Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“we are at the crossroads, my little outlaw, 

and this is the map of my heart, the landscape 

after cruelty”

― Richard Siken, Crush

So here I am, Nate thought as he followed the exit sign off the highway into Cambridge, the next chapter of my life.

He was no longer Captain Nathaniel Fick of the U.S. Marine Corps, but Nate Fick, grad student at Harvard. His hair was already longer than regulation, his dog tags buried somewhere deep down in one of the many boxes occupying the back of his old but trusty Toyota pickup truck.

The most significant year of his life was over. This was his chance to get a fresh start.

If only it were that easy.

As much as he wanted to convince himself that he could just leave everything that had happened to him in the past five years behind, make a clean cut and get on with his life, he couldn’t quite make himself believe it. The signs of his old life bleeding into his new one were too obvious - his former team leader pretending to be asleep in the passenger seat next to him only the most glaring one. 

Nate blinked and suddenly the traffic light in front of him had jumped from green to red. He hit the brakes hard to avoid skidding into the intersection and he could hear his cargo ominously sliding around in the back. Next to him, Brad gave up all pretence of being asleep, straightened up and carefully took in his surroundings, although Nate was pretty sure he knew exactly where they were, no blue force tracker required.

“We’re early,” Brad observed, confirming Nate’s suspicions. They were about 20 mikes out from their objective, but still had almost two hours to go until they were supposed to meet the landlord for the handover.

“Plenty of time for some recon, then.” The traffic light turned back to green and Nate put the car back into gear, making it an extra rocky start just to mess with Brad. Served him right for nagging Nate about his driving ever since they’d left Oceanside.

Nate was still not entirely sure how that had happened. He remembered bitching at his own paddle party about how moving from one coast to another for grad school really shouldn’t be harder than invading a foreign desert country, but with his sister Jo just having had her first baby, which was much more daunting than both those things, he’d told his parents to stay put, which left him to plan and execute the entire mission by his lonesome. The men had all ribbed him mercilessly for it, and he’d thought that was that. He didn’t even think Brad had been around for that bit of conversation.

But when he’d left his house in Oceanside at 0500 to get into his fully-packed car and an early start on the first leg of his cross-country trip, Brad had been leaning nonchalantly against said car, a duffle bag lying at his feet.

“Here to send me off personally, Brad,” Nate had asked, half expecting most of Bravo Two to suddenly jump out of the bushes and scream Surprise at him.

“No, sir. Here to bum a ride.”

Nate had looked at him pretty much like he’d looked at him when he’d been standing in that hole back in Bagdad.

“You see, sir,” Brad had explained lazily, not at all perturbed, “it seems I made a mistake and booked my transatlantic flight from Boston Logan instead of San Diego International. Care to help your former TL out? I promise I’ll make myself useful by carrying some of the lighter boxes into your apartment.”

Nate hadn’t known what to do except tell Brad he could try and stow his bag in the back, already stocked pile-high with boxes, get into his car and start driving.

“If you’re still up for that sort of thing, sir,” Brad jested. That had been another constant point of contention over the past three days – Brad insisting on calling him sir, Nate correcting him repeatedly.

“Nate,” Nate reminded him as he took another turn, even though he resigned himself to it being a fruitless endeavour. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Texas, Nate had decided to take a page out of Ray Person’s book and started braking and accelerating erratically, sometimes even swerving on the deserted highway, in order to get Brad to give in. All it had gotten him was two hours of sullen silence from the passenger seat, until they’d driven past a giant statue of two cowboys sitting on what vaguely resembled a horse, one of them clinging tightly to the cowboy in front of him, that Brad had been unable to leave uncommented. They had decided to stop for the night shortly after - they’d been stuck in the car for sixteen hours at that point and the tension between them had been riding higher with every minute.

Nate still wasn’t entirely sure what to make of Brad being here. They hadn’t talked about why Brad decided he wanted to go on a cross country trip with his former CO in the first place, neither of them willing to bring it up. On the one hand, Nate was glad he didn’t have to drive the whole way by himself. It was nice to have someone else take the wheel for a while, someone to talk to in order to stay alert, someone’s snores to listen to while he lay awake in their tiny motel room, unable to go back to sleep.

He’d been surprised to hear Brad snore that first night - he had never done so in theatre or in training. It took a backfiring car right outside their room that made Nate’s heart race for a moment and grab for his rifle that wasn’t at his side anymore but not fazing Brad in the slightest for Nate to realize that this was Brad, deeply asleep in a way he never allowed himself to be on duty, not still half awake listening for the next attack, but completely unconscious, implicitly trusting Nate to have his back. Nate of course profited from the occasion to take a compromising video of Brad, lying on his side like a baby, mouth wide open and snoring loudly, in case he ever needed some blackmail material on him. The Iceman, looking harmless and unguarded, almost endearing in a way, was probably something he could’ve sold for quite some money on the Corps’ intranet if he still had access to it. Even so, Nate was sure it would come in handy at some point.

On the other hand, having Brad here felt strange, almost wrong. Before three days ago, they had never spent time alone together. Outside of duty, sure – ever since their return from Iraq, Nate had been explicitly invited to Bravo Two’s mandatory fun parties at Mike’s or Poke’s or at the beach. Brad had teased him mercilessly for looking like a stereotypical surfer-boy with his boardshorts, naked torso and his horseshoe tied around his neck, even though Nate couldn’t surf for shit, a shame that Brad always deplored but never offered to rectify. They had however never met outside of the group context. 

They weren’t friends, weren’t supposed to be anything to each other outside of the Corps that Nate was no longer a part of. Their easy communication and implicit trust wasn’t supposed to carry over into their civilian life, and it hadn’t, not completely. Nate was unable to get a clear reading on Brad and he sometimes caught Brad looking at him like he wasn’t entirely sure what to make of him, either.

Nate had always known that he would love and care for his men for the rest of his life, but had expected to do it quietly and from afar, except maybe for some emailed updates and a wedding or baptism here or there. He hadn’t expected one of them to get into his car as he was driving away from that part of his life.

“Once a recon marine...” he intoned, more to himself than to Brad, who nodded his head in agreement anyway.

Together, they navigated through Cambridge and found Nate’s apartment building without taking a wrong turn once, illustrating once more how much easier it would have been if navigation had been solely in their hands back in Iraq, without the likes of Griego and Encino Man getting in their way. Nate pushed the thought aside – it didn’t matter anymore – and instead focused on not showing his frustration when Brad insisted on getting out of the car to signal him into the parking spot that was maybe a little tight for his pickup, but Nate could’ve handled it very well on his own, thank you very much.

At least Encino Man and Casey Casem had let him get in plenty of practice at stowing away his frustration and putting on a gamely smile instead, so Nate just hopped out of the truck and led Brad down the street with Brad none the wiser.

They staked out the neighbourhood for the next hour or so. Nate clocked the closest grocery store, ATM and book store for later reference. They looked at a couple of bicycles when they stumbled across a place that sold second-hand ones that still seemed in pretty good shape. Nate briefly spoke to the owner, a woman in her fifties with greying hair that fell wildly around her shoulders and a bright, friendly smile that showed off her crooked front teeth, with a promise to be back in the next few days to take one for a test ride.

Nate lived close enough to campus to be able to cycle over instead of taking the bus, a luxury he definitely planned on exploiting. Its excellent location was the apartment’s biggest asset. The building itself was a bit run-down and drafty, as most older buildings were, and the elevator had been out of order since the late nineties. His landlord was a rather grumpy old man who Nate suspected would dodge his calls if anything ever needed repairing until Nate would eventually take care of it himself, and the kitchen was even more garishly pink than it had looked on the photos he’d seen.

Lizzie, his little sister, had been the one who had ultimately chosen it. She’d driven up from New York one weekend to take a look at the potential apartments Nate had lined up when he’d been stuck in California on an entirely pointless training exercise. She’d told him to take this one, and he’d taken her word for it, not really caring either way as it couldn’t be worse than sharing a tent with at least half a dozen stinking Marine officers. He was pretty sure she’d made her choice because and not in spite of the kitchen – her idea of a practical joke.

Brad took one look at the kitchen cabinetry before he turned to the landlord and asked him if he’d mind if they painted it over. The man shrugged, pressed a bunch of keys and a binder into Nate’s hands – a floor plan, the house rules as of 1994, operating instructions for the kitchen appliances, Nate determined as he quickly thumbed through it - mumbled something about washing machines and a storage unit downstairs and disappeared through the door.

Nate stared after him for a moment, then looked around his empty apartment – a short entryway barely long enough to house a small built-in closet, the tiny kitchen that went off to the left with a pass-through to the living room, equally tiny bathroom and bedroom to the right – then at Brad who was still standing in the kitchen, taking up most of its available space.

Brad raised his eyebrows and Nate offered him a what-are-you-gonna-do smile-and-shrug, the interaction so reminiscent of their time in Iraq that Nate didn’t even remember Brad wasn’t supposed to call him sir anymore.

“So what’s the plan, sir,” Brad asked, hands clasped behind his back, at ease.

“I remember you promising to carry some of my stuff up for me, so let’s get started with that –“ Nate quickly checked his watch. “it’s probably too late to get through Ikea today, so I guess I’ll go there first time tomorrow –“

“You want to go to Ikea?”

Brad sounded appalled, as if Nate had suggested they go to Griego and ask him for equipment he was only going to keep for himself.

“You can get anything you need in one place, their cost effectiveness is actually pretty great and their stuff is better than what I had back at my dorm at Dartmouth.”

Than what we had in Iraq was unspoken but understood between them.

Nate wondered when he’d stop doing that – compare everything he did now to what they saw and went through in Iraq and find that it didn’t matter, that he couldn’t care about mundane things like the colour of his kitchen or the quality of his furniture anymore – and couldn’t quite fathom ever doing so. Even having been fussy about such things in the past seemed like a distant memory of something never to return again.

“Your standards have gotten real low, sir,” Brad said, slapping the palm of his left hand against a pink kitchen cupboard for effect.

A sudden rush of rage prickled underneath Nate’s skin at that and it took all his training, his hands balled into fists, nails cutting into the palms of his own hands, to keep himself from lashing out at Brad. He could do nothing but breathe for a second, and that was all it took to realize that what he felt wasn’t rage, at least not at the heart of it. It was shame. Shame at the pity he now finally recognized in Brad. The disappointment.

Nate felt stupid for not realizing it sooner. What else was Brad going to think of him? Nate Fick was a quitter, after all, hadn’t been able to handle the pressure, couldn’t square himself away in the face of wounded children and the callous indifference of his superiors. Sure, Brad had been the one to hide under his Humvee, but in the long run he’d come out, moved on to do his job just as effectively as ever while Nate just continued losing his grip from then on out until his departure from the Corps had become inevitable.

Brad clearly thought he was weak, unable to handle even something as simple as driving across the country and moving into his new apartment by himself. Brad was simply too loyal to let himself turn away in disgust. Just as he’d never abandoned Trombley, even at his most deplorable, had never stopped looking after him and protecting him, he’d never stop looking after Nate, because that was who he was. Ultimately, Brad hadn’t won the other men’s respect and admiration with his skills, but with his unwavering, unconditional loyalty. It had never been about the Iceman, but about Brad, the man who was ready to throw away his career for Kocher, for Trombley, for any of his brothers at the drop of a hat.

Even in his frustration, Nate had to recognize that and he reined in his temper to address Brad in a tone at least resembling his usual calm.

“Look Brad, I don’t expect you to come with me. I appreciate all you’ve done so far, but you’ve probably got better things to do, so feel free to –”

“- miss out on the LT invading the Swedish version of hell? Sir, SOP clearly states I have to follow you into the shit, no matter how deep and fucked up it is.”

“I’m not the LT anymore,” Nate reminded him, his tone flat in his effort to suppress any emotion that might come with it.

“Captain, sorry, sir” Brad deferred with a lazy grin.

Nate sighed in frustration.

“You know that’s not what I mean.”

Brad straightened up at that and Nate could feel Brad’s entire focus homing in on him as if it were a physical touch.

“You’re serious,” Brad stated, as if something had just become clear to him. “You really do mind.”

His eyebrows drew together, wrinkling his entire forehead, telegraphing the fact that he was trying to puzzle out the why to his question.

Nate didn’t know what to do with that. This was his chance to get Brad to stop calling him sir for good. All he’d have to do was say yes, I do mind. Except that he’d have to explain why and he couldn’t, not to himself and certainly not to Brad, without opening a whole can of worms he was desperately trying to keep a lid on. Fortunately, he had some experience with bullshitting his way through any situation on the fly.

“I’d just prefer it if you called me Nate instead of sir, that’s all,” he said casually, adding a little shrug for good measure.

For a moment, Nate felt as if Brad’s gaze was piercing right through him and he held his breath in anticipation of Brad calling him out on his half-assed response. Then, in one fluid motion, Brad’s posture relaxed and he finally looked away from Nate, clearly having decided to let it slide for the moment.

“Alright, Nate,” Brad conceded.

Nate carefully breathed out. He’d won that battle, but not the war and much less its aftermath, which they both knew first-hand was the most tricky part.

“Ikea tomorrow,” Brad continued, picking up their initial threat of conversation, “boxes now and we probably should get some groceries before the stores close.”

“Sounds like a solid plan. Let’s go,” Nate concurred and flattened himself against the wall of the hallway so Brad could precede him out the door.

