Work Text:
Seeking shelter from the merciless midday sun beating down indiscriminately onto the pavement, Nate was lying under his Humvee, trying to rest. He was so tired he could barely think straight anymore, but was unable to actually fall asleep, and so he just stared unseeingly at the tar baked onto the underside of the vehicle.
It didn’t take too long for an all too familiar set of footsteps to approach his hiding place.
“Nate,” Mike drawled and from his tone of voice Nate could tell that he came bearing bad news.
Swearing under his breath, he crawled out from under the Humvee and gratefully took Mike’s hand helping him up, his fatigue like a lead weight pressing down on his chest.
“What is it?” he muttered, rubbing at his eyes as they tried to adjust to the glaring light of day. Mike shuffled into a position that allowed him to shield Nate from the line of sight of Two Three milling about their own Humvee before answering.
“It’s Brad.”
Mike’s words cut through Nate’s sleepy haze like lightning. He dropped his hand to stare at Mike, and he knew that the flash of panic beating through his body was clearly visible on his face in the split second before he got himself back under control.
“What happened?” he asked, unable to keep the urgency out of his voice. From the look Mike was giving him, he was clearly picking up on it.
“Nothing too bad, yet,” his Gunny replied in his deliberately calming drawl. “But I have it on good authority that he’s about to do something real stupid.”
Nate exhaled in an all too familiar mix of relief and exasperation. Sometimes he felt like all he did was reining in other people’s stupid ideas, be it unintentionally suicidal artillery strikes or telling Stafford that, no, maybe he shouldn’t try to eat that.
Usually Brad wasn’t someone he had to worry about. Brad was an excellent TL, knew what to do in any given situation, how to toe the line with his superior officers. What could he be getting himself into now?
“Apparently he wants to request Mast.”
"Over what?” Nate groaned.
“Eric Kocher,” Mike replied, eyes sharp on Nate, who couldn’t help the sigh that escaped him at the name.
Yes, Kocher’s and Redman’s suspension was a crying injustice. Nate also knew how close Brad and Kocher were. He'd just thought that Brad was smarter than filing an official complaint on the matter, that Brad understood why he had to keep himself out of it.
Apparently Nate had thought wrong.
He rubbed a hand over his face, if only to hide his expression from Mike, as it didn’t do anything to clear the weariness from his mind.
“Where is he?” he asked after a few seconds, resigned that this was just another problem he had to deal with, no matter how little he wanted to.
His duty came first. He – the platoon needed Brad. Their company couldn’t afford to lose another great team leader, not even now that their fighting was supposed to be over. Besides, Nate was pretty sure he’d have a mutiny on his hands if Brad were to get shitcanned over this, too.
“Moping all by his lonesome inside the factory. Ground floor just off the main hall if I’m informed correctly.”
Of course Mike was informed correctly – he always was. He’d probably chosen right this moment to tell Nate to go see Brad because it would allow him to talk to him without drawing the attention of the platoon.
“Want me to come with you?” Mike offered, nothing but kind understanding in his eyes.
Nate was usually grateful for the way Mike always stood right by his side in silent support, ready to cut in with a few words of caution or wisdom if necessary. But Nate did not want to have him around for this particular conversation.
“No, I’ll handle it.”
He grabbed his helmet from where it was lying on his seat and walked away with one last, resigned smile in Mike’s direction.
Brad was right where Mike had said he would be, sitting on the bottom of the stairs leading up to the first floor, slumped forward as his elbows rested on his knees. He had a cigarette dangling between his fingers that Nate knew he wasn’t really planning on smoking, looking up at Nate curiously once he entered Brad’s field of vision.
Whatever he saw on Nate’s face made him straighten up and get on his feet, standing with his hands clasped behind his back.
Nate came to a stop in front of Brad without really looking at him, gaze turned inwards, assessing, calculating, until Brad prompted him with a quiet “Sir?”
Nate peeled his gaze off the wall behind Brad’s shoulder to look at him directly, a challenge set into the set of his brow.
“Is there something you want to discuss with me, Sergeant?”
The shift in Brad’s stance was minute, but Nate clocked it all the same, could read Brad’s hesitation in the way he drew his arms a little tighter against his body, the quick thinking he was doing by the twitch of his eyebrow, his understanding in the slight widening of his eyes.
Nate knew that those micro expressions that were beyond Brad’s control were a much safer way of understanding what was going on with Brad than the perfectly calculated grin now curling around his lips.
“I see you’re well informed as always, sir,” Brad drawled, but there was a hardness to his eyes that told Nate that he was displeased. That he was planning on ambushing Nate with this, so that he couldn’t do anything but pass Brad’s complaint up the chain of command.
