Chapter Text
Brad knows, long before they're finally back on good old American soil, maybe even before Nate does, that the LT won't be staying with the Marines any longer than he has to. He sees a lot of fucked up shit in Iraq, somehow lives through the most retarded way of fighting a war he's ever had the misfortune to experience, and still none of it is as fucked up as watching Nate get stripped down in front of his eyes. The one decent squared-away officer in Bravo company, and OIF and the fucking Marine corps just peels away all the confidence, all the idealism, until all that's left is someone Brad still trusts, but who can't seem to bear to look at himself.
Brad looks, and he can see that one more order to send his men into an ambush or ignore the 'liberated' Iraqis will be the death of Lieutenant Nathaniel Fick. So he's not surprised and he's not pissed off when the news comes through that the newly made Captain Fick won't be with them much longer. Hell, after the clusterfuck of OIF Brad almost wants to get the hell out too, except he's not Nate. He's not Person, or Hasser, and thank Christ he's not fucking Trombley. He's Iceman, and Iceman's a Marine.
It's hardly his fucking fault that the only way to simultaneously stay in the Marines and not fucking murder Encino Man or Captain fucking America is to run half-way round the world and teach the Brits what real Marines are like. Hardly his fault if it means he's no longer on the same continent as retired Marine Nate Fick.
The first six months are easy after Iraq and a relief after months of his Mother's fussing and the visits to Natalie and Chris which prick at him but which he can't seem to stop making. They put him through his paces; make sure he's picked up on all the little differences between Royal and Recon. None of it's shit he didn't have to go through to become a Marine, let alone get into Recon, but between the stupid bits of protocol and learning to ride his bike on cramped Devon roads, with forest on one side and a sheer slope on the other, he keeps his mind busy.
He starts to get bored soon after that, starts replying to the emails from Poke and Ray that prickle at what is left of his heart. He starts running twice as much, stumbling back to barracks wet and encrusted in mud. The Royal Marines, whose command is perhaps marginally less incompetent than First Recon, set him to training new recruits, making dives in the dark North Sea which last hours, sky drops at night in complete darkness onto a small platform floating on the ocean, swimming miles back to shore still carrying equipment. Once he's been there a little more than a year they fill out a bunch of forms, make Brad fill out even more, and tell him that in two months he gets 3 weeks leave before they ship him off to Afghanistan.
This is when he meets Captain Becker.
It really shouldn't surprise him that his first in theatre CO reminds him of Nate. Of Captain Fick.
In all fairness Brad can't really be blamed for being caught off guard. He's more worried about ending up with another Captain America, and the pissing contests he's had with the Brits over whose command is more fucked up don't really serve to dispel this worry. They tend to expand outwards from individual anecdotes of an officer's retardation to finish in a stalemate, Brad maintaining that the Americans were idiots for using Recon marines for everything but fucking recon, the Brits telling him that at least he could think of one officer worth keeping, because they couldn't think of any.
But Becker is.... well, Becker is Becker. When Brad first meets him he speaks in plummy English tones completely different to the enlisted men that Brad has been spending his time with. He isn't going to pretend that he's got anything like a handle on all the different British accents; they have a ridiculous number of them for such a small land mass, but by now he can identify 'southern' and 'upper-class'. Becker's the first marine he spends any kind of time with who speaks what he discovers is called 'The Queen's English', and Ray laughs his ass off at him the next time they speak on Skype, can't stop talking shit about Brad 'going native'.
So when they're introduced to each other by command Becker only has to say "Good to have you with us, Sergeant," in that motherfucking accent and Brad just knows that here is another dick-sucking, wine-sipping, college-going liberal (although they're all fucking liberals over here; very few of those with an interest in American politics seem inclined to vote Republican), who is going to try and get his men killed in the field.
All he says in reply is "Glad to be here, sir," and he can't figure out what about that makes the sides of Becker's eyes crinkle up in an almost smile, or why it feels so familiar. It's not until Brad's off inspecting the gear that's hopefully going to be going with them to Afghanistan that he realises that it's exactly what he'd thought about Nate the first time he saw him. Just another officer out to make his life a fucking misery. Until he wasn't. Until he turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to Bravo Company, the only good thing in that whole fucking mess. Brad looks around at the equipment he's surrounded by, takes a deep breath, and concentrates on checking all the boxes. There's not a chance in hell he's gonna get that lucky - or that screwed - twice in one lifetime. Certainly not twice in two years.
