his thumb.
Brad means to say something but the tip of his tongue is much more interested in Nate's thumb, which he sucks on lewdly, dragging his teeth over the pad.
Nate strokes Brad's tongue with his thumb once, twice, four times and then pulls his hand away with a shake of his head. "And you weren't going to tell me you were home."
"Oh, like, you've never fucked up, burning dog moto speech man," Brad says defensively.
Nate grins brightly before leaning in and kissing Brad brazenly. "I suppose as long as one of us is functional at any given time that's better than most. Now go take a shower and put some clothes on. I'm hungry and need to go out and be fed."
Brad narrows his eyes. "Aren't you supposed to try and fuck me now?"
Nate laughs riotously. "It took me two years just to get to kiss you; I'm not pushing my luck."
Brad considers this briefly. "Good point."
Nate smirks before leaning to steal another kiss. "Yeah," he says against Brad's mouth. "I thought so, too."
-end-
The title is a quote from Horace: Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare = They change the sky, not their soul, who run across the sea.
I would very much like to thank alethialia for bringing her beta skills to bear and for her encouragement and support. I'd like to thank elzed for telling me all about the RM about a year ago, and I'd like to thank *me* for remembering that post when I decided to write this.
Huge thanks to lazlet for checking my obscenities; to sparky77 for letting me work out how to write what I wanted to say and to romanticalgirl for always happily engaging in the ongoing deconstruction of Brad Colbert.
None of this is possible without your help. Thank you.
Generation Kill
Brad/Nate
Rated R
Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare
Brad sends one last e-mail before he leaves CTCRM for the train.
From: Brad Colbert
To: Nate Fick
Date: Sun, April 23, 2006 at 11:25 PM (GMT)
Subject: Observation
I fucking hate the rain.
After he hits send he looks up into three expectant faces. "What the fuck are you girls staring at?" he says mildly.
Specialist Greg Johns smirks. "Had to make sure the wife knew you were coming home and wasn't shagging the milkman on the kitchen table when you arrived?"
Brad smirks. "No, I had to make sure your wife knew I was coming. She said she'd never had a real man before. I told her to get ready, because it wasn't anything like fucking your limey ass."
Williams and Browning chuckle over Johns' shoulder.
"She said the same thing when I saw her last week," Browning says thoughtfully.
Brad just dodges Johns' paw-like hand swatting at his head. He grins and looks around his rack. He has everything. It's amazing how two years can fit into one pack. "I'd say I'd miss you-"
"But it'd be a fucking great lie," Williams finishes. "About the same size as your prick, I reckon."
Brad smirks as he slips his laptop into his pack and slings it on his back. "I know all you girls are jealous, but some day your balls might drop and then you can be a man like me."
"I should fucking well hope not," Johns says as he claps Brad on the back. "Who wants to grow up to be a Hebrew Viking Yank that looks like he was bred by the Nazis?"
Brad has to smile as he shakes his head.
"Look out for yourself, yeah?" Johns says, steering Brad towards the door and the Royal Marines transport waiting to take him to the train station at Lympstone.
Brad nods over his shoulder at Walter and David. "I meant what I said about coming out to Oceanside," he says. "The Queen knows you two inbred snaggle-tooth dicksucks could stand quality California Suzie Rottencrotch pussy. I'd say you were too ugly for American girls, but they'll fuck anything with an accent."
"Well, if they fuck you, they can't be that choosey, now can they?" Johns calls from the entryway as Brad walks out the door of the barracks and into England's idea of early summer, i.e. pouring rain.
Brad waves behind him as he climbs into the truck for the drive to the RM train station. From Lympstone he's off to Heathrow and then it's a 12-hour flight back to Oceanside.
He hasn't been home in two years.
It's been a long time.
He checks his email on his laptop at Heathrow.
There are five messages waiting: three are from Ray, one is from his sister. The only one he looks at says this:
From: Nate Fick
To: Brad Colbert
Date: Sun, April 23, 2006 at 5:34 PM (-600 GMT)
Subject: Re: Observation
Nobody made you go to the U.K. There's plenty of rain in Cambridge.
Brad grins at the screen, glancing around at the rumpled, greying civilians waiting with him in the mostly empty departures lounge.
From: Brad Colbert
To: Nate Fick
Date: Mon, April 24, 2006 at 4:05 AM (GMT)
Subject: Re: Observation
So you mean I should've come to Harvard instead. Interesting idea. I'd sooner neuter myself with a rusty KA-BAR and save the tuition to buy a new bike.
