Chapter Text
Two shards of memories come out of Baghdad: each is a pretty solid piece and Brad willingly comes back to them in his head as he drives around Oceanside in the early hours of the morning.
Brad burns his hand in Baghdad. It is a barely-there type of a burn, first degree, a mere kiss of a flame landing on his bare hand mid-assault. An insurgent runs out in the street as they patrol it and opens fire; as he goes down, another insurgent from behind throws a hand grenade that lands between the Reporter’s legs. The Reporter doesn’t have time to react, and as Brad pulls him away, he burns his hand in the process.
It doesn’t ache at all until they retreat back to the relative safety. And even then, it is a light-feathered burning sensation, as thin as a dusty cloud of sand; Brad grits his teeth once when he carelessly brushes the injured part of his hand against his rifle. He looks down at it in surprise and finally notices the angry red welts, raised off the tanned skin.
Unfortunately, Gunny notices that slight wince; Gunny throws him a single look and then continues walking. Brad knows his Mother Hen ways entirely too well to believe that will be the end of it, but at least he hopes Doc Bryan or whoever Gunny sends in will just brush it off as too minor to waste their time on it.
Brad is absent-mindedly listening to Ray’s monologue about the benefits of chocolate-flavored milkshakes as opposed to vanilla-flavored ones (that is sometimes interrupted by the quieter sounds of Walt scoffing and the louder sounds of Poke’s reiterations about the implications of chocolate being used as a term for darker skin), when he hears the familiar purposeful footsteps hitting the warm sand and lifts his head.
He knows, of course, that it isn’t Bryan, it isn’t Gunny or anyone from the medical team for that matter. At this point, he would recognize Nate’s measured and yet somewhat “adolescent”, as the Reporter put it, stride anywhere.
He meets Nate’s eyes that he’s sure would look impartial to anyone else but he knows to be filled with concern. He suddenly realizes he can see through Nate’s defenses, and it worries him that Nate could see through his own.
Nate turns his head slightly, in a gesture that has become so ridiculously familiar; in equal parts half-defiance, half-assessment. “Brad? A word?”
Brad nods with a quick “sir” and stands up; he has to make an effort not to let the M-4 catch on his burned skin again, so he hides the hand awkwardly behind the large scope, at the same time, keeping it far enough from touching it. It is, of course, a futile exercise: Nate already knows, eyes scanning Brad’s right hand from the moment he came up to him, and everyone else in the vicinity is too preoccupied to notice. And the hand is burning anyway, even without being caught on anything. But it feels strangely vulnerable to be like this in front of Nate and Brad can’t help it.
Nate turns and leads the way, which is apparently way out there, through the Humvees, Marines, and random islands of grass probably to his truck; Brad walks a step behind him, calmly, trying to gauge what it was exactly that Gunny told the LT. That he saw Brad with a burned hand? That Brad didn’t tend to it? Why did he tell him at all, why not just send in Bryan?
Per Nate’s nod, he wordlessly gets in the back of the truck and Nate follows, throwing a net over the entry, granting them shade and relative privacy. As Brad’s eyes adjust to the darker environment, the LT gestures for him to sit on one of the two woobies. The sleeping area is Nate’s, he knows this instantly from one glance because it is impeccably made up, every corner tucked in according to regulation. He watches Nate’s lean form settle next to him and notices the open first-aid box in Nate’s lap.
“Your hand,” Nate says calmly.
Their eyes meet. If it is a challenge then Brad gives in, but not before searching Nate’s red-rimmed pools of green for a sign of anything. Anger, sadness, disappointment. There’s nothing, except the ever-present tiredness.
He draws out his injured hand tentatively. It’s even redder now, but Brad barely feels it, disconnects from it entirely, as if it wasn’t his.
Nate takes a fresh gauze that he soaks in drinking water from a bottle; he inches closer, and puts the gauze flat on the wound, holding Brad’s palm sternly underneath with his own left hand. The grip is strong, reassuring.
It hurts suddenly, so so much, but at the same time the water is cool that is somewhat soothing. Nate lifts his eyes, watching Brad’s face. “Did you know that I once wanted go to medical school? I was on the pre-med track in college, took all the mandatory classes.”
“Mmm,” Brad offers noncommittally, testing his voice. The gauze gets warmer, and Nate pulls it away to re-soak it in the chilled water before pressing it against Brad’s burn again. “So what, now you get to play Doctor Fick without worrying about getting s—uh”, he tries to talk through it but doesn’t want his voice to quiver, “Sued”.
