Chapter Text
June 2008
Brad always goes to ground when shit’s about to hit the fan.
Ray thinks he might have ESP that specifically relates to his bullshit, because he can always tell when it’s about to kick off. More or less.
Granted he’s got his finals, and maybe the game of phone tag he’s been playing with Brad for two weeks is just a result of his nocturnal schedule and Brad’s waking hours being dictated by the USMC. They’ve been texting, but he’s not heard Brad’s voice outside of a message for a while, and it’s making him twitchy. Ray’s trying not to read too deeply into it, because if he does he might fully go insane, and he’s not about to do that before he closes out the school year. There’s time to lose his mind after he finishes his exams.
But still.
Something’s up.
“He seems fine to me,” Walt says, over Skype, the baby cradled in the crook of his arm, sleeping soundly. Every time Ray calls the baby’s asleep. It could be a fucking Tiny Tears and he’d be none the wiser, if it wasn’t for the videos he’s seen of her smiling, yawning, blowing bubbles and being otherwise adorable that Walt sends him every week. “He was here a few days ago. Olivia loves him.”
“Of course she does,” Ray says, rolling his eyes. “Of course babies love Brad Colbert. I bet it’s a genetic programming thing. They find him biologically reassuring or some shit.” Ray gets it. He feels that way too. Walt laughs softly, clearly trying not to wake his daughter. “Though, no offence to your kid, Walt, but she’s like, two months old, she’s not even met that many people yet. Liv doesn’t know what she’s missing. She hasn’t even met me. Babies fucking love me.”
“Yeah, because you’re a kindred spirit,” Walt grins. Ray flips him off.
“I’m allowed to do that because she’s asleep,” he justifies, and Walt rolls his eyes.
“She can’t see more than like, a foot away, y’know,” he’s saying. “It’s kinda crazy. I don’t know why I thought babies came out with perfect vision. That’d be lowkey terrifying wouldn’t it? You come out the womb and bam, you can see everything.”
“Would justify the crying though,” Ray adds helpfully. As if she knows they’re talking about her, Olivia opens her eyes. It’s kinda funny how all babies look like old men. Even Walt and Lucy’s baby, which is definitely one of the cuter ones Ray’s seen. Still looks like a grumpy old dude called Sal who sits outside a deli all day smoking and eating cured meats. He would never say that to Walt, but he’s definitely relayed the theory to Brad, who called him a freak, which might as well be a pet name. Ray watches as she yawns, and notices the way Walt’s expression softens.
“Hey there cutie,” he coos to her. “I bet you’re hungry.”
“I’m starving, actually, thanks for asking,” Ray replies with a shit-eating grin. He leans back in his desk chair, glancing at the clock. “Gonna go get some dinner. You let me know if anything seems off with Brad.” Walt nods. “And I’ll see you real soon, homes.”
“We’re looking forward to it,” Walt smiles. He gently lifts one of the baby’s tiny hands and waves it the tiniest amount. “Bye bye Uncle Ray!”
“Bye bye, you giant nerd,” Ray says, waving back, before he ends the call and shuts his laptop.
It’s gone eight, but the sun is only just beginning to set, and the light through the window in his tiny living room paints everything golden. There’s the sound of street traffic filtering through his window, propped open to beat the oppressive heat since his air con unit breathed her last at the end of June. He’s glad to be going to California after his last exam, even if it’s only for a week – right now his place is a sea of note cards and the only thing in his fridge is Red Bull and a carton of leftover noodles from last night’s study session.
He looks down at his phone, and briefly thinks about trying to call Brad, but it’s only four, so he’s probably still at work, and at some point he’s gonna bitch about Ray filling up his voicemail inbox with Seinfeld impressions and Barenaked Ladies acapella.
They’ve been doing good, this past six months. Brad goes to therapy. Sometimes he tells Ray about it, most of the time he doesn’t. Ray avoids bucking broncos, but he did twist his ankle in February trying to ice skate, so his days of being wild aren’t entirely over. Ray rants about his classes, Brad talks about work. They trade gossip about their families, their friends – most of the time they talk about nothing at all, not really. Ray yammers on about the episode of Dateline he watched, or he narrates a Nascar race, or they argue about the basketball game that was on the night before. They studiously avoid asking each other about dating, Ray has noticed, and he can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, because on one hand, he doesn’t want think about Brad sleeping with anyone, but on the other, he’d kind of like to know if there’s someone out there he should be putting a hex on. If Brad’s thinking the same thing, it’s impossible to tell from their phone conversations and monthly Skype hangouts. Usually they just end up playing Scrabble (Brad always cheats) or talk about Survivor. But more than anything, Ray notices, Brad listens to him. Sometimes he wonders if he calls just to hear his voice.
