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After his Social Policy in Iraq class, Nate sometimes heads over to the river and runs himself into the ground.
Today, when he's done, the sky is orange and dimming. His legs feel like they've been beaten with a bat. That's new. He jogs painfully up the incline of the bank. His knees shake.
Nate doesn't think of himself as a civilian; not yet. Maybe he never will. When he's asked what he did before Harvard, he says things like: "I'm- I was in the Marines". The past tense feels awkward. But in the mirror, the outline of his body is softening. When he pokes his stomach, he can feel a layer of fat that wasn't there before. There's no denying that some kind of transformation is happening.
He still has some of his conditioning, though - as he makes his way home, his legs slowly unfuck themselves. The sky turns black. It starts to drizzle. Nate pulls the hood of his sweater over his head.
In the seminar, the discussion had been about the distortions of a military presence.
Nate had thought about Sergeant Patrick, still doing PT on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He'd had a sudden clear image of Brad looking down the sightline of his M-4.
"The soldiers over there aren't distortions," he'd said.
A few of his classmates had looked at him and then looked away. "We weren't talking about individual soldiers," one guy said. And Nate had remembered an instructor at TBS who'd told him 'When an officer overinvests in the individuals, it weakens his decision-making. It weakens his command. Your duty is the mission first, the men second'. Something about the memory had made Nate's guts clench as though his body thought he was angrier than he actually was.
Now, as he turns into Mass Avenue, it starts raining for real. Car lights shine off puddles in the road. Nate doesn't think about wise and unwise command decisions. He looks down at the ground and walks until the driveway of his apartment block materialises under his feet.
When he first came home, America had seemed as still as the morning after a snowstorm. In Iraq, there had been constant noise. Vehicles, radio, ordnance. Marines shouting, Marines talking. Back home, Nate drove to work along half-empty streets. His first apartment was so quiet that when the movers had left, he'd stood among his boxes and there'd been a tinny ringing in his ears like a far-away alarm.
Tonight, in the driveway, the only sound is the little dog on the third-floor balcony that's still barking at him three months after he moved here from Washington. Now, it darts from the cover of the eave so that it can shove its head through the fence rails and growl at him from a fractionally closer position.
Nate tells himself that he appreciates its aggressiveness. Good focus in adverse weather conditions. He stands in the rain to check his mail. There's a telephone bill. A gas bill. Free money. Earn more, work from home. Water smears the ink.
He got a postcard from Brad once. On one side had been a cautionary tale about moving to Britain where the traffic was slow, the beaches were cold, and the pizzas were topped with corn. On the other side had been a photograph of a windswept shore. 'Wish you were here' was printed in black over the sky. Brad had probably intended it to be ironic.
Nate had put the postcard on the kitchen counter. He looks at it sometimes. There's something about it. The pale sky, the grey sea. He can imagine himself there.
He tracks water and dead leaves into the foyer. He toes one shoe off as the elevator shuts. When he puts his foot down, his sock squeezes out water like a sponge. The elevator opens while he's pulling his second shoe off.
"Hey."
Nate jerks his head up.
Brad is in his hallway, leaning against the wall.
Brad is in England. Brad is in his hallway.
It's so jarring that for a second, Nate's sure he's hallucinating. He exhausted himself pretty good back there. He has a moment to realise that his knees are still shaky. His legs haven't completely unfucked themselves. Then the elevator doors start to close.
Brad moves fast - one long stride. The doors close. The doors open.
Brad looks faintly amused, or maybe faintly irritated. His thumb is on the 'up' button. "They say the reflexes are the first to go."
Nate's head abruptly clears. Whatever expression appears his face, it seems to quell the smirk that's tugging at Brad's mouth.
"Uh." Brad steps aside so that Nate can get out of the elevator. "Turns out I had some vacation time."
~~~
Across the pond, they have a lot of time off, Brad says. It's fucking debauched. It's because the country is run by sloth-loving, work-hating unions. It's practically communist over there.
"Ah," Nate says. At Mathilda, whenever Brad talked about vacations he talked about surfing and motorcycle trips and rock climbing. Nate has no idea why he'd choose to take a break in New England.
