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Brad's grave is behind the Humvee. Walt is on radio watch, perched on top of the Humvee. Brad can tell he's facing front because Ray's not asleep like he should be but chattering randomly up at Walt from the driver's seat. Every so often Walt answers, which gives Brad his position, or kicks Ray, which makes Ray's voice pitch up for a couple of seconds into indignation.
Trombley's sleeping in the back seat. Brad can hear the minute clack of his rifle against the edge of the window opening, rising and falling on his chest as he breathes. He holds it steady when he's awake. Brad is used to listening for the telltale sound even when they're driving, and it's easy to pick out now.
On the other side of the cammie netting, Brad can hear One Bravo talking to Reporter--mostly Poke, but Lilley and Garza pitch in every so often. The only sound Reporter makes is an occasional burst of that half-incredulous laugh like he's sure there's a joke here somewhere but he hasn't figured it out yet.
Brad, down in his grave, doesn't need to see anything to know that he is as alone and as safe as he can be in a combat zone. The sounds of his team are his very own birds singing in the trees. All's well.
Brad slides a hand into his MOPP suit. Getting hard when there's time for a combat jack is an order of magnitude simpler than having to go when there's time to take a shit. It's a matter of training and will. Brad's got plenty of both. He's hard the second he touches himself, halfway to coming just because he knows he can, and the other half isn't going to take long to work out.
There's a solid thump on the dirt beside his grave, and he opens his eyes to a puff of dust rising around a bright yellow carton of batteries. The LT is standing over it, looking down at Brad with a smile lurking in the corners of his mouth. Brad strokes himself once, thoughtfully, and reaches out with the other hand to tilt the bright yellow box, testing its weight. A full carton of batteries and the LT standing over him looking pleased with himself, waiting for Brad to make the next move. Yes.
(The birds are still singing all around him, undisturbed.)
The LT starts to say something, but Brad shakes his head a little and rolls silently to his feet so he's standing in his grave, looking up slightly at the LT standing beside it. Not a bad height for kissing, but a whole box of batteries deserves more. Brad puts a hand on the LT's elbow, nodding toward the back of the Humvee. The LT raises his eyebrows, but he moves where Brad wants him, half-sitting on the back bumper of the Humvee, and he doesn't make a sound.
Brad kneels between the LT's boots--the LT seems to know what he wants, spreads his legs for it--and Brad pushes the LT's MOPP suit up and down just enough to get his cock out. The LT's hard too. He knows as well as Brad does where this is going.
(Still safe, still alone.)
He gets his mouth on the LT's cock and the LT catches his breath, his silence deepening. Brad lets himself taste for a few seconds--kind of sweaty and funky but not bad--and then he takes the LT into his mouth. He looks up and waits, with his hand still loosely holding his own cock, and the LT's looking down at him with his lips parted even as his eyebrows draw together in the shadow of his Kevlar.
Brad sucks once--squeezes his hand, once, on his own cock--and keeps waiting. He holds the LT's gaze steadily with the LT's cock between his lips, and waits for the LT to realize that they do not have time for nice, or polite, or not exploiting the enlisted man's desperation for batteries--like this wasn't Brad's idea in the first place.
But the LT rewards Brad's faith in him a second later. His mouth firms into a straight line, and he gives a little nod--roger that--as his hand settles on top of Brad's head, steadying him without pushing or pulling or blocking his ears. The LT starts to move, rocking his hips and easing his cock into and out of Brad's mouth. Brad moves his hand in the same rhythm on his own cock, and he recognizes it, the warm-up for the real thing, the test-fire to put a round in the chamber.
Brad breathes in deep when the LT gives him a chance, and that's the last chance he gets. He lets his eyes close as the real thing starts, the LT fucking into his mouth as Brad jerks himself off in fast, relentless strokes. Neither of them makes a voluntary sound, but the sounds are there anyway, the slick slide of cock in his mouth, the little impacts that never quite get lost over the ringing in his ears that gets louder the longer he holds his breath.
The fast cadence falters and Brad looks up. He wants to see what the LT looks like when he falls apart, when Brad makes him fall apart, but his head is tipped back. All Brad can see is the clean line through the grime marking where his chinstrap should be. Brad closes his eyes again, sucks harder, jerks himself tighter and faster until the LT's cock jerks in his mouth, spilling bitter and hot in Brad's battered mouth.
