Born Ready
Author: makeit_takeit
Date: 2018-01-05T04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: misc fandom; FanFiction; Boys Being Boys; Canon-typical language; Coming of Age; Emotional Baggage; Eventual Happy Ending; Falling In Love; Getting to Know Each Other; Growing Up; M/M; Marines are not Politically Correct; Mutual Pining; POV Alternating; Generation Kill; A cast of thousands; Brad Colbert; Brad's Family; Mike Wynn; Nate Fick; Nate's Family; Ray Person; Brad Colbert/Nate Fick; Completed
Description: In 1992, while the other cadets are busy creaming themselves over finally getting to wear their Senior Whites, all Brad can think is that he looks like he’s in the goddamn Navy. He may only be 18 years old, but he already knows he’s never, ever going to be in the fucking Navy. Brad’s going to be a Marine. One of the few, the proud. In 1997, Nate knows he’s only been in love once, and it wasn’t with any of his girlfriends. He's 20 years old, but he’s old enough to know what that means, and he figures it’s time to start facing it. In 2002, Brad would never in a million years have imagined he’d b
Publisher: archiveofourown.org

Born Ready by makeit_takeit

Fandoms: Generation Kill
AO3 Categories: M/M
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Brad Colbert/Nate Fick
Characters: A cast of thousands, Brad Colbert, Brad’s Family, Mike Wynn, Nate Fick, Nate’s Family, Ray Person
Freeform Tags: Boys Being Boys, Canon-typical language, Coming of Age, Emotional Baggage, Eventual Happy Ending, Falling In Love, Getting to Know Each Other, Growing Up, Marines are not Politically Correct, Mutual Pining, POV Alternating
Status: Completed
Chapters: 22
Words: 99,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2023-09-23 20:44:23
Summary:

In 1992, while the other cadets are busy creaming themselves over finally getting to wear their Senior Whites, all Brad can think is that he looks like he’s in the goddamn Navy. He may only be 18 years old, but he already knows he’s never, ever going to be in the fucking Navy. Brad’s going to be a Marine. One of the few, the proud.

In 1997, Nate knows he’s only been in love once, and it wasn’t with any of his girlfriends. He’s 20 years old, but he’s old enough to know what that means, and he figures it’s time to start facing it.

In 2002, Brad would never in a million years have imagined he’d be standing in his CO’s office, past five on a Friday, hoping to stick around longer and shoot the shit instead of hoping to avoid conversation and get the fuck out of there asap.

In 2007, Nate’s got a 2 year plan, and a 5 year plan, and a 10 year plan. Plan A always optimistically assumes he and Brad finally get past this game of emotional chicken they’ve been playing for the last several years, but Nate is a pragmatist at heart, so there’s also a Plan B, with contingencies for what happens if they don’t.

i.e., 20 years worth of The Making of Brad and Nate.

1. 1992

Author’s Note:

- For Alethia.

To say this has been a long time coming would be an understatement. I started work on this in October of 2009, so the fact that it’s actually complete and being posted is nothing short of a Festivus Miracle. This exists today solely because of the talents of one Alethia, whom I do not know personally but none the less adore from afar. When I read the excellent Worthy of Trust and Confidence last November, it struck a chord of inspiration and not only did I pick this back up and finish it, but started writing again in general. Truly, this (and several other stories both started and finished in the past year) would not exist otherwise and I couldn’t be more grateful, so I just hope it’s not bad form to gift things to unsuspecting strangers.

This is very long, and unbeta’d, and editing is so tedious and look, I did my best, okay. But if you see blatant errors please point them out because that shit is embarrassing.

If you’re (for some reason?) interested in a bunch of self-indulgent rambling about the inspiration, evolution and timeline of this work, see notes at the end. It’s been a long and winding road - not unlike the plotline of this story.

Hope you enjoy.

Brad pulls at the top button of his blouse and yanks down on each sleeve in turn, rolling his shoulders and swinging his arms against the restrictive, heavy fabric. While the other cadets are busy creaming themselves over finally getting to wear their Senior Whites, all Brad can think is that he looks like he’s in the goddamn Navy.

He may only be 18 years old, but he already knows he’s never, ever going to be in the fucking Navy.

Brad’s going to be a Marine. One of the few, the proud. After his birthday last summer, he thought about just taking the GED class and skipping his final year at the Academy, just getting on with what he knows he wants to do. But in the end, the fights it would have caused, not just with his mom and dad but with Val, just weren’t worth it. Things have been better, less tense lately, since Brad figured out how to live at the Academy, learned that everything doesn’t have to be a fight, and sometimes the best way through it is to just take his licks and shut up about it. It was rough the first year, being away from home and feeling exiled, feeling like a reject. He’d been so filled with rage, constantly about to blow, always feeling like there was nowhere to put it all, nowhere for it to go. It took awhile, but somewhere in his second year he worked it out, learned to channel all that anger into focus and drive, to direct it into outlets that would earn him respect, recognition, and praise, instead of demerits and extra PT. Now in his third year he’s one of the Senior leaders, at the top of his class, and even though Brad’s old enough to know that doesn’t mean shit in the real world, things have been so much smoother, almost good, actually - especially with his mom - he didn’t want to wreck that, to disappoint everyone all over again by dropping out of school.

So yeah, fine, Brad can wait one more year to enlist.

And even the retarded Whites are better than some civilian monkey suit with a gay ass bowtie, which is what Val made him wear when he took her to her homecoming dance last month. At least for his Autumn Ball he gets to dictate the dress code, so Brad guesses he’ll take it, all things considered.

Their parents are all driving up with Val from La Jolla. Brad only has his bike, no car, and although Val loves riding with him, loves holding on tight and growling in his ear to go faster and stop being such a pussy, Colbert, it’s a long way to go to pick her up and bring her back here, and the bike isn’t exactly made for formal wear. She could have driven herself, like usual when she comes to visit on open weekends, but of course the parentals wanted to come and ooh and ahh, and take 4 million pictures. It’s a special occasion, after all.

“Colbert! Visitors!”

Jenkins slaps the wall outside the open door of Brad’s room as he passes by, yelling.

“Jesus, okay.”

Brad takes the stairs down three flights at a trot, shoves through the door into the bright light of the courtyard. It’s full of people, cadets in their dress uniforms gathered with family members and girls in long dresses. He does a quick scan of the terrain; Val’s standing by the fountain, actually looking kind of nervous in her sparkly, dark purple dress, her red hair all done up and actual makeup on. He’s used to seeing her with her hair in a ponytail, t-shirt and shorts and flip-flops, with nothing on her face but sunscreen and lip balm. Now her shoulders are bare and dusted with freckles, her lips blood red, and Brad’s eyes catch there for a minute when she grins at him. In her heels, she’s tall enough to meet his eyes above the crowd.

He walks up, his parents and Mr. and Mrs. Novak all standing there expectantly.

“Bradley,” his mother says after a beat, “doesn’t Valerie look lovely?”

“Yes, ma’am,” comes out by rote. He could never in a million years say to Val that she looks fucking lovely, but he smirks at her the right way, and she blushes.

Then his dad clears his throat, pointedly, and Brad drags his eyes away.

He lets their mothers position them like puppets in front of the fountain, moving where they want him and smiling on command, standing at attention but for one arm curled around Val’s waist. All around them, other cadets are posing with other girls in fancy dresses, other parents pointing cameras and yelling instructions to smile.

After what seems like an eternity they decide they have what they need, and Brad lets his hand graze Val’s ass, hold there for just a minute, before he steps away.

She elbows him in the ribs; his laugh is short and sharp.

“Knock it off, asshole.”

“You look hot, Novak,” he whispers low, just for her. “You clean up nice.”

She smiles her big blinding smile at him.

“You clean up pretty nice yourself, Colbert.”

+ + +

The dance is like torture. Brad just wants to stand against the wall with his buddies, but of course Val wants to actually dance.

“They call it that for a reason, you know.” She’s got her arms over his shoulders, one hand wrapped around the back of his neck as they sway back and forth. “And it’s not so you and your idiot friends can sit in the corner pouring Everclear in your Sprite.”

“No?” he asks, pulling her in tighter.

“No.”

“How many songs is it gonna take?” He raises an eyebrow, holds up two fingers by way of a suggestion.

She just shakes her head.

He puts up a third, hopeful, cajoling.

“Five. Not counting this one.”

“But-.”

“Five.” She says with finality, discussion closed.

“Capitulate to no fast songs, and we have an accord.”

She grins, rolls her eyes.

“One fast song.”

“I’m afraid that’s a negative.”

“Guess what I’m wearing under my dress?”

He stops swaying at the sudden change in tactic, looks at her carefully, images of lacy lingerie starting to form, or oh, God, maybe leather, he fucking loves leather. Do they make leather panties? He’s not sure, but he fucking hopes so. Maybe crotchless leather panties.

He finally manages to speak.

“Crotchless leather panties?”

Her eyes roll again. It’s one of her go-to moves.

“Moron,” she snorts, shaking her head, but then she leans in closer.

“Nothing,” she hisses, right up against his ear. “No bra, no panties. Nothing.”

He feels her words go directly to his dick, like a bolt of lightning.

“So how about one fast song?” She bats her eyelashes blatantly. “For me?”

He nods dumbly.

“One fast song.”

“That’s what I thought.”

+ + +

When he unzips her dress in the hotel room her parents think she’s sharing with three other girls, she steps back from him, so he can watch as the dress falls.

She’s naked as promised, standing in her high heels with a pool of purple sequins around her feet.

“Holy shit,” he breathes, reverent. “How -?”

“Built-in bra.”

She shrugs, steps out of the dress, and kicks off the shoes. She stands there, unselfconscious, picking pins out of her hair as pieces of it fall at odd, stiff angles, one by one. Brad watches, raptly, while he fights with the buttons on his stupid fucking white blouse.

Of all the filthy porn mags that get passed around this fine institution, Brad’s still never seen anything hotter than Val. It makes his chest feel too tight sometimes, like he can’t breathe with how much he loves her, and how lucky he feels that he gets to have her, touch her, make her laugh.

He finally gets the fucking jacket off as she’s shaking out her hair, whipping it around like a wet dog. He watches her tits bounce and palms his dick through his trousers.

She sees him and smirks, walks over and reaches for his belt.

“It was pretty fun tonight.”

She yanks his pants open, shoves her hand down inside his briefs.

“Yeah,” he agrees weakly, because it really wasn’t that fun, but also because her fingers are tight around him now, starting to stroke him with short little strokes, hand trapped inside his pants with her wrist shoved into his belly.

His head dips, his forehead coming to rest against hers, his hands sliding up her sides, over her tits, down around her back to grab her ass, pull her tight up against him.

“There’s a bed,” she points out logically, while his fingers creep between her thighs, sliding right up into her wet heat. She bucks and squirms and her hand stutters to a stop in his pants.

“Excellent observation,” he pants against her mouth. She bites at his lip, licks her way into his mouth. His fingers slide in and out of her, slow and slick, and her hips twist and cant, chasing more.

Brad is happy to oblige.

Finally, she tears her mouth away from his, eyes green-black and heavy lidded, and reaches around to his back pocket, taking out his wallet.

He grins as he watches her rip the condom packet open with her teeth, pulling it free as he shoves his pants down and off his hips.

She rolls the condom down over him and backs away, scooting up the bed until her head is on the pillows. She lays there, knees up, legs open in invitation, and raises her eyebrows impatiently, are we doing this or what? He crawls up over her, grinning, right in between her legs and sinks right into her, feeling like he always feels, like he was made to fit right there. Her legs and arms wrap around him as she groans.

“Love you,” she whispers faintly, but he’s already too far gone.

+ + +

“Just be careful, please,” his dad is saying warily, “and call your mother.”

“Yes, Sir,” Brad answers back by rote now, the habitual addition of “ma’am” and “sir” that’s been drilled into him at the Academy affording his interactions with his parents a certain degree of respectfulness, even when his tone and his expression don’t quite hit the mark.

His dad definitely looks unconvinced.

“Every day, Bradley. No excuses.”

“I know,” Brad starts, impatient, but cuts himself off. He knows his father is the only reason he’s being allowed to go, being let out into the wide world all alone for a week with no supervision and no one to answer to, with access to the kind of solitude and independence Brad fucking craves, and he really shouldn’t be petulant. “I will,” he amends with a deep breath. “Everyday. You have my word.”

The look his dad gives him then is almost impressed. Brad feels very adult, suddenly.

His mother is inside, expressing her tacit disapproval through her absence from this little goodbye scene. Val is at her own house, sulking and giving him the silent treatment - so that’s that. Nothing left to do but climb on his bike once his dad nods and claps him on the shoulder with a quiet be safe.

He’s got a bedroll, one change of clothes, a week’s worth of beef jerky and protein bars and trail mix, his flint and his water purification tabs and his hunting knife. He’s got his rock climbing gear and his fishing tackle, and as far as Brad’s concerned, he’s prepared for anything.

He parks at the Observatory on Mount Palomar and hikes out one of the trails, tries not to be annoyed that he has to stay close enough to civilization that he can make it to a pay phone once a day, either at one of the resorts on the mountain or back at the Observatory. It’s a small price to pay for the relative freedom of being alone in the wilderness, so he makes his daily call to his mother and repeats the same promises that he’s eating and taking care of himself and not doing anything stupid or reckless, over and over. On day 4 he tries calling Val, but her mom tells him unconvincingly that she’s not in.

Val is pissed that he’s spending one week of his two-week-long Winter Break off hiking and camping alone, instead of hanging out with her. She doesn’t understand what makes him want to do this in the first place, much less why he wants to do it during one of the few weeks of the year that they could be spending together, instead. What he can’t seem to make her understand is that it’s one of the few weeks of the year he can do anything besides whatever he’s told by whomever is running his life that day, and he spent last week hanging out with her and with his family, and he thinks taking one fucking week per year to do what he actually wants is not asking too much.

As usual, the people around him all seem to disagree.

When he pulls back into La Jolla on day 7 he stops his bike in front of Val’s house on his way home. He’s covered in dirt and grime and smells like campfire smoke and fish guts and 4 days of hiking and sleeping in the same clothes. She wrinkles her nose at him when she comes down the stairs.

“You’re disgusting.” She crosses her arms from behind the screen door. “Thanks for cleaning up before you came over.”

“I didn’t really expect you to be in,” he raises his eyebrows at her pointedly.

“Yeah, okay,” she shrugs. “So, here I am. What do you want?”

He grits his teeth and cranes his neck back, stares at the peeling sky blue paint on the ceiling of the Novak’s front porch. The sun’s going down, and he promised his mother he’d be home by dark. There’ll be a search party any time now, if he doesn’t get his ass home soon.

“You want me to be sorry that I wanted to go, or that I went, and I’m not. But I wasn’t doing it to piss you off, Val. I don’t.” He looks at her, finally. “I didn’t want to. Hurt your feelings, or whatever. That wasn’t. I just wanted to get – out. Two weeks in that house is just. Fuck. You know what it’s like, and I just. I just needed to. Breathe.”

She watches him shrewdly, arms still crossed, chewing on the inside of her lip, standing there in her sweat pants with with one bunny-slippered foot stacked on top of the other, backlit by the lamp behind her in the foyer. He can’t see her eyes, the evening shadows painting her face almost black.

He can’t remember the last time he went a whole week without talking to her. His chest feels too tight, waiting for her to speak.

“I’m still mad at you,” She says, and her voice is quieter, smaller, less sure than he’s used to.

He keeps his mouth shut, and waits.

“But I guess,” she starts, and he can feel himself let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. “I guess I still love you. A little.” Her mouth twists into a smirk, and he recognizes that look, sheepish and smart-assed at the same time.

“Yeah?” His voice sounds rough in his own ears. He’s never doubted it, not really, but she’s never been this mad before, either.

“Yeah. Even though you smell like burnt fish and dirt.” She wrinkles her nose again. “Go home and take a shower, and just. Call me tomorrow, or something. Your mom is probably already freaking out.”

“I can do that,” he tells her, and she watches him for another beat before she closes the door and leaves him standing there in the dark.

2. 1993

It’s funny, Nate’s thinking, how you can live 20 miles from the ocean all year long and still be so excited to go to the shore for the summer.

Still, he’s drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, driving his mom crazy changing the radio every 30 seconds, and he’s been coming to Sea Isle City his whole life but this is the first time he’s ever driven to Sea Isle City, which kind of rocks, and it barely even took any begging for his mom to agree to it even though he’s still a few weeks from being an officially licensed driver.

His room smells musty like it always does at the start of the summer, but the smell is like heaven to Nate. He’s got his trunks on, running across the sand in his flip flops to untie his board from the top of the Suburban 10 minutes after they pull in, calling promises of later back over his shoulder when his mom comes out onto the back porch, yelling you’re not getting out of helping unload the car, Nathaniel.

He paddles out into the surf, over the break, and he feels it hit him and sink in – freedom.

He gets a taste of it on his bike, on the winding county roads in the Maryland woods in the early mornings, or out running by himself, headphones blasting, creating his own little world. But nothing feels as good as when he’s floating on his board, face down in the water with the sun beating down on his shoulders and back, smelling the salt and the sunscreen, hearing the laughing of the kids on the beach from faraway, like a dream, over the roar of the waves.

Another school year done, another nine months full of straight A’s and model U.N. and piano practice and community service hours and racing on the weekends and being a good brother and a good son and a good student and a good citizen, but now Nate’s floating in the ocean breathing salt, eyes and nose stinging from the spray, shoulders burning in the sun. Nate is still a few weeks shy of 16 years old, but he knows enough already about obligation and duty and towing the line to appreciate freedom when he gets a taste of it.

+ + +

At The Sands, the soda is always flat and the vegetables are routinely steamed into a mass of indistinguishable yellow-green-grey mush, but the steak is usually reliable and the strawberry shortcake tastes like summer; makes Nate think of years’ worth of his mom fussing over pink stains on his nice white shirts, and one dessert split between him and his sisters when they were young, fighting about who ate more than their share.  When the waiter sits the towering dessert on the table in front of him, Nate misses them all of a sudden, suddenly feels the loneliness of being the baby, the last one left behind.

It gets a little old, having dinner with the same people night after night, year after year, but Nate supposes he can understand the appeal to people like his parents. Adults seem to like predictability and sameness, like they like Saturday morning chores and Chicken Divan with his grandparents every Sunday after church and Jay Leno every weeknight at 11:30. Nate prefers adventure, something new and unknown and yet-to-be-discovered if he has a choice, but he doesn’t, usually, and at least the Walkers’ table is next to theirs at the club so he can roll his eyes at Tim when their parents get up to dance.

When Tim sneaks out onto the giant deck of the dining room to smoke, Nate goes with him to help keep an eye out for parents or other authority-types who might not think teenage smoking is as cool as Tim does. Not that Nate agrees; running and cycling take lung capacity, whereas baseball, Tim argues, does not. Nate still advises against it on principle, but Tim just tells him to stop being such a fucking buzzkill.

Nate shrugs, turns away, then reaches over and flicks the cigarette out from between Tim’s fingers, laughing and back-peddling as he dodges the slaps that come flying at his head.

+ + +

The stars in New Jersey always seem so much brighter than the stars in Maryland. Intellectually, Nate understands that is not the case, and that the brightness of stars is constant. Rather, it’s the ambient light of his surroundings and the degree of cloud coverage and pollution that varies the appearance of the stars’ brightness, and all that. But lying on the dunes off the Walkers’ back porch while Tim smokes, looking up at the stars and how close they seem, he can’t quite make himself believe any of that.

“You should stay over, we can go out at dawn.”

“I don’t have my stuff. I’ll meet you out there.”

Tim’s laugh turns into a sputter turns into a cough. “You know if you leave me on my own, my ass isn’t getting out of bed that early.”

“God, so freaking hopeless.” Nate offers mildly.

“Baseball practice is in the afternoons, dude, not the ass-crack of dawn like that insane bullshit you do, running around the countryside and riding your little bike.”

“Does your mommy still wake you up for school, little boy?”

“Fuck yeah she does, and picks out my clothes, too.”

Tim grins over at him, knocks his knee against Nate’s. Their thighs rub together, just a few seconds, but Nate’s stomach drops, his dick twitches. He takes a deep breath and stands up abruptly.

“Nah, I should get home, man.”

He dusts himself off, forces himself to grin, everything’s fine, everything’s fine.

“I’ll be out there in the morning. Guess I’ll see you sometime later in the day.”

Tim’s laugh is echoing after him in the dark as he walks down the beach, counting porch lights like he has since he was 10 years old and finally allowed to stay out after dark – as long as it was just to the Walkers’ and no further – but when he gets to 8, his house, he keeps walking.

He walks so far he loses count, so far he starts to worry his mom will call over to the Walkers and find out how long ago he left, and then she’ll have the police out looking for him or something. So he turns around and starts back, but all the walking doesn’t stop the building sense of dread that’s rumbling down deep in his stomach, the uneasy way that dread is mixed with anticipation. Desire and fear are fighting it out in Nate’s guts and he doesn’t even know whose side he’s on.

Nate is 15 years and 361 days old, old enough to know that no amount of walking, no amount of pushing it out of his mind for a year and pretending Tim Walker in his swim trunks doesn’t pop into his head when he’s jerking off is going to make this go away.

+ + +

“Your father will be here for dinner, and he’s bringing fresh crab with him.”

“But it’s Thursday.”

His mom smiles indulgently.

“Yes, son, I’m aware of that. That’s why I’m telling you. Your father’s taking the day off tomorrow and coming in early this weekend for the holiday. Plus, it’s the only weekend your sisters will be here all summer, and we’re all sitting down together at least once before the three of you are off in opposite directions with your friends.”

“But me and Tim were going to get pizza.”

“Tim and I. And you and Tim get pizza at least four times a week. Your father brings crab in from Baltimore twice a summer if we’re lucky. I’m sure Tim will understand.”

“Mom –.”

“Nathaniel.”

Nate knows that tone, knows further resistance is futile. He also really wishes he didn’t care so much about a stupid slice of pizza with Tim Walker.

Two nights later, Nate’s biting his tongue, sweat beading on his forehead, trying to wedge one last wooden stick into the neck of the bottle before they light the rockets. Behind him, he can hear Tim’s loud, steady breathing as he digs the hole in the sand where the bottle will go.

“How many did you get in there?”

“Working. On. Nine,” Nate huffs, still maneuvering and finessing the rockets into position.

“What was last year’s record?”

“That would be seven.”

“Nice work, Fick.”

“Tell me something I don’t know. Guess physics was good for something after all.”

“You’re telling me your physics class taught you how to fit nine rockets into a bottle where you used to could only fit seven?”

Tim raises an eyebrow, the side of his mouth quirked up halfway like a challenge.

Nate just smirks back at him.

“Or maybe my brain is just growing exponentially.”

Tim snorts.

“Just put the rocket in the hole, loser.”

“That’s what she said. Minus the loser part.”

Tim snorts again, louder and with even more derision, and shoves him.

When the rockets go off it’s deafening, and fantastic, and kind of beautiful. There are some cheers and clapping from up and down the beach, and they take a little bow and do it all again, and then again, until they run out of rockets, then they lay in the dunes and watch other peoples’ stuff, but judge everyone else’s show to be subpar. They go up to the Walkers house for food, because it’s closest, and Tim comes out with hamburgers from the cookout his parents had last night, and an almost-full bottle of whiskey. Nate takes the burger eagerly and eyes the whiskey warily.

“Come on, Fick. Bet you’ve never even had a drink.”

“I’ve had a drink,” Nate insists through a mouth full of burger.

“What, champagne at your sister’s wedding?”

Nate just grins sheepishly, and Tim grins back.

“Come on, this’ll put hair on your chest, boy!”

Tim holds out the bottle, and something about the way he only smiles with one side of his mouth, about the night and the sea and the anniversary of the birth of the whole freaking nation, about the fireworks and the sweaty sheen of Tim’s bare, summer-tan skin makes Nate take it and drink. He drinks through the burn, through the coughing fit, through the burn again, until he can get it down without incident. Until he feels fuzzy headed and tingly and really pretty awesome.

Tim drinks until he gets closer and closer, until he’s laying shoulder to ankle up against Nate, until he lifts his knee up and props his foot in the sand against the inside of Nate’s calf, between Nate’s legs, talking with his hands waving in the air and their hips bumping together and his toes wiggling against Nate’s leg. Until Nate can barely breathe, he’s so hard.

Then Tim gets quiet, and he lets his leg go slack and his knee drops down onto Nate, right there, right in the one place Nate really needs him not to touch, and Tim says,

“Hey, Fick?”

“Huh?”

“Feels like your brain’s not the only thing growing exponentially.”

Nate doesn’t panic, it’s not his style. He doesn’t freak out and run, he doesn’t try to deny it. He doesn’t claim he’s drunk, because he’s not, not that much, not really. He just cuts his eyes over at Tim and waits, patient and calm, for whatever comes next.

What comes next is, “want to go up to my room?”

Nate blinks, considers.

“Do you want to go up to your room?”

Tim takes his hand and pulls it over, curls Nate’s fingers around his hard-on.

“What do you think?”

+ + +

Most mornings, Nate’s up and out in the water at dawn. Before the 4th, Tim could be counted on to sleep past noon most days; he’d catch up with Nate out on beach in the afternoons, or sometimes not until dinnertime at the club. Since the 4th, he’s started showing up on the beach in the mornings, something that makes Nate grin stupidly whenever he comes over the dunes and into the flat to see the silhouette of Tim against the gold light of the sunrise, or looks up at the end of a ride and sees Tim paddling out toward him through the surf.

Sometimes there are people out in the water with them and they just ride, just like always, nothing different than the last however many years they’ve been doing this. And sometimes the waves aren’t that great, and the beach is deserted and it feels like they’re all alone in the world, and they float out in the water, half on and half off their boards, legs and arms tangled, skin on skin. They watch the sun lift itself up out of the ocean, and suck the salty water off each other’s shoulders and necks and mouths, and jerk each other off into the cold morning sea, and laugh like they’re getting away with something, like they invented this, like they’re the only people in the world who know what it’s like.

They spend their days at the beach or at the arcade in town, or holed away in their bedrooms, if one of their houses is deserted. They spend their evenings at the club having dinner with their parents, and after dinner they disappear out the side door of the dining room, parents calling after them not to be out too late.

They have a few places they can go, piers with enough room underneath, stretches of beach they can count on to be deserted. Tonight, they took Tim’s car out to the end of the island where the beach runs out, just to get far enough away to make sure they can do whatever they want.

“Walker, seriously, do you have to do that?”

“What do you care?” Tim doesn’t even look over, just sucks on his stupid cigarette.

“Aside from all the other reasons I’ve told you a million times? How ‘bout I don’t like how it tastes.”

“Well, good thing you’re not the one smoking it then.”

Nate just shoots him a pointed look, and waits.

Tim looks at him for a minute, then the side of his mouth quirks up.

“Oh. You mean you don’t like how it tastes when we.”

“Yeah, I mean I don’t like how it tastes when we.”

“My bad. Sorry.”

He stubs the cigarette out in the sand next to them, and grins. Nate grins back.

Then just like that, his arm snakes around Nate’s neck, pulls him close, not to kiss, just to nuzzle against his face. Tim runs his nose along Nate’s cheek, his jaw, burrows into the hollow of his neck.

“Dude. It’s weird, but. That just gave me a woody. That you give a shit how my mouth tastes.”

Nate’s breath catches in his chest, and it takes a minute before he can remember how to get it back. He reaches up, threads his fingers with Tim’s where they’re dangling down over his clavicle.

“It’s not weird,” he tries his best not to stutter. “I mean okay, it’s weird, I guess. But it’s like. Uh. I’m glad? That you like that I give a shit, or whatever?”

Tim just laughs and shakes his head, says, “Dude. I think we might be screwed,” then bites him on the neck, pushes him back in the sand and grinds against him until they both have to drive home in sticky shorts.

+ + +

Nate knows what’s in the bag, Tim doesn’t even have to say.

Their parents are at the club for something requiring tuxes and long dresses, a sure sign they’ll be there late, and Tim and his parents went to Atlantic City two weekends ago. Nate has a feeling he’s had that bag hidden somewhere since then, just waiting for the right time. Waiting for now.

It’s sitting on the bed between them, brown and innocuous, like no big deal. Yeah, right.

“Well,” Nate’s reasoning out loud, just thinking it through, “we go home in two weeks.”

“Yep.”

“We’ve done everything else.”

“Yep.”

“And it’s not like. I mean. It’s not like I haven’t thought about it.”

“Right. I mean, me either.”

“Both ways,” Nate chokes out, trying to sound more certain than he feels.

“Yeah, totally. I mean, me too man. Both ways.”

Nate’s looking at the bag, like maybe it holds the answer to the questions that are running around inside his head; questions about whether or not doing this – the deed, the real deal – means turning some corner that means he’s officially queer and there’s no going back now, means it’s not just messing around with a buddy anymore, means now he likes fucking guys, likes taking it up the ass or whatever, and that’s something totally different, more real, than what they’ve been doing up until now.

Then Tim puts his hands on either side of Nate’s face, and tugs his head up. When their eyes lock it’s like Nate can’t breathe, but in a good way, like Tim’s look is so heavy it’s pushing down on Nate, crushing him, forcing all the air out, but he doesn’t want it to stop.

“Dude. If you don’t want me to like. You know, do it to you. It’s cool. I still want you to. I mean. If you’re cool with it. I just want to know what it feels like.”

Nate doesn’t have to consider that one much. He’s only 16, and technically a virgin, but he’s had his fingers in there, inside Tim, and he can’t even imagine pushing his dick into that tight hot space, and how unreal that must feel. It almost hurts to think about it, after the unbearable goodness of Tim’s hand around him, the even more unbearable goodness of Tim’s mouth, both of which Nate has nonetheless learned to bear this summer, not without some suffering to his nerves and, he has a lingering suspicion, his intellectual capacity.

Nate’s never been able to turn down a friend, has always been the guy you could count on, always the overachiever, the protector, the people pleaser. He’s also never been one to lie to himself, so he knows that’s not all it is, knows there’s a want down deep in his guts, and somewhere down deeper than that, too, that’s begging to see Tim’s face when Nate’s inside him, to feel what he feels like from the inside, to know what no one else knows about Tim Walker; something that’s begging to be the only one.

So he kisses him, says, “what kinda guy do you take me for, to turn down an offer like that?”

Tim grins and rips the bag open, then lays back on the pillows, puts the condoms and the astroglide on his chest and locks his fingers behind his head, all laid-back cool. Nate knows it’s a show, knows he’s scared shitless, but he appreciates the effort to keep things as normal as possible.

“Well come on then, Fick. Show me what you got.”

His voice sounds mostly like always, but there’s a little waver, just a hint of a hesitation in that uneven smile, and Nate’s chest feels tight when he reaches over, knocks the stuff off Tim’s chest and lays himself down there instead.

“What are you –.”

“I’ll get to it, I’ll get to it. Patience, grasshopper.”

He kisses Tim’s neck, his ear, his mouth. Tim lets him, opens his mouth against Nate’s and kisses back, kisses until they’re panting and sliding together, hands everywhere, naked, hips straining against each other, until finally Tim plants a hand on Nate’s chest and shoves.

“Y’know you don’t have to convince me, Fick. I’m fuckin’ asking to give it up, here.”

“I said I’ll get to it.”

Tim smirks.

“You’re stalling. Chickenshit.”

Nate feels himself blush, even past the perpetual sunburn, and he drops his forehead to Tim’s chest. Feels Tim’s hand rub roughly over his scalp.

“Dude, what the hell? You don’t want to? You can just say.”

“No, no, it’s not that,” he breathes against Tim’s chest, feels warm fingers against the back of his neck, insistent pressure of both their cocks crushed together between them, totally undeterred by Nate’s crisis of conscience.

“I want to, I just. I do. But. I mean, I don’t want to hurt you.”

Tim snorts.

“You think I’ll let your scrawny, bicycle riding ass hurt me? Get the fuck out.”

Tim’s got easily 2 inches and 40 pounds on Nate, and even though Nate’s pretty positive that doesn’t matter in this particular situation, not at all, Nate lets him have it, doesn’t argue, just nods.

“Yeah, man. Yeah, okay.”

“We good to go, then?”

“Good to go.”

“Cause you’re killing me with the foreplay, here.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“So bring it.”

Nate nods, gets down to business with the same focus he uses on anything that’s important to him, carefully, thoroughly, attentively, so concentrated on the task at hand that he almost forgets his own need, his aching dick an afterthought until he’s poised above Tim, sheen of sweat across his forehead, ready to lean in, when Tim’s hand around his wrist pulls him back to the moment.

“Just. Go slow, Nate. Okay?”

Nate licks his lips, swallows slowly.

“Whatever you want. Anything, okay? Whatever you want.”

Then he braces on his elbows, and lets himself fall.

3. 1994

When he was 15, Brad stole a car.

It wasn’t like he was never going to give it back; he didn’t steal it for good. He’s wasn’t a fucking moron, like, how the hell would he have hidden a car from his parents, if he’d tried to keep it? Which is what he tried to explain to them, between all the yelling and crying and histrionics at the police station, but they were past listening.

The thing is, he just wanted to see if he could. Kind of like he just wanted to see if he could steal the answer key to all of his Biology teacher’s exams for the semester, like he just wanted to see if he could skip a different class every day, like he just wanted to see if he could shrink wrap the Vice Principal’s car in the teacher’s parking lot once a week just to watch from afar when the guy sputtered and raged every time he came out to find it that way. Like he just wanted to see if he could spray paint a shiny new swastika onto the garage door of the neighbor who complained to the home owners’ association about his mother’s mezuzah, every time they had the door repainted.

As it turns out, the answer to all of those was yes – for a while. He could get away with each of them for a while, but as always, the lesson Brad couldn’t seem to learn was how to quit while he was ahead. How to go out on top instead of pushing his luck all the way until it turned on him and went bad.

That’s the part he never seems to get right.

And it’s not like he hurt the car, he just drove it around a little bit. If it hadn’t been for that small issue of going 85 in a 55, he would’ve gotten away with it. He would have taken the car around the block, maybe up and down the freeway a few miles, then parked it back where he’d found it, and no one would have been any the wiser.

Instead, when he’d gotten on the freeway, felt the sudden rush of that turbo kicking all the way in, he just couldn’t stop himself. Before he knew it his mind was blissfully blank, focused only on the cars and the palm trees flying by, on the feeling of the smooth shift of the gears, automatic and seamless.

It had felt like flying, like coming untethered.

When he saw the flashing lights, heard the sirens behind him, for a brief, insane, careless moment he thought about flooring it, about trying his luck.

Just to see if he could.

But instead, his brain clicked back on just in time. Instead he pulled over, stood there docile and obedient while they cuffed him and threw him in the back of the cruiser like a common criminal.

Took the community service hours, the waiting until he was 18 to get his license, the two years of probation, all without uttering a single word to the judge other than yes ma’am.

He even let his parents pack him off to military school, away from Val, away from Jason and Clay and all the other friends he’d gone to school with his whole life, without even protesting.

He accepted these as the consequences of his actions, as a punishment he deserved.

“Why do you always have to push, Bradley? I don’t understand it, I don’t!”

They were next to the car, in the parking lot outside the police station. His father had unlocked the door and stood there holding it open for her, but his mother was vibrating, still full of rage and fear.

“Why do you always, always have to take things 5 steps too far? Why do you never know when to stop?!”

The only answer Brad had for her was that maybe it was in his genes, something passed down to him from people he’d never known, people who’d thrown him away, something left somewhere inside him as a final fuck-you to offend and terrify the unlucky people who took him in, who’d loved and raised him, but who couldn’t understand him.

He didn’t say that, of course.

Brad’s always been reckless, but he’s never been cruel.

+ + +

He’s not sure if it was his parents, his sisters, Val; maybe it was the whole lot of them that managed to convince him to give college a go.

“Just try it,” Jodie said. “It’s not going to hurt anything. If you don’t like it, don’t stay, easy as that.”

“It’s not like the Marines are going somewhere, like you’ll miss your chance if you don’t do it right now.”

That was Audrey.

“I hate to see you throw away your gifts, Bradley.” His mother’s mouth turned down as she shook her head. “You’re so bright, you have so much to offer, and you want to go and put yourself in harm’s way like that. I just don’t know why-.”

And she didn’t have to finish, Brad knew the end of the sentence. She doesn’t know why Brad has to be the way he is.

She’s never known. Neither has Brad.

“Look,” his dad told him, matter of fact like always, “they’re never going to let you hear the end of it, if you don’t at least give the school thing a shot. It’s one semester - if you hate it, you move on. Can’t you just give them that, to spare us all the kvetching?”

“But I need you,” Val had said. “Here, with me. Not halfway across the world somewhere, doing God knows what.”

And the thing is, Val is the only person he has who picked him. His parents were waiting for a baby boy from a Jewish mother, and he came along first. If some other destitute unwed teenage crack whore - Brad can only assume – with the desired cultural heritage had given birth two hours sooner to an appropriately gendered child, they would have taken that baby, and that would have been it. They didn’t choose him, his sisters didn’t choose him.

Val chose him. At 13, with his gangly arms and skinny legs and acne and braces, with his penchant for stupid stunts and for dungeons and dragons and for talking too long and in too much detail about boring electronics stuff and gadgets she doesn’t give a shit about, she chose him. And she’s the only person who’s ever needed him.

Of course, now she’s off in Los Angeles at UCLA, coming home on weekends if she’s not too busy, so maybe she doesn’t need him that much, after all.

And meanwhile here he is, at City College with the losers, the surf bums, and the go-nowhere slackers and stoners. Listening to Professors who couldn’t get a job at a real fucking school tell him why he’s wrong about everything – politics, economics, religion. The military-industrial fucking complex.

He made it through the first year by sheer force of will and his trademark stubbornness – they all thought he wouldn’t even try, but look at him now, fucking trying – getting a 4.0 just to prove a point. But now in his third semester Brad knows he isn’t going to last much longer, he’s just dreading having to break the news to all interested parties.

Brad is 20 years old, and his life is still being dictated to him by others, he’s still not the one running the show. All he knows is he’s tried it their way, and now he’s going to do it his way. Whether they like it or not.

+ + +

Val is stretched across her bed, socked feet swinging in the air, flipping through a magazine. She’s only been home for a day; she still has that pale, drawn look she got from too much coffee and not enough food or sleep during finals.

Brad only went to one of his finals, to write a scathing, pointedly off-topic essay about the lack of intellectual rigor in modern American academia, for the benefit of his most reviled professor.

He didn’t care about any of that shit – passing, failing, whatever. None of it matters to Brad at all.

Val does matter, though. Not that his family doesn’t, but Val is what matters most, is what’s always mattered most, and he’s most worried about telling her.

She knows him well; he knows she won’t be shocked. Still, it’s not what she wants to hear.

The room is dark, but for the reading lamp on her bedside table, and a blinking string of Christmas lights she has strung up around her bookshelves. Her mom and dad are downstairs in the den, but it doesn’t matter. Brad lost his virginity in this room when he was 16 years old, with Mr. and Mrs. Novak sitting right down there on the couch where they are now.

She rolls onto her side, head propped up on her hand. She’s wearing the sweatshirt she bought while they were Christmas shopping a few weeks ago, when he was up in L.A. to see her. It features a gingerbread man saying bite me.

“Get it?” She had giggled when she held it up for Brad to see. “Because he’s a cookie.”

It’s ridiculous, which is why she loves it.

She is ridiculous sometimes, which is something Brad rarely is. He thinks it brings them into balance.

Now she takes one look at his face, sighs, and flops backward, throwing an arm over her face.

“Go ahead, Bradley.”

“Go ahead and what?”

“Just say it. We all know you’re going to.”

“I’m enlisting in the Marine Corps.”

There’s a long, loaded pause.

“Fine. You’re enlisting in the Marine Corps. Now all your dreams can come true. How fucking great for you.”

“Listen, you wanted me to give school a chance, and -.”

“Don’t fucking insult me, Colbert, by saying you did give it a chance, when we both know that’s a load of bullshit. You didn’t fucking give it anything close to a chance, all you did was occasionally go to class, bitch about how much it all sucked and how stupid everyone was, and wait until you thought it had been long it enough that it would look like you gave it a chance.”

He grits his teeth.

“I made the Dean’s List.”

She snorts.

“Yeah. For spite.”

He feels a flare of irritation crackle through him, tamps down on it immediately and stares at her instead with the purposefully blank and unreadable expression he spent years honing and perfecting at the Academy, with instructors screaming in his face.

“Don’t do that shit to me,” she yells, and throws her pillow at him. “It’s creepy and you know I fucking hate it.” She sits up, legs crossed, and there are tears in her eyes. “It’s like you disappear.”

Brad forces himself to drop the mask, but not without some effort. It’s almost easier, these days, to wear it than not. Especially when shit goes wrong, when he starts to feel helpless or frustrated or pissed, or really any unpleasant emotion that makes that dark pit of anger inside him start to well up. He’s learned, over the past few years, how to squash that anger – not to curb it, exactly, not how to make it dissipate, but at least how to camouflage it, gloss over it, not let it show and not let it boil over the way it used to. But Val can tell every time, as soon as he goes to that place.

She’s not a fan.

He scrubs his hands over his face, sinks down on the bed. He runs his hand up under the leg of her Simpson’s printed pajama pants, gripping her knee.

He can’t fucking stand to see her cry.

“Brad, people go into the military to earn money, so they can go to college. You don’t need to do that.”

“That’s not the only reason, Val.”

“So what, you want to tell me you’re some fucking patriot now? You just want to serve your country?”

“Is that so hard to believe?”

“Brad.”

“What, Val? Fucking what?”

“You don’t have to be a Marine to be a badass. You are exceptional, okay? Period.”

“No, Valerie. I’m a fucking drop out from San Diego City College.”

“By choice. You’re fucking brilliant. You can do anything - whatever you want with your life.”

“What the fuck do you think I’m trying to do? That’s the whole goddamn point.”

“I just don’t understand why you have to choose something that sends you away from home for months at a time, risking your life all over the world to go play commando or whatever the fuck.”

Brad reaches for her, pulls her close.

“I know you don’t.” He breathes deep against the bright, flowery candy apple smell of her hair, and wishes he had something more than that to say.

For Hanukkah she gives him 8 different books about the Marine Corps.

He’s not sure if it’s a conciliatory gesture or purely passive aggressive, but he reads them all before the New Year.

4. 1995

Nate sits in the car for a while, sweating in the stuffy heat brought on by the late spring sun, convincing himself to walk in. It’s not a big deal, and he’s being ridiculous. He scrubs his hands over his face, steps out, and pockets his keys.

Turns out his Student ID works just as well in Philadelphia, so he gets in for a buck at the gate, scopes the scene out from under the bleachers long enough to spot the Walkers in the stands and head the opposite direction; he doesn’t really feel up for small talk. Instead he buys an orange soda and finds a place by the fence next to the home team’s dugout, props his foot up on the stair rail and chews on his straw and leans back, trying to look relaxed with his cap brim pulled down tight.

It’s the second inning; Walker’s team is up to bat, but they go 4 up and 3 down with Tim nowhere to be seen as soon as Nate shows up. Then they head out to the field and that’s the first glimpse Nate gets of him since December, his back jogging to the mound.

Tim gives up one hit, one walk, then sits down three in a row. On his way back to the dugout he looks up, and suddenly Nate feels the heat of having been seen, sees the lift at the side of Tim’s mouth and the flush races up from his neck into his face. He sucks on his straw.

At the end of the game he goes over, shakes hands with Mr. Walker and is introduced around by Mrs. Walker, makes nice like a good boy, all these people that are Tim’s real life, people he’s heard about and doesn’t know, has never seen. They make Nate feel like a fraud, an interloper.

When Tim visited him in Towson over Winter Break this year, school was out, they had nothing to do but hang out around the Fick house, nothing different than hanging out around the Fick house at the beach. Nate pretty much just ignored his friends, his girlfriend, his life, for the week Tim was there, didn’t try to mix the two together. Last year when Nate came here for Spring Break it was the same thing, kept to themselves, didn’t go out much, didn’t see anyone but each other. Meeting the parents of Tim’s “real” friends, meeting the kids he’s gone to school with since Kindergarten, kids who probably know him better than Nate does, makes Nate forget that technically he’s known Tim just as long. Instead it just makes him want to get back in the car and drive back to Maryland.

But then Tim comes out of the clubhouse, hair wet and bat bag slung over his shoulder. Begs off when his boys ask him to come out, tells his parents he’s riding with Nate, and 10 minutes later they’re in the parking lot of a Perkins. Nate puts the car in park and looks at Tim. Tim grins that freaking grin at him.

“Your lips are orange.” He reaches over to trace Nate’s bottom lip with his thumb, and Nate ducks away, slaps at his hand.

“I drank a lot of soda.”

“I noticed.”

“You noticed?” Nate raises his eyebrow, disbelieving.

“Dude, you were like, molesting that straw. Like I’m not gonna notice?”

“You’re supposed to have your head in the game, Walk.”

“Well what can I say, you’re fucking distracting.”

Nate leans back against the headrest, uneasy feeling that’s been stirring up his guts since he got here settling just a little, grin wider, more genuine than it’s been all night.

“I could be a lot more distracting, if you wanted to take me somewhere. Less well-lit.”

“I have to eat first, get my strength up. You are here for three days, y’know.”

Tim’s hand skates over Nate’s knee, up inside the leg of his shorts and along the inside of his thigh.

“No straws for you, though. We don’t want to get hauled in for public indecency and shit.”

Nate snorts.

“I make no promises.”

+ + +

Nate’s counting along with the clock in his head, trying to guess when the numbers are going to turn. Fifty-five-Mississippi, Fifty-six-Mississippi, Fifty-seven-Mississ-, and damn, Nate has to blink once to make sure, but nope, the clock’s red dial has changed from 3:05 to 3:06, and his counting was off again. At 3:02 he almost had it exactly, but he hasn’t gotten that close again.

“Fuck me,” He whispers in the dark, and flops onto his back.

A huff comes from the bunk below him.

“Took you long enough to ask.”

Nate’s body goes still suddenly, a blanket of embarrassment settling over him, wondering how long Tim has been awake down there listening to him tossing around, and was he counting out loud for God’s sake? And Nate doesn’t know how to respond to this, the subject he tries to avoid whenever it comes up, so his response is to say nothing.

After a long enough silence, Tim sighs.

“It was a joke, Fick.”

“Not really,” Nate says, because it wasn’t.

Tim sighs.

“Get your ass down here, Nathaniel.”

Nate waits, considers, then gets his ass down there. He kneels on the bed next to Tim, who scoots over and makes an impatient, annoyed motion like Nate should already be laying down, so he does.

“What are you doing awake?”

“What are you?”

“Wishing you’d quit rolling around.”

“Wishing I didn’t have to leave tomorrow. Today.”

“Me too. Summer’s soon, though.”

“Yeah,” Nate shrugs. It really doesn’t feel very soon.

“Is it gonna be like the last ones?” Tim asks, like he’s just making small talk, only vaguely interested in the answer. Like he wishes Nate would shut up and go to sleep.

“You mean where all we do is surf and screw around every day?”

“Pretty much.”

“Here’s hoping.”

“You won’t miss your girlfriend?” His voice is nonchalant, but Nate knows, Tim doesn’t like his girlfriend. Nate thinks that’s pretty unfair, considering.

“You won’t miss your girlfriends?” He hopes that didn’t sound as catty out loud as he’s afraid it might have.

“Like you don’t know I’d rather have you sucking my dick than be fucking every chick at Agnes Irwin.”

“Like I do know that.”

“Nate. Those chicks might blow me if I fucking beg. They don’t do it ‘cause they want to.”

“They do it ‘cause they want you to like them.”

“I don’t like them even if they do. I like you even if you don’t.”

“Easy to say when you know I get off on your dick down my throat.” Nate’s not even embarrassed by it anymore. He loves sucking Tim off, loves when Tim holds his head and makes his whole cock fit into Nate’s throat, it gets him harder than anything else he’s tried so far.

“My fucking point exactly, dude.”

“So you don’t like them just because they don’t live to blow you?”

“I don’t like them ‘cause they’re stuck up bitches.”

“But you still have sex with them.”

“Get in where you fit in, Fick.”

Nate sighs, annoyed.

“Oh right, I forgot it’s always got to be about where you can stick your dick.”

“You really think I care if you don’t want me to fuck you?”

Nate really does.

“I really do.”

“Conceited much?”

“Maybe.”

“Definitely.”

It goes quiet then, and Nate has a million things he wants to say, but he can’t imagine how he could actually say any of them.

“Fucking what?” Tim snaps finally, like Nate’s thoughts are too loud, are keeping him up, and Nate doesn’t blame him, exactly, except that if it really doesn’t matter then why does it keep on coming up?

Honesty is the best policy. That’s what you’re taught from childhood, right? Nate knows Tim thinks he’s afraid: afraid it’s going to hurt, afraid of letting Tim see him like that, have him like that, afraid of what it means about him, afraid of being a fag. He also knows Tim is afraid: afraid that Nate thinks he’s some kind of pussy, because he lets Nate fuck him, because he wants Nate to fuck him, because he asks for it and he loves it and because he comes sometimes when Nate isn’t even touching his dick, just from Nate’s cock inside him and Nate’s body rubbing against him, and because of the sounds he makes, almost like crying, when Nate finds just the right spot.

Nate’s afraid, all right, but not in the ways Tim thinks. But he can’t lie here and say, I’m not afraid I won’t like it, I’m afraid I will like it, I’m afraid I’ll like it as much as you like it, maybe more. I’m afraid I’ll like it too much and then I’ll like you too much and I already like you more than I should. He can’t say, I already know, by the girls you screw and the family you come from and the life you live, that I’m never going to be all there is, for you.

He can’t say, I love you, and I think you love me, but it’s never going to be enough to make this real for you, and that’s not good enough for me.

Nate is 17, and he knows enough to know the Main Line blood goes deep, the pull is strong and it’s old and it’s got a big trust fund, and it doesn’t go gay, even if Nate is willing to; the Main Line marries Seven Sisters debs and has 2.4 kids in Suburban Philadelphia or Westchester County and a mistress in the city, and unless Nate aspires to be the freaking mistress in the city, he’s in deep enough already without making it worse.

So he doesn’t say anything, he just slides his hand down into Tim’s shorts and does his best to distract them both.

+ + +

“So, Stanford.”

Nate swallows hard and tries to keep his voice steady, even though his chest has gone tight and it’s suddenly hard to breathe.

“Yeah?” He says, not very convincingly nonchalant.

“Have you thought about it anymore?”

Nate’s looking straight ahead, hands braced on the steering wheel, and it was some sort of delusion he was having, thinking maybe this wouldn’t come up. Like the fight last night wasn’t bad enough, he really, really doesn’t want to have The College Discussion again, not now, when he’s about to pull out of the driveway and not see Tim again for three months.

“Yeah, I’m. You know. Thinking about it.”

“Fick. Like I can’t tell when you’re lying?”

“Look, I said I’m thinking about it.”

He knows when he says it it’s too defensive, gives him away immediately. He cuts his eyes out the driver side window to where Tim’s standing, elbows propped up on the roof, head hung down between his arms.

His eyes don’t meet Nate’s, and it’s quiet for a minute.

“You can just say you don’t wanna go. I’m a big boy, I can take it.”

“It’s not –.”

Nate stops, breathes. Forces his voice down out of that weirdly high register where it started and into his normal range, and tries again.

“It’s not just about wanting to or not wanting to, okay?”

“Then what’s it about?”

“You mean besides whether it’s really so smart to give up the Ivy League, even for Stanford?”

“Yeah, besides that. What’s it really fucking about, Nate. Come on.”

Nate only applied to Stanford because his guidance counselor insisted he try for at least one school not in the Ivy League. He never really considered it a serious contender, still wouldn’t consider it, except. Except. Except for freaking Tim Walker and his baseball scholarship at Stanford, his big brown eyes and his crooked smile and his you should totally come to Cali with me, Fick, it’s gonna be awesome. Except for that, Nate’s never given Stanford a second thought.

So maybe he didn’t tell the truth last night, but he’s wondering if maybe he should tell it now. Because the truth is however easy it would be to let himself be taken in by the idea of him and Walker screwing their brains out in their dorm rooms, surfing the Pacific on the weekends, hanging out in coffee houses and libraries and at frat parties and doing all the stuff college kids do, doing it together. However sweet that sounds, Nate can’t choose a college based on that. He can’t go to a school he never really wanted to go to, just because he wants Tim Walker. Tim Walker, who doesn’t even want him back, not really - not the same way. Nate’s only 17, but he knows that would be a monumentally bad decision.

“Tim, it’s.”

“Yeah?”

And Walker has the nerve to look kind of dejected, sad even, like he knows he’s about to get let down easy, and that’s just not even fair. Nate looks back at the steering wheel so he doesn’t have to look at that, then he takes a deep breath and reminds himself: the truth. They say it will set you free, and Nate figures it’s about damn time.

“It’s just, if I went to Stanford? I’d really only be going for one reason. And it’s not because I give a crap about the school.”

His knuckles are white on the steering wheel, waiting for Tim to say something. When he doesn’t, Nate finishes.

“And I don’t think. I mean, if you really think about it, man. I don’t think you really want me out there, if the only reason I’m there is you. That’s kinda, I mean-  It’s just, I’d just be out there pretending this is something it’s not ever gonna be, and neither one of us needs that, you know?”

He didn’t mean it to sound so final, but he knows that’s how it came out. Suddenly he can’t breathe, can’t move, and Tim’s silence stretches out until it Nate can feel it turning into the end.

And maybe he could say something, do something, take it all back, save it somehow, but he doesn’t.

Because okay, fine. If that’s how it’s going to be, then fine. He knows he’s right, knows this is the only sane decision, knows there’s nothing on earth he wants less than to be out in California with a front row seat for Tim and his conquest of the week, nothing he wants less than to be there when one of them sticks and Tim stops coming around, stops wanting to screw around and go surfing and do college shit, because he’s busy with his girlfriend. So, if it ends here instead, at least it ended on Nate’s terms, and that’s just freaking fine.

Forty-five minutes later he has a flash of what summer will be like, life going on around them like nothing ever happened, Tim’s face all sullen and closed off, eyes looking right past him just like when Nate was pulling out of his driveway, and suddenly it feels like he’s going to puke. He pulls off into a Shop-Rite parking lot and breathes into an old Taco Bell sack for a while. It smells like year-old ass and doesn’t do much to keep him from wanting to barf, but at least it seems to help with the hyperventilating. Eventually he stops trying to reign it in, puts his head down on the sticky rubber grip of the steering wheel, and lets the tears come. It takes an hour, and he has to call his mom from the pay phone in the parking lot and tell her that he’s running later than he thought, but he finally makes it back on the road.

And if he stays home from school the next three days because his mom is convinced he’s deathly ill, that’s not his fault. He’s not lying when he says he’s never felt this bad in his life, when he says it feels like he’s dying, but when she suggests a trip to the doctor he won’t budge. He doesn’t have any way to tell her, to explain, but he doesn’t need a doctor to know there’s no cure for what he’s got.

5. 1996

“Holy shit, you’re really here!”

Val’s hair is piled up on top of her head in a frizzy mass, she’s wearing a giant, faded UCLA t-shirt that’s hanging off one shoulder, and plaid pajama pants that belonged to Brad in 9th grade.

Her smile lights up her whole face. As far as Brad’s concerned, she’s never looked better.

Brad sweeps her up off the ground with one arm, his duffel still clutched in his right hand. Her legs go around his waist and her mouth crashes into his.

Brad has spent the last 100 days at BRPC and BRC with the meanest motherfuckers in the Marine Corps pulling every trick in the book to try and break him, and he didn’t break. Not once. He’s never been so exhausted, or felt so fucking triumphant. He hasn’t been touched by a hand other than his own in over 5 months, and the last two weeks he was too exhausted, too bone-dead-tired even to bother. As soon as he was officially dismissed after his BRC graduation ceremony, he jumped on the bike and rode directly to Val’s door.

Which is to say, as soon as Val’s legs wrap around him, her hot tongue slipping past his lips to fill his mouth, he’s hard as a fucking rock.

He carries her through the door of her apartment, kicking the door closed behind them as he goes.

“Hi Brad,” Val’s roommate is on the couch, a thick text book in her lap. She doesn’t look up.

“Cynthia,” is all he can manage, barely able to tear his mouth away long enough to utter those three syllables.

He kicks Val’s bedroom door closed behind them as well, drops his duffel on the floor and her on the bed.

“I’d like to apologize in advance for what’s about to occur,” he intones gravely, hooking his fingers into the bottom of each leg of her pants and yanking hard. She squeals and laughs, the force of it pulling the loose-fitting pants down around her ankles with one tug. She kicks them off and wiggles out of her panties as he rips his belt open.

“This is going to be fast, and only good for one of us, I’m afraid.”

He’s on his hands and knees, crawling over her, kissing her, not bothering with his boots or his shirt or her shirt or shit, even his pants. It’s all he can do to support himself with one hand while his other frees his raging cock from his briefs, jacking himself once or twice before moving down to swipe his thumb against her clit. She lets out a little moan.

“I’ll take care of you after, I promise, I just need to, Jesus-” he stops and pants, rutting the underside of his cock up against the damp heat between her legs, feeling her getting slicker, wetter by the second, “fuck, I wanna be inside you, holy shit Val.”

She wraps her legs around him, smiling indulgently.

“I’m good, you can come on in.”

Brad groans.

“Jesus fuck, thank you, thank you,” he pants even as he’s pushing into her, feeling that tight, tugging pressure, the slight resistance as she envelopes him. It’s not quite as smooth an entry as it would be if he could give her just a little longer, but he can’t, and she’s just slick enough. That’s all Brad needs.

“Christ, shit, fuck, fuck, fuck,” he’s grunting with each thrust, eyes shut tight, straining and gasping. He makes it to nine, ten, eleven, and that’s it, it’s over just like that. It’s a pathetic showing for a grown man of twenty-two, but Brad can’t bring himself to care.

“Fuuuuuuuck,” he groans as the wave crests and crashes, collapsing down onto her, mouth open and panting against her neck.

“You’re a real smooth talker there, Colbert,” Val smacks him on the ass, hard enough to sting. It sends a jolt straight to his still-hard cock. “Now get your fucking clothes off and get your mouth on me, you selfish bastard.”

He forces his shaky arms to push him up, put some space between them. He trails his lips up her neck, along her jaw.

“You mean like this?” he teases, biting at her bottom lip. “Is this where you want my mouth?”

“Lower,” she pants against his lips, “a lot lower.”

He kisses back down her neck, across her exposed shoulder.

“This t-shirt is a travesty,” he bitches, pulling at it until she raises her arms, lets him take it off over her head.

“So’s this one,” she counters, tugging on the hem of his. “Let’s see what you’ve got going on under there, these days.”

Brad raises himself up off the bed, his eyes locked on hers. He’s been away from her for the better part of the last year. They’ve seen each other sporadically, 2 or 3 days here or there, but it’s all been fleeting, rushed. He’s barely there before he’s gone again, and he knows it’s been hard on her. But in that time he’s gone from no one, from nothing, to a United States Marine. For Brad, it’s been the best year of his life.