But Nate's casa is his men's casa is certainly his TL's casa. He unlocks the door and gestures Brad through. "I got a couch with your name on it," he tells him. "Yours as long as you want it."
"Nate." Brad says his name like it's a little uncomfortable in his mouth. He hesitates in the doorway for a moment. "I appreciate it."
~~~
To most people - Nate is sure of this - his apartment would look neat. Maybe anally neat. But Brad's eyes flick from the coat tossed over the back of the sofa to the dish air-drying by the sink, the cup on the coffee table, the pair of boots not quite on the doormat. There's a streak of mud on the tongue of the left boot.
Brad turns to Nate, and there's something assessing or reassessing in his eyes. Nate waits for him to make a crack about ex-officers going to seed.
Brad tilts his head. "You should probably change your clothes." He sounds almost gentle.
Nate glances down at himself. His sweater is sodden. He's still holding his shoes. He probably looks like a boot camp recruit. "I went running," he explains.
"Miss BRC that much?" Brad's expression is unreadable.
Nate shifts uncomfortably. Then he's annoyed at himself for giving ground. "It's only water, Brad." He can hear the sharp edge in his tone.
The corner of Brad's mouth lifts. "Okay," he says. "Well." He waves at the television. "I can just- whatever, while you do whatever."
~~~
Nate peels off his clothes in the bathroom. They're cold and tacky. His pants don't want to slide down.
In the shower, though, he starts to feel better. The aches in his legs fade under the hot water. Brad being here doesn't start to make any more sense.
Nate was always close to his guys, but the relationship between an officer and his men doesn't really lend itself to casually hanging out. It would make more sense for Brad to land on Kocher's doorstep during his a-lot-of-time-off. Or maybe Espera's. It's a puzzle, Nate thinks. It's odd.
~~~
Brad isn't watching television when Nate gets out of the shower. He's leaning against the kitchen counter, looking at the 'Wish you were here' postcard.
He glances up as Nate walks in. "Ray bought a DeLorean DMC-12," he says. He runs his thumb over the strip of sand on the postcard. "Like in Back to the Future? It has fucking gold and red racing stripes." He pauses to let that sink in, and then nods at Nate. "You look better."
Nate leans his head against the wall tiredly. "I'm an ex-Marine, Brad, not a- how would you put it? A pussy civilian?"
"A polo-playing, canapé-nibbling, freedom-hating pussy civilian."
Nate snorts. "Give me a few more months." He pushes away from the wall with a little effort. "C'mon, staff sergeant." He jerks his head towards the sofa. "Catch me up."
Brad makes himself comfortable while Nate grabs a bottle of scotch and a couple of glasses from under the counter. He leans back on Nate's sofa, stretching his arms wide over the cushions.
He tells Nate all about the Royal Marines. They're warriors, he says, as Nate settles into the seat next to him. Professionals. He respects that.
The further into the bottle they get, the more Brad respects it. He's brought the postcard with him from the kitchen. Looking at it makes Nate feel... strange. Uncomfortable. Like he's revealed something by keeping it on the counter all these months. He looks at his glass so that he doesn't have to look at the grey beach. "Is there news?" he says. "About the guys?"
"Poke did some poking," Brad says. His wife is pregnant again. Ray is thinking about film school. Walt is back in Iraq extorting a nice fat contract from the private sector. Trombley, God help them all, is at a cop academy in LA.
At that news, Nate downs his glass and pours them both another one.
"No neighbourhood dog will be safe," Brad adds.
Nate tries to smile. Two nights ago, coming home, he caught himself fantasising about shooting the little dog on the third floor.
It had growled at him, and Nate had looked up at it. He'd breathed in and out - found the rhythm for centring a rifle. He'd looked right into the dog's eyes and imagined firing a bullet into its head.
He has nightmares sometimes. He dreams that they're back on the bridge - the whole platoon. Pappy dies. Nate hears the report on the radio. Rudy dies. Brad is third.
"So how's the pussy life of the retiree?" Brad says now. His hand falls loosely onto Nate's shoulder. The weight is surprisingly comforting.