Deployment can get moved up by weeks at the last minute, and so Brad doesn't use his leave to go home. His parents and sister are more used to not seeing him now, and he tells himself that there's no point in stirring them up only to leave them worrying again. He doesn't really make any plans at all, beyond a vague idea of getting down to London at some point while he's in the country. He even half-heartedly solicits some suggestions about where to go, not having any idea that in the two months between meeting Becker, and being ready to ship out with him, he and Brad will become almost inseparable.
It's really not anything that Brad was planning on happening, he only knows that Becker is respected by the men that know him, that he's as just as eager as Brad as to make sure that their company will have all the equipment it needs when they land, and that Becker really, really, likes bikes. It's like de ja vu all over again, because even though Brad is taciturn by nature, Becker not only seems to understand him without him needing to say a word, but he brings out the talkative side of him, and seems to appreciate the way Brad phrases things. Despite the culture barrier, and Becker's fancy degree (in philosophy, of all fucking things), he and Becker get each other, and Brad finds himself grinning at the Captain far more than he needs to, putting together ridiculous, complicated insults just to see him smile, make the corners of his eyes crinkle up with amusement. It's only when Brad finds himself jerking his gaze away from Becker's much too pretty mouth that he realises how alike this relationship is to the one he had with his last CO, and curses himself for not noticing, or perhaps not allowing himself to notice, beforehand.
Still, it all would have come to nothing, just as it didn't with Nate, except that Brad forgot that he was now living among the liberal motherfucking British, who allowed their soldiers to get away with all kinds of shit the Americans wouldn't put up with. Brad still can't decide if that's a good thing or not.
It all should have come to nothing, at any rate, and so Brad spends his leave mostly in London, with Becker, who went to a fancy private school in the middle of the city and whose family still owns a house there more than big enough for the two of them, even though they've apparently retired to the country. Becker drags Brad to bars full of women in tiny dresses and drinks so expensive Brad knows he'd have a cheaper and more pleasant time with any of the whores he's paid for over the years. Becker just laughs at his disgruntlement, making Brad smile in spite of himself, and relents enough to spend every other night or so in pubs that serve beer and burgers, where the waitresses all smile sweetly at him when he tips them less than the price of a drink. He's happy enough to go home with one or two of them for free, pretty girls who like the fact that he's military and know he's a tourist, that they shouldn't expect to see him again after the night is over.
Becker's more likely to pick up at one of his bars, although he flirts with almost everyone, and so they trade off on who's going to remain close to sober for the night. Brad, with his smiling girls and cheaper drinks, feels like he's got the better end of the deal than Becker's cocktails and expensively dressed women, but as Becker also likes to drag him to London tourist spots during the day, insisting that Brad can't leave the capital without having seen them, he figures that he doesn't feel too bad about taking advantage.
The whole thing is nice in a way Brad has missed over here, grateful as he's been for a break from family and friends. Becker is the first person in months to make Brad feel like he belongs, and if nothing else the Marines Corps was good for that; Brad has always known that he had a place, a purpose, somewhere.
This, of course, is when it all goes to shit.
This is when one morning, having seen his girl of the night before out the door with a rather nice minimum of fuss, as she was late for her day job, but at a rather annoyingly early hour of the morning for someone who had had quite so much to drink the night before, Brad decides that Becker needs to share in his misery. To that end he stumblingly wrangles the overly complicated coffee machine into submission, kick-starts his brain with the necessary amount of caffeine, and throws open Becker's door in conscious revenge for the mornings that the Captain has dragged him out of bed simply because Westminster Abbey apparently has to be experienced before all the other tourists get there.
Becker doesn't even notice, because Becker is currently sprawled out halfway down the bed with his face buried between someone's thighs. Brad actually turns away and almost has the door closed before his brain registers exactly what his eyes saw, and even then he's still in such a state of shock that he actually reopens the damn door to check. But Becker is still there, still oblivious to his presence, still biting his fingers into squirming hips, still moving his mouth slowly and surely up and down some guy's dick, completely involved in what he's doing.