Nate stomped down on the stab of betrayal he had no business feeling. He understood Brad’s motivation after all, wanting to protect Kocher from the shit rolling down from command. But that Brad had honestly thought that he’d get away with this, that Mike’s command of the web of gossiping Marines wouldn’t find him out before he could do so much as find the proper form, showed that Brad hadn’t thought this through at all. He was acting on pure impulse and it was Nate’s duty to drive that out of him, to make him see why this could only go horribly wrong.
For that to happen, he needed Brad to trust him. An absolute confidence he’d once held, Nate knew, but that he’d gambled away on the winding road to Baghdad, on a bridge that had led them nowhere but had put that look into Brad’s eyes like he was constantly calculating how much harm Nate could potentially do to them.
“It is my job to be well informed, Brad,” Nate started carefully. “However, I promise that whatever you choose to tell me right here and right now will be treated in complete confidence. You have permission to speak freely.”
Brad’s eyebrow shot up.
“Complete confidence?”
Nate nodded.
“Complete.”
He fixed his eyes on Brad, communicating silently that yes, this also included Mike, though Mike’s absence was already a pretty big sign in itself.
Brad gave a minute nod without reacting otherwise, his gaze fixed to a point behind Nate’s right shoulder. But Nate could already tell that he would speak. It was only a matter of what he wanted to say – and how.
Eventually, Brad’s eyes met Nate’s, a clear challenge of ‘you asked for this’ in them as he took a deep breath.
“Sir, you and I both know that Captain McGraw is a danger to this battalion. You and I both know that Sergeant Kocher was doing his duty to the best of his ability in spite of extremely difficult circumstances.”
Brad’s voice had started out quiet but was growing more agitated with every word.
“We know that Captain McGraw is the one who should be suspended. Hell, everybody knows this. And yet nobody’s going to do a fucking thing about it, because his uncle’s a full-bird Colonel at fucking CENTCOM.”
Never before had Nate stood the full force of Brad’s sardonic contempt. It made his stomach clench painfully, his right hand gripping his M16 a little harder in response.
“Well, I don’t care,” Brad continued passionately. “If no one’s got the fucking balls to do something about it, then I will.”
Brad, ready to fight, with none of his usual professional frostiness was a sight to behold. For a split second, Nate found himself fantasizing about just giving in, joining Brad in his crusade against command, riding into battle side by side like Alexander and Hephaiston.
His bone-aching fatigue made it all the more difficult to pull himself out of his delirium, but he had to, had to focus on the way things were, not how he wanted them to be.
“And what do you plan on doing Brad?” he asked calmly, trying to be the voice of reason when he felt like they’d left all reason behind on the other side of the Iraqi border, on the other side of the world.
“Whatever’s necessary,” Brad proclaimed, his determination coming off of him in waves.
Nate curled his toes in his boots, physically anchoring himself to stand his ground.
“Do you believe that this will help Sergeant Kocher?”
For a second Brad seemed to waver, doubt creeping into the corner of his eyes. He chased it away like most desperate men do, because doubt wasn’t something they could afford.
“Sir, you know as well as I do that my experience and my standing in this battalion allows me a certain –“
“But not in this,” Nate interrupted him. “Not when it’s so obvious that it’s your personal feelings and not your professional integrity guiding you.”
The last vestige of Brad’s calm exterior cracked at that, letting the full extend of his rage – at Nate, at command, at the whole world – bleed into his expression. His mouth tightened, his frown deepened and he looked at Nate like he wanted to throttle him.
They were both dead still for a moment, staring at each other.
“I don’t know what makes you think that –“ Brad started stubbornly, and Nate knew that there was only one way now to get through to Brad in his righteous rage, no matter how much Nate didn’t want to go there, wanted to turn tail and run, let someone else deal with this.
But he couldn’t, and so he braced himself and interrupted Brad before he could even complete his first sentence.
“Brad. I know. I saw you, after the live-fire exercise back in November.”
To be truthful, he hadn’t seen a thing. They’d been smart enough to close the door, but they hadn’t been able to keep their voices down and Nate had heard their laughter, their affectionate voices, the way they’d cried out each other’s name as they –
He took a deep breath, trying to chase the memory away, along with the feelings it still provoked – shock, embarrassment. Anger, disappointment, heartbreak. Guilt.
He looked at Brad who had fallen abruptly silent, at the fear now edged into his face. He’d given up his parade rest, his arms hanging uselessly at his side, his fingers slack against his thighs, not bothering to hold his rifle the way he’d had ingrained in him since boot camp.
Nate had disarmed him, utterly and completely, had Brad at his mercy with the ultimate weapon in the palm of his hand. He could destroy Brad, if he wanted to, with a single sentence uttered to the right person.