"It's fine." Nate tilts his head back so that he can look at Brad, whole and unscathed. Brad's shirtsleeve is pushed up. Nate can see the fine blond hairs at the edge of his wrist. "School is-" Nate tries to make his thoughts coalesce. He feels tongue-tied. Tiredness and scotch. "It's a means to an end."
Brad squeezes his shoulder. "Now there's a novelty."
Nate swallows his drink. Being in the Marines had rarely felt like being a means to anything. It had just been a means. In combat, one moment didn't necessarily lead to another. Most of the time, Nate had liked the immediacy of that.
Brad squeezes his shoulder again. "It isn't too different in the RM," he says. He tells Nate about the structure and hierarchies. He moves his hand away. Nate misses the warmth as soon as it's gone.
Nate sips and listens. He watches Brad's face. Brad doesn't like the supply guy. He likes the colour sergeants. One of the warrant officers is the buck-toothed inbred son of buck-toothed inbred pig farmers. Nate grins.
He isn't sure when Brad stops talking. He realises they're sitting in silence at around the same time that he realises he's staring at the line of Brad's throat.
When he drags his eyes up, Brad is looking back at him. And Brad doesn't say anything, his expression doesn't change, but a flush runs up Nate's neck.
"Brad."
Brad's chest rises and falls and then rises again. The rhythm isn't quite steady. He looks away, somewhere in the direction of the front door. "I've thought about it."
Nate's chest feels too tight. He shakes his head. "No, you haven't."
"Nate." Nate can only see the edge of Brad's face. The line of his mouth is tense. "I've thought about it. Are you telling me you haven't?"
Nate shakes his head again helplessly. He has thought about it. He thinks about it when he's too tired to police himself. In Iraq, he thought about it tucked between other forbidden thoughts, like how easy it is to kill a man - how sometimes you don't feel anything at all between pulling the trigger and watching him fall.
Nate looks at people sometimes as he's walking down the street or sitting in class or grabbing coffees at the stand. They don't know, he thinks. They have no idea of the things they'd be capable of if only they were in the right context to do them.
"Is that what you're telling me?" Brad says. He looks frustrated, but he doesn't sound frustrated. He sounds stoic. Nate hears an echo of all the 'Yes sirs' that Brad gave him during the war when what he really meant was 'This is fucked up'.
Nate drains the rest of his scotch. He puts the glass down onto the coffee table. This is fucked up. He takes a deep breath. When he'd imagined... them, he'd never imagined this part of it. The talking. It was always blowjobs and quick panting handjobs. During the race to Baghdad, even his fantasies were rushed.
Brad's shoulders tense and relax. Nate takes another deep breath. He thinks maybe he's drunk a little too much, exhausted himself a little too much. "I've thought about it," he confesses. It feels surreal to say it aloud. Denying it felt wrong, but admitting it feels wrong too.
"Okay," Brad says. He looks at Nate, finally. His expression is Iceman-blank, and Nate suddenly can't stand it. He can't stand that Brad is so accustomed to hiding that he still feels like he has to, even now that it's all out in the open.
They're so close that Nate hardly has to lean in at all. Brad breathes out a puff of air like a gasp. A muscle jumps beneath his jaw. Nate has weird thoughts. Random thoughts. His mail is still in the pocket of his pants. They could probably get a pizza later. This was probably inevitable - they're both men of action. He turns his face, just a little.
Brad tastes like scotch. He gasps shakily into Nate's mouth, and then he's kissing Nate back like he thinks he might not get another chance. When he tilts Nate's jaw to change the angle, he doesn't pull away for air. Nate closes his eyes and doesn't try to breathe. It feels like drowning.
The next time Nate's brain clicks into the present, he's half-lying on the sofa. He can feel the leather against his back where his shirt is rucked up.
Brad's mouth is wet. He licks his lips. "I don't know about you," he says, "but I'm going to need some more room."
~~~
Brad fills Nate's bed like he fills every space he's in. He positions Nate just how he wants him - on his back, legs spread wide. Wider.