Unfortunately for Brad, the guy his Captain is going down on isn't quite so out of touch with his surroundings. "Hey," he gasps out, one hand still clutching at Becker's hair, "Y-you mind closing the door? Jesus," he swears, as Becker pulls off of him too quickly, coughing as he almost chokes himself in the process. Brad just stands there. The silence in the room is palpable, broken only by harsh breathing from the pair on the bed. For the first time in a long while, Brad is lost for words.
"Unless," the guy's voice breaks the tension as though he doesn't realise it's there, his eyes going dark and heavy lidded as he looks Brad over, "you want to join us?"
Brad can't reply, can only look helplessly at Becker, at his usually neat hair pulled into rough spikes, at his soft pink lips turned red and swollen and shiny, still only a few inches away from this guy's hard-on. He isn't looking at Brad, spots of colour high on his cheekbones, but he's not saying anything either. Not taking back the invitation, not explaining himself to Brad, not telling whoever his partner is to leave or shut the fuck up. In the face of his silence Brad has nothing to offer, and he can't look at this fucked up tableau any longer. He slams the door closed in front of him.
He wants to stay and stare at that door in shock, he really does, but long before his brain has become ready to process there are sounds - moans - coming through the wood, and he's clattering down the stairs before he even realises that he's moved. Oddly enough, though, as his brain comes back online, his first thoughts aren't exactly shock, or disgust. They're oh shit, shit, shit, why did he let me see that, I'm gonna have to fucking tell someone. It takes him longer than it should to remember that he is no longer in the good old US of A, that Becker is a member of the Royal Marines, not Recon, and according to their laws he's allowed to suck as many cocks as he damn well pleases.
Brad's always been vaguely grateful for Don't Ask, Don't Tell, when he thinks about it at all. He doesn't think it would make too much of a difference, most of the time, to have a gay man in his company; it's not the kind of thing that matters when you're getting shot at from three different sides at once. He'd trust any of his men to have his back, because they're his men, and God knows they talk enough crap about each other anyhow that some shit stirring about faggots isn't gonna overly offend anyone. But there are enough idiots out there like Trombley, just enough that Brad couldn't be entirely sure that it would be safe, for either the marine or the unit's cohesion. But liking dick, provided you weren't also a tree-hugging, wine-swilling liberal as way too many cocksuckers seemed to be, was no reason for a man not to have the chance to defend his country, and for Brad, DADT had meant he hadn't had to ask the few times he'd had suspicions, and nothing on his team had had to change.
He also knows that there are some morons - Captain fucking America to name one - who use it as an excuse to go digging. Catching out the poor chumps who just wanted to see a game with their boy toy and ran into their CO, or the guy who was never too enthusiastic about the dirty magazines that get passed around between the platoons. He figures that it's a damn shame some good soldiers got laid off just because some sadistic idiot with too much time on his hands - or more than likely, a hard-on for the soldier he was gunning for - decided that being gay meant you weren't good enough. But Brad's never been that person, figures that if he can put up with Whiskey Tango inbred sister-fuckers like Ray, a guy who likes to take it up the ass is probably a step up, and so Don't Ask, Don't Tell has helped him maintain a happy equilibrium.
The Brits apparently don't have the same reservations, haven't for a good few years now, so Brad's off the hook on this one. This realisation calms him down enough to ask himself what the fuck he's gotten into. What the fuck he's doing in a town house in fucking London that belongs to his CO's parents, while said CO is upstairs sucking someone's cock. It's not that Brad never spends time with marines off base. Marines are pretty much the only people he does spend time with who aren't his family and a few other friends he's made over the years, probably half of whom are ex-military anyway. Marines sleep together, shit together, and they sure as hell drink and whore together too - but they don't do whatever Becker and Brad have been doing.
