Archive of Our Own ^beta

Brad was chipping sabkha.

Tucked away between the rear wheels of the M1025, clearing the ossified tarry sand deposits away with hard hammer-chisel taps from where they were clinging like stalactites and gunking up the undercarriage.

Their Iceman was melting a little, so naturally the entire platoon’s reaction was to quietly freak out. After all, if Brad couldn’t cope, what chance did the rest of them have? Brad was a wire that had just been twanged and all the little birdies that perched on it were in a tizz.

Ray knew that Brad just needed some time out by himself to process and re-freeze. By the time the worst of the sabkha was gone, Brad’s frustration and anger should be gone with it, and then Ray would be there to help with the rest, the soft parts that Brad wouldn’t show because he wasn’t supposed to have them.

Even though he was sitting with Manimal and Garza, Ray was still tuned in to his team, and movement there caught his attention. Not Brad, just Trombley jumping down from on top of the Humvee with a jerry can to go restock their water.

The hammer taps still drifted around the bowl formed by the large berms surrounding them, and Ray caught sight of Rudy dropping down beside Brad. He wasn’t sure if that was the best idea, definitely didn’t think that even Rudy would get anything out of Brad other than silence, but he supposed that Brad wouldn’t mind the company.

Rudy was probably the person best suited to try and support Brad through this.

Well, next to Ray.

Ray who was trying to pre-empt his stomach’s complaints now that they were on single rations by appeasing his appetite with juice mix; he didn’t have high hopes, but at least he’d be hydrated.

And then Trombley coming by again with offers of doing their scutwork by filling their CamelBaks, like he wasn’t at the centre of Brad’s pinged wire. Ray didn’t know if Trombley was truly unaffected by what he’d done, or if it was just the same overcompensating show of bloodthirsty indifference that he thought would impress everyone.

Must be all that gangster rap, and not the fact that Trombley was just a trigger-happy teenager who had been trained to kill.

All those violent video games, and not ROE that called open season on any poor bastard that happened to be in the vicinity of that airfield.

It was verging on early evening when Brad eventually dislodged himself from the belly of the Humvee to take his turn at watch. The others let Ray brave the silence, and he sat perched at Brad’s side as was usually usual.

There was silence between them for a long while, before Brad sighed heavily and Ray took that as a sign that Brad was willing to talk. Or, at least, that he was willing to let Ray talk.

“Did you hear that Doc Bryan straight up castrated Encino Man earlier today?”

Brad clearly hadn’t expected that opener from the way his eyebrows twitched and his lip curled in what Ray could only assume was a combination of startled amusement and wary curiosity.

“Yeah.” Ray continued, in reply to Brad’s silent request for more information. “The big dumb motherfucker asked for it too. Like, imagine it Brad; we’ve lost an entire supply truck because Godfather ordered it abandoned, we’ve lost our colours, we’re down to one fucking meal a day, and dumbass walks over and asks Doc if he has anything to say?”

Brad laughed, quiet, more of a chuckle than anything, but hearing it was still a relief; Ray hadn’t lost him completely, not yet.

Ray took up the reins of the conversation again. “So, of course, Doc declines, Encino Man pushes, and Doc ends up telling him he’s incompetent. Straight to his face, remember. It’s not even an insult, Doc just straight up eviscerated him with the truth.”

“Sounds like bullshit to me, Ray.”

Ray laughed just at hearing Brad speak again. “Nah, I heard it direct from Stiney; he was there with Shady and T, they saw the whole thing.”

Brad shook his head and took a second to spit dip juice out onto the sand. “If only we all had the chance.” he said, somewhat wistfully.

“Tell me about it, homes. Still, if it was anyone, I’m glad it was Doc.”

Brad made a noise of agreement and the pair stared back out into the endless expanse of sand, rocks and scrub. Ray briefly watched a scorpion emerge from it’s hole in the ground like a magic trick and trundle away, reminding Ray a little of a LAV.

It was a couple of hours away from getting dark, but the temperatures wouldn’t really plummet until the sun went down.