(There are a few seconds when his situational awareness is shot and anything could happen, but nothing does. His team has his back.)
Brad opens his eyes again as soon as he's done, letting his breath out in a soundless rush. He blinks up at the cammie netting, licks his chapped lips. He doesn't glance left or right, at the back of the Humvee where the LT isn't, at the edge of his grave where that carton of batteries isn't. He leaves his hand inside his MOPP suit and waits for his breathing and his heartbeat to steady out, and he doesn't feel anything. He's empty and still, waiting for the rush of the orgasm to wear off and tip him into sleep for maybe half an hour if he's lucky.
He knows enough to shut his eyes as the sound of Ray's voice changes. Unfortunately, there is no amount of Brad's will that can keep Ray from saying, above him, "Brad, you're fucking it up, I can hear you fucking it up, what is the matter with you?"
Brad opens his eyes and doesn't move his hand.
Ray is crouched over him and shaking his head slowly, sadly. "Brad. What is the first rule of the combat jack?"
Brad blinks. "Speed and strategic timing."
"Wrong," Ray says, pointing an admonishing finger down at him. "The number one rule of the combat jack is no wives, no girlfriends. Not your own, anyway. Nobody you get to fuck in real life, because then you finish jacking off and you're sad because you don't get to fuck them here."
Here, Brad notes, is apparently not the same as real life for Ray. He makes a mental note. Ray is on his way out if he gets through this safely. Good for Ray.
Out loud, Brad says, "I'm not sad, Ray. And I wasn't thinking about my non-existent wife or girlfriend."
"You think I don't know when you're sad?" Ray demands, and Brad doesn't think he needs to answer that. Ray certainly doesn't pause to let him. "Now, tell your pal Ray what the hell you were thinking about so I can make sure you never, ever make that mistake again."
Brad doesn't really want to know what Ray would do to make him never want to spend a combat jack fantasy on someone ever again. He's sure Ray could do it. He's also sure that Ray will not rest--won't let Brad rest, but, more importantly, won't go back to the Humvee and shut his goddamn eyes for an hour before they need him to drive somewhere, which will mean Ripped Fuel, which will mean endless aggravation for Brad--if Brad doesn't give him a satisfying answer.
So Brad smiles a little and says, "I was thinking of batteries."
Ray's mouth drops open, and Brad watches admiring horror dawn on Ray's face.
"You kinky motherfucker," Ray breathes. "What were you doing to the batteries?"
Brad closes his eyes and says, "I'm not scripting your next combat jack for you, Ray."
"Fine, be selfish," Ray says, sounding like he's stood up and turned away, but on the next words he's turned back. "But batteries--that's like jerking off thinking about the celebrity you've been stalking, next you're going to be sending Casey Kasem some kind of crazy letter made of cut up magazines with a big stain at the bottom. Next time do what everybody else does and think about porn, or Walt's sister. Like Walt, but with tits and hair."
From the top of the Humvee comes the sound of a pointed racking of the Mark 19, and Walt says, "I don't have a fucking sister, Ray."
Brad opens one eye. Ray stage-whispers, "Walt's mom hasn't explained to him yet why his 'cousins' look just like him."
"Well," Brad says, taking a breath and winding up a little, watching Ray try not to smile before he even says it. "If anybody can explain the workings of freak-breeding genetics in a fucked-up non-branching whiskey-tango family tree, it's you."
Ray spins on his heel and says, "Walt! Brad wants me to explain the birds and the bees to you!"
Brad looks back up at the cammie netting, listening to the quiet thumping going on over at the Humvee, the quiet click of Trombley sleeping through all of it, One Bravo and Reporter outside. Brad finally moves his hand, rubbing it into the dirt beside his grave to scrape away the stink of the inside of his MOPP suit.
He's safe, and alone, and Ray, as usual, is wrong.
The batteries and the LT are equally impossible, just like Walt's non-existent sister or one of those glossy-page tittie mag models, so it doesn't matter which one Brad thinks about during a combat jack. He's not going to go stalking any of them. He knows what he can't have, and he can't have any of that here, in his real life.
It doesn't make him sad when it's over, anyway. Just empty, and still, and then, if he's lucky, tired enough to sleep.