He’s been around the world, literally. He’s been pushed to his limits already, both physically and mentally, and he’s just getting started. He’s just getting stronger. Every day is a new challenge, a higher bar to test himself against, another personal best to top. He hasn’t finished all his training yet, to be considered a full-fledged Reconnaissance Man, but he knows enough by now to know, it’s only a matter of time. He knows he’s good enough, he’s been at the top of all of his classes so far, has yet to find something he can’t excel at, in the Corps. Brad’s finally found the thing he’s been looking for, the place he belongs.

He’s also filled out considerably, the lanky, boyish frame that went with him to Boot Camp gone for good, no longer recognizable under new layers of hard won strength and corded muscle. And he can tell by the look on Val’s face as he tugs off his shirt, that’s one perk of the Marine Corps that she’s definitely on board with.

“Look at those abs,” she purrs, once he’s unlaced his boots and shucked his pants and skivvies. “Goddamn, Bradley, bring those over here and let’s have a closer look.”

“Ma’am, yes ma’am,” Brad growls, kneeling next to her on the bed. She runs her hands over his chest, down over his belly. It’s been 3 minutes tops, but Brad’s about two seconds from ready to go again. Val raises her eyebrows, sly and knowing.

“It’s almost like you’ve been sexually deprived or something,” she whispers, letting her hand wander lower. Her fingers wrap around Brad’s half-full cock, fondling and squeezing, frustratingly non-committal.

“Unfortunately for you, you’re not the only one,” she puts a hand on his shoulder and shoves, “and you owe me one, so, uh. Get to it, Lance Corporal.”

+ + +

They go to a Halloween party that Jason and Clay’s frat is throwing.

Val’s dressed up as Esmerelda from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, with a long black wig and some mysterious belt-type contraption around her shirt that makes her tits look fantastic popping out the top of it. Brad wants to rip it off her before they even make it out the door.

Brad wears his cammies and goes as a goddamn Marine.

They get hassled by the guys at the door about Brad not being a member of the fraternity, even when they explain that he was invited by Jason and Clay, that the three of them go back to grade school. The goons at the door are unmoved, both wearing the same costume, that fucking mask from Scream. Brad wishes like hell he had his fucking gun to go with his uniform. He has a feeling they wouldn’t be so fucking smug, if he did.

They let Val in but make Brad stand there like an idiot and wait, while she finds their friends to come vouch for him.  Brad shoves his anger down into a tight ball and doesn’t show it, instead regarding the two idiots at the door coolly, with a practiced air of amused, frosty condescension.

He’s beginning to find that adopting this posture works successfully in almost any situation. He leans casually against the brick exterior of the bar, conspicuously unconcerned, until Jason shows up and tells them he’s with me, asswipes, let him in.

Once inside, Brad slouches in a chair in the corner and sips his beer slowly, watching the revelry. Val drinks rum and coke and goes to dance with her friends. Clay and Jason hang around for awhile, but it’s too loud to really hear each other, not like they can really catch up, and they’re both an integral part of this whole circus. They’ve got rounds to make.

Val’s roommate Cynthia and a few of their friends come to take a break, sit down and tell him how cool it is that he’s in the military, ask him inane questions, like they have to entertain him in exchange for sitting at his table. It feels patronizing, and Brad wishes they’d go. He’s glad when some of the frat bros come over to chat them up, despite the fact that they ignore Brad’s existence in the process. The girls all leave in a pack, asking Brad to watch their drinks. He just continues sipping his beer, non-committal.

Val enters the costume contest, hiking her long skirts up over her knee and leaning over to give the crowd a shimmy when the MC announces her costume. The largely male audience screams their approval. Brad just watches from his corner, an uneasy mix of pride and lust and jealousy forming a heavy pit in his stomach; he’s not surprised when she wins.

When she gets off the stage she brings her shitty golden trophy over to the table, perches herself on his knee.

“Check this out,” she grins, “can you believe they didn’t want me to give an acceptance speech?”

“Remember to update your resume,” Brad deadpans. “You wouldn’t want to leave off an accomplishment of this magnitude.”

“Hey Novak,” Clay comes by, leaning over the table and leering obviously, “looking good.”

He looks at Brad, grinning and stupidly drunk, like they’re both part of some inside joke.

“You better keep an eye out, Colbert. Can’t be leaving a fine woman like this all alone all the time, bro. There’s always guys sniffing around her.”

“Don’t worry, Brad,” Jason chimes in, materializing right behind Clay. “We got your back. We let everybody know, this one’s off limits.”

Brad sips his beer, looking up at them appraisingly, arm around Val and hand resting on her hip, quietly possessive. Val rolls her eyes and leans over, shoves at Jason’s shoulder over the table.

“This one, seriously?” She shakes her head in disgust. “You’re both cretins.”

She turns to Brad, annoyed.

“Are you ready to get out of here?”

Brad smirks into the lip of the bottle, then turns it up and drains it. He stands up and nods at his friends, lets Val take his hand and lead him out of the bar.

+ + +

Brad’s awake at 0500, unable to shake the habit after only a few days on leave. It’s still dark in the room; he lies perfectly still, Val’s head on his arm.

He’s only got two more days before his flight back to Okinawa. He should go see his parents, he knows, but he just can’t bring himself to leave her, not yet.

He’s not completely sure what the future holds, but for now he’s still stationed at Futenma, still likely to be deployed from there at any time. But he’s also in line for the Combatant Dive School course, which will make him - officially – a full-fledged Recon Marine. Once he’s graduated, he should be assigned to a Recon Battalion, which will put him at Pendleton for the foreseeable future.  If he can just make it to Pendleton, he’ll finally have a chance to make things right with Val and with his parents.

He’s discussed none of this with anyone. As always, everything that Brad loves, values and looks forward to in his new line of work seems to bring the people who love him nothing but worry and disappointment. He just wanted to enjoy these days with Val, without the specter of his future plans ruining it.

“Why are you awake?” Her groggy voice cuts suddenly through the dark. Brad feels a ping of professional satisfaction that he didn’t move, didn’t start at all.

“I’m not,” he whispers. “Go back to sleep.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“Just too used to getting up at the ass crack of dawn.” He turns his head, plants a kiss on her forehead. “No need for you to be up just because I am.”

She turns slightly, shifts closer and snuggles into the side of him, wrapping her arm over his middle and her leg over his. She noses at his neck and sighs sleepily.

“Like having you here,” she mumbles against his skin. “Miss you.”

“I miss you too, Val.” He says it softly, soothingly, hoping she’ll drift back off to sleep. Instead she moves again; even though he can’t see her clearly, he can tell she’s propped up on her elbow, looking down at him.

“You know I graduate in like, 9 months.”

“I do.”

“And what do I do then, Brad?”

Brad holds in a sigh. He knows what she’s asking, and it’s not an unfair question, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it. He doesn’t want her to put her life on hold for him, doesn’t want her to be lonely, to feel constantly left behind, always waiting.

But he doesn’t want to stop what he’s doing. He couldn’t even if he wanted to. He signed a contract, he’s in for his four, at a minimum.

“You do whatever you want to, Val. Whatever you want to do, I’ll support you.”

He hopes that didn’t sound like passive aggressive bullshit, like a pointed commentary about how maybe she should offer him the same courtesy.

He can almost hear her eyes rolling.

“What I want is to be with you. What I don’t know is whether or not that’s possible.”

“Why wouldn’t it be possible?” His hand runs up and along her arm, the daylight that’s starting to bleed through the spaces between the mini-blinds casting a purplish glow on her naked skin. She sighs.

“I mean with you Brad. Not here while you’re in Okinawa, or Australia, or China, or where the fuck ever. It’s bad enough when you’re right here in fucking California, but you’re up on a mountain or out in the middle of the fucking ocean, or locked away in some training facility where I can’t see you or talk to you anyway.”

“Val.” he breathes deep, makes himself keep his voice soft. “As long as I’m enlisted, there’s always going to be training, there’re always going to be deployments. There’s always going to be a chance of being stationed somewhere new.”

He’s never bothered to explain to her what Recon really means, the degree of training that’s expected, the number of specialized schools and array of skills he’s expected to attend and master. He’s never told her, he signed up for this, asked for it, wants it. He’s never told her, because he knows how it will seem to her – like he’s choosing the Corps over her.

Brad doesn’t see it that way, but he understands how she might.

“But it’s only a few more years. And if.” He swallows hard, pushes through. “If we got married, then we’d have rights we don’t have now. If I ever got stationed somewhere stateside, you could come with me.”

She’s quiet for a long time, head rolled back and eyes trained on the ceiling. She finally looks down at him, hair falling silky and sweet-scented against his chest as she brings her face close.

“Is that what you want, Brad? Do you want to marry me?”

“Of course I want to marry you,” he whispers, tangling his fingers in her hair, his thumb rubbing along her cheek. “Who wouldn’t want to marry you?”

“I love you,” she whispers against his ear, and smiles down at him before she kisses him.

In the afternoon, they go to a jewelry store and she picks the ring she wants. It’s more money than Brad makes in three months, which already sounds exorbitant but is, apparently, the going rate. And Val deserves better than just the bare minimum.

The store has a payment plan, for just such a situation. Brad signs the paperwork that obliges him to pay for that ring for the next 3 fucking years, while Val stares down at her own hand, admiring. The ring feels foreign between their fingers when he holds her hand on the way out of the store, but when he leaves the next day to head down to La Jolla for the night, he’s glad to see it there as he goes.

Like a reminder, that she’s his and he’s hers. Like a warning, to anyone who might get any ideas.

Like an anchor, to keep Brad connected to her, to remind him where home is.

It feels so easy to forget, sometimes.

6. 1997

Nate tosses his keys on his desk and grabs a Sunny D out of the Mini-fridge at the foot of McQueen’s bed. He’s got finals in a week and a half and his girlfriend hasn’t spoken to him in almost that long, his headache is so bad he actually thinks his skull might explode, and all he wants in the whole fucking world is to sleep.

What he gets instead is the shrill ring of the phone.

“Nathaniel Fick?”

“Speaking.”

“Mr. Fick, this is Major Doug Wilson, United States Marine Corps. We spoke last week?”

Nate remembers putting his contact info down on a lined sign-up sheet after watching the speaker at the Hop, remembers the sharp features of the man behind the desk as he shook Nate’s hand, remembers we’ll be in touch.

Nate was expecting it, just maybe not this soon.

“Uh, yes. Sure, hi.”

“Mr. Fick, I know you probably have a lot going on, finals and such, and I won’t take up much of your time. Just wanted to catch up with you quickly, see if you had any additional questions, or if you’d given any more thought to making the Marine Corps a part of your future.”

“Um. Well, I guess I. Sure, I’ve thought about it. A little.”

Nate has a weird lump in his throat, as he lies. It’s pretty much all he’s thought about, or talked about, for a week. It’s the reason Haylie’s so mad at him; she hates the idea, wants them to go into the Peace Corps together and live in a hut in some third world rainforest. Nate kind of wants to, but he kind of thinks he might want to go into the Marines more.

Major Wilson’s laugh is low and clipped, but it sounds sincere.

“Pretty loaded question, huh?”

The lump in Nate’s throat shrinks a little, and he swallows, tries for honesty.

“I’ve actually given it a lot of thought, it’s just. It’s only been a week, I guess. And there’s a lot to think about.”

“Believe me, Mr. Fick, I understand. There is a lot to think about, and we want to encourage you to consider your options carefully. Some recruiting officers might try to give you the hard sell, but I happen to believe that for the right men, the kind we really want, the Corps sells itself, no pressure necessary. You know what I mean?”

Nate thinks he does, and says as much.

“I’ll let you get back to your studying, or your procrastinating, whichever you were working on.”

There’s a smile in Wilson’s voice now, and the lump in Nate’s throat dissipates a little more.

“But let me give you my contact information, so you can call me if you have any questions.”

Nate takes down the number on the white board next to his bed, right below the finals schedule written in clear, careful block letters, and thanks the Major for the call. He hangs up the phone and crawls under the blankets.

+ + +

“So, I’m done not talking to you.”

Nate looks up from his textbook, shakes the exploits of Alexander the Great out of his head as Haylie pulls a giant coffee out from under her coat and plops down next to him. Behind her he can see one of the 4000 signs proclaiming no food or drink permitted, and he manages a weak grin.

“Good to hear.”

“How’s Ancient Warfare treating you?”

“Not bad. How’s O Chem?”

“Cruel and unusual, as always.”

Nate sips his coffee, strong and sweet just how he likes it, and nods, not sure what to say next. Haylie watches the snow drift against the window for a while, lets the silence settle before she looks at him again.

“I’m not sure you even understand why I was so upset.”

Nate sips his coffee again, considers that.

“Maybe I don’t.”

“When I talked about the Peace Corps, Nate. When we talked about doing that, I thought. I mean, I thought we were serious.”

“I was serious. I think it sounds like a really cool idea. I just, you know, it’s a long way off and there are a lot of possibilities, a lot of options -.”

“No,” her voice goes hard as she cuts him off. “I thought we were serious. I thought we were, you know, making plans. I thought it was a decision we were making, like. Not just the Peace Corps, Nate, but. About us. I mean planning two years in the future, talking about going together? I thought we had an understanding.”

“Oh.” Nate says stupidly, realization dawning.

“Yeah. Oh.”

“Haylie, God. I didn’t mean to. I just, I didn’t - understand it, that you were taking it that way, or. I mean, that I was making it seem that way. I’m really sorry.”

She’s smiling sort of sadly, nodding.

“I know. I mean, I know now. It took me a little while to figure it out is all.”

“I haven’t decided not to go, you know. I mean the Marine Corps thing, it’s just an idea. I have a lot of different ideas about what I might want to do; it doesn’t mean -.”

She’s still nodding, but her eyes close and she holds up a hand like his voice is hurting her ears, so he trails off. She swallows, and waits a beat before her eyes open again.

“You have a lot of ideas about what you might want to do; I just have the one, and it’s always been as much about you, about having this cool life-changing experience together, as it is about the Peace Corps. You know?”

Her eyebrows are raised, looking at him, searching his face, and yeah, suddenly he does know. He sees what’s coming, crystal clear; it’s so obvious, the coffee and the resigned voice. If it had been a snake it would have bitten him, right here in the library.

“It’s not your fault you don’t feel the same, Nate. But I don’t think I can.”

She looks down, and away. The glow from his reading lamp is low and golden across her face; she’s lovely, and perfect, and everything Nate should want, and he wishes like hell he wanted to stop her from saying what she’s about to say, but he knows, down deep – the truth is, he doesn’t.

“I love you, Nate. But I know I can’t just wait around to see if maybe one day you’ll feel the same, you know? I can’t be that girl, hanging on, waiting for scraps; I’m not that girl.”

“God, I know you’re not. I never thought you were - I wouldn’t want you to be. I love you, too, it’s just-.”

He doesn’t know how to finish that sentence, but it doesn’t seem like she expects him to.

She just nods, resolute, even though there are tears in her eyes. Nate’s heart is breaking a little, but not for the right reasons.

She stands up, lays a hand on his shoulder.

“Let me know if you still want to study for Latin, okay?”

“Yeah, let’s. I mean, yeah. I’ll give you a call.”

+ + +

Nate has had three girlfriends in his life.

He’s known Jill since grade school, since before he was at Loyola and she was at Maryvale. She’s friendly and sweet, and a runner. He saw her at a cross-country meet sophomore year, hadn’t seen her since 6th grade, and she looked different than he remembered. She placed 4th in the girls’ division, and asked him for his phone number. After that they talked on the phone sometimes, and when she got her license, three months before him, she came and picked him up and they went to Steak and Shake for side-by-sides. When she kissed him, she tasted like chocolate and banana; he definitely didn’t hate it. They spent the next two years running together on the weekends, going to movies, dances, getting their community service hours in, hanging out with each other’s friends, at each other’s houses. It was fun, comfortable; it was nice.

Sometimes in the backseat of his mom’s suburban, or on the couch in her parents’ basement, she’d let him take her shirt off, let his hand slide under the waistband of her jeans, under the cottony stretch of her panties. Sometimes she’d put her hand on him, on the outside of his pants, but mostly they just kissed and rubbed against each other. She was a good Catholic girl, and Nate didn’t mind. He never thought of it as cheating on her, the thing with Tim; that was a whole different animal, that was something else entirely.

She met a guy at Holy Cross when she visited there, spring of their Senior Year, but she held out ‘til after graduation to break up with Nate. She cried when she told him. He held her and kissed her hair, and told her he’d be okay, and he was. They still email, see each other sometimes when they’re home. They’re friends, just like they always were.

He met Taryn in his Freshman writing class, first term at Dartmouth. She was a volleyball player, tall enough to look him dead in the eye, with long honey colored hair and dimples. He liked going to her matches, liked the way his new friends watched her in her short, tight shorts and told him he was a lucky dog. He liked the way she looked at him, sly slide of her chocolate eyes and knowing twist of her glossy lips when she was unbuttoning his fly, liked the way her fingers dug into the backs of his thighs, holding on when she sucked him off, liked the way she climbed on top of him and slid down, rode him with her long hair falling down like a curtain around them. He liked the way she never made him work for it; it was easy.

Before they went home for Winter Break, she told him 5 weeks apart was a long time, and she didn’t want either of them to be tied down. She told him when they got back in January they’d see where they were. Nate called her once after break, just before Valentine’s day, and they had stilted, awkward sex in her dorm room with her roommate studying on the floor in the hallway outside the door. Afterward they joked about it, laughed embarrassedly, and decided they were better off as friends. They never really talked again, and for a while afterward Nate missed her, especially when he was in the shower, fucking his soapy fist and trying not to think about Tim fucking Walker. Trying not to think about the distance between California and New Hampshire.

Haylie lived across the hall from Nate’s buddy Stokes freshman year; he met her in April. She was whip-smart, funny, and a great listener. They were friends first, friends fast; really good friends. Good enough friends to drive back and forth to see each other over the summer, to talk on the phone at least a few times a week, more than that on the weekends when she couldn’t make it to Baltimore and he couldn’t make it to Richmond. It was Nate’s first summer ever living at home instead of going to the shore, interning at his dad’s firm, the two of them eating take out and watching Sports Center every evening before Nate went out with his friends for the night. When his dad would head to Sea Isle City on the weekends, Haylie was a good reason to beg off, to avoid the Walkers and their talk about Tim and girlfriends and baseball teams touring Asia for the summer; she was always coming to visit, or he was going to visit her, and his dad would just grin and wink and say, still just friends huh, like it was some inside joke. Everyone thought they were a couple before they really were.

The night she first told him that she liked him-liked him, he had to stop and think. He likes to believe he’s not totally delusional, and he didn’t want to hurt her, didn’t want to start something he couldn’t finish; she meant too much to him, she deserved better. But when he thought about her naked, thought about her sweet pink mouth and her brown skin rubbing against his, sweaty and slick, thought about her panting in his ear, thought about making her moan, he liked the idea, he really did. He called her the next day and told her she was right, they’d be crazy not to give it a try.

After a year and a half, she’s his best friend. She understands him, gets him on that level where things don’t have to be explained, just felt. She knows everything about him: how he secretly kind of hates all the crazy-conservative Young Republican types at Dartmouth even though most people would peg him for one of them, how he actually likes doing laundry and research papers, how scared he is of disappointing his mom and dad, how protective he is of his sisters even though he’s the baby, how grumpy he gets when he doesn’t go running for a few days in a row, how he takes his coffee. She also knows how to get him hard with just her mouth on his neck, how he likes her to push him down, squeeze her thighs around his head when he goes down on her, likes her slicked-up fingers sliding inside him when they fuck. She knows everything except the one thing that makes his stomach clench when she tells him she loves him; the one thing that makes him wonder if he’s a liar when he says it back, makes him afraid he means it in a different way than she does.

She’s holding his hand, sitting next to him in the auditorium when he goes to hear Ricks speak and listens to him talk about honor and duty and service in a way that makes it seem necessary, inevitable. When Nate wants to hang around after the talk to ask questions, she stands back by the doorway, watching, teeth dug into her bottom lip. By the time they get halfway to his dorm he realizes she’s stopped speaking, that she’s not responding as he goes on about how interesting, how exciting, how important it seems, serving your country. How much meaning it could give to your life, how it could prepare you for anything, challenge you to be more than you thought you could be. He’s on a roll, captivated by the idea, and she’s totally silent. She finally just stops walking, and it takes him a few steps to realize she’s not next to him anymore, to turn around and shut up.

He asks what’s wrong, and he’s sorry as soon as he does. Her eyes flash and she’s yelling all of a sudden; Haylie doesn’t yell, ever, and he realizes with a sinking feeling, he’s fucking it up. He’s fucking her up, despite all his best intentions.

He never wanted to fuck her up.

Two weeks later, when Haylie walks out of the library and leaves him there with his lukewarm coffee, he knows he’s only been in love once, and it wasn’t with any of his girlfriends.  Nate is 20 years old, but he’s old enough to know what that means, and he figures it’s time to start facing it.

+ + +

“Wilson.”

Nate swallows, tries to focus. He’s practiced this in his head, was practicing translating it into Latin during his final instead of finishing his stupid test, staring out the window until Haylie poked him in the shoulder with her pencil and cleared her throat, loudly.

“Uh, hi. Major Wilson? This is Nate Fick, from Dartmouth College? You called me a few weeks ago, and gave me your number in case I had questions?”

“Mr. Fick! Glad to hear from you. How are finals going?”

Major Wilson sounds relaxed, not as imposing as Nate’s brain had made him seem, and Nate exhales.

“They’re uh. Finished, Sir. Just took my last one yesterday. I think they went well.”

“Good, that’s good. Gotta keep those grades up.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“So, what can I do for you, Nate? You have questions? I have answers.”

Nate only has one question, and he thinks it might be a strange one.

“What’s the best reason not to join the Marine Corps?”

Wilson laughs, says that’s easy.

“A lot of different kinds of people join the Corps for a lot of different reasons, Nate. But a person like you, you’ve got every option open to you, you could do anything, choose any path. For someone like you, it’s got to be a calling, something you know down in your gut is what you were born to do. For you, the best reason not to join is not being sure. If you’re not sure, then this is probably not the place for you. If you were meant to be a Marine, son, you’ll know it.”

Nate thanks him for his time, and goes back to packing his shit for the drive home.

The Tuesday after Christmas, while his parents are out and the house is empty, he fills out the paperwork for OCS, and feels better than he’s felt in weeks.

7. 1998

Brad parked a few blocks away; the bike is too noisy, it makes him conspicuous in this sleepy little pocket of Los Feliz. He walks slowly, counting house numbers.

He passes 806, 804, the house next door should be 802. It’s a duplex, Spanish style with arched windows and a tiled front porch, with a giant bougainvillea covering the whole front of the house, no numbers in sight.

He continues down the block, scoping things out, walking by a few times until he’s sure some nosy neighbor will call the cops if he doesn’t just bite the bullet and get on with this. Once he’s made his decision, he moves fast, and with purpose.

Standing on the covered porch, he raps three times in quick succession. In his riding boots he’s fully 6 foot 6, and with his leather jacket and gloves, and his mirrored sunglasses, he knows he doesn’t exactly cut a warm and cuddly figure. He whips his shades off and hangs them in the neck of his t-shirt, the only nod he’s willing to make to seeming more approachable. He holds his helmet under his right arm and his left hand in a loose fist at his side, and he does not fidget while he waits.

A woman opens the door, looks up at him with wide, expectant eyes.

“Hi?” She asks it like a question.

“Ma’am,” he nods, about to ask if she’s Susannah Corwin. But then he looks more closely, and suddenly he doesn’t need to ask. The eyes, the mouth, the chin – it hits him like a punch to the gut. He loses his ability to speak for a moment.

He takes a deep breath, not sure how to explain himself, stumbling over his words.

“I’m, uh. Sorry to intrude on you unannounced, I just. I’m, uh.”

He sees the question in her eyes turn into something else, and she looks at him more appraisingly, eyes narrowed slightly.

“Brad.” It’s not a question this time.

He just nods.

“Jesus,” she breathes, “holy shit.”

He’s not sure if that’s good or bad.

They stand there, staring at each other, one of them on each side of the door. She’s not short but not tall, barefoot in black jeans and a white tank top, with a shock of almost-black curls and bright blue eyes. Brad’s eyes. And Brad’s nose, and his eyebrows. His fucking overbite. It’s kind of a mind-fuck.

She looks far too young to have given birth to a child twenty-four years ago.

“God, sorry,” she shakes her head suddenly, like she’s remembering herself. “Please,” she steps back from the door and indicates with her arm that he should come in. “I mean, if you want to.”

He gives a sharp nod and strides through the door, then loiters there awkwardly.

She closes the door slowly and then turns, sizes him up again.

“Jesus,” she breathes again, “wow. This is kind of surreal.”

He still doesn’t speak, is not sure he can speak. He makes a move with his shoulder and the slight incline of his head, that he hopes indicates he concurs.

“I don’t know about you,” she sighs, “but I could use a drink.”

Brad cracks half a smile, at that.

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Oh God,” she waves her hand, “call me Susannah, please.”

“Have a seat, just, anywhere,” she gestures around the living room as she disappears into the kitchen. On the backs of her shoulders, Brad can see ink spreading out from under the edges of her tank top, can see the hint of the color continue down her back under the thin white material. The room is bright, the furniture loud and lived-in. The walls are cluttered with artwork, the mantle cluttered with holiday cards.

He’s still standing there next to a purple velvet wingback chair, helmet in hand, when she comes back with a bottle and two glasses.

“Please, please,” she gestures impatiently to the chair and perches on the arm of the sofa next to it, pours two fingers of whiskey into each glass. She hands one to him, and he sits.

“Well,” she shrugs, holds out her glass, “L’chaim, I guess.” It’s almost sarcastic, bemused and close to disbelieving. He shrugs back in perfect agreement, and clinks their glasses together.

She downs hers in one long gulp, and despite his general unease Brad can’t help the grin that forms on his lips. He raises his eyebrows at her, and follows suit.

She smiles at him, for the first time. His throat feels tight.

“So,” she says, after a deep breath. “I’m sure you have questions?” She pours them each another round and slides down from the arm onto the cushion of the sofa, leans over with her elbows on her knees and looks at him intently. “Fire away; I’m an open book.”

He swallows, not sure where to start. She watches carefully.

“Maybe easier if I just tell you how all this came about?”

Brad breathes a quiet sigh of relief, and clears his throat. “Please.”

She takes another deep breath.

“It’s probably what you expect. Or at least, one of the things you might expect.” She shrugs again. “Teenagers in love. Reckless, like stupid kids tend to be. I was a pale, frizzy-haired Jewish girl from Fairfax and he was this towering blond surf-God from Redondo. I couldn’t believe he even looked at me. But he did.”

She smiles, a little wistful, and sips her whiskey. Brad just nods and does the same, grateful he doesn’t have to speak.

“We met on the beach, the summer before my sophomore year. I know it sounds like the plot of Grease. Except he was the sweet, wholesome, all-American boy and I was the bad influence with the foul mouth and the pack of cigarettes stashed in my bikini top.” She stops, considers. “So maybe more Grease 2.”

Brad snorts, and she grins again.

“I don’t know what else I can say,” she shrugs. “Obviously, I couldn’t take care of a baby. I was an idiot kid, 15 years old. Not even smart enough to not get pregnant.”

Brad nods. Of course he understands that. Of course. But still.

“Why didn’t you,” he starts, looking down at the glass in his hands. “Didn’t you want to just. Take care of it?”

He doesn’t look up, but her hand slides over one of his, burgundy-black nails and silver rings on almost every finger. She squeezes, and he feels his throat constrict, bites into his bottom lip to pull himself together. Then her hand is gone, and he feels relieved and lost all at once.

“Look,” she says, “I’m not going to bullshit you. I tried. I mean, I wanted to. But that was all brand new, back then. It wasn’t that easy, and it was too late anyway, by the time I figured it out.”

Brad just nods again, like he’s some fucking puppet whose only moving part is the up-down of his stupid fucking head. He still doesn’t look up.

“We had this rabbi, at my parents’ congregation. That was brand new, too, back then – a woman Rabbi. I mean it was like – whoa. So, I thought she was pretty badass, even though. Well, me and her God have never really been that tight.”

Brad looks up, finally, and she’s looking right at him. She holds his eyes for a minute, then fixes her gaze on some distant spot on the wall, not on Brad. He gets the feeling she’s trying not to crowd him.

“She came to talk to me, counsel me or whatever. She told me how she was adopted by an American family after World War II. She came from Romania or somewhere, I don’t know, but obviously she’d lost her people in the shit over there. She told me how it saved her, but it also saved the people who adopted her. She needed parents who could take care of her, and they needed a kid to love, to complete their family and all that. She made it sound like I could do this good thing, like it was something I could be proud of instead of. Ashamed.”

She looks back at him, smiles again.

“I felt differently about it, after that.”

Brad drains his whiskey. She pours him another, without asking.

“This shit is heavy, I know. But you really can ask me anything. And if you’re,” she pauses to take a drink, like she’s steeling herself, “if you’re pissed off, you know. I wouldn’t blame you. You don’t have to spare my feelings, or whatever, you can be honest. I mean, you didn’t. You didn’t ask for any of this.”

Brad goes back to nodding. She’s silent for awhile, sipping her whiskey and letting him think. Finally, he speaks.

“What about him?” He doesn’t elaborate further.

“Paul,” she looks at Brad again, and once again he’s startled by the similarities. He’s never seen himself in another person like this, before. “Paul Brown. He did the best he could, I think. Tried to be a stand-up guy, whatever the hell that looks like for a seventeen, eighteen year old kid. He was there, when you were born. He saw you, held you.” She shrugs, what can you do, but Brad can see something there, underneath the nonchalance. Something sore and raw, even after all these years. “He left for school, a few weeks later. Went to Berkeley. We lost touch.”

All this time, Brad has only thought about his pain. Thought about being left, abandoned, thrown away. He never thought about her pain, what it was like for her. To maybe feel abandoned and thrown away in her own right. To feel guilty about abandoning him.

Maybe, Brad thinks, he’s not actually the victim, here. Maybe he got to go home to a loving mother and father who had waited for him and were so excited to have him and who gave him everything he ever needed, and maybe Paul Brown got to go off to college like nothing ever happened, and maybe the one who had to live with the aftermath, in all this, was actually her.

“What about you?” Brad asks, suddenly nervous about the answer.

“High school wasn’t the greatest time of my life,” is all she says, but Brad figures that says it all.

“I was messed up for a while, but that wasn’t because of. Our situation,” she gestures back and forth between them. “More like I got us into that situation because I was messed up. I was just always the kind of kid who had to learn the hard way. I just couldn’t take anybody’s word for it, had to figure it out myself, you know?”

Brad does know. Jesus, does he ever. And the way she says ‘us’ makes something inside him feel like it’s expanding, like there was a hollow place and now it’s filling in, so full it’s ready to burst.

“I got my shit together, eventually.” She smiles at him again, and he feels a weird pang, some unknown sense of wanting he doesn’t recognize. “I’ve been good for a long time now.”

“Husband, kids?” He asks, though something tells him no – something about this little duplex, with its brightly colored furniture and weird artwork, something about the subtle fall of stars he sees tattooed along the hairline over her right eye, when she moves just so and her curls spring away from her face.

“Oh Christ, no.” She snorts. “Not cut out for it. What about you?”

Brad grins, shakes his head.

“I was engaged,” he says, like it was something long in the past, like it wasn’t something that just ended 2 months ago. Somehow, suddenly, it doesn’t feel so close, so painful. This morning when he woke up, he could still feel it right on top of him, smothering him. Now it feels a million miles away. “We didn’t have what it takes, in the end.”

“You’re so young,” she shakes her head. “You’ve got a million lives left to live. You’ll find someone that has what it takes, if it’s what you want.”

When he leaves, she asks if it would be okay for her to hug him. He says it would.

She squeezes him tight for a long time, her head tucked under his chin.

“I’m so, so glad you came,” she says, and there are tears in her eyes. He can see, can hear how she really is glad, and suddenly he’s blinking fast against the tears in his own eyes.

He promises to call, and to his own surprise, he means it.

+ + +

It took forever for the posting to finally fucking come through, but Brad did, at long last, receive orders to Camp Pendleton. He’s a Corporal now, a fucking Reconnaissance Man. He’s 1st Recon, just like he’s always wanted. It’s everything he’s been working toward.

When he called Val to tell her, he expected something. More. A little more enthusiasm, a little more excitement. Instead he got the lukewarm congratulations usually reserved for casual acquaintances.

That should have been his first fucking clue.

They’d been engaged for two years; Val had been waiting all that time. She graduated college, got a job with Morgan Stanley. She got an apartment in Clairemont, bought a new car, and adopted a cat that hates Brad with a burning passion.

The feeling is mutual.

When he finally arrived stateside for good, three glorious weeks of block leave stretching out ahead of him before he had to report for duty, as usual he drove straight to Val’s door. It only took one look at her to see, something was wrong. She didn’t leap into his arms, didn’t kiss him and drag him into bed like usual, like she did eight months before, the last time he’d stood there at her door. Instead she asked him inside, the way you might invite in a neighbor you’ve only met a few times.

“Have a seat.” She said softly, as she sat down. In a small chair, across from the couch, as far from Brad as she could be. The hair on the back of Brad’s neck was suddenly on end, standing at attention.

“I think I’ll stand.” He kept his voice carefully even, but his tone was deadly serious. “What’s up?”

“Brad,” she cleared her throat, but her eyes were already wet, her voice already choked. She didn’t say anything else.

She didn’t need to.

Brad swallowed, nodded.

“Okay,” he said, jaw clenched. “I understand.”

“What do you mean, you understand?” She was sniffling. “Don’t you even want to know why?”

“No point,” he shook his head, negative. “No need.”

“I love you, Brad, it’s just –.”

“Don’t.” His voice was quiet, but lethal. “Just fucking don’t.”

She stood up, eyes flashing. Like she was the one who was pissed off, hurt. Like she had the fucking right.

“Things change,” she yelled, “they change, and you’re not here so you don’t see it. And you’re never going to be here, Brad, not really. Even when you’re here, you’re gone. And I know you love me. To the extent of your capabilities, as much as you can, you love me. But it’s not enough. I want to be important enough to you that you want to stay, and. We both know, I’m just not.”

Brad just stood silently, looking over her head, teeth gritted.

He flinched when he felt her touch his hand.

She was holding out the ring, that fucking ring he was still paying for.

“What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?” he looked at it, disgusted, like it was tainted, radioactive. “Keep it.”

He turned on his heel.

“I want you to take it, Brad, please,” she sobbed behind him. He didn’t turn around. He picked up his bag and walked toward the door.

“Brad!” her voice had a desperate tinge, suddenly. It was enough to make him pause. “There’s something else I need to -. You should know.”

He could feel it like some clairvoyant vision somewhere deep in his lizard brain, the sickening, oily, oozing knowledge of what she was going to say.

“I don’t need to hear about it.” He didn’t turn around. He could hear her crying behind him, but that gut-deep reaction he’d always had, the need to comfort her, protect her, it was missing, suddenly. Suddenly her tears had no more effect on him than anyone else’s. Just like that, she’d gone from someone he cared about, to someone he didn’t. He kept his back to her, unmoved.

“It’s Clay,” she whispered, finally.

Brad took a deep breath, pushed down the wave of nausea that flooded him. He called up every bit of resolve he had within him, let the cold mask of blank impassivity come over him.

“Congratulations,” his voice was cool and calm, unaffected. Completely unscathed. “I hope you’ll be very happy together.”

He walked out the door, swung himself up onto the bike. He didn’t look back, didn’t stop ‘til the gas tank was empty.

+ + +

He stayed with his parents until it was time to report at the base. For three weeks, his mom did her best to leave him alone, to let him brood in sullen silence without trying to coax him out of it.  She brought him dinner up in his room, did his laundry and left it folded on his bed. He wanted to hate it, wanted to tell her to stop, that he wasn’t a fucking child and he could do it himself. But then he’d have had to actually do it himself, and that would’ve meant leaving his room. Other than the occasional trip to the liquor store, leaving his room really didn’t fit into Brad’s plans.

“This arrived for you,” she said one afternoon, delivering a tray with a sandwich and potato chips, and a can of soda. There was an envelope next to the plate, plain white with blue ball point ink.

Brad ate slowly, with no real ambition. He opened the envelope when he’d finished.

Hi Brad,

My name is Susannah. I gave a baby boy up for adoption, born July 25, 1974, and records show that baby was you.

I started searching after you turned 18, but it took some time to find you. I realize this letter may be unwelcome, but it felt like I had to at least try. I hope I’m making the right choice now, just like I hope I made the right choice then.

If you’d like to talk, or meet, I’d love that. My number and address are below.

If you’d rather not, I understand.

I’m not a person who prays, but I always have and always will wish the very best for you, every single day.

Hoping to hear from you,

Susannah Corwin

Brad read the letter a second, a sixth, a tenth time. His heart was pounding, pulse racing. He folded it up into a small square, and kept it tucked in the palm of his hand. When his mom came to take his tray, she asked who it was from.

“A friend,” he replied absently, barely paying attention to his own words. “A buddy on Okinawa.”

“The return address was Los Angeles.” She looked at him oddly. Brad nodded dumbly, shit, right.

“Yeah, he’s uh. He’s from L.A. Home right now.”

“Not bad news, I hope?” She just narrowed her eyes, the worried look she’d been giving him for the last two weeks only looking more worried.

“No,” he shook his head. “Not bad news at all.”

The next day, Brad went running. He had to report in less than a week, letting himself fall out of shape wasn’t an option.

He did push-ups and sit ups on the floor of his room, and read the letter in between sets. He committed the contact information to memory, just in case. In case he misplaced the letter, or wore the ink right off the page from folding and re-folding it so often.

He got up and did a load of laundry, and made his own goddamn sandwich.

That night he handed out Halloween candy to the little kids who came knocking, wearing his cammies and explaining to them that he wasn’t a soldier, not fucking G.I. Joe - he was a Marine.

It made his mom smile; Brad figured it was the least he could do.

+ + +

He buys a house, just like he’d been planning before. Oceanside is a good place to own property, an endless stream of renters if he wants them, but he doesn’t think he will. He thinks it will be worth it, just to have a safe place to store his bike, the truck and all the electronics he plans to buy, maybe a boat or a personal water craft, the surfboards he can finally take out of his parents’ garage. So he buys the house, Val or no Val. With or without her, life goes on.

He moves in on the fifth of December.

He loves his new job, just like he knew he would. He loves the space his new house affords him, the privacy. He can, for once, jerk off fully nude and right out in the open and not give a shit. He gets himself hooked up to the internet, and discovers that shit is full of dirty pictures. Images ripped out of skin mags, still frames from porno movies, all kinds, everything you can think of. Brad finds the sudden variety and abundance intoxicating, and rolls into work a few days in a row like a zombie, too little sleep and his cock chafed from overuse. He’s like a kid in a fucking candy shop, whose eyes are too big for his stomach.

One night he finds a photo shoot of two guys in army uniforms double teaming a brunette with giant tits. A few frames into the string of images, when they’re done with her, they move in on each other.

Brad keeps clicking through the series, one by one. Watches the way their hands grip each other, rough and careless. He strokes himself and comes to the last image, one of them shoved face first against the wall with the other one behind him, bodies pressed up tight together, reaching around to grab his cock, and thinks, huh.

He thinks he would have preferred it if they were Marines instead of fucking Army pussies.

The first piece of mail he gets at his new house, not counting bills and straight up junk mail, is an invitation to “Save the Date” for Clay and Val’s wedding next May.

Brad throws it directly in the trash, pushing down the ache in his chest. He opens up the letter from Susannah and reads it over for the four hundredth time. It’s become a kind of security blanket, whenever the weight, the loss of Val gets to be too overwhelming. He lives with it every day, swallows it down and pushes it away, ignores it and compresses it as best he can so it takes up barely any space in his life, but it’s still there. And when it threatens to break out of the cage he keeps it in, he reads Susannah’s letter just to feel something else for a while, something better.

He reads it again, the four hundred and first time, and checks the time. It’s a Sunday, the middle of the afternoon. Now’s as good a time as any, he figures, to meet the woman who gave you the gift of life.

He doesn’t think too hard about it, he just gets on his bike and heads for L.A.

8. 1999

“Show off.”

“It’s not my fault that you suck.”

“It’s your fault that you’re a show off.”

“Just admit that you suck, and we can stop this now.”

“Screw you, buddy.”

“What? I’m wounded! Here I am, graciously offering you a way to keep what’s left of your dignity, and all you can say is -.”

“Screw you!”

“Nate, stop taunting your sister.”

Their mom is in the kitchen, but she has a clear view into the great room.

“She started it.”

“Did not! Mom, would I do such a thing?”

“Mom! She totally started it!”

Their mother sighs, deep and pained, clearly wondering where she went wrong. She shakes her head and walks out of the room.

Nate and Maggie laugh, then she pushes pause and tosses her controller at Nate. Mario jumps up and down in place on the screen.

“I’m too old for this. Liz, your turn.”

Liz looks up from her book and raises an eyebrow.

“If you’re too old, what am I? Also, I know better, unlike some of us. Drew?”

Her husband doesn’t even bother looking up from his own book before he responds.

“Do I look stupid to you?”

Mags groans getting up from the hard wood floor, stretches. Her t-shirt rides up and Nate notices the slight curve of her belly that definitely has never been there before, starts to make a smart comment. He stops just in time, and realizes.

His eyes go wide, but he stays quiet. Shoots a look at Liz, but she’s got her nose back in her book, feet in Drew’s lap, and he wonders if he’s the only one who’s figured it out.

The Corps gave Nate two weeks between graduation and reporting for official duty. His mom insisted the whole family come to Sea Isle City for one of those weeks. Nate knows they’re all here for him, unspoken understanding that even in peace time, things happen. His chosen line of work isn’t without its risks, and he’s not sure when he’s going to see them again. He’s glad they’re all here, even if he could have done without it being in New Jersey.

If he’s honest, New Jersey is fine; New Jersey is not the problem. It’s the proximity to the Walkers’ house that’s got him all edgy and wound-tight. The closer it gets to dinner time, the more swollen his bottom lip gets from the constant scrape and bite of his front teeth. He doesn’t actually know what he’ll do if he walks into the dining room at The Sands and Tim is sitting there, much less sitting there with someone, but what he does know is he’s a far different person now than he was the last time he saw Tim Walker, far stronger, far more certain about who he is and what he’s capable of, and whatever’s waiting for him at dinner, he’ll be fine. He always is.

+ + +

“Nate! My goodness, look at your hair!”

Nate has been called a late bloomer, kept growing right through college, and his first thought as Mrs. Walker hugs him, runs a hand over his shorn head, is that he’s probably a good three inches taller than he was the last time she saw him, yet it’s the high-and-tight that gets her attention.

He kept the haircut, after OCS. Figured he might as well get used to it, and anyway, it was a good reminder every morning in the mirror: he might still be at Dartmouth, but this is who he is now. This is who he chose to be. It took Haylie a few weeks to stop looking green around the gills every time she saw him, but by October, she decided it looked good on him, and things were fine again.

Nate manages a grin, hopes it doesn’t look strained as he hugs Mrs. Walker, forces himself to keep his eyes on her face and not scan the room for the rest of her family. Turns out he doesn’t need to. Tim walks right up, hand out.

“Fick!”

Tim has filled out, shoulders broader, neck thicker, grip stronger. Figures, after four years of Pac-10 baseball and games that Nate carefully did not watch on television, but Nate’s looking down at him now, and that’s different, too. That grin is the same though, side of his mouth turned up and brown eyes crinkling at the edges, and Nate can’t help but grin back.

“Walker. How you been, man?”

“Can’t complain, you know, just doin’ what I do.”

It’s just small talk, but it’s not forced, not stilted and horrible like Nate had feared. It’s easy, like it used to be, but it’s meaningless too, and somewhere down in Nate’s gut that still twists the wrong way.

After dinner Tim catches his eye, wags a pack of cigarettes at him behind his dad’s back, and jerks his head out toward the side door of the dining room, eyebrow raised. Nate just shakes his head and puts his napkin in his seat, follows Tim out the door.

In the darkness, things seem closer to the surface. They pass the hidden corner where they used to make out, fevered, desperate groping in the moonlight, and Nate feels that twist again. They lean against the rail and look out over the dunes, shine of the moon on the water barely visible over the waving reeds, and Tim lights up.

“You got tall.”

“Yeah, guess I did.”

“I like the hair. I don’t care what my mom says.”

Tim winks, and Nate just grins.

“Yeah well, turns out they don’t really give a shit if you like it, you get it anyway.”

Tim nods, blows a perfect sequence of white rings into the air. Nate remembers the way he used to practice that, mostly unsuccessfully.

“See you finally mastered the art of the smoke ring.”

“Only took five years, and voila.”

They’re quiet, but it’s easy. Nate breathes deep, the smell of the honeysuckle growing up the sides of the porch, the sand and the sea and Tim’s cigarettes, and swallows down a pang of something – something like nostalgia, or homesickness maybe – blinks fast against the stinging in his eyes, coughs to clear the lump in his throat. Tim stubs his butt out on the rail and tosses it down into the sand, turns around to lean back on his elbows, cranes his neck back with a snap-pop of his spine, and looks up at the stars.

“So. The Marines, huh?”

“I know, go figure right?”

“I dunno. I can see it.”

“Yeah?”

Nate’s surprised; most people couldn’t see it at all. Most people he knows were shocked out of their skin when he told them. His mom cried for a week.

“Yeah. Never figured you for going straight from college into some boring office job like the rest of us losers. You were always a fuckin’ overachiever, y’know.”

He straightens up, bumps their shoulders together with a grin, then his hand lands on the back of Nate’s neck. Nate shivers involuntarily before he can police himself.

“You wanna go for a walk or something?”

There’s a forced casualness about the question, and Nate knows exactly, instantaneously what Tim’s really asking. Knows he should say no, save himself the trouble, but there’s only one answer to that question, really. Always has been.

“Yeah, sounds good.”

Nate waves for Maggie’s attention from the window, pantomimes to her until she nods, then they head down the steps onto the beach, sand scuffing their dress shoes, slick soles sliding with no traction. They walk toward the Linders’ fishing pier without talking about it, old habits die hard, but when they get there it’s half torn down, twisted and mangled, the short crawl space underneath where they used to go covered with debris.

“Fucking Hurricane Bonnie, dude.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

They look at each other, and Nate wonders if this is it, if they’ll just shrug and decide it’s too much trouble, not worth the effort, shake hands and walk home.

But Tim grins, grabs Nate’s tie, wiggles his eyebrows.

“Come with me.”

Back at the Walkers’ there’s a brand new, shiny black Tahoe in the driveway.

“Graduation present,” Tim explains as he walks out of the house, keys and a six pack in his hand, and they jump in. Nate closes his eyes, doesn’t even pay attention to where Tim’s driving. Just tries to keep his heartbeat under control, since his dick is already a lost cause, and when he opens them again it’s because the car is bumping over the sand.

Nate’s pretty sure wherever they are it’s illegal to be here, and he’s officially property of the USMC at this point, which makes law-breaking even stupider than if he were still a civilian, but when Tim puts the back seat down flat and opens up the back, Nate can’t bring himself to care. They sit down over the back bumper, legs dangling, drink their beer and watch the waves, and Nate had forgotten how bright the stars are out here.

They drink a second, shoot the shit, and Nate’s about to reach for a third when Tim grabs his wrist, uses his other hand to hook the knot of Nate’s tie and pull him in close.

“You look good, Fick. Really fucking good.”

“You look pretty good yourself, Walk.”

That’s all she wrote, all it takes, and they’re naked on the clean gray new-car-smelling upholstery in no time. He’s only mildly surprised by the lines of muscle on Tim’s stomach, the deep cut of his biceps against his skin, but he wants to feel every inch with his fingers, his mouth, learn everything new there is to learn. He’s not sure he’s allowed, anymore.

He’s more surprised when Tim pulls a condom and a bottle of lube out of the console between the front seats, and when Nate sinks into him they both let out pathetic, needy groans.

“Fuck. Fucking needed this,” Tim is panting, writhing under him, his skin sweaty and slick under Nate’s mouth, dick slippery on Nate’s belly where they’re pressed together tight, and when they’re done Nate falls down against Tim and goes limp, lets himself just lay there, decides he’ll get up when someone makes him and not a second before. Until then he’ll just lay here and try to memorize the feel of the strong, solid bulk under him, breathe in the smell of Tim’s skin, still as familiar as his own, the tang of sweat and cigarettes and sex.

“So I wasn’t just imagining it.”

Tim’s nuzzling his neck, whispering on his skin.

“Imagining what?”

“How good this is.”

Nate huffs, grins against Tim’s ear.

“Yeah, it’s pretty fucking good.”

“No, dude. Not just pretty good. Every time I do this, I think I must have been remembering wrong, or something, because it’s never the same as I think it should be. I mean it’s still good, but not like this. Now I think maybe it’s just you that does it for me.”

Nate lifts his head, too much information to process, eyes narrowing at Tim.

“Every time you do what?”

Tim’s eyes roll.

“Hook up with a guy. Get fucked. I’m always expecting it to be as good as I remember with you, and it never is. I started to think I was just kidding myself, thinking it was so fuckin’ great with you. But turns out, I wasn’t. Turns out you’re just that good. Not to mention, a lot stronger than you used to be.”

He grins, slaps Nate’s ass, and Nate knows that’s supposed to be a compliment, maybe even mean something deeper, but all he can think is that Tim Walker lets other guys fuck him. Unspecified numbers of other guys.

Nate’s just staring, until Tim finally widens his eyes, shoves at Nate.

“What?”

“I just. I guess I never thought about you. You know. Hooking up.”

“You mean with guys?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“What, you don’t?”

Nate swallows hard, suddenly feeling like a blushing virgin as he shakes his head. Tim seems just as surprised by that revelation as Nate was by his, but then he shrugs.

“I guess I can see that. I mean you don’t like to get fucked, right? If I didn’t want to get fucked, I probably wouldn’t bother, either. I mean I don’t care who I fuck, girl, guy, whatever’s hot, but girls are definitely safer, I totally get that. Especially if you’re gonna do something crazy like sign up for the Marines.”

He grins, leans up to Nate’s ear, “But seems like I vaguely remember you kinda liked sucking cock. You know, just a little bit.”

His voice is low, teasing, suggestive, and his fingers are trailing up Nate’s sides, hands spreading strong and wide over his back.

“No guys, all this time – you must have missed that, huh?”

Nate doesn’t really feel like explaining that for years he never even thought about another guy like that, never wanted to hook up with anyone else, never wanted to suck anyone’s cock but Tim’s; he knows an invitation when he hears one, and it’s not one he’s about to pass up, no matter how much that voice in the back of his head yells at him that this is going to fuck him up too much to make it worth it.

+ + +

“You want to tell me what’s going on?”

Nate almost screams when Maggie’s voice comes out of the shadows of the back porch, just manages to swallow it back down before it escapes. It’s almost 5 am, fifth night in a row he’s gone out to smoke with Tim after dinner and never made it back to his family. Leave it to Mags to ask.

“Just out with Walker, you know.”

“Uh huh. As if there’s more than one thing to do in this place until 5 in the morning, Nate. I’m not mom and dad you know; I’m not blind.”

Something in Nate’s chest feels tight and just this side of panicky; he swallows hard, goes on the offensive instead. That’s what he does, now.

“You want to talk about hiding things from mom and dad, Mags? Really?”

He can’t see her eyes, but she’s quiet. Then he hears the creak of the swing as she stands up, comes down to meet him. She takes his arm and tugs, pulls him down to sit next to her on the steps, and leans her head on his shoulder. Just like that, the tightness melts, he sags against her.

Finally, she whispers, “how long have you known?”

“How long have you?”

“I always thought there was something, I guess, with you and Tim. When you were younger I didn’t really know for sure, but you always sort of. Just the way you looked at him, like you’d never seen anything so great.”

“Oh, Jesus. Just shoot me, seriously.”

She laughs.

“No! It wasn’t like. I don’t think anyone would notice, or ever did. You know me, I’m a suspicious bitch.”

“I’ve always said so.”

“So what’s the deal with you two? It been going on all this time? During Haylie and everything?”

Nate sighs.

“There’s no deal. I haven’t even seen him since before we finished high school. He’s- well, you know how he is. It was never gonna be what I wanted it to be, with him. And Haylie, that was.”

Nate stops, swallows hard. He still feels bad, when he thinks about Haylie.

“It’s not that I didn’t mean it with her, you know? I thought I did – I really wanted to, it’s just – sometimes you have to face facts, I guess.”

“Yeah, I guess,” she says, voice low and sympathetic. She rests her hand on the top of his head. “So what’s going on now, then? With Tim.”

“It’s just a. Thing that happened, this week. It’s sort of fucking with my head, to be honest.”

She runs her fingers back and forth across the back of his scalp, where the hair is short and velvety, and nods slowly.

“Sorry, buddy. Really.”

“Ah, I’ll be okay. I got bigger things to worry about than Tim fucking Walker, that’s for sure.”

She snorts, says I hear that, and he figures she probably does.

“So, what’s your plan?” He nods non-specifically in the direction of her mid-section.

“Well, it’s not like. I mean Brian and I were always gonna get married, we just wanted to wait ‘til we were done with Law School.”

“Yeah, true.”

“So. I’m thinking elope to Vegas, come home and spring the whole thing on mom and dad all at once – husband, baby, postponing my last year at school – the whole shebang. What do you think?”

Now it’s Nate’s turn to laugh.

“Sounds like a recipe for disaster.”

She groans, but laughs, too.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

They’re quiet for a while, then she sighs.

“So. Gay, Marine brother huh?”

He snorts, shoves at her with his shoulder.

“Knocked up, unwed sister, huh?”

She throws her head back, cackles until he can’t help but laugh too, until both of them are giggling with tears running down their cheeks. Until they have to gasp for air, leaning on each other until the delirium passes.

Finally, they stand up, he ruffles her hair as she knocks the sand off her pajama pants.

“You’re gonna be a great mom, Mags. That’s a lucky kid. And if Brian steps out of line, you just let me know. I’ve got access to heavy weapons now.”

“Thanks, buddy. And you’re gonna make some guy a great boyfriend, someday. Some lucky guy who doesn’t fuck with your head and who’ll give you everything you deserve.”

“See? We’re awesome. Mom and dad will be so proud.”

9. 2000

At the end of last year, Brad re-upped. He didn’t consult anyone, or ask anyone’s opinion. He didn’t tell anyone before he did it. He’s twenty-six years old and single. There’s no one to ask, no one to answer to. He does what he wants to do, and what he wants isn’t even a question.

He mentions it to his parents a few months later, in passing over dinner. He sees his mother’s face go grey, and feels a twinge of guilt, despite himself.

“Mom,” he pauses his fork halfway to his mouth, trying not to sound annoyed, “is this really a surprise?” If they’ve been fucking paying attention at all, he feels like it definitely shouldn’t be.

His father’s hand slides over his mom’s, and Brad feels even worse. Jesus, he really thought they’d have seen this coming. The truth is, he didn’t even consider them in his decision, this time.

The truth is, there was no decision this time. There was only one way it was going to go.

“It’s not a surprise,” his dad says, “not exactly. We just hoped, maybe, that you’d decide it was time for something new.”

“May I ask why?” Brad means it in all sincerity. “I understand why you thought, when I was younger, that maybe I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, or understand the sacrifices, didn’t fully comprehend the choice I was making. But why would you be against it now?”

“I think,” his dad begins, careful and measured as always, “that from our point of view, it seems difficult to do what you do and have a. Normal life.”

Brad can’t keep his eyes from turning skyward, can’t help the way his breath comes out in a frustrated huff.

“Hey look, you asked,” his dad says, voice sharper, louder than Brad can remember in recent memory, “and I’m giving you my answer. So just sit there and listen, for a minute.”

Brad knows that tone well, it’s the soundtrack to his teenage years. He sits up straight, and nods.

“Yes, Sir.”

“We barely see you, Brad. You live 40 miles away and we see you three times a year. We’re never sure where you are, all we know is that you seem to constantly be putting yourself in harm’s way. It impacts all your relationships, not just with your family. After Valerie we thought. Well. It just seems like the Corps has cost you a lot.”

Brad breathes deep, and meets his father’s eyes.

“I can understand how it may seem that way. But that discounts everything the Corps has given me. It’s not just join the Marines, see the world, anymore. But I have seen the world. I’ve done things most people can only dream of. Things most people wouldn’t want to do, would be terrified of. Things most people can’t do, physically or mentally. But I can, I have. I’m good at this. It agrees with me.”

His mother sighs. She looks so fucking sad, it makes Brad want to punch something. He’s a grown fucking man, and shouldn’t he be able to live his life the way he wants to? He grits his teeth, keeps his voice cool.

“Mom?” He looks at her, expectant.

“Bradley. You know we love you. No matter what you do, we love you, and we’ll support you. You’re an adult and you can make your own decisions. And we can see that, as you say, it agrees with you. We do see how much you love it, Brad. But.”

She stops, teeth worrying her lower lip. He forces himself to remain silent.

“Don’t you want to get married, have children? Don’t you want to sleep in your own bed at night?”

She looks at him like she’s afraid to hear the answer. He hates disappointing her, but he knows he’s about to.

“To be honest, mom. I don’t see those things in the cards for me. Maybe I could have married Valerie and just done my 4 and separated from the Corps, gotten a 9 to 5 and had some kids. Maybe I could have been okay like that.  But maybe not. Probably not.”

He stops and breathes. His mom’s face is watching him carefully.

“The truth is, If I’d had my way, I would have quit school when I turned 18, gotten my GED and enlisted then. I stayed, because it’s what all of you wanted. I went to college because it’s what all of you wanted. I might even have done my 4 and left the Corps, because it’s what Val wanted, but none of it was what I wanted. This is what I’ve always wanted.” He looks right at his mom, makes sure she’s looking at him, and wills her to understand.

“I’ve never felt like I fit in, not completely. I never thought I belonged.”

He doesn’t say all the ways and all the places he’s never felt he belonged. He’s not trying to hurt them, he’s just trying to make them see.

“But I found that, in the Corps. I belong there.”

He sees her lip quiver as she nods, he sees the shift in her eyes. Like maybe, finally, she gets it. Maybe even gets him, just a little. Maybe, finally, she can understand why.

+ + +

When Brad leaves SERE, he feels like a new man. They warn you, SERE will break you down, and for some, it leaves them broken. For Brad, being stripped down, raw and bare and exposed, surviving the process, felt like validation of the strength of his mind and the depths of his resolve, felt like being reborn. They call him the Iceman, back in 1st Recon, and Brad comes out of SERE feeling for the first time like maybe he really earned the name.  He feels invincible, unstoppable. He feels like all his broken pieces got put back together in the process, and he came out whole again.

He comes home bruised and battered, with two weeks leave. His first stop is Phoenix Ink, Susannah’s studio.

Brad got his major back piece started on Okinawa, before he ever met Susannah. Since then he’s gotten additional work done on it in San Diego, work that wouldn’t have been appreciated by Val, like a half-naked Amazon warrior. Today he wants something new, something to mark the occasion.

She looks up from her desk when the door chimes, flashes him a grin.

“You survived,” she crosses the shop, leans into him and wraps him in a hug. “How do you feel?”

