Generation Kill: fic
This is an odd little piece and not at all what's in my head. Truth be told, in my head, Brad and Nate are snarking and smiling and having wild, hot sex in the sand. Which is painful because sand gets *everywhere*.
Title: Cats and Dogs
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Evan Wright, musing on Colbert/Fick
Summary: When Evan can't figure something out, it eats at him until he does.
Warnings: real people, in situations that didn't really happen like that? implied something? it's a weird fandom when thinking about the warnings makes me ponder time-loops and reality bending physics - about a bloody docu-drama
What baffles him most is not what they talk about. He hears stories of childhood fears, of guns and blood, of girls and sex. The tales are as tall as the sky around them is deep. Often they come up to him, grinning, almost bouncing, because they have thought of something that he might find interesting. They vie for his attention - during downtime, when he is the only one who hasn't heard the stories a hundred times before - like puppies seeking a gentle hand.
Devil dogs. They are lethal, crazed killing machines and yet, when the gun fire is far away, they seem almost like children.
They don't talk about religion, each of them has their own set of beliefs and it is not a topic that comes up often. He has to ask most of them outright, and even then, many of them only shrug and give him a stock answer. Catholic. Jewish. Buddhist.
It might be something like existential guilt. Their combat persona is so far removed from who and what they should be, that to acknowledge god - any god - would cripple them. Christ and Buddha don't make for combat readiness.
They talk about sex all the time. Masturbation is one of their favorite pass-time, if he believes even half of the stories. What they don't talk about, ever, is the guy next to them, possibly doing the same thing. Combat jacks are, in themselves, a private affair - when your hand is down your pants, you don't think about the guy in the next seat. It's the only piece of privacy they have, self-made and flimsy as their vehicles' armor.
And there is one more very specific thing they don't talk about.
Evan has eyes and he spends most of his time just watching everything around him. He catalogues people and events: that's his fucking job as much as it is their job to blow shit up. And he can see the subtle tensions between differing personalities before a single word is exchanged, he can see when an order is ill-advised simply by watching the reactions from the marines.
He sees Colbert and Fick, the way they dance around each other, gravitating toward each other, the small movements that bring them closer. When Colbert smiles, Fick lights up like a christmas tree. They are always seeking each other out, holding wordless conversations across a battlefield.
Sometimes he just wants to ask right out. The marines must be seeing the same thing - none of them are ignorant about that sort of thing, “gay” is their favorite insult after all. They've discussed the merits of gay porn and the beauty of Sgt. Reyes time and time again.
He doesn't ask because they are in a war zone and Evan Wright isn't somebody the world would particularly miss. The universe at large would not even hiccup if some marines decide to dispose of him. Not that he is afraid of them, exactly, they are a good bunch of people, but they are broken and lethal like a glass wall you are in the process of crashing through.
So he takes it as it is: he can't ask about it and no one is going to tell him. It keeps niggling at the back of his mind, and even under fire, part of him thinks: so are they doing it?
*
Evan keeps a special notebook just for Colbert and Fick. It's really rather heavily coded - he doesn't have any illusions about privacy in between death and desert, squashed into a humvee with four deadly warriors.
He smiles a bit at the thought, there's not even the smallest bit of sarcasm in it - whatever the word warrior means, these people are the living embodiment of it. Hard, intelligent, loyal to a fault and utterly capable of killing you with not so much as a thought.
Which is why he keeps his musings about the Sergeant and his Lieutenant to himself. It bothers him that he can't figure it out, they might be fucking at every stop or they might just be drawn to someone alike, friendly and platonic and whatever.
Fick brings Colbert small gifts, usually completely pragmatic and useful, nothing at all romantic about it, but Evan can't help feeling it's some kind of uber-macho courtship. He bites his tongue hard when Fick bounds to the side of their vehicle and throws a book into Colbert's lap. Person and Trombley are, as so often in these situations, strenuously occupied with looking in the other direction. Colbert smiles and Fick smiles back and they exchange a short conversation about the book, the subject or title of which Evan has missed in its entirety. It's all about body language and these two guys might as well be making out for all the subtlety they have between them.