“Hey Brad? Why do you think a scorpion would leave its burrow at nearly half five in the evening?”

Ray could almost hear Brad’s internal despair as he took a second to process that question. “Even the native fauna of this place can’t wait to get away from you, Ray. It’s probably why you’re having so much trouble hunting down a goat to fuck.”

Ray bit his lip to keep the laugh in, but he knew Brad heard it anyway. “Marines make do, Brad.”

“Jesus.” Brad muttered, and Ray let himself chuckle this time.

The silence they lapsed into again was familiar and comfortable despite their surroundings, but then Ray and Brad’s old married couple shtick had been developed on deployment, so it only made sense: they just had to replace the berm with a couple of armchairs, the relentless heat with a fireplace and the insurgents with a couple of vicious house cats.

So went Ray’s thoughts until Brad spoke. He was quiet and careful so that his words wouldn’t carry to any hyperaware Recon ears, but distinct enough that Ray could hear him clearly.

“I fucked up, Ray.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I did. I gave Trombley that order.”

“You gave Trombley that order because fucking Godfather authorised a change in the ROE!” Ray hissed back at him, suddenly furious at it all, that an investigation was happening because they’d followed Godfather’s own orders. “What part of ‘everyone in the vicinity of the airfield is declared hostile’ is ambiguous to you?”

“They were kids, Ray.”

“Kids and fucking camels, Bradley, but that’s not the description Trombley gave you, and if Colonel Dicksuck had been there he would have fucking lit them up himself. Or tried to, I don’t think the man can aim anything that isn’t a fucking missile, which explains why he struggles so hard to take a piss.”

Brad almost smiled at that one.

“I don’t know what an investigation is going to find when our defence is just going to be to ask Godfather what he was smoking when he changed the ROE.”

“Does it matter? I mean, who here really trusts Command to give the right orders?”

“Okay, and what, Brad? You ignore Godfather’s bullshit orders, those camels turn out to be insurgents, and if we survive getting schwacked, you get hauled up for disobeying orders? At least this way, we’re covered.”

“I can’t get that woman’s face out of my head.”

It was a sudden, almost involuntary but there anyway, the crux of the matter, the actual problem. Ray was quiet, just let Brad speak.

“She wasn’t angry. She was just… desperate. She looked me right in the face, begging for help, begging God for help. I know a prayer when I see one. And God gave her us. Christ. Just a woman in pain, sobbing because her kid was dying, and no idea that it was my fault this was happening to her.”

Brad wasn’t crying again, but his breath stumbled. He was still looking out at the desert, the sky still pastel blue but increasingly obscured by lavender clouds as the sun started to drop; maybe the light wasn’t quite low enough for assured discretion, but Ray never balked from taking a risk when he needed to.

His hand was already planted on the dirt between them, and he shifted it over in little increments until he could reach out with his little finger and pet at the side of Brad’s leg. Brad felt the shifting even through his MOPP suit, or maybe it was just that they almost lived inside each other’s heads these days, but Brad casually dropped his hand down too and let Ray clasp their pinkies together.

They sat like that for a moment, keeping watch with the closest thing to a hug that they allowed themselves between them.

“It wasn’t your fault.” Ray said again.

Brad let it sit without saying anything, and Ray didn’t think things were fixed, but he hoped he’d at least stopped the spiral down. He rubbed his little finger against Brad’s briefly before reluctantly resettling his hand back on his rifle, Brad following suit.

The temperature sank with the lowering sun, and Ray found himself shivering even in his disgusting MOPP suit.

“This fucking place.” he bitched, half to himself but loud enough for Brad to eavesdrop easily if he wanted to. “Either so hot your balls cook, or so cold they freeze, but whatever one it is it’s always got you by the balls. Like this fucking country knows we don’t belong here.”

Brad sighed and purposefully shifted his large frame so that he only needed to lean a little for his side to be pressed against Ray’s. “Always knew you were a pussy.” He said, his fake derision at odds with the affectionate comfort of his actions. “How sure are you that your balls are still even there? Has Iraq finally taken the last fragile remains of your masculinity, Ray?”