A plumy voice comes over the P.A. to announce that Brad's flight is preparing for boarding and around him people begin gathering their bags and sleeping children. He stares at the computer screen. Waiting.
Waiting.
His gmail refreshes with a little yellow bar on the lower right hand side of the screen. Brad clicks on the 'Update Conversation' link.
From: Nate Fick
To: Brad Colbert
Date: Sun, April 23, 2006 at 11:08 PM (-600 GMT)
Subject: Re: Observation
It's good to know you have an open mind, Brad.
Brad can hear Nate's wry tone in his head. The mocking voice that always sounds as though it's struggling to contain a laugh. Brad glances at the public telephone on the other side of the lounge.
He could ring -- call -- Nate right now. Tell him that Brad's tour is done. That he's coming home.
They haven't had this conversation yet. Brad's known for three months now though. He's had his training, done amphibious courses and missions, learned things that would give most of his old platoon a hard-on just hearing about them.
Every time Brad calls Nate to tell him about the things he's learned, what they're doing, he can't stop talking about how fucking amazing the RM is. Late night calls and early morning calls. Any snatched phone time that wasn't spent promising his mom he wasn't letting his teeth rot out of his head was with Nate. He didn't let the other guys hear his excitement, though: the last thing the fucking British Empire needs is to have its ego inflated, but still.
Brad's loved being in East Devon. He's sorry to go, but he's happy to leave.
The plumy voice from before is replaced on the announcement system with a raspy male voice announcing that Virgin Atlantic is starting pre-boarding. Platinum members and families with children first.
Brad gives the telephone one more look.
He's tried to tell Nate that he's coming back to the states. He's tried to say that if Nate wants… maybe he could…maybe they could.
He never quite gets the words out.
He doesn't think he wants to.
He likes things the way they are now. The emails and the IM sessions at four in the morning when he's supposed to be asleep and Nate's supposed to be working on the final edits of his manuscript.
He can't lose this. That.
Brad changes flights at Logan. Actually, that's not quite true. Brad arranged to change flights in Boston. He could've gotten a direct flight to LAX and then hopped a Southwest flight down to Santa Ana. Or he could skip the Santa Ana leg and rent a bike and just take a ride down the 5. His mom's found him a small sublet on the beach. She tried to tell him about the views. About the tiling in the kitchen and color of paint on the walls.
He just asked if there was a bed and a place for him to put his surfboard and park his bike.
Brad doesn't need much, he never has.
He doesn't know why he deliberately arranged this stopover. Except that there's this slew of people exiting the plane ahead of him and at least two of them are wearing Harvard tee shirts. One of them looks old enough to have gone to school with Godfather, but there's a black guy: sharp cheekbones, shaved head and black plastic frames.
The Harvard shirt he's wearing is worn and threadbare at the neck. Brad's man enough to admit when another man is attractive. This is the sort of guy that probably gets all the girls. And guys.
Brad watches the man disembark, Brad's eyes glued to the way his shirt pulls across his shoulders. The way his jeans taper at his waist. There's a worn square on his jeans where he carries his wallet and it makes Brad think about where Nate carries his.
About khakis without worn patches and desert camo that was never threadbare.
Brad's fingers tangle in his pack as he gets off the plane, nodding to the stewardess and thinking about what could happen now.
It's Monday morning in America.
Brad could leave the airport, forget about his connecting flight to California. It's not as though he has luggage that has to be picked up on the other end. He could get a taxi to Cambridge or figure out the trams. It's barely seven in the morning. Nate's an early riser, but he should be back from his run right now. Brad knows he doesn't have a class until after ten. Nate likes to write in the morning. And at night. He's always near his computer or his cell phone. He's always there when Brad calls. When Brad manages to get a few seconds away from the other RM grunts at the pay phone or to borrow someone's mobile with a promise of the first round at the pub.
Brad's called Nate from anywhere and everywhere.
Brad could call Nate from a pay phone first. Make sure he's home.
Or Brad could just show up on Nate's doorstep. He's thought about it dozens of times. In the rain, in the heat, in the snow. Waiting outside the front door of Nate's undoubtedly second-class accommodations in his uniform. In his civilian clothes. Loitering outside a brown - no, red - no, blue -- front door, which he's sure has peeling paint and dented mailboxes beside it.