Then Fick looks at Evan beyond Colbert's shoulder and he feels suddenly exposed. Those intelligent green yes cut right through him and there're all sorts of things in it. At the surface and in a best-case scenario it is a simple acknowledgment of his presence, a “Hey there” that said beyond a doubt “I know you're there.” He has been caught watching and it makes his blood run cold. If ever he's doubted the ability of Fick to kill a man, what with his altar boy past and his childish good looks, that cool gaze proves beyond doubt that he is facing another dangerous member of the warrior tribe.
Fick opens his mouth to say something, then his eyes flick to Colbert and back, and he shakes his head minutely. He backs away and hits the roof of the humvee with his flat hand, twice, sending them off.
The sound reverberates in Evan's head, long after its echo is gone.
*
The battles sweep him up in a blaze of blood, smoke and explosions. Evan is barely holding on to himself during most of that time, scared and exhilarated and gripping his notebook like a gospel. He can't remember half of what happens and doesn't recognize half of what he's written - later, when their tour is over and he is saying his goodbyes in the odd calm of the presidential palaces.
He scribbles into his small, private book as well. His obsession with cataloging every single movement they make, every word, every look will seem stalkerish and strange to his older self, half a world away in his office, but here in the sand, in this car, it's what saves his life in small ways every day. He keeps himself occupied and doesn't think about the dead bodies too much. It is true what they say: a human brain only has so much capacity and as long as he fills it with Colbert and Fick's possible illicit affair, he has no resources to freak out about the terrible, every day death all around him.
In the palace, he runs into them in a dark corner, and they seem annoyed by the interruption, maybe even flustered. He wants to say something, maybe ask, maybe assure them that he would never - never! - tell a soul about his strange ideas. Maybe they would all laugh and have a drink.
He doesn't say any of that. There are things that you just don't talk about.
“I just wanted,” he starts, unsure of what is going to come out of his mouth next. He's still running mostly on adrenaline and suddenly it sinks in that he is never going to see those two men again. Whatever he might think of their possibly-maybe affair doesn't matter a damn thing. His eyes well up, for no obvious reason, and he wipes at them almost angrily.
“Thank you,” he says, “This whole experience has been crazy and incredible and I just wanted to say thanks.”
It occurs to him that he really likes these men, these smart, dangerous men, who would and might die for him and his, who seem to have found some kind of solace in each other, who are brave and beautiful-
“Reporter, what-” Evan doesn't let Colbert finish. He hugs him tight and pats him on the back, then switches to Fick to do the same. He composes himself then, almost physically shaking off the last days and weeks, then holds out his hand.
“Gentlemen,” he says, “It's been an honor riding with you.”
*
He sets up google alerts for all of them.
He scans all available casualty lists and reports coming out of Iraq. He doesn't even know if they're still there - the marines have other hot spots to take care of, it's a big fucking world and the US armed forces are spread out thin over it. But he checks anyway, hoping every time that the names will mean nothing to him.
His book doesn't come along well and he takes apart his notebooks one by one. Except-
There are things, secret things, that no one ever talks about and no one ever needs to know. The small notebook sits on his desk, unread since his last day in Iraq. Sometimes he thinks of burning it, or burying it in the backyard with a bit of ceremony. The guys would like that.
He sees them again, one more time, at a restaurant in LA. It's a rustic place, nothing fancy and they could just be friends. In fact, out of their combat gear he has a hard time recognizing them at all and it's possible it's just two guys who look like Fick and Colbert.
Fick and Colbert, it's become something of a mantra in his head.
He debates going over there - the restaurant is crowded enough and this is not the kind of place where a white reporter gets killed for asking a question. But.
But. It's Schrödinger's cat - as long as it is unobserved, they could either be fucking, or they could just be good friends. They could go home today, together, and bring the house down with wild and dangerous and very athletic sex. Or they could go home alone, perhaps to wives, perhaps to a cold bottle of beer and a cat. That stupid damn cat. As long as the possibility of both existed, he could believe either one of them is true.
He doesn't go over there, even though he's convinced himself that it is the actual Brad Colbert and Nathaniel Fick.
He doesn't ask.