“Fucking phenomenal.”

She turns his hands over in hers, examining the bruises around his wrists, eyes lingering on his split lip. She raises her eyebrows, lets out a low whistle.

“Looks like some serious shit.”

“It was pretty much as advertised.”

Susannah is the only person that he told about SERE before he left, the only one who really knew what he was in for. She just shakes her head.

“Whatever turns your crank, kid.”

“Don’t call me kid.” It’s what he says, when she does.

“Respect your elders.” It’s what she says, when he does.

It’s something akin to a parent-child conversation, Brad knows, their own odd, distorted version of but I’m a big boy and listen to your mother. It’s weirdly comforting; he kind of likes it.

“I was thinking about some fresh ink.”

“Oh yeah?” she’s grabbing two beers out of the fridge in her little office, the shop empty but for Horatio working at his station near the back. “What did you have in mind?”

“Nothing specific.” He shrugs. “Just feels like an achievement worth commemorating. Maybe you could draw something for me?”

She stops, bottle halfway to her mouth, and blinks at him.

“You want me to do it?”

“Yeah,” he nods, forcing himself not to hide behind his beer bottle. “Why not? You do excellent work.”

She ducks her head a little, her cheeks pink.

“Sure,” she says, nonchalant, trying to hide the little smile playing on her lips. But Brad can tell she’s pleased, and he’s glad. “We can do that.”

She sketches while they talk, something in plain black. She explains about the three interlocking triangles of a triquetra, the ways it’s been used by civilizations throughout history. The symbolism of the circle of life, death and rebirth, of the power of three and the balance of body, mind and spirit. Of knots and binding. Of the Valknut, symbol of the Norse God Odin, Ruler of War in Viking lore.

Brad just nods, peels off his shirt.

“Upper back, right in the middle,” he stretches back to point to the spot.

“Good choice,” she says, and they get to work.

+ + +

He heads West on Melrose when he leaves Susannah, takes LaBrea up to Santa Monica. It’s the opposite direction from home, but his new tattoo is burning at the base of his neck, he feels loose and free, buzzed and electric and ready for anything. He pulls the bike over into a public parking lot at San Vicente and Santa Monica, stays astride and scopes the scene. The sun is just setting.

He’s driven down this street before, leaving Susannah’s, but it’s the first time he’s stopped. If he’s honest, the only thing that’s kept him moving all the times before is fear.

Brad feels like there’s no fear left in him, tonight.

As it gets darker, the street gets busier. Brad watches, waits, looks for a target. He can’t help thinking, this is precisely what’s he’s trained to do. He laughs to himself, knowing exactly what the Marine Corps would think about this particular application of his skills set.

Finally, he sees a guy. He’s tall and broad, not too bulky. Rangy, like his muscle comes from actual work of some kind, not from the gym. Clean shaven, short brown hair.

Brad stows his helmet, strides toward the bar the guy disappeared into.

He buys a drink and scopes the place, eyes searching. When he spots his target, Brad adopts a relaxed posture, leans back against the bar on one elbow, opposite leg extended. He fixes the target with the same look he uses on women in bars – chin lowered and eyes raised under his lashes, half a smirk on his lips and an upward quirk of the eyebrows that clearly asks, shall we? It hasn’t failed him yet.

The target stares him down, mimicking the same look right back at him. Brad keeps eyes on him, as he approaches. He waits until the guy is standing right in front of him to throw his head back, down the last of his whiskey. Brad swallows, then makes eye contact again. He pulls himself out of his lean and up to his full height, watches the guy swallow thickly as he looks up. When he leans in, whispers wanna find somewhere more private in a low, gruff voice, Brad’s cock gives a twitch of interest.

Brad raises his eyebrow in lieu of response, jerks his head by way of indicating the other guy should lead the way. The guy goes, and Brad follows.

There’s a hallway leading to the back of the bar, the emergency exit light the only illumination. Off to the side, behind the bathrooms at the end of the hall is a doorway covered by a black curtain. The guy looks back at Brad, hooks a hand in the pocket of Brad’s leather jacket, and pulls back the curtain to lead them through it.

Inside, it’s like all the porn Brad has been looking at for the last year and a half has come to life. There are guys everywhere, in various stages of undress, in various positions employing various means of getting off. Now Brad’s cock is fully awake and definitely interested. The guy pulls him closer, and Brad spins them so it’s Brad’s back to the wall, a better defensive position.

“I’m Chris, what about you?” He leans in close, crowding up into Brad’s space, mouth right at his ear.

Brad just stares him down, gives a little shake of his head. Chris raises his eyebrows.

“Strong silent type, huh?” His hand is on Brad’s stomach now, his fingers pushing aside jacket and t-shirt to get to bare skin. Brad jerks just a little when he makes contact. “I can work with that, assuming your cock looks as good as the rest of you.” His fingers work at Brad’s belt, while he mouths Brad’s neck.

Brad lets his head fall back against the wall, lets his eyes close. He feels the burn of his new tattoo where his shoulders are pressed against the rough brick. He feels the cool air on the sensitive skin of his hard cock, and knows his fly is open. Feels Chris wrap his fingers around, feels the heat and pressure of his touch. Hears his voice, farther away than before, saying oh fuck yes, and knows he’s down on his knees now, knows he’s looking at Brad’s cock and, apparently, satisfied with what he sees. Brad keeps his eyes closed and just lets himself feel it all – the wet heat of the mouth around him, the pressure of the fingers wrapped tight around the base of his cock, the tight suction, like a goddamn Hoover.

He forces his eyes open eventually, looks down to watch. Chris has his hand in his jeans, jacking himself in time with the slide of his mouth up and down Brad’s cock. Brad watches, mesmerized by the graceful coordination of the movements, made breathless by the heat in the room, and the smell of sex in the air. Brad has come to prize proficiency over most any other attribute, and Chris is by far the most proficient cock sucker Brad has ever had the pleasure to personally evaluate.

In the last year, he’s had the chance to evaluate quite a few, but of course, those were all women. By the time Brad is coming, watching Chris swallow like Brad’s feeding him candy straight from his dick, Brad has a feeling that’s all about to change.

On the ride home he realizes, he just got one of the best blow jobs of his life, and he was in and out in less than an hour without saying a single fucking word. Brad’s pretty sure that’s the kind of thing he could get used to, and has to wonder why the fuck it took him so long; he should have done this ages ago.

10. 2001

After two years in the Corps, two years of training and special schools, humanitarian missions and supporting NATO forces, Nate is just starting to think maybe he knows a thing or two, feel like he’s seen some shit, like maybe he has this down.

He was off-ship at a bar called the Mississippi Queen, though maybe bar isn’t exactly the right way to describe it. It’s a restaurant-slash-dinner club, that becomes a bar later in the evening, and that boasts a clientele that’s a mix of all types, yet caters to the small gay community in Darwin. Nate went to dinner there once with a bunch of guys, totally unaware, and only later in the evening had this dawning realization.

He’s been back several times since then, with intent. In the early days of his career he wouldn’t have dared, but over time he’s learned there are avenues to find something, a little more than nothing at least. He just has to take care, has to exercise caution. Darwin is a small place, the Mississippi Queen draws American servicemen just by virtue of the name, and Nate is nothing if not exceedingly judicious about his dalliances. So far on this deployment, said dalliances have consisted of an exchange of blow jobs in a car in the parking lot of the Mississippi Queen, and a hurried hand job in the bar’s bathroom at 0300. Both took place only after Nate had made doubly sure there were no US military personnel anywhere on site.

Tonight he was out alone, hanging out in the back of the bar, observing everything. He had his eye on a cluster of Marines in the corner of the front room, no one he knew or recognized, but that didn’t mean they might not recognize him. He kept his Nightcliff Tigers cap pulled down tight, blending in with the locals. When a guy pulled up a stool next to him, asked if he could buy Nate a round, he hadn’t even been sure yet if it was just Aussie hospitality or something more.

The something more became apparent, after a few beers.

When the guy – Grant, it turns out - leaned in closer, asked with a cheeky grin if it would be too presumptuous to say wanna get outta here? Nate grinned back and drained his glass, feeling good about Grant’s particular combination of dead sexy and completely non-threatening. Dangerous isn’t a personality trait Nate has the option of pursuing, given his current situation, but finding someone worth the risk he’s taking who is simultaneously without even a hint of danger is, in Nate’s experience, akin to the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Now they’re walking down Grant’s street, shoulders bumping periodically, all the way up the steps to Grant’s apartment. Nate scans the street quickly, up and back, before he closes the door behind them.

It’s warm outside, but cool and dark inside when Grant slowly backs him up against the wall, carefully licks his way into Nate’s mouth with his warm fingers pressed up under Nate’s t-shirt.

It’s been over a month since anyone’s touched him.

A month is nothing, really; usually, the almost-uninterrupted celibacy he’s practiced since OCS is something he barely even thinks about. Sure, there’ve been a few guys here and there, when he’s on leave or otherwise free enough to do as he pleases, but generally speaking, abstinence is just a fact of life he accepts without strong feeling. But something about the constant heat of Darwin in the dry season is making him antsy, horny. He’s been thinking about it a lot, had sex on the brain since the first time he saw what was going on after dark at the Mississippi Queen. He’s been thinking about all the things he craves but never gets to have, the things he’s never done but wants, none the less, to do.

He’s had 5 or 6 beers, and Grant is an excellent kisser. He’s shorter than Nate, a welder, he said earlier, with blonde hair and rough hands and biceps for days, maybe a few years older but still twenty-something. Tonight, Nate’s just an American college kid taking a year off to backpack around Australia, happy to let his host take the lead, show him the ways of the locals.

Grant pulls off both their shirts, backs Nate into the bedroom and up against the bed, and Nate lets him. He kisses him, his mouth, his neck, his chest, dips his tongue into Nate’s belly button, and Nate lets him. He unbuttons Nate’s shorts, slides his hand inside while he sucks kisses across Nate’s hip bone, while he pushes Nate’s shorts down and moves his mouth along the crease of Nate’s thigh, and Nate lets him. He puts his mouth on Nate’s cock, sucks Nate’s balls into his mouth, spreads Nate’s legs around his shoulders and runs his tongue up the crack of Nate’s ass, and Nate lets him. By the time he’s got his fingers, slick and slippery and hot up inside Nate, there’s no missing where this is going, no stopping it, not that Nate would want to.

He watches with heavy eyes while Grant rolls a condom down over his cock, slicks himself up. Grant crawls back onto the bed, whispers meaningless nonsense against Nate’s neck while his cock nudges at Nate’s ass, kisses Nate’s mouth and steals his breath while he’s pushing himself up inside of Nate’s body. Nate breathes deep, steady in and out against the intrusion. Grant pulls out and pushes in again, careful and slow at first, then harder and faster.

He strokes Nate’s cock while he’s fucking into him. He makes both of them come, and Nate just holds on tight and lets him.

Once they’ve both recovered sufficiently to move, Grant kisses him again, keeps kissing him as he holds onto the condom and pulls his cock out of Nate. It feels weird – strange at first to be filled up that way, and strange now to be so empty - but not bad. Nate thinks maybe later, maybe in an hour or so, Grant might want to do it again. He wonders if it will feel different, maybe better the second time.

It felt pretty fucking good the first time.

Grant leaves and comes back, puts two beers down on the bedside table and crawls back between Nate’s legs where he’s still laying, sprawled shamelessly on the bed. He runs a damp towel over Nate’s sticky belly, wiping away the pools and stripes of his own come. Then he swipes it over Nate’s still-sensitive cock, making him jerk, then down between his ass cheeks, making him jerk again. Grant just grins, tosses the towel across the room carelessly. He leans up over Nate, kisses him slow and dirty, then turns and props himself against the wall behind the bed. He tugs until Nate sits up too, pulls so Nate’s back is against him, his arm over Nate’s shoulder, and hands Nate a beer.

“Really good go, mate,” he murmurs against the back of Nate’s neck. “Maybe rest up a bit, have another round?”

Nate feels sleepy, sated. A little giddy. He’s a full-fledged homosexual sodomite, at long last.

Took him fucking long enough – being a twenty-four year old ass-virgin was starting to feel like he was waiting for an engraved invitation, like he’s some starry-eyed teenage romantic who wants it to be special, or whatever. In truth, other than Tim fucking Walker - with whom Nate avoided the topic because he knew he wanted it too much in all the wrong ways - the guys Nate has hooked up with just haven’t made him want it enough in the right ways. Not enough to make the call.

Tonight, it just felt like conditions were favorable. Grant seemed safe, hot, and willing, and old enough to hopefully know what he was doing. That’s really all there was to it.

“Sounds good,” is all Nate says, warm and comfortable, in no rush. There’s no curfew on base, as long as he’s where he should be tomorrow at 0700 he can do what he likes. And what he likes is Grant, solid against his back, warm lips on his neck, smell of beer on his breath. What he likes is the idea of another round, and also the idea of resting up first. He finishes his beer and his eyes flutter closed. He vaguely hears the sound of Grant’s good-natured teasing about falling asleep on him, followed by the snick of the TV turning on.

+ + +

Grant shakes him awake gently, and Nate hears him breathing Holy Christ.

“You gotta see this, mate,” he points over Nate’s shoulder to the television, and Nate’s eyes take a minute to focus.

There’s billowing smoke on the screen, bright red scroll across the bottom under the words TERROR ATTACKS IN AMERICA.

“What the fuck,” Nate shakes his head, trying to make sense of it. He sits up, and Grant’s arm falls away from his body.

The BBC reporter is talking about the twin towers, one of which is now a pile of rubble and ash. They keep showing the video of the collapse, over and over and over. They say the Pentagon has been hit, a smaller picture in the corner of the screen shows it burning. The United Nations, the White House, the Departments of State and Justice, the World Bank are all evacuating. The FAA has grounded all domestic flights.

Nate watches in silence, dumb struck.

When the second tower falls he looks at the clock, 1 AM local time. He tries to do the math in his head, but it takes him a minute. 14.5 hours means it’s morning, half past 9 – no, half past 10 – in the morning.

“You’re not from New York, are you?” Grant says from somewhere behind him, and Nate shakes his head.

“Baltimore,” he whispers. “I’m from Baltimore.”

“I don’t know that much about American geography,” Grant starts, apologetic, voice soft like someone has died.

Someone has, Nate realizes. Jesus. Hundreds, probably thousands have. Nate suddenly stands up.

“Holy shit,” he starts scrambling for his clothes, “Jesus, fuck, I’ve got to go. Holy shit, I have to get back.”

Grant is calm, handing Nate a sock, a belt, picking up his t-shirt and flipping it right side out.

“You don’t have to go,” he offers kindly. “Does the hostel even have a TV?”

Nate yanks on his shorts and takes his shirt back from Grant, sitting back on the bed to pull on socks and shoes.

“I have to get back, Jesus, I’m sure they’re looking for us.”

“Whoa, slow down, mate,” Grant puts his hands on Nate’s shoulders, crouches to look in his eyes, “who’s looking for you?”

Nate realizes he must sounds crazy, paranoid. He shakes his head, too impatient to explain.

“I just, I have to go,” he stomps his heel down into his shoe and stands, feeling a little frantic. “Thanks for – I mean, shit.”

He shrugs, helpless. He’s not even sure the best way back to base from here, or how far it is. He took a cab to the Mississippi Queen.

He bites his lip and forces himself to breathe.

“I’m not actually,” he starts, and shakes his head. Grant looks at him, sympathetic and clearly at a loss.

“Listen, I’m sorry to ask, and I hate to put you out, but do you think I could have a ride?”

“To your hostel?” Grant nods, voice slow and soft like you talk to a lunatic, “sure, of course. I’ll grab my keys.”

Nate waits until they’re in the car, until Grant says where to.

“Do you know where the Navy Yard is?”

“I’m a welder,” Grant shrugs by way of explanation, “mind if I ask why we’re going there?”

“Look,” Nate sighs, finally meets Grant’s eyes. “I’m not actually a student. But I am – probably – about to be at war. So, I just. I really need to get back to my boat.”

Grant swallows thickly, and nods. “Shit,” he breathes, “of course, sure, let’s-”

He doesn’t finish the sentence, doesn’t say another word, just drives. He stops the car a bit down from the main gate.

“Thanks,” is all Nate can think to say. Every word he has seems wrong, inadequate.

Grant reaches out, runs a thumb along Nate’s cheek, pats his jaw with a rough hand.

“Good luck, sailor,” he gives Nate a sad little half-grin, and Nate doesn’t have the heart to tell him he’s not a sailor, he’s a motherfucking Marine.

+ + +

The worst part is the phone call home. His dad’s voice is low and steady, trying to be stoic, but Nate can hear the worry there, behind the forced calm. And his mom is practically hysterical, beside herself over the attacks, and even more so over what it means for Nate.

Every single Marine and Sailor onboard has a call home to make, and they’ve each been allotted a short time to make them. Nate assures them he’ll be careful, because he can’t assure them he’ll be okay.  He asks his parents to give his love to his sisters, tells them his time is up, and then his mother sucks in a deep, stuttering breath, wet and heartbreaking.

“No,” she says, petulant like a child, “No, Nate. Not yet.”

“Mom, come on,” he prods softly, biting his lip. “I have to free up the phone. There are lots of other guys that haven’t gotten their call yet.”

“We understand,” his dad says, and then, “honey, we’ve got to let him go.”

“This isn’t what you signed up for,” his mother insists into the phone, and he has to swallow the lump in his throat and tell her, as gently as he can, yes it is.

Compared to listening helplessly to the anguished sobs of his mother from 7000 miles away, it turns out war isn’t even that bad.

Sure, the Hindu Kush will freeze the balls right off you at night, and sure, there are the stories about how the Taliban will bury you up to your neck and throw stones at your exposed head for hours until you finally die, if you’re captured, and that’s more than a little unsettling. But all in all, the main thing Nate feels is enthusiasm for the opportunity to put his skills to the test. Generations of Marines have had all the same training, all the same preparation as Nate’s been given, but never had the chance to actually use it in the field. He’s a goddamn infantry officer, and he’s leading a platoon of US Marines in the first American Ground war in decades. It feels - exhilarating.

It’s not that he likes the violence, certainly not that he likes being cold and filthy and hungry and constantly in peril of losing life and/or limb, but there is, inarguably, something about the experience that’s deeply gratifying for Nate. He feels justified in his eagerness to do the job they’re here to do, like an avenging warrior sent to set right the wrongs done to his country and its people, to chase the forces of evil back into the shadows, to make the world safer, better.

He feels like this is what he joined up for, what it’s all been about, what everything in his life so far has been leading up to – to be in a position to actually do something, to spring into action when action is needed.

It’s them – him, his men, their brothers in arms – they’re the ones standing on the wall, they’re the ones that answered the call when the wolf howled at America’s door, and he can’t help but be proud of that. It’s not a job everyone can do, he knows - not a job most people can do. But they can do it, he and his men. They’re trained and prepared for it, they’re good at it, they’re even willing to die for it, and Nate feels a deep sense of satisfaction in that.

He’s never been more sure he made the right decision, enlisting in the Corps.

11. 2002

After Afghanistan, Brad comes home to find his house suddenly feels too big. He feels exposed, there’s too much open space to monitor, and his brain won’t shut down, his senses still on high alert. After three nights of lying in his bed, unblinking, unsleeping, resisting the urge, he finally gives in and slides off into the three-foot space between the bed and the far wall of the bedroom. He instantly feels better, but that doesn’t mean he sleeps.

“You look like shit,” Susannah says a week later, when he visits.

Brad snorts.

“I appreciate the boon to my self-esteem.”

“Hey, I didn’t even mention those dark circles under your eyes.” Her tone is sarcastic, but her eyes are concerned. She watches him for a minute, appraising, then heads to the kitchen, calling back over her shoulder,

“You can thank this guy for those,” and she taps a framed photo on the mantle of her parents. She’s pointed it out to Brad before, but he felt weird looking at it too long. They’re both dead now, anyway.

With her out of the room he takes the opportunity to look more closely. Sure enough, the old man has epic dark bags under his eyes. Brad wonders absently if that’s what he has to look forward to in old age as Susannah re-emerges and hands him a beer.

“Sleeping hasn’t been. It’s not working out that well.” He sinks into a chair, shrugs.

“You’ve got to be exhausted.”

“That doesn’t seem to matter.” He sips his beer, resolutely does not pick at the label despite the uncomfortable silence. “It’s more about. Feeling exposed, I guess. The house feels too big; wide open. It’s disconcerting.”

She stares at him, nodding slowly, and they sip in silence for a few minutes. Then suddenly, she stands and takes the beer out of his hands.

“I have an idea. Come with me.”

Curious, he follows her into the little hallway. He’s never been farther than the bathroom, never been into any other rooms besides the living room and kitchen. She opens the door to the right; the door’s always been closed, and Brad had always sort of vaguely assumed it was a closet. He thought this place only had one bedroom.

“I keep the door closed to keep the cat out.”

It’s tiny, Brad’s not even sure it could technically be considered a bedroom. There’s a small window directly across from the door, and along the wall to the right is a desk, strewn with sketches and watercolor paintings, cups full of colored pencils and paint brushes. Along the wall to the left is a double bed, covered in a sky blue quilt. The dimensions of the room are such that the mattress barely fits, lengthwise. It’s snugly surrounded on three sides by the walls of the room.

She looks at him, shrugs.

“Maybe try a nap, see how it feels?”

Brad looks around, assessing. He nods slowly.

“Worth a try.”

“Go ahead,” Susannah motions to the bed. She steps over to the window to tug down the shade.

Brad sits down on the bed and pulls off his boots. He has to lay corner-to corner on the mattress to stretch out completely.

“It’s yours, as long as you want it,” Susannah closes the door behind her as she goes.

The afternoon sun sneaks in around the edges of the shade, diffusing the room in a low golden glow. The last thing Brad remembers is the crack in the ceiling over his head.

When he wakes up again, he has an urgent fucking need to take a piss. He rolls up to a seated position. The room is so fucking small, he can lean over and reach the doorknob without standing up.

The light is bright when he opens the door. He peers around the corner into the living room, but Susannah isn’t readily visible and his bladder is protesting urgently. He heads into the bathroom and pisses for what feels like 5 minutes. He cracks his back and neck, washes his hands. There’s a series of post-it notes on the bathroom mirror.

Had to go to work.

Help yourself to whatever’s in the kitchen.

Stay as long as you want.

Spare key on front table if you need to lock up.

P.S., it’s Tuesday.

Tuesday, shit. Brad came here on Monday. He pads into the kitchen in his sock feet, checks the clock on the microwave, sees it’s 16:00. He went to sleep yesterday around 13:00. Huh.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket and sees 3 new voicemails. All from his mother and sisters, he’s quite sure.

He thinks about heading to La Jolla, seeing his parents, sleeping in his bedroom with the posters of motorcycles and 80’s bands on the walls. Considers pulling his boots on, heading out. But he still feels oddly exhausted, like anything beyond puttering around the interior of Susannah’s tiny duplex is more than he can face.

Instead he opens the fridge, finds some cold cuts and bread. He has a sandwich and some milk. He snags an apple from the bowl on the counter, and eats it sitting on the bed in the little room. He leans over to toss the core into the trash can under the desk, and lays down again.

+ + +

Brad leaves Susannah’s after three days. He’s starting to smell, but he feels like a new man.

In lieu of returning his mother’s many phone calls, he rides down to La Jolla and knocks on the door.

“Where the hell have you been?” her voice is shrill through the screen door.

“May I come in?” He asks, eyebrows raised.

Her face softens immediately, and she shakes her head.

“Of course you can come in,” she pushes the door open for him, standing to the side so he can pass, “I was concerned about you, Bradley.” She wraps him in a hug, squeezing tight.

“I’m sorry.” he rests his chin on her head, letting her keep her arms wrapped around him until she decides to let go. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“You’re gone for months – to war – and then when you finally get home we see you one time for a few hours and then you fall off the face of the earth?”

She looks at him, incredulous, forehead creased with worry.

They sit down on the sofa, and he tries his best to explain. About the exhaustion, the not being able to sleep. About the house being too big, and his brain going too fast. About trying to turn off the need to be constantly on high alert, constantly aware of your surroundings and on the lookout for danger, and how it can take a while to re-integrate into normal life.

She nods as he explains, and he knows she really wants to understand. Things are different now, since September 11th. She’s got a legitimate reason to be afraid for him, and somehow that fact has made it easier for him to appreciate her concern rather than resent it. But there’s a bumper sticker on her car, now, too, that says My Son is a U.S. Marine. There’s a yellow ribbon on the mailbox. And Brad could give a rat’s ass about useless displays of moto bullshit, hates the fucking arm chair patriotism that ribbons and bumper stickers usually represent, but he can make an exception in this case. Because for the first time, Brad knows she’s proud of him, of what he does, even though it scares the shit out of her. Brad will fucking take it, bumper sticker and all.

He stays for dinner before he goes home.

He sleeps better that night, and even better the next.

By the time his block leave is over, he’s fully operational again, like nothing was ever wrong. He goes to Free Fall School, does the usual training missions and week-long maneuvers, the same ones he’s been doing for years.

For a little while, it’s almost like he never went to war at all.

+ + +

Unlike Enduring Freedom, the new war doesn’t have the same public support. There are protests everywhere, people claiming the WMD’s are bullshit, people claiming they’re not.

Brad is just a grunt, his job isn’t to figure out the big picture, his job isn’t even to fucking think, it’s to do, and he’ll go where they send him, and do what they tell him.

Not surprisingly, where they’re sending him is Iraq.

“You seen the new LT?” Person asks, eyebrow raised in that same look of perpetual are you fucking shitting me he always wears.

“Not yet, no.” Brad is doing an equipment check on their gear. They have open water maneuvers tomorrow.

The most accurate thing Brad can say about their previous CO is that he was unremarkable. He wasn’t a complete idiot, but he wasn’t great, either. Brad learned a long time ago not to bother hoping for great. As long as the new LT isn’t stupid enough to get them all killed, Brad will consider that a win.

“Looks twelve, homes. Thirteen tops.”

Brad just grunts, counting sets of fins, masks, cylinders, marking everything down on his forms.

“Gunny swears he’s solid, but dude, I heard he went to Harvard or some shit. Since when does Harvard teach you fuck all about war?”

“I would assume the Marine Corps and Operation Enduring Freedom taught him about war, Ray,” Brad remarks smoothly, mildly irritated by Person as per usual. “Less bitching, more helping.”

Ray automatically stoops to start stacking the gear without interrupting his stream of consciousness blathering.

“Seriously, Brad. Don’t you even care that some freckle-faced Ivy League fucking tween is going to be all that stands between us and fucking Encino Man? I mean, we might as well just jump on a fucking IED and be fucking done with it, homes.”

Brad grunts again, hoisting a pile of dry suits up onto the rack. Ray does have a point about Encino Man, but there’s not a goddamn thing Brad or any of them can do about that. Ivy League or not, the new LT has very little chance of interceding on their behalf with any degree of success. Encino Man is who he is, and the idiotic havoc he wreaks with his slack-jawed Cro-Magnon incompetence is their own personal cross to bear.

He sighs, grits his teeth.

“If Gunny says he’s solid, then he’s solid.” Brad thinks he might be trying to convince himself as much as Person, but Poke has told him the same about the Lieutenant in response to Brad’s private inquiries, and Brad trusts the judgement of both Poke and Wynn as much as he trusts anyone’s aside from his own. And besides, “Not like it makes much fucking difference, anyway.”

The next day, Brad gets to see for himself that Ray’s not wrong. The new LT does look young, with a big smile and freckles, but there’s something else, something sharp in his wide eyes that flashes unexpectedly, says he might be fucking with you, even when his voice is dead serious. And Poke and Gunny aren’t wrong, either; the LT seems capable. Their first maneuvers with Fick at the helm go perfectly according to spec, everything meticulously organized and executed in accordance with his well-drawn plans. The LT oversees everything with a laid-back, good-natured air about him, respectful of Brad and the other team leads, letting them do their thing without sticking his nose in where it’s not needed. And there’s no bullshit moto, no rah-rah speech at the end of the day. He just tells them nice work today, gents, and gives them that big fucking smile.

As it turns out, that’s their last trip out on the water.

Afghanistan was all about mountain warfare training, preparation for chasing Al Qaeda and the Taliban through the Hindu Kush. But Iraq is going to be different. They’re spending all their time on desert maneuvers and urban combat scenarios, practicing driving across the Mojave in tactical formations, rehearsing assaulting through hastily constructed cities full of blind corners and ambush points in the canyons created by the towering facades of fake buildings.

Like always in the Corps, they know nothing until they do. The order finally comes down – they’re heading to Kuwait next month, to await Saddam’s next move.

The training exercises immediately take on a more serious slant. They get their piece of shit Humvees and spend weeks fixing them up, taking them out on maneuvers, learning to get over how fucking exposed they’re going to be in these open-top tin cans. Orders change, and then change again, and Fick does his best to keep them all focused despite the cauldron of bullshit that simmers just above him, sometimes bubbling over and spilling down their fucking backs.

Brad reminds himself this is not going to be like Afghanistan, nothing like it at all, and the sooner he accepts that the better. For himself, for his team, and for his platoon – both its men and its leader. Resistance is futile, and in order to do his job, to fulfill his role in the platoon effectively, Brad knows he needs to get the fuck on board.

Two weeks before they’re scheduled to step off, Brad swings by Fick’s desk at the end of the day, after-action reports on that day’s training completed in triplicate, ready for his signature. The Bravo office is empty, other officers all long gone, but Fick’s chair is shoved back and away from the desk, sitting there at an odd angle. Brad’s immediate thought is that Fick must still be on base somewhere; he hasn’t known his new LT for long, but long enough – he knows him to be unfailingly careful and precise, knows his shit is always buttoned up tight and squared the fuck away. No way Fick shoved his chair back like that and headed out for the weekend, leaving it there all haphazard and devil-may-care.

He puts the forms on Fick’s desk and loiters aimlessly for a moment, disappointed. He’s grown to appreciate the occasional conversations he has with Fick at the end of the day, dropping off paperwork and leaning casually against the wall next to his desk while they discuss platoon business, or geopolitical pissing contests, or the Chargers prospects on the season, or the price of fucking tea in China. It doesn’t really matter, Brad has found – the LT has a thoughtful and well-reasoned take on every-goddamn-thing.

Brad appreciates the way Fick disagrees with him, heartily and with guns blazing, never humoring him and never falling back on his position of institutional superiority to bully Brad into acquiescing to his points, never assuming his own opinion is better informed, not even a hint of that oh-so-common Officer’s condescension to the uneducated enlisted man. When it’s just the two of them, it’s patently clear that Fick sees Brad as an equal, which is something Brad hasn’t experienced before from any of his previous CO’s. Fick is smart, and interesting, and actually has a fucking sense of humor. He’s almost like an alien lifeform, as Officers go.

Brad would never in a million years have imagined he’d be standing in his CO’s office, past five on a Friday, hoping to stick around longer and shoot the shit instead of hoping to avoid conversation and get the fuck out of there asap.

He turns to go, rounding the corner out the door and almost slamming into Fick.

He’s half naked, towel around his waist and one around his neck, hair wet and dripping, clearly just back from the showers. Brad steps back and away fast, hands up in apology.

“Sorry, Sir. Just dropping off those after-actions. They’re on your desk.”

“No problem, Brad,” Fick nods, just the barest hint of a smile on his lips while he runs a towel over his hair, “thanks. Have a great weekend.”

He claps Brad on the shoulder as he passes, and Brad feels an odd sense of. Something.

Fondness, maybe.

It’s a little disconcerting.

+ + +

“Can I get you a beer?”

“No need.”

“Just get right to it?” The guy’s mouth turns up on one side, eyebrows raised expectantly. His name is John. Josh? Maybe Jeff.

Almost definitely Jeff.

“Preferably.” Brad’s voice is dry, and his fingers are already working the buttons on his shirt. “Unless you have an objection.”

“No objection here.”

Jeff approaches, pushes Brad back against the wall with no small amount of force. An auspicious start, as far as Brad’s concerned.

His mouth is hot, demanding, tongue invading aggressively. Brad gives as good as he gets, both of their hands grasping, pulling at clothing and pushing each other around. It’s just the way Brad likes it.

Mostly, Brad’s activities in L.A. consist of getting his dick sucked in the back rooms and alleyways of West Hollywood. More than once or twice, he’s taken part in other acts performed in those same venues, usually at the behest of a guy who likes the way Brad looks and thinks he’d look even better with his cock buried in the ass of said guy’s boyfriend, while said guy observes. Brad’s not here to pass judgement on the weird shit people do in their relationships, he’s here to get his rocks off, so he’s happy to oblige when such opportunities present themselves.

Occasionally – very rarely – he comes across someone worth taking his time with. Someone that hits just the right buttons, turns him on in all the right ways so he’s willing to actually speak, actually give someone his name, actually agree to follow that someone to an apartment or house and get all the way naked, do things right. Do things Brad doesn’t do often, things he definitely doesn’t do in back rooms or alleyways.

Tonight, Brad feels an urgency that’s not usually there. The impending deployment and the cloud of anticipation it brings with it, the testosterone levels in Bravo 2 climbing day by day, everyone amped up, even the choir boy LT wiping that big fucking grin off his face more and more often to turn serious, barking orders on maneuvers like he means it, making all of them, even Brad, straighten up and take note. It all makes Brad’s skin itch, makes him hungry for something more than he usually needs.

As soon as he got a look at Jeff, Brad knew it was on. He’s tall, eye to eye with Brad, buzzed black hair and a thick five o’clock shadow. He’s wearing jeans and a t-shirt, with a beautiful forearm sleeve, a smoky forest in flames that fades out into his wrist like magic, like nothing Brad’s ever seen. There’s nothing about him that’s self-consciously trying to be hot, no sculpted hair or sculpted pecs, none of that shit Brad hates. Just shoulders like a fucking ox and thighs like tree trunks, and when he met Brad’s eyes across the bar, well above the crowd, his smile was almost bashful, despite the lines at the corners of his eyes that said he had quite a few years on Brad.

Brad doesn’t have many hang-ups about his rapidly expanding sexual appetites, doesn’t assign any relevance whatsoever to who does the fucking or who does the sucking, knows it’s utter bullshit to try and draw some conclusion about the measure of a man based on where he puts his cock, or where he puts someone else’s. But he’s done this enough by now to know, the truth is there are plenty of men that can turn Brad on, plenty that can get him off, but there aren’t many that make him want to get on his knees the way he’s on his knees right now.

Jeff’s got his hand on the side of Brad’s neck, thumb spanning along his jaw, cock in his mouth. Brad’s got his eyes open, watching Jeff watching him. In addition to the fiery forest on his forearm, there’s a coiled serpent on his back that slithers around his hip in the front, its open mouth, bared fangs staring Brad in the face. There’s a badass shoulder piece that looks like the epaulette of a suit of armor, and on his chest is the Eagle, Globe and Anchor, below it a set of stripes over crossed rifles, bordered on the bottom by the single rocker of a Staff Sergeant. Brad’s not surprised, exactly, just from the way the guy carries himself, from whatever that thing was that made Brad want to come back to his house to begin with, but still, it’s the first time it’s ever happened. There are no bases around for miles, and nobody gets their rank inked on their body before they’re done; Brad knows he can’t be active duty. Even so, the sight of that tat left Brad a little breathless; with the spike of fear that came first, but then with something else. Some kind of hunger down deep in his guts, a need to impress this guy, to earn his praise, to prove himself. He didn’t bother to take time considering whether or not that’s kind of fucked up; he was down on his knees too fast to think.

Brad has developed a certain degree of skill, by now, but he’s by no means an expert. He’s not in this position often enough, so he figures he should fucking take advantage now that he’s got the chance. He breathes deep and swallows, testing. Pushing his limits is something Brad revels in, he’s not suddenly going to be a pussy about it now. He thinks fuck it, and swallows again, keeps swallowing past the gag reflex and past the initial hit of panic that always comes with lack of air. Brad’s fucking used to that one by now; he’s barely phased.

“Holy shit,” Jeff groans, “look at you, Jesus.”

Brad’s fingers dig into the back of his thighs, for balance as well as for leverage. He keeps sucking and swallowing, slow and steady, almost meditative in his careful, measured rhythm.

“So good,” Jeff’s thumb presses hard into the muscle of Brad’s neck, his hips rocking forward to push more of his cock into Brad’s throat, making Brad’s eyes water and run. “Fuck that’s so good. You got me so fucking close, already.”

His hand presses on the back of Brad’s head, holding it right where he wants it. “Stay right there, just like that. Gonna fuck your mouth just like this ‘til I come right down that tight throat.”

Brad’s not opposed, in theory, but he’s got other plans. He blows out the breath he’d been holding and lets the action of his throat work with him as he pulls off, pushing back against the pressure of Jeff’s hand. He lets the cock slide out of his mouth.

“I don’t think so,” he croaks, voice harsh.

“No?” Jeff pants, as Brad strokes his spit slick cock.

“No.” Brad stands, so they’re eye to eye again.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Your cock in my throat was good, your cock in my ass would be better.”

Jeff’s bemused little grin turns nasty, his eyes flash and go dark.

“You’re goddamn right about that,” Jeff growls, hands coming up to grab Brad’s shoulders, manhandling him onto the bed. “All fours,” he orders, “and fucking don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

If there’s one thing Brad can do in his sleep, it’s follow orders. He doesn’t move a muscle, barely breathes, until Jeff is back behind him and suddenly, cold, slick fingers slide up from Brad’s balls, along his perineum to push at his asshole. He hisses as two fingers breach him roughly, no preamble and no easing into it. It makes Brad’s ass clench and back bow involuntarily before, finally, he pushes back into the burn.

“Oh fuck yes,” Jeff’s breath is hot against Brad’s ass, inspecting his work as he pushes his fingers in and circles them, sliding and twisting. “Come on and open up for me. Gonna get my cock up inside you so deep.” He pushes a third finger in, and Brad’s head hangs down between his shoulders, he concentrates on deep breaths and staying relaxed. Just like any other physical challenge, it’s mind over matter, and Brad’s a fucking pro at that. Jeff swirls and spreads his fingers, making Brad ache and buck. “Look at you, so fucking hungry for it. Want it bad, don’t you?”

“Christ, c’mon,” Brad groans, finally. “Get the fuck on with it.”

“So fucking needy,” Jeff’s voice is teasing, but Brad can feel him moving, feel him kneeling up on the bed, leaning over Brad’s back. Then his cock is right there, nudging at Brad’s ass. “If you want it so fucking bad, ask nicely.”

Brad grits his teeth, tries to push back against the pressure of Jeff’s cock, but strong hands hold him right where he is, won’t let him move.

“What’s the magic word?” Jeff’s voice is gruff.

“Fuck you,” Brad pants, “fucking fuck me, Jesus.”

“You want my cock inside you?”

“Fuck yes.”’

“You want me to split you wide open, don’t you. You want to feel it into next week.” It’s not a question, his voice low and dangerous, and Brad rolls his hips in angry frustration.

“Yeeesss,” Brad growls, annoyed, “yes, fuck, just do it.”

“Careful what you ask for.”

With one hard, long push, Jeff shoves his way in, stealing Brad’s breath, making his ass clench and his back bow again, even though he knows tensing up only makes it worse. His eyes sting and he forces himself to breathe through it.

“You got what you wanted,” Jeff whispers, soft against Brad’s shoulder, fingers tracing tender and soothing over Brad’s side, “what’s the matter, more than you can handle?”

“N-no,” Brad stutters, breathless. “Fuck no. More.”

Jeff’s laugh is low and evil.

“Have it your way, then.”

He pulls out fully, and buries himself again in Brad’s ass again. The searing heat of it is mostly pain with a sharp, narrow edge of pleasure, and Brad grits his teeth against the intrusion.

“Still think you can handle it?” Jeff’s voice is daring him, and Brad’s never met a dare he was smart enough to walk away from.

“Fuck yes,” Brad hisses, indignant. “Harder.”

Jeff pulls back and fucks into him again, then again. Brad pants and pushes through it, reaches with his mind for the pleasure at the end of the pain, pulls it to the forefront as Jeff pushes into him one more time, then another, then another, until the hurt recedes into the darkness behind Brad’s eyes, and all he can see, all he can feel is light.

When it’s over Brad is a quivering, sweaty mess, legs and arms shaking, knees stiff and ass aching. He collapses onto the bed, right onto the cold, sticky stripes of his own come underneath him. He can’t bring himself to care.

Jeff is panting behind and beside him somewhere, rough hands soft on the skin of Brad’s ass, stroking up and down his flank. Brad shivers.

“Nice ink,” Jeff’s voice is gruff, low. His fingers ghost over Brad’s lower back, and Brad shivers again, rolls away. He forces himself to gather his strength and stand. When he looks back, Jeff is laying across the pristine white sheets, watching.

“Thanks. Yours too.” Brad thinks about adding Staff Sergeant, but bites his tongue.

“Jesus, you should come with some kind of warning,” Jeff laughs, watching Brad gather up his clothes without making any commentary on the matter. “You damn near killed me.”

Brad’s stepping into his jeans, wincing at the movement. He looks up, grin wry. The ride home is gonna be a bitch.

“That’s not quite how I remember it.” He pulls his shirt on, buttoning it half way before he sits to tug on his socks, then his boots.

“You don’t have to go, yet,” Jeff spreads his arm over the bed, indicating all the empty space. “I’d love to return the favor, if you can give me an hour to recover.”

“I have to get going,” Brad lies, “but thanks.” And shit, he hates this part, just one of many reasons he doesn’t do this often. Because what do you say, it was great having your cock up my ass? Maybe thanks for fucking the shit out of me and not being a pussy about it?  Or, if he wants to be really honest, he could just say,

“That was exactly what I was looking for.”

Luckily Jeff just waves a hand, laughs again.

“Something told me you like to do things the hard way.”

Brad slides his jacket on, pats his pocket for his keys, and picks up his helmet.

He just nods, and clips a quick salute on his way out the door.

12. 2003

Nate came back from Afghanistan more or less a filthier, skinnier, more exhausted version of his same old self. He visited his family, got some R&R, put back on a few pounds, and in just a few weeks it was back to business as usual. He went to BRC and got drown-proofed, over the objections of every fiber of his being and every ounce of common sense the Corps hadn’t yet managed to beat out of him, and as his reward he was handed his very own platoon of terrifyingly capable Recon Marines to lead. Gradually, day by day, he even found himself thinking maybe he’d make a career of the Corps, after all. That had never been his intention, but he couldn’t imagine another job giving him such a clear sense of purpose, where what he did every day actually had real meaning, made a difference in the world.

But Iraq was something different, and it made Nate into something different. A different person entirely, almost unrecognizable to himself.

A less good person, he can’t help thinking. A person he doesn’t really want to be, on a road he definitely doesn’t want to keep walking down.

There are a lot of reasons why, too many for him to think about, really, so he doesn’t think too much.

He also doesn’t sleep or eat too much, but he does drink a lot.  As much as he can, pretty much, while still keeping his shit together at work.

At first it’s fine - everyone kind of has that same gaunt, perpetually hungover look for awhile when they get back, so Nate’s no exception. But as the guys go on leave and get some rest, they start to come back with some meat back on their bones and looking normal again, healthy, while Nate still looks a little malnourished, still more frail and unkempt than he should at this stage in the game, face pallid under his rapidly fading desert burn.

Brad looks at him sometimes with searching eyes that seem worried, maybe, so Nate figures he better try a little harder to clean up his act. He replaces whiskey with coffee, at least on the weekdays, and forces himself to lie down and close his eyes for four or five hours a night, even if he still doesn’t really sleep.

He gives it a little while before he files the paperwork, long enough that he hopes the decision doesn’t appear reactionary, like he’s throwing some hissy fit after everything that went on in-country. Nobody is surprised, and nobody tries to talk him out of it, and he feels nothing but relief when it’s done - except for one thing.

When he assembles his platoon to make the announcement, that one thing is standing in the back, gaze heavy and hot on Nate’s face.

Nate wonders what it would feel like to just look up, to just face it head on, but he’s been avoiding it for so long now, pushing it down and holding it back, he’s too afraid of what might happen if he took the lock off those flood gates.

“We’ll be sorry to see you go, Cap,” Gunny says, as if he speaks for the whole platoon. Nate wonders if he’d be an idiot to let himself believe maybe that’s true. Mike shakes Nate’s hand and the guys all gather around to follow suit.

“What’re you gonna do without us, Sir,” Person shrugs, “won’t you be bored off your ass?”

“Probably, Ray,” Nate agrees, while he shakes Garza’s hand.

He keeps moving from one man to the next, shaking hands and handing out hugs, accepting well wishes and extending his own to them, but when he gets to the end of the line, Brad’s nowhere to be seen.

+ + +

The GRE prep book that Nate’s been half-heartedly working his way through is for shit. His scores are all over the place and there are honest-to-god fucking typos in the practice tests. He’s promised himself that if he finds one more teh or adn, that’s it, he’s quitting. He listens to the windows rattle and watches the lightening flash outside; the lights flicker, and he hopes sincerely they’ll just go out for good and give him an excuse to sit in the dark and get drunk, which is all he really wants to do anyway.

The truth is, he hasn’t really known what to do with himself, the last few weeks. Technically, his date of separation is still a month out, but in reality all his business with the United States Marine Corps was pretty much wrapped up weeks ago. He’s been relieved of all official responsibilities, but he’s got a few more months before his lease is up in Oceanside and no hard and fast plans as of yet, so he’s just biding his time, feeling like a man without a country. He’s been forcing himself to work on Grad School applications, but it’s half-assed and unfocused at best.

For the first time in his life he’s basically at his leisure – nowhere he has to be, nothing he has to do and no one expecting him or relying on him. Mostly, all he’s been doing is exactly what he’s doing now, sitting at home alone, trying to force himself to do something productive and failing as often as not.

Other than his plans to go home for Christmas for a few days at the end of the month, there’s absolutely nothing on his horizon, nothing to look forward to other than maybe the fact that the men have his paddle party set for Saturday night. And he’d be looking a lot more forward to that if he didn’t have some legitimate concerns about how well he’s going to be able to hold it together, given his current emotional state.

The lights flicker again and he gets up, locates a lighter and some candles just in case.

He’s applying to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, because - obviously. Also GW and Georgetown, because the thought has crossed his mind more than once that maybe getting into politics, or at least into political circles in some capacity, could be a way forward, a way to exert some positive influence on the clusterfuck that is the current state of things, in Nate’s humble opinion.

He doesn’t feel strongly about any of them, though, not the schools or the programs and courses they offer. He can’t seem to gin up any excitement about any of it.

He’s frankly more interested lately in looking at the programs available at UCLA, and USC, and fantasizing about a future where he doesn’t go back East at all and instead just stays in California for good, with the perpetual sunshine and the rolling waves and the laid back vibe and the whole nine yards. About a future where he dedicates his life to something quietly, unassumingly virtuous, like being a high school teacher, or starting a non-profit. About a future where at some point, eventually, maybe DADT goes away and then maybe if Brad’s still around, and he’s still around, they might -.

But, that’s just ridiculously, galactically stupid. He can’t choose a school based on a crush, or whatever the fuck it is he’s experiencing, regarding Brad. He knew better than that at 17, back when Tim Walker was actually asking him to come along, actually wanted him. And Brad’s definitely not asking, and for all Nate knows doesn’t even want -.

The lights flicker again, and the apartment plunges into darkness. Nate lights the candles, glad he took the time to find them, and picks up his phone to call his sister, just something to pass the time.

But right there next to Maggie Clayton in his contacts is Brad Colbert. His hands twitch and his skin feels too tight, the temptation of it making his fingertips tingle. He puts the phone down and leaves it on the arm of the couch, goes to the kitchen instead to find the whiskey.

+ + +

“Hey,” Nate says, soft and low under the thump of the bass, and the guy leans in just like Nate was hoping.

“Hey.”

He smiles, and Nate thinks yeah, that’ll work.

Nate’s drunk, and he’s horny, and he’s sad and sleep deprived and a little lost, frankly, and he’s not a Marine anymore. It’s officially Official, now.

Eleven days ago he left Brad fucking Colbert standing in the street next to Mike Wynn’s house and drove away, and now he’ll probably never see him again.

Or even if he does, what the hell difference will seeing him make compared to the way Nate wants, well. Too much.

He wants everything, with Brad, just stupid, crazy, in-love kind of stuff, and he’s never going to have any of it – of course he’s not. So if he wants to get on his goddamn knees on the day after Christmas in the back of some sleazy fucking gay bar in Mount Vernon for some stranger with a dimple in his chin and a crooked smile, why the hell shouldn’t he?

So he does.

He kneels there on the filthy floor and rips the guy’s pants open, hungry for it. He lets out a hum of satisfaction when he sees the size of the cock in front of him, already erect and straining, and he slides it past his lips, relishes the hard-soft feel of it on his tongue, the velvety push of the head against his soft palate. Hands wrap around his head and he moans his encouragement, because this is exactly what he needs. The hands push and pull, guiding him up and down on the cock in his mouth, and Nate goes where he’s encouraged to, lets the pressure of those hands set the pace.

It’s nice to let someone else make the decisions, to not have to think for awhile. He lets himself zone out to the rhythm of the thrusting of the cock in his throat, the almost meditative pattern of his own measured breaths at the end of each stroke. He’s so gone on it, he doesn’t even realize the guy is coming until he feels the sweet, comforting cadence they’d established stutter then stop, then feels the hot wet splash of come against his cheek, his nose, feels it sliding down over his numb lips.

“So fucking hot,” the guy whispers, hauling Nate up off his knees, “covered in my come.”

He slides his fingers across Nate’s filthy, sticky lips, then shoves them into Nate’s mouth. Nate sucks on them eagerly while the guy gropes at the crotch of his jeans, free hand rubbing and pressing against Nate’s erection. Nate sucks on his fingers and grinds against his palm until he feels the pressure build low in his gut, feels the tight coil in his groin that means he’s about to come. Then he shoves the guy off.

“Not yet, not yet,” he insists, mostly to himself, and reaches down to slide his hand back into the guy’s open fly. “Wanna suck you some more,” he pants, and the guy huffs a laugh into his ear.

“We’re not all 21, baby,” the guy whispers, and vaguely Nate understands that he should feel affronted by the suggestion that he is 21, when in fact he’s 26 years old. But instead, all he feels is disappointment at the softened cock in his hand. “You gotta give me more than 5 minutes if you wanna go again.”

“No, I,” is all Nate says, and then he’s out of there, shaking off the guy’s grip on his arm. He shoves his way through the crowd, aware that he must look glassy-eyed and fucked out, aware that there’s come on his face and he should probably feel ashamed of that fact, but instead all he can think is he kind of hopes someone makes a filthy comment, calls him a name bad enough to justify Nate punching them in the face.

He’d really like to punch someone in the face.

He can imagine the satisfaction of the crack of his knuckles against skin and bone, imagine the burning ache of the black eye or busted nose he might receive in return for his troubles. He can almost taste the blood, feel the throb of the pain, and the craving for it wells up in him suddenly, a longing for the simple, straight forward release of pressure that violence can bring.

Instead he finds the bathrooms and pushes through the door. He grabs paper towels from the dispenser and scrubs at his face while he scans the room, notes the couple making out inside the open door of one stall, one guy washing his hands and two guys at the urinals with their backs to him.

Nate leans against the wall and waits for the tall one to shake his dick off and zip up, waits for him to wash his hands and turn around.  Nate takes a half second to get a look at his face, and yep, good enough, then Nate backs him up against the sink, presses a thigh in between his. The guy’s hands go to his shoulders automatically, ready to fend off the assault, then he takes a look at Nate and his startled expression turns into something darker, a knowing smirk.

“Hey,” Nate says, low and soft, and the guy leans in just like Nate was hoping.

“Hey,” he says back, hand wrapping around the back of Nate’s neck as he crushes their mouths together.

Nate slides his hands up under the back of the guy’s t-shirt, feels slick, sweaty skin slip under the tips of his fingers. He lets himself be kissed, dirty and sloppy, until he can feel the hard line of the guy’s cock against his thigh, then he pulls back, panting, and slides down to his knees.

+ + +

“So, your dad tells me you’re headed to Business School,” Mr. Burton, one of the partner’s in his dad’s firm, snags another crab puff from the buffet table and washes it down with the last of his champagne. “No interest in adding another attorney to the family, huh?”

Nate smiles politely and sips from his own glass.

“Ah, well,” he shrugs, appropriately self-effacing, “Business school is just one of the options, at this point. I’m still working out exactly what my next steps are going to be.”

“Well, I might be biased, but you could do worse than to make a career of practicing law,” Burton says, and Nate nods along gamely. During the summers he spent interning at the firm during college, Burton was always one of the best ones to work for. Always treated the support staff and other underlings kindly, respectfully, which is more than Nate could say for a lot of those guys. It’s the least Nate can do to engage him in small talk.

“Yeah,” Nate lies, blatantly, “it’s definitely not a bad idea. I’m just not sure yet; still keeping my options open I guess.”

He considered law school for about 3 seconds once, back in the summer when he was in his maybe I could work for the Justice Department/FBI/CIA phase. It just doesn’t really hold any appeal.

He chats a bit more with Burton as it gets later, until Mrs. Burton finds them and winds a hand around her husband’s arm.

“So nice to see you, Nate,” she smiles kindly, “we’re so happy you’re home.” Then she leans closer to her husband and points at the clock. “Almost time, handsome.”

Mr. Burton grins back at her, his arm sliding around her, hand resting low on her hip, second nature.

“Look at that,” he says, “guess we made it through another year.”

Nate’s mom and dad are circulating with open bottles of champagne, re-filling empty glasses. Liz turns up the muted television, Times Square full of millions of revelers, and suddenly Dick Clark’s voice is warning them all that they’re only a few seconds away from the end of 2003.

Nate lets his mother fill his glass, then stands silently by the stairs and listens to the house fill with the shouts of family and friends counting down to a new year. He watches the Burtons scream Happy New Year to each other, then kiss sweet and slow. They have their arms around each other, laughing, clinking their champagne glasses and kissing again.

Nate downs his champagne in three swallows and leaves his glass on the table in the hall.

Liz and Drew are making out in the kitchen, and it manages to force a smile out of him as he quietly snags an unopened bottle of champagne from the fridge and slips out the backdoor.

It’s freezing, and he doesn’t have gloves or scarf or anything, but he sits on the cold stone ledge of the back patio, pops the top on the bottle and takes a slug, and considers that he’s been a lot colder before and lived to tell the story. The stars blink down from a crystal-clear midnight sky, and Nate thinks how it’s only 9 o’clock in California, how arbitrary and ridiculous it is that he’s already living in 2004, but everyone back home is still living in 2003. He’s a little too drunk to wrap his mind around it.

He doesn’t want to wonder, he really doesn’t – tries not to, tells himself it’s not only stupid and pointless but edging right over into pathetic, but that doesn’t stop him. He still wonders where Brad is, what he’s doing to celebrate, or if he’s celebrating at all. If he’s alone, lonely. If he’s drunk somewhere, raucus and loud. If he’s got someone to kiss at midnight, someone to take to bed a little later on. Nate tells himself magnanimously that he hopes so, then snorts at the outrageousness of his own lie.

He can see the party going on without him through the living room windows, noisy, filled with the low hum of voices and piercing peals of laughter. The Christmas lights are still twinkling on the tree in the front hall, mantle still wrapped in tinsel and garlands, adorned with ceramic letters that spell out JOY and PEACE and NOEL underneath the flickering flames of the candles they hold. The stockings for Nate’s mom and Dad hang at each end of the mantle, and in between are little groupings for Liz and Drew and Ethan, for Maggie and Brian and Alex and a tiny little one with no name, a nod to the fact that their second baby is due in May.

Then there’s Nate’s stocking, hanging alone.

He goes back inside.

“Nate!” Maggie’s eyes are sparkling even though Nate knows she hasn’t had a drop to drink. “Happy New Year!” She grabs him and hugs him, leans in over her faint trace of a pregnant belly to smack a wet kiss on his cheek.

“Happy New Year, Mags.” He kisses her cheek and she swipes his champagne bottle, taking a quick sip then shoving it back into his hands like a hot potato. She makes a show of looking around to make sure nobody saw before winking at him, her finger over her lips.

Her smile is beaming, her joy infectious, and Nate can’t help but grin back, can’t help but hope that maybe this will be the year that he finds some of that joy for himself.

13. 2004

In England, Brad talks about Nate.

No one here knows him, knows either of them. His reputation doesn’t precede him, for once, other than the assumption that he must be good to have been chosen for the exchange.

Brad can be whoever he wants to be, not who he’s expected to be, and Nate can be just a guy he served with in Iraq, a buddy he tells stories about. Just a Marine with an impressive intellect, an expansive knowledge of military history and weaponry, and the best grasp of the local language and customs of anyone in the Company. Just another Marine, but one who runs the fastest mile in the platoon, is a crack shot, a stellar tactician, and who’s always thinking two steps ahead, always coolly in control, even when he’s pissed as hell about another goddamn fuck up. Just another Marine, but one who convinces command to let their platoon take a field trip to fucking Babylon for some goddamn cultural enrichment exercise, in the middle of a country at war.

When he tells that last one, the guys laugh him off, think he’s bullshitting, say come off it and fuck off, Colbert.

Turns out, Marines spend a lot of time waiting no matter which side of the pond you’re on. Sitting around, shooting the shit, biding their time in cramped rooms, cramped vehicles, cramped tents and cramped holes in the ground - waiting for orders, waiting to move, or just waiting for the shit to be over so they can go home.

In all that waiting, there’s plenty of time to play 20 questions. Or 50 questions, or Ten-thousand-fucking-questions. Best shot you ever made? Best album of all time? Hottest woman you ever fucked?

At home, Brad rarely joins in. He holds himself apart, aloof, at a distance; in England, he figures what the hell.

Worst shit you’ve ever been in?

For that one, Brad tells the story of the bridge ambush, and about his daring platoon commander, a baby-faced Ivy League choir boy cum exemplary leader who exited his victor in the middle of a fire fight to personally direct a tactical retreat.

There’s special reverence among enlisted men for an officer worth his salt. Sometimes it feels like such a goddamn rarity to find one, it’s easy to become enamored of the good ones. Brad should fucking know.

When his Royal Marines unit hears about Lieutenant Fick on the bridge, there’s low whistles and hushed murmurs of respect.

Brad can’t help wondering what they’d say if he could tell them all his stories are about the same person – that they all add up to one singular, remarkable, too-good-to-be-fucking-real man.

+ + +

In England, Brad thinks about Nate.

There’s more down time here, training exercises and field missions not stacked up quite so close together, leave granted more freely and given in more generous quantity.

Brad has plenty of time off, time to explore the countryside on his bike, and to think about anything he wants.

He discovers quickly, he mostly seems to want to think about Nate.

When the announcement came down that Nate was leaving the Corps, it was almost like he suddenly disappeared from Brad’s world. It had been different, since they’d been back home, but also the same. Not as much day to day reliance on each other, the need for constant communication no longer vital just to keep themselves and their platoon alive. Still, Nate was always there in Brad’s periphery, a part of his daily life, a quieting presence and a sense of effortless understanding, a feeling of calm in the midst of whatever fresh hot bullshit rolled down on them any given day. And Brad knew better than to expect that Nate would stay – he was made for bigger and better things than the rest of them, that’s one thing that’s always been crystal fucking clear – but it still rocked him back a little, when the announcement came.