It would be a surprise. A surprise for Nate. A six-foot-four surprise that has memories of Nate's ears and fingers and the little quirk at the left side of his mouth parceled on shelves in his brain.
Except Brad hates surprises -- and he could get one of his own.
It could be, "surprise, Brad, meet my gorgeous supermodel girlfriend who I never told you about."
Or, "surprise, why are you here? We're just internet buddies."
Or, "surprise, I don't want you. I never wanted you. I was just being polite, because it's clear you miss being at home. Because it's clear you have feelings for me and I was just being nice. Tolerant."
Brad freezes on the concourse between the exit and the sign pointing to his connecting flight to L.A. People stream around him, pulling rolling carriers and pushing strollers like ants ignoring an obstruction on the sidewalk.
It could be, "surprise, I've missed you. I've wanted to see you. I think about you all the time and sometimes I jerk off when we're on the phone. Sometimes I close my eyes at night and all I think about is you over me, saying my name. You curled up beside me. Your knees pressed against the back of mine. Your arm around my waist. You inside me, hot and tight and so unforgivingly there and unable to be denied. You fucking me until I can't think, can't breathe, can't process another thought and don't want anything besides you."
Brad's lips are dry. Cracked. He licks them feeling the skin give under the weight of his tongue. His body is alternating rapidly between hot and cold and he blinks at the signs telling him where to go for food or luggage or the bathroom.
Brad stands there waiting for something or someone to tell him where to go or what to do.
And then he makes up his own mind.
California is hot. Dry. Some things never change.
The first thing Brad does when he gets home is see his mom and dad. The second thing he does is get the keys for his bungalow rental. He retrieves his bike from the garage and makes arrangements for his dad to bring his surfboard over whenever he's got a free second.
And then Brad gets on his bike and he rides. He takes the 5 up to L.A. and arrives just as lunch hour traffic gridlocks like the clogged arteries of all the fuckers sitting in their Nazi sleds pretending that Brad and Poke and Ray didn't go to war to protect their rights to be lazy, vegan communist ass-bandits.
Brad pulls over at a gas station just outside the city. There's a pay phone and he finds himself dialing Nate by rote.
The phone rings and rings and then Brad remembers that Nate has a seminar on Monday and Wednesday afternoons: Management, Finance, and Regulation of Public Infrastructure.
The answering machine picks up and Brad waits. Waits through the message that Nate's not home. That Brad missed out in more ways than one.
After the beep he opens his mouth to say, "I'm home. I want to see you."
What comes out is, "Hey, it's me."
There's a beep followed by another beep. "Hey, me," Nate teases into the receiver, his voice breathless.
Brad's own breath gets caught his throat. This is how he thinks Nate sounds after strenuous physical exertion: running, fighting, fucking.
"Did I interrupt something?" Brad's going for dry, but his voice feels tight, strangled in his airway.
Nate's laugh is almost a wheeze. "Apart from the fact that I nearly broke down the door to get to the phone? No, not really."
Brad smirks at the industrial gray metal of the AT&T phone booth. "All that effort for me? I'm touched."
"Actually, I'm waiting for Angelina Jolie to call me," Nate says. "She's leaving Brad for me. We just have to figure out what to do with her fifteen thousand kids."
"Well, sir, I've heard big families are like money in the hand for politicians. You can sell them to pay off your campaign debts."
Nate's laugh rings in Brad's ears, sending heat down to his groin and causing his fingers to grip the phone too hard.
A big rig pulls into the gas station, throwing up dust and noise. Brad shades his eyes and blinks down at the coin slot of the phone. He could be in Cambridge right now. They could be having this conversation face-to-face.
"Where are you?" Nate says. "I swear it sounds like you're at a truck stop."
Brad bites his lip. He could just say it. Say it now. "You need to clean out your ears, sir. They've become congested with liberal lies. It's affecting your combat readiness."
Nate chuckles. "I'll keep that in mind, Brad."
From: Brad Colbert
To: Nate Fick
Date: Thu, April 27, 2006 at 1:05 AM (-900 GMT)
Subject: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Do you still call it insomnia if you don't want to sleep?
--
From: Nate Fick
To: Brad Colbert
Date: Thu, April 27, 2006 at 4:08 AM (-600 GMT)
Subject: Re: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
The war's over for us now. It's okay to sleep. We're on zero percent watch.