For one thing, Brad's a sergeant, but he's not an officer the way Becker is. He's an enlisted man, and Becker was handed a commission straight out of Lympstone. Officers don't mix with the men. Even Nate had almost never socialized with them, although he had occasionally turned up to one of the tamer nights out, looking put upon as Mike Wynn had dragged him up through whatever dingy watering hole his marines had decided to patronize that night, always buying at least one round, and carefully turning a blind eye to some of the men's more rambunctious behaviour. But Brad has never gone on leave with any of his men, let alone an officer. Has rarely even picked up women with them on nights out, has met only a few families and never spent the night. But two months after meeting Becker he's been practically living with him for almost three weeks, and none of the men back in Devon had thought anything of it when they found out where Brad would be spending his leave. There had been a few jokes, but mostly remarks tinged with jealousy over how much tail the two of them were going to pick up together, the posh boy and the Yank, and Brad hadn't given any of it too much thought. Now he wonders what Ray, or Poke, or Nate, God, Nate, would think if they knew where he was. If they knew that the nickname he'd been given by the Brits wasn't Iceman, but Shadow. Becker's Shadow. Brad can't quite breathe.
Luckily, whatever the Brit's fucking call him, Brad is still the Iceman, always will be, so when he's startled out of his thoughts by the front door slamming, he's almost certain the surprise doesn't show on his face - that nothing shows on his face - when Becker finally wanders into the kitchen. The younger man surveys him with lazy eyes, lips still swollen and hair still mussed, and all Brad can think behind his passive mask is that he looks fucking obscene, and it's all he can do to keep his eyes firmly planted on Becker's own and nowhere else.
"You really should learn to knock, you know?" The arrogant bastard is fucking grinning at him, not a single note of apology in his voice, and on the one hand, if it had been a woman, Brad wouldn't have expected one, would probably be clapping Becker on the back right now instead of staring at him, but it is different that it was a man. It is different, because Brad can trust a gay man to watch his back in battle, but in the end, they just aren't men in the way that Brad is, in the way that marines are supposed to be, even if he can count on both hands the number of soldiers he's met that really fill that role to its fullest. It's not like he can explain it away, either, because Brad can understand a straight man getting his cock sucked by a guy, but he's never heard of a straight man who liked to suck cock, and Becker's just too good looking to be that hard up for it.
"We don't usually keep company on the same nights," Brad replies in a measured tone. "It's nothing you haven't done to me half a dozen bloody times since we got here."
Becker's grin widens, and his tongue slips out to lick at his lips. Brad keeps himself from looking with a concerted effort. "Old friend called after we got in last night," he explains, finally moving away to pour his own cup of coffee, effortlessly breaking the tension that Brad has been wading through. "Only just heard I was back in the city. Didn't want to miss me before we shipped out." He turned back in time for Brad to see him take a sip from the mug, mouth closing around the rim, Adam’s apple bobbing smoothly in his throat, a satisfied hum vibrating from his lips. "Much too good to pass up just because you'd pulled." He's arrogant, and self-satisfied, and somehow that breaks the odd pain Brad's been holding down his chest into pieces. He can't think of anyone else, even Nate who Becker reminds him so much of, who would act like this after being caught with a man in their bed.
Nate was confident, but not full of himself, and in this situation he might not take any shit from Brad, but he wouldn't be sitting there laughing at his discomfort either. When Nate had laughed with Brad, it had always been with him, and rarely out loud. Brad had always known, though, when Nate was laughing. Ray would be talking a mile a minute, trying to persuade Brad not to say anything, and most likely getting his way. Trombley would probably have beaten whatever poor sucker ended up in his bed half to death, and Rudy would probably have explained it was a form of tantric stress relief or some other cosmic bullshit, and gone back to his wife, still somehow as beautiful and straight as he ever was.
Only a British solider - only a Royal goddamn Marine - would get caught with his mouth around a guy's dick by a man he was about to go into a war zone with, and taunt him with a shit eating grin. That helps, somehow, because Brad doesn't particularly like this burden of knowledge, really hopes none of the jokes told before they left were about them fucking each other, but in the end, he's in the United fucking Kingdom, and they do things differently here. He can live with that. Still: "You couldn't be bothered to mention I was going to be playing house for three weeks with a cocksucker?" He figures he can get away with that one, even to a CO, given that they're off duty and Brad did, in fact, discover Becker sucking cock.