Immediately, Nate was transitioning out of his role, tasked with helping bring the new platoon commander up to speed. They still worked together, on occasion, but those occasions got fewer and farther between, until Brad could feel Nate and whatever might have been between them slipping away.

On his bike, out in the English countryside, he plays out all the possible angles, all the things he could have done differently, things he could have said or not said, trying to gauge what could have produced a different outcome. He spends a lot of time evaluating their one-and-only private, personal interaction outside of their time in the desert, and what it might have meant. What might have been there, or what might not have.

In the end, he always comes to the same conclusion: There was no other possible outcome.

+ + +

When Ray asked if Brad wanted to ride together to the Paddle Party, Brad had to bite back the urge to say he wasn’t going. Because as much as God, he would’ve loved to say he wasn’t going, he couldn’t skip Captain Fick’s paddle party. It would have been the biggest fucking pussy maneuver in recorded history to skip it, not to mention Ray and Poke and Gunny at the very fucking least would’ve known something was up, after all the shit Brad took about being up Nate’s ass in the desert.

So he kept his eyes on the machine in front of him, kept working the tool in his hand, and gritted his teeth.

“Appealing as it sounds to play babysitter and chauffer to your sloppy, overindulgent, undisciplined ass all night, Ray, I think I’ll go it alone.”

“You wound me, Brad, truly.”

Ray grabbed his chest dramatically, but Brad still didn’t look up.

By the time the party was winding down, Brad realized he hadn’t spoken word one to Nate other than the command performance of the paddle ceremony. He was struck suddenly, as Nate was handing out hugs and handshakes, men filing past him out the door, by the fact that this was probably it. Realistically speaking, when the hell would he and Nate ever have occasion to move in the same circles again? Maybe never – probably never – and the finality of that hit Brad like a round to the chest.

When Mike reached for Nate’s keys and said think that’ll about do it for you, Marine, before Brad knew what he was doing, he stepped in between them.

“I got this, Gunny.”

Gunny raised an eyebrow, but Brad just held out his hand.

“You’ve got a giant fucking mess to clean up and a wife coming home in a few hours, whereas I’ve got nothing better to do than babysit drunken ex-officers. It’ll be good practice for my chosen career path.”

He showed his teeth in a long-suffering grin, and Mike laughed.

“Hey, I’m not gonna fight you for the privilege.” He dropped the keys into Brad’s outstretched hand. “You boys be careful.”

He tapped a quick salute at Nate, which Nate quickly turned into a hug.

“It was an honor, Mike.”

“Honor was mine, Nate. Don’t go gettin’ soft on us, now.”

“Me, soft? Not happening anytime soon, Gunny.” Nate’s smile for Mike was mild and easy, but his eyes were hot and bright, focused intently on Brad over Mike’s shoulder.

Brad didn’t ask for directions to Nate’s house, and Nate didn’t ask why Brad didn’t need them. He was quiet, drunk and pliant, leaning bonelessly against the passenger door of his very sensible dark grey sedan. Brad felt the heat of Nate watching him with blatant interest as he drove, and told himself firmly that it was absolutely not indicative of anything other than acute inebriation.

Brad had that feeling, like back in the desert, like the air was vibrating. Like the tension was pulling it so tight, it might snap and choke them both. He kept his fingers loose on the steering wheel, eyes steadfastly forward, focusing on the road and on breathing deep and even, until he could pull into Nate’s condo complex and park the car. When he stepped out into the salty night air, he felt a strange, bubbling need to gasp, like he’d been underwater.

“Let’s walk down to the water.” Instead of turning to go up the stairs that Brad, for no particular reason, happened to know led to the door of Nate’s condo, Nate turned the other direction, taking off across the parking lot.

Brad did just what he’d always done: followed where Nate led.

Nate stopped on the beach, 10 feet from the roiling of the foamy surf. He watched for a while, Brad behind him and to his left.

“I used to surf, when I was younger,” Nate announced finally, breaking the silence.

“But you stopped, Sir?”

“Not on purpose, it just sort of. Faded away.”

Brad had no response for that, couldn’t imagine ever letting something as pure and perfect as surfing just fade away. So he just said,

“You’ve been busy, Sir. All these wars weren’t just going to fight themselves.”

A little huffing sound escaped Nate, then, along with an almost imperceptible shake of his head, like he didn’t even want to think about that. Like the truth of it just wasn’t worth acknowledging.

“I run on the beach, though, most mornings. See the surfers coming out at dawn. I always thought about going out, but I never did.”

Brad would have liked to say it wasn’t too late, but the truth was, he had no idea. Brad never asked, and Nate never told what his plans were for after. Nate could have been leaving in the morning, for all Brad knew.

“I wonder sometimes if you’re out there, if I’m looking right at you and just don’t know it.”

Nate didn’t turn, didn’t move, his voice didn’t change. But Brad could feel the air shift again, could feel the pressure change in his lungs, almost suffocating him.

“But I think I’d know, if I saw you. I think I’d be able to recognize you, just by the way you move,” Nate finished, and Brad had to clench his fists, close his eyes in order to police himself, in order to keep from reaching out, from touching.

A thick wave of longing, the kind Brad hadn’t felt in years, rolled over him all at once. In the desert, he’d told himself it was just the circumstances, being held hostage in the middle of nowhere, frustrated in every possible fucking way, not the least of which was sexually. He’d told himself it was only lack of any preferable stimulus that made his mind go to Nate, time after time, in the rare instance that he had his dick in his hand and time to actually think. He’d almost convinced himself that the professional admiration and quiet, easy understanding that bloomed so naturally between them was getting mixed up with the nicotine and caffeine in his sleep deprived brain and creating a toxic brew of manufactured, artificial lust.

Almost.

On the beach that night, though, Brad had no such excuses. He had no choice but to recognize that the tightness in his throat, the flutter in his belly wasn’t just lust, not just unresolved sexual tension, but something else. Something deeper and more threatening, something that made his chest ache, and he clenched his jaw, forced himself to breathe through the realization.

“You think it’s too cold to go in?” Nate’s voice broke the silence, eventually.

“It is December, Sir.”

“So that’s a yes?” Nate grinned back over his shoulder suddenly, and Brad felt relief flood him. Felt the tension lift all at once; immediate crisis averted.

“I’d say that’s a hell, yes. You’d freeze your balls off.” Brad forced an easy grin, a convincing facsimile of the real thing. “Some of us still have to answer to Gunny, and I can’t have you going hypothermic on my watch. Sir.”

Nate nodded, wry smile and a what-are-ya-gonna-do shrug.

“Good thing you’re here to save my ass one last time, Brad. Guess we go home, then.”

They didn’t talk about it, about the logistics of Nate’s keys in Brad’s pocket and Brad’s bike parked back on the side street next to Mike’s house. Brad just handed over the keys and followed Nate inside the condo, sat down on the couch and pulled off his boots. When Nate disappeared then came out with a blanket and pillow and two water bottles, he was wearing loose fitting pajama pants and nothing else.

Brad stood to take the bedding and one of the bottles while Nate opened his own. Brad watched his throat work up and down as he swallowed, watched a trickle of liquid leak past his lip and down the side of his chin.

Nate finished drinking and ran the back of a hand across his mouth, then looked over at Brad, careful and considering.

“Thanks,” Nate said, “For, you know. The babysitting, the ride home. The rest of it.”

“Happy to do it, Sir.” Brad dumped the bedding onto the couch, cracked open his own water bottle and swallowed a few gulps just for something to do with his hands aside from what they were itching for.

The side of Nate’s mouth lifted minutely, making half of a smile. But he didn’t look away, still studying Brad’s face intently, and Brad felt suddenly, acutely aware of the nearness, the warmth, the half-nakedness of Nate. Brad wanted to avert his eyes, break the contact, do something to hide himself from Nate’s knowing gaze, but he never has been able to take the easy way out, even when it’s right in front of him.

So instead he just met it head on, tried to let himself be seen. It’s not an easy task, not when Brad’s so accustomed to wearing the Iceman like an exoskeleton, used to the mask being there almost constantly, the default rather than the exception. But Nate had never seemed to find him as inscrutable as others did, had always been able to read his mind whether Brad liked it or not. So he met Nate’s eyes, unblinking and steady, and waited.

Slowly, Nate pulled the water out of Brad’s hands and set both their bottles on the table. His cold fingers wrapped around the back of Brad’s neck and his head dipped, his forehead coming to rest against Brad’s shoulder.

Brad couldn’t tell which of them was shaking, but looking back on it, he likes to think it wasn’t just him. He reached up slowly, so fucking slowly, and let his hand rest over the hot, bare skin of Nate’s hip.

Nate sucked in a shuddering breath, exhaled hot and damp against Brad’s chest.

“Sir?”

Brad waited, stock-still and light headed, to see what happened next.

The silence stretched out around them; Brad could feel Nate’s skin, smooth and warm under his hand.

“I’ve had way too much to drink,” Nate breathed, sounding miserable and unsure. He took another deep breath, and stepped back suddenly. His eyes didn’t meet Brad’s, this time; decision made.

“I’m sorry, Brad.” Nate shook his head, “I shouldn’t have.”

He turned on his heel and stalked stiffly down the hall.

Brad sank down to the couch, hands still shaking, and wondered if Nate’s apology was meant to be for the starting, or the stopping.

+ + +

Sometimes when he’s riding, Brad thinks about when he first saw Val. He can’t remember, exactly, try as he might. All he knows is it wasn’t some moment where time slowed and the heavens opened and sun beams fell on her like a spot light, like some retarded fucking Lifetime Movie. Of course, best guess is he was 12 years old, 13 tops, so his inept little half-formed adolescent brain was so swamped with hormones, who the fuck knows what he thought he saw, or what he thought he felt. And she was just as young, and just as clueless. She probably didn’t even have tits yet.

The fact that he can’t remember that either is, he thinks, perhaps telling.

He had, in the years between his broken engagement and stepping off for OIF, come to the conclusion that Val was simply an anomaly. Some fucking wrinkle in his development that left a gap, momentarily, in the generally impenetrable armor he’s always worn like second skin. It must have been just wide enough to let someone – someone small and nonthreatening - slip past before the wrinkle smoothed out, pulled taut as he grew so the gap was closed again. He thought that it must have been some mistake, and somehow she got in when no one else ever had. Somehow, he gave a shit about her. Was faithful to her, all those years.

He had loved her, to the extent of his capabilities, and that was the thing she said that hurt the most. Out of everything, that was the thing that made him feel like he was. Damaged. Stunted. Like some fucking Special Ed reject who tries hard but just can’t seem to comprehend why 2 plus 2 equals 4.

Like his very best just wasn’t good enough, and never would be.

Clay was just the friend he’d had the longest, which translated somehow over time into ‘best’. Brad expects loyalty from very few people. Outside his family, Val had always been the only one.  The fact that Clay would fuck him over was no surprise, really, to Brad.

Val, on the other hand.

Brad had taken a real hit on that one. Not just to his ego or his pride, but to his heart. Faster than the blink of an eye, the walls he used to keep everyone else out patched into place between him and Val, and suddenly there he was, rattling around all alone in the little internal fortress that had once contained the two of them.

If it was lonely in there, Brad made sure he was too busy with work and one night stands to give it much consideration.

He showed up stag to their wedding, overtly nonchalant and magnanimous about their betrayal. His placid well-wishes and demonstrable lack of sadness or hurt were the best fuck you he could think of.

He knows the scuttle-butt around the Recon community – the Iceman, betrayed by an unfaithful woman and a back-stabbing buddy, now bitter and distrustful, afraid to fucking love again. It’s such a fucking cliché, it makes Brad sick. The truth is, he only ever let Person drag that story out of him because without it, he knew his perpetual lack of significant other might point to something more accurate, more threatening to both his privacy and his livelihood.

The truth is, Brad is an opportunist, and a pragmatist. Making do with the resources available to him at any given time is just how he’s built. When he’s overseas, surrounded on all sides by his brothers in arms, the available resources tend to be women he pays by the hour, or the act, depending on the local custom. Britain is the exception, of course, with its liberal attitudes toward the sexual habits of enlisted personnel, but still Brad has been judicious in his choices, picking up a few women when he’s out with the guys from his unit, picking up a few men when he’s on weekend libo, alone and away from base.

When he’s home, though, and left to his own devices, able to choose his preferred course of action in an AO he’s familiar with. Then, it’s only 90 miles – one hour, the way Brad rides – to Los Angeles. And there, Brad can be just another nameless, unremarkable man in a crowd of men mostly looking for the same thing, operating comfortably outside the reach of the Corps.

When he’s home, Brad doesn’t need to pay for it, or waste his time on women who expect him to buy them drinks, chat with them, make them feel like it’s about more than it really is. In L.A., nobody asks where he’s from, or what he does. Transactions are arranged with wordless communication, Brad’s specialty, and carried out in dark corners of back rooms. There’s freedom in the anonymity of it, the freedom to have the thing he really wants, without pretense or preamble. No complications and no entanglements.

There’s safety in it, too, and that’s exactly how Brad prefers things. No threat to his career, his reputation, or his emotional well-being. Brad knows what it means that he chooses men if given a choice, but gay, homosexual, faggot, cocksucker, whatever – he just doesn’t think in those terms. He simply thinks of it as a sexual preference for hard over soft, for strong and powerful over tender and delicate. With a man – the right man - it’s something close to grappling, just a different version of hand-to-hand combat, that’s in line with Brad’s warrior spirit. They joke about the homoeroticism of the Marine Corps, but the way Brad sees it, Marines are all card-carrying members of the cult of masculinity, and they all worship at the altar of the biggest dick.

It took Brad awhile to figure it out, after Val – but looking back on it now, it feels obvious, inevitable.

Now, he thinks maybe Nate was inevitable, too. Maybe he should have known he couldn’t escape it forever, that decidedly human weakness for companionship, understanding, something beyond just physical satisfaction. But somehow, he’d thought, vaguely, that if it ever happened again, it would be a woman. That with men it was all about sexual gratification, would never elicit anything deeper, anything built to last longer than the time it takes him to get off.

He’d thought, if he ever felt that tug again, that longing for someone, that terrifying, heady desire to get closer, to have someone all to himself - of course it would be a woman.

And Nate Fick is decidedly not a woman. He’s not delicate or soft, and he’s definitely not small, or non-fucking-threatening. He’s a fucking Recon Marine. And also Brad’s former commanding officer. And also on a course to change the world and probably be fucking President one day, so.

Yeah.

So when he saw Nate’s name pop up on his phone display, three weeks before Brad left for England and three months since he’d last seen Nate.

Three months since Nate drove him across town in the shallow sunshine of the December morning to pick up his bike, with Brad biting his tongue the whole way to keep from saying anything stupid like when are you leaving or give me a call.

Three months since Brad stepped out of the car and managed a clipped, polite, “Best of luck with everything, Sir” - a goodbye fit for a professional acquaintance you expect never to see again.

So yeah, after that, when Nate’s name came up on his phone, he let it go to voicemail, and didn’t call him back.

Because enough is enough, and Brad was leaving and Nate was leaving, and the whole thing was – and continues to be - a pointless, useless, stupidly indulgent fantasy.

Because even when Brad is out riding, letting himself entertain ridiculous what-ifs like, what if he’d used that hand on Nate’s hip to pull him closer, that night? What if he’d said Nate instead of Sir, if he’d said don’t be, when Nate said sorry? If he’d held on, when Nate let go – hadn’t let him step back, turn away?

Because Brad knows even if he’d done all that, even if he’d ended up in Nate’s bed instead of on his couch. Even if he’d spent as much time as he could, as much time as they had left, in Nate’s bed for the next three months, best case scenario – very fucking best – is that they’d have ended up exactly where they are now.

Nate would still be in Boston, matriculating back into the Ivy League, writing his inevitable fucking book and sending occasional emails to Mike Wynn on which Brad is cc’d, with perfunctory questions about who said what to whom, on which day, in which hamlet or on which highway, and whether they remember it happening the same way Nate does.

And Brad would still be here, in England, and still just a Marine grunt, with all the realities that confers about Brad’s limited influence over his own life choices, and his subjugation to the UCMJ.

Because Nate would still be Nate. And Brad is twenty-nine years old, he’s been to war, he’s seen some shit, he knows enough to understand how the world works. He knows well enough by now, someone like him doesn’t get to have something like that.  That’s just not in the cards for him, and pretending it might be would be the fucking height of feeble-minded, imbecilic weakness.

So. Brad didn’t call Nate back, but he did listen to the message Nate left, a few times. Give or take another 100.

Hey, Brad. Just, uh, wanted to check in. Hope things are going well. Guess I thought I might see you around, but I’m sure you’re busy getting ready for England. Anyway, didn’t know if you’d heard that I’m heading back East, and uh. I’d like to buy you a drink before I go, if you. I mean, if you’ve got time. If not, well. Good luck with everything, and. Take care of yourself, Brad.

In the message, Nate’s voice sounds just like always - even, careful, controlled, dispassionate, and Brad doesn’t know how to interpret it without seeing Nate’s face, without being able to read his expression.

He listens to it sometimes, even now, in his bunk in Poole. When he feels too far away from home, when he’s too tired to police himself, he listens.

When it’s sopping wet and cold outside and Brad is soaked through, shivering during maneuvers, sometimes it hits him suddenly, that hot wave of want, and he feels it burn off just a little bit of the chill.

14. 2005

Nate hears things, of course. Hears who re-upped and who’s left the Corps, which units are being deployed and re-deployed. Hears days, sometimes weeks after the fact when people he knows have been in the shit, hears about when people are wounded.

Hears when people are killed. People sitting in the seat that used to belong to him.

If he wasn’t doing particularly well before, that news certainly didn’t help.

What has helped is knowing that at least Brad isn’t over there. It helps knowing Brad is in England, and knowing that at least he could do that for Brad, help to give him that one last thing before leaving him. Before leaving them all.

England feels closer, somehow, than if Brad were in California, although it’s actually farther from Boston as the crow – or Boeing 747 - flies. Nate should know, he’s checked the map.

Not that it matters.

When he started the book, it was just a way to kill the time between leaving Oceanside and starting school. He had a whole summer with nothing much to do, knocking around his new-old apartment in Cambridge, not ever really sleeping and not ever really feeling fully awake.

Now, going on a year later, the book has become something else – it’s become a way to reach out to Brad, however subtly, and that was just an unforeseen benefit.

He sends emails, purely professional. He addresses them to Mike, but he copies Brad. He asks for their input, asks them to fact check his accounting of things.

Brad always lets Mike reply first, Nate has noticed. Only then, if he has something additional to contribute, change, contradict – only then does he comment.

Nate’s feeling is, at least it’s something.

+ + +

The morning he left Oceanside, Nate went running on the beach at dawn, watched the sunrise paint the sky purple then orange then pink. He took off his shoes and put his white toes in the freezing March surf, and wondered idly whether the waves were good that morning, whether Brad was out there somewhere, paddling out into the water, warm inside his insulated suit. Whether Brad was already gone, already oceans and continents away from here. Nate wouldn’t know, on any count.

He showered with no curtain, washed himself and his hair with the sliver of soap left in the dish then let the rest slip through his fingers, watched it slide down the drain and thought,

Such is life.

He brushed his teeth with the travel-size toothbrush and toothpaste in his shaving kit, but skipped the shave. He zipped his sweaty running clothes into the exterior pocket of his duffel so they wouldn’t contaminate the whole damn thing, pulled out some cargo shorts and an old USMC t-shirt, slipped into his flip-flops, and rolled up his bed roll. He took his bag and his bedding out and stuffed them into the too-small space still available in the passenger side foot well, then jogged back up to the condo to lock the door.

He’d already sold everything he owned, except what would fit in his car and a small U-Haul cargo container that he strapped to the rack on top. He’d sent a few boxes – just clothes, linens, things that were cheap to ship and hard to damage – to his parents’ house, where he was stopping for a few weeks until his apartment was ready in Cambridge. Anything valuable, anything that meant anything at all was riding with him.

He fumbled with the key outside the door, trying not to mentally append for the last time to every single moment, every experience along the way, but he was feeling uncharacteristically wistful. Typically, Nate is doggedly logical, practical, and forward-thinking. He prefers looking ahead to looking back, but he found it hard, that morning, not to think about what he was leaving behind instead of the new challenges lying in store for him. He could imagine perfectly the road not taken, see a vision of a phantom life running parallel to the path he’s chosen instead, a road that led to Major, then Lieutenant Colonel, to more power and more importantly, more influence. To more combat tours, undoubtedly that, but if he’d managed to survive them, then also to an opportunity to change things from the inside out, instead of the outside in.

He hoped, for the thousandth time, that he had made the right decisions about his career. His life.

It was impossible not to wonder the same, regarding Brad. Hard not to think of Brad standing right there on Nate’s front step, of how he silently followed Nate into that apartment, once. And of the desperate, conflicted look on his face later that night, when Nate had come too close, gone too far.

Nate was drunk and Brad was sober, and had looked shocked, caught off guard. When Nate had reached for him Brad had reached out, too, but Nate still hadn’t been sure; for the first time he could remember, he didn’t feel certain of anything he was seeing in Brad’s eyes, aside from fear. That, he had no problem recognizing.

Months later, minutes from leaving Oceanside behind for good, Nate felt something hot and unsettling run through him at the thought of Brad - something he couldn’t quite define, something like want and shame and regret - for things done and not done, said and not said. His breath hitched, his stomach twisted, thinking of the probably-embarrassing voicemail he left when he’d finally broken down and called Brad.

It was too little too late, Nate assumed, but then he’d known that before he called.  Brad never called back, so, Nate took that as the final answer to the question he never got to ask.

He shook his head, took a deep breath. Reminded himself there was nothing to be done about it anymore, if there had ever been, so he just turned the key in the lock, determinedly. The bolt clunked in to place with a hollow ring of finality that felt fully appropriate.

He headed up through Barstow, drove-thru for lunch outside Vegas, climbed up into the mountains in Utah and crossed some of the most beautiful country he’d ever seen, coming out of Grand Junction and into Denver.

Out of Denver the next day it was nothing, nothing, nothing, all the way to Kansas City. He’d never been to St. Louis, so he took a half hour to grab some dinner and watch the sunset through the arch, but didn’t take the time to go up top, or to think about whether that sunset would look the same in California, in two hours’ time. He had a schedule to keep, had to get to Indianapolis before he could sleep.

He got a late start on day 3; he purposely scheduled the lightest day of driving for the last day of the trip. He headed out of Indy around 9 A.M., promised his mom he’d be home for dinner. Other than Columbus, there was nothing to see but small-town America, nothing to do but sing with the spotty, static-y radio all the way to Baltimore.

Driving cross country, Nate was reminded of invading Iraq, in a way; the mind- and ass-numbing vibration of the road for all those endless miles.

Minus all the people trying to kill him, of course.

Minus Brad.

+ + +

Last July, his first one back on the East Coast, Nate went to Sea Isle City for the Holiday weekend. He hadn’t been in years, since right after he graduated college.

He’d also barely seen his family in those intervening years, had tried his best to stay connected, to call and email when he could, to let them know where he was whenever he was allowed to, or just to let them know he was okay, if not.

It was good, but weird, being back East and back in the family sphere. They were all so happy to see him, so grateful to have him home and safe for good, relieved that his wild Marine Corps oats were sewn and reaped and behind him at last. Nate had a great time rolling around, wrestling and playing video games with the nephews he barely knew, and holding the tiny little nugget of a niece he’d never met. The smell of her, wrapped in her impossibly soft pink blanket, made Nate feel, for the first time in a long while, that maybe not everything in the world had gone completely to shit.

They went for dinner at the club, of course. And Tim Walker was there. Of course.

Nate followed him outside when he went out to smoke, like he was still some idiot kid, 16 and in dumb, ill-fated love. Except that Nate was 27, and had been to war – twice - and was not even a little bit in love, just horny as hell.

“How you been, Fick?” Tim tried, but Nate really wasn’t in the mood.

“Do you have a condom?” Is all Nate had to say. Tim’s eyes blazed immediately, and he nodded.

“Hell yeah.”

Nate pulled his jacket to the side and gave Tim a glimpse of the little glass pitcher he stole from the oil and vinegar set on the dinner table, and raised his eyebrows, you wanna?

He didn’t find out that Tim lived in Boston until after Nate had dragged him under the deck at the club, pushed him face first up against one of the piers, opened him up with three quick, olive-oil-coated fingers, and fucked into him with all the strength Nate could muster, one hand wrapped around Tim’s mouth to muffle his groans.

Nate has learned by now, Tim’s got problems. He’s got a boss that only keeps him around because Mr. Walker was his Frat Brother at Penn, he’s got at least three women who all think they’re his girlfriend, and he spends most of his nights drinking until he passes out.

He’s got a habit of showing up at Nate’s apartment, drunk and horny at odd hours. Sometimes it’s after work, when happy hour started early and by 7 he’s set for the night, ready to get off and pass out by 8. Sometimes it’s not until 2 or 3 a.m., when bars are clearing out and he’s closer, maybe, to Nate’s house than his own.

Tim is a mess, which Nate can relate to, a little bit, even if sometimes he can’t believe that this douchebag ever broke his heart. So Nate doesn’t mind, not really – it saves Nate from having to go out looking for anything, means he can stay home and obsess over his school work and his book and whether or not Brad has responded to his latest email, and still manage to get laid with relative frequency.

Sometimes – rarely – Tim isn’t too far gone when he shows up, and can be patient enough for Nate to suck him off. Even if sometimes it takes for-fucking-ever, his lips numb and jaw aching by the time it’s finally over, that’s okay by Nate. He so rarely gets the opportunity, he figures he shouldn’t complain when he does.

Mostly, though, Tim comes around looking for Nate to fuck him, which Nate is equally happy to do.  It puts Tim to sleep like a fucking infant, the instant he comes, so Nate usually ends up leaving Tim in his bed, crashing on the couch those nights.

It doesn’t matter much; he still doesn’t sleep too well.

+ + +

There’s a draft of Nate’s book that’s dedicated to Mike and Brad. For their invaluable guidance, leadership and expertise, both in the accuracy of the book and in the war that inspired it.

In that version, Brad is mentioned 17 times, including one extended passage where Nate attempts to explain his particular blend of supreme competence, intelligence, skill, and his devastating way with words.

Nate didn’t mention anything about the imposing size of him, the width of his shoulders and breadth of his hands. Didn’t mention the way he looks like some modern-day God with desert sun shining off his sweaty skin, the incredible blue of his eyes, or the unquestionably ill-advised yet mystifyingly appealing tattoo that takes up half his back, along with major parts of some of Nate’s better dreams.

Even without any of that, he knows that passage gives away too much. Every mention of Brad, really, makes Nate feel more and more exposed, more and more obvious, and he knows he’s got to make some changes.

There’s only one person that the book should be dedicated to, really, and that’s not just Nate’s guilt talking. It’s the right thing, the only thing to do.

And besides that, there’s the other thing.

The thing where Nate’s mom, his sister Liz, keep asking him if he’s met anyone, when he’s going to bring a girl home. Maggie has kept her mouth shut all these years, but it was easy when Nate was never around, never even in the country for more than a few months at a time, and of course no one expected him to have a girlfriend under those circumstances. Now he feels like he’s making his sister complicit in his not-quite-lies, and he never meant to not come out, it’s just that he took this 5 year detour and kind of had other things on his mind.

But Nate has a 2 year plan, and a 5 year plan, and a 10 year plan.

And fine, yes, he has a fucking 20 year plan, too.

And all of those plans involve going into public service in some way, and none of them involve hiding, or being dishonest about who he is. He’s convinced he needs to be out before the book is published, so it’s already old news before he even becomes news.  If he even becomes news.

There are openly gay elected officials now, it’s no longer assumed to be an automatic barrier to entry. And, there’s a part of Nate that thrills to the idea of defying the stereotypes that certain people might hold, of showing said people that sometimes gay comes in the form of a Marine Combat Veteran with a bunch of fucking Ivy League degrees.

Nate knows the tide is turning. By the time he’s ready to run, it will be such old news it won’t even be news. He feels – mostly – assured of this.

But now he knows he needs to get on with it, and he knows his family – his biological family – will be fine.

He can’t help but worry how his other family – his Marine family – will react, but he knows he’s going to do it anyway.

And he knows he can’t be objective, where Brad is concerned, so in the end he cuts all but the most fleeting references from the book.

His editor notices, of course, and so he explains that Staff Sergeant Colbert isn’t big on the idea of any fresh publicity – not after he already had a taste of it after Rolling Stone’s book.

Brad has already read most of the book, at least the OIF parts - in pieces and out of order, and not the extended Sergeant Colbert Fan Club edition, but still. Nate knows Brad doesn’t give a shit if he’s not mentioned at all, in the final edit.

They both know what really happened.

+ + +

This time, he contacts them separately.

The email to Mike is 4 sentences long, and it doesn’t take him much thought or time to write it. First, because he knows Mike as a man, not just as a colleague, and he has every confidence in Mike’s nonchalant acceptance. And second, because: Recon. He doubts many of the operators in his previous platoon will be much beyond mildly caught off guard by the news; some won’t be caught off guard at all. Simply put, Mike knows him too well to be too terribly surprised.

Mike,

Thanks again for all the help – the book is officially finished and off to print. I’m told it will be in stores just in time for the holidays, and will make a great gift.

I’m also planning to be open from here out about my sexual orientation, which just to be clear, is toward men rather than women. Feel free to disseminate and/or confirm that information, as you see fit.

Talk soon,

Nate

The reply is almost immediate:

Roger that, Captain. I’ll make it known.

And I’ll be looking for the book. Congrats.

The email to Brad takes a little longer. Like, days longer, and about 12 re-writes. Even though Brad is in the UK, where they ostensibly have no interest in his sexual or romantic involvements, whether past, present, or – as in the case of Nate - wholly non-existent and imagined, Nate still feels compelled to protect Brad’s privacy, whether any threat to it actually exists or not. The only language he can find is either too vague or too specific, too unclear, or too (potentially) telling, and in the end he just has to give up.

He chooses a Wednesday, and skips class to stay home and script an innocuous voicemail message asking Brad to please return his call, just in case Brad doesn’t answer. Then he drinks a fucking tumbler of scotch. At 3 p.m., 8 o’clock Greenwich Mean Time, he calls Brad’s number and prays he’ll pick up.

After three rings he picks up his voicemail script, preparing to start reading, but then he hears,

“Nate?”

He can’t remember if Brad’s ever called him by his name before.

“Brad.”

“Anything wrong, Sir?”

“No, no, nothing is wrong. Sorry if I caused you alarm by calling, I just. I needed to talk to you and I didn’t think email was. Appropriate, in this case.”

There’s a brief silence, during which Nate breathes deeply and scrambles to pick up his other notes, the ones he prepared in case of a live conversation with Brad.

Brad, whose voice he hasn’t heard in a year and a half, but who sounds just like Nate remembers.

He’s not sure if that’s a comfort or an impediment to what he’s about to do.

“I won’t take much of your time, I just wanted to give you a heads up on some things. Related to the book, mostly.”

Another pause, then all Brad says is, “yes, Sir?”

Fucking Brad. Nate finds himself shaking his head. Might as well dive right in, then.

“I’m coming out, Brad. Personally, but also professionally. I don’t mean I’m making any big public announcements, it’s not like that, I just don’t intend to make a secret of - anything. In the future, I mean. Assuming there is ever someone or something to potentially make a secret of.”

Nate cringes, glad for once that there’s an ocean between them. He knows Brad – knew Brad, anyway – and he can imagine, perfectly, that Brad would assume he’s making this decision because there’s someone.  And Nate wanted to make damn sure Brad knew, there’s no one. He just didn’t mean to make it sound like an invitation, or a suggestion.

“Out?” is all Brad says.

“Of the closet.”

“I wasn’t aware you were in a closet, Sir.”

“I wasn’t, exactly,” Nate sighs, “I just. Look. I just wanted you to hear it from me so you weren’t caught off guard. I know you took a certain amount of shit in the desert about the way we -. About me, and I know it was all in jest at the time, but I’m not so naïve as to think none of the men will have anything. Less than flattering. To say about it, now.”

“Fuck ‘em, Sir.”

“Come again?”

“If they don’t like it. Fuck ‘em.”

Nate smiles, laughs quietly.

“I think that might be exactly the type of thing they’re afraid of.”

Now Brad laughs a little. Nate hears the soft huff of his breath into the phone and feels incrementally better.

“If anyone has shit to say, Sir, they know better than to say it to me.”

“I appreciate your support, Brad.”

“Did you really think you might not have it? That I wouldn’t understand?”

Nate shoves aside all the questions that flood his mind, about what Brad means by understand, and instead just focuses on the face value of the words.

“No, I don’t guess I did think that.”

“Good. Because I’d have to be insulted.”

“Wouldn’t want that,” Nate smiles, and he’d love to end this conversation right here, on the high note of the warm tone of Brad’s voice and his easy assurances, but he knows, there’s still the other thing.

“There’s also,” he starts, not sure how to make the transition, “in light of this decision, and the way it might color peoples’ perceptions. I wanted you to know.”

Jesus Christ, this part is gonna hurt his pride.

“I took most of the mentions of you out of the book.” He swallows into the silence, hears the dry click of his own throat working. “I felt that I didn’t. That I wasn’t able. I just - I didn’t want you to feel compromised. So I thought, just, better safe than sorry.”

There’s another brief, excruciating silence, then Brad says,

“I’m sure that wasn’t necessary. It’s not as if anyone could fault you for having a crush on me, Sir.”

Nate can’t help the rough laugh that’s forced out of him. Fucking Brad.

+ + +

When he gets his advance copies, Nate sends Brad a signed copy of the book, inscribed:

Brad,

Thanks for helping me through it. Couldn’t have done it without you.

Nate

He declines to specify exactly what Brad helped with, or what Nate couldn’t have done without him. He knows Brad will understand.

When he mails the package, there’s a sense of finality. Like a chapter closing in his life, like the Marine Corps is really behind him now. All these months, writing the book, Nate still felt like he was living with it every day, almost like he never left. But now, it’s really over. He feels the loss of it, the loss of Brad, suddenly - like it’s just happened, like it hasn’t been almost two years since he separated from the Corps. But, he tells himself, there’s nothing to be done. Life moves on, we don’t always get what we want, and dwelling on the past isn’t hurting anyone but himself.

Then Brad starts calling.

Nate didn’t see that coming.

At first it’s every few days, talking about where he is in the book, giving Nate a hard time about some particular phrase or description, pointing out some of the more choice details and colorful language that Nate neglected to include. Talking shit about his appearance with the Reporter on CNN.

Then, he’s calling every day. Or at least, most days. Nate spends more time than he should sitting in hallways outside of lecture halls, phone pressed to his ear because he couldn’t resist picking up, even though Brad called in the middle of class.

Even when he’s studying for Finals, even when he’s too busy, when he knows he shouldn’t, he always picks up when Brad calls.

And it’s not just about the fear Nate has that every time might be his last chance. It’s about actually getting to know Brad, again. He can feel them falling back into that familiar, almost-psychic short hand they used to have with each other, where a glance or a half of a sentence, sometimes just one word could tell the whole story.

There’s comfort in it, safety, like coming home, like sleeping in your own bed after too long away. Nate has a feeling he knows what it means, but he also knows there’s nothing at the end of that train of thought but a dead end. So he purposefully doesn’t examine it too closely, just thinks he’ll take it while he can get it.

The day of his last final, he goes to a bar with Tim at 2 in the afternoon, because Tim is always down for skipping out of work early to go to a bar. By 6 they’re drunk in Nate’s bed. Nate is still breathing hard, Tim already dozing off under him, when the phone rings.

He sees Brad’s name on the display and lunges. His cock is still going soft inside Tim’s ass, inside the messy condom.

“’lo?”

“Were you running?”

“No, I just. Um. No.”

“Oh.” Brad sounds suspicious. Nate pulls away slowly from Tim, holding onto the condom with one hand, covering the phone with the other as Tim groans.

“So how was the last final?”

“Okay I think,” Nate steps across the hall to the bathroom, tosses the condom into the toilet. He doesn’t mention he would have done a lot better if he hadn’t missed nearly the entirety of the final two lectures in that class. “At least it’s over. Or whatever.”

“Ow, shit,” Nate accidentally bangs into the edge of the nightstand, and Tim shifts on the bed. Nate picks up his shorts off the floor and shuts the bedroom door behind him. He fumbles his phone onto the carpet trying to get his leg into his shorts, has to call out motherfucker, hang on, sorry, before finally getting the shorts on, picking the phone up, and flopping down on the sofa in the dark.

“Okay, good now,” he sighs.

Brad’s silent, then his tone turns sly.

“Are you drunk, Sir?”

Nate snorts.

“’lil bit.”

“At this hour? You must have gotten an early start. Sounds like some degenerate fucking Marine behavior, Sir.”

“You know what they say, Brad.”

Brad doesn’t bother to say once a marine, always a marine; it’s understood.

“I finished the book,” he says instead. “I felt it lacked something.”

Nate doesn’t bother to say you mean more mentions of you; it’s understood.

“Yeah well,” he says instead, “I’m not sure how much 7 extra pages on the enviable talents of Sergeant Colbert would have added to the overall narrative, for the average reader.”

“Maybe not,” Brad counters, “but I’d still like to read them. Turns out I have a vested interest in your thoughts on the subject.”

And their conversations have veered into what Nate would categorize as flirtation at times, over the course of the past few weeks, passing comments and veiled innuendo. But Nate can’t remember hearing the heat behind Brad’s teasing before, not like this.

“I don’t know if I even have them anymore,” Nate lies, but Brad just says, “Of course you do.”

Nate’s heart, and his dick, both give an alarming throb. So he promises to email the cut pages, and they hang up.

As he pushes send he hopes maybe he won’t remember this in the morning.

Unfortunately, in the morning he has an email waiting, to remind him.

This Sergeant Colbert sounds like a certified badass. Not to mention, a real dreamboat.

Nate just rolls his eyes, fires back,

Too bad he’s got the oversized ego to go with it.

Brad doesn’t bother to make the requisite retort about his ego not being the only oversized thing about him; it’s understood.

Instead his almost immediate reply is,

Too easy. Anyway, some things have to be seen to be believed.

Nate blushes, face hot and throat tight, butterflies fluttering madly in his gut, and bites the bullet before he thinks about it too long.

Guess you’ll have to come to Boston, then.

Minutes turn into hours turn into days turn into weeks turn into months, until finally Nate stops waiting for Brad’s reply.

15. 2006

When Nate jogs up the stairs, he doesn’t even appear to notice at first. True to form, even when he does notice, it barely fucking registers. He doesn’t turn his head, doesn’t tense; nothing in his outward appearance belies his knowledge that he has company, and if Brad wasn’t Brad, he wouldn’t suspect Nate had noticed a thing. 28 months out of the Corps and he’s still damn good, Brad is impressed.

Honestly, Brad’s not 100% sure he’s been made until Nate actually speaks to him.

“Brad?”

One trans-Atlantic flight, one day’s worth of recon, one day getting piss-drunk in a cheap motel room, alternately talking himself into and out of going through with this, and this is as far as Brad could get with his operational plan. This was it, and now he’s just winging it, so he steps out of the shadow of the stairwell, into the light and over to Nate’s door, but doesn’t say a word. Nate looks, with those fucking eyes, like he’s reading Brad’s fucking mind, then he shrugs, and opens the door. When he walks in, he leaves it open.

Brad steps into the doorway, but stops there, just observing: place is ok, pretty small, old building with new fixtures. It’s completely spotless, and almost empty. He can’t decide if it’s surprising or not that Nate’s still using boxes as end tables, two years on; he just stands next to the sofa and watches.

Nate puts his bag down, pulls off his hoodie, toes off his shoes, and goes in the kitchen. Brad hears the fridge open, then from around the corner,

“You hungry?”

Brad doesn’t know what to make of any of this, can’t remember the last time he felt this motherfucking nervous and out of his element, and he’s just standing there tongue-tied, trying to pick a final fucking answer, when Nate steps into the kitchen doorway, into sight.

“Yes? No?”

Eyebrow raised and jaw set, that no-patience-for-bullshit expression on his face, and it’s pure Lieutenant Fick, straight out of Brad’s desert memory bank. It’s the kind of look that demands an answer, just the kind of look that got Brad into this motherfucking bitch of a situation to begin with. And there are those goddamn eyes again, like they see everything inside Brad’s head, and Brad’s got a lot of shit up there he really doesn’t need Nate to see. He resolutely does not flinch.

“No, thank you. I’m, uh. All squared away.”

Brad’s doing his best to sound unaffected, to respond to the Lieutenant Fick treatment by returning fire with the Iceman, but there’s something burning in his chest, and he can’t get cold enough, can’t quite detach.

“Suit yourself.”

Nate just turns back into the kitchen, and Brad hears him knocking around in there, then hears the scrape of a chair and guesses he’s sitting down to eat. And Brad’s still standing by the door like a fucking idiot, been standing there for Christ knows how long. So he finally finds his balls, steels himself, drops his bag inside the door and walks to the kitchen. Nate’s sitting at a table by a window, elbows on either side of his plate and shoulders hunched up around his ears. He doesn’t look up at first, but Brad know it’s not because he doesn’t notice this time. Can tell by the way Nate’s shoulders tense, the way he looks more intently at his plate; he knows Brad’s there.

Finally he picks his head up, another long fucking look, before he finally speaks.

“So, you’re stalking me.”

Not much Brad can say to dispute that, but he still doesn’t like the way it sounds.

“I prefer to think of it as re-connecting with an old friend.”

Nate looks back at his plate, huffs a short breath and shakes his head, incredulous.

“Is that what we are, Brad? Friends?”

His tone is mocking, there’s a shitload of scorn in there, tinged with a dare. Like he’d love nothing better than for Brad to say it again and give him an excuse to beat Brad’s face in.

Brad’s heart is in his throat, and what he’d like to do is retract that, say he got it wrong, and that actually what he’s doing here isn’t about friendship, precisely, but rather about using every resource and skill at his disposal to try to get back in, somehow, back into that rarified space they occupied once upon a time, the one that always brought Brad a sense of peace and calm and understanding, even when they were in the middle of the shit. The one they were just climbing their way back to a few months ago, before Brad turned pussy and disappeared, because that feeling of being understood, being seen is both addictive and terrifying.

In the past few months, during which Nate maintained complete fucking radio silence in response to Brad’s hasty retreat from their burgeoning – whatever it was - Brad has had an unsettling realization. The realization that he doesn’t just want to go back to that place with Nate, he fucking needs it, like he needs air to breathe.

He steels himself and manages to keep his voice even when he finally speaks.

“I just wanted to talk to you. To see you.”

The edge comes off Nate’s glare just a bit as he bites down on the inside of his cheek, screws his mouth sideways.

“That’s a sudden change of heart.”

“Not really.” Brad swallows past the thick lump in his throat. “I was just. I was caught off guard, by your invitation.”

“You were caught off guard, so you decided to ignore said invitation then show up unannounced 4 months later. Hoping to catch me off guard, as well, Staff Sergeant?”

Nate’s gaze is appraising, level and calm. He looks at Brad skeptically, like he already knows the answer to his own question.

He stands and puts his plate in the sink, then opens the freezer. He pulls the wrapper off a popsicle with his back turned to Brad.

“I wish I could claim that much tactical fore thought, -.” Brad bites off the ‘Sir’ that wants to come out, shakes it out of his head. “It’s more, just. I wasn’t sure I’d have the balls, until I actually made it here.”

Brad’s not sure exactly what he just admitted, but his guts squirm and seize in revolt. He breathes through his nose, tamps down on the sudden nausea.

Nate doesn’t move for a few seconds, but Brad can see his jaw tighten. Then with his back still turned,

“Want one?”

And he holds the popsicle box up over his shoulder. Brad stares stupidly at the back of Nate’s head; it’s not much, not apology accepted, but it’s not get the fuck out, either, and he’s thinking I’ll fucking take it. And he doesn’t even like popsicles, really, and it’s still cold outside, soggy with constant spring rain, but,

“Sure. Thanks.”

He takes one and hands the box back to Nate, who stashes it in the freezer, then turns around.

“So you’re done with England?”

Conversational, like everything is fine. Inside, Brad can feel a knot unraveling in his chest, like whatever’s been pressing down on his lungs since Nate’s last email – and really, if he’s honest, since Nate drove away and left him standing next to his bike outside Mike Wynn’s house two and a half years ago - is letting up, finally, and he can take a deep breath for the first time in years.

They eat their popsicles, play some video games, turn on CNN and argue politics. Brad reads, messes around on his laptop while Nate does homework at the little desk in the corner, a photo of Bravo 2 sitting right next to his lamp. Brad feels like he’s just biding his time, but he doesn’t want to push his luck.

Brad racks on the sofa, no question about that; at some point Nate came out of the hall with a pillow and blanket, tossed it to Brad on the couch, said goodnight, and closed the bedroom door. So Brad lays there, doesn’t sleep much, just stares at that closed door and thinks about Nate in his pajama pants, so thin they leave nothing to the imagination, so thin Brad could actually suck him off without even removing them. He thinks about how Nate’s skin would feel against his, hot from sleep, and how his hair might tickle if it brushed the inside of Brad’s thighs. He thinks about Nate in his bare feet the last time Brad saw him, in his condo in Oceanside, and how the skin on his belly, his chest, his shoulders had been milky white, sprinkled with freckles, a sharp contrast to the deep golden-brown color of his neck and face, his forearms and hands.

Now, Nate’s face, his neck, his arms are all same pale, fragile shade of winter white.

But mostly, as always, he thinks about Nate in his Kevlar and filthy cammies, chin strap pulled tight making him look stern and imposing, and feels that familiar twist in his gut, feels that thick pull of longing in the back of his throat, feels that knot in his chest still sitting there, smaller now but still waiting for Nate to tug one more time on the thread that will unravel it, loosen it a little more.

Waiting for Nate to do something – anything – that will let Brad breathe again.

Days pass, with more of the same. Nate goes to class, comes back. Brad doesn’t know anything about Nate’s life outside the apartment; where he goes, who he sees, or what he does, and he doesn’t ask. Nate goes running in the mornings when it’s still dark, and doesn’t ask if Brad wants to join him. He comes home with breakfast, bagels and lox and espresso, and he always brings back the Wall Street Journal. Nate doesn’t even read the Wall Street Journal, so Brad chooses to take that as a good sign. But sometimes Nate gets a call on his cell phone and says he’ll be back later. That’s the only time he ever seems to leave, except for PT or food or class, so Brad assumes he’s got a - someone. Brad thinks about who it might be, tries to imagine Nate with a college boy and can’t see it. Maybe someone older, someone who’s seen some shit, who knows some things - but no one knows what Brad and Nate know, no civilian ever could, of this Brad is fuckingassured. And just imagining Nate with someone - some no one, some fucking average asshole - someone who’s allowed to touch Nate in a way Brad’s not, who doesn’t even know Nate Fick, the Marine. It makes something inside Brad start to churn with the urge to go hunting.

He’s got 3 weeks of leave before he’s due to report back at Pendleton, and Nate never asks how long he’s staying, so Brad doesn’t have to say as long as you’ll let me.

+ + +

He leaves at 1330, but this time Brad knows he’s going, heard him on the phone in the kitchen.

Yeah, 2 sounds good. No, Starbucks is fine. Alright, I’ll meet you then.

Hearing Nate say 2 instead of 1400 is all wrong, foreign to Brad’s ears.

When Nate picked up his keys and said he had to go, Brad barely even looked up from his magazine, just grunted.

But now it’s 1400 and Brad is standing in the window of some bookstore, flipping through some pussy civilian travel guide and watching Nate at the Starbucks across the street, sitting at a table alone. Waiting.

At 1410, after two glaring No thank you‘s hissed at the shop girl when she asks if he needs help, it’s another cup of coffee for Nate and then there’s this. Guy.

This fuckingkid.

In some gay-ass jeans, wearing Buddy Holly glasses and a motherfucking scarf for Christ sake, and he’s kissing Nate on the cheek, and Nate is smiling at him - not sarcastic or smirking, but smiling - and Brad can count the number of times Nate’s smiled at him like that on one fucking hand. The book he’s holding drops back to the pile in front of him.

He moves over, out from behind a rack of postcards, inches closer to the window and watches.

Watches this fucking effete intellectual with his tiny little espresso cup held daintily in one hand, and his other hand gesturing as he talks, sometimes landing on top of Nate’s on the table. Watches them laughing and talking, all fucking lighthearted and easy, and Brad’s thinking, this is it. This is fucking it, why he shouldn’t be here, why there’s no point to this, and why he’s got to police this whatever it is he has about Nate and stop allowing it to hijack his fucking brain. This is why he needs to pack his goddamn gear up and take his ass back to the Marine Corps where he fucking belongs, where the world makes sense.

On display in front of him is a side of Nate that Brad knew existed, on some level, but Brad’s never seen it with his own eyes before. This is fucking straight up limp dick Ivy League schoolboy bullshit, when Brad wants Lieutenant Fucking Fick, with his hard ass glare, fearless and reckless in the middle of a firefight, steel in his voice on the comms, clipped and calm and in charge, giving the order to light ‘em up.

Brad wants that Nate so fucking bad, he can motherfucking taste it, but he’s not sure that guy exists anymore.

Maybe he never did; maybe he was always a figment of Brad’s imagination, a fabrication made of Brad’s own projections and desires. And maybe it doesn’t matter anyway, because whoever Nate Fick is, he’s made for something and somewhere and definitely someone other than Brad Colbert. Brad just can’t understand why that patently obvious knowledge seems unable to penetrate his thick fucking skull and sink into his brain. He can’t imagine, suddenly, what the hell possessed him to come here.

They get up from the table, and Brad is bracing for the worst, for them to leave together, for something that will make his ears fill up with rage, make him taste bile in his throat, but the kid just gives Nate a half-hug, another kiss on the cheek, then they wave and go their separate ways.

Nate turns down the street away from the apartment, then stops, turns, and digs through his bag for a minute.

Then he raises his head and his eyes land directly on Brad in the bookstore window. The jolt of Nate’s eyes feels like Brad’s been hit by lightning.

Only through years of training in patience and self-control is Brad able to force himself to remain still, to stand his ground instead of scurrying like a fucking rat back into the shadows farther from the window. Nate nods, almost imperceptible, and then continues on his way.

Brad’s face burns with the hot, sudden rush of shame. He pushes his way out of the bookstore and humps it back double time to the apartment, throws on his PT gear, and fucking runs.

+ + +

Whatever Nate had been expecting when he opened the door, his face clearly says this was not it. For a moment, he looks sucker punched, eyes wide and mouth open as he takes in Brad’s t-shirt plastered to the front of him, teeth chattering, the water dripping from his nose and lower lip, but Nate polices himself quickly, puts himself right back together in the blink of an eye.

“Sir.”

“Brad.”

“I neglected to take the appropriate gear when I went running, and. The rain.”

He gestures vaguely behind him, feeling exposed and idiotic. It hadn’t been raining when he left, but he wasn’t exactly thinking clearly. It’s been pouring on and off since he got here; there’s no excuse not to have been better fucking prepared.

“Sure.” Nate nods, no questions asked, and steps aside for Brad to come in.

Brad steps inside, dripping on the carpet.

“Do you need,” Nate starts, shakes his head. “I’ll get you a towel.”

Brad just nods.

He stays still momentarily, watching a small pond form around his feet, feeling the carpet start to squish under his shoes, and forces himself to move.

“Do you want to get straight into the shower?” Nate calls from the hallway, voice coming closer, then he rounds the corner and there’s Brad, standing in his kitchen in clinging black briefs, his wet clothes in the sink.

“I was ruining your floor.”

Nate nods slowly.

“Okay.”

Brad stands there, feeling vulnerable in every possible sense, and so utterly, pathetically obvious that it’s painful. He’s fucking this all up, and Nate has someone else, anyway – probably – and it’s all just so un-fucking-dignified, he can’t understand how he let it come to this, like he doesn’t have any fucking self-respect, any self-control. Like he doesn’t know better.

He closes his eyes, clenching his jaw. His fingers curl into fists. He feels his nostrils flare as he sucks air. He wishes Nate would look away, walk away, ask him to go, whatever – just put him out of his fucking misery.

Instead he feels Nate step closer, feels the air too thick around them, just like it was in the desert, those times Brad thought the tension between them might actually turn solid and visible it was so heavy in the atmosphere.

Then he hears Nate’s rough exhale, hears his shaky voice saying, “Jesus, Brad.”

Nate is holding a towel in one hand, but it’s his other hand that reaches out, fingertips just making contact with Brad’s forearm before Brad’s hand is up, circling his wrist, pulling him in close. Brad’s other arm slides around Nate’s lower back and locks there, pulls their bodies up flush against each other, all instinct and no thought.

“I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, Sir.” It’s the understatement of the fucking century. “I’m sorry about – everything, all of this. About today, earlier. I was – that was out of line; that should never have happened.”

Nate’s breath is hot against Brad’s neck when he cuts him off, says, “It’s forgotten.”

He pulls back, looks Brad in the eye. “And for the record, he’s a classmate of mine. A friend; no additional benefits.”

Brad lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

“I’m getting you all wet,” Brad observes.

“I’m pretty worried about it,” Nate breathes, soft smile at the corners of his mouth. He pulls the towel around Brad’s neck and watches him carefully, slides one hand down to press firmly against the bare, clammy skin of Brad’s belly. “Look. You don’t have to know anything for sure, you just have to know if you want to try this.”

“To be perfectly honest, Sir, I’m not entirely sure what this is.”

Nate shrugs, nonchalant, and lets his hand slide lower, fingers snagging in the waistband of Brad’s briefs.

“Shit,” Brad shakes his head, just a little, like it’s a mirage he’ll be able to knock out of his brain. “We can’t just.”

“You’re gonna have to tell me no, Brad,” Nate says it like a dare, eyebrow raised. He tugs again on Brad’s underwear, more insistent this time, elastic riding lower and lower across Brad’s stomach, briefs leaving no mystery as to what Brad’s cock wants despite the cold and the wet.

Nate leans forward, nose to Brad’s neck, hot breath ghosting over him. His eyes flutter closed as he breathes deep, then they open and focus on Brad again. Brad’s free hand lets go of the death grip it’s got on the counter behind him, and slips up under the hem of Nate’s shirt, up over his ribs. Nate lets out a small, pleased breath into Brad’s ear, and it travels directly to his dick.

“If you don’t want me to do this, that’s okay, it’s fine – but you’re gonna have to tell me no.” Nate’s voice is low, carefully insistent, but his hand is sliding into Brad’s briefs, and God, that hand is so hot, and Brad is so cold, and a curl of want makes him shudder suddenly.

Brad’s fingers clutch at Nate’s skin, and he swallows thickly. He’s painfully aware that there’s no way out of this that leaves his dignity intact. Then Nate’s mouth moves against his neck, along his jaw, hot and wet and so fucking good, and Brad clings to the vain hope that maybe, maybe he can just have this one thing, this one time. One time, just get it out of his system, scratch the itch, then he can go back to how he used to be before, without Nate taking up so much space in his brain, in his fucking life.

Maybe.

He loops his fingers into the waistband of Nate’s sweat pants and turns his head just enough. Their mouths connect, and it feels like an electric shock.

His hand mirror’s Nate’s, sliding down into his sweats, fumbling under the waistband of his underwear, both of them hissing and swearing against each other’s mouths and necks, pushing and pulling each other along. It feels like it’s over as soon as it starts. He’d be ashamed, a thirty-one year old man coming that fast just from a hand in his pants, but Brad is gratified to find that Nate comes just as quickly, just as suddenly as he does.

Brad slides down the cabinets, legs giving way, and Nate goes with him.

They lie there breathless, spent, shoulder to shoulder on Nate’s kitchen floor, silent until Nate finally speaks.

“You know,” Nate cuts his eyes sideways, “When you said you had no idea what you were doing, I thought maybe it was about a lack of experience with men.” His voice turns wry, his eyebrow arches. “As that is, quite obviously, not the case, I have to say - I can personally vouch for you having some idea what you’re doing, Brad.”

Brad smirks at that, but shakes his head.

“Sweet of you to say, Sir, but I honestly don’t.”

“Well for starters, you’re gonna have to stop calling me ‘Sir’.”

Nate’s elbow catches his ribs, surprising a grunt out of Brad.

Brad snorts.

“Or what, you’ll have one of your Officer cronies write me up?”

Nate’s eyes are closed; he stretches, catlike and satisfied. Brad takes a deep, easy breath; the air feels lighter than before, his chest loose and lungs full.

“Don’t try me, Staff Sergeant, I just might do it.”

Brad snorts again.

“For what, exactly? Subordination?”

Nate blindly lands another elbow, and Brad groans indignantly. Nate is warm next to him, hot where their shoulders and calves are still touching, almost like an invitation, like a promise, but Brad knows better. He knows he has to be the first one to move, his pride can’t take any more hits.

He rolls to his feet and looks down at Nate, still smiling, eyes closed, on the kitchen floor with a wet, splattered mess – whose, Brad’s not sure – across the crotch of his grey sweats. Then Nate’s eyes open, bright and green, and he holds up his hand for Brad to pull him up. Brad can almost feel the moment etching itself into his brain for future reference.

So now it’s done, he thinks, and that’s that; he reaches for Nate’s hand.

He pulls, and then Nate is on his feet, right up in Brad’s space again, and before he even has a moment to think about what he should do next, Nate has hands on Brad’s shoulders, turning him toward the hall.

“Bedroom,” Nate says, matter-of fact, no ambiguity or hesitation whatsoever. It’s an order, not an interrogative, and Brad’s got no problem admitting he’s always preferred it that way.

His stomach flutters idiotically as Nate pushes him through the bedroom door, onto the bed. It’s nothing, so what, his brain tells him sensibly, Sometimes it takes more than one time to scratch an itch, but his stupid heart is beating too loudly, and Brad can barely hear.

+ + +

Brad wakes up to Nate curled around him, plastered sticky-sweaty and hot against his back, with his hand wrapped around Brad’s cock.

He’s lost count of how many times they’ve dozed off then come back around, he’s lost count of how many orgasms he’s had, but his balls feel tight and achy, his dick raw and sensitive in Nate’s hand.

He thinks he may have fallen down the rabbit hole.

Maybe this is all some kind of fever dream.

Nate gives a vicious twist-tug, and Brad hisses and jerks at the sensation. Nate’s laugh is low and knowing.

“’s that hurt?” he whispers against the back of Brad’s shoulder.

“My cock hasn’t been this thoroughly abused since I first discovered porn on the internet.”

Nate laughs again, then his teeth dig momentarily into Brad’s neck. Brad hisses again.

“Want me to stop?”

“Hell no,” Brad groans, wrapping his own hand over Nate’s for emphasis.

“You know what they say.”

Nate doesn’t need to finish the sentence, you have to be a masochist to be a Marine; it’s understood.

“Copy that,” Brad pants, fucking into the tight pressure of their interlaced fingers with clenched teeth. Nate mouths the back of his neck and pants into his ear, so fucking good, Brad, and c’mon and come for me, while he ruts against Brad, cock leaking into the crack of Brad’s ass, slicking the way. It’s slow and unhurried, almost like it’s going nowhere, until suddenly he’s already there.