--
From: Brad Colbert
To: Nate Fick
Date: Thu, April 27, 2006 at 1:11 AM (-900 GMT)
Subject: Re: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
What if I miss something?
--
From: Nate Fick
To: Brad Colbert
Date: Thu, April 27, 2006 at 4:12 AM (-600 GMT)
Subject: Re: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Like what? The second coming of the Messiah? You don't believe anyway. He's not going to take your calls.
--
From: Brad Colbert
To: Nate Fick
Date: Thu, April 27, 2006 at 1:13 AM (-900 GMT)
Subject: Re: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Fucking atheists. Always ruining shit for everybody else.
--
From: Nate Fick
To: Brad Colbert
Date: Thu, April 27, 2006 at 4:14 AM (-600 GMT)
Subject: Re: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
You know you love me.
--
From: Brad Colbert
To: Nate Fick
Date: Thu, April 27, 2006 at 1:15 AM (-900 GMT)
Subject: Re: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
In your dreams, sir.
--
From: Nate Fick
To: Brad Colbert
Date: Thu, April 27, 2006 at 4:16 AM (-600 GMT)
Subject: Re: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
I'm not the one having problems sleeping.
--
From: Brad Colbert
To: Nate Fick
Date: Thu, April 27, 2006 at 1:19 AM (-900 GMT)
Subject: Re: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Then why are you talking to me at four in the morning?
--
From: Nate Fick
To: Brad Colbert
Date: Thu, April 27, 2006 at 4:20 AM (-600 GMT)
Subject: Re: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Point. Go to sleep.
And this is what Brad does for his first two weeks back in the States: he rides his bike and calls Nate from random places at random times and they email just as much as ever.
The emails are stupid things about pop culture and politics and Harvard professors and the horrible stuff on TV that passes for programming. At one point Brad finds himself talking about this series called The Wire, which is probably the only decent thing that's been made since he's been gone. When he mentions this to Nate there's a long pause down the line.
"You're watching The Wire? I didn't know that was on in the UK."
"Illegal downloads," Brad lies smoothly. "We're closer to civilization than you'd think."
After that Brad polices himself a lot better. He doesn't mention the morning surfing, or the fact that he's teaching his sister's eldest boy how to stand on his board. He doesn't mention that he has to remind himself he can't call Nate every day. That he has to space things out better. Make them more random. He doesn't mention the barbeques his mom throws for the first four days straight that he's back in Oceanside.
He keeps his head down until the second Sunday he's home and his mom mentions that Brad's sister, Lisa, ran into Poke's wife, Gina, in L.A. and mentioned that Brad was home and gave her the number of Brad's rental.
He knows it's all downhill from here.
On Monday night, Brad calls Nate from a pay phone at the Borders in San Diego. It's quiet and air-conditioned. Brad's wearing flip-flops on his skim milk white feet and a faded blue polo shirt and olive green board shorts.
He's been working his way through a book called Making the Corps by Tom Ricks. He picked it up because he knows Ricks is Nate's advisor in some way or another and he wants to know what Nate sees in this guy. What makes Nate respect him. Why Nate chose Ricks and not somebody else.
Nate picks up on the first ring. "Hey," Brad says conversationally.
"I was just thinking about you," Nate replies.
Something dings loudly in the back of Brad's mind, but he misses it for the flare of heat in his stomach. "Sir, I'm not that kind of guy," he teases instead.
"That's too bad," Nate says. "Because after exams are over I was thinking I'd come and see you. You think you could get a few days off to show me around?"
Brad's mouth opens and there's a shrill scream from a girl on the main floor about some vampire with sparkling eyes. Or eggs or whatever. "When were you thinking about coming?"
"Soon."
"Can you be a little bit more specific than soon?" Brad tries for mocking. "I know the Corps didn't teach you to be this vague."
"Where are you?" Nate asks.
"A bookstore." The easiest lies are the ones that are close to the truth.
"They have bookstores in CTCRM?"
"I'm in East Devon." Lie. "Shockingly enough they have children here." True.
Nate makes a noncommittal sound. "So, you never answered my question."
Brad blinks at the eggshell colored walls and the signs with arrows for the restrooms. A door swings open and a little girl in a pink dress rushes out. She has huge dark eyes and dark curls. She reminds Brad of Poke's youngest daughter.
She gives Brad a toothy smile and waves. He waves back just as a woman sprints out of the bathroom and grabs the little girl up in her arms, berating her in rapid-fire Spanish. Brad doesn't know what she's saying, but he can guess.