“Tshh, don’t talk,” Nate brushes up and down his forearm with his own free hand, a what was intended to be a quick and light gesture that nevertheless treacherously sends a million hot needles pricking all over Brad’s body, and turns back to the aid-kit. “Yeah, I’ve taken General Biology with labs, Physics… But then I failed a chemistry exam. I never failed anything before, you know? I made sure to get the highest SAT scores, the best essay, four-point-one GPA. Every team sport I picked, I tried to do my best in. Keep it firmly pressed, ok?” Another cooled compress feels much lighter and more welcome on Brad’s skin, and he obeys, pressing on it himself. “I was so upset.”
The sun’s rays peeking through the net are illuminating parts of Nate’s face as he rummages through the kit, and Brad drinks the details in. It’s so fucked up, but he gets off on this — being this close, the memory of Nate’s full lips quivering against his, Nate’s smell, his fucking green eyes and too-long lashes, his hard wiry body, and confident hands. And this caring bullshit, tending to Brad, like he actually wants him to be alright, worries about him… Fuck fuck fuck.
Brad takes a deep breath in. He can’t let himself get like this.
The perfectly soothing octave of Nate’s voice, not exactly whispering but quiet enough, intimate enough fills him to the brim. “I failed a midterm which meant I had to drop the class and I knew that meant I wasn’t going to med school. I wasn’t going to be a doctor. It wasn’t just the class — I could fight to retake the exam or take the class later, I was a star athlete with otherwise perfect grades, many professors respected me enough to help. But something just shifted that spring, something changed and couldn’t go back to being the same anymore.” He finds whatever he was looking for and turns back to Brad.
“That’s enough of the cold, I think,” he inspects the burn closely. The welts are white now, the burning barely registering in Brad’s brain. “I’m going to put this antiseptic cream on, and then we’ll wrap dry gauze around it. You’ll have to change it every couple hours, I’ll give you the whole roll.”
“It’s a shame,” Brad drawls finally, as he watches Nate’s gloved fingers rub the ointment on gently, “You would make a pretty good doctor, sir.”
The corner of Nate’s lips lifts infinitesimally, Brad’s ever-favorite trophy. “Well, I can do this. Ok, so it’s very easy to tie, let me show you. You just tear here, on this end? And then tie these together. This shouldn’t be too tight, but it must be tight enough to keep the dirt away.” They tie the small knot of the gauze together, and Nate tucks a fresh packaged roll of gauze into one of the pockets on Brad’s vest.
“Yes, sir,” Brad grins, earning another lift of Nate’s lips.
“Feels better?” Nate gestures at the hand, as Brad reaches it back to experimentally grasp at his M-4. Brad nods, their eyes never breaking contact. He barely thinks about the hand.
“Good. We should head back.”
Brad is almost out of the truck, but he turns at the last second. Nate is standing there, dirt patches on his face, bending his head and shoulders in the small space, the new sand-colored fatigues clinging to his body much tighter than the loose MOPP suit, dark green holster strap accentuating his slender thigh.
“I’m glad you failed it, sir.” Brad says before he turns to leave.
***
The second piece is pure pornography, with Brad’s added details that he keeps remembering after but the ones he didn’t give a shit at the time. It’s been entirely too long for both of them, this ever-present longing, dull and achy, and so he sort of takes advantage of the situation when fucking Encino Man ends up disappointing Nate again with the lack of patrols at night. There are to be none, to be exact.
It’s their second- first?- night in Baghdad, at the abandoned cigarette factory. Too many dark corners and floors of doors with locks on them for Brad to keep his cool. So when he runs into the LT, flustered and angry, he stops thinking about the dangerousness of it. When Brad asks him what happened, Nate just swears under his breath; it’s barely heard, barely-there, but it’s different now; it’s a comment against the command, Nate breaking his own rules, and it’s too fucking hot to bear.
He pulls Nate into the room on his right, tugging on his sleeve like a restless child. It’s above the warehouse, a room bigger than an office but small enough. And it has a lock on the door that grins at Brad through the dark.
They end up against the wall stacked with boxes of cartons all the way to the ceiling, and as Brad rips into Nate’s uniform the cigarettes rain and clatter around them like shell cases. He bites at Nate’s neck and tastes soap there - earlier in the day everyone was able to take an ice cold shower from the hose. And Nate’s face is so fucking open to him without the usual dirt marks on it, still pale and vulnerable, but there is nothing innocent about him as he pulls Brad’s pants down, finally, fingers searching, rough and needy. Brad blacks out a little, fantasy colliding with reality, but later on he can fill out certain details. There isn't a single word said throughout.
It is Brad’s favorite memory.