Nate lets his head thump back against the pillow. He wishes like hell he hadn't gone running. His brain feels like cotton wool. "How the fuck is this happening?"
Brad pauses in his arrangement. His grip on Nate's thigh seems to tense, but when Nate lifts his head to look at him, he's smirking. "Oh, you need a play-by-play?" He wraps his fist around Nate's cock, making Nate grunt. His smile widens. "Well, first, I'm going to tongue you." He lowers his head slowly, making sure Nate's watching. He runs the broad flat of his tongue up the underside of Nate's cock. Nate swallows loudly. He lets his head fall back again as Brad works him over. He stares at the ceiling and sucks in air. It's not nearly enough to make him come, but more than enough to drive him out of his mind.
Brad lifts his mouth. "And then I'm going to see how far I can get you down my throat."
Pretty fucking far, it turns out. Brad sucks cock like he kisses - like he doesn't need to breathe. Nate can't breathe. He hasn't felt this good in- maybe ever. He stares at Brad's head moving up and down, at his bare shoulders, bare legs, and tries to take it all in - everything all at the same time. He's going to want this memory later.
His climax sneaks up on him. One second, he's not that close, and the next he's starting to shake. He grips Brad's shoulder warningly. "Brad."
Brad doesn't lift his mouth. He meets Nate's eyes, cheeks hollowing, and then Nate's coming harder than he has in a long time.
He tugs Brad up to kiss him. He can taste himself, and he can't get enough of it. He fists Brad's cock, making Brad groan into his mouth.
"Fuck," Brad mutters. "Motherfucking fucker." He alternates between cursing and grunting as Nate jerks him off - until near the end, when he presses his mouth into the crook of Nate's neck and breathes in and out hotly until he comes. It's maybe the hottest thing Nate's ever seen.
~~~
When Nate wakes up, it's still dark. He's half-hard again. He palms his cock sleepily.
Brad shifts behind him, making the bed dip. "Let me do that," he murmurs into Nate's ear. He sounds sleepy too. He pushes Nate's hand away, runs his thumb over the head of Nate's cock, squeezes him gently. "You want it like this?"
Nate swallows. He wants it like this. He wants all kinds of things that won't fit into a vacation. He breathes shakily as Brad squeezes, releases. He rocks into Brad's hand.
They do that for a while. Brad's cock paints hot damp stripes over the back of Nate's thighs. Nate closes his eyes. He could come like this. He puts his hand over Brad's to still him before he loses control. "I want you to fuck me."
"Uh-" Brad's breath stutters in Nate's ear. His fingers flex around Nate's cock. "We'll need... stuff." His cock is a rigid line against Nate's thigh.
Nate huffs out a laugh that's mostly air. "Be assured, I have the supplies for this eventuality."
Brad is quiet for a second. He bites the back of Nate's neck very gently. "Supply truck?"
Nate snorts. "I think we can make do with what's in the nightstand."
~~~
Brad opens him slowly and methodically. One finger, two fingers. Nate chews the pillow to muffle his moans. It's so slow it's almost torture.
He lifts his head. "Come on," he grits out. "Now."
Brad actually takes a finger out. "Soon." The finger slides back in, slicker, at a different angle. Nate grinds into the mattress.
"Now." Nate stills himself with difficulty. He reaches back to grab Brad's wrist. He's so turned on, he feels clumsy. He turns his head to look at Brad meaningfully. "Now."
Brad meets his eyes. He doesn't look away as he pulls his fingers out, slick and - God - slow, slow, slow. Nate feels the long thick slide of it all the way up his spine.
"Get on your back," Nate says. He doesn't let Brad's settle - pushes him down while he's still moving, rips open the condom wrapper with his teeth. Brad gasps a bit as Nate rolls the condom over his dick.
Nate reaches back with both hands to spread himself. He can feel himself still spasming inside - trying to flex against where the pressure was.
"Oh, fuck," Brad breathes. He slides his hands over Nate's - not spreading him wider, just brushing his fingertips over where Nate's already open. "You were so fucking tight around my fingers."