"Brad… Brad?"
Brad shakes his head. "Sorry, Nate, what?"
"Where are you? What are you doing?"
And it's right there again. All Brad has to do is say where he is. What's he's doing. Why he's doing it. But he just can't.
"We, uh, we have some training missions coming up," he lies again. "I don't know what my schedule is going to be like. Maybe you can visit later in the year."
There's something brittle in Nate's voice when he says, "okay."
"Sorry," Brad replies, apologizing for more than he can ever say.
Brad doesn't sleep well that night, but he doesn't sleep well most nights. He's become so accustomed to not being able to sleep when he wants that he can't even take advantage when he can sleep at will.
The mattress in the sublet is incredibly comfortable -- of course when compared with RM racks and Iraqi graves, sleeping in the chairs at the airport is a break. Brad breathes in the clean cotton of the sheets his mother bought him and tries not to think about Nate.
Brad hasn't seen him in two years. He could be flabby and pimply and pasty. He could be a card-carrying raging PETA member. He could have put on 30 pounds, developed cataracts and scoliosis and be impotent… and Brad would still want him for his voice and what's in his head. For his intellect and the way he can calm Brad down with just a few words.
Brad's cock thickens at the mere thought of Nate's hands. Of long tapered fingers and the calluses on his fingertips. Brad hooks his fingers into the waistband of his briefs and tugs them down over his erection, letting the elastic stretch against his thighs.
He strokes himself with his left hand instead of his right, thinking of green eyes the color of cut glass and a wide mouth that smiled at him even when the entire world was falling down around their ears.
He thinks of Nate's voice in his ear, reciting Homer in the original Greek and passages from Shakespeare late at night on disposable cell phones when Brad couldn't sleep.
His cock twitches in his hand. He keeps waiting for the pornographic thoughts to come, thoughts of Nate's mouth wrapped around his cock, of Nate's cock up his ass, filling him and making his eyes roll back in his head. He's waiting for the images of Nate riding his cock, of him stretching Nate open with three fingers, four, too much for anyone and not enough for Nate. Brad can taste the salt in the small of Nate's back, feel the sweat on the crease of Nate's knees when he holds himself open for Brad's cock.
But the images don't come.
Or they're not what make Brad come.
Brad gets off to the idea of Nate in bed beside him. Of Nate there when he wakes up. Of Nate wanting him in Cambridge and smiling at him over tables and kitchen counters and the heads of Brad's nieces and nephews at family get-togethers.
This is what Brad wants.
But Brad's not foolish enough to think you get what you want.
Only children and religious zealots believe that.
He goes surfing early. Earlier than he normally does. The sun is barely cresting when Brad hits the water and he's not alone. There've been reports of inclement weather on the horizon and there's nothing surfers love more than storm systems churning up the ocean currents.
The waves are stronger than normal, higher, there are more falls, more successes. Brad doesn't know the other surfers' last names or home addresses. They don't exchange cooking tips or emails, but they know names and faces. They know skills. They applaud and boo each other in the way that ramshackle families do. They talk shit and offer tips. Men and women clad in wetsuits trying to take on something greater than themselves.
Brad doesn't come out of the water for almost five hours.
He can't remember the last time he surfed this long or this hard.
He waves from the sand as he unzips the top of his wetsuit and strips it down to his waist. His bungalow is less than a block from the beach, and he walks home barefoot with sand between his toes and his surfboard under his arm. He can feel the light sunburn on his cheeks and he thinks he'll go to the grocery store and make something insanely decadent for lunch. His mom taught him how to make a calamari salad - some things defy kosher laws -- maybe he'll make a huge serving and bring her half.
He's halfway up the pathway to his bungalow, trying to remember what's involved in the dressing for the salad, when he sees the figure camped out on his doorstep.
Brad drops his surfboard on the grass.
Nate licks his lips, but doesn't change the sprawl of his shorts-clad legs. "Brad."
Brad opens his mouth and then just shakes his head. He can't say he didn't see this coming. Can't say he didn't know somewhere in the back of his mind that he was just daring Nate to call him on all his shit. He exhales and smiles ruefully before crouching down and retrieving his surfboard.
"The element of surprise," he says, stopping between the V of Nate's legs and looking down at long sandy blond hair and aviator sunglasses. "I see you aced that section at OCS."