“Fuck,” Brad grunts, “Fucking Christ.” His stomach clenches and his balls draw up with a violent, painful jerk, and he’s coming suddenly, all over Nate’s hand, all over the wrecked sheets.

Nate’s still grinding against him, an erratic stutter in the rhythm of his thrusts as he gets closer. Brad reaches back, grabs onto Nate’s thigh and pulls him in tighter, pushes his ass back to meet Nate’s hips.

“Jesus,” Nate pants, “please, almost, please,” then Brad feels his shudder, feels the wet heat on the small of his back.

Nate goes slack, collapses back and away from him. The cool air rushes into the vaccum he leaves, and Brad shivers as his eyes slide closed again.

The next thing he’s aware of is Nate’s alarm. It’s still dark out.

“Time for PT?” Brad’s learned Nate’s schedule well enough, in the past few days.

“Fuck no,” Nate croaks, voice rough, rolling over to reach for the beeping alarm. “I don’t think I can even stand up, much less run.”

Brad grins in the dark as the clamoring alarm goes silent. He rolls over, too, sliding up behind and plastering himself against the back side of Nate, his hand sliding over Nate’s belly. His teeth close on Nate’s earlobe at the same time his fist closes around Nate’s cock; Brad’s not sure which one earns him the gasp and flinch. He smirks in the dark.

“’s that hurt?” he parrots sarcastically, giving Nate’s cock a firm squeeze.

Nate squirms and gives a strangled little groan, but doesn’t answer.

“Maybe you’ve had enough for one night, hmmm?” Brad whispers, low and teasing, thumb just barely grazing back and forth over the tip of Nate’s cock. It’s already leaking, Nate is jerking at every touch.

“Don’t,” Nate pants, finally, “don’t stop.”

Brad doesn’t intend to.

+ + +

Four days later he wakes up in the dark again. The clock says 12:37 a.m., and it takes him a few beats to realize where he is, and what woke him.

He’s been at Nate’s for over a week now. The first four of those days fall into the time period Brad has mentally categorized as Before, and the last four have been After. Other than that, Brad has taken careful pains not to think too much about what they’re doing or how much longer they can keep doing it before Brad has to go back to real life and this all ends.

Nate still goes to class in the mornings, comes home afterward and they eat, play video games, argue politics, just like Before.  But now, After, sometimes Nate shows up between classes, panting from the jog home, and rips his shirt off at the door, saying I’ve got 20 minutes.

Now, After, Brad sleeps in Nate’s bed - or at least spends his nights there, for all the sleeping that gets done.

The loud beating continues, long enough for Brad to place the sound. Just as he catches a clue, he feels Nate shift beside him, away from him, then sees Nate’s shadow in the dark, pulling on boxers and a t-shirt while he’s moving toward the door.

“What the fuck?”

“I’ll take care of it,” Nate mumbles, and he’s down the hall. Brad sees the light from the exterior hallway as the front door opens, then sees the shaft of light narrow as Nate steps out and mostly outside, pulling the door almost shut behind him.

“Hey,” Brad can hear a deep voice, some guy. Brad is already up out of the bed, instinctively covering Nate’s six, but he stops, hovers a few yards back at the sound of that voice, stepping into the sweats he picked up off Nate’s floor.

“Hey, this isn’t a good time.” Nate is whispering.

“Come on,” that voice again, cajoling, and definitely not whispering. “School can wait a little while.”

“It’s really not a good time, Walk. And you’re drunk.”

“Yeah, and horny.” The guy’s voice goes lower, like it means to be seductive. Brad feels a creeping rage that makes him feel suddenly dizzy; he puts a hand on the table in the entry way just to steady himself.

“Come on, Fick. I’ll be fast, I promise.”

Nate snorts.

“Hard as that is to pass up – you’ve gotta go. Sleep it off and I’ll talk to you next week or something.”

There’s a thud, and a rustling sound. The angle of light from the exterior hall gets wider, then smaller again, wavering with the swing of the door. Brad can hear Nate’s muffled Jesus Christ, Walker, his voice perturbed.

There’s a wet sound that Brad suddenly recognizes as kissing, a low groan then the unknown voice says, “Know you feel that. Know you want it down your throat.”

Brad’s advancing before he thinks, hears the warning in Nate’s tone as he hisses Get the fuck off me and God you’re an asshole, just before Brad yanks the door back and open.

Brad quickly assess the situation, scopes the guy: beefy, shorter than Nate but not short, not small like the guy from the coffee shop, scruffy beard and a baseball cap. He has his hands twisted in Nate’s t-shirt, and the rage creeps higher, wider inside Brad, makes his hands curl into fists. Nate’s hand is firmly against the guy’s chest, holding him off. Nate looks at Brad, and Brad reads startled and annoyed and embarrassed one right after another.

“You good, LT?” Brad hasn’t called him that in years, but it just comes out.  He couldn’t say for sure if there’s a purpose to it, other than maybe to make sure this guy knows who he’s fucking with.

“Who the fuck is this?” the beard asks, narrowing his eyes at Brad. Brad registers the challenge in his tone and pulls himself up to his full height by instinct, looming.

Nate rolls his eyes.

“This is Brad, he was one of my Marines. This is Tim, who is fucking drunk, and just leaving. Everybody all clear? Great.”

He gives a convincing push to the beard’s chest; the guy takes a clumsy step backward, letting his hands drop from Nate’s shirt. Brad feels marginally better.

“One of your Marines, huh?” The beard smirks. “Do you have them all over for fucking sleepovers, or is this one special?” His eyes linger over Brad’s bare torso, implication clear. Brad doesn’t need to look down to know the proof of that implication is all over him, bite marks and hickeys from Nate’s mouth, scratches and finger-shaped bruises from Nate’s hands.

Brad doesn’t even have a chance to move before Nate’s hand comes up, rests lightly on his arm. The mildest of warnings, like he read Brad’s mind. Nate’s staring daggers at the beard, eyes hard and cold.

“This one’s special.” Nate’s voice is low and steady. There’s weight and force behind it, and Brad can see that one sentence land like a punch. The beard’s face goes slack, and he takes another staggering step back.

“Go home, Tim.” Nate turns on his heel and brushes past Brad, back into the darkness of the apartment. Brad keeps an eye on the beard as he sneers up at Brad for a brief minute, then sways drunkenly and staggers off toward the stairs. Brad hopes sincerely that he falls down them.

When Brad finally closes and locks the door, it takes a few minutes for his eyes to adjust to being plunged back into darkness. He moves slowly, feeling his way along the wall. His sight adjusts as he reaches the bedroom, and Nate’s outline materializes, sitting on the side of the bed, elbows on his knees.

Brad isn’t sure where to go, or what to do next. Sitting next to Nate feels wrong suddenly, so he sits carefully, ramrod straight, in the arm chair in the corner of Nate’s room. It’s so dark, the distance between them is enough to keep him from really seeing Nate’s face.

“Sorry about that,” Nate starts, and Brad waves a hand that he’s not sure Nate can see.

“No apology necessary, Sir.”

“Don’t start with the Sir bullshit, Brad. I don’t assume you thought I’d taken a vow of celibacy while I sat here in my ivory tower, pining for you.”

“Of course not,” Brad says automatically, and forces his brain to skip right over the idea of Nate pining. He doesn’t know how to say, it’s not about Nate getting laid - not exactly, at least. It’s about who this guy is, that feels free to show up at Nate’s door in the middle of the night unannounced. That asks who the fuck Brad is, like he has a right to know, like it matters to him.

And why the guy looked sucker punched when Nate said Brad was special - another thing he won’t let himself dwell on.

It all adds up to what feels like something more than nothing, more than friends with benefits, or fuckbuddies. Something that feels more like Brad belongs where he is, across the room, more than he belongs in Nate’s bed. Like maybe Brad should take his ass back to the fucking couch.

Like maybe he should have stayed there all along.

The silence stretches long enough that he hears the click of Nate’s fingers on the lamp, is briefly blinded, but then Nate comes into focus. His face is flushed, his eyes still look sleepy and his hair flares out at one side of his head where it had been smashed against his pillow just a few minutes ago. Brad’s heart feels like it’s in a vise.

Nate looks resigned, and tired. Of course, he’s barely slept in five days, and until now Brad considered that a point of personal pride. But now Nate is so pale, in the low yellow light. Brad just wants to touch him, to make him stop looking so. Uncertain.

Brad had enough of that shit in the desert. He forces the words out of his mouth.

“I assumed you had - someone.” Brad starts, stops, starts again. “But then when you and I.” He swallows, forces himself to look up from his own hands and meet Nate’s eyes. “I figured whoever you had, it must not be serious, considering.”

He gestures vaguely between his chest and Nate’s position on the bed.

“I don’t have anyone. Him showing up here is just – unfortunate timing.” Nate shrugs, sighs, frustration evident. “I don’t want that – him - to interfere with. Anything you and I are doing, here.”

He stops there, watching Brad intently. And Brad doesn’t really want to know, is not sure what happens once he hears the answer, but he feels like he has to ask.

“He mean something to you?”

Nate bites his lip, shakes his head.

“He used to.” He swallows. “A long time ago.”

“How long’s a long time?”

“I don’t know, really. I’ve known him my whole life. We had a thing, when we were kids and it just. Hung around, I guess. I didn’t know he was in Boston until after I moved here. I don’t even know why we bothered to start it up again. By then he was a fucking drunk and I was -. I had other things on my mind.”

He looks up at Brad, and Jesus, the look on his face. Brad just wants to chew up the space between them until there’s nothing left, until it’s just the two of them skin on skin and nothing else to keep them apart.

Nate doesn’t smile, doesn’t avert his eyes, doesn’t try to deflect. He just shrugs, what are ya gonna do.

“I couldn’t stand his hands on you.” Brad grits out, halting and stubborn.

The truth makes him feel weak, vulnerable, exposed. He hates it.

But it’s still the truth.

“I wanted to bash his fucking face in. Nate.”

Nate’s eyes open wide, and suddenly he’s grinning.

“He does have an unusually punchable face.” He agrees, and Brad snorts.

It’s quiet, and Brad knows Nate’s letting him lead, giving him time to come closer on his own. He’d prefer a direct order, prefer Nate tell him what he wants, so Brad can give it to him, whatever it is.  He looks at Nate, silent, hoping he’ll understand. And as usual, Nate does.

Suddenly he’s sliding back into bed and pulling the blankets aside, staring Brad down, silently drawing him in until finally, he speaks.

“If you don’t want anyone else putting hands on me, Brad, then you’re gonna have to be the one to do it yourself.”

Brad stands up and walks over to the bed. He shucks the sweats and stands there naked, looking down at Nate. The earth under his feet is shifting, he feels like solid ground has abandoned him, like he can’t keep his balance. Nate is an undertow, a force of nature he can’t fight, and Brad knows there’s only one way he can play this, only one chance to get out alive.

He has to swim with the current, or drown.

16. 2007

Nate drops his bag onto the bed in his hotel. The room has the same stale, briny smell that his condo used to have when he’d come home after a deployment, and the sense memory is enough to make Nate dizzy. He pulls off his jacket and sweater, toes off his shoes, pushes off his socks. He opens the balcony door and steps outside in his bare feet, leaves it open so the warm sea breeze can get inside, blow some of that stagnant air away.

He watches the waves crash on the shore and syncs his breathing to the rhythm of the surf.

7 hours ago when he stepped inside the doors at BWI, he left behind grey skies, muddy slush on the ground and 24 degrees. When he stepped off the plane at SAN, it was 71 and sunny, and Nate feels like maybe this is the first deep breath he’s taken in 10 months.

In 10 months, a lot can change.

You can finish grad school – with two degrees, in fact. You can move cities, you can start a new job. You can start a whole new life.

Nate should know.

Then again, 10 months isn’t nearly enough time to change everything. Some things are just destined to move at a slower pace – Rome wasn’t built in a day, and all that.

Nate knows plenty about that, too – reminds himself of it all the time.

When weeks, then months pass and neither he nor Brad says maybe you should come visit, or hey, want to get together? He tries to get the words out, tries to force himself to say what needs to be said, but it’s like he can’t, like a physical impossibility somehow. He remembers vividly the last time he suggested a face to face meeting, remembers the mortification when Brad just disappeared without a response, the sickening feelings of over-exposure and outright rejection, and even though he knows that ended – eventually – with Brad in his bed, he still just can’t. The words catch in his throat.

Brad still calls and emails, they’re in touch as often as they were back when the book was being published, but it’s been strictly friendly, almost aggressively platonic, and Nate’s not sure if it’s his fear of rejection or Brad’s that’s leading that charge. Sometimes, he thinks maybe Brad just wanted exactly what he got, a chance to relieve that sexual tension that built between them years ago and never seemed to dissipate, and that was all it was for him.

Nate wouldn’t know, since they don’t talk about it.

They talk about their days, about work frustrations and triumphs. They talk about their mutual friends and the latest scuttlebutt around Recon, sometimes they talk about their families. They talk about movies they’ve seen and books they’ve read, about sports and politics and the stock market and the fucking weather, but they don’t talk about Boston. They don’t mention the weeks they spent wrapped up in each other or how fucking good it was, and they sure as hell don’t talk about doing it again.

He wonders if Brad’s feeling the same thing, fighting the same battles inside his own head, or if Brad even thinks about it at all.

He reminds himself when he’s alone, night after night, in his new townhouse strategically chosen for its location in Maryland’s 5th Congressional District, because Nate’s still got a 2 year plan, and a 5 year plan, and a 10 year plan. He reminds himself that in each of those plans there are alternatives and options, even if Plan A always optimistically assumes an eventuality where he and Brad finally get past this game of emotional chicken they’ve been playing for the last several years, and get the hell on with their lives - together.

But Nate is a pragmatist at heart, so there’s also a Plan B, contingencies for what happens if they don’t.

Most days, Nate concentrates on the three weeks they spent in Cambridge last year; concentrates on Brad in his house, in his bed, Brad writhing under his mouth and shuddering under his hands, and Brad kissing him goodbye against his apartment door, deep and fierce and so long he almost missed his flight.

Nate concentrates on those things, and most days he manages to believe he won’t need Plan B.

+ + +

“Look what the cat dragged in.”

“Good to see you too, Mike.”

Nate focuses pointedly on Mike, blocks out the rest of the room. He just spent 10 minutes driving around the block, psyching himself up for this, and he’s not sure if it’s the prospect of seeing Brad that’s got him so rattled, or the prospect of seeing every other fucking Marine from Bravo 2 for the first time since news hit the knitting circle that Nate prefers cock to pussy.

Nate knows Brad is here, or will be. Knows because finally, last month, he sacked up and fucking asked. Hey, you going to Mike Wynn’s retirement party, like it was just an afterthought, like Nate didn’t care at all. It was all so fucking casual and nonchalant it made Nate’s head hurt with the inanity. Brad just said, yep, you? and, at Nate’s confirmation, I’ll see you there, then.

Nate had rolled his eyes, alone in his bedroom, his hand half-heartedly fondling his cock the way he does sometimes, when he’s got the luxury of Brad’s voice in his ear for a little while.

No one asked about times or schedules, or about making any plans to see each other before or after or outside of the party.

Nate knows he’s as much to blame as Brad, but nonetheless, he’s almost thirty years old, and he’s getting pretty fucking sick of this shit.

“Been awhile,” Mike’s saying. “Good thing I don’t get my feelings hurt easily.”

Nate laughs like he’s supposed to.

“Sorry, ‘ve had a lot going on. Happy Retirement, man.”

“Thanks, Nate. Glad you could make it.”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

“Cara, look who showed up,” Mike says, and smoothly passes Nate off to her as more well-wishers approach, ready to extend their congratulations.

Nate talks to Mike’s wife for a while about their plans to move back to Texas, how nice it will be to be nearer to family, about kids and new jobs. She asks what he’s doing since he finished school, tells him how much she enjoyed the book.

He’s still got his back to the room when he feels a hand clamp down on his shoulder.

“Sir,” Brad extends his hand, “nice to see you back in our part of the world.”

“Brad,” Nate nods, “nice to be back.” They shake hands, courteous and professional, just like the last time they saw each other they didn’t have their hands all over each other’s bodies, their tongues in each other’s mouths.

“Sorry to interrupt, ma’am,” Brad nods politely, “but do you mind if I steal him away? I know the men are anxious to give the good Captain here an earful of insults about his life choices.”

He grins his sardonic Iceman grin and Cara laughs, waves them off; Brad guides Nate away with a hand on his back. In the corner Nate can see them, the men he’ll always think of as his, clustered together and already cat-calling and hooting at his approach, and he knows instantly things will be fine. He knows Brad orchestrated that, too, and he’s grateful, even as Brad deposits him before them with a wry go easy on him, gents, then disappears.

Nate stays busy with the group in the corner, laughing at their good-natured slurs and insults, falling easily back into his role playing the long-suffering parent to their loud, foul-mouthed but charming and lovable delinquents.  Brad drifts from group to group around the bar, of-fucking-course Brad knows every Marine in the room, moving too frequently for Nate to keep tabs on him. But that doesn’t stop Nate from hearing his voice, or his laugh through the crowd. Doesn’t stop him from him from catching Brad’s eyes occasionally, purely by accident, when he’s just trying to flag down the waitress or check the scores at the bottom of the TV scroll. Doesn’t stop him from noticing that Brad keeps shooting tequila, and has started to look a little glassy eyed, a little unsteady on his feet.

Brad can stay as far away from Nate as he wants, but it doesn’t stop Nate from following him into the men’s room, showing up in the mirror behind him while he’s washing his hands.

“Brad. How are you?” He asks, keeping his tone polite and mild, absolutely meaningless.

Nate assumes it’s the tequila talking when Brad says, “Horny enough to fuck a goat, Sir. How are you?”

Nate raises an eyebrow at Brad in the mirror, and steps closer. He presses himself against Brad’s back, reaches around to hang his thumb on Brad’s belt, letting his fingers dangle over the zipper of Brad’s jeans without breaking eye contact.

“Why don’t you let me drive you home,” he says, low and firm, mouth just under Brad’s ear, “and we can avoid the need to traumatize any unsuspecting livestock.”

Brad’s eyes flash, icy blue, and all he says is, “thought you’d never ask.”

+ + +

They drive in Nate’s rental car to Brad’s house. Nate doesn’t ask for directions, and Brad doesn’t ask why he doesn’t need them. Brad leans against the passenger door, assessing Nate from under heavy eyelids. He parks in the driveway, where Brad’s truck usually goes. The déjà vu of the situation is not lost on Nate.

Nor, apparently, on Brad, who presses Nate up against the car and says, “Sorry, but I don’t live close enough to walk to the beach. Grunt money won’t get you West Side real estate.”

His breath is hot on Nate’s neck. Nate shivers, and shakes his head.

“That’s okay, I don’t think you’re seaworthy at the moment, Marine.” Nate hooks his finger in Brad’s belt loop, but his other hand presses against Brad’s chest, putting space between them. “Think we better get you inside.”

Brad just nods, and leads the way.

The garage is full of tools and surfboards, dry suits, scuba tanks, lifejackets, fins; work benches along the walls are laid out with disassembled machines and electronics, parts of God-knows-what. There’s a Kawasaki Jet Ski on a trailer, and the vaunted bike Nate has heard about for years, but never actually laid eyes on. There’s an old avocado-green refrigerator rattling and humming in the corner, a small radio and a few empty Modelo bottles on top.

Inside, the house is neat and sparse, tidy row of boots and running shoes and flip flops along the wall next to the garage door, pegs for keys and Brad’s utility cover. Brad leaves his shoes there, so Nate does, too.

There’s a standard coffee maker on the kitchen counter next to an old-school, two slice toaster, and a neat stack of mail on the bar. Otherwise the kitchen is bare; no notes or leftover holiday cards stuck to the fridge, no empty glasses next to the sink.

The walls are all blank.

Nate follows Brad down the hallway, past a bathroom and a bedroom, past another room that’s set up as an office, three giant monitors lined up end-to-end-to-end. Brad’s bedroom is at the back of the house; Nate stands in the doorway and watches while Brad peels off his shirt, sheds his jeans and kicks them into a basket in the corner. While Brad disappears into the ensuite bathroom without a word, Nate sits on the foot of the bed and waits.

He hears the sound of Brad pissing, hears the toilet flush. The water runs for a while – Brad washing his hands, maybe brushing his teeth – then the door opens.

Brad stands there, carefully still in the way people are when they’re trying to keep from letting on that they’re drunk. His eyes are glassy, neon blue, lips parted and wet, and Brad’s sun bronzed skin in those fucking white boot camp briefs – the picture is almost too hot to be taken seriously.

Nate grins, in spite of himself.

“Think it might be time for you to call it a night.”

“Tell me you’re fucking kidding,” Brad snorts, then he’s advancing. He slides smoothly to his knees between Nate’s thighs, and Nate suddenly can’t catch his breath.

“Don’t fucking toy with me, Sir,” Brad breathes, his fingers fumbling with Nate’s belt. “All this time and you think now I’ve got you here, I’m going to let you just tuck me into bed, without so much as a goodnight kiss?”

He’s got Nate’s fly open, Nate’s cock in his hand faster than he has any right to, in his state.

“Brad,” Nate pants, “I’ll be here tomorrow, we don’t have to -.”

“Glad to hear it,” Brad says seriously, and squeezes Nate’s dick for emphasis, “but I was promised an alternative to goat-fucking, and I expect a sworn officer of the United States Marine Corps to make good on his fucking word. Sir.”

Then his mouth is on Nate, wet and hot and so fucking good, and Nate’s hands wrap over the back of Brad’s head by instinct, pulling him down as Nate thrusts his hips up, wanting more.

If Nate reached any solid conclusions after those three weeks in Cambridge last Spring, chief among them was that his is definitely not the first cock Brad has ever sucked, but he would like very much for it to be the last.

He tugs on Brad’s ear when he’s close. It’s just perfunctory, he knows well enough that Brad won’t budge. Brad chokes a little, when Nate comes. It spills out of his mouth and down his chin, and Nate watches, rapt, as Brad runs palm across his mouth, wiping up the mess, then wipes his hand clean on his briefs.

“Jesus Christ,” Nate pants, and Brad is already on his feet, pushing Nate back onto the bed.

“I appreciate the comparison,” Brad murmurs, “but I’m not sure he would.” He’s crawling up on all fours over Nate now, nuzzling into his neck, one hand working to free his cock from his briefs.

Nate still has all his clothes on, his jeans and belt ripped open.

“Why don’t you let me,” Nate starts, pushing Brad over onto his back, sliding up over him until their mouths find each other, until he can taste himself on Brad’s tongue.

Brad’s hands are tugging at his shirt, pulling up.

“Get this off,” he grunts into Nate’s mouth, “been so fucking long.”

“Whose fault is that,” Nate wants to know, even though it’s not a fair question. He lets Brad pull his shirt off and yank him down hard so they’re chest to chest, belly to belly, skin to skin. Lets him grind and rut up against Nate’s denim-covered thigh while Nate pulls him in tight with one hand on his ass, and finally gets his other hand on Brad’s cock. Brad squirms and strains, pushes himself into the tight grip of Nate’s fingers, uncoordinated and needy and so un-Brad-like, until he comes all over Nate’s jeans, dark stain spreading, making Nate’s leg sticky through the thick fabric.

“My fault,” Brad hisses in his ear, afterward. “It’s my fault, I’m a fucking pussy.” His hands are clutching tight at Nate’s back, and his voice has a slurred, drunken edge to it.

This time, Nate knows it’s the tequila talking.

“One thing I’ve always been assured of, Brad,” Nate kisses along his jaw, “is that you’re no fucking pussy.”

He rolls over, kicks his jeans and boxers down. He rolls back and quickly divests Brad of his skivvies as well, then slides up next to him and pulls the comforter up around them.

“I’ll grant you a little fucked up, and that goes for both of us.” When Brad finally meets his eyes, Nate just nods once, affirmative.

“So all we need,” he whispers softly, his lips against Brad’s shoulder, his hand moving to rest on Brad’s hip, “is to unfuck ourselves.”

+ + +

Brad staggers out of his bedroom, dark shadows under his eyes, skin sallow and still naked. Nate is fully dressed at Brad’s kitchen table, drinking coffee he made himself, reading emails on his BlackBerry. When Brad sees him he stops and blinks, then manages a beleaguered smile.

“There you are.”

Nate’s almost certain that there’s a hint of relief in Brad’s voice, and he feels that familiar tug in his chest, that wanting for things to be easier, clearer. For them to figure this the fuck out.

Nate just nods, bites back an instinctive urge to remark about how he has to take Brad back to get his truck. It would be true, technically, but he can imagine how it could sound to Brad’s ears, if he chose to take it a certain way. Imagines how it could take that tentative smile off Brad’s face, and that’s the last fucking thing Nate wants. What he does want, very much, is to put an end to all this bullshit. So he sips his coffee resolutely and tries,

“Where else would I be?”

Brad pours coffee and sugars it, unabashed about his nakedness, sniffing at his mug appreciatively. He takes a few sips, savoring each one, before coming to stand next to Nate. He puts his cup on the table with a thunk, and stares down. Nate stares back.

“Thought maybe you’d shoved off.”

Nate just shakes his head.

“You think I flew all the way to California so I could get a blow job and then sneak out in the night?”

“You flew to California for Mike’s retirement party.”

“Sure, Brad.” Nate stands, right up in Brad’s space. “That was the only reason.”

The side of Brad’s mouth lifts minutely, just the barest hint a smile. But he doesn’t look away, studying Nate’s face intently.

“How would I know?” Brad asks, and his breath is warm and coffee-scented in Nate’s nostrils. Nate thinks how could you not, wants to roll his eyes, wants to shake Brad and ask how he can be so fucking dense, but Brad’s eyes are sincere, searching.

So instead Nate just slides one hand around Brad’s hip, palms the bare skin of his ass, and the other hand around the back of Brad’s neck, crushes their mouths together.

It happens fast, a blur of tongues and hands, panted curses and groans muffled against shoulders and necks, so reminiscent of a similar scene in Nate’s own kitchen that he almost laughs. Then Brad’s hand twists just so, and he groans instead.

“Want you,” Nate manages to grunt, barely. “Have to know, Brad. Want you so much, all the time, every day.”

When he breathes those words into Brad’s open, willing mouth, it feels like jumping out of a plane, like freefalling before you know if the parachute will open, and he just knows it’s too much, it’s more than he should say. But then Brad hisses in his ear anything, whatever you want, and his brain short circuits until he can’t hold that or any other thought in his head.

Before Nate knows what hit him, Brad is in the shower and Nate is left sitting in the pristine white kitchen chair, jeans still undone and Brad’s come drying on his hand, his forearm, his t-shirt. He wonders if this means they’ve finally come to some kind of an understanding, and tries to catch his breath.

17. 2008

“You better get that look off your face, Colbert.”

Brad’s propped up with his back against a bar, Bourbon Street. The air is thick with sweat and sex, booze and thumping bass, and Brad resisted at first, when Nate suggested New Orleans, but now he gets it.

It’s a whole different planet, a world apart, a city unto itself. You can blend in, be no one, be whatever you want to be.

Nate is shiny with sweat, mouth red from the hurricanes, and Brad doesn’t dance, but he’s been watching Nate all night. Watching Nate watching him back, while one guy after another is dancing with Nate, grinding up against him, hands roaming all over him. Brad can’t blame them, and anyway he likes the show. As long as Nate’s eyes are fixed on him, he’s good; the hot thrum of possessiveness that he feels when someone puts their hands on Nate’s body is just made even hotter when Nate’s eyes stay on Brad the whole time.

“Or what?” Brad grins, not quite as drunk as Nate, not quite as loose, but far enough gone.

Nate’s fingers are working on the buttons of Brad’s shirt, pulling them open one by one. Brad might give a shit if there weren’t go-go boys dancing on the bar, if a majority of the men in this place weren’t already half naked. That’s including Nate, who’s bare chested, t-shirt hanging out of his back pocket.

“There’s a back room here, you know.” Nate shoves the shirt off Brad’s shoulders, yanks it all the way off. Brad just smirks, amused.

“There always is.”

Nate ties the arms of Brad’s shirt around his own hips. He takes in Brad, now in his jeans and his thin white wifebeater, and hmmms appreciatively. He rubs his face against Brad’s bared shoulder, breathes deep, kisses him there.

“What I’m saying,” Nate growls, “Is that if you keep watching me like that, you’re gonna make me use it.”

His mouth finds Brad’s, and he tastes sweet.

“Are you attempting to threaten me with sexual favors, Nate?” Brad pants, when he can breathe again finally, and Nate grins.

“I think you know, Brad, it’s not really a threat if you intend to follow through.” Then he wraps his hand in the front of Brad’s shirt and pulls, pulls him past the dance floor, down the hall past the bathrooms, and into the dark that lies beyond.

If it smelled like sex out front, back here it’s inescapable. It’s unmistakably male, as are the bodies moving together against the walls, on sofas and in dimly lit alcoves.

“Did I ever tell you, I have this fantasy about sucking you off in front of an audience,” Nate whispers in his ear, and Brad is thirty-four years old, but with the way Nate’s words go straight to his dick like he’s been hit with a cattle prod, he thinks it’s possible he’s never been this hard this fast in his life, not even at 16.

“It started in Iraq,” Nate goes on, shoving Brad into an empty space against the wall. “When I’d just fucking had enough and I thought I couldn’t hold it together anymore.”  Nate’s fingers are fumbling with his belt.

“I’d go find some place, have a jack. I’d think about getting on my knees for you, right there in the middle of camp, because fuck everything. I’d come thinking about your cock down my throat, about your giant fucking hands wrapped around my head.”

There are two guys to their right, not 2 feet away, with their hands in each other’s pants. Brad can’t see what’s happening to his left, Nate’s head is blocking his view, but he can feel the bodies, close and hot. Brad just doesn’t fucking care.

“Did I ever tell you that?” Nate grins, sly and teasing, because he fucking knows he never told Brad any such thing.

“I think I’d remember,” Brad shakes his head, swallows thickly.

“I hope all these motherfuckers line up and watch,” Nate hisses, shoving Brad’s shirt up under his arms and trailing hot fingers down over his exposed abdomen, then yanking his fly open wide.

Nate kisses his neck, bites his nipple under his scrunched-up shirt. He drags his wet, open mouth across Brad’s ribs, then lower. Goes down on his knees and rubs his face against Brad’s damp belly, breathing deep. He hooks his fingers into the waistband of Brad’s skivvies, and looks up.

From the corner of his eye Brad can see now, to his left, one guy with his head resting on his arm against the wall, face turned toward Brad. He’s getting fucked, slow and steady, and the guy doing the fucking has his eyes closed, hands wrapped firmly around his partner’s hips, oblivious to the world.

The guy getting fucked has his eyes on Brad’s bared torso, tongue out and pressed to his upper lip, and he’s grunting softly with every thrust.

“Brad,” Nate barks, in a voice Brad recognizes well, one he couldn’t ignore if he tried. He snaps back to attention.

“Eyes front,” Nate smirks. “You’re gonna want to see this.”

Then he gives one swift tug, and Brad’s cock springs free against Nate’s chin.

Nate breathes deep again, his nose buried in Brad’s pubic hair this time, and lets out a little satisfied groan. Brad’s stomach clenches, his body curls involuntarily with need. He has to slap both hands back against the wall to stay upright.

He watches, almost disbelieving, as Nate’s mouth wraps around the head of his cock, as he feels the rough-slick pressure of Nate’s tongue against the underside.

Brad carefully moves just one hand, cupping the side of Nate’s face, fingers lacing into his slightly-longer-than-regulation hair.

“C’mon,” is all he can manage, but that seems to be enough. Nate grins, that sly, knowing little grin again, then swallows Brad’s cock. Brad chokes and curses, tries to keep his hips from bucking but can’t.

Nate makes that same satisfied noise, throat vibrating around Brad’s cock, his hands on the back of Brad’s thighs now, kneading and pulling, urging him closer, like he can’t fucking get enough of Brad’s dick down his throat.

Brad’s fingers tighten in Nate’s hair, tugging and twisting. Nate groans again, Brad’s cock making filthy, wet squelching noises as it fucks his mouth, his lips stretched wide and shiny, saliva dripping from his bottom lip, and it’s too fucking much, Brad can’t keep watching or he’ll come too soon, faster than he wants to.

He turns his head to the side, and the guy getting fucked looks catatonic, eyes glazed and glassy, but his mouth turns up a little at the corner when he catches Brad’s glance. He smirks, and Brad turns his head to the other side. Those two have their dicks out now, grinding against each other, and the one with his back to the wall has his eyes, unquestionably, fixed on Nate. A brief glance around the AO tells him, their neighbor is not the only one with eyes on Nate – far from it.

Brad’s cock gives a helpless jerk as he looks back, sees Nate on his knees just like these fucking strangers must see him.

These assholes don’t know what Brad knows, have no fucking clue that Nate is the smartest man in the room. That he’s led warriors into battle, has starved and bled and killed for their right to get drunk and hump each other in the back of some Bourbon Street bar. They don’t know where Nate learned to hold his fucking breath like this.

When they look, Brad thinks, all they see is a pretty little cocksucker with a choir boy face, and goddamn, Nate is that and so much more. Nate is dangerous. He’s everything.

Somehow, he’s become Brad’s whole fucking world.

“So fucking good, aren’t you, down on your knees,” he snarls, tugging harder on Nate’s hair, putting a little extra into it for show “come on, everybody’s watching just like you wanted. Show ‘em how much you love it when I feed you my come.” Nate pulls off just far enough to gasp for one long breath, then swallows him again, eyes watery and trained on Brad, knowing written in his gaze.

Brad’s stomach clenches again, body curling in on itself, and his fingers flex insistently against Nate’s skull, pulling him in tighter. His free hand finds its way to Nate’s neck, thumb pressing up under Nate’s chin to feel the bulge of his own cock in Nate’s throat, feel the spasm of it as he comes.

Nate swallows, fast and almost continuous, like he doesn’t even have a fucking gag reflex, until Brad is totally drained. He pulls off with a slurping pop, followed by a loud, ragged panting. Brad’s eyes are closed as he slumps against the wall, trying to regain some degree of composure. When he finally looks down, Nate’s still got eyes on him.

He’s still on his knees, sitting back on his heels with his thighs spread wide around Brad’s boots, the front of his jeans tented out, obvious and unrepentant, and Brad’s come smeared down his chin.

He looks like a supplicant, or maybe an offering. He looks pretty goddamn pleased with himself.

“Want some more,” says the guy next to them, like it’s not even a question, and his hand reaches out, like he’s going to touch Nate’s head. His body is angled away from his partner, hard cock standing out from his fly, pointing toward Nate’s face.

Nate’s hand is up, circling the guy’s wrist and twisting, and his eyes are hard in an instant. He’s up off his knees, twisting further, and the guy yelps.

“That’s not for you, asshole,” Nate’s voice is stern, brooking no bullshit – exactly the way Brad likes it best. “That’s only for him.”

Then he jerks his head at Brad, and goddamn if Brad’s cock doesn’t give a valiant twitch. He tucks himself into his pants.

Nate lets go of the other guy’s arm, and turns back to Brad with a disarming grin.

“Holy Shit,” Brad can’t help grinning back, can’t help the disbelieving laugh that escapes him. He swipes his thumb through his come on Nate’s chin, shaking his head. “Jesus Fucking Christ, you’re a mess.”

Nate bites at Brad’s thumb, sucks it into his mouth and swirls his tongue around it, and Brad’s cock jerks again, helpless in the face of Nate. Brad reaches for the fly of Nate’s jeans, but he just bats Brad’s hand away, shakes his head.

“I’m gonna take you home and fuck you ‘til you beg,” Nate growls, voice rough but plenty loud enough for the peanut gallery to hear.

Brad just nods.

“Roger that, Sir.”

+ + +

When Nate left Oceanside after Mike Wynn retired, Brad had let him go – once again – with no questions, and no answers, about where or when they might see each other again. He figured he’d made it perfectly clear, embarrassingly clear, that he’s willing to make himself available for whatever Nate wants, whenever Nate wants him. He refused to go further, to ask for more, like he thinks this is something he knows damn well it could never be. So he let it lie, waited, hoped maybe Nate would decide he wanted to do it again sometime.

It was a few more weeks of emails, of occasional, politely friendly phone calls, before Nate mentioned Chicago.

So I’m giving this speech in Chicago, last weekend of June. I thought maybe you might want to meet me there.

Brad had stared at the email, then closed his lap top. He’d gone for a run, then for a ride, and left his phone at home for both. He didn’t trust himself not to call, not to immediately email back. Didn’t trust himself not to show how fucking relieved he was, to have fresh proof that Nate actually wanted to keep this – whatever it is – going, at least a little longer.

Brad had to tell Nate that instead of going to Chicago, he’d be going back to Iraq in May, but otherwise he would definitely have come to Chicago.

Then Nate showed up in Oceanside unannounced, three weeks before Brad deployed, and they didn’t leave the house for three days.

When he left, Nate said stay frosty, Gunny, and clipped a short salute at him. He didn’t have to say don’t get dead; Brad could read it on his face.

It was different in Iraq, the second time around. This time, the “war” was in a lull. This time, bases had been established, and bodies were needed to man those bases. This time, Brad had regular access to email and phone service, regular access to hot food and hot water, and occasional access to hajji whores.

There was a point, 4 months into a 6-month tour, when Brad thought about it. But then he thought of Nate, naked and grinning and sinking down onto Brad’s cock with his eyebrow raised like a fucking dare, and thought maybe not.

Not that they’d made promises, of-fucking-course they hadn’t. Brad’s not fucking delusional, knows it’s not like that between them. It’s not that he couldn’t, it was that he didn’t want to, that he’d rather just wait a few extra months and hope he might get another taste of what he really wants, than to make do with what he could get. He pushed the why of it down deep, nothing to be gained by entertaining ridiculous flights of fancy, and got the hell on with the business of war.

In spite of that, or because of it, he resisted the urge to fly directly to DC upon his return home and show up on Nate’s doorstep. He continually has to remind himself, he doesn’t know anything about Nate’s private life, and he can’t just assume he’d be a welcome intrusion.

Instead, he waited. Through the same old perfunctory emails and phone calls, how’s work, how’s the family, how’s the weather, blah fucking blah, is Iraq still as shitty as I remember? His patience was rewarded when Nate finally asked if they knew yet when they’d be back stateside, then invited him to some conference at Stanford just a few weeks after he was scheduled to get home. Brad spent the intervening time between arriving home and seeing Nate just hanging out with his parents, seeing his sisters and Susannah, washing the stench and the sand off him, surfing and riding his bike, and pretending he wasn’t just biding his time.

In Palo Alto, he got his own hotel room, just because he wasn’t sure.

They hadn’t talked about it, not directly, and he didn’t want to presume. Nate had mentioned that he had a swank room at the conference hotel, as one of the keynote speakers. But he didn’t explicitly ask Brad to stay there, so Brad got his own room, and took a taxi to it when his flight arrived. He had looked up the conference schedule, and knew Nate wouldn’t be free until 16:00.

Nate called at 16:30, asking where he was. When he said at my hotel, there was a long, long silence.

“Your hotel.”

“Yes. Are you finished for the day? I can come to you.”

“You got a hotel room?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Brad.” His tone was short, annoyed. “I told you I had a room.”

“You did.” Brad’s confirmation was met with stony silence, so he continued.

“You didn’t ask me to stay there.”

“And you didn’t think it was understood?”

“Did you think it was?”

There was another long, long pause.

“Just get your ass over here, Colbert, Room 1210. And bring your fucking gear.”

Finally, an order Brad could follow.

When he knocked on the door, Nate opened it, still in his suit. He looked just as good as Brad remembered, lips just as pink and eyes just as green as they were in Brad’s mind, for all those months.

He stood aside to let Brad in, and as the door swung shut he pressed a key into Brad’s hand, pulling him close by the strap of his duffel.

“I meant for you to stay here, with me,” he breathed into Brad’s mouth. “I thought it was so ridiculously obvious, it didn’t bear mentioning.”

Brad dropped his bag and wrapped Nate’s tie around his hand, holding him there while Brad kissed him. Nate tasted like beer and kissed like he was starving for it.

“I’m just a grunt, Sir,” Brad panted, still forehead to forehead and nose to nose. “Sometimes I need a direct order.”

Nate turned them, shoved Brad back on the bed. Brad kept his hand fisted in Nate’s tie, yanking him down on top.

“Be advised, Gunny,” Nate leered down at him, “your ass will be expected to be in this bed every night, for the duration of this operation. Are we clear?”

Brad just grinned.

“Crystal, Sir.”

The morning they left Palo Alto, Nate handed him a brochure for a Security Policy Symposium in Dallas in January. Think about it, Nate said, and kissed him one last time.

+ + +

When Brad got off the plane in Dallas, there was a text from Nate.

Room 1655. Desk has instructions to give my extra room key to my colleague, name of Colbert. See you there at 15:00.

Brad got to the room at 14:00. He thought about getting naked on the bed, but visions of Nate walking in with actual colleagues, having mixed up what time Brad was arriving, or any number of other unsavory situations, convinced him to forego that course of action. So instead he was sitting on a couch, reading a magazine about things to do in Dallas, when Nate walked in.

“I was kind of hoping you’d be naked,” Nate grinned, yanking at the knot in his tie and kicking off his shoes.

“I received no explicit orders to that effect,” Brad deadpanned, “but it can be arranged.”

They spent the first two nights in bed, ate room service for dinner. While Nate went to meetings and lectures all day, Brad went running, watched an array of truly disheartening daytime television offerings, and generally paced around like a caged animal in between sets of pushups and crunches.

On the last night, Nate suggested they leave the hotel for dinner before Brad chewed off his own leg.

They ate steak because they were in Texas, drank whiskey because they were eating steak, and asked a taxi driver for a recommendation for a bar, because they drank a fucking lot of whiskey.

“What kinda bar you boys looking for?” The driver asked, meeting Brad’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Whatever’s good,” Nate answered, but his hand was on Brad’s thigh, their shoulders pressed tight together in the spacious back seat, and the driver clearly required no additional intel.

Soon enough they were driving down a street full of bars and restaurants, peppered with rainbow flags.

“Think you might like something around here?” The driver asked, coolly impartial, and Nate shoved a 20 into his hand, said you can let us out at the light.

Two guys walked by them on the sidewalk as they tumbled out of the cab, cowboy hats and boots, hands stuffed into the back pockets of each other’s jeans.

“Fucking Texas,” Brad scoffed. “That’s the gayest fucking thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve witnessed some exceptional displays of faggotry.”

Nate shoved him, laughed.

“You might want to shut up, considering three-quarters of this state is strapped. Not everybody finds your blatantly homophobic slurs as charming as I do.”

“If you want me to shut up, maybe you should make me,” Brad fixed him with a look, offering a clear challenge.

“Is that supposed to be a dare, Colbert?” Nate grinned, stepped up into Brad’s space, and then they were kissing right there on the street corner, in full view of the passing pedestrians and cars driving by, and Brad couldn’t have cared less. He felt free, unfettered, even with Nate’s body pressing him up against the cold metal of the streetlamp, holding him there.

The feeling, in that moment, was the same one he gets on his bike, or his surfboard, or his jet ski, when he’s going faster than he should, faster than could really be considered wise. When he’s right on the edge of out-of-control.

He was also acutely aware, standing there with Nate pressed against him, with Nate’s tongue in his mouth on a public street, that he was already well past the point of anything that could be considered wise, past the point of having any remaining degree of control where Nate was concerned.

He’s acutely aware of it every time they talk, every time they touch, every time he buys another ticket to another city he never cared about seeing, just because Nate is going to be there. But much like with his bike, or his surfboard, or his jet ski, Brad just keeps betting that however bad the fall is when it comes, however spectacular the crash at the end, the high he gets from Nate will still have been worth it.

+ + +

In March it was a business trip to Memphis, and in between all the sex they ate barbeque, listened to blues on Beal Street. In June Nate was back in Chicago, doing something at Northwestern, and this time Brad was only too happy to meet him. They laid on the pathetic Midwestern version of a “beach” and ate hot dogs and ice cream. Nate traced the lines of Brad’s tattoos across his back and shoulders, slow and lazy and unconcerned about the crowd around them, making Brad shiver under the hot sun. In August, Nate spoke at the fucking Democratic National Convention; Brad watched his speech on TV from home, then flew out to meet him in Denver once the convention rolled out of town. They took in a Rockies game and went hiking at Red Rocks park. Their last morning, they climbed Eldorado.

“What do you think about New Orleans, this fall?” Nate asked, standing at the peak, still breathing hard with his fingers tucked into the pocket of Brad’s windbreaker.

“What’s going on down there?” Brad’s eyes were scanning the horizon. The views really were spectacular, for a relatively quick and easy climb.

“Nothing,” Nate shrugged, “just think it might be fun.”

“Fun?” Brad cut his eyes over to Nate, suspicion heavy in his voice.

“Right, fun. It’s a thing people have.” Nate grinned and smacked his ass, “you should try it sometime.”

As if Brad could ever fucking say no to that.

Their last morning in New Orleans, they go to a hundred-year-old greasy spoon for fried everything, chicory coffee and Bloody Mary’s, shades on to hide their bleary eyes. Brad’s ass is aching on the hard wooden chair in the diner, and Nate’s throat is raw, his voice still sounding wrecked no matter how many cups of coffee he downs. It’s a perfect November day, sunny and crisp but not too cool, and they walk around Jackson Square looking at the artists’ work, watching the street performers.

Nate’s flying back to DC at 19:00; Brad’s flight to California doesn’t leave until 21:00. They kept their hotel room for the night, so they can say goodbye properly later this afternoon.

Brad’s not sure when or how to tell Nate he’s shipping out again, so he doesn’t. He knows the SOP well enough by now, knows before they part ways Nate will mention where he’s going next, what his next business trip or conference or speech is going to be, and they’ll make plans to meet there. He never asks Brad to come to College Park, and he never suggests coming to Oceanside. Brad knows why, and he’s grateful.

In random cities across the country, where neither of them knows anyone and no one knows them, they can be this way with each other. They can hide out in the open, just two guys out to dinner, two guys wrapped around each other in the back of a well-chosen bar, two guys sharing a hotel room with one King-size bed.

And Brad knows the days are numbered on this little fling, has known it since it started, but he’s got a feeling of dread creeping up his throat now, waiting for the right time to say what he has to say. Waiting for an opening to casually mention how he’s going to be gone for a whole fucking year this time, knowing full fucking well what that means. Knowing that Nate was never going to do this forever, this intermittent cross-country thing they’ve been doing, and that being gone for a year is a big neon sign signaling the end of the road, makes a nice natural stopping place to go ahead and end this for good.

When Nate suggests another trip, he always hedges a little, finishing with if you’re up for it, or if that works for you. So, Brad waits until Nate asks about Orlando in February, says, if you think you can get the time, then Brad lets his pointed, tight-lipped silence say it for him.

“How long?” Nate asks, eyes wary.

“Until we leave, or until we get back?”

Nate rolls his eyes.

“Both - I mean, if it’s not too much to fucking ask.”

“January to December.”

“Jesus, Brad.” Nate is naked next to him in bed, wrecked sheets wrapped over and between them. “A year? And you didn’t think to mention it before now?”

“I know,” Brad says, because he does, “I probably should have said something,” because he should have. “I don’t know what to fucking say, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Nate snorts. “I guess.”

“I just wanted to enjoy the weekend, without -.” Brad stops there, figures it’s more than enough.

It’s quiet for a while, and Brad could swear he can hear the clock ticking, time slipping away, and he wants to be kissing Nate, be wrapped around him, breathing him in and cataloging every touch and taste and smell and sound to remember when he’s over there, wishing he was here instead. To remember later, when he’s finally back home but Nate’s moved on to some out-and-proud Beltway operator who’ll look appropriately pretty and non-threatening in photo ops while holding their adopted babies, and Brad’s trying to remember how to live his old life, the one from back before Nate Fick came along and made him want things again.

Nate looks hurt, and part of Brad wants to tell him that’s not fair. It’s not fair to want nothing and something from Brad, all at the same time. Not fair that Brad should feel guilty for leaving, when they both know all he’s doing is saving Nate the trouble.

Another, stupider part of Brad wants to tell Nate there’s a letter in a safety deposit box back in Oceanside. The box contains everything Brad’s parents would need to settle his estate, if it came to that, plus two letters, one for Nate and one for Susannah. Only Brad and his father have the keys. Brad wants to tell him, to show him that Brad did think about it, even if he didn’t say anything when he should have. He still wrote the letter, just in case, just to make sure Nate gets the news if something goes wrong, to make sure Nate has something to remember him by, knows how much he meant to Brad, if the worst happens. But Brad’s not a fool, whatever else he may be, and he fucking knows better than to say any of that. The only way Nate will ever know that shit is if Brad’s too dead to be humiliated by it anymore.

So instead of either of those, he just bites his lip and waits.

Nate props himself up on one elbow, looks down at Brad.

“You know I understand,” he reaches out, wraps his fingers over Brad’s bicep, “I know you fucking know that, Brad. I don’t begrudge you the fact that you have to go, it’s just. It’s just this whole weekend, and I had no idea that this was it.”

Brad’s been carefully examining the ceiling, but at that he cuts his eyes over, sharp and immediate. He expected it, of course, for this to be it, but hearing Nate say it feels different than he anticipated, worse even than he’d imagined. The mask is already in place before he can even think about it, cold and blank, icing over the sucker-punched feeling almost before Brad’s brain can register it. He knows it’s there, though, because of the look Nate gives him.

It reminds him of how Val used to look at him, when she saw it.

Nate obviously knows some version of the Brad Got Dumped narrative. Exactly what version, or how much, Brad doesn’t know – God knows they’ve never talked about it - but he sees it sometimes in Nate’s eyes, sees Nate wondering if whatever is happening between them, now, is somehow echoing what happened then, and Brad can see him trying to tread lightly.

“Brad,” Nate shakes his head, eyes going soft, “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“No, it makes sense,” Brad’s voice is steady, matter-of-fact. Luckily he’s had prior experience with this. “Really, it’s fine. For the best, probably.”

Nate sighs.

“I’m not sure if it’s because you think I don’t care, or you think I shouldn’t, or you wish I didn’t. Or maybe, you think just because I care now doesn’t mean I’ll still care by the time you get back.” Nate shrugs, and his fingers squeeze Brad’s arm. “I know now isn’t the time to get into it; you just caught me off guard, and. Well. I know you didn’t ask, but I’m telling you. I’m not going anywhere, Brad.”

Brad feels his heart leap into his throat, closes his eyes and breathes, forces himself to drop the mask, and really look at Nate. He knows as soon as he does it Nate is going to read his fucking mind, just like always, but Brad lets him. It’s easier than having to find the words, that’s for fucking sure.

So instead he just wills Nate to see it as he’s thinking, I know you’re trying to be kind, but you’re just making it worse. He’s thinking, it’s a nice sentiment, but we both know better than to believe it.

Nate watches his face and as always, Brad can feel his wordless understanding. But Nate just shakes his head.

“I won’t bother trying to convince you, Brad. Like it or not, I’m gonna be right here when you get home. And until then - Jesus. I’m gonna miss you.”

Brad feels, as he sometimes does with Nate, like he’s being pulled in over his head, struggling to breathe, fear of drowning clawing at him from inside his chest. Half of him welcomes the stupid, bubbling spring of hope that wells up inside him while the other half fears it, tries to tamp it down, push it away. He doesn’t know which part is going to win; he doesn’t even know which side he’s on.

He takes a long beat before he speaks, before he can trust his voice not to waiver.

“Me too,” is all he can say. He just keeps looking, and hopes his eyes can tell Nate all the things Brad just doesn’t have words for.

18. 2009

In May, Nate’s mother decides to have a talk with him about his love life.

“You’re well-educated, kind, handsome, with an exciting career and a bright future. I can’t imagine there aren’t plenty of young men who’d be interested in that. I just don’t understand why you haven’t found someone special.”

Nate snorts, rolls his eyes.

“You sound like you’re composing my match.com profile.”

“Well maybe I should do that,” she swats his arm. “Because no offense my darling boy, but whatever you’re doing doesn’t appear to be working.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

She shrugs, absolutely without remorse, then brings the coffee pot over from the counter to refill their mugs.

“I just worry about you.”

“I know you do, but I wish you wouldn’t.”

“Not just about you being alone.” She stops, looks at him carefully. “You know, we’re very accepting people, Nathaniel.”

“Yes, mom. I’ve known you for some time now.”

“I just hope you aren’t avoiding bringing a man around because you think. Well. I hope you know, anyone who’s important to you, we’d welcome them with open arms.”

Nate’s throat feels suddenly thick. He doesn’t trust himself to speak, so he just nods down at his coffee, busies himself with pouring more sugar, stirring it into his steaming mug.

His mom smooths his hair, leans down and puts a kiss on the top of his head, and Nate marvels at how she can reduce him to 10 years old, just like that.

+ + +

In August, Nate gets a text from an unknown number.

Skype, Thursday, 1600 your time. If you don’t have a camera, get one.

He knows it’s Brad, of course – no one else it could be. There’s been a regular chain of emails, fewer calls, all through standard military channels, all purely pedestrian chit chat. They’ve used skype a few times, but just the voice feature; Brad never had a camera before.

This time Brad isn’t sitting around a base as much as he was last tour. This time he’s been on the move, in the shit, running missions for days and weeks at a time off-base. Nate’s been trying not to let himself dwell too much on it.

He tries, in his emails, to include innocuous references to his uneventful social life, to how much he works and how little he does anything else. He jokes about his mother’s concern over his lack of dates.

He hopes Brad is getting the message, while the Marine Corps is not. It’s the best Nate can do, under the circumstances.

He can’t imagine where this text came from, but it’s not through a normal channel. He also can’t imagine why Brad wants to bother with video chatting just to talk about how Nate’s work is going, whether or not Brad’s getting any sleep, or whatever other mundane topics are safe to discuss over government internet connections on a base with little or no privacy.

The thought crosses his mind that maybe Brad just wants to see his face, and he feels a little ping of tenderness at the idea of Brad even thinking such a thing.  But in reality, he can’t imagine that could really be the whole story.

Nate has a cam on his work laptop, which is probably fine. Probably.

He can’t imagine that anyone, even the fucking Iceman, can find the kind of privacy, not to mention the secure connection, needed to have anything other than a friendly, benign, innocuous chat.

But still, it is Brad.

Nate buys a webcam for his desktop at home, installs Skype and makes his Admin Ingrid call him from the office for practice, just to make sure everything is fully operational. He arranges to be out of the office on Thursday afternoon.

Just in case.

When he sees Brad’s face actually pop up on his screen, it steals his breath a little. Brad looks too thin, like he always does during a tour, and the bags under his eyes stand out in stark relief, his face tinted luminous blue by the screen he’s staring at in the dark room. Nate is hit with an overwhelming sense of longing, suddenly.

“Where the hell are you?”

“Classified, Sir,” Brad says, eyebrows raised pointedly. “Where the hell are you?”

Sir, is all Nate can think.  He doesn’t hear that much anymore, at least not outside of certain intimate situations, when Nate puts a specific edge in his voice and Brad’s defenses are down, and he unwittingly falls back into the knee-jerk habit. But maybe in this case it’s his cue that this is in fact a platonic, Marine Corps-monitored social call. Nate can do that.

“That’s not,” he shakes his head. “I meant how did you manage this?”

Brad grins, the cat that ate the canary.

“Also classified. But really, where are you?”

“Okay then,” Nate shrugs, grinning back in spite of himself, “I’m at home. How are things going?”

“Peachy,” Brad’s voice is sardonic, but his smile remains mischievous. “Alone?”

“Me? Yeah, of course I’m alone.” Nate nods quickly “Who else would be here?”

Brad grins, wide and white. Suddenly he’s pulling his t-shirt off, and leering at the camera. Nate swallows thickly.

“Quid pro quo, Sir,” Brad raises his eyebrows and waits.

“Brad -.” Nate shakes his head. This can’t possibly be going where it seems to be going. This can’t possibly be safe.

Brad leans in closer, voice low and lethal.

“You can be assured, Nate, everything is squared away on my end. But I’ve got a limited window of opportunity here, so if we could dispense with the hand wringing and get on with the show, I’d be much obliged.”

Nate hesitates, just one moment more. Brad wouldn’t do this unless it was safe. No way in hell he would do it unless he was absolutely sure.

So Nate takes a deep breath and nods, resolved. He pulls at the buttons of his shirt, popping one off in his haste. He rips his undershirt off.

“Pants too,” Brad’s lips are parted, eyes shadowed. Nate does as he’s told, opening his belt, standing a little to shove his khakis down off his hips. He leaves his underwear, still just a sliver of doubt about whether he’s misunderstanding something here. But Brad just licks his lips, nodding slowly.

“All of it, Nate.”

“Brad –.” He starts again, but Brad cuts in sternly,

“All of it.”

“What - what about you?” Nate asks feebly, and Brad drags his eyes up from Nate’s bared torso to stare directly into the camera.

“We’ll get to me.”

Nate nods, figures here goes nothing, and drops his boxer briefs. His cock is fully hard, jutting out from his body, just from the adrenaline rush. Brad licks his lips again, his eyes heavy-lidded, lashes fluttering. His hands are clearly visible wrapped around the edge of the bench he’s sitting on.

“I want you to take your cock in your hand,” he growls, “and let me see you stroke it, nice and slow.”

Nate obeys mutely, pushing his chair back enough that he can see his whole cock on the screen, unobscured. He licks his palm a few times, and wraps his hand around his dick. He jacks himself slowly, watching Brad’s teeth dig into his bottom lip, watching his fingers tighten around the edge of his bench.

“Talk to me,” Brad’s voice is a low rumble. “Tell me how it feels.”

“Feels - feels good,” Nate breathes. “Not as good as you, but good.”

“You wish it was my hand on you?”

“Fuck yes, Brad. Every goddamn day.” He keeps going slow and easy, brings his other hand down to roll his balls between his fingers, then up across his belly, fanning out over one nipple. Brad makes a noise, something between a groan and a whine. Nate raises an eyebrow.

“You don’t want to join me?”

“Not yet,” Brad shakes his head, voice sounding thick in his throat. “Need to make this last.”

“Tired of this tour’s copy of Juggs already, Gunny?” Nate grins slyly, sliding closer to the edge of his chair, arching his back and spreading his legs wider to give Brad an unobstructed view as he strips his cock.

“Material for my combat jacks has become more. Selective. In recent years.”

“Care to expound on that?” Nate pants softly, eyes on the camera, thumb swirling around the head of his leaking cock, sliding slippery and smooth, skin on skin.

Brad’s hands move slowly for his belt.

“Think about you that first time, your kitchen in Boston. Your hand on my cock with your mouth on my neck. A classic.”

He’s painstakingly opening his belt, unfastening his trousers. Nate manages to keep a nice, smooth rhythm, but his eyes are fixed on Brad’s hands, his brain tuned to Brad’s voice.

“And you later that night in your bed. All bossy and so fucking hot, making me come ‘til it hurt.”