It was only then that Nate noticed that Brad had neatly sidestepped the discussion about his further involvement in the whole moving-business that Nate had been about to start, casually inserting himself into Nate’s plans for the next few days. Maybe more of a draw than a victory, Nate thought as he followed Brad, but somehow the thought didn’t fill him with defeat.

Instead, he felt something like acceptance, almost contentment. Brad was here to help, and Nate would appreciate it while it lasted.

They made steady work of carrying Nate’s boxes up the three flights of stairs. Brad came up with the last batch as Nate arranged it all into a neat-ish pile in the middle of his living room, a small box tucked under his arm, laptop bag slung over his shoulder, the car keys dangling from one hand while the other held Nate’s paddle. 

Nate took the box, keys and laptop bag from him, but shied away from his paddle. He didn’t know what it was about it, but he was reluctant to touch it, wary of all it symbolised. Instead he watched as Brad turned it in his hands, inspecting its design for a moment before carefully settling it against the mountain of boxes so it wouldn’t fall over. 

Not for the first time Nate wondered if Brad had had a hand in designing or making it, but was too tired to risk starting that conversation. He felt a bit like he’d just gone through a log-run at OCS, except that this time his teammate had actually pulled his weight.

Unlike the Sergeant Instructor at OCS, Brad took pity on him and offered to go do the grocery shopping. Nate gladly handed over his car and apartment keys and got started on unpacking his stuff – which, seen as he didn’t have any actual furniture yet, meant he just had to unpack the two kitchen and bathroom boxes. He got those squared away before Brad was back, so he dug all his blankets and pillows and mats out and assembled them in one corner of the living room, which meant they took up about half its available space. It was as close as they were going to get to the comfort of a real mattress tonight.

After that, there wasn’t much for him to do, and he felt his exhaustion steadily creeping up on him. It was only 2000, but he’d barely slept the night before. It probably wouldn’t hurt to lay his head down for a minute or two. He stretched out on the improvised bedding, curled onto his side, his back to the wall.

What the hell is taking Brad so long, he thought sluggishly, and then he was asleep.

He woke up with a start when something shifted over him and almost socked Brad in the face, as he realized a moment later when the disoriented panic had faded back enough to let him make sense of his surroundings. Brad held himself utterly still, sitting on his knees, eyes wide, the blanket he’d apparently tried to put over Nate still held up in his hands.

“Sorry,” Brad apologized after a few seconds of Nate staring owlishly at him, “you looked cold.”

For a moment, Brad looked sheepish, perhaps even embarrassed, like a little kid who’d gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar. But then Nate blinked and the look was gone. Nate must’ve imagined it - he still wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t dreaming this entire thing.

“Where’ve you been?” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes in an effort to get the sleepiness to fade, but it felt like a losing battle. “What time’s it?”

“About 2200. I got some stuff, came back, saw you asleep in your adorable blanket nest, took some pictures, made some sandwiches.”

Nate watched the grin spread out over Brad’s face, the one Nate loved that started in the corner of Brad’s mouth to slowly reveal his row of perfect teeth, getting as close to beaming as Brad was ever going to get and making his eyes crinkle, before it turned into a softer smile a moment later.

Nate’s stomach made a sudden rolling motion. What the fuck, he thought at it and put his hand on his belly as if that would help calm it down.

“I left some sandwiches in the fridge, in case you’re hungry,” Brad offered, following Nate’s hand with his eyes.

Nate contemplated it for a second, but decided it was too much of a hassle to get up just to eat. Besides, he was more tired than hungry, anyway. He could still eat in the morning.

Decision made, he shook his head.

“ ‘m not leaving this blanket nest ever again,” he proclaimed, yawning as he laid back down.

“Alright,” Brad whispered, and offered him the blanket he was still holding in his hands. Nate took it from him, but only pulled it over himself after he’d patted over the space next to him to make sure there were enough pillows and blankets left for Brad. No matter how tired he was, it was still Nate’s job to take care of Brad.

Speaking of.

“Come to bed soon, yeah?” Nate slurred into his pillow, his eyes drooping closed. “Y’ need t’ rest, too.”

Brad didn’t reply and didn’t move until Nate was all the way back to sleep.

When Nate woke up the second time, it was light outside, the birds were singing, and Brad was snoring loudly next to him. He was mirroring Nate’s position, lying on his side and facing Nate, his hands curled up in front of his chest, one of his little fingers brushing against Nate’s pillow.

Nate kept lying still for a moment, contemplating Brad’s face and trying to decide whether or not he’d dreamed Brad trying to tuck him in, talking about blanket nests and coming to bed soon.

Jesus Christ.

The memory was fuzzy around the edges and felt too unreal to be true. Just a dream, then, Nate decided firmly, carefully not thinking about what it meant in turn that his subconscious was making stuff like that up.

Instead, he focused on getting up without waking Brad. Once he’d successfully extracted himself, he made his way to the bathroom and then to the kitchen, deciding to cook a nice breakfast as a thank you for Brad’s grocery run.

He felt well rested, thanks to the ten or so hours of uninterrupted sleep he’d gotten in, and ready to take on what would surely be a long, exhausting, but also fulfilling day.

He opened the fridge, thanks to Brad fully stocked with anything he might need – orange juice, milk, eggs, fruit – a plate of already made sandwiches.

“Fuck,” Nate said out loud, with feeling, blushing all the way up to the tips of his ears.

Not a dream then.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, he thought, as he heard Brad shifting around in the living room, giving Nate an estimated timeframe of about ninety seconds to come up with a contingency plan.

Distract and divert, he decided and took the eggs and milk out of the refrigerator as Brad shuffled his way into the kitchen.

“Good morning,” Nate greeted him, mustering up all the cheer he’d felt before he’d opened the fridge. “Eggs or pancakes?”

He looked over his shoulder to smile at Brad, who still looked a little sleep-soft around the edges, wearing only a white wife beater and flannel pyjama pants, his naked toes curling on the cold tiles. He saw a cold shiver run through Brad and felt himself shiver along in sympathy.

“Eggs,” Brad decided and padded over to the coffee maker as Nate fished a bowl out of a cabinet to get started on cracking some eggs –

Wait a minute.

“Since when do I have a coffee machine?” Nate asked, mentally sifting through all the stuff he’d brought along from California - yep, he’d definitely left their shitty coffee maker to his housemate.

“Since yesterday,” Brad answered, nonplussed, as he opened the cabinet over the machine and got out both filters and coffee grains.

“Where did I get a new coffee maker yesterday?”

“The same place you got a new printer and a pretty good deal for your landline and internet connection, even though that one took a bit of convincing.”

Nate just stared at Brad for a good ten seconds, holding one egg in each hand.

“Brad, wh-“

“I passed that electronics store we saw yesterday on the way over to the supermarket and thought you needed -“

“- you got distracted by that new Dell laptop they had on display, didn’t you?” Nate interrupted, eyebrows raised to show Brad how entirely unimpressed he was with him.

“Well, yes,” Brad admitted after a beat, actually having the decency to look caught out, “but look what it got you.”

He made a flourishing gesture, as if the printer and internet connection would magically appear to illustrate his point.

“I was thinking about getting you the laptop, too, because frankly, Nate, that thing you have is a disgrace to all of humanity. But they had a pretty good deal on that Lenovo and I couldn’t decide right away, and the shops were about to close, so we might have to go back to decide.”

Nate kept staring for a few seconds, eggs still in his hands, then decided it was too early to deal with this and got started on making some omelettes, for which he only required his Nan’s old, trusty frying pan, thank you very much.

Chapter Text

They ate their breakfast mostly in silence, listening to the pocket radio Nate had also carried along with him in Iraq, cleaned up, got dressed and were out the door before 0800. Brad refused to hand over the car keys and insisted on driving, which meant Nate was in a particularly prissy mood all the way over to the nearest Ikea, doing his best to get on Brad’s nerves even as he manoeuvred through the gigantic parking lot that was somehow already packed with both people and cars.

“You know what. If you beat me to the door, you can drive us home,” Brad taunted him as they got out of the car in an entirely transparent effort to make Nate stop whining, and it worked like a charm. They took off across the parking lot, running at full speed, trying to elbow each other out of the way. Brad had to break his run to avoid crashing into a middle-aged man and his fully loaded cart, and that was just enough for Nate to slip through the revolving door right before him, turning around immediately to smile at him triumphantly through the glass.

Once Brad had made it through behind him, Nate held out his hand and Brad reluctantly handed over the car keys.

“My life in your hands,” Brad jested. “Just like old times.”

Nate couldn’t think of anything snarky to say to that, so he tucked the keys into his back pocket and walked over to the InfoPoint to get them both notepads to write down the location numbers of items they might want to buy. When Brad tried to hand him one of the little pencils that went along with it in return, Nate only lifted an eyebrow at him.

“Do be serious, Brad,” he chided him, like Brad had just proposed to invade a foreign country with nothing but rusty swords, and pulled two pens out of his pocket that he’d personally tested on ergonomics, flow and reliability. And no, he did not do it to see that smile spread on Brad’s face – the you’re such a nerd, sir one – because Nate really did take his writing utensils seriously and these pencils were a joke.

Nate held the pens out to Brad who took one without really looking at them, but somehow managed to choose the better out of the two anyway - at least for the occasion. Nate’s was the more durable one, but seen as this probably would be more of a 5k race than a marathon, shape and flow were the more pertinent factors.

“Nate,” Brad said, and it still sounded like sir, “I’m almost afraid to ask at this point. But your relationship with pens seems oddly intense.”

It was only because he’d spent weeks and months biting back any reaction to Brad’s antics that Nate succeeded in shrugging casually instead of grinning like an idiot - training overcoming impulse in the best way, leaving him room to spin a whole tale around it just for Brad’s amusement.

“You want to know the real reason I ended up joining the Marines, Brad?” he stage-whispered, leaning towards Brad like he was about to reveal a big secret. He lingered for a beat, then about-faced before Brad could answer and crossed the hall to make his way up the stairs to the showroom, trusting Brad to fall in behind him.

“Did they offer you free pens?” Brad asked, sounding a bit breathless as he was catching up with him by taking the stairs two at once.

Nate scoffed, standing still at the top of the stairs for a moment, hands on his hips as he assessed the AO before he got moving again.

“Please. If anything their merchandise was a waving red flag as to their poor supply situation. Cheap plastic. Dry up faster than the last drop of water in the middle of a desert.

“No, you see,” and with this he dropped down on the first couch he spotted, which turned out to be really fucking uncomfortable as he sunk through the cushion right down to its wooden base, “the reason I joined the Marine corps is Organic Chemistry.”

“Organic chemistry?” Brad inquired, noting Nate’s less-than-impressed expression and offering him a hand up. “Is that a euphemism, sir?”

Nate decided to let the sir slide just this once and took Brad’s hand even though he could have gotten up perfectly well on his own.

“Again, no. The fact is that I was planning on becoming a doctor.” He stepped around Brad to take a look at the coffee table before moving on. “Only that in the middle of my o-chem exam, my pen stopped working and I failed the test.”

Brad gave him a look he usually reserved for particularly incompetent officers.

“You couldn’t have just asked somebody to help you out?”

“That’s what I tried to do. But I got accused of trying to cheat and had to hand in my test and leave in shame.”

“And thus you had no other choice but get a Classics degree and join the Marine corps?”

Brad was clearly mocking him, but Nate just flashed him a smile that showed all his teeth.

“See? I knew you’d get it,” Nate said proudly, as if Brad were a five-year-old who had just correctly solved a puzzle meant for third-graders, and Nate couldn’t wait to rub it into other parents’ faces at the next school fair.

“That is the saddest fucking story I’ve ever heard,” Brad lamented and let himself fall down dramatically onto a grey two-seater.

Nate hummed in agreement and checked the price tag of the sofa, called Vimle, which was probably Swedish for fuck you for thinking Ikea was supposed to be cheap.

Nate frowned. In his humble opinion, they should have used a cool language like Greek or Latin to name their products, anyway.

“Actually, this one is pretty comfortable,” Brad said and sat up straight to make room for Nate who moved over to sit down in the vacated space, wriggling around a bit to test it out.

“Yeah,” he agreed after a few seconds, putting one arm on the armrest, the other along the back of the couch behind Brad, who was leaning forward to check the tag for himself. “Pretty expensive, though.”

“It’s a pull-out,” Brad argued. “Besides, you can’t tell me you don’t have a bit of money to burn with all that combat pay you’ve been earning yourself recently.”

Nate tilted his head, conceding the point as Brad leaned back. Nate’s thumb was now brushing the back of his neck and Nate thought about retracting his arm to his side of the couch but decided against it. He was way too comfortable to move, and Brad wasn’t complaining, anyway.

He idly stroked over the fabric of the armrest and tried to think of another argument against the couch but couldn’t come up with anything. Instead, he imagined the two of them like this, back at his apartment with beer and pizza, keeping a running commentary on some awful reality show on tv to wind down from a stressful day. Something that felt almost like contentment shot through him at the thought, only tampered down by the fact that, as of right now, he neither owned this couch, nor was Brad going to stay around long enough to really make use of it.

Nate shook himself out of that train of thought and turned his head to look at Brad, who was mustering him in much the same way he had done back in Iraq, where, Nate suspected, he had constantly evaluated how likely the LT was to either break down or fuck them all over, be it by his own or by command’s design, ranging on a scale from the ambush at Muwaffaquiya to miraculously scamming gun lube off RCT One.