When Evan goes home that night, he takes the notebook off his desk, where it had been in various positions for almost a year. He thumbs through the pages, remembering the small moments, the private smiles. He feels a bit sick, like something is ending, and then he sits down to write.
Title: Cats and Dogs
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Evan Wright, musing on Colbert/Fick
Summary: When Evan can't figure something out, it eats at him until he does.
Warnings: real people, in situations that didn't really happen like that? implied something? it's a weird fandom when thinking about the warnings makes me ponder time-loops and reality bending physics - about a bloody docu-drama
What baffles him most is not what they talk about. He hears stories of childhood fears, of guns and blood, of girls and sex. The tales are as tall as the sky around them is deep. Often they come up to him, grinning, almost bouncing, because they have thought of something that he might find interesting. They vie for his attention - during downtime, when he is the only one who hasn't heard the stories a hundred times before - like puppies seeking a gentle hand.
Devil dogs. They are lethal, crazed killing machines and yet, when the gun fire is far away, they seem almost like children.
They don't talk about religion, each of them has their own set of beliefs and it is not a topic that comes up often. He has to ask most of them outright, and even then, many of them only shrug and give him a stock answer. Catholic. Jewish. Buddhist.
It might be something like existential guilt. Their combat persona is so far removed from who and what they should be, that to acknowledge god - any god - would cripple them. Christ and Buddha don't make for combat readiness.
They talk about sex all the time. Masturbation is one of their favorite pass-time, if he believes even half of the stories. What they don't talk about, ever, is the guy next to them, possibly doing the same thing. Combat jacks are, in themselves, a private affair - when your hand is down your pants, you don't think about the guy in the next seat. It's the only piece of privacy they have, self-made and flimsy as their vehicles' armor.
And there is one more very specific thing they don't talk about.
Evan has eyes and he spends most of his time just watching everything around him. He catalogues people and events: that's his fucking job as much as it is their job to blow shit up. And he can see the subtle tensions between differing personalities before a single word is exchanged, he can see when an order is ill-advised simply by watching the reactions from the marines.
He sees Colbert and Fick, the way they dance around each other, gravitating toward each other, the small movements that bring them closer. When Colbert smiles, Fick lights up like a christmas tree. They are always seeking each other out, holding wordless conversations across a battlefield.
Sometimes he just wants to ask right out. The marines must be seeing the same thing - none of them are ignorant about that sort of thing, “gay” is their favorite insult after all. They've discussed the merits of gay porn and the beauty of Sgt. Reyes time and time again.
He doesn't ask because they are in a war zone and Evan Wright isn't somebody the world would particularly miss. The universe at large would not even hiccup if some marines decide to dispose of him. Not that he is afraid of them, exactly, they are a good bunch of people, but they are broken and lethal like a glass wall you are in the process of crashing through.
So he takes it as it is: he can't ask about it and no one is going to tell him. It keeps niggling at the back of his mind, and even under fire, part of him thinks: so are they doing it?
*
Evan keeps a special notebook just for Colbert and Fick. It's really rather heavily coded - he doesn't have any illusions about privacy in between death and desert, squashed into a humvee with four deadly warriors.
He smiles a bit at the thought, there's not even the smallest bit of sarcasm in it - whatever the word warrior means, these people are the living embodiment of it. Hard, intelligent, loyal to a fault and utterly capable of killing you with not so much as a thought.
Which is why he keeps his musings about the Sergeant and his Lieutenant to himself. It bothers him that he can't figure it out, they might be fucking at every stop or they might just be drawn to someone alike, friendly and platonic and whatever.
Fick brings Colbert small gifts, usually completely pragmatic and useful, nothing at all romantic about it, but Evan can't help feeling it's some kind of uber-macho courtship. He bites his tongue hard when Fick bounds to the side of their vehicle and throws a book into Colbert's lap. Person and Trombley are, as so often in these situations, strenuously occupied with looking in the other direction. Colbert smiles and Fick smiles back and they exchange a short conversation about the book, the subject or title of which Evan has missed in its entirety. It's all about body language and these two guys might as well be making out for all the subtlety they have between them.