Ray was grateful for the familiar weight of Brad’s body against his own, and also outraged. “I’ll show you ‘fragile masculinity’.” He sniped back. “And my balls too, if we were anywhere else.”

Honestly, he could have said that at volume for the whole platoon to hear and it would only be taken as yet more of their homoerotically-charged banter. The conspiratorial almost whisper he dropped his voice to made it something entirely different.

“Are you trying to flirt with me? You realise I’m not a donkey. And even if I was, that’s an animal far out of your league. Stick to goats, Ray.”

Ray shot Brad a close glare, but he was struck momentarily by the lost look that still lingered on Brad’s face; under the quips he still looked like a recruit fresh off the bus, lined up on the yellow footprints of their first formation.

“I don’t know about not being a donkey, you’re definitely hung like one.” Brad was hurting and Ray could afford to be kind.

Plus it earned him an almost startled look, one of Brad’s rarer expressions and so to be relished.

“What the hell are you doing?” Brad asked, flat but curious.

“What do you want me to do?” It didn’t take long for Ray to buckle under the weight of Brad’s unimpressed silence with a long sigh. “I just wanna fucking help you, homes. I don’t know if it’ll make you feel better, and I know we can’t do much, but…” he shrugged, the movement shifting through Brad too. “…we can manage something?”

Their options were limited. They hadn’t done much more since they’d been here than some fully-clothed frottage and one memorable incident of mutual handjobs that was interrupted before they went anywhere.

(They’d yanked their hands out of each others trousers as soon as they heard someone approaching, and Brad had swiftly dropped Ray to the floor with a leg sweep to disguise their red faces and laboured breathing under the pretence of play fighting.

“Why am I always the bitch?”

“Because you like it that way, Ray.”

“Okay, fine. But I get to sweep you next time.”

“Oh? You’ve got high hopes about this happening again.”

“Fuck yeah, homes. Half-finished handjobs that end in a hard-on and a mouthful of dirt? Who wouldn’t?”)

If it was difficult to get each other off properly at Mathilda, it was impossible out here. That said, Recon Marines were always good at working around a problem.

They were losing the light, but it wasn’t dark enough yet that they could try anything, no matter how furtively, even if they weren’t still on watch.

“I want you to jack off for me.” Brad decided, somehow managing to keep his voice level and calm as though he was just commenting on the constant sand. “And I want to watch.”

“Shit.” Ray swore, startled.

“And I’m going to tell you what you’re going to think about, because I’ll be thinking about it too.”

“That’s almost romantic, dude.”

“Shut up.” Brad waited out a beat of silence before continuing, and it was so low and so almost-close to Ray’s ear that it really was almost romantic, dangerously intimate.

“I’m going to think about all the things I’d do to you if we were the only ones out here. How I’d wrestle your MOPP jacket off and slip those annoying fucking suspenders down so I could get you bare. Push you down over the hood of the Humvee – I know that would force you up on your tiptoes, but that’s half the reason I’d do it.

Pin you there with a hand between your shoulder blades and feel your impatience for it through your skin. I know you like a rough prep; I’d go in with spit and a couple of fingers, I’d only pull out to shove them in your mouth, because I know you wouldn’t be able to help yourself when I finally let you have my cock.

I’d just lie over the back of you and fuck your brains out, until you couldn’t breathe, until you couldn’t even talk, until all you could do was drool spit all over the metal.

And I changed my mind; I’d do it right here in front of everyone so they could all see what a whore you are. They’d wonder how you were able to handle it, the way they always underestimate you, and I’d be so fucking proud of you. I’d pull you up by your shoulders so everyone could see how easily you took it.

And they’d ask me to share you, to pass you around, but I wouldn’t fucking do it. Do you know why?”

Ray, breathless and painfully hard, literally so in a suit that wasn’t made to be kind on delicate skin, was only able to shake his head.