Nate was surprised to see it here, where there was no more LT and where, jabs at his supposedly reckless driving aside, Nate no longer had the power to fuck up anybody’s life but his own by buying a shitty couch.

Which this one was apparently not. He was assured of this.

“Might come in handy if I ever have guests,” he allowed a beat too late, looking away.

“I might know a guy or two who might be interested,” Brad said, laying the fake-innocence on real thick. Then he gently bumped his shoulder into Nate’s.

“You just don’t want to sleep on the floor again,” Nate shot back, going for stern but the words came out fond instead.

Brad grinned at him in response and Nate found himself smiling back before he could stop himself. Then he realized that there was no real reason anymore for him not to smile at Brad whenever he felt like it. He got to have this now - training could go kiss his civilian ass. Some impulses were just not meant to be repressed forever.

“Alright,” he conceded, “let’s write it down and see what else we can find.”

Before they were through, Nate fell in love with a bookshelf, Ed from the lights section fell in love with Brad when he managed to hold an entire laudation on behalf of the ugliest light fixture Nate had ever seen in his life and tried to recruit Brad on the spot, and Brad fell in love with a king-size box-spring bed, which he somehow managed to talk Nate into buying, but only because the headboard was perfect for leaning against while reading in bed.

Perhaps, Nate thought wryly as he handed his credit card over to the cashier, going to Ikea with Brad once-tried-to-buy-a-fucking-tank Colbert wasn’t the wisest choice he’d ever made. Though, seen as, thanks to Brad, his furniture was now perfectly color-coordinated, it probably still ranked over that time he’d not-so-voluntarily learned how to drown himself while drill instructors shouted abuse at him.

They dropped all their stuff off at Nate’s apartment – on the way over, Brad made a show of holding onto the car’s door handle like his life depended on it from the moment Nate turned the key in the ignition until they were safely parked in front of his building – and were immediately off again to the closest DIY store because “I am not putting all of this together with these shitty hex keys, we are getting you an electric screwdriver. And we still need to buy paint and brushes and everything for the kitchen.”

Nate was happy enough to let Brad pick the screwdriver, seen as anything electric was much more in his wheelhouse than in Nate’s, but grew frustrated when he couldn’t get a word in edgewise as Brad discussed different shades of green with the sales assistant. He sounded oddly invested in a way that made Nate think it was much more about lovely Julia than Nate’s cabinets.

“Look,” Nate interrupted after a minute of Brad describing the exact color he wanted and Julia nodding along enthusiastically, “I was just going to go with some off-white or something.”

“Nonsense,” Brad said without even looking up at him, his gaze now fixed on the catalogue Julia had pulled out from under the counter, “it’ll never cover that garish pink.”

“No, what you need,” he continued, dragging out the need as he followed the rows and rows of colored squares with his finger before stabbing at one particular square, “is this.”

With that he looked up and beamed at Julia, who looked like she was about ready to swoon but went off to get Brad the paint he wanted instead. What was it with Brad and sales assistants and his incessant need to make them fall in love with him?

Nate felt strangely cheated, though he couldn’t quite figure out why. Maybe because he’d once had that effect on people, too, but since he’d come back from Iraq, he seemed to have lost his touch. Nobody had given him their number, invited him for coffee or even flirted with him in the produce aisle. Granted, Nate hadn’t really been trying to meet new people, but it still stung to see Brad winning over hearts and minds left and right while Nate tagged along like a cute little sidekick, not to be seriously taken into account by anybody, not even Brad, who steamrolled over his opinions like a minor bump in the road.

Nate used to be in command of twenty-two tough-as-they-come recon marines, who had never questioned one of his orders that Nate hadn’t silently questioned himself first. Here, no one even looked at him. This was Brad’s show now.

“Hey,” Brad said softly, voice low but still startling Nate out of the sea of bitterness threatening to envelop him. “If I’m overstepping here, you need to tell me.”

He hadn’t taken a step towards Nate, but suddenly seemed much closer, now that he was looking at him, his head slightly bent down as if they were trying to discuss something in confidence while standing in the middle of their platoon. It is vital, sir.

“No,” Nate immediately assured him because he really couldn’t care less about the paint. “It’s a good color.” He hadn’t even looked at it.

“You sure? I think we could get over the pink with a few layers of white. Or maybe yellow? Lots of people have yellow kitchens, my mother for example –“

“I said it’s fine,” Nate snapped, and of course that was the exact moment Julia reappeared, clutching a paint bucket in each hand. They looked heavy to her, so Nate took them off her with a grimace that was supposed to be a smile. They weighed nothing to him.

“Thank you,” he said politely, then turned to make his way to the check out, not waiting around to see if any phone numbers exchanged hands.

Brad was by his side in a matter of seconds, so if they did, it had been very efficient. Though it was none of his business, Nate reminded himself as they stood in line. Brad was a free man, a Marine on libo before shipping out for a two-year tour, using his limited time left to help his old CO decorate his student apartment.

His old CO who thanked him for his efforts by snapping at him for no real reason at all.

Nate suddenly felt like a massive asshole.

“I’m sorry,” he said to the floor as he tried to rub the frown off his forehead, just so he wouldn’t have to look at Brad. “Just tired and hungry, I guess.”

It was after 1400 and they’d been out and about for about six hours. Nothing compared to what they’d been through in the sandbox, but apparently enough to transform Nate into a whining little bitch.

“Want to grab something for lunch?” Brad asked, kindly not commenting on anything else. 

Nate looked up and shot a tentative smile in Brad’s direction, hoping to convey some of his gratitude to Brad.

“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.”

They got tacos across the street from the DIY. They tasted stale and somewhat funny to Nate, but he forced himself to eat them anyway. It simply wouldn’t do to blame his little fit on an empty stomach just to throw half his lunch away mere minutes later. Brad hadn’t really stopped frowning at him ever since they’d left the store.

Distract and divert, Nate reminded himself and waited for the perfect moment when Brad’s mouth was stuffed full of taco to launch his defensive manoeuvre.

“Listen Brad, I think I’m pretty well equipped to handle things on my own for a bit, so if maybe you’d like to go out, see the city, meet up w-“

Brad threw his taco down onto his plate with a smack, making pieces of lettuce and cheese fly around his plate, salsa sauce spraying onto the table.

“Can it, Nate,” he growled, and Nate fell abruptly silent in the face of Brad’s sudden anger.

“I don’t know what you think my agenda is here, so let me make this clear once and for all so you can stop with that ‘Listen, Brad’ bullshit: I’m not going anywhere until my plane leaves in two days, except maybe to visit the MIT museum, but certainly not today and not until we’ve assembled your stupid Ikea furniture and painted your kitchen in a colour that won’t give me eye cancer before I’m twenty-nine. And you’re coming to the museum with me and we’ll try and sell them that thing you call your laptop because it hails straight from prehistoric times.”

Nate stared at Brad, open-mouthed. Brad’s face had gone a deep shade of red and he was breathing rapidly, like he’d just come back from a ten mile run. His eyes were open wide and he looked shocked at himself, as if he hadn’t really meant to blow up in Nate’s face like that. Which made sense - Nate remembered how Brad had done his best to avoid this exact conversation yesterday - but then he watched as Brad took a deep breath and gave a tiny nod to himself, deciding that he’d come this far and wasn’t going to back down now until he’d taken his objective, whatever it was. 

Nate swallowed, grasping for something, anything to say or do in response.

“Wow,” he said stupidly. “You have really strong feelings about my laptop, don’t you.”

He was stalling pathetically, but his brain was making faint siren noises instead of thinking up anything useful. Maybe Brad was in fact entirely justified in making fun of his overly expensive and only marginally useful Ivy League education.

“Nate,” Brad warned, not amused in the slightest and unwilling to let Nate steer the conversation into safer, humorous territory.

Nate’s panic level rose gradually as he tried to think of something to calm Brad back down, to get out of this situation with his dignity still intact. Brad’s stance softened slightly after about thirty seconds of tense silence, as Nate couldn’t come up with anything.

“I’m not here because of your laptop,” Brad offered gently, as if trying not to scare off a skittish animal, “I’m not here to go sightseeing or meet random strangers.”

Brad paused, briefly looked away and let his gaze trail over the other patrons and staff before focusing back on Nate. Nate mentally and physically braced himself for whatever came next, digging his nails into his thighs where Brad couldn’t see.

“I’m here for you,” Brad said softly, but his gaze was piercing into Nate.

Nate’s mouth fell open in surprise, forming a quiet oh . Brad nodded to himself again, his posture further relaxing. He’d said what he had to say. The ball was firmly lying in Nate’s court now.

Nate looked away, taking his turn in observing their surroundings. He felt uncomfortable having this conversation here, out in the open, but no one was paying them any attention, and maybe it wasn’t an entirely bad idea to do this in public. Brad still had his car keys, but the apartment keys were a comforting weight in his own pocket - if things went off the rails really badly, he could make a run for it and Brad couldn’t just ambush him at his apartment.

You coward.

The thought zipped through his head, precise and devastating and Nate felt its impact like a kick in the gut.

Because, well - Nate had joined the corps to prove he wasn’t a coward. That he was a tough motherfucker not to be messed with - a warrior.

Look at him now. He couldn’t even face Brad – Brad who was making himself as non-threatening as he possibly could, opening himself up to Nate, who kept everything clutched close to his chest for fear of being seen for the fraud he was.

How could Brad not have caught on to him, yet?

“Why?” Nate asked, because it was the one question he’d been asking himself since he’d found Brad standing in his driveway.

“Because-“ Brad started, then hesitated, sat up straighter in his chair. “I didn’t want you to be alone.”

“Why?” Nate repeated, refusing to let himself be moved by Brad’s earnest declaration. If he had learned one thing in the Corps, it was how to compartmentalize his own emotions away so he could complete the mission. And he had to make Brad see – see that this was far exceeding what basic loyalty to one’s brothers in arms required. As much as he wanted Brad here, wanted his help and his company, Nate certainly didn’t deserve it. If he truly cared about Brad, he had to make him see that.

Nate saw something shift in Brad’s eyes before Brad quickly looked away, noticed how he fidgeted in his chair. For Brad to telegraph his unease like that, he must be wrestling with some serious inner turmoil. Only what it was, Nate had no idea.

When Brad’s eyes finally met his again, the openness from before was gone. Nate’s questioning had made him lose his nerve and Brad had retreated back into the relative safety of his inner shell.

“A Marine should never operate alone, sir. One Marine alone is easy to take down, but two Marines – that’s pretty hard. Didn’t they teach you anything at OCS?”

But Nate couldn’t accept that, couldn’t let Brad close himself off from what Nate wanted to make him understand. He pressed on.

“You’re here out of loyalty, because you think I’m too weak to handle things on my own.”

The accusation hung in the air between them, and it seemed to Nate as if everything had gone still for a moment. Then Brad moved all at once, his entire upper body leaning forward, his eyes boring into Nate’s.

“Nate,” he snapped and it sounded like now you listen to me. “You took command of an entire weapons platoon, with commendation, in the first real war this country has known in a decade, even though you thought you had joined a peacetime military. You stayed and got us through OIF, even though command kept giving you impossible orders and Griego was out for your blood. You got out of your victor in the middle of a firefight, dodged bullets, directed us out of the biggest clusterfuck I’ve ever had the misfortune to be a part of, while asking for updates on Pappy’s status over the radio. You were smart and brave enough to admit to yourself the Corps wasn’t working out for you anymore, got yourself out and into the best school in the world.”

Brad barely stopped for a breath before he was off again.

“I don’t think you’re weak,” he proclaimed. “I think you’re one of the bravest, toughest people I know. And I’m not going to just abandon you when you need a little time to come to grips with everything you’ve been through. Even when I’m on the other side of the pond, I’m going to keep pestering you and make sure you get the help you need so you can become the man, the leader you are meant to and deserve to be. So, Nate, if I’m just here out of loyalty , as you say, it’s because you’ve earned every last bit of it, over, and over, and over again.”

Nate hadn’t thought that eyes as icy blue as Brad’s could burn, but that was what they were doing – burning right through Nate, just like his words. There wasn’t any doubt that he’d meant every single one of them.

Nate felt shell-shocked, almost numb, and it took him a moment to realize that his own eyes were watering dangerously. He was about one wrong word away from bursting into tears.

It was just – too much. As much as he knew Brad meant what he’d said, he couldn’t make himself believe it, couldn’t see himself the way Brad apparently did. Brad was simply operating on incomplete data – If he really knew what a mess Nate was, Brad certainly wouldn’t believe it himself either. Right now, it took everything Nate had to avoid making a spectacle of himself and he knew he couldn’t open his mouth without letting it all spill out, so he kept it firmly shut.

Brad seemed to sense how Nate was struggling to keep himself together and backed off into his own space, posture and expression softening once more.

“Sorry,” Brad offered after a few seconds of resounding silence, actually sounding a bit sheepish, “I didn’t mean to come on this strongly. It’s just – what I’m trying to say is-“

Brad was now struggling for words, too and no matter how far gone Nate was, he couldn’t stomach the sight of Brad struggling without at least trying to do something about it – not anymore.

Nate blinked a couple of times to chase the tears from his eyes, swallowed the emotions clogging his throat back down and offered Brad a shaky but no less honest smile.

“Semper fi,” Nate offered, and it might not be the answer to everything, but it was a start.

“Semper fi,” Brad repeated and for a moment Nate was almost convinced that everything would, eventually, be alright.