Brad’s got his hand in his pants now, moving slowly. Nate can’t really see anything he’s doing, but he gets the idea.

“That time in Chicago, when you had me face first up against that wall of windows 50 floors up. That bed in Palo Alto with the iron scrolls in the headboard; you ruining your fancy tie to impress me with your rope work.”

“My rope management is impeccable,” Nate groans, then, “shit, I had forgotten all about that. I should get a bed like that.”

Brad grunts his agreement, breath coming faster.

“The bathroom stall at the ballpark in Denver. That alley next to the bar in Dallas. That last night in New Orleans, at that club. Back in our room, after the club – that one gets a lot of mileage.”

His hand keeps moving, slow, eyes trained on Nate.

“Think about you here too, in your cammies with your fucking Kevlar on. Lieutenant Fick, down on his knees with my cock in his throat. Just like you described it to me, remember that?”

Brad’s hand is still moving, still obscured by his pants. Nate’s laugh comes out more like a groan.

“Of course I remember, ‘s still one of my favorites.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, fuck, Brad, come on,” Nate pleads, “let me see you.”

Brad eases up and kneels on the bench he’s sitting on, shoves his cammies down just far enough. Just the sight of Brad’s hand wrapped around his cock makes a shiver run down Nate’s spine.

“Jesus, you look so fucking good. Fucking love your hands. Love watching you work.” Nate’s fucking into the tight grip of his fingers now, not wanting it to end but not sure how long he can hold it off with Brad right in front of him, looking like that.

“You wanna know my other favorites?”

He takes Brad’s strangled groan as a yes.

“The look on your face, when I showed up at your door before your last tour. You had me on all fours in the dining room in sixty seconds flat.”

“Forty-five,” Brad insists, and it punches another short laugh out of Nate’s lungs.

“But also,” Nate says, not enough space left in his blank, buzzed brain for overthinking before he speaks, “you lying on that beach at Lake Michigan, next to the Navy Pier. Just thinking about your skin, your tattoos gets me hard, Brad.  Just thinking about how you taste, how you smell when you get back from a run. Fuck.”

Brad’s eyes close and his hand motion speeds as Nate keeps talking. His grunted, bitten-off Jesus Christ is his only reply, so Nate goes on.

“Think of you there, too. Sergeant Colbert with his shirt off, running with his arms spread like a fucking airplane. Then dropping to his knees, sweating in the sun. Fuck, I wanted to kneel right there with you, push you down and just disappear with you in that tall grass, suck the sweat off your skin and grind against you until I couldn’t feel anything but you.”

When Nate finishes that one, Brad lets out another sound, a choked gasp, then his hips snap forward, the muscles of his core contract. Nate watches, rapt, as Brad’s cock spills all over his fist.

“Shit,” Nate grunts, “holy shit.” Then he’s coming, too.

For a few short, precious minutes, it’s just the two of them breathing heavily into the silence, then finally Brad smiles, just a little. He produces a baby wipe from somewhere, cleans himself up and fastens his pants. He’s still on his knees on that bench, still got his shirt off, and Nate is still sitting there, naked and exposed with come on his hand, splashed across this thigh.

“I should go.” Brad’s voice is soft, maybe softer than Nate can ever remember.

It makes Nate’s chest hurt; he just swallows, nods.

“Sure.”

“Thanks for this. And for the new material.” Brad’s grin is wry, tone teasing.

“I don’t know how the fuck you managed it,” Nate snorts, shaking his head. “Maybe I don’t want to know. But I’m glad you did.”

Brad nods his silent agreement.

Nate feels the pull of the loss, and Brad’s not even gone yet. He wants to say something, something probably overly-sentimental and unwelcome. So instead of that, he just says,

“Take care of yourself, Marine. And.” He swallows thickly. “I’ll see you when you get home.”

There’s something, Nate thinks – something bright and reckless – in Brad’s eyes. It flashes, just for the briefest moment, then Brad nods crisply, and he’s gone.

When the screen goes black, it takes more than a few minutes before Nate can drag himself up out of the chair and put himself back together.

+ + +

“Okay,” Maggie says, “I want you to hear me out on something, before you say no.”

“Well, that’s an auspicious start.” Nate looks at her pointedly.

They’re sitting at her kitchen island, picking through the kids’ leftover Halloween candy.

“Shut up, dummy,” she says it by rote, knee-jerk and instinctive from one sibling to another, “I know a guy.”

“Fascinating.”

“Shut up. A guy with whom I think, based on knowing you and knowing him, that you might, you know. Hit it off.”

“Oh, Jesus.” Nate rolls his eyes as he chews his Starburst with as much derision as he can muster.

“I said hear me out!”

“Have you been talking to mom?”

Maggie has the decency to look sheepish, at least.

“She just thinks maybe you need a little push. We all do.”

“You all do? Just fantastic. And not at all insulting.”

“Buddy,” her face is serious, suddenly in big-sister mode, and she slides her hands over his on the counter. “I’m not saying I think you can’t meet anyone, I’m just saying, ya know. It seems like you’re not meeting anyone. You work way too much, and I get that it’s probably hard to get to know someone, traveling as much as you do. And I’ve known Pedro for years, he works in the State’s Attorney’s office.”

“Maggie.”

“What would it hurt to meet him, is all I’m asking? He’s smokin’ hot.”

“Maggie.”

“And smart! Super smart. And really funny. And single.”

Nate’s not sure how to say I’m not, though. Regardless of whether or not he and Brad have ever said as much – which of course, they haven’t – Nate’s way past pretending he’s not totally and completely taken.

He looks at her meaningfully, hoping she’ll understand without him having to say it. She just stares at him blankly, expectantly, and Nate remembers, oh right, that doesn’t work with everyone. It only works with Brad.

Shit.

The truth is, Nate has always been scrupulously discrete - to a fault, even - with respect to maintaining Brad’s privacy. They’ve taken great pains, without ever talking about the where’s and why’s, to keep this thing between them only between them, and out of geographic proximity to anyone who might know either of them. But this is Nate’s family, and he trusts them. And they’re obviously concerned about him.

And for how long can he be expected to never breathe a word of Brad’s existence to anyone? For how many years?

“Mags, I appreciate your concerns -.”

“But?” Maggie raises an eyebrow, and he can see himself in that expression. It’s the one that can get Brad to do pretty much anything Nate wants, on the challenge in his eyebrow alone.

“I’m actually. I’m involved with someone.”

She looks at him skeptically.

“I have been for a while now, but. He’s military, active duty. So, discretion is paramount. Obviously.”

She narrows her eyes, like she’s trying to decide if he’s bullshitting. Then she rolls them skyward, dramatic.

“Discretion is paramount,” she parrots, snarky and dismissive, the same voice she used to use for I know you are but what am I? “For God’s sake Nate, you could have just said something. You think we’re going to alert the media?”

“Of course not, but it’s not.” It’s not about me, he thinks, not my decision, not my call. “We haven’t talked about exactly where this is going, and I just. I’m erring on the side of caution, okay? I’m sorry I didn’t say anything sooner.”

“The side of extreme caution,” she grouses, but he can tell by her face, he’s forgiven.

She grins suddenly, bright and excited, and bites into a fun-size Milky Way.

“So, tell me all about him.”

+ + +

On Christmas Eve, Nate’s phone rings in the middle of dinner.

“I have to take this,” he apologizes, and steps out of the dining room into the hallway. Brad’s plane should have landed an hour ago.

“Made it,” is all Brad says. Nate can’t help the whoosh of relief that’s forced from his lungs, the smile that’s suddenly plastered on his face.

“Glad to hear it,” Nate says, feeling stupid at the immensity of the understatement.

“I don’t want to interrupt your family festivities, but I wanted to let you know.”

“I appreciate that,” Nate nods, “and you’re not interrupting.”

“Bullshit,” Brad scoffs, “It’s Christmas Eve. I know all the Ficks are gathered together, probably roasting a suckling pig and caroling around the neighborhood, dispensing hot cocoa and festively decorated Christmas cookies.”

Nate doesn’t care to point out that it’s rack of lamb, and they sing their carols around the piano, thank you very much. Instead he just laughs.

“Good to have you back, Colbert.”

“Good to be back.”

“Any ideas yet, about when you might be able to get away?” It feels too soon to ask, like Nate’s pushing too hard, but it’s been a year. 13 months, technically, since he laid eyes – or hands, or any other interested body parts – on Brad’s actual person. If anyone’s counting.

“Actually,” Brad starts, and Nate’s stomach sinks. Suddenly he can’t breathe, thinking this is where he’s finally pushed his luck too far, where he makes Brad say something stupid that they’ll both regret. But what Brad says is, “I was thinking about tomorrow. If you’re not too busy celebrating the magical virgin birth of your lord and savior.”

Nate’s laugh catches in his throat, and suddenly the prospect of Brad feels so unbelievably, unexpectedly close, almost close enough to touch, and Nate’s heart feels too big for his chest.

“I think my lord and savior will forgive me – it’s kind of his thing,” Nate’s voice is low, choked, almost a whisper. “Just get your ass here asap.”

“Your family won’t mind?”

“They’ll understand.”

Nate says it without thinking. He can almost hear Brad wondering what exactly they’ll understand, but he doesn’t ask, just says,

“If you’re sure.”

“I am.”

“I’ll send you my flight info as soon as I have it.”

“Copy that.”

“And Nate,” Brad’s voice sounds a little choked, as well. Nate’s heart is thudding wildly.

“Yeah?”

“Merry Christmas.”

When Nate takes his seat again, the table goes quiet.

“Surely they don’t expect you to work at this hour, on Christmas Eve?” His mom asks tentatively.

“No,” Nate shakes his head, is sure he can’t keep from looking like the fucking Cheshire Cat when he says, “It wasn’t work.”

There’s another beat of silence, then Maggie says,

“He made it home?”

Nate can feel the blush rising on his cheeks, which only heightens his embarrassment. He didn’t tell Maggie all about him, but he told her enough. And he didn’t bother asking her not to share.

“He did,” Nate nods curtly, makes it as detached and businesslike as he can, but the secret smiles on the faces of his family tell him he’s fooling no one at all.

“I’m so glad to hear that, sweetheart,” his mom smiles, and her eyes are glittering suspiciously when she squeezes his hand.

+ + +

They spend 72 hours in Nate’s apartment, subsisting on occasionally delivered food. Nothing is going on at work, this time between Christmas and New Year’s always dead anyway, so Nate just takes the rest of the week. They turn off their phones, the TV, everything. It’s cold and snowy outside, but inside they stay warm and naked and wrapped up in each other.

Nate feels it, hour by hour; the longer he has Brad with him, smiling at him and touching him and laughing low and secret, speaking soft, rumbling words into his skin. Nate could swear he feels actual heartstrings tugging at him, dragging him deeper and deeper into the illusion of domesticity, of coupledom, of Brad really being here and being his. He wants to believe in it, but he’s not sure – he’s still not fucking sure – if he can.

Eventually they venture out, to a restaurant, the grocery store, to see a movie. They turn the TV on, catch up on the world. Nate fires up his laptop and checks his emails while Brad flips through the channels. Nate’s mom calls to remind him about Thursday night, his parents’ annual New Year’s Eve party, and asks pointedly if he’ll be bringing a date. He mumbles that he’ll have to get back to her. He hangs up the phone and wanders out of the kitchen, thinking there’s no way in hell he can ask Brad to come to his family’s New Year’s Eve Party.

And then, suddenly, he feels uneasy, nauseous butterflies in the pit of his stomach. He hears his own voice saying if not now, when? If the 3 and a half years since Brad showed up unannounced on Nate’s doorstep in Cambridge isn’t long enough, how many will be? 7, 10, 15? Will they be fifty and still meeting up every few months in random cities, nondescript hotel rooms, carefully avoiding any mention of feelings, or a future beyond the next time they plan to meet? Because it comes to a sudden, crystal point in Nate’s mind how easily that could happen, one year slipping into the next and into the next and nothing ever changing, nothing ever evolving, and he knows he’s not okay with that. Not even a little.

Not even for Brad.

He watches Brad watching the television, and takes a deep breath, thinking oh shit oh shit oh shit. He can’t believe he’s actually going to do this, but the words just come flying out of his mouth as if propelled by some force other than his own brain.

“What are we doing, Brad?”

It’s not a great opener, but it’s the best he’s got with no prior preparation.

Brad keeps staring at the television, at the Lakers losing.

“Watching the sad spectacle of superior talent being overcome by superior effort.”

Nate leans over and clicks a button on the remote; the TV goes dark. All that’s left in the room is the dusky light of the fading day, sun barely hanging on above the horizon and it’s not even 1700. His heart is pounding suddenly, like someone kicked it and now it’s ricocheting around inside his ribcage.

“Look at me.”

“I’m pretty sure you don’t get to issue orders anymore, Sir.” Brad tries for light sarcasm, but the fact that he’s resisting, already defensive, calling Nate Sir means he knows something’s coming.

“Brad.” Nate’s voice slides into the authoritative register that he can count on to get Brad’s attention, and continues. “I know we do this whole unspoken communication thing like 95% of the time, and that’s great, that’s. It’s part of why.”

He shakes his head, takes a new tack.

“We have to talk about this, sometime.” His hand reaches out, wraps around Brad’s wrist. He doesn’t squeeze, doesn’t move, just keeps his hand there, making contact.

“Talk about what?” Brad asks, so fucking predictably Nate wants to scream.

Nate can see the shutters closing over Brad’s face, but it’s not total lockdown, not the full-on Iceman mask that he used to use whenever it suited him. It’s better than it used to be, better than it’s ever been, in so many ways, and Nate holds on to that as he pushes forward.

“Okay, look. Here it is.” He takes a deep breath, steeling himself, digging deep. He is not ready for this, not even close, but he knows he never will be. Like every other thing worth doing that Nate has ever done, he knows he just has to gather his courage, jump in and figure it out.

“I know all the reasons why you think this – we - can’t happen, or shouldn’t happen, or whatever. Believe me Brad, I do. But I’m here to tell you, they’re all bullshit. All of them. Every last one. And I’m ready to get the fuck on with this. We’re well into our thirties here, we’re not some dumb kids. It’s been years now, ya know? It’s enough already with the pretending we don’t know there’s an elephant in the room.”

Nate can feel Brad’s pulse racing through the ropey veins of his arm, but outwardly he looks coolly composed, perfectly in control.

“All due respect, Sir, but you know fuck all about my reasons.”

Nate would very much beg to differ, but it’s not going to help to antagonize Brad on this point.

“Enlighten me, then.”

Brad’s eyes close, his nostrils flare as he sucks in a deep breath, clearly trying to order his thoughts before he speaks.

Before Nate thinks too hard about it he’s moving, knocking the mostly-empty beer bottle from Brad’s hand without any concern for where it may land, planting himself squarely astride Brad’s lap.

Brad jerks in surprise. He tries to move his head, get some distance, but Nate just tracks his movements, keeping his mouth close to Brad’s ear.

“What’s your plan, exactly? Never let anyone get close to you again? For the rest of your life, just you, alone, with your fucking stoic, longsuffering self-denial?”

“That’s not –.” Brad tries, but Nate cuts him off and barrels forward.

“I’m in, Brad. All of it, good bad and ugly. I’m not fucking around here. You know me well enough, you really think I haven’t thought this through? Think I haven’t done my research, considered every angle? Worked through every possible outcome and what it would mean for me, for both of us? And in the end I come to the same conclusion every time. I’m all in.”

“You’ve done research?” Brad says, because of course he does.

Nate rolls his eyes. Brad can be deliberately fucking obtuse all he wants, but Nate’s not backing down.

“I’m sure you can understand, Colbert, that none of this is easy for me to say. And it’s been seven fucking years in the making, if you count time since I first laid my goddamn eyes on you, which I do. So I would appreciate it if you’d consider what I said, and take it fucking seriously.”

Brad looks shocked, stricken even, and Nate’s stomach drops. For the first time, he has a sinking feeling that this whole thing might not end up in his favor.

“I’m not.” Brad starts, shakes his head, starts again. “I don’t mean to discount what it took to put that out there, Nate. And I’m not saying that it’s – not saying that you – aren’t.” He waves his hand vaguely, as if that’s supposed to explain something. “But it’s just. To me it seems –. It’s impossible.”

“Right. So let’s talk about why.”

“Why, what?”

“Why it seems impossible to you. Why you’re here anyway, and why you keep coming back if you really think this is all it can ever be.”

“I don’t. Jesus. Christ. I just.” Brad looks like he’s physically restraining himself from throwing Nate right off the couch. Nate knows that caged animal look, knows when Brad wants to run.

He keeps him right there, pinned to the couch, and waits.

“Look, I’m not cut out for - that,” Brad blurts. “For - being with someone. Being invested. I’m never in one place, I’d never be around, and you should have someone who can be there, and. Give you things that I can’t, so, I just. I don’t see what the point is in trying to make it into something it isn’t.”

Of course that’s what Brad thinks – as if Nate expected anything else. Nate sighs.

“You may remember, vaguely, that I was actually in the Marine Corps? I’ve seen you doing your job, up close and personal. I’m well aware of what it means to you, and how fucking good you are at it, and of the constraints it puts on you. Don’t you think, if the idea of you doing what you love to do had put the slightest fucking damper on my interest in pursuing you, I would’ve stopped a long time ago?”

“Is that what this is? You pursuing me?” He seems genuinely surprised at the notion.

“Yes, Brad. And if you’re honestly trying to tell me that you’re just now realizing that, I can’t even imagine what kind of mental gymnastics you’ve been performing to keep yourself from knowing it before.”

Nate levels a stare at Brad, but he doesn’t turn on Lieutenant Fick. This is just him, just Nate, and he keeps his eyes gentle, no demands and no fucking orders.

“I get that it’s a hard thing to talk about, for you even more so than me, and it’s awkward as hell for me, believe me. And yes, it would be easier, in this exact moment, to just drop it and just - not. But this isn’t going away, Brad. Not for me. And if your concerns are about privacy, or geography, or difficulty with regards to DADT, I get that, and we should absolutely discuss those. But if your concerns are about whether or not you deserve to have something you want. If it’s about not being good enough, not being worthy, or about you falling on your fucking sword – and I think we both know that it is - then I have to tell you, you’re being a fucking idiot.”

“You always did give a stellar pep talk, Sir.” Brad’s voice is smooth and sardonic as always, but his eyes are closed like he can’t stand to see Nate looking at him, and his face is pained.

And Nate knows he just showed his hand, committed the Cardinal Sin in the world of Brad Colbert. Nate just let on that he knows, that he’s found Brad’s Achilles’ heel, his dirty, dark little secret. That he sees under Brad’s frosty exterior and right to the vulnerable, soft core of him. That he’s figured out the unthinkable, horrible truth that makes Brad’s skin crawl: Brad’s heart isn’t actually made of stone.

Brad looks blind-sided - raw, ripped open and bleeding out.  Nate hates looking at it, hates that he’s the one who did it. He puts his hand on Brad’s cheek, but Brad jerks his face away. Nate can see it, the minute the shutters come all the way down.

“You’re just going to have to trust me when I tell you, Sir, that whatever it is you think we might be able to have together, we can’t. We just can’t.”

“Brad -.”

“I’m flattered, Nate.” He looks at Nate resolutely. “But I’m not the guy you want, or – or the guy you should have. If you’re honest with yourself, I think you know that.”

It sounds so final, like the Iceman has fucking spoken, and that’s that. Nate can’t keep the sneer off his face.

“Fuck you.”

Brad’s head snaps up.

“Are you fucking -.”

“No!” Nate cuts him off, scrambles back and up, out of Brad’s face, out of his lap, out of his reach.

“Fuck. You. Fuck you for not believing you’re worth anyone’s time – my time - just because some shitty people did a shitty thing to you, once. And fuck you for not trusting me to stick with you, even if it’s hard. Fuck you for treating me like I’m too fucking fragile to be burdened with any of the shit you carry around with you every day. And mostly, Brad? Fuck you for acting like you’re doing this to protect me, when you’re just trying to protect yourself.”

He slams the bedroom door behind him, for effect.

Then he lies on the bed and listens desperately for the sounds of Brad packing up, the tell-tale snick of the front door opening.

He doesn’t hear anything, no movement, no noise.

Eventually, cold and exhausted, he crawls under the blankets. He can’t keep his eyes from closing anymore.

+ + +

Nate wakes up when the bed sags with the weight of Brad climbing in on the other side. It’s dark now, the clock says it’s after 0300.

Brad slides up behind him, wraps his arm over Nate’s middle, pushes his face into the hollow between Nate’s neck and his pillow.

Nate feels a wave of relief wash over him and his eyes prickle with tears, out of nowhere, at the nearness of Brad and the fact that he’s still fucking here, and Jesus Christ, Nate can’t remember the last time he cried. Quite possibly, it was standing over a kid dying in the dirt in Iraq, shoulder to shoulder with Brad.

He grits his teeth and blinks fast, forcing himself under control.

“You awake?” Brad asks.

“I am now.” Nate feels mostly certain that his voice sounds mostly normal.

He can feel the tension in Brad’s body, vibrating with something he can’t quite place. A sudden spike of fear hits him, that Brad’s come to say goodbye. When Brad whispers into the dark, Nate holds his breath.

“You weren’t wrong. About my reasons.”

“I know.”

“I hate that I’m that fucking transparent to you.”

“I know that, too,” Nate sighs softly. He’s still waiting for the blade to fall. But then Brad whispers,

“The truth is, I’m in love with you, and it scares the hell out of me.”

And Nate thinks his heart might stop. He can’t begin to fucking imagine what it cost, for Brad to be able to say those words out loud. Probably, it took the last 10 hours of him out on the sofa working himself up to it, and if Nate were guessing, some liquid courage.

He slides his hand up Brad’s arm, feels Brad shiver under his touch.

“Jesus Christ, Brad. I love you, too. And FYI, it’s no cakewalk on this end, either.”

Brad snorts against the pillow, a hot huff of damp air on Nate’s neck, but Nate can feel him relax somewhat, the rigid line of his body slackening just a little.

“I’ve been operating under the assumption that this thing has a shelf life. That eventually you’ll find someone else, something serious, and you’ll just. Be done, here.”

“I know that’s what you think; what I don’t understand is why. Why do you think it can’t be serious, can’t be real, with you?”

“I told you – I’m not. This is not something I’m built for. In truth, I’m not sure if I’m even capable of – of what I think you’re asking me for. And you’re. You. Jesus, Nate. You could have anyone. You should have better.”

Nate draws a shuddering breath.

“Brad. Your respect means the world to me. But I think sometimes it takes a turn into this…reverence, and then it becomes just another way to keep us apart. Put space between us. It’s like you hold me up as this, I don’t fucking know. This paragon of honor and righteousness, with my Ivy League degrees and my noble life’s purpose, intent on righting the wrongs of the world. And you’re just a grunt, right? A death-dealing devil dog who they let off the chain sometimes? No feelings and no attachments, nothing special? And what would someone like me want with someone like you, outside of occasional sexual gratification?”

Nate can feel his words land, and he knows Brad takes a hit from the truth of them. He feels almost guilty, but he takes no pleasure in exposing these things that Brad doesn’t want exposed. He’s making a point that has to be made.

“Something like that,” is all Brad says, with a low huff of frustration tinged with something else. Embarrassment, maybe, Nate thinks.

“Let me tell you how things look from my side, because from here, it looks a lot different. If I could build a person from scratch, the kind of person I’d want for a partner – in war, in bed, in life – that person would be you. The way you think, the way you talk, the way you fight, the way you live. The way you look. The way you fuck.” Nate lets a little smile into his voice, squeezes Brad’s forearm. “There is no better out there, Brad. Not for me. You’re it – you’re as good as it can ever fucking possibly get.”

Brad doesn’t say anything. Nate could go on and on, but he doesn’t. Doesn’t want to break the spell, doesn’t want to sever this thin thread of tenderness that’s stringing them together, their hard edges all rounded off by the darkness, by the gravity of the moment.

“I’m so far out of my depth,” is what Brad says, finally. “It’s like I’m trying to outrun something that caught me a long time ago.”

“So stop running.”

“I’m not sure I know what that looks like anymore, much less how to achieve it.”

Nate turns over in the dark, presses his mouth to Brad’s.

“Just be still,” he whispers, “just stay here with me and let’s find out what this can be.” He brings their foreheads together, breathes in Brad’s breath.

There’s a pause, and then,

“You really count from the day you laid eyes on me?” Brad’s voice is teasing, but Nate can tell, that’s some kind of revelation for him.

“I just looked up one day and there you were, like my goddamn wet dream come to life, being all brilliant and talented and sarcastic and hot as hell and just fucking – lethal, in every sense of the word,” Is all he can say, to try and make Brad understand. “I never had a fucking chance.”

+ + +

Nate gets out of the party on New Year’s Eve by agreeing to bring Brad to brunch the next day.

The two of them ring in the New Year making out on the couch in front of a fire, which Nate finds he much prefers to making small talk over lukewarm finger foods and mediocre champagne.

The next day he watches his mother hug Brad and pull him eagerly into the house, watches his dad shake Brad’s hand and clap him on the back. Maggie smiles brightly and says how good it is to meet him, but behind Brad’s back she gives Nate an open-mouthed, disbelieving look that’s clearly asking how her dumb little brother managed to land someone so staggeringly attractive. Nate just shrugs, don’t ask me.

Brad meets Liz, both Nate’s brothers-in-law, his three nephews and two nieces.

He’s polite and courteous and charming, and doesn’t curse once. It’s all a little surreal.

After they eat, they spread out in the main room to watch the kids play with the new toys they got from Santa, drinking mimosas and Bloody Mary’s, football on the television.

Brad lays on the living room rug and directs 3 year old Chloe in putting together her Elmo puzzle, helps 5 year old Emma get her Barbie’s dress on. He scratches Boots under the chin, behind the ears, and the crotchety old cat curls up against Brad’s side and falls asleep. 7 year old Ethan lays next to Brad to show off his new Nintendo DS, and enthusiastically answers all Brad’s burning questions about the ins and outs of Mario Kart.

Brad catches his eye and gives a sly, barely-there grin; Nate feels suddenly lightheaded, like he might pass out. He puts down the Bloody Mary and goes to get more coffee.

His mom is in the kitchen, sitting by herself. He tops off his cup and sits down with her.

“What are you doing in here?”

She smiles at him, but her lip looks quivery.

“Mom?”

“Oh, don’t mind me. I’m fine.” She waves a hand at him, dismissive.

“You’re sitting by yourself in the kitchen crying, so. Forgive me if I’m not convinced.”

“If you must know,” she huffs, “I didn’t want to embarrass you by bawling in front of your -. In front of Brad.”

“Yes, but. Why would you be bawling at all?”

She sighs, looks at him earnestly.

“Nate. You’re my baby. I know you’re a grown man and a big tough Marine and all of that, but no matter,” she flaps her hand again, “you’re still my child, and it’s my prerogative to worry about you.”

Nate’s heart stutters a little, afraid of where this is going, afraid maybe she’s going to say the big tough Marine laying on the living room floor isn’t so easy to accept, after all.

“Mom, I know you worry, but there’s really no reason to. I’m good. I’m happy.”

“I know you are, honey. I can see that.” She smiles. “It’s a silly thing to get all weepy over, which is why I’m in here and not out there. But watching you and Brad.”

She sniffles a little and bites her lip.

“It’s just so nice to see you settled, at last.”

Settled, he thinks. He can imagine how much Brad would fucking hate that word, and it makes him laugh a little.

“I don’t know about all that,” he starts, hedging, but she holds up her hand, shutting him up.

“Don’t argue with your mother, Nate. Get out of here and let me have my moment.”

Nate does as he’s told.

He finds Brad in the hall, looking at the family pictures. And also, maybe eavesdropping. Nate looks at him appraisingly, but Brad’s face gives nothing away.

“Look at you,” Brad inclines his head toward the framed photos on the wall with a smirk, “all ears and freckles.” He points at one in particular, from when Nate was 15. Nate’s the only one in the whole family not smiling.

“So serious,” Brad grins. “So earnest.”

There’s something affectionate, something warm and fond in his voice, and it makes Nate’s face flush, makes his lungs feel tight. Brad steps closer, bends his neck just enough so his mouth is at Nate’s ear.

“I want to take you home,” he whispers, so low and deep its barely audible, and Nate’s whole body feels hot, instantly.

They make their excuses and hurry on with their coats; Nate speeds all the way back to College Park with Brad’s gloved hand high up on his thigh.

In Nate’s bed, Brad spreads him out and licks him open, takes forever twisting and crooking his slick fingers inside of Nate, making him beg and squirm before Brad finally, finally sinks into him.

“God, so good, so fucking perfect, Brad. Love – love you,” Nate pants mindlessly, because he can. Because he doesn’t have to police himself, not anymore.

Brad jackhammers into him, making his whole body shudder, making Nate have to brace his arms against the headboard to keep from getting fucked right through it. Brad’s mouth against Nate’s neck hisses mine aren’t you, all mine.

Nate whimpers, delirious, riding the edge with Brad’s hand on his cock, “just you, Brad, fuck, fuck, no one else, all yours.”

“Goddamn right you are,” Brad growls, and Nate’s orgasm strikes from nowhere, like lightning.

19. 2010

Brad parks in the parking lot of a Burger King, .8 miles from LAX. Nate’s flight doesn’t arrive for another 45 minutes.

He drums his fingers on the steering wheel and feels stupid for being so anxious. He tries to remind himself, this is just how he feels when he hasn’t seen Nate for a while. Once he’s here, Brad will be fine. Once Brad can touch Nate, look him in the eyes, everything will be clear again. Brad’s learned to trust that much, at least, in the last year.

In 11 months, to be more precise, Brad’s life has changed into this new, unrecognizable version of something that used to be mostly simple and predictable. That simple predictability came with a degree of solitude that felt safe, felt comfortable. If it also came with a healthy dose of lonely, well, Brad was used to that; he barely even noticed most of the time, had long ago learned to ignore the dull, low-level ache that was always there in the background, whispering Nate’s name, reminding him of the thing he refused to acknowledge he wanted, much less imagine he could have.

All these changes have meant stepping outside of that safe, solitary bubble, and it’s not that it’s not worth it, not that Nate’s not worth it, Brad knows, but that doesn’t mean the process hasn’t been a bitch. It doesn’t mean there’s not still a part of him, however tiny, that wishes they could have just kept things how they were, kept all the bullshit of real life out of it.

Because in real life there are two people with careers and families and homes of their own on two separate coasts. There are compromises to be made about things like vacation time and leave, where and how to spend national and religious holidays, and the making of future plans.  There are other people to consult, other feelings and opinions to consider aside from his own. In real life, Brad is in a fucking relationship now, which means he can no longer pretend to himself that this thing with Nate doesn’t mean anything beyond occasional sex and camaraderie. Now that they’ve agreed it does mean something, the stakes are so much higher.

Of course, Brad’s real life now also includes almost daily phone calls with Nate, many of which prominently feature phone sex. They also often include Nate signing off with I miss you, or sometimes even I love you.  It’s hard to complain about that part.

Thinking of the way Nate’s voice sounds, soft and sleepy when they’ve stayed on the phone too long, helps Brad to remember that the rest of it is worth it, in the end.

It also helps to remember that most of the hardest part is over.

He’s met Nate’s family, on several occasions by now. He’s moved 2000 miles East, and now he can see Nate much, much more often. He’s even told his family about Nate. That’s a majority of the most difficult motherfucking obstacles already put behind him.

The only big one left is Nate actually meeting his family. Thus, this trip to California.

It’s things like this – meeting the family – that feel so foreign and so fucking contrived and invasive and just. Fuck.

This is exactly the kind of pain-in-the-ass, heterosexual rom-com bullshit that Brad had really thought he’d never have to deal with again.

He checks his watch: still 38 minutes until Nate’s arrival time. He closes his eyes and leans his head back against the seat, steadies his breathing.

Nate’s family are perfectly nice, for waspy East Coast Liberal Elites. If he hadn’t been raised by West Coast Liberal Elites, he might have difficulty blending into the Fick crowd, but as it stands, the worst he’s had to bear is the dewey-eyed gaze of Nate’s mother, who can quite clearly barely contain her joy at the idea that her baby boy has found love at long last. If there’s any disappointment over the fact that there’ll be no sweet, pretty daughter-in-law forthcoming to dutifully produce little heirs to the Fick name, or for that matter any disappointment over the fact that Brad isn’t a Liberal Ivy League Intellectual with slick suits and limp wrists, Brad hasn’t caught a whiff of it – and not for lack of trying. Everyone is smart and accomplished, by which Brad remains resolutely unimpressed, and the whole family appears perfectly happy to have Brad take up residence in Nate’s life, and in theirs by association. All in all, it could be much worse.

In May, Brad left the Reconnaissance Community. Not for Nate, exactly. But as long as he was with Recon he was going to be at Pendleton, and Nate’s got his whole future planned around Maryland’s 5th Congressional District. Even though Nate insisted that he’d prefer to plan his future around Brad than a Congressional District, and that he could move to California if that’s what made the most sense, it would mean starting all over for him. Brad didn’t want that, and anyway, he’s getting too old for the shit that Recon gets into. His last deployment was 50 weeks, and they’re getting longer all the time. So it’s not for Nate, not exactly, but the idea of being away from him for another year, for even longer – Brad’s got no fucking interest in that. He was ready for a change, a new challenge, and definitely ready to be closer to the East coast.

So he took a posting with the Marine Detachment at Fort Benning, rented out his house in Oceanside, and moved his whole life to a one bedroom apartment in the middle of redneck, backwoods, sweltering, miserable, sister-fucking, faggot-hating Georgia.

Not for Nate, exactly. But mostly, because of Nate.

+ + +

When Brad got home from his last deployment, he drove straight to La Jolla and called Nate on the way. He ate dinner with his parents, bought an extravagantly expensive plane ticket for the following day, spent the night in his childhood bedroom, and in the morning he asked his mother to drive him to the airport. To her credit, she didn’t fight him on it, didn’t even ask him a million questions although he knew she had to be dying to. All she said was do you really have to go so soon?, her disappointment evident, but when Brad said he really did, she let it drop there.

By the time he got home two weeks later, everything Brad had thought he understood about his life had been flipped upside down. He had to learn to look at everything around him from a new point of view – one where Nate fucking Fick wants Brad to be his. Whatever. His Person.

Nate wants Brad to be his. Full fucking stop.

Trying to wrap his head around that has taken a lot of goddamn effort, and after so much time and energy spent reminding himself of precisely the opposite, Brad’s still not sure how successful he’s been in reversing course.

In January, he met Nate in Philly. In February, it was Seattle. It was just like before, except different. Better. Things were out in the open, less uncertain, and Brad has always appreciated clarity. He also appreciates the way Nate talks now when they’re fucking, the things he pants in Brad’s ear, against his skin about how much Nate needs-wants-loves him, how they belong to each other and no one else. Brad can definitely, definitely appreciate that.

In March, Brad was out on training exercises, subsisting on MREs and sleeping in a damp hole while Nate was just a few hundred miles away in LA. By April he was so busy wrapping everything up for his transfer, he couldn’t get away to meet Nate in Houston. By the time Nate arrived in Oceanside to help with the move, they hadn’t seen each other in long enough that the doubts had crept back into Brad’s mind, the ones Nate can’t understand. Even with the daily phone calls, even with all the filthy jerk off talk and the I miss you’s and I love you’s, there’s still something about time apart that makes Brad feel like he’s back on shaky ground, like nothing is really certain until he’s got Nate in his sights again and he has physical proof, one more time, that Nate still wants this, that he hasn’t changed his mind.

They spent two days packing up the parts of Brad’s house that he didn’t trust the Corps to move. Nate in his baggy basketball shorts and sweaty baseball cap looked about 12 years old, but when he shoved Brad face first into the wall and reached around to slide his hand down into Brad’s jeans, all that was forgotten. When he bit into Brad’s shoulder and whispered low into his ear, you feel so fucking good, and it’s been way too long, Brad could feel things slotting back into place, could feel himself climbing back onto solid ground with Nate’s hand on his cock, Nate’s mouth on his skin and voice in his ear.

They set out for Georgia, Nate driving his truck while Brad rode the bike. In the past, Brad would have hauled the bike and driven the truck, would have just pushed straight through, done the whole 30 hours as fast as he could and slept once he got there. With Nate though, they took their time. They stopped in El Paso the first night, had tacos and beer and made use of the deserted hot tub at their cheap motel. The desert sky was ink black, a million stars above them as Nate sucked the chlorinated water off his neck, his ear, his lips.

“Have I mentioned how very much in favor I am of this move?” He grinned with his hand up the leg of Brad’s shorts under the water. “I thought it might be years before we’d live so close.”

“I’m not entirely certain that 800 miles can be considered close.” Brad was trying for sarcastic, but he realized too late that he’d just tipped his hand.

“Been looking at the map, have we? And anyway, close is relative in our particular situation.” Nate’s smile turned gentler, that smile that always makes Brad’s heart feel too big for his chest, makes his stomach swoop and drop like a goddamn teenager. Brad chose to remain silent by way of response.

“I think the key is going to be Charlotte.”

“Charlotte?” Brad repeated, unconvinced. “As in, North Carolina?”

“That’s the one. Roughly halfway in between us. Hour and a half flight for me from DC, and probably 20 flights a day.” Nate shrugged, and kissed him again. “Five hour drive from Columbus, for normal humans. My money’s on Gunnery Sergeant Colbert doing it in three-point-five.”

Brad nodded slowly, letting that sink in. “So, essentially -.”

“Of course, we’ll both have things that get in the way, sometimes. But essentially, we could see each other most weekends.”

“Like normal humans?”

“Or a closer approximation thereof, yes.” Nate was watching him closely, bringing his mouth nearer to Brad’s ear. “That’s a good thing, right?”

Brad nodded again, his hands sliding over Nate’s slippery skin. “That’s a good thing,” he breathed into Nate’s mouth, feeling a little light headed at the prospect.

By the next night, they’d driven another 750 miles and still hadn’t made it out of fucking Texas. They picked up fast food fried chicken and ate in their crappy motel room, sucking grease off their fingers and eventually off each other’s mouths. Naked and tangled up in the messy sheets later, Nate whispered in the dark, asking if a single person in Brad’s life had any idea about the two of them.

As usual, Brad’s silence spoke volumes.

Nate let it lie, but three days later, as he climbed out of Brad’s truck at the airport in Atlanta, he stopped and leaned in close.

“Tell someone about me. I don’t care who, just. Someone.” He kept his eyes on Brad, until Brad finally turned to face him. “You have to start somewhere. It’s important to me, Brad.” He nodded, slightly, encouraging but firm.

Brad sucked in a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and nodded.

“Aye aye, Captain.” He swiped a quick salute across his forehead. Nate cocked his head to the side and narrowed his eyes, annoyed, but he was grinning when he closed the door.

+ + +

After some consideration of his options, Brad told Susannah first. All he could force himself to say was there’s someone, but that’s all it took. When Susannah asked what’s her name and Brad said his name’s Nate, she didn’t hesitate, didn’t even pause. All she said was tell me about him, and Brad could hear the grin in her voice. He told her the whole story, how when it finally came down to it, Nate called his bluff when he’d tried to walk away, and she just laughed and said, it sounds like this one’s got what it takes, kid.

Brad wasn’t sure where to go next, but his sisters seemed easiest.

Holy shit, Brad, Jodie practically yelled, are you fucking serious? Once it became apparent that he was, in fact, fucking serious, her tone softened quickly. I’m just so glad you have someone and that you’re happy, she said, her voice quivering as she sniffled into the phone, you know that’s all any of us give a shit about, right? It was, Brad realized, really that simple as far as she was concerned. The thought was more comforting than he would have expected.

A boyfriend, Audrey had said thoughtfully, although that is certainly not a word Brad has ever, or intends ever to use. That’s unexpected. She was, to Brad’s relief, steadfastly unemotional. You’re thirty-six years old, for fuck’s sake. It’s about time you gave it a rest with the Lone Wolf shtick, she said matter-of-factly, and then, if he got to Brad Colbert, he must be something special.

“Did you happen to tell either of them who I am, or how we met?” Nate asked when Brad relayed his conversations with his sisters, smirk on his face in their quickly-becoming-regular hotel room in Charlotte.

“They didn’t ask.” Brad shrugged, smirked right back.

“Your sisters are obviously very different women from my own,” Nate snorted, then looked at Brad with narrowed eyes. “Or – No. They just know their brother, and didn’t bother.”

Brad did grant Jodie and Audrey permission to gossip with each other about this new information to their hearts content, as long as they kept it away from mom and dad until he made it home in August to tell them in person. Over eggs and coffee in his parents’ breakfast room, Brad took a deep breath and forced out the words.

His father, as usual, was silent, simply listening and nodding.

His mother’s first words were what does he do for a living? Brad left out the Corps, made sure to include the words Harvard and CEO, and hoped that would be enough to satisfy her. Turns out, he knows his mother well.

Her next and only other question was and when can we meet this young man? Brad knew exactly what she was thinking, of course – that she’d just wait and pump Nate for all the info that she was well aware Brad would resist giving her.

In reality, that’s probably what his sisters were thinking, as well.

Brad promised to talk to Nate about coming out to California before the end of the year. And so here he is, the last weekend of November, still 24 minutes from Nate’s arrival, still drumming his fingers nervously on the steering wheel of his father’s Mercedes. Brad hasn’t seen Nate since just before Halloween, and that used to be nothing - chump change, child’s play - but these days it’s long enough to make him feel shaky, unsteady all over again.

Brad came for Thanksgiving with his family, and with Hanukkah so early this year, is staying through the first weekend of December. Now that he doesn’t have to spend all his leave on seeing Nate, he actually had some time to burn.

Nate stayed in Maryland for Thanksgiving, but flew out this morning. Nate, of course, is looking forward to meeting Brad’s family.

Brad is still on the fence, but he’s only got 22 minutes until it won’t really fucking matter anymore.

+ + +

“I come to meet your family, and you want to stop in for a quick tattoo first?” Nate looks at him, incredulous, from the passenger seat as Brad brings the car to a stop in front of Phoenix Ink. “This is the reason you wanted me to fly into LA instead of San Diego?”

“There’s someone here I want you to meet.”

Brad doesn’t elaborate, just opens the door. Nate keeps his eyes trained on Brad, but he doesn’t ask, just like he didn’t ask when they left LAX and headed toward Hollywood, not Orange County. He follows Brad out of the car and up to the door.

Brad would lay odds that Nate’s never set foot in a tattoo shop before. He looks around, observing everything and, Brad would guess, admiring fucking nothing. When Susannah approaches and hugs Brad, when he bends his neck to let her kiss his cheek and her hand lands on his chest, Nate’s expression doesn’t change but Brad can read his eyes. He watches Nate bypass favorite tattoo artist when he sees the familiarity that Brad allows Susannah in her greeting. Nate knows very, very few people would receive that kind of welcome. When she turns and greets Nate, Brad watches him take her in, studying her face and recognizing the similarity right away; watches him cataloging the cleft of her chin, the angle of her cheekbones, the bright blue eyes and the slight jut of her front teeth, sees him thinking sister, then realizing no, remembering there’s no genetic connection to his sisters.

“I’m Susannah,” she shakes Nates hand, firm and brief, “good to finally meet you.”

“You as well,” Nate lies, as if he’s ever heard the name, and Brad feels an odd swell of pride when he sees the realization dawn, when Nate cuts his eyes at Brad and it’s clear he’s figured it out.

The LT’s still got it.

Susannah looks at Nate carefully, appraising, then she smiles.

“I’m the one who produced this - being.” She jerks her head at Brad.

“So I gathered,” Nate grins, “my compliments.”

She looks at Brad, still smiling fondly.

“Yeah. My most impressive artistic endeavor to date, I think.”

“Don’t make me regret this,” Brad warns. He shoots a pointed look at each of them, but only because he’s afraid he’s going to start blushing.

They stay and hang out, watch Susannah ink a bright green bird into the intricate sleeve of a blond Geometry teacher from Yorba Linda. Nate looks at Susannah’s books, checking out her art and pretending not to eavesdrop on the easy and familiar way she and Brad shoot the shit. Eventually, Nate fixes him with a look that says you’re stalling, taps his watch, and Brad boosts himself up off the stool he’s been perched on.

“We should go,” Brad tells Susannah, and she nods up at him, businesslike, barely taking her eyes off her work.

“Good luck, you two,” is all she says before the bell on the door chimes their exit.

In the car, Nate doesn’t bother saying I didn’t know you were in contact with your birth mother, it’s understood. Instead he just says,

“When did you meet her?”

“I was twenty-four. She was forty.” He doesn’t bother to add she wrote me a letter, he knows better than to think Nate might have any ideas that Brad’s the one who’d gone looking. What he says instead is,

“Getting to know her, finding out why. Having her in my life, it’s been. Good.”

Nate wraps his hand around the back of Brad’s neck, squeezes firmly then lets it rest there.

“I can imagine it was nice to see yourself in someone, after not having that. There’s no mistaking the resemblance.”

Brad just nods, Nate’s fingers warm against his skin as he drives.

+ + +

Brad’s mom and dad meet them at the door. Despite Jodie and Audrey’s outraged objections, Brad insisted that Nate not be inundated with the entire family directly upon arrival. So they sit down to dinner, just the four of them, and Brad’s mom waits until the food’s all been passed and wine poured, before she starts.

“So, Nate, tell us about yourself.”

Brad sets his jaw and breathes through his nose, lifts his gaze to Nate. Nate just raises that goddamn eyebrow at him and says in his best Ivy League Schoolboy voice, “Yes, Ma’am, what would you like to know?”

“Well, I’m sure it won’t surprise you, knowing Brad, that we know very little about you. We don’t even know how you two met, or how long you’ve been. Seeing each other.”

Nate clears his throat and smirks at Brad.

“We met in, what was it Brad, 2002?”

Brad just glares.

“2002, Brad, really!” his mother looks at him accusingly. “I had no idea it had been so long.”

“Well,” Nate goes on quickly, “we didn’t become involved until a few years later, after I left the Marine Corps. But 2002 was when I was first attached to Brad’s Recon unit as his platoon commander.”

Then he grins a shit eating grin at Brad, while silence descends over the table.

Brad’s father clears his throat.

“We didn’t, uh.” He shoots Brad a withering look. “Brad didn’t mention you’d served together.”

“You’re Lieutenant Fick,” his mother says, suddenly connecting the dots, “from the book.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Nate nods, still grinning, clearly enjoying himself far too much for Brad’s liking.

Brad eats silently while Nate answers all his parents’ questions. He takes the liberty of refilling his wine glass more than once, while everyone else is occupied with discussing the intimate details of Brad’s personal, private business. He watches his mother being charmed right before his eyes, watches as Nate has her eating out of his hand in no time. Brad helps himself to a little more wine.

After dessert and coffee, Brad’s mom pulls out the photo albums, and she and Nate laugh at Brad’s bare ass in the bathtub as a baby, at his little league photos and at Brad smiling with a mouth full of braces.

Then there’s Brad in his cadet’s uniform, his first year at the academy. Brad’s pretending not to pay attention, flipping through a magazine, but he sees Nate’s expression change, sees him take a particular interest in that one. Nate doesn’t know much about exactly when and why Brad was sent there, but he can see the curiosity in the way Nate’s studying that picture.

And then his mom turns the page, and Brad can see from Nate’s face, there’s him and Val.

“I think that’s enough for one night, mom. Nate will be here all week, you’ve got to ration the embarrassing material.”

Nate looks up at him, eyes soft, little smile playing at the edge of his mouth. Brad looks back down at the article he’s not really reading.

“Oh, all right,” his mom closes the book, shaking her head at Nate like you know how he gets, like the two of them are in this together.  Brad forces his fingers to remain loose, relaxed where they hold the magazine. It takes some effort.

“A redhead, huh?” Nate says, once they’re alone in the car on the way back to the hotel. “For some reason I always pictured her as a blonde.”

“Why are you picturing her at all?” Brad asks, maybe a little too sharply. The evening, he’s starting to realize, has taken a toll on his mood.

Nate fixes him with a perturbed look, one that screams give me a fucking break.

“For a woman I don’t even know, her decisions have had a pretty major impact on my life. You really think I’ve never had occasion to wonder about her?”

Brad feels the gathering wave of his irritation come to a sudden and acute crest.

“I know you think she made me this way – that she’s the reason I’m. Damaged, or whatever. But the truth is I was fucked up way before she came along, so. It’s not really fair to blame her decisions.” Brad keeps staring straight ahead, eyes on the road, but he can see Nate out of the corner of his eye.

He doesn’t look happy.

“Jesus Christ,” frustration is evident in Nate’s sigh. “That’s not what I fucking meant, Brad. Did it ever occur to you, if she hadn’t decided to break it off, you would have been fucking married when I met you? If she’d stuck around, you and I never would have happened. So yes, I have thought about that. And yes, I have wondered about what kind of woman could be brilliant enough to make you love her, but stupid enough to let you go. Fucking sue me.”

They’re silent the rest of the drive, silent as they climb out of the car, silent as they ride the elevator up to the room, a more-than-just-respectable distance left between them. Brad is silent as he slumps onto the little sofa to pull off his boots; Nate is silent as he tugs off his t-shirt and shoves off his jeans, goes to wash his face, brush his teeth.

Brad watches him, feeling like an asshole, and not sure how it is that he can continually allow himself to expect the worst, when Nate consistently gives him nothing but his best. How the hell can he respect and love and believe in Nate as much as he does, and still doubt him at every turn? How can he constantly question the intentions of a person that he would, and quite literally has, trusted with his life? Brad feels like a fucking retard. Like a coward.

His natural inclination to let Nate lead, to always follow, has somehow translated into letting Nate be the point man while Brad hides behind the cover Nate provides. Nate is the one taking all the direct fire, shielding Brad’s precious fucking feelings. Not only is it patently unfair to Nate, it’s fucking undignified. It’s conduct unbefitting and un-fucking-becoming a warrior.

And Brad is a warrior, if he’s nothing else. It’s the one thing he’s always had, always known for gut-sure, and he knows it’s past time he starts fucking showing it.

He shrugs out of his clothes and goes to stand behind Nate, so he’s there in the mirror when Nate’s done gargling. His arms wrap around, his mouth goes to Nate’s neck, slides up to his ear.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, “I’m really fucking sorry.”

Nate’s eyes are bright green in the mirror, his head leaned to the side to give Brad access to his neck.

“I know.” He doesn’t look mad, just. Sad maybe, or. Worried.

“I know this part is hard for you – letting me meet your family, letting them know things about your life when you’re used to keeping all this shit in separate compartments. I know you’re doing all of this for me, and I want you to know, I see that.”

He turns in the circle of Brad’s arms, rests his forehead against Brad’s shoulder.

“And I can try to be more patient. But you’re going to have to prepare yourself for the fact that I’m going to want to hear about her – all the gory details. I want to know the when and how and why. I want to know about the guys, too; when you realized, how you felt about it, what you did about it. The first time you sucked a dick,” Nate’s mouth slides up into a short-lived little smirk. “I want to hear about Susannah, and Military School. I want to know all of it Brad, and not because I’m nosy, or because I think it’s fun to make you squirm. It’s because all of that built you, and I have a keen fucking appreciation for the way you’re built.”

He raises his eyes, kisses Brad’s mouth, slow and sweet. “You know there’s nothing, and nobody, that means more to me than you, and there never will be. You’re it - you know that, right?”

Brad feels like he can’t breathe, something choking and hot flaring up inside of him, some kind of longing. Some kind of desperate wishing that what Nate says could be true, even though that insidious fucking voice inside his head says it can’t possibly be. He tries to force himself to take it in, to feel it, accept it. To have the courage to let himself know it, but he can’t quite get there.

As usual, as always, Nate reads his mind as clearly as if Brad had said the words out loud. His face sets into a hard mask, previous gentleness gone in an instant, his mouth suddenly a tight, stern line.

“Get your ass on the bed, Colbert.”

He shoves Brad back, away from him, shoves him again in the direction of the bed, and Brad goes. He sits, leans back against the mountain of pillows, but Nate is advancing fast, climbing up over him, crashing into him, mouth hot and wet and open against Brad’s, tongue searching. His knees bracket Brad’s hips, closing around him tight, and his hands find Brad’s wrists, pinning them back to the bed on either side of Brad’s head.

Nate doesn’t do this often – actually use his strength. Usually there’s a natural balance of push and pull between them, both giving as good as they get, but if anyone is going to take on the role of aggressor, it’s typically Nate who’s content to let Brad manhandle him, let Brad play the predator, the Alpha Male. But now Nate has him held down firmly, fingers circling Brad’s wrists hard enough to bruise, knees and thighs and shins all precisely positioned to keep Brad right where he is, reminding Brad that he can. He’s right where Nate wants him, and Brad knows this is no game, not tonight.

Tonight, if Brad tried to get away, tried to flip them over and gain the tactical advantage, he can see in his eyes – Nate is prepared to fight.

Not that Brad would try, not for anything. Nate like this – powerful, exacting, commanding - makes him crazy, hitting all the old buttons that used to light him up, back when this was the only version of Nate he knew. Brad is vibrating, his cock rock hard, his heart racing. He feels wild and out of control, desperate for – something. Something he can almost taste, almost feel, but he can’t name.

“You need to fucking believe me, Brad.” There’s a flinty edge to Nate’s voice, a clipped and precise quality to his words that Brad would recognize anywhere, it’s get out of the hole and we’re done here, Brad. It knocks the wind out of him and sends his mind swirling back over years and continents, until he can smell the desert, taste the grit of sand in his mouth, feel the oppressive heat.

Nate’s looking down at him, calling up that old, familiar, hard-ass Lieutenant Fick glare, and Jesus, Brad’s eyes close against that look, his last line of defense. In the dark behind his eyelids, Nate’s face is smudged with dirt and grime, hair shorn and eyes bloodshot.

“Open your goddamn eyes,” Nate hisses, brooking no disobedience, and he sits down firmly, suddenly, on Brad’s crotch. Through the thin, loose fabric of both of their skivvies, he can feel the weight of Nate’s balls, heavy and hot on his, then the slide of Nate’s erection against his own as Nate leans over to bring his face closer. Brad bucks, involuntarily. Slowly, he forces his eyes to flutter open.

“You have to believe me,” Nate says, low and calm. “For this to work, you have to decide to believe me.”

Brad tries to swallow, but the lump in his throat makes it impossible. He stares up at Nate, uncharacteristically helpless.

“I’d take a bullet for you, Brad. I know you believe that.”

Brad nods. That one’s easy.

“Yeah,” he says thickly, “I know.” But immediately that voice is reminding him, Nate would take a bullet for any Marine. He’d take a bullet for a stranger in a convenience store robbery. He’d step in front of a bus to push a stray dog out of the way. That’s just Nate – heroic, courageous, honorable. That doesn’t make Brad special.

He tries to shake it off, get that shit out of his head.

“Have I ever lied to you?”

Nate keeps coming closer, hot breath ghosting over Brad’s face, eyes fierce and bright.

“No.”

“Do you have some reason to believe me a generally untrustworthy person?”

“No.”

“Then do you have any evidence to support your apparent belief that I am for some reason incapable of knowing my own mind?”

“That’s not -.” Brad starts, but Nate cuts him off.

“Because that’s essentially what you’re saying, Brad, when you refuse to believe me. You’re saying that either you think I’m lying to you, or you think I’m just mistaken about my own feelings. Which is it?”

Brad very badly wants to close his eyes again, but he forces himself to hold Nate’s gaze. He pants, short and shallow breaths, and shakes his head.

“I’m not refusing,” he whispers, his voice rough. “Jesus. I know it doesn’t make sense, for it to be this hard. Don’t you think I fucking know that?”

“Is there anyone or anything more important to you than me?” Nate asks, voice gentling suddenly, his eyes unguarded, letting Brad see everything.

“No one,” Brad croaks weakly, feeling pathetic and exposed, “nothing.”

“I’m the most important thing in your life,” Nate affirms. Brad just nods.

“Of course.”

“I believe you,” Nate breathes against his mouth. “I believe you because I trust you implicitly, and if you say it, I know it’s the truth. And I know it’s difficult for you, opening yourself up to this. But difficult is your bread and butter, Marine. Difficult is nothing to you. Difficult is just another mountain to climb, another obstacle course to conquer, another fucking war to win. So I don’t give a shit how fucking difficult it is, you’re gonna get yourself squared away, Gunny. You can consider that a motherfucking order.”

Then Nate kisses him and kisses him, slides down and envelops his cock in that hot, sweet mouth, pushes spit-slick fingers up into Brad’s body and mouths at his hole until he’s squirming, pleading, then sinks into him, agonizingly slow and smooth, pushing in and out of him until he’s hypnotized by the rhythm of it, until he loses track of himself and his stupid, traitorous brain, until suddenly his orgasm is wrung out of him with three, four, five quick, unexpected strokes of Nate’s hand on his weeping, neglected cock.

Brad shivers through the aftershocks, Nate still moving inside him, faster now, faster, until he feels Nate’s body seize, feels the stutter of his hips as he comes. He collapses down onto Brad, and Brad wraps his arms and legs around and over Nate, keeps him there, tight and close while their heaving turns to panting turns to deep, even, synchronized breathing.

“Was that your attempt to fuck some sense into me, Captain?” Brad says, finally, and Nate’s laugh is warm and damp against Brad’s neck.

“Somebody had to,” Nate smirks. “Given that your ass is my exclusive AO, the mission naturally fell to me. And that is not a complaint.”

“Nate,” Brad breathes, feeling broken-open, but in the good way, the way he only does when he’s coming down from the high of whatever it is Nate does to him. “You and I would’ve happened, either way.”

Nate just looks down at him, a little wary. Brad keeps him wrapped up and pulled tight, and he doesn’t look away when he continues.

“I could have been married when we met, but it wouldn’t have fucking mattered. All bets were off, once I knew you.”

Nate’s eyes go soft, but he shakes his head a little.

“You don’t have to -.”

“I did love her.” Brad pushes on, past the messages from his brain that tell him to shut the hell up and it’s no one’s business but his own. “Out of everyone, she chose me. To a dumb fucking kid that felt like no one wanted him, that meant something. It meant a lot.” Brad swallows, breathes, forces himself to exercise some of that fucking Iceman calm, to draw on the courage he knows is inside him. “But it would never have worked, in the long run. She needed me to want something other than what I wanted, to be something other than what I was. Am. So yes, if she hadn’t walked away, I might have married her, might even have stayed with her, let it run its course.”

Brad shrugs.

“But there’s no possible scenario in which I could have followed you through Iraq and come out of it not wanting you. Once you came into the picture, everything and everyone else became. Irrelevant.”

Nate’s mouth turns up into a pleased little smile, something underneath telling Brad he wasn’t expecting that. Brad watches him take it in.

“See, so she saved us both a lot of trouble, by just taking herself out of the equation ahead of time.  You didn’t have to go through a messy divorce, I didn’t have to live with the guilt of being the other woman. We should write her a Thank You note. Maybe send flowers.”

Brad just snorts. They’re a cold, sticky, disgusting mess, and the head of Nate’s flaccid cock is still occupying Brad’s ass, drying come oozing slowly out of him. He lets his arms and legs go slack.

“Shower,” Brad directs, and Nate pushes himself up, out of Brad, off Brad, off the bed. Brad’s right behind him, following him into the bathroom.

