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Brad throws up in the bushes outside the car before the funeral.
He was in his uniform, on his knees in the dirt, and Ray’s trying to hand him baby wipes, but whatever he’s saying is a low hum in the back of his consciousness, barely a whisper over the pounding of a growing headache.
It’s not fair- they shouldn’t be at this stupid funeral in a neighbourhood far too fancy for them. He could practically feel the pity in Walt’s gaze, in the way Ray’s hand paused before he touched Brad’s shoulder. And it made him sick.
“C’mon, Iceman. We’ve gotta get going, or we’ll be late.”
There was no bite in Ray’s tone, just a soft, exhausted deadpan.
Brad got to his feet, wavering slightly, before he dusted his uniform trousers off, righting himself.
His hands were shaking- this was a whole new kind of pathetic, wasn’t it?
The taste of bile in his mouth was dizzying, as he wiped his mouth, then gargled a mouthful of lukewarm, stale water from a bottle that Walt found in the backseat, wedged under a backpack that had been sitting in the rental car all morning.
Brad closed his eyes, and the only thing he could see was Nate’s face, embossed on the back of his eyelids like a photograph.
He turned away and threw up again.
The funeral itself was fairly quiet, a simple affair- just Nate’s family and friends, mostly from before his days in the Corps, but a small crowd of Marines lingered in the back, somber in their dress blues.
Watching dirt slowly fill the hole in the ground gave it a sense of finality, even as Brad tossed his own handful onto the casket. The soil was under his nails, in the creases of his hands, just like it had been in Iraq. The dirt there had been finer, like dust, a sort of orangey-red colour, settling into every crease and cranny of their bodies. But here, his hands were in the black, wet earth, like he was dragging himself out of the mud, instead of putting Fick into it.
The casket was a bit much, though, he thought, somewhat darkly. It was nice, as far as caskets went, he supposed, but it was… so big.
Nate had looked so small when he’d died, so what else was in that box with him? The platoon’s batteries? The remains of Brad’s dignity? The billion unspoken things that had passed between them? His carefully constructed Iceman facade- which had been crumbling down around him in the privacy of his own pathetic mourning?
Brad scrubbed a hand through his hair as he turned away, barely processing that he was smearing dirt through his hair.
After Fick’s death, everything had blurred together in a restless haze- work, eat, train, sleep, repeat, and yet, even in slumber he had no reprieve from the memories that haunted his waking hours.
He dreams of Iraq, of Nate.
Sometimes he dreams of better days, the field outside Baghdad, of Oceanside, times before they’d ever thought this was how the invasion would play out. His mind goes to other places, a world where he’d gotten the chance to tell Nate how he’d felt- where they’d come home. Brad could almost feel the warmth of Nate’s skin against his before he woke.
Other times, he’d dream of that day in early April, frame by frame, like a film playing in slow motion.
It’s painful, every time it plays out in his mind, like digging into a fresh wound, clawing it raw and open over and over again. There is nothing he can do that will change the way these dreams unfold, he is simply an actor, following the script of a movie being played on repeat, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.
Every time, Brad stands by his Humvee, watching Nate talking to the old man in the street, in the shade of a scrawny, leggy tree, feeling the sweat rolling down the back of his neck.
He remembers everything, the way the flies buzzed in the hot air, fat and lazy from gorging themselves on the decay that festered in the streets, the way the heat made the packed earth shimmer, the way Nate had smiled ever so slightly at the morning’s brief, lips curling back over his teeth, and he knows what will come.
Nate’s already staggering before they even hear the shot, hands flying up to his neck. Time smears by slowly as Nate does a little half-turn, surprise clear on his face before he toppled down into the dirt.
Immediately, someone calls out “Contact Left!” and he vaguely processes it as his own voice, before a man’s body is tumbling from a nearby rooftop, rifle hitting the ground before he does. Maybe there’s another shooter, but Brad doesn’t care, sprinting to Nate. He was clutching at his neck, mouth moving wordlessly, fear in those clear green eyes. Blood bubbled out between his fingers, a brilliant red, as his eyes darted about frantically. Later, Brad would process it as the desperation of a dying man, his last moments. There was no way he’d survive the wound- the bullet had neatly severed his carotid artery, they’d find out afterward.
Nate’s mouth opened like he was trying to say something, even as Brad tried to apply pressure over the wound, blood frothing between his lips. He could feel the weak fluttering of Nate’s pulse under his hands, pupils blown so wide his eyes seemed black, just a thin ring of colour around an infinite void.
Brad fell into the darkness each time, sinking into an ocean so vast and deep it encompassed everything he could ever even hope to imagine. It was cold and lonely and there was an overwhelming sense of emptiness in his chest, even as his eyes fluttered open.
He always woke up soaked in his own sweat, sodden sheets and his heart pounding in his throat.
This is the hell itself.
Sometime later, he was in a bar with Poke and Kocher, drink dripping condensation over his fingers. In the distance, he could hear Poke saying something to the other man, low hushed tones behind the buzz of intoxication and a growing headache.
Brad’s phone was open to Nate’s number- a prompt, brilliant red, glowing on the screen, “Are you sure you want to delete this contact? This action is irreversible.”
He looked up for a brief moment, mouth opening to tell Poke he was leaving, but every muscle in his body froze, mind going blank at the sight of a familiar shape watching him from across the bar, leaned up on it like it was still cool to do that.
Nate’s eyes were bright, the ghost of a smile on his face, and he lifted one hand in a half-wave. He looked tired, and Brad realised that he looked exactly like he had the morning he died, in a dusty utility uniform. Brad stood up suddenly, all at once, mouth opening to call out to him before a small crowd passed between him and the bar. By the time they had passed by, Nate was gone.
Brad didn’t believe in divinity much anymore, hadn't for a long time. Combat had long since disabused him of the notion, not because of the killing, or the dying, but because of the pointless and endless human suffering, the way that they couldn’t help anyone in any substantial way. This world wasn’t made for people to be in it.
He sat back down, ignoring Espera’s “Dawg, what’s wrong with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” He didn’t have an answer for that.
There wasn’t ever going to be some grand farewell. This was all he’d ever get, no goodbye, no desperate cliche-movie declaration of love, nothing beyond a knowing look, and the brush of hands in passing. He’d have to live with this- never knowing the truth. Never knowing if there could have been something beyond Iraq for them.
It was permission, he supposed. Life moved on, the wheel kept turning, and the great American war machine never stopped. There was no time to waste lingering on things that he’d never know the answer to, on things that he couldn’t ever change.
Brad tipped back the rest of his drink, savouring the warm slide down his throat, and pressed delete.