Chapter Text

“So, Nate,” Brad piped up from across the room where he was taking down the kitchen cupboards to paint them later on. Nate could only see his upper legs and stomach through the pass-through connecting the kitchen to the living room. “When you decided to leave the Marine Corps to start building things instead of destroying them, was this what you had in mind?”

Nate looked at the four by four Kallax unit he was currently trying – and failing – to assemble. He tried not to feel embarrassed by the fact that he could assemble an M16-rifle with his eyes closed, but failed at following these simple Ikea instructions. Tried not to see the underlying symbolism of it all.

“Eh,” he said, shrugging sheepishly. “You’ve got to start somewhere.”

He was starting to think it might be a two-man job. At the thought, he stopped hammering – this clearly wasn’t working out and as his Nan had always said: If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.

“You still alive in there?” Brad’s voice drifted over after a few seconds of silence. He’d gotten down from the stool he’d been standing on to screw loose the boards of the upper shelves without having to stand on the tips of his toes all the time and was now half bent at the waist and leaning against the counter to get a good look at Nate, who was standing in the middle of an explosion of ripped cardboard, fake-wooden boards and various tools that may or may not be required to get the entire thing together.

“This is stupid,” Nate proclaimed, hands on his hips as he assessed the mess at his feet. “We would clearly be much better and much faster at both our tasks if we did them together.”

He looked up at Brad and smiled.

“So get your ass over here and help me out, instead of just standing there. I know that usually takes up a huge part of your working experience, but we’re in the real world now.”

Brad raised his eyebrows, grinned and did as he was told.

It did go better after that. They managed to assemble not only the shelving unit, but the sofa and the bed as well before they grew hungry again and decided to leave the rest for tomorrow.

Seen as Nate couldn’t safely cook anything that wasn’t breakfast food, Brad was in charge of making dinner while Nate straightened up the place a bit. They ate the risotto on the couch and it was one of the best things Nate had tasted since he’d come back from Iraq.

Nate let Brad get first dibs on the shower while he did the washing up, then took his turn to get clean while Brad made the beds in a way that would’ve gotten his entire platoon a few extra rounds around the parading ground back in boot camp. Nate raised his eyebrow lazily at him, not even trying to summon up the stern-LT-look – it would have taken way too much effort, the way he was standing there in his old pyjamas, a few strands of his hair still dripping steadily into his eyes. He felt soft and tired in a surprisingly good way.

Brad’s eyes were shimmering, probably with mischief, Nate thought.

“Good night, Nate,” was all he said before he retreated into the living room towards the pull-out couch, leaving Nate alone to sleep in his new bedroom for the first time.

After days of sleeping in uncomfortable motel beds or on the floor, crawling between the fresh sheets, freshly showered and clad in clean pyjamas, not to speak of how the mattress was just perfect – not too soft and not too hard - felt like heaven.

Nate was glad Brad had been with him to talk him into buying the bed and help him with everything and he really, really hoped Brad was comfortable, too and he had to remember to thank Brad in the morning…

Nate woke up, sitting upright in an uncomfortable car seat. It took him a moment to orient himself – he was in Iraq, riding shotgun in the command vehicle, his M16 clutched in his hands.

Have to thank Brad, Nate thought groggily and reached for the radio, but what came out of his mouth was “Two One Alpha, contact right!”

He let go of the radio to aim his rifle, except it wasn’t a M16 but a RPG tube in his hands. He identified two foot mobiles transporting something large and heavy between them – probably a sofa or a bed or a tank, he thought - aimed and fired.

The moment he pulled the trigger, he knew something was terribly wrong. His victor grinded to a halt and once the dust and smoke had lifted, he could see that he hadn’t hit enemy combatants, but Two One Alpha, now going up in flames.

Nate was out of his victor before he’d even fully processed what had happened, letting the RPG tube fall to the ground as he grappled for the radio attached to his flak vest.

“Two One Alpha, what is your status?” he shouted as he ran over to the burning vehicle, but he couldn’t actually get any closer until a big explosion rocked the Humvee.

“Brad!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, doubling his efforts to get over there, to assess the damage, to do anything – and finally, finally reached One Alpha’s Humvee.

He wrenched open the passenger side door, hot to the touch and burning his palms in the short moment he touched the metal.

It was nothing compared to the way Brad looked. Nate wasn’t sure if there was anything left of him under the soot and the blood he was covered in.

“Brad,” Nate pleaded, trying to find somewhere to touch, but he didn’t know where. He did a quick scan of the Humvee and knew with absolute certainty that all its other occupants were dead. That Nate had killed them.

Nate could feel the tears shooting into his eyes, focusing his gaze back on Brad, who was taking a deep, shuddering breath that dissolved into desperate coughing.

“Brad,” Nate pleaded, though he didn’t know if it was with Brad or a god he didn’t believe in, “Brad, please, please,…”

“Nate,” Brad said, although his lips didn’t move and he sounded distant, as if he already weren’t a part of Nate’s world anymore.

“Brad, please I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to do this, I’m sorry – just – hold on, okay, hold on, someone’s gonna – Doc! Please, I need a cas-evac..” He turned away from Brad, frantically searching the darkness surrounding them for someone, anyone to help them, but no one was coming for them.

“Nate!”

Brad’s voice sounded closer now, but still so far away and Nate knew he would slip away at any moment. Nate looked back down at Brad, who was fixing him with his eyes, full of betrayal.

“You -” Brad rasped, his burned hand suddenly clutching at Nate’s, covering him in his blood, making Nate’s stomach churn uncomfortably.

Suddenly another hand gripped Nate’s shoulder, hard, trying to pull him away from Brad. Nate fought with all his might – he wouldn’t leave Brad behind, he would stay until the end and then he would –

“Nate, wake up!”

Nate started awake, barely had any time to recognize Brad’s worried face hovering above him and the fact that he was back in his own bed, before his stomach revolted. He made a dive for the edge of the bed, but some of the remains of Brad’s excellent risotto still landed on it when he threw up violently a moment later.

He stayed in place, hunched over, chest heaving and tears in his eyes, long after it was over, too shell-shocked to move. Brad’s hand eventually landed softly, carefully on his back and started rubbing it in calming circles a moment later.

“Fuck,” Nate whispered, grimacing at the vile pictures in his head and the equally bad taste in his mouth.

“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up,” Brad said after a few minutes and patiently coaxed Nate out of the bed and into the bathroom. Nate was shaking like a leaf, could barely hold on to the glass of water Brad pressed into his hand. He took a few careful sips to gurgle the worst of it out of his mouth, then took the toothbrush Brad was handing him in exchange for the glass. Brad disappeared shortly and came back with a fresh set of pyjamas, lying it down on the bathroom counter.

“You should take a shower, get into these,” he nodded at the pyjamas, “I’ll be right outside the door, alright? Call me if you need anything.”

Nate managed to nod, briefly meeting Brad’s gaze in the mirror, before Brad turned around and left the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

Nate struggled out of his shirt, but didn’t make it any further in getting himself undressed. He looked at his own reflection – he was bathed in sweat, his skin looked freakishly pale, his eyes were bloodshot and salty tear tracks ran over both his cheeks. His horseshoe - his grandfather’s horseshoe, made out of the shrapnel that had hit him in World War II - was still tied around his neck. He looked like a ghost.

He looked like he was still at war and with his dream still fresh in his mind, he felt like he was, too. 

He hadn’t had a nightmare this bad since right after he’d come back from Iraq. He lost sight of himself in the mirror as the image of Team One Alpha, dead because of him, murdered by him , of Brad, bloody and charred, pushed itself into the forefront of his mind, the smell of burnt flesh and blood still as vivid as it had been in the dream. He gagged again, but there was nothing left for him to throw up. After the worst of the retching had passed, he staggered a step back from the sink and collapsed onto the floor, his back against the door, his knees drawn up and holding his head in his hands.

When his hands came away wet, he panicked – he could barely breathe until he realized that it wasn’t Brad’s blood, but his own tears. He was crying, soundlessly, and didn’t know how to stop. He was shivering and shaking, from the cold or the emotional strain, he couldn’t tell.

He tried to focus on anything other than his own rapid breathing, the thoughts inside his head, and spent several minutes sitting absolutely still, listening to Brad move around the apartment, rifling through the kitchen, filling a bowl or something with water, moving over into the bedroom.

Brad was cleaning up after him, and Nate unsuccessfully tried to swallow down his humiliation. He briefly thought of the way Brad had looked at him at the taco place – trusting, almost adoringly – then of the Brad of his dreams, eyes full of betrayal, because Nate had killed him.

Before he could stop himself, Nate whimpered, crying even harder. He clamped a hand over his mouth – he didn’t want Brad to hear. Brad who was by the sound of it stripping the soiled sheets off the bed. Nate tried to focus only on that, on Brad here and now, dumping the sheets in the hallway, pouring water down the drain in the kitchen. The sound of Brad’s footsteps coming closer, of him sitting down at the other side of the door.

Nate didn’t know how long they sat there like that, five minutes or twenty or maybe an hour. Brad didn’t move and didn’t speak, and neither did Nate until he’d garnered the strength to get up off the floor and into the shower.

When he woke up, it was almost like a weird déjà-vu from the morning before – he was lying on his side, facing Brad – except that they weren’t lying on the floor but on the pull-out. And Brad was already awake.

He was staring at Nate and Nate shifted uncomfortably under his gaze as the memories of last night came flashing back. This time Nate had absolutely no doubt about whether they were real.

“Hey,” Brad rasped, his voice sounding unused the way it usually did first thing in the morning, “how you feeling?”

Nate shrugged, because he honestly didn’t know. He felt wrung out, strangely divorced from his own feelings, as if his body was trying to compensate for the intensity from last night by not feeling anything now. 

Brad mustered him for a second longer, then seemed to accept that Nate wasn’t being unforthcoming but genuinely didn’t know what to make of his own inner state.

“Alright,” Brad said, “I’ll make breakfast. Then we should talk.”

And there were Nate’s feelings, back with Defcon 1 levels of alarm. The phrase ‘ we should talk‘ was never a sign for anything good. The only thing it could mean now was that Brad had changed his mind. That Brad was leaving.

Nate fought to keep his growing panic off his face. He should be glad Brad had finally wised up without making this any harder on him or guilt tripping him into staying -  but was apparently doing a piss poor job of it.

“Hey,” Brad said softly, his right hand lying closest to Nate twitching almost imperceptibly, “don’t be stupid. I know it’s the officer thing to do, but you should spare us both the embarrassment of going through my entire I’m-not-going-anywhere-speech again .”

Nate couldn’t help but feel relieved on an almost visceral level.

“It’s quite the speech. Maybe you should consider going into politics,” he quipped after his heart rate had slowed down to an acceptable level.

Brad huffed.

“No thanks, I’ll leave that to you.”

“Hm,” Nate contemplated, letting his lips curve up into a grin, “I think I’d rather have pancakes.”

“Copy that,” Brad said and heaved himself out of bed.

Nate followed a few minutes later, padding into the kitchen and pulling himself up onto the counter to watch Brad mix batter and operate the coffee machine that Nate still hadn’t figured out.

It struck Nate how domestic this felt – how normal, how good. He could get used to this – if it weren’t for the ticking time bomb of Brad’s we should talk. And the fact that Brad would leave for his two year stint with the Royal Marines the next day.

Deciding to meet things head on, Godfather’s raspy voice pontificating about the violence of action echoing distantly in his head, Nate braced himself as well as he could without knowing what would hit him once he turned the corner.

“So, what is it you wanted to talk about?” he asked, letting his legs swing back and forth in a conscious effort not to seem too preoccupied.

Brad stilled, then turned around to face Nate, abandoning his batter for a moment.

“I thought you wanted pancakes.”

“I do. I thought you could multitask,” Nate jabbed.

Brad refused to rise to the bait.

“Maybe we should wait till after breakfast…”

He sounded hesitant. A mix of impatience and frustration rose inside Nate.

“Geez, Brad, I’m not some scared teenage girl you have to ply with some romantic breakfast before you can get into my pants. Just give it to me straight.”

Brad tensed. Nate could see him gritting his teeth.

“That’s not wh-“ Brad started, but didn’t seem to know how to continue. He ran a hand through his hair, leaving traces of flour behind. Nate had to hold on almost violently to the edge of the counter top so as not to reach out to brush it away.

“It’s about last night. Well – not really. Last night just made it pretty fucking clear that I can’t pussy out of saying this any longer.”

The sinking feeling in Nate’s gut returned. He fought to keep himself absolutely still.

Brad looked uncomfortable, out of his depth in a way Nate had rarely seen before - usually someone had to get shot in the chest for that look to appear on Brad’s face.

No guns here, he told himself, just me and Brad.

“There’s no easy way to say this,” Brad offered after a few seconds of tense silence. “But I think you… You’re not okay Nate. You don’t sleep, unless you collapse out of sheer exhaustion. You have violent nightmares. I think you had a full-blown panic attack last night. You drive like a lunatic and you have extreme mood swings that come seemingly out of nowhere.”

Brad was making his case calmly, almost dispassionately, not a hint of reproach in his voice.

Nate still felt attacked and instinctively took up a defensive position, even though he had the sinking feeling that it wasn’t fortified very well.

“Brad, you can’t be serious. Me driving like a lunatic? You – we laughed about this. You made me race you for driving privileges.”

Brad nodded, but it didn’t seem to abet his worry. On the contrary, if anything his eyebrows only drew tighter together.