“So I wasn’t imagining it, in Iraq?” Nate asks, once they’re locked in the steamy shower, scalding hot water beating down. “Sometimes I was so certain, it felt so obvious, but sometimes. Sometimes I convinced myself I was making something out of nothing, just - seeing what I wanted to see. I’ve thought sometimes that maybe it happened later, for you.”

Brad just looks at him, the same silent, imploring look that he damn well knows Nate will recognize from their time in the desert. Then he shrugs. “I was in love with you, even then. Hell, I might have been in love with you before we even hit Mathilda. I just didn’t know that’s what it was, yet.”

“I’m glad to know it wasn’t just me,” Nate says gently, his eyes bright, “but I hope you’re prepared to deny that to your dying day.”

“You mean you don’t think your future constituents will appreciate that our deep and abiding homosexual love was forged in the patriotic fires of a righteous American war?”

Nate exhales roughly, shakes his head. The side of his mouth quirks up, just barely.

“I really, really don’t.”

+ + +

Nate meets the extended family on the first night of Hanukkah. He asks a bunch of pertinent and insightful questions about the history and traditions of the holiday, which delights Brad’s mother and sisters alike.

His parents, his siblings, even their spouses, of course the kids – everyone loves Nate. Brad slowly starts to realize that somehow, he feels more a part of his own family with Nate there. Nate bridges that invisible gap Brad has always felt, pulls Brad closer to the family just by talking about him in a way Brad’s never been comfortable talking about himself.  They’re seeing Brad from a new perspective, they have a vantage point Brad could never find it in himself to give them, and they have it because of Nate.

When they leave for the airport a few days later, he’s afraid he’s going to have to pry Nate from his mother’s clutches when she hugs him goodbye, but she lets him go on her own. Eventually.

She hugs Brad just as hard, and whispers thank you, sweetheart. Brad’s not exactly sure what she’s thanking him for, so he just nods and lets her hug him as long as she wants, forces himself not to be the first to pull away.

Nate’s on Brad’s flight to Atlanta, connecting from there to DC. They say their own goodbyes between gates, a quick hug, a bump of their shoulders, a discrete, fleeting tangling of their fingers before they step apart.

They’re aware, of course they are, that Congress is voting on the DADT Repeal in this month’s session, and they know it’s likely going to pass. Brad’s not sure exactly what that’s going to look like, or exactly what it’s going to mean, but for the first time, he feels like maybe it actually matters to him, like he should actually give a shit.

Like maybe, at some point, when someone at work asks him what he did this weekend, he’ll just say I went to Charlotte instead of saying nothing much, just let them ask what’s in Charlotte then tell them, let the chips fall where they may.

Like maybe the next time he has occasion to part ways with Nate in an airport or other public location, they’ll just kiss goodbye and not give a shit.

Like normal humans.

+ + +

On Christmas Eve, Brad and Nate walk into the Fick kitchen to find Nate’s mom pulling something delicious-smelling out of the oven.

“Rack of lamb, not suckling pig,” Nate grins at him, eyes flashing bright green.

“What about the caroling?” Brad shoots back, and Nate just shrugs.

“You’ll have to wait and see.”

Brad obediently bows his head and holds Nate’s hand with his left, and Liz’s hand with his right, when it’s time to say Grace. Nate’s dad gives thanks for the food and for having everyone together, and for their family growing by one more this year. Brad doesn’t realize, until Nate and Liz both squeeze his hands, that they’re talking about him. When he lifts his head, he breathes Amen along with everyone else, and doesn’t even mind.

Over dinner, Maggie tells stories about last Christmas Eve, about Brad calling and Nate running from the room to answer his phone.

“I did not run,” Nate rolls his eyes at her, then looks at Brad. “I didn’t run.”

“Fine,” Maggie snorts, “Nate skipped out of the room to answer the phone, and came back all bashful and blushing.”

“This is all a pack of lies,” Nate shakes his head ruefully. “A shameful misrepresentation of the truth.”

“Like a teenage girl whose crush just asked her to the prom,” Maggie stage-whispers at Brad, nodding pointedly.

Nate glares, and Brad laughs.

It turns out, the carols take place around the piano, and Nate is the accompanist. Brad had no. fucking. idea.

He also had no fucking idea that Nate is an excellent singer.

He watches Nate’s long fingers move deftly over the keys, playing songs Brad mostly only kind-of knows but to which all the Ficks sing along with gusto. Nate just grins at him, singing loudly and playing beautifully and laughing.

“You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?” Brad says later, as they climb the steps to Nate’s townhouse. He doesn’t have to specify which surprises he means.

“I heard once that you’re a Manilow fan,” Nate cuts his eyes sideways, sly as he unlocks the door. “I could play some for you, sometime. Maybe some Mandy? I Write the Songs?”

“Barry Manilow is an American treasure, Nate,” Brad deadpans. “But really, why don’t you ever play?”

“I don’t know,” Nate shrugs, “got busy, I guess. Just forgot to keep doing it.”

“Like surfing?”

Nate drops his keys on the table by the door, and turns to Brad, eyes full of something Brad can’t place.

“Like surfing, I guess, yeah.”

“Do you remember telling me that?”

Nate reaches out a finger and snags Brad’s belt loop, tugs him closer.

“Of course I remember.”

“You remember saying how you would look for me out on the water?”

Brad watches the rise and fall of Nate’s throat, his eyes on Brad’s as he swallows thickly.

“I do. I wasn’t drunk enough to not remember. Just drunk enough to start something I wasn’t drunk enough to finish.”

“I spent a lot of time in England, thinking about that. Wondering if it meant what I wanted it to mean, when you said you thought you could recognize me by the way I moved. Wondering what would have happened if I’d done something different, said something different, that night at your place. Wishing I hadn’t let go, when you pulled away.”

Nate blinks at him, eyes wide and bright green, intent and focused.

“The thing is, I never thought I could have actually had you. Fucked you, maybe. If I had played my cards right, gotten lucky. But to actually have you, for myself, for good?” Brad shakes his head, lets his breath out a disbelieving huff. “I never expected to want anyone like that again. And then when I did, when it was you. It felt like the universe playing a cruel fucking joke. I felt like the biggest fucking idiot on earth, for even entertaining the thought of something so impossible.”

“Brad,” Nate pulls him in closer, brings their bodies flush. He pushes Brad against the wall, holds him there with his own weight, and takes Brad’s face in both his strong hands. “I was so used to looking at you and knowing exactly what you were thinking, but when I looked at you that night, after the Paddle Party - I couldn’t read you, I wasn’t sure. And I was just so afraid that I’d get it wrong, and you’d be. Disgusted. Or worse yet, feel obligated. I felt like the biggest fucking idiot on earth, trust me.”

“Wanted you so bad,” Brad lowers his voice to a growl. “Even when I thought I shouldn’t, even when I thought it was pointless and stupid and. Weak, to want you. I’ve always wanted you, and not just wanted you,” he pulls Nate in by his ass, thrusting their hips together by way of emphasis, grinding his half-hard cock against Nate with a barely there grin. “But wanted you to belong to me. Always.”

Nate eyelids flutter and he smiles, small and soft.

“I always did. Maybe not from the first time I fucking met you, but close enough. From way before I had any right to feel that way, way before I had any reason to believe you would want me to be, I was already yours, Brad. You know?”

It’s not really a question this time. Brad nods, affirmative. He lets himself feel it, when Nate says it – lets the truth of it penetrate. It scares the shit out of him, but he believes it, none the less.

Nate brings his mouth close to Brad’s, breath hot against Brad’s face, voice low and thick, smooth and liquid like honey.

“I’ve been thinking about it, what you said before, and I think you were right. You and I were always going to happen. It was just a matter of when.”

“Yeah,” Brad breathes into his mouth, bringing their lips together slowly, carefully. “Yeah.”

A week later, Brad is back in Columbus when Nate opens his front door to find a moving crew with a piano on his front sidewalk. It comes with an Air Supply songbook, and a note that says Happy New Year

20. 2011

Nate’s new piano sits in the living room of his 2-bedroom townhouse. There’s nowhere else for it to go, the place is so small. He thinks about moving, maybe somewhere with a basement with room for the piano, and a third bedroom so he could actually have a guest room, rather than a futon in his jam-packed office. He’s thirty-three years old and in charge of a whole company, for God’s sake; a futon is starting to feel like an effort to dissuade people from visiting more so than anything that could be construed as hospitality.

Not that he has many guests, really. Other than Brad, who certainly doesn’t need his own separate bed to sleep in, much less a whole room. The occasional buddy from college or the Corps passing through town is really about it, but. But he can’t help thinking, in the future, when he and Brad can actually live together, that maybe his parents, his sisters, their families, maybe Susannah will want to come visit them.

It would be nice to have the room to invite them, Nate thinks. It would be nice to have a basement for the piano, and a giant big screen for movies. Definitely a garage, for Brad’s bike and whatever other things Brad would do in a garage. Definitely some privacy, no shared walls and no nosy neighbors. Nate can’t help thinking, the last thing he needs when he’s running for congress in a few years is the guy whose bedroom is on the other side of the wall from theirs talking to some gossip blog about his muffled impressions of their sex life.

Nate also can’t help thinking, sometimes, about Brad in his dress uniform, holding a copy of the constitution while Nate is sworn in as a member of the United States Congress. So, it’s possible he occasionally lets his imagination run away with him, just a little.

In reality Nate is an Ivy League graduate, a combat veteran, and a best-selling author who also happens to think well on his feet and look pretty damn good on camera, if he does say so himself. He’s the CEO of an influential, non-partisan think tank that brings him into regular contact with most of the movers and shakers on the Hill, and he’s on the board of several charitable foundations and Veteran’s affairs organizations, as well as being a Dartmouth College Trustee, and sitting on several State Boards and Committees, as appointed by the Governor’s office. He couldn’t be better positioned for a congressional run, at this stage in the game. It will only be a few more years now, and he’ll be ready.

In reality, the fact that he’s also in a relationship with a man - a man who once served under him in his direct chain of command, no less - may negate all that and take the legs right out from under his political ambitions.

Sometimes that fact just feels depressing, and other times it makes him furious, but it never, ever makes him want to take anything back, to make any different choices.

Because if the people of the great state of Maryland can look at Brad Colbert and think of him as a liability, rather than the incredible asset he is, then Nate may be forced to reconsider his opinion of his fellow Marylanders.

And anyway, it’s a few more years before he needs to worry about all that.

+ + +

For all the time he spends there, about all Nate’s ever seen of the city of Charlotte is the Sheraton Hotel at the airport.

His usual Friday night flight gets him in just past 21:00. When he lands, there’s always a text from Brad telling him whether he should take the Hotel shuttle, or look for Brad at the curb. Depending on when Brad can get away from Columbus and how the Friday night traffic looks through Atlanta, it can go either way.

If he’s honest, it always gives him a little thrill when the text says Brad’s outside. It’s practically undignified, really, the charge he gets when he walks out the doors, messenger bag stuffed full of clothes jammed in alongside the usual laptop and take-home work, and Brad’s there straddling his bike, boots and jeans and leather jacket and gloves, extra helmet balanced on his knee. There’s something about the juxtaposition of Brad at his hottest and most badass, while Nate’s in his day-old suit and tie looking every bit the rumpled, non-descript business traveler, looking like Brad’s polar opposite. Something about the nonchalant way Brad hands him the helmet without a word, the way Nate can feel eyes on them, this seemingly odd couple, as he straps the helmet on and climbs on behind Brad, the way he fits himself right up against Brad’s back, no friendly distance between them, no nervous joking about riding bitch or trying to broadcast no-homo by holding onto the seat behind him instead of the body in front of him. He knows there’s no ambiguity and nothing left to the imagination when he wraps his legs and his arms around Brad tight, grabbing handfuls of the leather on the front of Brad’s jacket, and they speed off with an ostentatious roar.

Nate imagines everyone staring after them. He imagines every person there, man or woman, is jealous when they see him with Brad between his thighs like that. He feels like the chosen one, like he’s winning some fucking grand prize, every single time.

He’s willing to entertain the possibility that he’s just the tiniest bit pathetic when it comes to Brad, but the reality is he doesn’t even fucking mind.

At the hotel, the desk clerks recognize them by now. Nate always makes the reservation – or, to be real, has Ingrid make the reservation – so they nod at him, nice to see you again Mr. Fick, but if Brad arrives first they know to give him a key, no special instructions needed.

Nate idly wonders what the hotel staff thinks they’re doing here every weekend.

They stay mostly in the same room, order mostly the same room service breakfasts, go to mostly the same three or four nearby restaurants for dinner.

Occasionally on Saturday afternoons they’ll talk about seeing the sights, maybe taking in a movie, but there’s nothing on trip advisor to tempt them into undertaking acts of tourism, no movie that’s worth leaving the room to see, once they take into account the fact that the in-room selections can be viewed naked from their bed.

“I wondered,” Nate pants, “if maybe seeing you more often would eventually make it -. Less.”

He’s leaned down, breath ghosting over Brad’s face, hands on either side of Brad’s head. Brad’s eyes are focused on Nate’s, fingers dug into the skin of Nate’s hips, the look on his face intense and searching as Nate raises himself up onto his knees then lowers back down slowly. Nate’s thighs are burning, they’ve been at it so long.

“Less what?” Brad asks, rolling his hips up to meet Nate’s downward thrust. It’s slow, so decadently slow; these days, they’ve got all the time in the world.

“Less like this,” Nate groans as he adjusts his hips again, Brad’s cock sliding home just right, with just the right angle to make Nate’s vision white out at the edges. “Jesus Christ, you make me so. Fu-uck.”

“Maybe this is just how it is, no matter how often we do it,” Brad’s grin is feral, his voice rough. Nate feels the pressure of Brad’s thighs against his ass as Brad pulls his knees up, braces his feet on the bed. “Maybe you’ll just have to come to terms with the fact that this is your life now.”

He fucks up into Nate in earnest now, increasing the pace, the force lifting Nate’s knees right off the bed, driving him forward so he has to brace himself against the tall wooden headboard.

In the low light from the muted TV, Nate can see a handprint highlighted in stark relief on the glossy wood, just an inch to the left of where his hand is now, at just the same height. The length of it, the spread of the fingers matches Nate’s exactly, and a low, huffed laugh escapes him as Brad fucks into him again, rocking him further forward. This is the first time he’s been in this position this weekend, but not the first time he’s been in this position in this bed – not by a long shot.

Apparently, housekeeping doesn’t bother to polish the headboard that regularly.

“Get your fucking hand on your cock,” Brad grunts, sweating now, working hard. “Wanna watch you come all over me.”

Nate doesn’t need to be told twice. He keeps his left hand against the headboard for balance, jacks himself with his right. Brad’s lips are wet and open, his eyelids heavy, but his gaze is rapt, focused on Nate’s hand while his hips drive his cock up into Nate, lifting his ass up off the bed, making them both hiss and gasp.

“Fuck yes,” he growls, “Jesus, fuck. Love you like this, look so fucking good.”

Nate’s breath catches, his fingers squeezed tight around his cock; one more stroke and then Brad finds that angle again and that’s it, Nate’s coming all over his fist and all over Brad’s belly, up to his chest.

Brad keeps fucking into him, again, again, while Nate goes slack on top of him, barely staying upright, sweaty and spent. He clenches his ass around Brad, purposefully – squeeze and release, squeeze and release – until a last, straggling, almost painful little dribble of come spurts out of his cock, until Brad makes a high-pitched sound, somewhere between surrender and protest. His fingers dig deeper into the skin of Nate’s hips, forcing him down hard and holding him there while Brad bucks up, lifting himself completely off the bed but for his shoulders and feet and goddamn, but Nate is always taken, still, by how strong Brad is. Nate can feel the heat flood into him when Brad comes, and he slumps over completely, face pressed into Brad’s sweaty neck as Brad’s legs finally give out and they flop back down to the mattress.

“That thing you do with your ass is just not fucking fair,” Brad whispers against his temple with a low laugh, still panting. He turns his head to suck at Nate’s neck, the side of his jaw.

“You know what they say,” Nate counters, and he doesn’t need to finish, all’s fair in love and war. It’s understood.

He slides off to the side, Brad’s cock falling out of him as he goes. He stretches his stiff legs out straight, lying face down. Brad turns onto his side, face toward Nate, rough fingers tracing down his spine, over the swell of Nate’s ass, down the back of his thigh. Nate shivers a little, under the caress.

Nate points up at the headboard, at his two left hand prints side by side.

“One of those is from when we did that, what was it, two weeks ago? Do you think we’re becoming predictable?”

Brad looks, takes in the hand prints, and smirks.

“Nothing wrong with a repeat performance, when the show’s that good.”

Nate grins at him.

“That one is one of our greatest hits.”

“Maybe it’s just the setting that’s getting predictable. I could come to you sometimes now, you know,” Brad’s voice is right in Nate’s ear, side of his mouth turned up in a sort-of smile. “I could fly.”

Nate pushes his hand up under his chin, raises up enough to look Brad in the eye.

“I was thinking about maybe buying a place.” He keeps his eyes on Brad, watching. “Or, actually. What I was thinking was maybe we’d buy a place. A house. Together.”

They’ve talked about it, in a nebulous, sometime-in-the-future kind of way - about the East Coast making the most sense, about how staying in D.C. after he retires will give Brad plenty of good opportunities, and about how even if Nate’s political ambitions go nowhere, D.C. still makes the most sense for him, too. Nate’s also eager to move from Prince George’s County, which has a tendency to be used as a political bargaining chip, to the less volatile Charles County which has always been solidly in the Maryland 5th. The last thing he needs is to suddenly find himself owning property on the wrong side of a re-districting squabble.

Brad knows all this; Nate thinks none of this should come as a surprise. And he certainly can’t imagine any possible reason why if he’s going to buy a house, he should do it without Brad.

Brad looks like he’s about to disagree.

“What kind of house?”

“One with space. No sharing walls. A third bedroom, a basement. Finally move to Charles County, find somewhere with a little more room to breathe. Where I can play my piano as loud and as late as I want, and you can have a giant fucking TV and a garage. That kind of house.”

Brad looks skeptical.

“And that should only run what, seven, eight hundred grand?”

“Nah, I think half a Mil should get it.” Nate tries for humor. Brad’s not biting.

“I can’t afford to buy a half-million dollar house, Nate.” Brad looks at him warily, like he should know better. And Nate is well aware of, and sensitive to, the economic chasm between a private sector CEO’s salary and what shows up on the check of an NCO on payday. But despite that, he refuses to be swayed.

“Half a half-million dollar house,” Nate feels he should point out. “So, you know. Only a quarter-million, really.” Brad just grits his teeth, nostrils flaring with the volume of his silence.

“Look, I’ve got book money. I’ll put a chunk down up front, so the mortgage is manageable. I’m not worried about it.”

“How nice for you.” Brad’s face sets into a hard line, and Nate’s chest feels tight. He didn’t mean for this to be a thing. Everything felt so good, just a few minutes ago, Brad’s face open and his voice soft. Now that’s all evaporated into thin air, along with Brad’s hand from the back of Nate’s thigh.

“I understand why it matters to you, Brad, I assure you I do. But I wish you’d just let me do this and not see it as. Whatever you’re telling yourself it is.”

“That book money is yours, Nate. Not mine, and not ours.”

“Turning it into something that is ours, that’s the whole fucking point.”

Brad maintains resolute silence, eyes focused on some far away point off in the distance. Nate gathers himself, and tries again.

“Brad. I think maybe I need to explain something, about the book.”

Brad still doesn’t say anything, doesn’t meet Nate’s eyes.

“When I started writing, I was just killing time. It wasn’t even a book, really, it was just sort of transcribing the notes I had, something to do. I wasn’t sleeping much at the time, and I was feeling a little – unmoored. School hadn’t started yet, and typing it all out, just. More than anything, it kept my mind busy.” He reaches out and runs his finger around the edge of Brad’s ear.

Brad shakes his head like a horse getting rid of flies, still won’t look at him. Nate presses on.

“The first time I emailed you about it, and you responded? That’s why there’s a book at all. That’s the only reason. Because I realized, the book was a way to reach out to you, a plausible excuse to keep in touch. So I kept writing, so I could keep having new shit to email you about.”

Brad’s eyes cut up to him, sharp and shrewd, suspicious. Nate rolls his eyes.

“You think I’d make up something that makes me look this pathetic, just to con you into purchasing real estate with me?”

Brad keeps his eyes focused intently, evaluating, but slowly his mouth softens, one side of it pulls up into a smirk.

“Jesus, you really did have it bad.”

Nate just snorts and grins. “And this is news, since?” He thinks now isn’t the time to throw anything back, none of what Brad has confessed slowly, over time, about how bad he had it, too.

“So your argument, if I follow, is that I should accept you using the book money as a down payment on our joint abode, because said money is only in your possession as a result of your crippling infatuation with my ass.”

“And your mouth,” Nate nods, then considers. “And hands, shoulders, back, eyes, and, of course, your cock.”

“I can say with certainty you’d never laid eyes on my cock, when you wrote that book.” Brad’s eyebrows rise toward his hairline, a challenge.

“True,” Nate concedes, “but I had a crippling infatuation with everything I’d imagined it to be.”

Brad huffs out a skeptical laugh, rolls toward him and half onto him, wrapping a leg and an arm around. Brad’s soft cock presses against Nate’s hip, and his mouth presses against Nate’s ear.

“And what exactly had you imagined it to be?” He growls with intent, like they didn’t just wring out their second orgasms of the day not half an hour earlier.

“Giant,” Nate shrugs, straight faced. “Perfect. Always hard and ready for me, whenever I want it.”

Brad just laughs, open and real, a loud, unselfconscious cackle. It makes Nate’s breath catch when it happens, it’s so infrequent.  Brad keeps grinding against Nate’s hip, his cock growing as he does.

“One out of three ain’t bad,” he whispers, and Nate does not disagree.

They keep the Do Not Disturb on their door all weekend, and as always when they check out the sheets are wrecked, blankets pulled off the bed, soiled towels strewn around the room.

Nate surveys the damage as they leave, and thinks on second thought, maybe there’s no need to wonder what the hotel employees think they’re doing every weekend.

+ + +

Nate stopped playing piano mainly because he was a teenager and as such, kind of a short-sighted idiot. But also, at least in part, he stopped because it got boring. He’s never been that into classical, and though he’s got nothing against musical theater, there were only so many show tunes he was interested in playing. His long-time piano teacher got frustrated with his disinterest, because all Nate wanted to do was tinker around, figuring out how to play songs from the radio by ear. Their working relationship sort of fizzled out, after that.

Nate has learned, since getting his new piano, that all he was missing back then was fucking YouTube.

He’s still pretty good at figuring things out by ear, but on YouTube, there’s a tutorial for every song ever. There are also lyric videos for every song ever. Nate has gone down one rabbit hole after another, finding a channel with a bunch of stuff he likes, and being introduced to songs and artists he’s never even heard of, watching tutorials and learning to play them on the piano before he’s ever even heard the song performed by the actual recording artist.

He thinks he understands why kids today are all addicted to the internet. Or so he’s been led to believe.

There are also some really cool arrangements for a long list of hip hop songs, even, and Nate has spent many a night perfecting his own versions of OutKast, Tribe, Wu-Tang, and Fugees on the piano.  He works his way up to Eminem, and the first time he makes it all the way through Lose Yourself without missing a word or a note, he feels a sense of accomplishment he hasn’t felt in a long time. He’s also breathing hard, like he just finished a run.

It’s not like Brad’s typically at the house that frequently, but now that they’re starting to look for a place to buy, he’s coming up more often. Nate’s gotten kind of used to using the piano to work out his stress in the evenings, and even though when Brad’s there he’s got other, more appealing means of working out his stress, Brad, of course, notices. He mentions how he’s never heard Nate play the piano, despite hearing Nate talk about playing the piano. He’s talked about it a lot.

Nate’s not sure why, but he feels oddly self-conscious, exposed, playing in front of Brad. When he says so, Brad rolls his eyes.

“So just to be clear. You’re willing – happy even - to get stark naked and spread eagled and let me tie you up, hold you down, make you beg, choke you on my cock until you cry, feed you my come, and spread your ass wide open so I can stick my cock into you and ejaculate inside your actual body. But playing a musical instrument in my presence is where you draw the line.”

Nate’s afraid he might actually be blushing, a little. Also, he’s got the beginnings of an erection. He clears his throat.

“Well. When you put it that way you make it sound like I’m being irrational.”

Brad just sits back in his chair and gestures at the piano, eyebrows raised expectantly.

“What are you -,” Nate starts, then an idea occurs to him. “Wait. Is this because you don’t believe me?”

Brad is silent.

“You think you bought me this piano, and I’m overselling how much I’m enjoying it, to cover up the fact that I’m not actually enjoying it that much?”

Brad holds his hands up, all mock innocence and don’t look at me, but Nate narrows his eyes.

“Fine, you ass.” He sits down on the bench, doesn’t bother to break out the Air Supply book. He’s got it all memorized by now, anyway. “How’s this?”

He starts in with the instantly recognizable opening bars of Making Love Out of Nothing at All. He looks over to see Brad’s reaction, eyebrow daring Brad to disbelieve him now.

“Or this,” he goes on, transitioning seamlessly into the equally well-known beginning strains of Without You.

“Or hey,” he switches again, grinning, “here’s one I picked up, just to give you shit.”

He plays, watching Brad, looking for signs of recognition. When he doesn’t see them at the end of the intro, he breaks into song: I remember all my life / raining down as cold as ice /shadows of a man, a face through a window / cryin’ in the night, the night goes into / mornin’, just another day…

Brad’s just watching him, no reaction. Nate stops abruptly.

“Okay?” He asks, turning to straddle the bench, face Brad where he’s sitting in the chair. “I like it, really. I play pretty much every day. It’s probably -” He stops, nods, confirmed. “It’s good for me to have a hobby. I think I needed one. So you were right. I don’t know what else you want me to say.”

Brad just looks at him for a beat, eyes narrowed, then finally,

“I don’t want you to say anything,” he shrugs, his voice sounding oddly tentative, “I just want you to play the fucking piano. I don’t know why you’re trying to find an ulterior motive. Maybe I just like observing you doing something that you love, and at which you excel. Is that so hard to believe?”

Nate raises his eyebrows, not sure.

“We could take a spin on the bike, if you really need me to drive home my point.”

Nate narrows his eyes as realization dawns slowly.

“I don’t. So you’re saying - what?  You think it’s hot?”

Brad barely inclines his head, eyes widening slightly. His expression is the epitome of obviously.

Somehow, this wordless admission makes Nate’s heart pound, his palms clammy. Suddenly everything is different, more important. Brad isn’t giving him shit, Brad is impressed.

Nate’s mouth draws up on one side, knowing and sly. His chin drops as he looks at Brad from under his lashes, blinking slow.

“Well then,” he clears his throat and turns back to sit correctly on the stool, “in that case.”

He thinks about what Brad might like, but now he’s already ruined Air Supply and Manilow. Fucking idiot. He wonders if he should go for some other 80’s piano ballad, or maybe even something older, Carole King or James Taylor or something.

In the end the thing that comes to mind is the shortest song he knows how to play, and he goes with it.

He knows it’s only a minute and a half, but it feels like an eternity with Brad’s laser focused gaze heating up the side of his face.

When he finally finishes: I ain’t scared of lightin’/ and thunder never kills/ I was born in a summer storm/ I live there still, he lets the last note fade, feeling like he just walked through a fire of some kind. He takes another deep breath and then turns to look at Brad again. The lamp light from the table makes his skin shine like gold.

“What’s that song?” He asks, and his voice sounds kind of gruff.

“A relic of my moody early twenties?” Nate gives a little grin, still feeling fucking bashful, sure Brad will have some comment about his song choice.

Brad just stares, blank and bland, then stands up and walks to him, regards him intently.

“Would it be too cliché to say I want to fuck you on this piano?”

Nate snorts, surprised and embarrassed and pleased all at the same time. He meets Brad’s gaze, holds it steadily.

“That’s pretty fucking gay, Brad.”

“I’m pretty fucking gay for you, Nate.” Brad shrugs carelessly, and Nate’s poker face crumbles into a grin.

“Even so, that’s a no-go on defiling my piano, Gunny. Do you have any idea how hard it would be to clean come out from between these keys?”

Instead they go upstairs and defile their bed, like upstanding citizens.

The next morning they go house hunting with their extremely long-suffering agent.

Brad is silently appraising of everything they see, and his appraisal of each property, when Nate pulls him aside and insists on his feedback, is a resounding no. Too old, too traditional, too many stairs, no garage, needs too much work, too expensive, are these people on meth, whose asinine idea was this fucking mess, what kind of braindead moron puts carpet in a bathroom, is every house ever built in the state of Maryland legally required to be cut from the same bullshit, faux-neo-Colonial cloth – everywhere they go it’s something, just the same way it’s been something at every property they’ve seen the four previous weekends they’ve gone looking.

Good thing Nate didn’t expect it to be easy.

The last house of the day is in an established, densely-wooded neighborhood with plenty of space between the houses, and the Potomac at the end of the street. It’s a mid-century, single story beauty with cedar siding and a flat, modern roof line. It’s decidedly not Colonial, and decidedly not cookie-cutter.

The interior is wood and glass and stone. Masculine, but not overbearingly so, the agent says. Windows everywhere, every single one of them with built in, automatic shades that scream total privacy to Nate. The master bathroom has a giant soaking tub and an even bigger steam shower with so many spray jets and nozzles and dials that it looks like you could fly it to the moon. Nate just raises his eyebrows at Brad, who deigns to – almost imperceptibly - nod his silent agreement. There’s a three-car garage, a covered stone patio with a giant built in grill out back, and a wood-paneled office plus two extra bedrooms. There’s surround sound in the walkout basement, along with a wet bar, a full bath, and a cool mid-century pool table that stays with the property.

When Nate pulls Brad aside into the corner of the basement where he’s already imagining putting his piano, he starts, I know it’s expensive, but.

Brad just holds up his hand, fixes Nate with a look.

“I know,” he nods, resolved. “This is it.”

“And you’re okay with…?” Nate trails off into a shrug and a vague gesture.

“I put my house on the market.” Brad doesn’t look at him, voice steady and even like it’s no big deal. “Turns out property values in California have gone up just a little bit since 1998, so. The money thing isn’t such a big deal, after all.”

Nate wonders how Brad will take to fly fishing, while he tries to hide his grin.

+ + +

Labor Day weekend, Nate takes Brad out surfing in Sea Isle City.

Or maybe Brad takes Nate out.

Either way, they go out. Brad mocks the pussy New Jersey waves and details all the ways that Nate’s old, neglected surf boards are an affront to his personal integrity as a Californian and a reasonable human being. He calls Nate a weak-ass excuse for a surfer when it takes him 3 tries to stay on the board longer than half a second. Nate reminds him it’s been at least 13 years since he last stood up on a surfboard, and promptly rides the next one, staying on his feet all the way in.

Nate falls more than he stays up, but he gets better as the day goes on. They spend most of their time sitting silently, floating in and out of each other’s orbit as they wait for the waves. Nate can feel himself burning and freckling while Brad just gets more golden brown and fucking beautiful and shit.

Eventually Nate gives up and stays on the beach, hiding under a baseball cap with his shoulders protected by his beach towel. He helps his nephews bury his brother-in-law up to his neck in sand, then lays in the dunes and reads all while Brad stays way out in the water, waiting and hoping for a wave he deems worth riding. When he finally gets one, that heightened awareness that Nate has always had when it comes to Brad and his whereabouts suddenly kicks in and drags him back from the depths of his book, makes him look up just in time to see Brad, smoothly in control, slicing through the tiny space created by the curl before pushing back up and over the swell to catch the end of it. His board moves back and forth, quick and precise, then he catches air at the top, landing on his feet and gliding into shore.

He jogs up the beach with his board under his arm, looking like a fucking teenage dream for all that he’s just turned thirty-seven. He comes to a stop over Nate, water dripping from his nose onto Nate’s book.

“Not bad, if you’re into that kind of thing.” Nate observes drily, keeping his eyes focused on the page in front of him.

“What kind of thing would that be?” Brad sounds amused.

“You know, overt displays of physical prowess, blatant demonstrations of mastery and expertise. Etcetera.”

“I happen to know you are into that kind of thing.” Brad nudges Nate’s calf with a sandy toe, his voice rough, tone teasing. “In fact, I believe it’s the kind of thing you’re into.”

“Pot, kettle.” Nate looks up pointedly over the top of his shades. Brad has the audacity to give him a shit-eating grin.

“I regret we may have made a tactical error, when I flew straight into Atlantic City.”

Brad has no need to explain this observation; it’s understood. Nate has flashes of their room at his parents’ house, of his sisters’ rooms on either side, of kids everywhere and 13 people stuffed into one house for the long weekend. Had he flown into DC and ridden the rest of the way with Nate, they could have squeezed in a few minutes of alone time, at least, before privacy became non-existent.

As it is, Nate’s just going to have to improvise, because not touching Brad, and soon, seems unlikely at best, impossible at worst.

Once they’ve rinsed off in the outdoor shower beside the back steps, Nate leans in close.

“Your mission is to head straight to the room. Do not stop, do not speak to anyone, do not become distracted by family members who may try to waylay you.” He nods, all business. “Lube’s in my shaving kit, get yourself slicked up for me. We don’t have time for sweet talk and romance.”

Brad’s eyes flash.

“Oh, but sweet talk and romance are my favorite.”

Nate shoots him a slow, withering look.

“I’m assured of this,” he deadpans, “but you’ll have to make do with quick and dirty, just this one time. Rendezvous in ten.”

He punctuates it with a smack to Brad’s ass.

“Solid copy,” Brad says with precisely the degree of seriousness that Nate feels is warranted by the circumstances, and goes.

Nate wanders nonchalantly through the house, scoping the AO. The big kids are still out on the beach with both Nate’s brothers in law. The little kids are in the kitchen with Nate’s mom and Liz, being fed goldfish crackers and watermelon slices. Nate’s dad is asleep in his recliner. Only Maggie is missing.

He heads up the stairs and runs into her in the hall.

“What are you doing up here?” He asks.

She gives him a look that says I don’t answer to you, and shoves past him.

“Mom asked me to come put sheets on the beds, nosy. What are you doing up here?” She disappears into her room with a stack of sheets, her question clearly rhetorical.

“All the beds?” He asks, leaning into the doorway.

“Actually yes, but as long as you’re here.” She peels some sheets off her stack and slaps them into Nate’s hands, then smiles at him brightly. “You can do your own.”

“Ok,” he looks at her, “but also.”

He briefly weighs the fact that Brad has been away on special assignment for the last 30 days against the impropriety and embarrassment of essentially asking his sister to be his wingman.

He comes down firmly on the side of impropriety and embarrassment.

“Brad’s been working in Germany, you know,” he continues. “We haven’t seen each other in a month.” He raises his eyebrows meaningfully.

“It’s nice he could make it back in time for the holiday,” she says absently, fighting with the tight corner of the fitted sheet, stretching it taut around the mattress.  Then, slowly she cocks her head to the side, smirk on her face as realization dawns.

“Hang on. Are you asking me to leave so you can get laid?”

“Yes?” He shrugs. What else can he say, really? “And maybe just run a little interference, that’s all. Keep everybody downstairs and, you know. Out of ear shot.”

She laughs, loud and sharp, and shoves the rest of the sheets into his hands.

“Fine, but in that case, you and Brad are doing the sheets for all the beds.” She turns on her heel, leaving a half-shucked pillow on the mattress. “And I don’t have all day to guard the stairs. You have 15 minutes, then you’re on your own.”

“Thank you,” Nate hisses after her as he opens the door to his room.

“Have fun!” she yells, louder than could ever possibly be necessary. Nate rolls his eyes.

Brad is on sitting on the edge of the bed, damp towel tied around his waist, looking up expectantly.

“Was that Maggie?”

“She’s on watch.”

“So now your sister is aware of our intended activities,” Brad huffs. “Splendid.”

“I’m fairly certain she already assumed we’re sexually active, Brad. You thought she might be under the impression we’re saving ourselves for marriage?”

Brad rolls his eyes, but stands to meet him in the middle of the room; Nate pulls at the towel and is gratified to find that it comes away easily. He’s even more gratified to find Brad naked, underneath.

“Did you execute your orders?” He leers, pulling Brad in close. Brad smells like coconut and saltwater and sun and sweat. It might be the best thing Nate’s ever smelled.

“Yes, Sir.” Brad smirks, then covers Nate’s mouth with his own, kisses him deep and thorough.

“Jesus,” Nate pants, pressing his hardening cock against the heat of Brad’s hip, hands skimming down his back, grabbing two handfuls of his ass, “need to get my fucking cock in you, so bad.”

Brad just snorts.

“And you said there was no time for sweet talk.”

+ + +

Houston is like a swamp, 90 degrees at 7 p.m., and it’s almost fucking November. Nate tugs at his collar, pulls his tie even looser around his neck. His shirt sticks to his back, his forearm still damp from where he’d had his jacket slung over it on the walk here.  Three fucking blocks from the conference hotel to the bar, and he’s dripping sweat from the humidity.

The cold blast of the air conditioning does nothing to cool him off, just makes him feel clammy and disgusting.

He’s willing to consider the possibility that the nerves could also be contributing.

He hasn’t seen Mike Wynn in over a year; Nate’s looking forward to it, except for the part where he’s going to tell Mike about Brad.

Jesus.

That part is making Nate’s palms sweat right along with the rest of him.

DADT is over, the official implementation of the repeal went into effect just a few weeks ago, and Nate’s profile is already high enough and only getting higher. They co-own property, for fuck’s sake. Word is going to get out about them, eventually, and they’ve talked about being the ones to spread that word rather than letting it come from somewhere else. Like fucking CNN, for instance.

So when Nate committed to the conference in Houston, he called up Mike like he always does when he’s in Houston, and asked him to meet for a drink. He waited to talk to Brad about it until last weekend, until he couldn’t wait any longer.

“I’m seeing Mike Wynn next weekend.” They were out in the yard, bagging up the mountains of leaves they’d spent two hours raking and blowing into neat-ish piles.

“Give him my best,” Brad grunted absently, sticking his leg into one of the bags to stomp down on the leaves.

“You don’t suppose he’ll be curious as to why I’d be the one passing along your regards?” That’s as far as Nate got before Brad stepped out of the bag and looked at him, suddenly perfectly still. Nate just shrugged, you know I’m right.

“You want to tell him. About us.”

“I wouldn’t say want to. Not like I’m looking forward to it. But I think, maybe,” Nate shrugged again, biting his lip.

Brad’s eyes closed slowly, jaw clenched momentarily, then he let out a breath and nodded.

“Have to do it sometime.”

Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but Nate wasn’t going to be picky.

Mike arrives and wraps him up in a bear hug, claps him on the back and gives him shit about his fancy suit, calls him big shot. Nate just laughs, the lazy drawl of Mike’s deep voice putting him immediately at ease, as always.

Nate asks about work, about Cara and the kids, about college plans for the oldest, about band and football and cheerleading for the younger ones. He asks about the guys, who Mike’s heard from and who he hasn’t, which ones are up to no good and which ones are coming up in the world.

Nate’s not stalling, exactly - not like he’s uninterested in the answers to his million and one questions. But he’s aware that at the end of all the questions Mike will have some for him, and he’s aware that how he answers them may not be particularly well-received.

Because being gay is nothing, it’s no big deal, certainly never was to Mike, at least. But being in a relationship with a former subordinate is not something Mike is going to expect. There’s a better than average possibility it’s not something Mike is going to like, either.

Mike asks about the conference, about their work at CNAS and about Nate’s future plans. Nate’s never said, but Mike’s not an idiot – he knows politics is probably where this is all headed.

“Don’t you need to find a nice guy, settle down with some kids to complete the picture?” Mike smirks at him. “I hear Americans like their politicians to be family men.”

Nate knows his opening when he sees it. He takes a deep breath, and dives the fuck in.

“I’m actually seeing someone.” He starts, then shakes his head. “That’s not – I mean, that’s not entirely accurate, seeing someone. It’s more than that. We just bought a house. Together.”

Mike’s eyebrows go up.

“Sounds pretty serious.”

“It is, it’s. For good. Or such is the intention, at least.”

“Well shit,” Mike breaks out in a big grin, “’bout time, Nate. Congrats.” He raises his beer by way of a toast, and teases, “So who is this guy? Landed hisself a goddamn high value target.”

Nate snorts, rolls his eyes, scratches at the label on his bottle of beer and wills himself to look Mike in the face. He’s not going to be a mumbling pussy about this. He’s not.

“You know him, actually.”

“You mean what, he’s on TV or somethin’? Oh shit, is it Anderson Cooper?”

Nate shakes his head slowly as he blows out a breath, rolling his eyes with a grin.

“Nope.”

Mike’s eyes narrow, and Nate can practically see the Recon wheels in his brain whir to life.

“Don’t tell me you’re shacked up with the reporter.”

“Jesus,” Nate sputters, almost spit-takes his beer, “It’s not the fucking reporter.”

Mike nods slowly, eyes narrowing even more. His eyes on Nate feel hot, all of a sudden.

“Nate,” he says carefully, considering, “aside from Rolling Stone, the only people we both know are Marines.”

Nate just draws a long pull from his beer, and waits.

“Fuckin’ hell,” Mike swears under his breath. “Officer?”

Nate can almost hear Mike flipping through a mental list of possibilities, Officers that weren’t complete fuck-ups. He feels his face flush, but he forces himself to hold Mike’s gaze. He raises one shoulder, barely, cocks his head to the side, not exactly.

Mike’s eyes open wide, surprised and disbelieving.

“You’re not fuckin’ with me?”

“I’m not fucking with you.”

“Jesus, Nate. Who?”

Nate sucks his tongue against his teeth, breathes deep.

“Give it a minute, and I bet you only need one guess.”

Mike watches him, and Nate tries not to squirm.

“Shit.” Mike blinks. “You’re not. Are you fuckin’.” He leans in over the table and puts down his beer. He braces both elbows on the glass top and lets his head hang down between his hunched shoulders, looks up at Nate with narrowed eyes.

“Colbert?” His voice is an incredulous whisper. “Is this what you’re tellin’ me?”

A helpless laugh is forced out of Nate’s lungs, against his will. It’s possible a small part of him was hoping Mike wouldn’t be able to guess, that maybe his whatever – favoritism, reliance, dependence, particularly high fucking regard - for Brad hadn’t been as embarrassingly obvious as he’s always feared.

But then again, if Mike had guessed anyone else, that certainly wouldn’t have made Nate feel any better. He nods slowly.

“This is what I’m telling you.”

“Since when,” Mike wants to know, “does Brad Colbert get serious with anyone?”

Nate laughs again, notes that Mike’s not asking since when does Brad Colbert date men?

“Look, it’s not like it happened overnight. We didn’t exactly take the conventional route.”

“So you wore ‘im down, is what you’re sayin’.” Mike deadpans, wry and knowing, head cocked to one side in disbelief.

“Took me awhile,” Nate tries a little grin, tries for light and unworried. “He’s a stubborn motherfucker.”

“No shit,” Mike snorts, still looking at Nate with an edge of wariness, like maybe this is a giant practical joke. Like maybe he wishes it were.

Nate just holds his gaze, steady and unrelenting, sipping slowly from his beer.

“So that’s my big news, I guess.”

“I fuckin’ guess.” Mike huffs, sarcastic. He leans back in his chair, drains his beer. He slams it back on the table with a loud thunk.

“Jesus, y’know,” he’s shaking his head, still not quite believing, “when word was first makin’ the rounds, when you came out, Person – fuckin’ Person – made some off-hand comment, like, I wonder if Brad’s gone UA yet, or, like, shit, Brad’s gonna desert over this, somethin’ like that. I remember thinkin’ it didn’t really make sense, ‘cause you’d been out of the Corps awhile by then, and Brad was in the UK at the time. I thought what the fuck would Colbert care?”

Nate feels his face get hot and Gunny huffs, realizing.

“He knew! Fuckin’ Person fuckin’ saw it, saw somethin’ anyway, the little shit – he meant Brad was gonna go UA to come find you, once he heard.”

“And you didn’t think anything of it, when he said that?”

Mike raises his shoulders, palms up.

“It’s fuckin’ Person. Who’s got the goddamn time to waste, thinkin’ about all the shit he talks?”

“True,” Nate concedes with a shrug. Fucking Person.

“Shit, I need a real drink.” Mike waves down the waitress, orders them both whiskey this time.

“So when did this all -.” He makes a little motion with his hand, later, once they’ve both had a few, once the shock has worn off and the reality had a little more time to settle in. “Get underway,” he finishes diplomatically.

“Uhhhh,” Nate blows out a breathe while he pretends to think, “I guess, oh-six? When he finished his stint with the Royal Marines.” Nate clears his throat, somehow still a little embarrassed in spite of himself. “He didn’t go UA, but he did come find me as soon as he got back.”

“Oh-six,” Gunny breathes with a low whistle, sipping his whiskey neat. “Holy shit, Nate. Holy shit.”

“Like I said,” Nate shrugs, “it’s been a long time in the making.”

“But now you live together.”

“Well, I mean, he’s stationed at Fort Benning. We have a house together. He comes home on the weekends.”

“Home. To you.”

“Jesus, Mike,” Nate snorts, “do you have to say it like that? Yes, home to me.”

“Shit. So what, I mean. You said it’s for good, right? So you’re, what - you love ‘im?”

Nate’s eyes go wide and he shrugs, what can I say?

“And he – Brad fuckin’ Colbert – he loves you.” It’s a statement rather than a question, but he still sounds like he doesn’t believe what he’s saying.

Nate grins, feeling a little giddy from the whiskey. He makes the same face again, shrug of his shoulders, tilt of his head, arch of his eyebrows doing the talking for him.

“As in, he,” Mike pauses, hesitant. “Like he tells you that, and everything?”

Nate fixes him with a withering look, smirking and shaking his head.

“What do you want to hear, Gunny,” he teases, “that he’s good to me? He treats me right? I’m touched by your concern.”

“Well goddamn,” Mike laughs, throws his hands up, “excuse the hell outta me if I’ve got some trouble imaginin’ that shit.”

“Well, he’s good to me,” Nate’s voice goes a little soft despite himself; he tries to reign it in. “Really good. Tells me he loves me and everything, cross my heart.” He mimes drawing an ‘X’ on his chest, grinning. “Though he might leave me if he ever found out I just said that.”

“Fuck.” Mike breathes.

“We do that, too.” Nate can’t help himself, can’t help his shit-eating grin. “Also really good.”

“Aww, c’mon,” Mike screws up his face, waves a hand in Nate’s direction. Nate cackles, loud and a little drunk, and Mike laughs right back, just as drunk, groaning with feigned disgust.

Nate knows he’s probably grinning stupidly, but he can’t seem to make himself stop.

“You of all people know Brad and I were always – well, you know how we were. Right from the start, we had - something. A kind of understanding, short hand. Just like you and me, right? Except with Brad, it didn’t end with the job, it wasn’t just friends or colleagues or whatever. Took me a while to realize what it was, and even longer to figure out it wasn’t just me, that he felt it too.”

Mike looks at him, eyes narrowed and searching for a minute, like he’s still not convinced. Nate gives him a look, rolls his eyes like come on, really?

“When I asked you to guess, you guessed Brad for a fucking reason, Mike.” He raises his eyebrows, pointed.

Mike’s mouth twists sideways, chewing the inside of his lip, then finally he nods, like something’s settled in his head.

“Okay,” he confirms, “I guess - okay, yeah. Fuckin’ sneaky motherfuckers.”

Mike hugs him goodbye, eventually, just as warm and enthusiastic as when they hugged hello. Nate calls Brad on the walk back to his hotel.

“How was your evening?” Brad picks up on the first ring, and his voice sounds tight and distant, the way it does when he’s nervous but trying to seem above it all.

“Mike said to tell you, he thinks you can do better than some mouthy, over-educated Captain who couldn’t even hack a second hitch in the Corps.”

Even though he can’t see Brad’s face, Nate can almost feel the tension leaking out of him over the connection.

“I’ve always known he was a wise man.”

“He also said you better treat me right, or you can kiss your balls goodbye.”

Nate hears the slightest huff, an almost-laugh, and he can imagine the side of Brad’s mouth turning up toward a smile.

21. 2012

Brad comes in from the garage and wanders into Nate’s office, wiping off his greasy hands on a towel. Nate’s got his chair leaned back, feet up on his desk, leafing through a stack of papers in loose sweats and a threadbare Harvard t-shirt, hair uncombed and sticking out on one side. If not for the glasses, Brad could still swear he’s twenty-four, not thirty-four.

“I changed your oil.”

Nate looks up, fixing Brad with a cutting look over the top of his glasses.

“I can do that myself, you know.”

“Yes, well. I can get myself off; I still appreciate it when you do it for me.”

Nate laughs, nods in concession.

“Thanks,” he grins, “are you that bored?”

Brad raises one shoulder, non-committal, not quite a shrug. He doesn’t want it to appear that he expects Nate’s undivided attention all weekend, that Nate can’t take a few hours to get some work done, or that Brad can’t find things to occupy his time. This is his house, too, after all.

The problem is, it’s been nine months now since they moved in. Brad’s been spending most weekends here, changing locks and installing a state of the art security system, fixing leaky sprinkler heads and clearing gutters and updating light fixtures, replacing all the door handles in the house because Nate called the old ones hideous Eighties relics. He’s been painting and patching and repairing everything there was to paint, patch or repair, but now he’s out of stuff to do. It’s winter; there’s not even any grass to mow, no trees to trim or hedges to prune.

“There’re still a few boxes in the garage, if you’re looking for something to do. I’m not even sure what’s in them, anymore, but I’ve been meaning to unpack them.”

That’s good enough for Brad.

He brings the boxes in and spends an hour going through their contents, putting away things that are obvious and making piles of things that aren’t, stuff to ask Nate about and items that are duplicates of shit they already have. Nate can make those decisions.

He brings the last box in to Nate; it’s full of books, file folders, and Nate’s framed diplomas. Brad’s assuming those go in the office.

“You want me to hang these?” he pulls out the frames, the smaller one from Dartmouth in plain matte black, two larger ones from Harvard in carved mahogany.

“My mom framed them for me.” Nate shrugs, ambivalent. “Seems sort of pretentious to put them up. I mean who am I trying to impress, you?”

“True,” Brad says absently, sinking down into a leather armchair, “I think I’ve already been sufficiently impressed.” He rifles through the remains of the box and pulls out another frame. This one is gunmetal silver, thin and sharp-edged, the type that folds like a book, made to sit on a desk top. It’s got two photos, one of Nate tanned and dusty, vest loaded down with gear in front of a non-descript desert landscape, the other the photo from Reporter’s book, Bravo Two in front of the statue. Brad remembers clearly taking note of this frame sitting on Nate’s desk in his apartment in Cambridge, the one time Brad was there. But he hasn’t seen it since.

He places the frame on one of the bookshelves, not able to identify the strange tightness he feels in his chest. It’s not nostalgia, exactly, but something stronger, more immediate. His gaze lingers on the two of them, side by side and so fucking young. Stupidly young for the mission they’d been tasked with.

But the real draw, the thing Brad can’t look away from is Nate’s face in the solo photo, and he feels a flush climbing up his neck, heat rising.  Fucking Lieutenant Fick; Brad had almost forgotten what the real thing looked like, his own fantasies notwithstanding.

When he looks up, Nate is watching him closely, appraising. A little smirk plays at the corner of his mouth.

“Is it the uniform?”

Brad shakes his head, quick and self-conscious, caught out.

“No.” His voice is thick. “Well. Not just the uniform, but maybe that’s part of it. Mostly, I think it’s. This is the version of you that I wanted, for so long.”

“I’ll try not to take that personally, speaking as the version of me that you actually have.” Nate’s voice is teasing, but his face is a question, uncertain.

Brad shakes his head again, looks at Nate pointedly.

“I trust it’s been made patently clear at this point that I’ll take any version of you I can get, Nate.” He jerks his head at the photo. “But that was the picture in my head in those years when I didn’t see you, when I thought I probably never would again.”

Nate keeps that look fixed on him, like he’s trying to read Brad’s mind. Brad’s way past trying to keep his guard up against that probing gaze; whatever Nate can read in him, Brad’s done with even a perfunctory attempt at hiding it. He’s mostly content to be an open book, these days.

Not for everyone, of course. But for Nate.

Nate puts his work aside and rolls up out of his chair in one smooth motion, comes over to stand between Brad’s knees. His fingers card through Brad’s hair, pushing his head back so Brad’s staring up at him.

“You think there’s something you missed out on?”

Brad just stares, shrugs, not sure.

“If it’s just about the uniform, there’s a box of my old gear in my closet at my parents’ house.” Nate’s eyes narrow. “But I have a feeling maybe it’s not just that. I think maybe.” He stops, like he’s unsure how to go on.

“I think maybe, sometimes, that you want -.” he stops again, breathes low.

“I want what?” Brad swallows thickly.

“I think maybe it’s something about the authority of command. About, maybe,” he raises one shoulder, lowers his eyes from Brad’s face. “You know how you get, when I use the voice? Rough you up, order you around, make you work for it, make it hurt a little? Like you’re trying to impress me with how much you can take.”

Brad just nods. He does fucking know, of course he does. Not like he’s embarrassed about it, not like he’s ever been ashamed of liking what the fuck he likes.

“Maybe that’s what you missed. Not from me – I mean not what you get from the Nate version of me. But, like,” he jerks his head at the photo, “maybe you missed your chance to impress that guy. Lieutenant Fick.”

“I wasn’t aware that Lieutenant Fick found my performance lacking.” Brad raises a teasing eyebrow. “The commendations, the combat meritorious promotion, the putting my name forward for the Royal Marines exchange - these would seem to indicate otherwise.”

He smirks, and Nate grins, rolls his eyes before something darker, hotter flashes across his features.

“Maybe what you missed was an opportunity to impress the LT there, in a distinctly unprofessional capacity.” He nods toward his own photo.

“You think?” Brad honestly doesn’t know, he’s not sure he’s ever considered it in that way. “Sounds kind of fucked up.”

“I think it’s a theory worth exploring. And I’d lean more toward hot than fucked up.”

Nate grins, sudden and bright.

“I guess I’ll just have to bring that gear home and we’ll experiment until we figure it out.”

Brad huffs out a laugh, nods his acquiescence. There’s no denying, the idea of Nate in his old cammies barking orders that Brad is required to obey without question – yeah, he can get behind that.

He hoists himself up out of the chair and pulls Nate in close. Nate’s arms wrap around him; he kisses Brad’s neck, his jaw, his mouth, quick little brushes of dry lips.

“I need 45 minutes, and I’ll be done in here.”

“Getting hungry?”

“Definitely.”

“You finish up. I’ll go see about dinner.”

+ + +

“Well holy shit, would you look at this.”

Gonzo claps Brad on the back, feigning utter disbelief.

“You actually showed. Endicott owes me 20 bucks.”

Brad just shakes his head and holds in a sigh, already put-upon. He tentatively reaches out, rests his hand on the middle of Nate’s back.

“Nate, this is Gonzo. Gonzo, Nate.”

Nate extends his hand, and Gonzo shakes it firmly, like an actual upstanding adult. “Emilio Gonzales. Great to meet you, Nate. Glad you could make it.”

Without turning around, he shouts, “Endicott, bring me my money! Colbert showed, and he brought Bravo with him!”

He grins a giant, shit-eating grin at Brad. And, illusion of upstanding adulthood: shattered.

Brad watches Nate’s face, knows he’s not sure what the hell that’s supposed to mean. Nate studies Brad’s expression, which probably says both amused and annoyed, but definitely offers no explanation for Bravo. They couldn’t even wait 30 seconds, the fuckers.

Endicott walks over, and Brad accepts one of the beers he’s holding out in welcome.

“I don’t believe this shit,” he says, handing Nate the other beer he’s holding, bringing a big hand down onto Nate’s shoulder. He doesn’t smile; his face is deadly serious as he looks at Nate. “You cost me 20 bucks, man.”

He pulls the money out of his pocket, passes it to Gonzo.

“We didn’t think Colbert had the balls.”

“Okay,” Brad glowers at them both, “enough.”

Endicott’s straight face breaks into a big smile and they both laugh, not concerned in the least by the murderous expression on Brad’s face. Nate looks on, bemused, cautiously optimistic. Brad can see that his guard is up, but his stance is purposefully relaxed, quietly observing, placidly prepared for anything because he has no clue what the fuck to expect.

Brad could have done a better job of preparing him for this, he knows.

“Come on over and meet everybody, Nate,” Gonzo nods across the park to the gathering of people, and Nate trails along after him as he starts in that direction. Brad steps aside to let him pass, and purposefully brings up the rear. He wants Nate to feel it, that Brad’s got his six.

When he told Nate he couldn’t come up - home - this weekend, that the guys were throwing a goodbye thing for Gonzo before he heads off to his new post and Brad felt he should be there, Nate said no problem, said I’ll see you next weekend.

The Marine installation at Fort Benning is small, and it’s been largely the same group of guys the whole time Brad’s been stationed there. Nate knows it’s a close-knit group, just by virtue of the fact that Brad actually talks about them sometimes, by the fact that Nate has ever even heard the names Gonzo and Endicott and Charles. These guys all got here by being exceptional at their jobs; Nate knows Brad has enjoyed that part most of all.

Brad has also appreciated the way they have, to a man, taken the news about Nate in stride. They give him constant shit, and Brad wouldn’t have it any other way. If they avoided the topic altogether, he’d know they had a problem. Instead, the stream of bullshit that rained down on him once they figured out that Nate was Nate Fick was Lieutenant Fick, of book and mini-series and sometime-cable-news-talking-head fame, was truly epic. Endicott kept a copy of reporter’s book in his desk, and took to reading aloud from it when he was bored. He had all his favorite passages marked.

If Brad never hears Colbert is special or the men seem to adore their commanding officer again, it will be too soon.

But the fact that they’re all up in his business, nosy fuckers, and always asking inappropriate questions and making lewd insinuations, insulting his manhood, it annoys the ever-loving fuck out of Brad, but that’s what lets him know they don’t really give a rat’s ass who the hell he goes home to on the weekends.

How would you feel about coming down instead, Brad had asked, and the quick way that Nate said sure, the sound of his fingers clicking on his keyboard letting Brad know he was already pulling up flights on his laptop – he’d just assumed that Nate understood.

It wasn’t until Nate was already here, until Brad was getting dressed for the barbeque and Nate was still sitting around in his pajama pants, no shirt, messing around on his computer, that Brad realized.

“You know, when I asked you to come down, my intention was that you would accompany me to this little soiree.”

Nate looked up sharply, clearly startled.

“What?”

“The men are practically pissing themselves to meet you; they think I’m too chicken shit to bring you around. I can’t abide that kind of affront to my testicular fortitude.”

This isn’t something they’ve talked about; Brad knows Nate well enough, knows he hasn’t wanted to push, hasn’t wanted to pry. Despite the Act to Repeal DADT being over a year old, the actual implementation has only been in effect a few months. Nate has always been completely hands-off when it comes to Brad’s decisions about how to handle his career, has never even asked what Brad’s plans are with regards to making his situation known. Brad has always known that Nate trusts him to handle it, but the look on Nate’s face clearly says he’s surprised Brad has handled it this way, this fast.