Brad, still looking out towards the desert, reached around and curled his hand around the back of Ray’s neck; it looked companionable from the outside. On the inside, Ray shuddered.

“Because I fucking own you.”

“Fuck.” Ray finally managed, unexpectedly breathless and flushed, tugging at the crotch of his MOPP suit in discomfort. “If these things didn’t feel like a cheese grater against my dick I’d have come in them. How long have you had that one in the spank bank?”

Brad squeezed the back of Ray’s neck once before taking his hand back with a heavy sigh. “You’re an impossible little deviant Ray.”

Ray turned to Brad, mouth agape. “I, what? Me? You think I’m the deviant, what, when you just… you think… you think I’m the deviant one?!”

“You are Ray, it’s not a secret.” That was Walt speaking, coming up behind them as watch relief. “The whole battalion knows about your chicken fucking ways.”

Ray clambered to his feet, putting his hand over his heart and giving Walt a wounded look. “Et tu?”

Walt shrugged, settling himself down in Brad’s vacant spot. “Stop fucking chickens.”

Brad snorted and Ray had to grin, reaching down to Walt’s cover and giving him a shake. “They have a unique allure, and you know it farmboy.”

Walt easily batted him away.

“Who’s joining you on watch?” Brad asked, pointedly ignoring the small tussle.

“Trombley.”

The subject of their discussion came up behind them and took a perch beside Walt, looking up at Brad briefly with a vague uncertainty that was unusually perceptive for him.

“You’re late.” Brad told him.

“Sorry Sergeant.”

Ray was watching Brad, irritated at how all the work he’d done to shake Brad out of his unfocused introversion was undone. Brad walked off without a word. Walt watched him go before looking back at Ray with one of his soft, concerned expressions. Ray shook his head in reassurance and turned to follow Brad; he’d deal with it.

Brad had picked up his entrenching tool and was lengthening the grave that one of the others had started just in front of the Humvee; fuck being 7 feet tall. It was dark, but the risen moon was unencumbered by clouds and lit the landscape in strange bright greys.

It was almost cosy and private between the honeycombed shadow of the cammie nets and the bulk of their vehicle.

“Brad…”

“What, Ray?” he sounded tired, he sounded defeated, and that was almost terrifying.

Ray climbed up the Humvee from tyre to hood to the roof, roosting next to the MK 19 like it was an old friend.

“Can you see me from down there?”

Brad folded the shovel and stowed it, dropped down into the grave and set about making it as comfortable as possible. “Not really, thank god.”

“But you can hear me.”

“Ray, hearing you has never been a problem.”

“I can be quiet.”

“No, you can’t.”

“I can, and I’m gonna prove it. Right now.”

“Good, maybe I’ll be able to get some sleep.”

Ray sighed, sounding like he was looking for patience, a sentiment that Brad knew well.

Which, wait, what the fuck? Where did Ray get off sounding like that when he was talking to Brad? He was just considering if it was worth it to jump out of his grave and tackle Ray off the Humvee when his RTO spoke again.

“That’s not the point of this exercise. Come on Brad. What were we just talking about?”

Brad’s mind went straight to Trombley and he frowned a little, feeling that sour creep of loss again, until he heard the not-uncommon sound of Ray unbuckling his Kevlar.

Brad wasn’t entirely comfortable with that, and he wanted to avoid another Garza incident, but he knew Ray was smart enough to at least keep it on right now.

No one really enjoyed wearing their covers, and they looked big on everyone’s head, but on Ray it somehow looked enormous, like he had his head in a bucket. It was too large and it rubbed him sore and he hated the thing, so Brad couldn’t begrudge him a few moments in relative peace without it secured.

He realised Ray was still moving, undressing even; the shifting of fabric, the tell-tale sound of the tab holding the MOPP jacket to the trousers being unpopped and then the rasp of the zipper.

“Tell me you’re with me.” Ray said again, before there was the little sound that Brad knew intimately, the little indrawn breath that Ray only made at the feel of fingers on his cock, like he’d never touched there before, like he did every time.