"What can I say?" Becker shrugs. "I know how you Yanks feels about this sort of thing, and I was perfectly happy sticking to pussy on this particular trip home. But like I said," And his grin widens even further, making Brad shift uncomfortably in his seat, "James is simply too good to pass up. He has a truly spectacular cock." His voice hardens: "But that's your one and only shot, Colbert. You get to call me a cocksucker exactly once. Is this going to be a problem? Because I'd really like to trust the man at my back when we get boots on the ground next week."
Brad thinks it through as Becker inhales the rest of his coffee. "The other men..."
Another shrug. "Anyone who's served with me before probably knows. None of them think we're involved, if that's what you're worried about. You have far too good a reputation with the ladies near the base, and there are enough LGBT organisations in the military for them all to have a good idea what the Americans think about fags in the military."
"We're not all..." Brad tries to say, but he can’t deny that while he doesn't have a problem with gay men in general, he prefers it when he's not working with one, and is generally happy about the fact that they can't come out and remain soldiers. It just wouldn't work.
Becker levels him with a look. "Brad, we've become very... close, very quickly. And I admit that you're a very good looking man, and under other circumstance I might have made a pass. But we're about to go to war together, and while I have very few rules when it comes to sex, not doing it with anyone under my command, or anywhere I'm likely to get shot at, are two that I've always stuck to. I'm not going to behave inappropriately, and I know enough about how to deal with idiots to be certain that I can trust the men we're taking with us to do their jobs. Now, can I trust you to have my back in Afghanistan, or not?"
Brad takes a deep breath and nods. "Yes," he says shortly. "You can. After all," and he cracks a smirk of his own, "I already knew that all you limp dick, college educated, liberal thinking Brits were tree-hugging bisexuals. This is hardly news."
Becker’s laughing again, clapping Brad on the shoulder and moving the conversation on to the new tourist site torture he has in store for Brad today, and Brad, silent as ever, is laughing with him.
It takes him a little longer than it should to settle properly back into what they had before, to not feel uncomfortable every time he realises how close he's standing to his CO, every time he makes Becker laugh, longer than he'd like to stop questioning the look in Becker's eyes whenever they land on him, but the none of the jokes when they arrive back in Devon centre at all around Becker's dick having gone up Brad's ass (although how much of that is that he terrifies them even more than he did the marines back home, he can never be quite sure) and Brad begins to relax. Two weeks later, taking out the cell that's been blowing up the road between the two villages they're supposed to be guarding, Sergeant Colbert follows Captain Becker's command without a second thought, and six months after they're shipped out all of their men arrive home on British soil safe and sound, if a little the worse for wear.
Shortly after this Brad is contemplating going home. His time with the Royal Marines was extended in order for him to do the entire six month deployment with them, as a gesture of good will and international co-operation. Brad couldn't really give a fuck, but he's happy to have had the opportunity to work with these men, and when he gets back to Cali, only half of his stories will be the required shit talk about the pansy ass Brits. Now though, Brad's all out of excuses to avoid his parents who, understandably, want to see their baby boy face to face instead of through a computer screen after two years of him living in a foreign country, 6 months of that in a sodding war zone. Ray still cracks up every time Brad uses British curses, and although Brad tells him to shut his Whiskey Tango, NASCAR loving mouth, he can't keep the warmth out of his voice as he does so.
All he's really waiting for now are orders to debrief and get himself home, already dreaming about his mother's pie and his father's meals, because for some goddamn reason the only thing his mother can cook is desserts. He even considers, without letting himself think too hard about it, heading towards Cambridge, just to see how Nate is doing now that he's left the sheltering bosom of the Marine Corps. All he needs is the orders.
What he gets instead is a meeting with some bigwig at the American Embassy, and a job offer.