“I know. That’s my mistake. I let us turn it into a joke because I was scared. I didn’t know what to do or what to say. I was being a coward. But this is not a joke, Nate. You have a serious condition and I think you need professional help to deal with it.”

Brad was still standing several feet away from him, arms crossed in front of his chest and obviously making sure to give Nate his space. Nate still felt cornered. Whatever he’d expected, it wasn’t this – Brad telling him that he was crazy.

He jumped down from where he was perched on the counter, moving away from Brad. 

“Is that what you’ve been doing all this time? Taking note of every tiny flaw just so you could shove it into my face later on? Really get back at me for what happened in Iraq?”

For a moment, Brad looked utterly stricken, like a bullet had hit him out of nowhere. His expression saying How can you say that? How can you even think that as loudly as if he were shouting it at Nate. 

Nate was too upset to care and he was about to pounce onto the weakness he’d uncovered when Brad’s expression morphing from one of devastation into a show of compassion halted him in his tracks.

“Nate,” Brad pleaded, holding his hands up as if trying to calm down a wild animal. “Please. I’m just… trying to help.”

“Don’t,” Nate warned him, taking a step back as Brad moved towards him.

“Don't what, Nate?” Brad asked softly. 

Nate didn’t have any answer to that, so he quickly switched tracks.

“You can’t tell me this is anything unusual,” he argued desperately, “you can’t tell me there is anyone who came back from what we did, from what we saw, and didn’t have trouble sleeping. Didn’t need some time… adjusting.”

“True,” Brad acknowledged, looking down at the floor. “But it’s not just that. You’re different.” He hesitated for a moment, then almost whispered. “You don’t believe in yourself anymore.”

“Well, repeatedly making decisions that almost got your men killed will do that to you.”

It was out before he could even think about what he was saying, what he was admitting.

Brad looked up at him sharply.

“That’s not –” 

Brad took a deep breath. “Nate, no one on could have done a better job than you did.”

When he’d come back from Iraq, Nate had thought that was all he wanted - someone to take him by the hand and say “Well done, no one on earth could have done better. You did all you could. Come and rest now.”

He’d quickly found out that the real challenge was to make himself believe that. The moment he’d been released into the custody of his anxiously waiting family, his mother, his father and his sisters had all gathered him into their arms and said “We’re so glad you’re here. We’re so proud of you. Let’s go home .” Nate had clung to them and almost sobbed in relief, the fact that his men were still around him the only thing holding him back. The stories they’d told about him as they’d handed his paddle around at his farewell party until it had finally made its way into his hands, sealing his separation from the corps, had had the same effect.

But it hadn’t been enough. After that first night back where he’d collapsed for almost thirteen hours out of sheer exhaustion, Nate had spent pretty much every night since lying awake, feeling isolated and alone, contemplating all the mistakes he’d made. How easily things could have gone wrong. No matter how often people - how often Brad - told him that he wasn’t the one to blame for it, Nate couldn’t shake the absolute conviction that he’d failed. Failed his country, failed his men, failed himself.

Nate had always been pretty confident in his own abilities, had prided himself on the clear image he had of himself and what he could and couldn’t do. He thought he was the kind of man who could be trusted with the hardest of tasks. The kind of man who’d thrive under pressure. Now he had to see that that was no longer the case. 

How could he make Brad understand all this, when he was only beginning to understand it himself? He owed it to him, after all Brad had done for him, for the way Brad was still sticking around after everything.

Nate wiped distractedly at his own eyes, only now noticing the tears that had gathered in them. 

Brad stayed still as a statue, seemingly sensing that Nate was trying desperately to pull himself together. Finally, he managed to straighten up and look Brad in the eyes.

“It’s just… I used to know who I was supposed to be and what I was supposed to do, you know? Even though I didn’t always plan on joining the Corps, it was just another way of achieving what I was trying to do. Prove myself, maybe do some good.”

He smiled ruefully at his younger self. Today, he just seemed unbearably naïve.

“Then I ended up doing the exact opposite. Now I’m trying to look inside myself and find out how I did that… knowing who I am, who I’m supposed to be. But I just can’t figure it out. It’s like… this piece inside me, that made me who I am… it’s lost. And I don’t know how to find it again.”

Saying it out loud hurt like a motherfucker, and he could feel himself tearing up, again, only making his frustration at his own weakness intensify, but now that he’d started his confession, he couldn’t quite make himself stop.

“I mean… even this. You’re right, I got accepted into fucking Harvard. It’s what I always wanted, I should be, I don’t know, proud or excited… but. I only did this because it’s the plan I had in place before I got into the Corps and I couldn’t think of anything else to do. It’s just… I mostly can’t make myself feel anything or everything’s dialled up to fucking eleven.” 

His voice wavered and suddenly Brad was standing in front of him, his hand cupping the back of his neck. Brad ducked down slightly until Nate met his eyes, even though Brad looked somewhat blurry through his tears.

“You’ll figure it out,” Brad declared, his absolute conviction clear in his voice. “You have time. You have friends and you have family. We’ll support you.”

Nate took a shuddering breath, his extending chest brushing against Brad’s. At that, Brad pulled him closer against him, stepping in further so he could gently draw Nate’s head into the crook of his neck, his other hand going around Nate’s torso.

“I’m sorry,” Nate sobbed into Brad’s neck. “I didn’t mean what I said. I’m sorry.”

Brad’s arm tightened around Nate’s chest, pulling him even closer against him, making shushing noises that Nate could feel vibrating in his throat. 

“It’s alright, I understand. Don’t worry,” he whispered and Nate finally lifted his arms to wrap them around Brad, letting himself fall fully into his embrace.

“I’ve got you,” Brad whispered, pressing a kiss against the top of Nate’s head. “We’ll get this right.”

This time, Nate believed him.

Eventually Brad got back to making pancakes and coffee. Freshly fuelled up, they got back to assembling furniture – the desk, kitchen, coffee and side tables and their corresponding chairs, the dresser, shelves and bedside tables for Nate’s bedroom and hung up the bookshelves in the living room, while Brad teased him for getting excited about how their 45° angles were incredibly cool, although he eventually did admit that it looked quite nice.

Nate retaliated by giving Brad the most horrendous shirt he owned – an old thing from the eighties with a garish brown-orange-blue pattern his father had given him a while back – to wear over his t-shirt while they painted the kitchen cupboards, claiming it was the only thing that would fit him. Of course he hadn’t taken into account how good Brad would look in the baggy shirt with the way it was tucked into his jeans and accentuating the broadness of his chest, and there was a rather embarrassing incident of Nate tripping over an opened can of paint – the less said about it the better.

While the boards were set out to dry – all that Ikea cardboard finally coming in handy – they went back to the electronics store where Brad, still donning that awful shirt, was greeted like an old friend - originally to get a microwave, but they came out with an excessively high-tech TV and state-of-the-art stereo system to go with it as well. Luckily for Nate’s account balance, he would be able to hang on to his laptop a little longer because Brad still hadn’t decided between the Dell and the Lenovo.

“I’ll do some research and report back via email. It’ll help you make an informed decision,” Brad said on their way back to the apartment.

“Sure,” Nate agreed readily, not because he actually wanted to get a new laptop but because it meant that Brad intended to stay in touch. Which he had to admit was maybe a little pathetic.

They’d barely made it home before the technician showed up to hook up his phone, internet and cable. Nate left him with Brad once he’d signed all the paperwork (and yes, it was a pretty good deal, and no, Nate did not want to know anything about Brad’s negotiation tactics) and got to work on putting the cabinets back up.

The technician left just as Nate got done with the last one and Brad appeared to chivalrously give him a hand down from the kitchen chair he was standing on, which Nate accepted with an exaggerated flourish. They stood shoulder to shoulder in the kitchen doorway, Nate still with the screwdriver in his hand, admiring their work.

“It’s nice,” Nate said, once he’d taken it all in. “Much better. Painting it over was a great idea.”

Brad nodded.

“My work here is done,” he declared, turning to look at the rest of the apartment. With all the furniture assembled and the TV set up, the apartment looked almost homely, if it weren’t for the pile of Nate’s unpacked stuff still dominating the living room.

Nate’s eyes were drawn to the paddle propped up against two boxes marked ‘books’. He still hadn’t made his mind up about where to put it, if he should hang it up, over the couch or the desk maybe, put it in a corner or hide it in his basement.

You have time, he reminded himself and turned back to Brad.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Thanks Brad. I owe you one.”

Brad shrugged, looking decidedly uncomfortable.

“Don’t mention it.”

Nate considered insisting on how much Brad had helped him and how much he appreciated it, but he didn’t think it would go over particularly well, so he just watched as Brad walked over to the sofa just to reverse course a moment later.

“Coffee?” Nate asked him for lack of anything better to say.

Brad shook his head.

“I think I’m going to head out for a run. You wanna come?”  

Nate considered it for a moment, but Brad looked about ready to bolt and the day, not to speak of last night, had left him tired enough already.

“Nah, I’m good. You go ahead. I should probably get started on unpacking some of these boxes.”

Brad nodded, grabbed his pack and disappeared into the bathroom, emerging a few minutes later dressed in his PT gear and a pair of brand new trainers.

“See you later,” he called in Nate’s vague direction before he was out the door.

Nate decided not to analyse Brad’s behaviour too closely. Brad had been a rock these past few days and was allowed some time to himself. Nate knew Brad was a bit of an introvert – living practically on top of each other for days on end must have gotten a little taxing, not to speak of all the emotional ups and downs he’d had to deal with.  

Instead he attacked the heap of chaos in the middle of his living room, starting with his books, moving on to his clothes and all the other bits and bobs he was cursing past-Nate for bringing along. When only his paddle was left, he decided to put it into the corner behind the couch for the time being, then went into the kitchen to make himself a well-deserved cup of coffee. Except the damn machine didn’t want to do as it was told and Nate was furious and about ready to grab the whole thing and throw it out of his goddamn window –

Right. He still had to do something about his anger management and other assorted issues. After another fifteen minutes of trying and failing to connect his laptop to the internet and another near-destruction of his own uncooperative property, he just borrowed the Yellow Pages from his neighbour.

He had just settled in at his desk, phone in grabbing distance when Brad came back from his run, soaked in sweat and breathing heavily. He stood in the middle of the living room, hands on his hips, taking in the books now sorted beautifully on his shelves and all the other nick-nacks he’d unpacked, his eyes landing on the Yellow Pages lying in front of Nate, before finally looking at Nate himself and rising a questioning eyebrow at him.

“I, uhm. Had no luck connecting my laptop to the internet. And I wanted to see if maybe I could find a therapist in the area I could look up. So…”

Nate hadn’t expected that to make Brad smile at him like that, all proud and soft and affectionate.

“I see your problem-solving abilities are still firmly intact. I’ll head into the shower, then I’ll see if I can get your little technical problem fixed.”

Nate nodded his assent and with that Brad turned around, disappearing into the bathroom again, giving Nate his space to make the call. Brad stayed holed up in there for a suspiciously long time, only coming out exactly five minutes after Nate had hung up the phone, date and time for his appointment neatly noted on a blue post-it he’d stuck onto the wall over his desk.

Brad solved the internet problem in about two minutes flat and Nate trudged over into the kitchen to get away from his mocking gaze. He opened the refrigerator to see what they – or rather Brad – could make for dinner, his eyes landing on the leftovers from yesterday evening, which – no.

“Hey, you want to order pizza?” he called into the living room.

“Sure,” Brad agreed and thirty minutes later they were settled on the couch with pizza and beer, watching reruns of the original Star Trek series. The Star Trek vs. Star Wars argument they got into around the second episode or so got pretty heated the more beer they drank, not because Nate cared much either way, but because Brad clearly did and Nate liked riling him up by pulling pro-Star Wars arguments, especially ones praising the prequels, out of his ass. If the Ivy League taught you anything, it was how to argue passionately and precisely in favour of or against something you neither knew nor cared much about.

In fact, the only Star Wars movie Nate had ever seen was Phantom Menace and he’d spent most of that hiding his disappointment that his girlfriend was intent on actually watching it instead of taking advantage of the fact that her roommates were all conveniently somewhere else and making out on the couch. They’d broken up a couple of weeks later anyway, when Nate had decided to join the Corps without even telling her about it first. See how that had turned out for him.

Nate loved watching Brad like this, hands waving around, cheeks flushed and eyes twinkling as he passionately talked about the Enterprise’s transporter. He could picture little Brad sitting in front of the TV, watching Star Trek reruns and wanting to be like Captain Kirk, like Scotty. Nate could not keep the fond smile off his face, even as he decided to pour some more oil into Brad’s fire.

“Sure, Brad, the transporter’s nice. But they don’t have actual laser swords.”

“Yeah,” Brad huffed, “because, unlike Star Wars,” and he kept saying those words like they were particularly foul, “it’s not a giant jerkoff session for Medieval nostalgists fancying themselves to be King Arthur incarnate, but actually intelligent commentary on the future of human society.” 

Brad turned his head and raised his eyebrows at Nate. 

“No offense,” he offered, grinning like a shark and not meaning it at all. 

Nate tried hard to look like Brad had actually hurt his feelings, but he lost the battle against his own smile, growing steadily larger on his face. 

Brad lifted his beer to take a sip but stopped halfway through as Nate’s expression finally registered. 

“You…” he started, sounding dumbfounded. “You don’t really care, do you?” 

Nate’s smile grew into an outright cheshire cat grin.