“You deviant little fucker.” Brad muttered, awed, finally leaping into the same book, getting onto the same page and detangling himself from the strapping of his own MOPP suit to likewise push his hand down into his pants.

“Fuck yeah.” Ray agreed cheerfully, and Brad hated that he couldn’t grab him and taste all that smug glee for himself.

The Corps beat shame out of you pretty quick with it’s disregard for personal privacy, but there was still something about Ray’s brand of shamelessness that remained obscene and filthy; it made Brad hard before he even started thinking about the little fantasy he’d spun out for them both while sitting on the berm.

He tried to bring his mind back to that with his hand around his cock, more hurried than he’d usually be because who the fuck knew when they’d be interrupted, but his mind kept coming back to the sounds of Ray jacking off instead.

He synced his movements to the dry-wet sound of Ray’s hand moving on his cock, breathed as quietly as he knew how, and listened, wondering what Ray was thinking of. He couldn’t suppress his grin at the first strained noise that Ray let out, huffed a silent laugh at the next one.

Ray couldn’t keep quiet even when he was trying to force himself to be quiet, and as much as Brad bitched and told Ray to shut up, he loved that about him. He’d never fucked anyone who gave quite as much enthusiastic feedback as Ray did, and it was an ego boost to hear how he good he was, how much Ray enjoyed it.

That noise again, a little choked note that made Brad wonder what Ray looked like in that moment; did he have his mouth open, was he biting his lip, was he looking Brad’s way?

Fuck, he was close all of a sudden, he was so fucking close and then-

“Hey, where’s Brad?”

Well, shit.

Ray was jerked – no pun intended – out of his thoughts about Brad lying there in his grave and getting off to Ray getting off. Whatever lofty plans they’d had about thinking of the same fantasy had been immediately forgotten in favour of the candid moment they found themselves in, but they were still thinking of the same thing.

Until Walt’s currently unwelcome voice.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Walt, are you serious? My first combat jack!” Ray groused, even now able to think fast enough to stall so that Brad would have time to make himself look like he hadn’t been getting off to his RTO.

“Fuck your jack, we’re being overrun by armour!”

Yeah, okay, maybe that warranted intervention. “He’s in his grave.” Short, still annoyed, and retrieving his hand from his trousers.

He overheard Walt relaying information to Brad and could only assume Brad had been able to pretend he’d only been asleep.

140 T-72s? Excellent. Wonderful.

Ray was now sure that he’d been onto something when he’d claimed that this entire country wanted them gone. Of course it’d find a way to interrupt him during the only time he’d been able to settle down for a combat jack.

What were the odds? Pretty fucking good, apparently. Fucking Iraq.

He re-secured his MOPP while Brad pulled himself out of his grave, appropriately like the undead, and watched as the other TL’s approached, looking to Brad for guidance. Ray knew that wasn’t unusual, and he’d probably do the same thing in their shoes, but for a moment, Ray let himself hate it.

Brad was already fucked up, he didn’t need this, everyone else needing him to think for them, on top of everything else.

His resentment came and went within a breath.

Brad was silent, long enough that it made Pappy and Poke exchange a glance, but Ray knew what was coming.

“Ray, get on TAD-6 and TAD-7.”

That voice was all competence and composure, all Brad as he was and should be.

Ray swung down into the Humvee to dig out the 113, hefting up the 16lb radio and hoping that he wouldn’t have to lick it to get it working.

He carried it past Brad, hearing the blunt reprimand in his voice when he spoke to Poke, and maybe it was fuelled a little by his frustration? He could relate. At least the idea of their few Humvees being set upon by the entire Iraqi army had completely erased any ideas he had about staying hard.

He felt tuned in to Brad, so even as he walked away he caught a faint: “Why the fuck are you two standing around with your dicks in your hands?”

He wished. Maybe they’d find time another time, in some quiet place under cover of darkness?

For now though, and he missed it when Poke said it, but the sentiment ran through his mind.

‘Iceman’s back.’