"Your resume is extremely impressive, Sergeant Colbert," the suit behind the big wooden desk tells him as Brad schools himself to marine blankness in order to keep from shifting in his seat. The large stifling room full of old wood and velvet carpet makes him far more uncomfortable than he's ever felt in theatre. "Please understand, what we're offering you reflects those skills; it comes with an impressive salary, far more than you are earning now, and it will provide you with the opportunity to remain in combat while still keeping all the comforts that western civilisation can offer. However it also comes with a heavy price tag. You won't be able to breathe a word of this to anyone outside the team you'll be working with. Anyone who does can be charged with treason, and that is exactly the last thing the special relationship between America and Great Britain currently needs."
Brad manages not to snort at the phrase 'special relationship', and instead asks "In that case, sir, with all due respect, why not leave the Brits to deal with it themselves?" He doesn't want this; as much as he has liked living on this island, he doesn't want to stay forever in a place where the sun never seems to shine, where no one talks the right way, where it sounds as though he'll be some form of glorified security (remain in combat, his ass), and where there's no family, no Nate, no Ray or Poke or Rudy. It doesn't seem though, from this idiot's tone of voice, like they'll be giving him too much of a choice in the matter.
"As much as I can tell you without having you sign an NDA is that the problem needing to be managed, although currently only a British problem, has the potential to also cause issues for us. In that case we would very much like to have someone fully trained in dealing with this particular problem- and who can give us as much warning as possible should it become an issue the United States needs to deal with. Given your extensive skill set, you're about as ready as anyone can be for what they need you for, and General Havers from Lympstone is impressed with your working relationship with the current candidate for team leader."
"Team leader, sir?"
"Yes, Captain Becker is currently in the running for the position. Most of the men you'll be leading are already in place, and we felt that it would be beneficial for our man to have a good rapport with the man they'll be answering to. It really is extremely important to have the right person in this position, Sergeant Colbert, and it would be extremely beneficial for your career should you agree."
Brad takes a deep breath and prepares to tell the moron to go fuck himself as politely as he can manage. He even opens his mouth to say the words, but he can't get the fact that he would be working with Becker out of his head. It would give him another year, at least, before another friend becomes a face through a camera, words typed on his computer screen. Before another friend takes a path that he can't follow, can't quite relate to, like his sister Hannah and her three kids; like Ray and his electronics store and Poke and his family, who all understand, but who have become more and more distant anyway. He doesn't mind it, of course. He's Iceman, and he belongs with Marines.
But from the sounds of it, if he leaves, it might be even worse than it has become with Nate, the few times they've spoken since Nate's discharge. When they've realised, slowly and haltingly, that while they still have OIF in common, can still look at each other and know what the other is thinking without needing to say a word, are still, in fact, Brad and Nate, Nate no longer inhabits Brad's world, with all of its myriad joys and frustrations. And Brad has never been into Nate's new world, can't, for all of his intelligence, follow him mentally into academia. That's what he's told himself, anyway, when it somehow became too painful to try to stay in touch.
With Becker, though, it would be worse. Although they will still ostensibly be doing the same jobs they are now, Becker will be sworn to secrecy, and probably only playing a glorified security guard, undoubtedly ready to kill all of the incompetent civilians he will be surrounded by from sheer frustration and unable to say a word to Brad about it. And Brad never can talk to anyone who isn't there about what happens in theatre, is never that good at maintaining the few connections which he found inexplicably easy face to face when he is unable to see that person in the flesh.
So instead of a polite, sneering dismissal, all that comes out of his mouth is, "I'll need to spend a while at home, sir. Have to see the family."
"Of course," the suit tells him quickly, relief obvious on his face. He had clearly expected Brad to be more resistant to the idea. "It will take close to a month to get all the paperwork sorted out anyway; you should be able to spend most of the time with your family as long as you sign a few things before you leave." He jabs enthusiastically at the intercom on his desk. "Gemma, please get in touch with Lester, and get the paperwork for Sergeant Colbert started immediately."
He smiles at her positive reply, and hustles Brad out as quickly as possible, as though he doesn't want to give him a chance to change his mind. When he extends his hand to shake goodbye it's clammy with sweat, and actually shaking a little. Brad has to fight the urge to wipe his palm off on his pants. "I think you'll like the ARC very much, Sergeant Colbert," the suit tells him on the way out. "I think you'll like it there very much indeed.
Brad has his doubts, but at least there's Becker.