Nate removes his shades, his eyes just as luminous and piercing as Brad remembers. "You know what else I aced at OCS?" he asks, getting to his feet smoothly. "Evasive techniques, Interrogation and Bullshit Detecting."
"OIF must've been a real treat for you then," Brad says dryly.
Nate purses his lips and Brad studies him openly. He's not pimply or pasty or bloated or going blind. His exposed forearms are lean muscle and fine hairs. His hair is just long enough to be pushed behind one ear and his mouth is soft and pink. His lips aren't cracked and dry like Brad's at all.
Brad licks his lips instinctively, tasting salt.
Nate narrows his eyes. "We're going in the house now," he says brusquely.
"You do know you're not my commanding officer anymore?" Brad says even as he hands Nate his board and slides a hand inside his wetsuit for the hidden pocket with his house keys. "I'm not required to take orders from you."
Nate steps directly between Brad and the front door, his free hand on Brad's chest stopping Brad more effectively than any forty mike-mike. "You've been dicking me around, Sergeant. I've had enough."
Brad can feel his eyes going wide. His instinctive need to defend himself submitting without a second thought. "I don't know what you're referring to," Brad says, white-knuckling the key in his fingers.
Okay, so Brad doesn't automatically submit to anybody. Even Nate.
Nate steps in further. There are flares of color in his cheeks. He smells like toothpaste and coffee and it occurs to Brad that Nate must've just arrived. That he must've taken a red eye last night after they talked. After Brad lied to Nate about being home.
Oh.
"Brad."
There's a curt tinge to Nate's voice that Brad hasn’t heard in a very long time. Not since they sat up in an amusement park and Nate refused to let Encino Man get them all killed.
Brad's eyes flitter over the set of Nate's jaw, the twitch of a muscle in his temple. "Look at me," Nate's voice is hard and Brad's eyes automatically snap to center. "Open the door," Nate says, removing his hand from Brad's chest and swinging the board upright.
Moments later Brad's inside his rented living room, looking at pale blue walls and Ikea furniture. The floor is hardwood and cool under his bare feet. The air conditioning that he forgot to turn off this morning is like a blast from Afghani snow and his skin crawls and his nipples harden.
He turns back around to see the door closed and his board propped up in the corner. Nate's leaning back against the front door, arms crossed and a duffel bag at his feet.
Brad's never experienced a blackout before, but he doesn't remember how they got here at all.
"So, were you going to tell me you were home, or were you just going to let me keep worrying like a fucking yenta?" Nate's voice is hard, edged. There's no mistaking his anger.
Brad blinks. "I…"
"Do you know how much I fucking worried about you when you were over there?" Nate rails. "That you'd get fucked up in some training exercise or that they'd send you back to Afghanistan like that last fucking mission where you tried to tell me you'd been in fucking Malaysia? There's no fucking war in Malaysia, Brad!"
"I - I couldn't tell you about that," Brad protests.
"I'm not some sac-less civilian who doesn't know what this is like," Nate snaps. "Do not treat me like some pussy liberal dick-suck who doesn't know what happens to fucking Marines!"
"I didn't… you worried?" Brad can't process this. People don't worry about him. Well, at least not people besides his family. Nate doesn't have to worry about him. He… "I can take care of myself," he retorts belatedly.
"Wrong. Answer." Nate's words are as sharp as the steps he takes into Brad's personal space and then there are hands on Brad's wrist and he's being spun and pushed into the wall next to the door face first.
"You don't get to treat me like this, Brad," Nate's tone is low, dangerous. His grip on the arm he's holding behind Brad's back just tight enough to get his point across.
The wall is cool against Brad's cheek, like a slap to the face.
"I'm not her," Nate says quietly. "You don't get to act like I broke you when I didn't."
Brad looks at Nate out the corner of his eye. At the tight face and the down-turned mouth. He can feel the anger radiating out of every pore. "Let go, Nate."
And just like that Nate lets him go and steps away.
He follows orders like a Marine.
Brad turns around. "What do you want me to say?" he sighs, letting the wall support his weight.
"Why didn't you tell me you were coming home?" Nate's tone has changed, shifted, the anger has bled into something softer. Almost plaintive.
"Would you have wanted to see me?"
Nate stares at him. And keeps staring. After a while it becomes incredibly uncomfortable. Brad shifts. His wetsuit is, well, wet. And it's really cold in here.
"Is that a trick question?" Nate asks, disbelief apparent.