Even though it feels like he’s trying so fucking hard, sometimes Brad’s communication is still for shit.

“The men want to meet me,” Nate’s voice was sarcastic, disbelieving.

“Yes.”

“Because they’re aware that I exist.”

“Affirmative.”

“Since when?”

“I would assume, since I mentioned it to them.”

“Brad.” Nate adopted his sternest voice. Brad met his eyes immediately, a physically conditioned response. That voice still works every fucking time, just like clockwork.

“They wondered why I went to DC every goddamn weekend. So, I told them. It was that, or let them believe I’m an undercover agent.”

Nate looked like you could’ve knocked him over with a fucking feather. His mouth opened, then closed again silently. Brad raised his eyebrows expectantly, and finally Nate blew out a breath.

“Give me 15 minutes.” He closed his computer and went to take a shower.

Now they’re hanging out at a picnic table, drinking beer, meat smoking and hissing on the grill nearby. It’s May in Georgia, so Brad’s shirt sticks to his back, Nate’s knee slipping sweaty against his under the table in their shorts. There are 10 or 15 Marines, their wives and girlfriends, a few kids. They keep the swearing and the x-rated insults to a minimum as a result.

Brad can feel Nate’s eyes on him, shrewd and assessing, like it’s 2003 all over again. That’s the last time he saw Brad interacting with his team, and just like then, Brad’s still the leader, in rank as well as in practice. They all look to him, defer to him, want to impress him with their stories, but he’s also the one they want to beat at horse shoes and washers, the one they give the most shit when he makes a bad toss.

“Nice whiff, Colbert,” Charles hoots when Brad’s horse shoe goes hurtling end over end past the stake, landing a good 5 feet behind it. “What happened to that attention to accuracy you’re always beating us over the head with?”

Brad catches Nate’s eye, shoots him a look that he hopes says relax, they’re fine. He hopes Nate can tell, none of them are bothered at all by his presence. If a single fucking one of them has any kind of problem, they do an admirable job of hiding it, and that’s really all Brad can ask for considering this is all new for all of them.

They eat burgers and hot dogs, drink more beer. The sun goes down and the kids get taken home to bed, some of the guys going with their families and some staying behind, arranging rides with their buddies.

The bullshit gets louder, the insults more creative and the language more colorful. Nate is definitely not exempted from the shit talking, and Brad wonders, absently, if Nate having been a Marine himself, having been a fucking officer, makes it easier or harder for them to accept him into the fold, to let him slip right into their tight little circle like this.

In the end, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that they’re inclusive of Nate out of respect to Brad, and he’s okay with that.

Brad and Nate play Gonzo and Endicott in a hard-fought best of 3 series of cornhole, and when Nate wins the third game for them with his very last toss, it’s met with ridiculously raucous celebration by the 7 or 8 guys left standing.

“Damn, Colbert,” one of them yells “Bravo saved your ass!”

And it’s come out a few times, throughout the night. Brad can predict Nate’s train of thought, trying to work it out. At first, he’d wonder if it’s a reference to the company they served in together, but Nate would know, if that was the intent they wouldn’t leave off the platoon. He surely would have considered that it might be a reference to boyfriend, but Nate knows well enough how Marines work, knows if that was what they were getting at it would be obvious, it would be Bravo Foxtrot.

He can see on Nate’s face he hasn’t worked it out yet, and now he’s drunk enough, and the vibe is loose enough, he can practically see the moment when Nate figures he might as well just fucking ask.

“Okay,” he finally says, “what’s the deal with Bravo?”

There’s a roar of hooting and cackling, and a bunch of pseudo-apologetic faces, laughing while they hold up their hands, universally indicating don’t look at me.

“One of you assholes better explain,” Nate fixes them all with his best officer stare, gaze sweeping around the circle of smirking faces.

“Better ask the asshole in charge,” Charles finally says, jerking his thumb at Brad.

“Well, Colbert?” Nate raises his eyebrows expectantly.

The peanut gallery oohs and aahs at Nate’s demand, waiting to see how Brad responds.

Brad clicks his tongue against his teeth, takes a swig of his beer, regards Nate coolly.

“You’re familiar with the unofficial moniker sometimes used to address a Master Sergeant, particularly by insubordinate whiskey tango reprobates with no fucking respect for their betters?”

The guys all snicker and grumble, and Nate nods. As the highest ranking enlisted man in most units, a Master Sergeant is sometimes referred to simply as Top.

Brad inclines his head toward the assembled group.

“To a bunch of ignorant, unenlightened, backwoods, trailer park, pussy-chasing miscreants like these fuck-ups, if I’m Top, that makes you – “

He stops, raises his eyebrows with a smirk and a shrug, and takes another long pull on his beer.

Nate’s eyes narrow, and Brad can feel the realization dawning. Even though it’s dark and he can’t see it, Brad would put money on Nate blushing as he rolls his eyes.

“ - Bravo,” Nate finishes, snorting in spite of himself as all the guys crack up.

Brad huffs a little laugh himself, shakes his head, long-suffering.

“Colbert’s living the fucking dream,” Charles crows, slinging his arm around Nate’s shoulders. “Finally, a grunt gets to stick it to fucking Command.”

+ + +

Brad swings into the driveway in his crappy rental monstrosity and pulls his garage door opener out of his duffel bag. He’s got this down to a science, by now.

He leaves work at 17:00 on Fridays, drives directly to Atlanta International in time for his 19:35 flight. He arrives at DCA at 21:19, picks up whatever revolting excuse for a machine they want to give him this week, and pulls into Nate’s driveway – their driveway – no later than 22:30.

It’s not every weekend, but it’s most weekends; it’s enough to feel almost normal, like he actually belongs here.

He lets himself into the house from the garage, disarming the alarm then re-arming it behind him. He can hear the piano downstairs.

He walks through the house to the sound of Nate playing, folding his jacket over the back of the armchair in their bedroom, dropping his duffel on the bed, pulling off his boots and stowing them in the closet.  He pads down the stairs in his socks, pulls a beer out of the fridge under the bar in the basement. Nate is still playing around the corner in the little alcove where they put his piano, his back to the room, his iPad propped up on the music stand. He’s doing Eminem again, playing loud and aggressive, rapping over the music: Baby please come back, it wasn’t you, baby it was me/Maybe our relationship isn’t as crazy as it seems/Maybe that’s what happens when a tornado meets a volcano/All I know is I love you too much to walk away though.

Brad watches the taut line of Nate’s shoulders, his head bobbing in time with the rhythm, hands moving with authority over the keys, fingers stretched wide and reaching, precise and emphatic. Brad could give a shit about hip hop, but Nate like this, fierce and focused, it’s fucking hot as hell.

He takes a long pull off his beer, sets it quietly on the end table that used to be in his house in Oceanside. The whole basement is furnished with all his old stuff that doesn’t fit in his tiny Columbus apartment; it took a while, but he finally got all his shit out of storage.

Nate’s singing now: Just gonna stand there and watch me burn/That’s all right because I like the way it hurts/Just gonna stand there and hear me cry/That’s all right because I love the way you lie/I love the way you lie.

Brad moves slowly around into Nate’s periphery, waits until he’s sure he’s been seen before he approaches, tiny uptick at the corner of Nate’s mouth and the quick sideways slide of his eyes giving him away. Brad puts his hands on Nate’s shoulders. Nate doesn’t miss a beat, just keeps playing to the end of the song with Brad’s fingers curled over his clavicles, thumbs pressed into the back of his neck.

“Tired?” Nate looks up at him as the last swell of the music dies down. Brad can tell by the look on his face, he’ll never be too tired for whatever Nate’s got in mind.

Like always, Nate reads his mind.

“I don’t have any elaborate plans, honestly - I just meant, do you want dinner then bed now, sex in the morning? Or do you want sex now, then dinner and bed?”

Brad stares down at Nate, affronted. Like, what kind of question is that for a man who goes without all week, and some weekends?

“I’ll take the option with the sex now, and the sex in the morning.”

Nate smirks and shrugs, “sold.”

They make out on the basement couch like a couple of teenagers, losing clothes slowly, no rush and nowhere else to be. Eventually they get all the way naked, eventually the urgency starts to build. Brad is laid out, fitted half on his side and half on his back into the seam where the back of the couch meets the cushions, Nate pressed up against him with his knee slung up over Brad’s hip. His lips are pink and bitten, swollen from all the kissing, his cock fitted right up against Brad’s in between their bodies.

Nate pulls away suddenly, murmuring I found something for you as he turns over and reaches for various remotes, pushing buttons on one, then another. The TV snicks on, the only light in the room except moonlight through the high basement windows.

“Dare I ask what the hell this is supposed to be?” The sound is muted, but it’s the instantly recognizable backdrop of a porn set, two guys in dress blues having some kind of meet-cute in an offensively-fake armory of some kind.

Nate just grins, sly and knowing. He’s well aware by now of Brad’s not-so-secret predilection for the subgenre of gay porn dedicated to military men getting it on.

“Just something I came across this week. The audio is particularly egregious, but the visual is pretty hot.”

“You already watched?” Brad asks over Nate’s shoulder as he settles in again with his back against Brad’s chest, facing the TV.

“Of course I already watched,” Nate snorts, “what do you think I’m doing all week while you’re not here?”

“I thought you were saving the world, one foreign policy recommendation at a time,” Brad breathes against Nate’s neck, grinding up against his ass. The guys on screen have started kissing, knocking the pristine white dress covers off their heads with the kind of reckless abandon no actual Marine would ever exhibit.

“That, and watching porn.” Nate’s got his hand wrapped around his cock now, eyes on the screen as the two actors start to lose their uniforms right there in the warehouse on what would presumably be, judging by the stacked crates of munitions, heavily surveilled government property. Brad rolls his eyes, but he can agree, the guys are pretty hot.

Brad reaches over his head, over the arm of the couch with one hand, feeling around in the drawer of the end table, finding the bottle by touch. He fumbles it in his haste, and it flies out of his hand and lands on Nate’s face before it bounces to the floor.

“Smooth,” Nate snickers, leaning forward to grab for the lube and handing it over his shoulder before settling his back against Brad again, laying half on top and half in front of him. He pulls a knee up to his chest, his arm wrapping around the back of his thigh to hold his leg in place while that same hand wraps around his cock again.

“Multi-tasking; so efficient,” Brad murmurs into his hair as he slides a slick finger up and in, making Nate squirm.

“I aim to please,” he huffs, pressing back against Brad’s hand.

Brad takes his time, watching the guys on screen who are fully naked now and have found their way onto one of the ammo crates, watching Nate watching them too, heavy-lidded and open-mouthed with Brad’s fingers moving inside him. Nate’s hand stills on his cock when Brad finally slides into him nice and slow, steady pressure and heat that makes Brad’s head swim. Once he’s fully seated, he pulls Nate’s arm away, pulls his leg back down to straight. He loves how tight Nate feels with his legs pressed together, his glutes flexed and hard, adding to the pressure.

“That’s so good,” Brad pants, his hips barely moving, “that’s perfect.” It’s just a slight rock in and up, a slight roll of Nate’s ass back to meet him, one arm wrapped under Nate’s neck and up around his chest, one slung over his hip to grip his cock, to stroke loose and slow. He kisses the side of Nate’s temple, his ear, his neck, down across his shoulder, the nubs of his vertebrae at the top of his spine. Brad can’t say how long it goes on like that – he loses all sense of time.

He feels like he could do this all night, Nate wrapped around him and him wrapped around Nate, hot and sweet and quiet and endless. On this couch in this basement with Nate, hidden away in the privacy of this house with the whole weekend stretching out in front of them, Brad feels it for certain, in a way he isn’t always able to manage, that this is home.

It’s always been the Corps that gave Brad that thing he was missing, that place where he fit just right, where he belonged. But he knows, now – it’s not the Corps anymore, it’s Nate.

The movie ends, eventually, the two Marines on screen fucked into oblivion and back while Brad keeps the two Marines on the couch right on the edge, never letting them fall. Nate stopped watching a long time ago anyway, his eyes closed and his lips parted, breathing slow and ragged, his left hand laced with Brad’s across his ribcage, his right hand gripping Brad’s wrist where he’s loosely stroking Nate’s cock.

There’s an old Grandfather clock upstairs in Nate’s office, a hand me down from Nate’s actual grandfather. In the silence of the house they can hear it perfectly when it chimes, slow and somber, twelve chimes for Midnight.

“Under no circumstance should you interpret this as a complaint,” Nate pants, breaking the perfect quiet they’ve maintained for long minutes now, maybe an hour, maybe more. “But I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that television commercials have led me to believe maintaining an erection for more than 4 hours is detrimental to your health.”

“Still have a couple of hours to go before we have any cause for concern, then.”

Brad doesn’t speed his movements, doesn’t tighten his hand around Nate’s cock. He loves when Nate is aggressive, demanding, rough, but he also loves when Nate lets him drive like this, lets him have things just the way he wants them and leaves himself completely in Brad’s hands.

Nate’s laugh is a soft rush of air; he doesn’t say another word.

And this isn’t something Brad’s ever done with anyone else, not something he’s ever wanted or even thought about, taking this much time, making it last, testing to see how long he can stand to draw it out before he just can’t, anymore. Until Nate came along, nothing like this would ever have even entered Brad’s mind.

The clock chimes for 00:30, for 01:00 before Brad’s stomach protests, loudly. He hasn’t eaten in over 12 hours.

“All good things must end,” he groans, and tightens his fist around Nate’s cock, drawing a hiss from between his teeth.

“I don’t know if I should be disappointed or relieved,” Nate grits out, as Brad pushes him over toward his belly, pulls his knee back up and rolls into him with his weight behind it. Brad’s thrusts speed and deepen, building with a purpose at long last.

When it’s finally over, when they can breathe again, they step into the shower in the basement bathroom, rinsing off quickly. They gather up their discarded clothes and find their way upstairs, naked in the dark, to their bedroom.  Nate wraps himself in a robe while Brad slides on a loose pair of sweats, and they head to the kitchen, mix up pancakes and scramble eggs, brew a pot of decaf. They eat breakfast for dinner at 02:00, leave the dishes for tomorrow.

They shed their clothes and fall into bed exhausted, both of them asleep in minutes, Nate’s shoulder pressed warm and solid against Brad’s spine.

+ + +

In the year since Nate informed Mike Wynn about their situation, Brad has gotten plenty of texts, calls and emails as word has worked its way through the knitting circle. Some of them were guys he’s been in touch with all along - Poke, Person, Pappy, Kocher – and some guys he hadn’t heard from in years. Either way, the bulk of Bravo 2 and some others who knew them both, as well – have all reached out.

They’re all pretty much what he expected: some shock, some disbelief, one notable exception claiming he’d seen it coming all along, but all well-meaning and well-wishing, and many with disturbingly detailed and anatomically specific descriptions of the ways in which they apparently believe Nate and Brad are spending their time, now.

They’re not all wrong, but Brad doesn’t mention that in his replies.

Person left a long rambling voicemail, starting with a commentary about Brad’s longstanding and pathetically obvious gayness and the glaringly apparent focus of said gayness on Nate, winding through a rant on not letting the man keep you down, and ending with give the Captain a kiss from me, and don’t be stingy with the tongue, and fuckin’ mazel tov, dude.

Rudy fucking sent flowers.

Brad doesn’t spend much time wondering about the guys he hasn’t heard from; he’s not sure, and may never know, if word just hasn’t reached them yet or if their silence means something else entirely. But if someone’s got a problem, Brad can’t help that, and he’s not in the habit of apologizing for his life choices in general, and certainly not for those which involve Nate. Nate Fick is the best decision Brad’s ever been afforded the opportunity to make, of that much he is fucking assured.

It’s nice to know they have the support of so many of their former brothers-in-arms, to know that by and large, going privately-public has been an overwhelming success both personally and professionally.

But the truth is even if it had all been an abysmal failure, he’d still have Nate, just the same, and that would still be worth it in the end. He tries not to worry about whether Nate feels the same, or rather, if Nate will still feel the same if it turns out having Brad at his side keeps him out of elected office and torpedoes all his life-long hopes and fucking dreams and shit.

He’s getting pretty good – better at least – at just fucking accepting Nate’s love, at trusting in the depth of Nate’s devotion, however much he still sometimes has to grit his teeth and force his stubborn brain to stop fighting it and just surrender to it.

Surrender isn’t normally a part of Brad’s vocabulary, not part of his DNA, but -.

But Nate Fick, with his lofty goals and his high-minded ideals and his big green eyes and that fucking grin, with his un-calloused hands and his Ivy League degrees and his freckles, and his alarmingly undiminished ability to physically wrestle Brad into submission when called for, with his clever tongue, lethal in its ability to make quick work of out-reasoning all of Brad’s stupider arguments, or in making him weak-kneed with a kiss -.

Nate fucking Fick is, has always been, and will always be, too much, too unreal, too good for Brad.

But Nate Fick loves him – unreservedly, whole-heartedly, loyally, fiercely, and without care for any of the ways it may imperil his own well-being and best interests. It’s there on Nate’s face, in his voice, in his touch and his kiss. It’s right there for Brad to see and feel and hear every single day, just like it has been for years now, so fucking obvious he’d have to be an idiot, a fucking simpleton to miss it, to try and deny it.

Even in Brad’s weakest moments, he can’t talk himself out of believing that anymore.

Still, he has to work at it most days, has to put fucking effort into remembering not to be a defensive, resistant, stubborn asshole all the time, and most days he’s successful. Some days he isn’t, and they end up fighting about stupid bullshit that makes Nate look at him and sigh this long-suffering sigh like dealing with Brad is the most exhausting endeavor Nate’s ever undertaken, and that makes Brad feel like shit.

The most recent such fight was about Nate helping to pay for Brad’s travel expenses home every weekend, something Brad resisted on the grounds that when Nate was flying to Charlotte and booking hotels every weekend, Brad never helped pay for that.

“You were traveling too,” Nate bitched, when Brad refused his credit card for the five hundredth time, “and you know I used frequent flier miles and hotel rewards points half the time. I didn’t pay for airport parking, or for rental cars, either.”

“Oh right,” Brad nodded sarcastically, “because you paid for Uber instead.”

“Only sometimes,” Nate countered, “sometimes I rode the train to the airport, or Ingrid drove me. And anyway, I’m the whole reason you live here, and have to commute on the weekends. You wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t for me, the least you can do is let me help offset the costs.”

“I’m fine,” Brad insisted coolly, disregarding the reality of his travel budget, which was approaching two grand a month. “You behave as if I’m destitute.”

Nate huffed and rolled his eyes.

“No, Brad,” he sighed that sigh that Brad hates, “I behave as if we’re in this together, instead of like it’s every man for himself. It’d be nice if you would put your stupid fucking pride away and join me in that pursuit.”

Brad didn’t have much of a comeback for that, so now they have a joint bank account, into which they both transfer 50% of their monthly pay. They use it for household bills, the mortgage, all Brad’s travel expenses, and neither of them ever mention that 50% of one of Nate’s paychecks is more than Brad makes in three months.

Brad’s starting to get it, that this is just how relationships work. Good relationships, the kind that last. The kind he’s got, and intends to keep.

And so it is that on a freezing cold, windy, rainy, fucking miserable Saturday in late October, Brad and Nate, two legally single men aged thirty-eight and thirty-five respectively, stand in the early voting line at their local Potomac Heights Fire Station.  Brad casts his ballot, Romney for President, straight Republican ticket with the exception of the incumbent Democrat Hoyer for House of Representatives, and for in favor of Question 6, which reads:

Civil Marriage Protection Act

Establishes that Maryland’s civil marriage laws allow gay and lesbian couples to obtain a civil marriage license, provided they are not otherwise prohibited from marrying; protects clergy from having to perform any particular marriage ceremony in violation of their religious beliefs; affirms that each religious faith has exclusive control over its own theological doctrine regarding who may marry within that faith; and provides that religious organizations and certain related entities are not required to provide goods, services, or benefits to an individual related to the celebration or promotion of marriage in violation of their religious beliefs.

He reads it twice, ignores the parts that make him want to punch a wall, and focuses on the first clause. That’s the important one, that’s the one he’s here for. That’s the one that made him switch his residency, permanently, to the goddamn state of fucking Maryland in time for this election.

Brad’s never wanted to get married. Hell, even when he was engaged he didn’t really want to get married, and in the years following the end of that ill-fated arrangement, he was adamantly opposed to the idea on general principle. He hasn’t spent much – or any – time considering how his views on the subject may have evolved in the intervening years, but he’s self-aware enough to know that Nate has always been and will always be a game changer, whichever part of Brad’s life he touches.

They haven’t talked at all about what Question 6 means for them personally, but as it pertains to a larger issue of life, liberty, and pursuit of individual fucking happiness, Brad does feel strongly about it. The idea that he has put his life on the line, repeatedly, in representation of a country that still hasn’t decided if he’s allowed to marry whoever the fuck he wants is the worst kind of hypocritical, moralistic, self-righteous quasi-religious bullshit. Whether or not he and Nate ever decide to exercise the right is entirely up to them, and entirely superfluous to the argument; having the right, to exercise or not as they see fit, is the whole fucking point.

On election night, Brad watches the returns come in, alone in his little shoebox of an apartment in Columbus but logged in to the real-time coverage on the Baltimore Sun’s website. Hoyer wins again easily in the strongly Democratic 5th, which is good for Nate. Through a series of political maneuvers on which Brad has only been partially briefed, it’s known to a select few that the long-serving Hoyer will be making this his last term, thereby vacating his House seat. He’s been a vocal advocate for Question 6, and an internal advocate within the party for an increase in putting forth LGBTQ candidates. Something to do with his daughter being a lesbian, blah blah, what matters is he likes Nate and he’s hand picked him to be his chosen successor. Nate’s already been working with the Maryland Democratic Party in conjunction with Hoyer’s office – everyone is on board with Nate as their next candidate, even with the prospect of active-duty Master Sergeant Brad Colbert along for the ride. They believe in Nate and they’re willing to roll the dice, and Nate says that’s all he needs so Brad believes him.

When the official call comes in on Question 6, 52% in favor, Brad gets a text from Nate, a party hat emoji followed by a middle finger.

Brad doesn’t need any further explanation; it’s understood.

+ + +

“You wanted to see me, Sir?”

Brad stands in the open doorway to the Major’s office, hands clasped behind his back.

“Hey, Brad. Come on in, close the door and have a seat.”

The Major is younger than Brad, but only by a few years. He’s been at Benning for going on a year now, and as officers go, he’s one of the good ones. Brad does as he’s told, closes the door behind him and drops into one of the itchy shit-brown office chairs on the opposite side of the desk from Major Markowicz.

“I wanted to talk to you about your future plans.” He looks at Brad meaningfully. “Have you thought about where you might want to go from here, career-wise?”

Brad’s not sure where this is coming from, or where it’s going, but he’s immediately suspicious. His expression slides easily into its default position when dealing with standard-issue Corps bullshit: blank, dispassionate.

“I’m happy where I am, if that’s what you’re asking, Sir.”

The Major smiles, non-threatening and overtly friendly. Clearly trying not to alarm or offend, then. Interesting.

“And we’re happy to have you. But I wondered if maybe you might be looking to get somewhere closer to home?”

Again with that meaningful look, like Brad should be in on the joke, but he feels lost.

“Home, Sir?”

“I just wondered if you’d be interested in something closer to DC. Something at Quantico, maybe?”

“Ah.” Brad grits his teeth. Home is not a conversation he’s had with the fucking Major. Not that he’s made any effort to hide anything, but it still rubs the wrong way somehow, for his commanding officer to bring it up so casually, like it’s his business where Brad calls home.

He nods slowly, breathes even and deep.

“I’ve entertained the thought at various points, yes Sir.” Brad keeps his voice light, disinterested. “But frankly I’m not sure I’m cut out for it. It takes enough patience to deal with the broken-in grunts we get around here. Potty-training half-formed Officer zygotes? I don’t know that I have the requisite constitution.” Brad grins, all teeth, and shakes his head ruefully.

The Major laughs, holds up his hands.

“Believe me Brad, I understand your reticence there. But actually, I was thinking specifically about Systems Command.”

Brad’s eyebrows go up before he can police himself. Systems Command is no joke, it’s the big leagues, it’s where the best of the best go to end their careers, albeit behind a desk. Brad’s pretty sure they even give you your brains back early, if you go to work there.

“Systems Command? In what capacity, Sir?”

“They’re putting out feelers; they have several E-8’s on track to retire over the course of the next 18 months, and they don’t like to leave those chairs empty if they can help it – like to have replacements already spun-up so there’s no lag in efficiency.”

Brad just nods, worries the inside of his cheek with his teeth as the Major goes on.

“These aren’t positions you put in for, Brad. You’ve got to be tapped for these.” That earnest look is back, but at least it’s making a little more sense now. “They need someone in Amphibious Assault Tactics, and they asked for you by name.”

“Who exactly is they, Sir?”

“The powers that be,” is all Markowicz says, and shrugs. “They wanted my input, and of course I told them I couldn’t imagine anyone better suited to the job. We’d hate to lose you, but they’d be crazy to let us keep you.”

“I appreciate that, Sir.” Brad feels the hit of professional pride, but he can’t shake the feeling he’s being buttered up.

“It’s the truth. They just wanted me to gauge your interest. There was a feeling that you might be looking to move North, anyway.”

Brad remains silent, at that. He’s starting to have a feeling, himself, and it’s nausea mixed with outrage.

Markowicz fixes him with a look that doesn’t make him feel any better.

“I’m afraid we’re about to have a conversation neither of us is going to like very much, Master Sergeant.”

“Sir?” Is all Brad can manage.

“There’s some,” Markowicz begins, then seems to reconsider. “Well.  I wouldn’t say it’s concern. But there’s some lack of clarity, in the upper echelons, about your relationship with Captain Fick. Please understand, it was made very clear to me that no one is intimating anything dishonorable regarding either of your conduct. Both you and Captain Fick have sterling reputations that speak for themselves. But I think some entities would feel more. At ease. If you could fill in certain details.”

“At ease with what exactly, Sir?” Brad grits out, tamping down his rising anger, trying to find his way back to that place of unflappable calm, find that cold, icy center he rarely calls on anymore.

The Major looks as uncomfortable as Brad feels. He shakes his head, snorts derisively.

“They told me to ‘ease into this’, but let’s just dispense with the bullshit and call a spade a spade, Brad. The brass at Systems Command are in the business of knowing shit. So, some of the shit they know leads them to believe you are in a romantic relationship with Captain Fick, the same Captain Fick who was once your Platoon Commander, and the same Captain Fick who they also believe will be mounting a Congressional campaign at the mid-term elections. Feel free to stop me if anything I’ve said so far is out of line with reality.”

He pauses, eyes fixed on Brad’s face. Brad holds his gaze, silent and still. The Major nods, affirmed, and goes on.

“So while they’d love to have your talents on staff at MCSC, they don’t want to step in dog shit, here. They know you’re going to be put under a microscope as soon as Nate throws his hat in the ring, and they just want to make sure there’s nothing about the. Timeline. Of your relationship that could potentially be a problem. For the Corps.”

Brad narrows his eyes, brain stuck on one word.

“You know Nate?”

The Major colors, flush creeping down his neck.

“No, I -. His book is one of my personal favorites. I guess I just - but no, I don’t know him.”

Brad remains silent.

“It’s only a few questions, Brad. They just want you on record to cover their asses. If you aren’t interested in the position, you can go back to work and we’ll forget this conversation ever happened. If you are, I’ll ask you the questions they want me to ask then you can go back to work and we’ll forget this conversation ever happened. Up to you, and nothing here changes for you, either way. You have my word on that.”

Brad’s first thought is he’s not doing shit without talking to Nate about it first. But he’s afraid if he asks for time, or even steps out to make a phone call, it’s going to look like fucking collusion, or some shit. Like they’re trying to get their stories straight.

So instead he pulls his phone out, and gestures to the Major.

“May I?”

Markowicz’s eyebrows go up, but he holds up his hands. “By all means, be my guest.”

Brad places the call, then hits the speaker button. He’s never in his life been more grateful for their lack of pet names than when Nate picks up and just says hey.

“Nate.”

“Brad,” Nate parrots, only half-interested. Brad can imagine he’s staring at some brief, doing the thing where he swears he can read and listen at the same time, even though Brad has repeatedly proven that assertion to be demonstrably false.

“You’re on speaker.”

“Okay.”

“I’m here with Major Markowicz, in his office.”

There’s a brief pause, then the change in Nate’s voice is apparent. Brad has his full attention now, when he says,

“I see. Good afternoon, Major.”

“Captain Fick, pleasure. I was just telling Master Sergeant Colbert here that I’m a big fan of your book.”

“That’s kind of you to say.”

Nate’s voice is clipped, all-business. There’s silence, so Brad assumes the niceties are over.

“Nate, the Major tells me that there’s some interest in my taking a position at Systems Command, but it seems they need me to provide them with some clarifying information, before I can be considered.”

“About the nature of our relationship.” Nate doesn’t miss a beat, and it’s not a question.

“So it would seem,” Brad continues, eyes on Markowicz. “Just wanted to make sure you don’t have any personal concerns about me answering their questions.”

“I have no such concerns. I appreciate the heads up, but you do what you need to do. It’s your call.”

“Roger that,” Brad nods, “Call you later.”

He ends the call without waiting for Nate’s response, still looking at Markowicz.

“There you have it, Sir. Fire away.”

The Major looks relieved, pulls over a file folder and takes out some kind of paperwork. Brad can’t begin to imagine which of the millions of pointless, pedantic, asinine fucking forms created by the USMC could possibly cover this conversation, but he keeps his mouth shut. Markowicz looks down and picks up his pen, avoiding Brad’s eyes.

“Okay then, let’s just, uh. Captain Fick became your platoon commander in October of 2002, is that correct?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“And were the two of you acquainted in any way prior to that time?”

“No, Sir.”

“You served under his command during one combat tour, in Iraq, is that correct?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“And he remained your commanding officer until December of 2003?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“At which time he separated from the Marine Corps?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“And how would you characterize your relationship over the period of time during which he was your Platoon Commander?”

“Professional, Sir.”

“Purely professional?”

Brad raises an eyebrow in silence, and Markowicz clears his throat.

“What I mean is, did you have a friendly relationship?”

“In the same way that you and I have a friendly relationship, Sir,” Brad smirks pointedly. “We were cordial. I had a great deal of respect for how well he did his job. I like to think that respect was mutual. We didn’t socialize. I’d call that purely professional.”

“So the two of you did not spend time together outside of work?”

“Aside from the evening of his Paddle Party upon his exit from Recon, at which our entire platoon was present, no, Sir.” Brad doesn’t mention he would have given his left nut to change that, nor does he feel the need to mention the fact that he spent that night at Nate’s house, however innocently said night may have ended.

“And after Captain Fick’s separation from the Corps, did you begin seeing each other socially then?”

“No, Sir.”

“No?”

“Immediately following his separation? No, Sir.”

“So not immediately, but at some point, I assume you did begin to see Captain Fick socially?”

Brad can’t help the huff of frustration that escapes him at the fucking retardation of it all.

“All due respect, Sir, but you already know the answers to these questions.”

Markowicz sighs, drops his pen and rubs his eyes.

“You know what they want to know Brad; we could cut to the fucking chase if you’d just hit the highlights, instead of me dragging it out of you bit by bit.”

Brad nods, grits his teeth. He knows the Major is right, but he doesn’t have to like it.

“Fine,” he hisses, “fine.”

He takes a deep, steadying breath.

“After he left the Corps we didn’t see each other again for a couple of years. He came back East to Graduate School, and I served a stint in the UK with the Royal Marines, on exchange. We were sporadically in touch via email, regarding his book. I along with Gunnery Sergeant Mike Wynn would help verify dates, times, fact check the details of the events he was writing about, things of that nature. We developed a more informal relationship, through that process. When his book was published he sent me an advance copy. I called to offer my congratulations, after which we began communicating more regularly, and he invited me to visit him in Boston. When my exchange with the Royal Marines ended, I did so. At that point, and not a moment before, it would be accurate to say I began to see Captain Fick socially.”

As far as Brad’s concerned, that’s more than enough.

Markowicz is scribbling furiously, nodding, running down his checklist of questions.

“I think that will about do it,” he murmurs, “there’s just. I’m sorry Brad, but I need – can you just confirm, exactly when it came to your attention that Captain Fick was homosexual?

Brad closes his eyes, then opens them slowly, breathing out through his nose.

“He came out just before his book was published. November, maybe December of 2005? I’m afraid I didn’t write the exact date in my diary.”

The Major doesn’t respond, verbally or otherwise, to the snarky tone, and he doesn’t look at Brad at all. He just scribbles on his forms and asks exactly what Brad knows he’s going to.

“And when did Captain Fick become aware that you are homosexual?”

He knew it was coming, but it still feels like his blood turns to ice in his veins. He steels himself, grits his teeth to keep from reacting outwardly. He concentrates on keeping the Iceman mask placid and calm.

“You’d have to ask him that. My guess would be whenever I showed up in Boston and made a pass at him in his kitchen.”

Markowicz coughs suddenly, but still doesn’t look up. He clears his throat.

“And when did you begin a physical relationship with Captain Fick?”

He’s still looking down at the form, but Brad’s eyes are drilling holes in the top of his head. Brad is silent long enough to make sure the Major squirms a little, before he finally answers.

“April 2006.”

“And since then -.”

“Yes.” Brad cuts him off, loud and emphatic. “Since then, yes, we’ve been engaged in a physical relationship, or a romantic relationship, or whatever euphemism you want to use for the fact that we’re fucking. Surely that must be sufficient, Major.”

He tries to keep the murder out of his eyes when Markowicz finally looks up, face red, and nods.

+ + +

When he calls Nate later from Macon, because that’s how far he had to ride before the adrenaline buzz of his outrage had finally drained away, Nate says,

“So they just wanted to know when we started fucking, right?”

Brad snorts.

“Pretty much,” he grits out, “never mind about how they knew we were fucking. Or who the fuck they even are.”

“You didn’t have to indulge them, Brad. You could have just said no to their inquiries.”

Brad huffs again, louder this time, clearly conveying I’m so fucking sure with no words necessary.

“Yes, and keep my fucking 800-mile commute for four more fucking years, until I retire. All for the privilege of maintaining some semblance of privacy for a few more months, until it becomes impossible for entirely different reasons.”

Nate is silent, and Brad grits his teeth. He’s not trying to be a dick, but sometimes he doesn’t need to try for it to happen anyway. He knows he’s not being fair, putting their impending loss of privacy on Nate. Nate has never been anything but upfront with Brad about his plans for his future, and they’ve talked about this until they’re both blue in the face. Throwing it back at Nate now, when Brad has agreed and assured and promised Nate that he’s fine with it. Well, fine, he’s being a dick.

Brad breathes deep, tries to reign it in. Apparently, Macon wasn’t quite far enough of a ride, after all.

He can hear Nate breathing, can hear the wheels turning. He’s waiting for the soft, cajoling voice, for some stupid offer to call off his plans, for Nate’s typical, self-sacrificial willingness to upend his whole life in order to accommodate Brad’s precious goddamn feelings.

He’s waiting for it, but he doesn’t want it, not really. Because the truth is, whether the fray is physical or political doesn’t matter, Brad has always trusted Nate’s judgement when it comes to fighting for the right things, at the right time, for the right reasons. And if Nate thinks politics is a war worth waging, if Nate’s going to do battle, there’s nowhere else in the world Brad’s gonna be but at his six.

Which is good, because what he actually gets is:

“So essentially, if I understand you: they think enough of you that they’ve hand-picked you for one of the most cherry jobs in the whole of the United States Marine Corps, which incidentally happens to be close enough to commute from here – your actual home – and sleep in your own bed every night. And – and, Brad! – that bed comes fully stocked with a smoking hot soon-to-be-congressman ready and willing to commit unspeakably filthy acts for your personal gratification, and what I’m getting from you – what you’re telling me – is that you’re pissed about this. Is that correct?”

Brad growls, equal parts amused, annoyed, and turned on.

“Unspeakably filthy, you say?”

“Utterly depraved,” Nate confirms.

Brad sighs, put upon and long-suffering, and concedes, “Well, when you put it like that.”

22. 2013

“Is that everything for today?”

Nate’s packing up his messenger bag while Ingrid scrolls through her list.

“We need to move forward on the Social Media Manager hire. Are we in agreement about Ben?”

Nate pauses, twists his mouth to the side, and Ingrid’s face falls.

“Nonono - not that face! He’s good, come on! What’s the problem? I thought this was settled.”

“He is good,” Nate starts, but Ingrid holds up a hand.

“I know what he is, Nate – he’s a white guy. God help him.”

“That’s not -.” Nate starts again, but Ingrid’s finger waves at him, then points, and he stops.

“Diversity is an admirable goal. We all want a diverse staff. But I got you a Chinese-American woman for your Chair and a purple heart-winning African American man for your Campaign Manager. Your fundraising manager is the lesbian daughter of literal Iowa corn farmers – real people, from the actual state of Iowa, Nate! - and your Finance Chairman is an Indian-American Hindu. The staff so far is over 60 percent female.

“Your top aide,” she pats her own chest emphatically, “is a bilingual first-generation daughter of undocumented Guatemalan immigrants, and let’s not forget, our candidate is a Catholic gay veteran with an active duty Jewish atheist Republican partner.”

She pauses to wave her arms dramatically in a gesture that seems to indicate everything and nothing all at once.

“We’ve got the diversity angle covered, okay? There’s a point at which it stops being responsibly representative and starts being a giant fucking pain in my ass.”

“And you’re saying we’ve reached that point.”

“I’m saying it’s just an exercise in demographic profiling, at this point. In which case we’re in real danger of being under-represented on white guys.”

“I assure you I only want the most qualified candidate,” Nate starts again, and is once again cut off with a gesture.

“They’re all the most qualified candidate, Nate. I’m not bringing you scrubs, here. Ben. He’s good. Let’s do it.” She nods encouragingly, and gives a tentative-looking thumbs-up.

“He’s not too green? He didn’t have much experience.” Nate points out, which only earns him a glare.

“Says the man who was CEO before his 30th birthday,” Ingrid’s look is pointed, and exasperated. “It’s Social Media Manager – there’s no one with experience, it’s a job that’s only existed for 12 seconds! If it helps, he’s gay. Does that make it better?”

Nate snorts.

“How would you know? You can’t ask that in an interview, Ingrid.” His eyes suddenly go wide, horrified. “You didn’t ask him that in an interview, right?”

Ingrid’s shoulders slump, and her eyes close. She looks pained, and Nate can only assume he’s the cause.

“Of course I didn’t ask. I have eyes, Nate, that’s how I know.  Those shoes were a dead giveaway. And anyway It’s not illegal if he volunteers the information. He has a boyfriend named Daniel who was in the Air Force; they saw the feature on Seventh State and the Advocate interview, and now you and Brad are their gay role model. Models? Whatever. Can we just do this, please?”

“I’m not saying that helps,” Nate grins, coming around, “but it doesn’t hurt.” He holds out his fist, thumb up. “Okay. Ben. Let’s do it.”

“Fabulous. Look at you, hiring a white guy!” She’s looking down at her list, clicking and scrolling. “Just one other thing.”

Nate stands and hoists his messenger bag over his shoulder.

“Shoot.”

“Have you given any thought yet to when the wedding is going to be?”

“What wedding?”

“Your wedding.”

His hand stills on the flap of his bag, and he looks at her, confused.

“There’s not. I mean. Never?”

Ingrid looks as perplexed as Nate feels.

“But,” she starts, then seems to run out of steam. Nate’s quite sure he’s never seen that happen before.

“But. What do you mean?” She looks almost hurt, like the time he accidentally insinuated that her mother’s Garbanzos en Dulce weren’t the absolute best thing he’d ever tasted in his whole entire life. Nate isn’t sure what’s happening.

“What do you mean?” he asks, cautious, “why would you think I was getting married?”

She looks at him like he’s sprouted a second head.

“Because you can?” she almost yells, incredulous. “Because you’ve got a fine-ass man who loves you enough to deal with your nonsense and you should put a ring on that immediately, before he comes to his senses?”

Nate huffs a little to himself, gives Ingrid a wry smile. He would have bet a million dollars she’d read the Reporter’s book front to back and back to front, seen the mini-series 20 times. But clearly, if she thinks Brad might want to get married, she has not.

Nate, though, has lived it – has read the book, seen the movie, got the t-shirt. He recalls well, in full living color and surround sound, Brad’s lengthy and passionate diatribes about the institution of marriage and the foolishness thereof.

“I appreciate your concern, Ingrid, as well as your. Enthusiasm. As always. But trust me, Brad doesn’t want a ring. He’s not the marrying kind.”

“Says who?” She raises an eyebrow, disbelieving.

“Says him -.” Nate cuts himself off and narrows his eyes, just realizing that he’s been insulted. “And hey, you know, Brad’s got plenty of nonsense of his own that I deal with. If you spent enough time with him you’d stop being blinded by his whole - thing,” he gestures broadly around his face then up and down his body to indicate the thing to which he’s referring, “and see what I mean.”

Ingrid pffts dramatically and rolls her eyes.

“I don’t know how long it would take to stop being blinded by that level of hot, but I know I don’t have that kind of time.”

She turns on her heel and stalks out of his office, muttering men under her breath.

+ + +

One of Nate’s favorite things about their house is the shower in their master bathroom, codename: spaceship. He loves how huge it is, how he and Brad don’t have to take turns but can come and go as their schedules dictate regardless of what the other is doing. He loves the 16 nozzles, all adjustable. He loves the steam setting, and the big teak bench along one side that makes him feel like he’s in his own private sauna. He loves lying face down on that bench with Brad sitting astride his thighs, massaging oil into his hot damp skin from the Costco-sized jar of coconut oil they keep on one of the recessed alcoves in the wall. And, of course he loves all the space for the various other activities the two of them can get up to when they’ve got nowhere to be and no reason to hurry, for which the coconut oil, along with the bamboo mat they keep rolled in the corner, also comes in handy.

When Brad texts to say he’s on his way, Nate checks his watch, and google maps. He maps the current estimated travel time to their house from DCA, and subtracts 10 minutes to allow for the fact that Brad now has a junker of a bike that he parks in long term parking all week and rides home on the weekends, meaning he can weave in and out of traffic and pull all his favorite questionably-legal driving stunts to get home just that little bit faster.

When he estimates that Brad is 15 minutes out, he turns on the steam and strips out of his clothes, grabs the jar from the shelf. He lies down on the bench and takes his time with the oil, slowly relaxing into it. He can faintly hear the security alarm monitor in their bedroom announcing alarm disarmed, then alarm armed once Brad’s inside. Nate sits up and leans his head back against the cool marble of the shower wall, breathes in the steam, closes his eyes, and waits.

His patience is rewarded shortly, when Brad opens the shower door, naked as the day he was born, one hand already wrapped around his semi-hard cock.

“Waiting for someone?”

“No one in particular.” Nate lets his eyes slide closed again, relaxed to the point of almost sleepy, then pushes himself up to his feet and walks to the opposite wall. He positions himself in just the right spot, then leans his head on his forearm against the wall, and looks at Brad back over his shoulder. Brad’s grin is feral.

The steam billows with the draft from the closing of the door, as Brad steps inside. He turns on the body jets then pushes up behind Nate, plasters himself along his back and grabs two hands full of his ass. Nate’s got no tricks left where Brad’s concerned – Brad’s fingers find the slick of oil immediately, sliding along the cleft of his ass and down between the cheeks, and he growls against Nate’s shoulder, bites down hard.

“So this was just for whoever came along, huh?”

Nate’s breath hitches a little as Brad slides two wet fingers right up into him.

“Guess I’m lucky it was you.”

With his feet together and Brad’s on either side, they come into perfect vertical alignment. Brad has to crouch slightly to get low enough to fuck up into him, but once he does, Jesus.

Once he does, when he thrusts hard enough he can lift Nate almost off the floor, up onto the very tips of his toes, high enough he can’t balance and his hands scrabble against the slippery marble, trying to steady himself. Not that Brad will let him fall, not with his arm wrapped tight around Nate’s midsection and his cock firmly lodged in Nate’s body. The nozzle in the wall in front of them points right at Nate’s groin and the sensation of it, warm water pulsing against his rigid, bobbing erection as Brad grunts filthy words into his ear, holding him tightly there practically suspended on Brad’s cock –

Well.

Nate always thought that the hands-free orgasm was a myth, something for fantastical gay porn and wishful-thinking internet erotica.

But that was before the spaceship came into his life.

Later, when Nate’s go to bed alarm goes off and he dutifully turns down the corner of his page and sets the book aside, he’s surprised to see Brad still awake, staring at him.

“I thought you were asleep. Did the alarm wake you?”

“My mother would like to know when we’re getting married,” is Brad’s only answer.

Nate sighs.

“Ingrid would like to know the same. I guess it was inevitable that people would start wondering, after Question 6 passed. To say she was disappointed would be an understatement.”

“Disappointed by what?”

“To hear that we aren’t getting married.”

Brad’s face is inscrutably blank.

“Disappointed because she knows a married candidate would play better with the electorate, or disappointed because she wanted to plan your wedding?”

“A little from column A, little from column B, probably.”

Brad rolls to his side and props his head on his hand, eyeing Nate intently with narrowed eyes.

“I assume the rest of your team would feel the same way?”

“You mean, that being gay-married is preferable, in the eyes of the voters, to living in sin with my sodomite lover? Uh, yes, I think that’s a fact generally acknowledged.”

“And remind me again, when did we discuss how we’re not getting married?”

Nate stills, turning narrowed eyes right back on Brad.

“I know your feelings on the subject. I thought discussing it further would be. Redundant.”

“How do you know my feelings on the subject?”

Nate takes his glasses off and folds them on his chest, pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers. He’s too tired for their usual song and dance, where Nate plays find the hidden meaning in Brad’s obtuse words and slowly pieces together what’s really behind this line of questioning. He sighs, loudly.

“I was there for your many lectures on the futility of the institution. Even if they weren’t directed at me, your opinions were made crystal clear.” He rubs his eyes and doesn’t bother to stifle a yawn as he stretches over to put his glasses on the bed side table, to turn off the light.

They lie in the dark for a minute, maybe more before Brad’s voice breaches the quiet.

“You mean in Iraq,” Brad says, and his hand slides over Nate’s waist, up across his chest. “10 years ago. Before we were even. Anything.”

Nate lets Brad pull him in tight, wondering what this is about. He’s never even considered the possibility that Brad might fucking marry him. That hasn’t even entered into the realm of possibility in his mind. He always knew it was off the table, and the odd day dream not withstanding about how nice it might be to call Brad his husband, or what it might feel like to see Brad wear a ring that tells the world he belongs to Nate, or even about the free publicity a wedding could bring, or how well wedding photos with Brad in his dress blues might play with voters, Nate has never realistically considered it a possibility.

He knows he has to be missing something, here, because it sounds like Brad is saying that maybe he’s wrong, maybe it’s not completely off the table, but. That can’t be right.

“Yes, in Iraq,” Nate begins carefully. “I know it was a long time ago, but you were very convicted. I’ve been given no reason to think you may have altered your position.”

Brad goes quiet again, his breathing even, and Nate feels his own breathing fall into sync by habit, like second nature. He laces his fingers with Brad’s across his chest and lets his eyes slide closed.

The silence stretches out so long that he’s almost asleep when he feels the hot breath of Brad’s words against his shoulder.

“It never occurred to you that maybe all that big fucking talk about the horrors of marriage was just so much overcompensating bullshit?”

Suddenly something in the back of Nate’s brain pings bright and sharp, and he’s wide awake. He rolls over and snaps the light back on – it’s too hard to read Brad’s mind without being able to see his face.

“Overcompensating for what?”

“For being a single 28-year-old man whose only observable sexual interaction, as far as his fellow Marines knew, came in the form of prostitutes. Which was in reality only concealing the fact that the majority of his sexual interaction actually came in the form of men.”

“So you’re, what?” Nate’s eyes are searching Brad’s face for clues. “You’re saying all that was just intentional misdirection?”

Brad, as always, does not fidget, does not twitch, does not make a face or change his tone of voice. Nothing gives the slightest clue that what he’s saying is particularly difficult or meaningful, but the hairs on the back of Nate’s neck tell him it is.

“It wasn’t that - calculated. I’m just saying, I was very aware of the way things might appear, if someone chose to look at it a certain way. The right way. I was, after all, surrounded all day every day by a bunch of highly trained and pathologically fucking nosy recon Marines, and there I was with no wife, no girlfriend, no visible cover – and taking shit every day about my hard-on for my fucking platoon commander.”

Brad shoots him a look, and Nate feels his face split into a grin. His heart is beating fast, suddenly, adrenaline spiking.

“And you were afraid they might realize that hard-on was not, in fact, figurative,” he teases, pitching his voice low and pulling himself up flush against Brad.

“Something like that,” Brad allows, letting himself be shoved onto his back, letting Nate roll them over so they’re face to face, Nate on top.

“Brad. Are you saying you’d actually consider getting married?” He’s still grinning, wider yet when Brad’s face flushes uncomfortably.

“No.” Brad clears his throat, and his eyes flit away briefly. Nate watches, enthralled, as Brad forces himself to pull them back and focus on Nate. “I’m saying I have considered getting married, and. As long as it’s to you, then – I’m amenable. I mean, if it’s what you want.”

Nate just keeps grinning like a fool. As proposals go, he’s heard better, but his giddy, fluttering heart doesn’t seem to know the difference. There are butterflies flitting around suddenly in his belly, and he feels stupid for it but they’re there, none the less.

“I want you to know, you’ve made Ingrid and your mother very happy.”

“Just them, huh?” Brad’s expression says he’s unamused, but Nate’s not buying. “Because they weren’t exactly my target audience.”

“And me,” Nate whispers, bringing their mouths together as he does, “you make me so fucking happy, Brad.”

Brad doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t need to. His kiss says it all.

+ + +

“I know I’ve never met him, but something tells me your better half just arrived.”

Nate follows Lara’s eyes to the front doors, where Brad stands: tall and broad, strong jawed and devastating in his dress blues, cover clasped effortlessly under his arm. In a room full of men in tuxedos and women in floor-length gowns, he’s like a different species. Nate feels that same old wave of want wash over him, just like the first time Brad ever materialized in front of him as a fully-formed daydream come to life, just like it’s 2002 all over again.

Nate has had some vague concern in the lead-up to this event, some periodic bouts of worry that Brad will be uncomfortable, a fish out of water. But Brad wears his blues like a custom-made suit of armor, like he was born for them; he could never look anything less than completely composed and entirely self-possessed in that uniform.

Nate takes a step forward from the crowd and watches Brad’s eyes scan the room. It doesn’t take long for his sweeping gaze to land on Nate. He strides over, seemingly oblivious to all the eyes on them.

“You made it,” Nate grins, and his hand lands in the dip of Brad’s lower back. He leans in close to Brad’s ear, nose against his temple, stopping just shy of kissing his cheek. “Did I mention I love you in that uniform?”

Brad pulls back just a hair, raises an eyebrow.

“You’ve never seen me in this uniform.”

“I’ve seen you for the last 7 seconds,” Nate shrugs, smirks up at Brad, “trust me, I didn’t need that long to form an opinion.”

Brad gives him a look that makes it difficult to imagine how he was ever dubbed Iceman. “And here I thought I was the one with the predilection for-.”

He stops abruptly as Lara steps out from behind Nate, hand extended.

“Lara Kleinschmidt,” She says, all-business, “Fundraising Chair. Very pleased to meet you, Master Sergeant Colbert. We’re so happy you’re able to be here tonight.”

Brad shakes her hand with a muted hmph, the look on his face making it clear he knows exactly why she’s so happy he’s able to be here, and is very aware that it has everything to do with the uniform he’s wearing, and the photo op it creates.

“I’m sorry, did I say something –?” She starts, brow creased, and looks to Nate. You’d have to be an idiot to miss Brad’s haughty attitude, and Lara is anything but an idiot.

“Please, call him Brad,” Nate intervenes, before turning pointedly to Brad, “and he’s learning to be more approachable. It’s a work in progress.”

Brad just smirks.

Tonight is one part coming-out party for Brad and Nate, and one part campaign launch. Representative Hoyer is here, ready to make the retirement speech that everyone, by this time, knows is coming. He’s also going to be introducing Nate, officially, to the assembled crowd of the largest Democratic donors Maryland has to offer, and essentially set to endorse him before Nate even takes the mic and officially announces his candidacy.

It’s not the first time Brad’s been with him at one of these type of events, but it’s the first time Nate’s been the headliner, and certainly the first time Brad will be expected to do the political spouse shtick, standing on stage behind Nate as he officially, finally, wades into the political fray. They stand in the wings as Hoyer is wrapping up his remarks, and as he thanks the crowd for their support over the past thirty years and asks them to show the same kindness and loyalty to the young man poised to take Maryland forward into the Twenty-First century, Brad reaches for his hand.

The nerves suddenly hit him like a freight train, and his fingers squeeze tight around Brad’s. He can feel the cold bite of the titanium band on Brad’s left ring finger, pressed up in between his. He breathes deep, the exhale coming a little shaky, and then Brad’s voice is in his ear, that’s your cue, Captain, and they’re walking. Flashes pop around them as they shake Hoyer’s hand in turn, first Nate, then Brad. The applause sounds like thunder.

The photo the next morning on the Sun’s website is the two of them hand in hand, Brad stoic and Nate smiling, under the obligatory headline “Maryland’s First Openly Gay Congressional Candidate Wins Retiring Hoyer’s Full-Throated Endorsement.”

“So much for getting my name out there in front of the voters,” Nate bitches, his iPad propped up against his knees and his bare shoulders propped up against the headboard. “Maybe I should just go ahead and change it legally to ‘Openly Gay’.”

Brad squints at him silently from the other side of the bed, eyes slitted against the morning sun.

“Fick’s impressive resume and long list of accomplishments not-withstanding, it’s clear this race will be a litmus test for the vaunted social progressivism of the 5th,” Nate reads aloud. “And while Fick seems more than willing to play the role of lab rat in this socio-political experiment, sources say that his husband, U.S. Marine Corps Master Sergeant Brad Colbert, may be more reticent.”

“Reticent?” Brad croaks, rolling over and burying his face against the sleep-warm skin of Nate’s ribs. “I’m deeply offended by the very suggestion.”

Nate snorts, runs his fingers over the velvety, close-cropped hair at the back of Brad’s skull. Brad lifts his face to mouth across Nate’s chest, drag of wet lips over his nipple and up to the new tattoo above it.

Semper Fidelis, right over his heart - a wedding gift to Brad from Nate, and Susannah.

(Brad’s wedding gift for Nate was a sealed letter addressed to Nate at his old College Park address, dated October 2008, before Brad’s last deployment. Nate’d had to blink like crazy to keep the tears from filling his eyes when he read it, realized what it was and all it meant. What it had meant, even then.)

“I hope we’re ready for this,” Nate muses aloud, mostly to himself.

Brad just grunts, indignant, and moves closer, presses himself up against Nate and pushes his iPad off his lap with the hand that’s sliding into Nate’s pajama pants.

He moves his mouth up in a hot line from Nate’s tattoo over his neck and across his jaw, lips whispering against Nate’s ear, we were born ready.

Author’s Note:

Evolution of this work goes something like this:

I bought One Bullet Away in Fall 2009, but instead of actually reading it I was more interested in writing my own version of the Making of Nate, the boy who would become the Marine Officer. So, the Nate parts up through the 2001 chapter were written around that time.

Then I got sidetracked writing a different story in a different fandom, but using a very similar narrative style, which was heavily influenced by what I’d already written for this. (Screw You, We’re From Texas, if you’re interested in J2 at all).

When that was done, I was still really feeling the whole alternating POV, slowly letting a years-long story unfold from both sides thing, so I decided maybe I could do something similar with the ‘Making of Nate’ (working title) story I’d started but not finished. Basically, the idea was to weave in The Making of Brad, the boy who would become the Iceman, and make it an exploration of the development of both characters and how they came to be the men we meet in Generation Kill. I wrote the early Brad chapters in Fall 2010 and interspersed them with the Nate stuff I’d already done, intending for it to end when they met, after which would come the events of GK with which we are all familiar, and to leave their eventual relationship (or lack thereof) up to the reader’s own hopes and/or dreams.

Instead of posting that though, I got carried away thinking through how they might go about actually figuring shit out and making a life together (because That’s My Fucking Dream TM Ray Person), and also I’ve always been a sucker for a developing relationship and what happens after they get together, so circa 2011 I started sketching out a future timeline post-OIF, that ended up going through 2014. At the time I looked at the landscape of Maryland’s congressional representation and decided Nate could replace Hoyer when he retired. I still hadn’t read OBA at the time, and the best current info I could find told me Brad was at Fort Benning and that Nate was working at CNAS. His official bio gave his separation date from the Corps as December 2003, so that’s what I went with. In my outline at the time, I also intended to use the old standby plot device “OCS Instructor!” as my means to get Brad to Quantico and closer to Nate in DC.

Around that time I wrote parts of the 2003-2006 chapters, while reading OBA. After reading, I kind of got hung up on the historical accuracy aspect and my intention was to go back and change some of what I’d written, namely the events around 9/11 and the timing of Nate’s Paddle Party, so as not to contradict the OBA account.

Then life happened for oh, about 5 years, and I kind of forgot writing (or reading) fic was a thing that existed.

In November 2016 I read Worthy of Trust and Confidence and it made me remember this WIP, and I dug it up and still liked it, and thought it deserved an ending. I did a little brushing up on my research to get me going and found out my 2011 predictions for the future were not in fact accurate. (which, what?!) For instance, Hoyer still hasn’t retired (oops, sorry Hoyer) and RL-Brad did in fact wind up at Quantico, at Marine Corps Systems Command, a thing which I’d never even heard of before. I also found that the then-current Wikipedia article on Brad contained an extensive year by year run-down of his entire career in the Corps and based on that, I went back and changed some of the details around his career in the early chapters (pre-2003), including adding a totally fabricated college experience to account for the fact that according to Wiki he didn’t enlist at 18 as I’d previously assumed. I also decided to change his Quantico posting from OCS to MCSC to coincide with that accounting. (NOTE: most of those details have since been removed from the Wiki article, so who knows if they were ever even accurate, although his job at MCSC appears legit.)

But then I decided screw all that, this is called fiction for a reason, and I left everything else I’d previously written intact, historical accuracy be damned. From there I just followed my timeline as originally laid out in 2011 with very little deviation, other than I ended it a year earlier than originally intended, for symmetry (11 Chapters of Brad, 11 Chapters of Nate).

And now it’s some weird mashup of factual and totally made up, and also the longest thing I’ve ever written.

Table of Contents

- Title Page
- 1. 1992
- 2. 1993
- 3. 1994
- 4. 1995
- 5. 1996
- 6. 1997
- 7. 1998
- 8. 1999
- 9. 2000
- 10. 2001
- 11. 2002
- 12. 2003
- 13. 2004
- 14. 2005
- 15. 2006
- 16. 2007
- 17. 2008
- 18. 2009
- 19. 2010
- 20. 2011
- 21. 2012
- 22. 2013