Then Fick looks at Evan beyond Colbert's shoulder and he feels suddenly exposed. Those intelligent green yes cut right through him and there're all sorts of things in it. At the surface and in a best-case scenario it is a simple acknowledgment of his presence, a “Hey there” that said beyond a doubt “I know you're there.” He has been caught watching and it makes his blood run cold. If ever he's doubted the ability of Fick to kill a man, what with his altar boy past and his childish good looks, that cool gaze proves beyond doubt that he is facing another dangerous member of the warrior tribe.
Fick opens his mouth to say something, then his eyes flick to Colbert and back, and he shakes his head minutely. He backs away and hits the roof of the humvee with his flat hand, twice, sending them off.
The sound reverberates in Evan's head, long after its echo is gone.
*
The battles sweep him up in a blaze of blood, smoke and explosions. Evan is barely holding on to himself during most of that time, scared and exhilarated and gripping his notebook like a gospel. He can't remember half of what happens and doesn't recognize half of what he's written - later, when their tour is over and he is saying his goodbyes in the odd calm of the presidential palaces.
He scribbles into his small, private book as well. His obsession with cataloging every single movement they make, every word, every look will seem stalkerish and strange to his older self, half a world away in his office, but here in the sand, in this car, it's what saves his life in small ways every day. He keeps himself occupied and doesn't think about the dead bodies too much. It is true what they say: a human brain only has so much capacity and as long as he fills it with Colbert and Fick's possible illicit affair, he has no resources to freak out about the terrible, every day death all around him.
In the palace, he runs into them in a dark corner, and they seem annoyed by the interruption, maybe even flustered. He wants to say something, maybe ask, maybe assure them that he would never - never! - tell a soul about his strange ideas. Maybe they would all laugh and have a drink.
He doesn't say any of that. There are things that you just don't talk about.
“I just wanted,” he starts, unsure of what is going to come out of his mouth next. He's still running mostly on adrenaline and suddenly it sinks in that he is never going to see those two men again. Whatever he might think of their possibly-maybe affair doesn't matter a damn thing. His eyes well up, for no obvious reason, and he wipes at them almost angrily.
“Thank you,” he says, “This whole experience has been crazy and incredible and I just wanted to say thanks.”
It occurs to him that he really likes these men, these smart, dangerous men, who would and might die for him and his, who seem to have found some kind of solace in each other, who are brave and beautiful-
“Reporter, what-” Evan doesn't let Colbert finish. He hugs him tight and pats him on the back, then switches to Fick to do the same. He composes himself then, almost physically shaking off the last days and weeks, then holds out his hand.
“Gentlemen,” he says, “It's been an honor riding with you.”
*
He sets up google alerts for all of them.
He scans all available casualty lists and reports coming out of Iraq. He doesn't even know if they're still there - the marines have other hot spots to take care of, it's a big fucking world and the US armed forces are spread out thin over it. But he checks anyway, hoping every time that the names will mean nothing to him.
His book doesn't come along well and he takes apart his notebooks one by one. Except-
There are things, secret things, that no one ever talks about and no one ever needs to know. The small notebook sits on his desk, unread since his last day in Iraq. Sometimes he thinks of burning it, or burying it in the backyard with a bit of ceremony. The guys would like that.
He sees them again, one more time, at a restaurant in LA. It's a rustic place, nothing fancy and they could just be friends. In fact, out of their combat gear he has a hard time recognizing them at all and it's possible it's just two guys who look like Fick and Colbert.
Fick and Colbert, it's become something of a mantra in his head.
He debates going over there - the restaurant is crowded enough and this is not the kind of place where a white reporter gets killed for asking a question. But.
But. It's Schrödinger's cat - as long as it is unobserved, they could either be fucking, or they could just be good friends. They could go home today, together, and bring the house down with wild and dangerous and very athletic sex. Or they could go home alone, perhaps to wives, perhaps to a cold bottle of beer and a cat. That stupid damn cat. As long as the possibility of both existed, he could believe either one of them is true.
He doesn't go over there, even though he's convinced himself that it is the actual Brad Colbert and Nathaniel Fick.
He doesn't ask.
When Evan goes home that night, he takes the notebook off his desk, where it had been in various positions for almost a year. He thumbs through the pages, remembering the small moments, the private smiles. He feels a bit sick, like something is ending, and then he sits down to write.