"No," Brad blurts out. A pause. "No," he repeats, more strident.
Nate sits down on the arm of the dark green cloth sofa and rubs his face with the heels of his hands. "Brad," he sounds tired when he says Brad's name. "Why do you think I'm here in the first place? I have finals next week. Do you think I would've flown across the country to see you the minute I found out you were home if I didn't want to be here?"
"No?" Brad wishes he sounded less uncertain. But he doesn't.
This is how he is.
"That's the third 'no' you've given me in the last minute," Nate says. "Should I be worried?"
This is all very new terrain for Brad. It would've been nice if he'd had a chance to do some recon first. And then his brain wonders what the fuck he's been doing for the last two years.
He studies the distressed look on Nate's face and the duffle bag at his own feet and finds himself walking over to the sofa. He nudges Nate's legs apart with his knee so he can stand in front of him and he quivers when Nate looks up at him intently, his hands curling around Brad's hips. Brad's skin is cool and clammy and Nate's hands are warm and dry.
"I liked how things were," Brad tries to explain. "I liked the email and the phone calls. If I was home, I - why would you bother?"
Nate's forehead furrows, his lips move for a minute without forming words and then his fingers tighten on Brad's hips and he presses his forehead to Brad's bare stomach. Brad's entire body goes into some sort of shock, every muscle cramping up. Nate's skin is hot and when he exhales the air ripples across Brad's navel and abdominals.
"You cannot be this dense," Nate mutters, his left thumb stroking the skin just above the fold of Brad's wetsuit.
Brad stiffens. "What?"
Nate pulls back. "Please tell me you are not this dense," he pleads.
Brad can feel his lips thinning into a line and then Nate's up, his hands off of Brad's hips and cupping his face. Nate's thumbs brush over Brad's cheekbones and Brad can feel the violent rush of heat all the way down to his knees. His fingers curl into the fabric of Nate's shirt, holding him close, feeling the body heat darting back and forth between them.
One minute Nate's breathing against his bare stomach and the next his lips are brushing against Brad's, and Brad's being pulled into a kiss that's hard and gorgeous. Nate's mouth presses against Brad's own, and then he bites at Brad's lips sharply enough bruise, to draw blood and make memory. Hard enough to make sure Brad will remember that this has happened. That the next time he thinks he's alone -- he's not.
And then Nate's mouth parts as though giving a silent order for Brad's mouth to do the same and there's a slick tongue sliding between Brad's lips, stroking his tongue and chasing away the chill under his skin and replacing it with something hot and aching.
Brad tilts his head where Nate directs, less to the right, more to the left, soft, sucking kisses mingling with harder, brutal ones. Gasps for breath that are just an exchange of air back and forth. Brad chases Nate's tongue back into his mouth and then sucks on Nate's lower lip when he pulls away.
He opens his eyes to find Nate watching him, a curl at the corners of his mouth.
"I've been waiting two years for that," Nate says, rubbing Brad's mouth with his thumb.
Brad means to say something but the tip of his tongue is much more interested in Nate's thumb, which he sucks on lewdly, dragging his teeth over the pad.
Nate strokes Brad's tongue with his thumb once, twice, four times and then pulls his hand away with a shake of his head. "And you weren't going to tell me you were home."
"Oh, like, you've never fucked up, burning dog moto speech man," Brad says defensively.
Nate grins brightly before leaning in and kissing Brad brazenly. "I suppose as long as one of us is functional at any given time that's better than most. Now go take a shower and put some clothes on. I'm hungry and need to go out and be fed."
Brad narrows his eyes. "Aren't you supposed to try and fuck me now?"
Nate laughs riotously. "It took me two years just to get to kiss you; I'm not pushing my luck."
Brad considers this briefly. "Good point."
Nate smirks before leaning to steal another kiss. "Yeah," he says against Brad's mouth. "I thought so, too."
-end-
The title is a quote from Horace: Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare = They change the sky, not their soul, who run across the sea.
I would very much like to thank alethialia for bringing her beta skills to bear and for her encouragement and support. I'd like to thank elzed for telling me all about the RM about a year ago, and I'd like to thank *me* for remembering that post when I decided to write this.
Huge thanks to lazlet for checking my obscenities; to sparky77 for letting me work out how to write what I wanted to say and to romanticalgirl for always happily engaging in the ongoing deconstruction of Brad Colbert.
None of this is possible without your help. Thank you.