“You were just winding me up!” 

Nate shrugged, absently picking at a piece of lint on the back of the couch as if it were all in a day’s work, not caring one bit that he’d been caught.

Brad stared at Nate for a couple of seconds, beer still raised halfway in the air. Then he threw his head back and laughed, a beautiful, full-bellied thing that filled Nate with warmth. 

“Well played,” Brad chuckled after he’d calmed down, finally raising his beer all the way up and taking a sip. 

Nate watched him swallow and the warmth in his belly intensified. Brad lowered his beer again and turned his head, still resting against the couch’s back, to look directly at Nate, Nate’s eyes flickering up to meet his gaze. 

He knew he was staring. He knew he should look away or say something to diffuse the sudden heat, but his mouth was completely dry and he wanted to… he wanted. For a moment he felt completely helpless with it. He didn’t know whether to push forward or pull back, immobilized in a deer-in-headlights kind of way that didn’t allow him to focus on anything but his own heart pounding away in his chest. 

Finally, it was training and habit that kicked in and made him disengage from the situation, as he’d done so many times before when whatever he felt for Brad had become a bit too much. 

Breaking eye contact, he grabbed the empty pizza boxes and practically dashed into the relative safety of the kitchen.

“We should probably go to sleep,” he called back, his back turned to the living room, “it’s getting late and your flight leaves first thing tomorrow.” 

Brad didn’t answer but turned off the TV and had started the process of getting the couch ready for bed when Nate came back into the living room. Nate made his way over to help him, avoiding looking at him directly, but there was a moment when they’d finished dumping all the blankets back onto the couch and their eyes met. Brad held his gaze for a beat too long and Nate was sure that Brad could read him like an open book. Embarrassed, he ducked his head and bid Brad goodnight before disappearing into the direction of the bath- and bedroom.

After all the heart-to-hearts they’d had in the past few days, you’d think that there would be no more secrets between them, that they’d both spilled their guts and their hearts out for the other to see. But as he lay there in his bed listening to Brad puttering around in the bathroom before making his way back to the couch and settling in for the night, an almost eerie silence settling over the apartment, Nate couldn’t help but finally and fully acknowledge the fact that that wasn’t entirely true. That his feelings for Brad were more complicated than he’d been ready to admit even to himself, much less to Brad.

The truth of it was that there had always been an undercurrent of possibility he’d felt between himself and Brad. Until now he’d never allowed himself to think about it, to indulge that link in a way that would cross the line from a good working relationship or a tentative friendship into much more delicate territory.

It had helped that he’d been absolutely convinced that Brad felt nothing but professional respect and basic camaraderie towards him. But during the past week it had become clear that Brad really cared about Nate and Nate’s foolish heart had latched right onto that and taken it as a reason to tear down all the walls he had so carefully built around the area where he had stashed away the way he’d wanted to seek Brad out right from the start, telling himself it was because of his competence and pretending he didn’t find that very competence embarrassingly attractive. How sharing a look with Brad in Iraq had sometimes been more effective in building him up than a couple of hours of sleep or a pep talk from Mike. How he’d hoped that Brad might offer to give him surfing lessons instead of only teasing him about it, no matter how wildly inappropriate that would have been. 

Now he couldn’t keep himself from seeing, from feeling, how beautiful and kind and impossible Brad was. How he longed to make Brad laugh, hold him close, keep him around instead of letting him board a plane, destination 3200 miles east, first thing tomorrow.

Which led him straight to the first problem: The timing was still shit, the logistics almost impossible to figure out. Brad would be away for two years. Being caught in a relationship with a man could cost him his career. Nate himself was a wreck and currently not much fun to be around.

Which led him straight to the second problem: he wasn’t what Brad needed and almost certainly not what Brad wanted. Brad deserved someone who could hold him up and not someone who’d only be an additional weight on his shoulders. And just because he’d been here to help Nate, that didn’t mean that he harboured secret fantasies about sharing his life and his bed with Nate.

Most importantly however, Nate wasn’t in a place where he could trust his own thoughts and feelings about this. He’d been suppressing anything that wasn’t conducive to his combat-effectiveness and post-combat readjustment for so long that he wasn’t entirely sure that what he felt was even real.

And there was the possibility that this pull towards Brad that he’d grown more and more conscious of in the past few days was the simple result of Brad being the one here for him in a difficult time, a simple matter of clinging to the only thing that felt safe and good in a sea of confusion and despair. Maybe if it were Mike or Tim or anyone else here in Brad’s place, he’d be harbouring these feelings for them now instead of Brad. 

He couldn’t really imagine that being true, but couldn’t rule it out with any certainty either. And the one thing he knew was that Brad deserved better than Nate making some move without being sure he really meant it.

The only thing he could do was smile in the morning and wave Brad goodbye and maybe try and stay in touch while he worked on getting his mind cleared up, which wasn’t what he’d call a satisfactory course of action. Nate wanted to get up and march over to Brad’s couch and insert himself into the empty space he liked to think Brad had left for him. But it wouldn’t be fair to either of them.

Nate didn’t sleep a wink the entire night, tossing and turning in his gigantic bed instead until it was time to get up and prepare one last thank-you-for-everything breakfast. 

Brad stumbled into the kitchen only minutes after, looking tired and blinking slowly around the room, not really aware of his surroundings. His huge yawn was the final nail in the coffin of Nate’s ability to refrain from coddling Brad when he looked soft and vulnerable like this. 

In this, at least, he could indulge himself a little. 

“Hey, go back to bed,” he crooned, setting down the bag of coffee grains he’d been holding to herd Brad back into the direction of the couch. “It’s not even 0600, you can go and sleep a bit longer while I make breakfast.”

“You don’t have to - I can help,” Brad protested, but let himself be pushed along easily enough. 

“Thank you Brad, but I got it,” Nate assured him. “I’m awake anyway and can go back to sleep after you’re gone.” 

Nate doubted he would do any such thing and Brad would have just as much, if not more, time to sleep on the plane. Luckily, Brad was still too groggy to argue. 

He flopped down on the couch obediently, pulling the blankets back up over his chin, leaving his bare feet exposed. Nate pulled at the blankets so Brad’s toes were safe from the cold air, too, all the while battling the want to just snuggle up under the blankets with him, functioning as Brad’s own personal space heater. 

Brad made a contented noise as Nate forced himself to turn away and get back to making breakfast. He spent some time cutting up fruit and bacon before noticing that they had run out of bread. A look at the clock told him that it was just after six by now, so with a bit of luck one of the bakeries in the neighborhood might already be open. 

Not bothering to change out of his pyjamas, he simply pulled on a sweater that was as ugly as it was warm and slipped into his boots. He left behind a note telling Brad where he was in case he woke up, before grabbing his wallet and keys and softly closing the door behind him. 

Brad was however fast asleep with no indication of having moved when Nate came back with still warm buns and croissants. He stayed asleep while Nate made coffee and scrambled eggs and fried some bacon. 

Nate started setting everything up on the tiny kitchen table, but then had another idea. He crammed the biggest tray he had full of everything he’d prepared and then carried it out to Brad, who finally woke up as the smell of coffee invaded his nose.

“Wow,” he said as he took stock of everything Nate had piled onto the tray, sitting up and shuffling to the side to make space for Nate and his offerings. 

Once he’d settled in, he handed Brad his cup of coffee to make sure he got the one with sugar before he forgot which one was which. Brad immediately took a sip, his expression turning into one of reverent bliss that Nate had to look away from in order to preserve his sanity. 

“Hey, you learned how to use your coffee machine,” Brad said, sounding actually proud. 

Nate smiled back helplessly. Jesus, get a grip , he thought at himself. It wouldn’t do to heroically decide to step back and let Brad go just to pounce on him hours later and ruin his new couch in the process.  

They both dug into their food, Nate going for the bacon and eggs while Brad went down the sweet route. 

“I could get used to this,” Brad raved around a mouthful of buttery croissant. “It’s really good.”

“Your last breakfast on American soil. Thought I’d make it count,” Nate offered, feeling the need to justify himself for pampering Brad like this, as if he wouldn't love to do it on a regular basis. 

“They’ll probably only serve baked beans for breakfast over there,” Brad lamented, grimacing. 

Nate laughed, more at his expression than his words, before taking a sip of his own coffee.

“You excited though?” he asked after a minute of silent eating

“Sure,” Brad answered, “it’s a new experience, a new challenge. I like that.”

Nate remembered Brad on some of their training exercises, taking to new situations like a fish to water, expertly guiding his team and completing his own part of the mission flawlessly. 

“I’m sure you’ll do great. Make the Marine Corps proud,” he offered, giving Brad an encouraging smile. 

Brad straightened up a bit at that, mustering Nate for a couple of seconds like he wanted to gauge his sincerity. Nate held his gaze, focusing on letting only the appropriate amount of his respect and admiration for Brad shine through, but not entirely sure he was succeeding. 

“Thanks,” Brad said after a few seconds. Then, after a brief pause, he added, “Doesn’t mean there aren’t some things here that I’ll miss.”

Nate held his breath, fighting hard for his control to keep himself from doing something stupid. As his lap was full of his breakfast, he couldn’t bolt from the room as he’d done last night, opting instead for steering the conversation in a safer direction.

“I trust your bike is well taken care of while you’re away?”, he jested, mostly hitting the light tone he was striving for and busying himself with shoveling some more eggs into his mouth so he wouldn’t have to look at Brad’s reaction.

Brad went with it and they kept up a constant stream of innocuous chatter while packing Brad’s things up and making their way to the airport, as if afraid of what a lingering silence might reveal. Eventually they found themselves standing before the departure gate and Nate meant to say something light-hearted about Brits and cultural exchanges, transatlantic flights or anything really, but found himself pulling Brad into a hug instead. And not a half-assed, pat-on-the-back guy-hug, but an honest to god, fifteen seconds lasting one, hands clinging and faces buried in each other’s shoulder and neck.

When they finally parted, Nate couldn’t get himself to say anything, his throat clogged up with emotion. Silently, just by looking at him, Brad asked him a question – will you be okay – and just as silently Nate answered with a little smile – yes I will – and squeezed Brad’s shoulder – take care of yourself over there. Brad nodded in acknowledgment and picked up his bag.

“Goodbye Nate,” he said, and then he was gone.

Chapter Text

After a week of always having Brad around, waking up alone the first morning after Brad had left felt profoundly wrong. Nate had thought he’d be glad to finally be alone for a while. Instead he just felt lonely puttering around his little card box of an apartment, getting into a major fight with his coffee machine.

By 0900 he was on the road down to Maryland, his hastily packed bag on the passenger seat next to him. He tried to think of his parents, of his mother who had sounded so glad when he’d told her he’d be visiting, of his sister and his niece whom he was going to meet for the first time, instead of how empty the passenger seat seemed without Brad in it.

He went over to Jo’s first. It was her husband, Nick, who opened the door. He looked tired but happy and pulled Nate into the house with a back-slapping hug. They made their way into the living room, where Jo was sitting on the couch, holding her baby.

Emilia was about three weeks old now, and still fit perfectly into her mother’s arm. Jo looked just as tired as her husband, still in her pyjamas and her strawberry blonde hair in a messy braid. Nate hadn’t seen her this dishevelled in years, but he also couldn’t remember her looking at anything with as much tenderness as she was bestowing on her daughter, sleeping soundly in the crook of her arm.

That was until she spotted Nate and the box of pastries from her favourite bakery he’d stopped for on the way over.

“You’re a godsend,” she said to the box, carefully standing up from the couch without jostling Emilia, crossing over to Nate to kiss him on the cheek.

“Trade you?” she asked, taking the box with one hand while effortlessly offering him the baby with her other arm.

Nate hesitated for a moment, unsure if he should really be trusted with something this fragile, this precious. Then he carefully lifted the baby away from his sister, settling her into his own arm, making her look even tinier than she had in Jo’s. Emilia snuggled into his chest without waking up, and Nate carefully put a hand on her stomach to make sure she was secured before he made his way over to the couch, doing a shakier reverse of Jo’s earlier trajectory.

By the time he’d made himself comfortable, Jo had already ripped the box open and started munching on a miniature apple strudel – her favourite - warily eying Nick who was making lovey-dovey eyes at the box in her hands.

“So, how have you guys been?” Nate asked, launching them into a detailed recounting of the past few weeks, illustrated by a gazillion pictures of Emilia sleeping on various objects and people, of Emilia crying on several relatives – “You should have heard how she wailed when Aunty Margaret tried to pick her up. Clearly she has great taste in people.” – of Emilia doing anything a newborn did, which as far as Nate knew wasn’t very much.

Nick somehow managed to pull a camera out of nowhere and took a couple of pictures of Nate and Emilia and Jo, who yawned hugely when the flash went off the third time. Emilia was still sleeping, her little nose scrunched up a bit as though she were concentrating on something in her dreams.

“I could look after her for a while, if you guys need some shuteye,” Nate offered, bouncing her gently against his chest.

Jo and Nick looked at each other, communicating wordlessly in the way you only could with these precious few people you knew better than even yourself.

“That would be lovely. Thanks, Nate,” Jo said after a moment, kissing him on the cheek again and squeezing his shoulder as she got up. “Diapers and everything are in the bathroom. Call me if she needs feeding.” With that she took Nick’s hand and the both of them disappeared up the stairs into their bedroom.

