Work Text:
Brad was not a man who came home from war gracefully. There was nobody waiting for him because his parents knew better; he always felt crabby and reclusive for a period of time proportional to how long he'd been in theater; the bike always needed tuning and the board always needed waxing before he could take either of them out for a rip and just... relax.
Iraq was going to leave him unlikeable for a while. He even gave up and crashed on base for a couple nights after they got back and staggered off of the buses, just trying to find some kind of internal balance before he went home and unlocked his door and opened his windows and sorted his junk mail and put off grocery shopping for as long as he could stand to eat delivered pizza. Before someone figured out he was back and started calling to see how he was doing. An easier transition. Life on pause. Taking the scenic route back to the other, less interesting part of his existence.
When he woke up on Poke's couch for the second day and decided it was time to sack up and take his finger off the pause, he took his time about it. Slow, methodical, making sure all his shit was in his bag and walking it out to the back of his truck like he was in a dream sequence. He'd been working on processing Iraq since Baghdad, because it didn't pay to put these things off, but he wasn't done and settled; there were still pieces to fit into place. It was going to take some more pizza yet.
Poke had been talking a lot since their stopover in Germany, about his hesitance on what to do next. Separating was on the tip of his tongue, although he never said it. Brad saw guys do that dance with their emotions after every tour, although maybe there were a few more this time than you'd expect, especially for Recon. Poke phrased it in that canny motherfucker kind of way he liked to frame all of his thoughts about big things, saying that he'd had a lot of shitty jobs in his day and anytime the wind started to change at work, it was never a bad idea to go. It never ever shifted back to how it used to be, he said. He asked Brad if he thought the wind in the Corps was shifting, and Brad brushed him off with some comment about whiskey tango hygiene habits making it seem that way.
But maybe it was, and what the fuck did Brad know? He thought about that as he drove across town, his truck driving itself home from base with minimal guidance from him. He was too close to it all to figure it out. Yes, they'd been poorly supplied; there were Marine proverbs about being poorly supplied. Yes, they'd suffered questionable command decisions; see above. No, they hadn't known what they were getting themselves into; dragon-slaying was unpredictable and that was why Brad didn't work in IT somewhere. Another little piece seemed to find its fit somewhere in his head and he settled a fraction more comfortably into the seat as he sat at a red light. Quitting his job was never really something that pinged on his radar, even in the shittier moments, because what faith he did have was deep-down and hard to shake... but this one was proving a hard war to process.
His lawn was launching an assault on the edges of his driveway when he got home, and he kicked at the grass absentmindedly as he walked around to grab his bag from the back of the truck. He was just wondering what the inside of his house looked like--he hadn't told his mom when he was back so that she wouldn't break in and clean the place this time--when he walked around the corner of the garage and stopped dead.
There was a huge box on his front steps. It had had the shit kicked out of it, and was covered in stickers. Some were white, some were fluorescent orange. Further observation showed him a purple 'F' poking out from under some stickers, and he approached cautiously, letting his bag drop at the foot of the steps. Fedex box, rerouted more times than Ray had fucked livestock. It was dirty and one corner was bashed in, and there was a military stamp on one sticker that didn't have a barcode, and across the whole top of it someone had written 'SGT. B. COLBERT' and his address in block-lettered black Sharpie.
He nudged it with his foot; it was heavy as hell, and rattled a little when he let it drop back onto the steps.
Brad huffed and squeezed past it to unlock his front door, holding his breath against the rush of stale air from indoors as he made a beeline for the kitchen. There was dust on his knife block, but he ignored it as he grabbed a big, serrated bread knife and went back outside. The stickers needed a bit of light stabbing to puncture, but once he found purchase the box opened easily. Realizing belatedly that it could in fact be some elaborate joke of Ray's, he lifted the flap very carefully, with the tip of the knife, from arm's length, and then peered cautiously inside.
It was a turret shield. Titanium, sixteen pounds, custom-made.
The giggle that escaped him was a little bit hysterical.
THE END