Nate sucks in a shallow breath. It doesn't seem to hit his lungs. "I'll just-" He pulls his hands from under Brad's so he can brace himself against the headboard. He shifts, working himself back against Brad's cock until the thick tip of it nudges his hole.
He bears down. His body resists. It hurts like Brad's fingers hadn't hurt. He shifts. Pushes. Shifts. He can't get himself open. He grunts.
"Nate." Brad is tense under him.
Nate swallows. "It's okay." He lifts up to try again. His knees shake with the effort.
"Wait." Brad reaches over, gets his fingers slick again. He sits up and brushes a kiss over Nate's mouth. Then he eases two fingers back into him, showing him the angle.
Nate nods, breathes shakily. Brad pushes in a third finger. Nate grinds into it. He realises he's making noises, and bites his lip to muffle it.
Brad brings his free hand up to smooth the bite mark with his thumb. "No one else can hear you." He sounds hoarse.
"I know," Nate says. He knows. He closes his eyes and lifts himself off Brad's fingers, and he lets himself groan at the feel of it.
"Jesus." Brad tugs his hips. "Come here." Nate opens his eyes. Brad's cock stubs against his ass. Brad tugs his hips again. He shifts. "Okay."
Nate pushes, and this time he sinks down so easily it's almost too fast. He fumbles for Brad's shoulders to brace himself so doesn't move faster than he can adjust.
Brad's hands slide from his hips, warm and damp up his back. Nate lifts slowly and then lowers himself. He does it again, finds a rhythm. His thighs twinge warningly. He's going to feel it tomorrow. He decides he doesn't care.
He fucks himself on Brad's cock, and tries not to think about anything but how fucking good he feels right now, riding Brad's dick, with Brad's hands sliding slickly up and down his back and Brad staring at him with his face flushed and his mouth open. Nate imagines taking this memory out in a week, in a month, and looking at it like a postcard.
~~~
When Nate opens his eyes again, light is streaming through the window. He turns his head. Brad is awake next to him. He doesn't look like he slept much.
"How much time do we have?" Nate says. He wants this bit over with.
Brad opens his mouth. He shuts it. "I have three weeks vacation."
That's longer than Nate expected. "Okay, we could-" He tries to think about how he spends his days. Classes, coffee, writing. Long arguments about international policy. He has no idea what Brad would want to do here other than fuck. He shifts, and his legs protest.
"You could show me beautiful New England," Brad suggests. "I hear it's almost as good as the original."
Nate raises his eyebrows. "We could do that," he says slowly.
"Nate." Brad stops. He's silent for a moment. He looks serious. "After the vacation. After that. I don't- I didn't have an end date in mind."
Nate's heart stutters, and for a second he isn't even sure why. It takes his mind a few beats to catch up with his body.
After that. In the desert, he never let himself imagine it. He'd killed people. He'd issued orders to kill. Bullets had zipped past him. He'd seen bodies almost unrecognisable as human. He'd told himself that none of it could touch him, because he was already dead. And now here he is alive. Here Brad is.
"You want that?" he says. His throat feels dry. He feels a little like he's been punched in the chest. "After. More?"
"I've wanted that for-" Brad half-laughs. He closes his eyes for a moment. "If there's any way of having this, I want it."
Nate swallows. The first time he tries to answer, his throat doesn't work. He swallows again. Here he is, he thinks. Here he is alive. "All right," he says. He reminds himself to breathe. "Okay."
Brad's eyes widen slightly. "Okay?"
Nate reaches up to touch the corner of Brad's mouth, right where he's starting to smile. "We could- I have some vacation time coming up too."
Brad tilts his head. "You could come see me."
Nate thinks about the cold beach in the postcard. He wants to stand in the shallows with Brad. "We could go camping," he says. He blinks. "Or we could go to Rome. I've always wanted to go to Rome. We could go together. Or Greece. Or we could-"
Brad tugs him in and kisses him thoroughly. When he pulls away, they're both breathing harder. "Could we get some breakfast first?"
Nate leans in again, and laughs against Brad's mouth. "Yeah, we could do that."
The End.