Nate got up again to look for some entertainment, finally picking up a battered old copy of Winnie-the-Pooh he vaguely remembered from his own childhood and settled back in to read it to Em.

She stayed asleep for another half hour or so before she slowly woke up, first kicking her feet against Nate’s forearm, then burrowing her face deeper into his chest before finally blinking her eyes open and staring right up at him.

“Hey there,” Nate whispered, finding himself grinning widely at her. “Hello Emilia. I’m your Uncle Nate. It’s nice to meet you.”

Nate could practically see the little wheels turning in her head – she was probably trying to decide whether to start crying in protest of being held by a complete stranger.

Nate risked brushing his index finger against her chubby cheek and Em tried grabbing at his finger, except her arms and hands and fingers were still a little too short and uncoordinated to truly get a grip on it.

“Don’t worry,” Nate soothed her, “you’ll get the hang of it soon enough.”

Em looked up at him sceptically, brow furrowed.

“No really,” Nate assured her, “and your mum and dad are going to be there, every step of the way. And if you ever need someone to scare the living daylights out of some stupid boy, you just call me and I’ll show them how you don’t mess with a recon marine’s favourite niece.”

Em yawned noncommittally.

“All you’ll have to do is ask, and we’ll all be there to help you.”

Nate looked down at the baby in his arms, who had gone back to sleep in the meantime. He looked at her and thought about family. He thought about home, about healing. He thought about Brad.

He felt something like hope. Maybe some good things were still in his future, after all.

That evening, safely holed up in his own childhood bedroom with his parents watching TV downstairs, he picked up his phone and dialled Brad’s number. It was about midnight back in England; late but hopefully not too late for Brad to pick up.

It took a while, and Nate was about to hang up, but eventually Brad was on the line with a gruff “Colbert.”

“Hey,” Nate said, “it’s me.”

Which, as was universally acknowledged, was a really stupid way to introduce oneself on the phone.

“Nate,” Brad said immediately, sounding eager rather than mocking, “what’s up?”

The background noise on Brad’s side swelled, then grew quieter again a moment later. A door opening and closing, perhaps.

“Hey, where are you?” Nate asked.

“At a pub. Some of the guys took me out for the obligatory getting to know each other by engaging in a pissing contest about who can drink whom under the table passing rite.”

“Oh,” Nate said, disappointed. “Don’t let me keep you.”

“Nonsense,” Brad cut him off. “I needed some fresh air, anyway. One of the limeys was trying to explain to me why country music is the best thing since sliced bread. Wouldn’t want to get started on the wrong foot by murdering one of them right on my first night.”

Nate chuckled.

“Yeah. It would be a long way for me to come and bail you out.”

“Aww, you’d do that for me?”

Anything, Nate wanted to say, but wisely kept his mouth shut.

“I owe you one, remember?”

“True,” Brad hummed. “So. How are things on your end?”

“Yeah, good. I’m in Baltimore actually. Went to see my sister and her baby. She’s predictably adorable.”

He hesitated for a moment.

“I talked to my parents. Told them about… the therapist I’m going to see.”

Nate could hear faint rustling on Brad’s end of the line.

“How did they take it?”

“Pretty well. Said they’d support me, of course. I… I’m glad I told them.”

“Yeah,” Brad said. “That’s good.”

“Yeah,” Nate echoed, not really knowing what else to say. “So you miss home yet?”

“Fuck yeah,” Brad said passionately, the fact that he’d been packing away good British beer for the past few hours shining through in his voice for the first time. “It hasn’t stopped drizzling since I landed. The roads are a joke and my rack is even more uncomfortable than your stupid couch.”

“Hey,” Nate protested, “don’t talk about Vimle that way.”

“You gave your couch a name?” Brad asked incredulously. Yeah, definitely drunk if he couldn’t remember the name of the couch he’d spent a considerable amount of time goading Nate into buying and then assembling only days prior.

“Ikea gave my couch a name. I clearly would’ve done a much better job of it.”

“Let me guess, something really pretentious in ancient Greek or something? Archimedes? Aristotle? Dionysus?”

“Brad, you wound me,” Nate laughed, even though he wasn’t very far off the mark.

He heard a voice calling loudly in the background, Brad hollering something back.

“Hey, I’ve gotta go,” Brad said, something like regret swinging in his voice. “I’ve barely been here for a day and already they can’t live without me.”

If that wasn’t a little too relatable.

“Sure Brad. Have fun.”

“Yeah, you too, Nate.”

“Will do. If I’m really lucky, my parents will let me watch old Asterix and Obelix cartoons.”

Brad snorted.

“Hey, Brad,” Nate said hurriedly, afraid Brad might hang up any moment now.

Brad hummed to signal he was still listening.

“Don’t be a stranger, alright? Once I’ve started at my pompous Ivy League school, I’ll need a dedicated NCO to check in on me regularly so I don’t completely lose touch with reality.”

He was trying to play it off as a joke, but couldn’t entirely hide the urgency in his voice.

“Of course, Nate,” Brad said immediately, not even trying to hide his earnestness. “Semper fi.”

“Semper fi.”

Time went on and so did life. Nate started school, started his therapy sessions, started going out with friends. He cycled to his classes every morning, no matter how bad the weather, thinking of Brad sitting in rainy England dreaming of California sunshine. He still had nightmares and sometimes he had to get off his bike and breathe on the sidewalk for a few minutes before he could be a non-murderous road user once more. He listened to his business professor talk about the Four Hs of Leadership - honor, heart, humility and humor -  and tried not to scream. 

He still only managed to coax his coffee machine into doing what he wanted every second morning or so and complained about it at length to Brad during their phone calls that had fallen into a bi-weekly rhythm, except when Brad was on an exercise or during Nate’s exam period, when he was too busy studying while also maintaining a healthy sleeping schedule, the importance of which his therapist had impressed on him on many occasions. His phone calls with Brad tended to stretch on seemingly forever, often deep into the night, and so they hadn’t talked in about ten days.

Nate contemplated calling him when his laptop suddenly broke down in the middle of writing a paper on US democracy promotion in the Middle East that did not make him very optimistic on their chances of doing more good than harm in Iraq, but he knew that it would only lead to a five minute rant boiling down to I told you so. Go and ask a professional close to you. He didn’t really have any time to lose, so he just skipped right to the last bit. 

Somehow, the clerk at the electronics store, Sam, recognized him, or rather recognized him as “that guy Brad was shopping for”.  It had been months since Brad had been here and Sam still smiled like remembering a good old friend. Nate briefly flashed back to standing in the DIY with Brad, thinking about how he left a lasting impression on everyone. This time, however, he just felt fondness instead of the strange mixture of jealousy and self consciousness he’d been immersed in back then.

Sam listened patiently to Nate stressing the need of getting back to his half-written paper right about now, only commenting once on how he should have saved a backup file, while trying and failing to boot his laptop up, turning it around in his hands before screwing it open and taking a closer look at its inner workings. Finally, he set his screwdriver down with what sounded like a pretty final thunk, reminding Nate of doctors in medical dramas throwing down their scalpels to call time of death on their patients. 

“Look, I don’t know what to tell you,” Sam said to a grimacing Nate. “This is a piece of garbage. You should’ve bought that Dell laptop when your bo- when Brad told you to.” 

Nate frowned in confusion.

“He told me he hadn’t decided between the Dell and what was it… a Lenovo. He said he’d do more research and send me an email, but he never did.” 

“Nah, that can’t be right,” Sam commented, “I mean we talked about it during his first visit, but we agreed on the second one that the Lenovo might be cheaper and you might not need all the processing power of the Dell, but that it would be a better investment in the long run. Frankly, I don’t see why he would want to do further research, we have all the information he might need right here.”

He sounded almost affronted, like Brad, and Nate by extension, had doubted his professional integrity. Nate was however too bewildered to try and placate him. What Sam was telling him was completely at odds with what Brad had claimed, which meant that one of them was lying. 

Nate mustered Sam for a few seconds, trying to gauge whether he might just be trying to take advantage of Nate’s obvious lack of expertise and goad him into buying an expensive computer he didn’t need. Sam seemed however completely calm and sincere, looking at Nate like he was a bit slow in the head but he was too polite and professional to say so. Nate actually prided himself on being a pretty good judge of character and he couldn’t imagine Sam being this underhanded, most of all if Brad had deemed him satisfactory as well. 

Which meant that Brad had been lying, though Nate couldn’t fathom what for. Thinking back to that moment in the car when Brad had mentioned the email, he could only remember his own reasoning - that this was at least an excuse to stay in touch. A bolt of electricity shot through him at the thought that Brad might have had the very same idea. He squashed it down, however - it was probably just wishful thinking and there was a perfectly reasonable explanation Brad would give him if he asked. Besides, he had other fish to fry at the moment. 

“So what you’re saying is that I should buy the Dell laptop?” Nate asked to get the conversation back on track.

“Yes, that’s what I’m saying,” Sam replied, sounding more like he was saying Did you fall on your head? instead. 

“Is there any chance you might be able to recover what’s on there?” Nate continued, pointing at what he thought might be the harddisk. 

Sam contemplated that for a moment. 

“I’ll ask Jess to give it a try, she’s scarily good at data recovery. Let me show you your new laptop in the meantime. You’re lucky, the price has even gone down a bit.” 

Luckily for Nate’s sanity, he left the store about an hour later with most of the programs he’d need already installed and his data safely transferred to his new harddisk, along with a second memory stick and a solemn promise to Jess that he would be more diligent about his backups from here on out. 

Nate was too busy to call Brad the following days and before he could get round to it someone knocked wildly on Nate’s door the afternoon after his last exam, making him almost drop his cup of tea and spill it all over his beautiful kitchen. He wasn’t expecting anyone and Mrs. Hobart from the second floor who always asked him if she could borrow some eggs (and, as Nate suspected, compiling a FBI-worthy profile on him to gauge his suitability as a future grandson-in-law) didn’t bang on his door like a savage on crack.

“Alright, I’m coming,” he called as he put down his cup and went over to the door, wrenching it open to reveal none other than Ray Person on the other side.

“Surprise, homes,” Ray crowed, moving in for a hug.

“Ray,” Nate said, perplexed, automatically returning the hug, “what are you doing here?”

It wasn’t like he’d entirely fallen out of contact with the platoon. But apart from Brad and Mike, whom he regularly exchanged emails with and phoned about once a month and Tim, now working at John Hopkins and therefore quite easy to look up whenever Nate was visiting his family, he hadn’t kept in touch with anyone except for the group mails going around, keeping everyone updated. Nate’s last update had been a couple of months back, something along the lines of ‘am well, school’s started and my advisor reminds me of Reporter’. He had no idea what had prompted Ray to come all the way to Boston and end up on Nate’s doorstep.

“The Iceman sent me to check up on you. Make sure you eat your veggies, call your mom, go to your shrink and always use condoms or some shit like that, honestly I sort of stopped listening about four minutes into the conversation…“

Ray didn’t stop talking long enough for Nate to get a word in edgewise, he just strutted inside, right past Nate into the living room and deposited his bags on the couch, while Nate mentally updated the flowchart in his head, noting ‘talks to Ray about me at great length’, above the thick line connecting Brad to his former RTO. Huh.

“You wanna give me the tour of your little love nest?” Ray asked and Nate obliged, although he actually ended up talking more about Brad’s involvement in the setting up of the flat (“Brad was about ready to defect when I told him we were going to Ikea” ; “Brad made me buy this couch just so he wouldn’t have to sleep on the floor anymore” ; “Brad chose this color”), moving from the living room through the bed- and bathroom over to the kitchen, which took about four minutes total.

Ray, however, seemed to have gotten all the information he needed.

“So,” Ray concluded, “what you’re telling me is that our dear Brad exchanged his plane ticket for one that was at least twice as expensive due to the whole short-notice thing, drove for days through wasteland in a piece of shit, cramped Toyota after having done the same thing in a piece of shit, cramped Humvee in a warzone mere months prior, went through Ikea without skipping the showroom, spent two days assembling said Ikea furniture and repainting your horrible rosé kitchen the exact shade of your eyes and he didn’t even get to first base? Man homes, either he’s even more hopeless than I thought or you’re a very, very expensive date, sir.”

Nate was stunned into silence for a moment.

“What? How – what – I didn’t – that’s not an accurate account of what –“ he stuttered and finally settled on, “that’s not the exact colour of my eyes,” gesturing wildly at his kitchen cupboards.

“It so is, though. You have no idea how much time Brad has spent composing poetry about them in his head, alright. He knows. And I know, by osmosis or some shit like that.”

Oh, Nate thought stupidly.

Because, yes, this was Ray, and Ray talked a lot and therefore said a lot of shit that hadn’t much to do with reality. But – as ridiculously as he had made his point, he wouldn’t joke about this, wouldn’t joke about Brad. Nate had seen the way Ray had looked after Brad in Iraq and vice versa. There was probably nobody who knew Brad better than Ray did. Their friendship and loyalty ran deep, deeper maybe than whatever Nate and Brad had.

And Ray was telling him that Brad was head-over-heels, I would drive across the country for you and then like to defile you on either the sofa or the bed I made you buy, I’m not picky, in love with him.

Which – well. Nate actually might be an idiot. Because the whole time he’d thought that Brad had helped him out of pity, it actually had been love.

“But – he never did or say anything to suggest –“

“Of course not, homes. You were a hot mess and Brad is a gentleman. And like every good teenage girl, he’s entirely convinced the object of his affection could never return his mushy feelings. Which I personally think he’s as wrong about as the whole fucking Coalition of the Willing was about WMDs in Iraq.”