Nate had carried that responsibility ever since he’d discovered them, had shouldered it alone like he had everything else he felt for Brad. He had done his best to protect them while still doing his duty as an officer – had offered Kocher to Bravo Three in an exchange that had got Brad Tony Espera, McGraw an experienced TL that could keep the platoon together, and himself the assurance that Brad and Kocher’s relationship wouldn’t become a problem. Had tried to keep Kocher in check, to talk to Dave in a futile effort to sooth his irrational fear, set bounds to his erratic behavior.
And a part of him had liked it. He’d cast himself in the role of the selfless hero who hadn’t let his unrequited feelings turn him bitter and resentful, but who had understood love for what it truly was: a desire to help and care for, not a selfish want to be adored back.
The situation he’d maneuvered them into showed that it was all bullshit.
He had compromised himself further than he’d had any right to, had weakened his platoon along with his own standing in the battalion, had endangered his men, the ones he was actually supposed to care for.
Brad and Eric probably would have been fine serving in the same platoon – they’d worked much closer together in Afghanistan, had gotten commendations for it, and the familiarity Nate had overheard suggested that they’d been doing whatever they were doing for a long time.
The right solution would have been to let Brad transfer into another platoon, and not because of some misguided notion that Brad and Eric couldn’t work together professionally, but because it was so clear that the only person who was truly incapable of keeping their personal feelings in check was himself.
But it was too late now, alea jacta est, his position in the Corps damaged beyond repair. His only way forward was to see this to the end, to make sure that it hadn’t all been for nothing, before turning in his papers –
Suddenly, Brad was right in his face. Nate had made the fatal mistake of not keeping his eyes on a predator he’d just driven into a corner, and he was caught off guard, stumbling back half a step that put his back to the wall behind him.
“Sir, you have no idea what you’re talking about –“ Brad hissed, body poised for attack.
For a moment Nate was genuinely afraid of him, but he fought the gut reaction down and put Brad back into his place with a resolute push against his chest that regained Nate the space to stand up firmly in front of Brad once more.
“Brad!” he said sharply, a warning not to push too far. There were still boundaries both of them had to respect, no matter the circumstances, and Nate wouldn’t let either of them cross them.
“Look, I don’t plan on telling anyone about this, no matter what you choose to do. But you have to be smart about this. I don’t know how careful you usually are, but if you do this, they will go digging and if they don’t find this, they’ll find something else, or they’ll keep looking until they do and I can’t –“
He stopped himself, took a breath to steady himself. He shouldn’t let his emotions bleed any further into this conversation than they already had.
“I need you to let me handle this. I promise I’ll do whatever I can for him.”
Keeping this from turning into another mess he was unable to clean up was the least he could do after he’d failed both of them so spectacularly.
“Let me help.”
He looked directly at Brad, tried to communicate in that wordless way they had that he meant it, that he wouldn’t do anything to harm either one of them.
Brad stared back, contemplating. Some of the furor had smoothed out of his expression, but he was still tense, doing his own threat assessment of Nate, of the danger he represented for himself and for his – Kocher.
Brad was still ready to fight, ready to fight Nate for what he loved. But fighting Brad was the last thing Nate wanted.
“Why are you doing this for me?” Brad asked eventually.
His use of me instead of us stole Nate’s breath away for a second. It seemed to imply that he knew the answer to his question – For the same reason you want to do this for Kocher .
No matter the consequences, a part of Nate longed for that - to stand in front of Brad and tell him how he felt, to feel the relief of finally speaking the truth, of no longer having to hide.
But Nate had wrought enough destruction already, and so he found another way of telling the truth without really telling it at all.
“Haven’t you heard, Sergeant Colbert. I’m a hopeless romantic.”
The deadpan delivery startled a laugh out of Brad and Nate could see the realization that Nate wasn’t a threat settle into Brad’s posture, his shoulders sagging and his lungs expanding in a sigh of relief that settled through the corridor. Nate felt himself smile back reflexively, but Brad’s eyes were now fixed on the floor.
“I-“ Brad started, lost for words as he stared at his boots, before he suddenly looked up, right at Nate. “Thank you. I don’t know how to express –“
Nate waved his thanks away, right as Brad stepped closer, his hand reaching out and settling in a warm, solid weight against his shoulder.
Nate suppressed a shudder at the contact, forced his eyes to stay open and not flutter shut like they wanted to, to commit this feeling to memory.
He had to take a step back from this, gain his distance from Brad and the Corps until he could look back on it somewhat fondly. Until he could face Brad at reunions and joke and laugh with him without feeling the stab of pain, the constant ache of wanting more that always accompanied their interactions.
Eventually, it would be enough. He was assured of this.
He shook off Brad’s hand, turned away and made his way back down the corridor, alone.