Ray fixed him with his stare.

“Isn’t he, sir?”

Nate couldn’t even think about lying.

“He is.”

Ray nodded to himself.

“Alright. I’m going to be somewhere else for a while. There better not be any phone sex still going on when I get back.”

With that Ray let himself out of the apartment, leaving Nate standing alone in the kitchen, his cup of tea still steaming peacefully where he’d left it on the counter, as if his world hadn’t tilted on its axis since he’d sat it down mere ten minutes ago.

His eyes flitted over to the phone lying next to it, his hands already twitching to reach for it.

He should think this through first. He should think about the fact that the struggle with his PTSD was still an uphill battle. He should think about DADT and the fact that they were living on different continents. That he had no idea how his family would react if he came home with a 6’3’’, decidedly not-female, used-to-be-under-my-command recon marine.

All he could think about was Brad somewhere in the middle of Tennessee, loudly singing along to an Air Supply song on the radio. The look in Brad’s eyes when he’d told him I am here for you. Waking up next to Brad, making breakfast with him right in this kitchen. Brad on the other side of the bathroom door.

He didn’t have to think about it. He knew what he wanted and what he needed and it was the same thing – the same person. Yes, there was still an ocean between them, but all that meant was that he’d better get started crossing it.

Nate was across the room in two long strides, phone in his hand and speed dial pressed less than thirty seconds after Ray had left the apartment.

The fifteen seconds it took Brad to pick up seemed like forever, excitement and anticipation drumming through his veins.

“So,” Nate said after they’d exchanged their usual greetings, “your RTO informs me that my situational awareness is for shit. When’s the next time you get leave?”

Just hearing Brad’s voice over the intercom was enough to get Nate’s heart racing. He wrenched his door open like his life depended on it and felt immediately stupid afterwards. He’d look pathetically eager if he’d be standing here in his doorway, waiting for Brad to make it the four stories up to him.

He took a step back to the sound of Brad taking the stairs two at once and just a few seconds later heard him clear the landing and take the last few steps towards Nate’s apartment.

It still came as a shock when Brad stepped into view. He looked good - better than he had the last time he’d been here – a little less tanned, but healthier and happier and breathing a little faster, maybe from his sprint up the stairs. Or, Nate hoped foolishly, maybe seeing him made Brad feel like the breath had been punched out of him, too. Nate could certainly relate.

“Hi,” he said and he really shouldn’t have bothered with taking that step back. His smile and his voice and his entire body lighting up at the sight of Brad were giving him away just as much as if he’d been holding up I’ve missed you and I’m glad you’re home signs.

He’d be embarrassed if Brad didn’t look and sound exactly the same.

“Hi,” Brad echoed and then fell silent, though his eyes didn’t stop taking all of Nate in –  his hair that had grown even longer, his shirt that Nate would never admit he’d picked out because it brought out his eyes, his form that had filled out a bit since he’d started eating regularly again.

Nate could feel Brad’s pull with his entire body. He wanted to step forward, grab Brad and kiss him until he couldn’t breathe.

As if he knew what Nate was thinking about, Brad’s gaze landed on his mouth.

Moving at the exact same moment, they suddenly found themselves standing with just an inch or two between them, toeing either side of the threshold when a sudden movement at the edge of his vision caught Nate’s attention.

He hastily sidestepped Brad as he recognized Mrs. Hobart, his downstairs neighbour, who had somehow managed to sneak up on two highly trained recon marines to ask one of them for half a dozen eggs and the other one a dozen questions about who he was (“Gunnery Sergeant Brad Colbert”), where he was from (“California”), how he knew Nate (“he was my CO in Iraq”) and what he was doing here in Boston (“just visiting”).

It was more than a little awkward. Nate knew that they couldn’t exactly tell Mrs. Hobart what was really going on (“So we’re most probably deeply in love with each other and this is the first time we’ve seen each other since we’ve realised that and we’d really like you to get lost so we can make out and talk and have hopefully really great sex please and thank you”) and it wasn’t like Nate really wanted to, anyway. But hearing Brad put their relationship into such casual terms while Nate hunted his refrigerator for the stupid eggs certainly killed the mood a little.

Even once Mrs. Hobart had gone with her eggs and the promise to bring back some of the cake she was going to bake, the spark from before stayed dead and neither of them seemed to know how to ignite it again.

They danced around each other as they made dinner, made small talk while they ate it and at the end of it all Nate found himself in his giant bed, alone, with Brad sacked out on the couch.

He lay awake on his back, staring at the ceiling, and found himself transported back to the last night Brad had been here, when he’d been lying in his bed much like this, agonizing over what he felt for Brad and absolutely convinced that he could never be what Brad wanted.

Except that they were above and beyond that now. Even if they hadn’t really said it in so many words – some things were not meant to be done over the phone – they had both heavily implied how they felt about each other. It was understood between them, just as they’d gotten exactly what the other was thinking and feeling with just a single glance back in Iraq.

With one single, fluid motion, Nate was out of his bed and out his bedroom door, rapidly crossing the living room to where Brad was now sitting up on the couch.

“Nate,” Brad said, not sounding like he’d slept a wink, either, “is something wrong?”

“This is stupid,” Nate said, not coming to a halt as he reached the sofa but using his momentum to climb right onto it and straddle Brad’s lap. He didn’t let himself be deterred by the startled look on Brad’s face, slid his hands over Brad’s jaw to cradle the back of his head and gently tilt his face up so he could kiss him all soft and eager and sure, like this was what he was supposed to do, where he was supposed to be all along.

Brad made a devastating noise into his mouth, then opened up to kiss him back eagerly, his hands landing on Nate’s lower back and the top of his spine to pull him closer so their upper bodies were touching everywhere.

Each point of contact was filling Nate with joy. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this good, this happy. Brad was here, Brad was kissing him back and holding him like he couldn’t bear the thought of letting him go again. Nate loved everything about it – which reminded him -

Reluctantly he pulled back and couldn’t help but laugh as Brad chased after his mouth blindly, his eyes still closed for a moment until he eventually blinked them open and Nate was pretty sure he wouldn’t forget the way Brad was looking at him in that moment until the day he died.

The truth of it was that until that moment, Nate hadn’t been entirely sure that this - that he - was what Brad wanted. He’d liked his odds, but it had still been a leap of fate to throw himself at Brad the way he had. But what he could see in Brad’s eyes, now that all his walls had come down, the wonder, the longing, the hope - there was no space left for any doubt between them.

“I love you,” Nate stated, clearly and plainly, because as much as they could read each other without actually having to speak, some things were meant to be said out loud.

“Fuck,” Brad enunciated and surged forward again and this time Nate let himself get caught in another kiss.

“Mhm,” Nate muttered against Brad’s lips, “maybe later.”

He rocked against Brad, even though there really wasn’t much contact he could make through several layers of blankets and pyjama pants separating them. It still made Brad groan and clutch Nate harder against him.

Then a moment later, Brad loosened his grip and actually pulled back from Nate enthusiastically exploring his new favourite AO.

“Shouldn’t we actually talk about this first?” Brad asked and Nate reluctantly backed off a little and let his hands slide down to land on Brad’s shoulders.

“I don’t know. You think there’s a lot to talk about?”

Brad huffed.

“Well, this feels pretty huge to me,” he argued. “No pun intended,” he added with a grin.

“It is pretty huge,” Nate agreed, grinning back and rocking once more into Brad. “But it also seems pretty simple to me. I love you. I want to be with you. I want you in my life permanently and I want to become part of yours -”

“But don’t you see,” Brad interrupted, “it’s not like our lives are very compatible. Or like my job is especially forgiving towards this kind of a thing.”

Nate was taken aback. To be laying his heart at Brad’s feet like this and be met with nothing but objections was not what he’d expected, not after the way Brad had reciprocated his kiss. Doubt started to creep its way back in. What if he’d misread the situation? What if all Brad wanted was a quick fuck? The thought was so devastating that he could hardly concentrate on what Brad was saying. Brad’s hands twitching helplessly where they’d settled on his hips were the only thing pulling him back into the moment. 

“... it’s not like I can pretend that I don’t want this. But we should at least talk about whether it’s also what we need. What you need.”

That snapped Nate out of his growing panic. Fucking Brad. Even now, at the brink of finally getting what he wanted, he was ready to let it all go if he thought that it was best for Nate.

“I just don’t want us to start something and then realize that it’s not working out because the distance and the secrecy are just too hard to take for either of us. Once I get this, once I’m in this, losing it would actually…”

Brad didn’t finish his sentence, but Nate could read it well enough on his face: break my heart. 

He understood then that Brad was not saying this because he didn’t want to be with Nate, but because he was terrified of how much he wanted it. Though he hadn’t said it that way, Nate was pretty sure that he was mainly worried about Nate abandoning him. Which did make sense, given how his engagement had gone. Nate, however, had no intention of going down that path. 

“We’ll make it work,” he avowed, “it’s not like I expectus to be together all the time. Obviously that won’t be possible anytime soon.”

The thought of that actually did make him a little sad. Because now that he got to touch Brad, to really be with him, he wasn’t quite sure how he was supposed to make it for months on end without it.

“But these last few months, just talking to you on the phone, it made me realize how even that with you is so much better than what I could have with anybody else. You understand me in a way no one else does. You stood by me through one of the most difficult times of my life and I’m ready to stand by you through whatever obstacles we might encounter.”

Brad shifted underneath him, looking down, and Nate reached out to smooth his thumb over the frown that had appeared on Brad’s forehead. Brad closed his eyes and leaned into the touch for a moment, like he couldn’t help himself, before pulling back and opening his eyes to fix Nate with his stare, his face hardening into an expression of reluctance, as if he didn’t actually want to say what came next.

“As much as I hate sounding like you did the last time I was here – I don’t exactly want you to put out because you think you owe me for tastefully decorating this joint and bullying you into seeing a shrink.”

“Ha,” Nate said. “That’s not what this is. Believe me, I’ve thought about it obsessively and spent hours talking about it to the shrink you bullied me into seeing. “

The look Brad gave him at that might be the fondest of the of course you did variety Nate has been subject to in recent memory.

“And what was your conclusion?” Brad asked, somewhere between amusement and apprehension, like he was still afraid of the answer. 

A fear Nate was more than happy to take from him. 

“That, even though a counterfactual analysis will never truly be possible, I’m pretty sure I would’ve fallen for you even if we hadn’t met and bonded under extreme circumstances. That I like and care about you not only because of what you did and what you did for me, but also for who you are.”

Nate wasn’t one to believe in faith or the one true love. He knew that if he’d never met Brad, he probably would’ve found somebody else, sooner or later, whom he’d come to respect and admire and love and build a life with. But the fact was that he had met Brad, that he’d admired and respected him from the start, that he’d grown to love him more and more with every passing day, every knowing glance and cynical remark.

He hadn’t thought about being with anybody else for over a year now, apart from that time when he’d had his I really like Brad but have never been with a man before what if I’m really bad at it freak-out and had contemplated finding someone to show him the ropes, to see if he liked it. However, he really hadn’t seen the appeal in sleeping with anyone who wasn’t Brad and kept it in his pants except for some quite illuminating internet searches.

“I’m sure,” he proclaimed. “Aren’t you?”

Brad shrugged, not meeting Nate’s eyes.

“I don’t exactly have a long history of being wanted for anything other than my usefulness,” he whispered roughly, and Nate ached for him. He wanted to punch whomever had made Brad feel that way in the face, hard, and he had an inkling about who that might be.

It also put some things into perspective: Brad’s reluctance to be thanked for what he’d done for Nate. How jumpy he’d become once they’d been done furnishing the apartment. He’d been afraid that once he was no longer useful, Nate might no longer want him. 

“This will be hard, especially on you,” Brad continued before Nate could make up his mind about how he could best deceive him of this notion, “much harder than it would be if you were with someone who hasn’t dedicated his life to a homophobic wartime military institution. And I’m not just going to change my mind about that.”

At that last part he looked up, his eyes boring into Nate’s to make sure he understood how serious he was. As if Nate didn’t already know that.

“I don’t want you to change your mind about the Corps. I want you to do what you love.”

And Nate could see Brad finally allowing himself to believe it, his smile turning all wide and happy and a little wicked and it hit Nate deep in the gut.

“So you want me to do you? Glad we’re on the same page,” Brad drawled, once more tightening his arms around Nate. “Though maybe we shouldn’t do it here. I fear for the structural integrity of this couch.”

Nate leaned in for a quick kiss.

“Stop badmouthing my couch. You love this couch, you made me buy it.”

Another kiss. This time their mouths barely came apart to speak.

“Because I didn’t want you to be alone.”

Nate remembered the last time Brad had said this to him, at that shitty taco place. Back then, Nate hadn’t understood why, couldn’t let himself accept the fact that Brad cared about him that much. He had no such problems now.

“’m not alone,” he whispered against Brad’s lips, smiling. “I’ve got you.”

And then they didn’t part for a very long time.

" we are at the crossroads, my little outlaw

and this is the map of my heart, the landscape

after cruelty which is, of course, a garden, which is

a tenderness, which is a room, a lover saying Hold me

tight, it's getting cold.

 

We have not touched the stars,

nor are we forgiven, which brings us back

to the hero's shoulders and the gentleness that comes,

not from the absence of violence, but despite

the abundance of it."

—Richard Siken, Crush