Ray’s not naive enough to think Brad’s waiting around for him, and he doesn’t want to think that’s what he’s doing, every time he shuts down a good thing with someone else, because he’s well aware it’s a bad idea. The love of Brad’s life will always be the Marines. It’s not something he can help, anymore than Ray can change the way he feels when he thinks about that gigantic dork and his fugly cargo short-Birkenstock combination which has absolutely no right to look as good as it does.
His mind drifts, to the Californian sunshine, to ice cream cones slowly melting and the warm, scratchy sensation of sand beneath his toes. He closes his eyes, and he’s sitting on a towel beneath an ugly beach umbrella reading a book, and when he squints over at the shoreline, Brad is there, surfboard under his arm, approaching with a smile that could put any West Coast sunrise to shame.
When he opens his eyes, he’s still in his apartment, alone but not quite lonely, stressed about exams and a week away from freedom. He sighs, stretching his arms above his head, stiff from sitting at his desk all afternoon. But he’s got a study group in the library at eight, and if he wants to actually make it to his final year, he’s got to go.
After he’s devoured those leftover noodles, anyway.
“I swear to God, if I ever have to think about Partial Differential Equations again I’m going to lose it,” Ray says, the second they’re out of the exam hall. The others murmur in agreement; Professor Hollis is a hardass anyway, but that exam was brutal even by his standards. Maybe that’s why they saved it for last. Wanted to go out with a bang.
“At least we can get fucked up now,” Max reminds him, and shit, Ray doesn’t need to be told twice. It’s only three in the afternoon, but the dive bar near campus will already be packed out with classmates eager to drown their sorrows, and Ray fully intends to be one of them within the next 15 minutes.
“Ooh, lookit— hottie at two o’clock,” Carmen’s murmuring, and Ray glances in the direction she’s unsubtly pointing. There’s a massive fuckoff car parked on the opposite side of the street from their exam hall, and its presumptive owner is leaning against it, in jeans and a white t-shirt, eyes obscured by a pair of those stylish, expensive sunglasses that Ray says only douchebags wear, but that’s only because he can’t afford them.
“No fuckin’ way,” Ray mutters, half unaware he’s said anything at all until Max nudges him with his elbow.
“Okay, he’s not that hot,” he’s saying, and Ray grins, shaking his head.
“Listen, I’ve gotta take care of something,” he admits, waving away the sounds of protest. “I’ll see you guys later. Put the first round on my tab.” The small group at least seem appeased by that, and round the corner without complaint and without Ray, who looks back to the asshole across the road, who can’t answer his phone for a week, but can, apparently, turn up in Parkville unannounced.
“You motherfucker.”
Brad tilts his head, folding his arms across his chest.
“That’s not very nice,” he tells Ray, but that’s all he has a chance to get out before Ray jumps on him, hauling the Sasquatch in for their first hug since January. It’s been way too long, but the long months of distance fade into nothing as Ray laughs, as Brad laughs, holding him tight, sentimental bastard who pretends to be anything but.
“This why I couldn’t get a hold of you?” Ray accuses, jabbing him in the arm. “You were busy being a sneaky son of a bitch?”
Brad just smiles, proud of himself. Ray guesses that’s fair – he’s amazed Brad managed to pull this off without word getting back to him. Ray’s a suspicious fucker (“super awesome ninja skills” is his preferred descriptor) and Brad must have spoken to Walt, and probably his sister too, to get his school information. To be here, right now, as Ray’s walking out of his final exam of the year. It’s not like either of them are good at hiding surprises. He was just talking to Walt too, that two-faced snake.
“What are you even doing here?” he asks, shifting his backpack awkwardly on his shoulder. “I’m flying to Cali in like, two days, homes. Did you really miss my beautiful face that much? I don’t blame you, it’s irresistible.” He preens even as Brad snorts.
“Thought we could road trip it,” he shrugs casually. “Stay in some questionable motels, visit those dumb roadside attractions you’re obsessed with, eat like pigs.”
“There is nothing dumb about Maxie the World’s Largest Goose,” Ray protests, not even acknowledging the fact Brad drove halfway across the country to pick him up. “You’ll see, Bradley. She’s a Goddamn national treasure.”
“Sure,” Brad says, clearly unconvinced, and Ray’s already trying to calculate how much of an inconvenience it would be to drive to LA via Sumner, just so he can prove Brad wrong. “It’s cool, right?” he asks, a slight uncertainty detectable that makes Ray blink in surprise, and it takes a further second for him to work out what he means.
“Are you crazy dude? You know how I feel about road trips, love that shit so much I went to Iraq for one,” he beams. “So long as you’re paying for the hotel rooms, because Delta ain’t gonna refund my ticket. They might give me a voucher, but only if I lie and say someone died.”
“How do you already know that?” Brad asks, but before Ray can reply he shakes his head, and then gestures at the truck. “Don’t tell me actually. I don’t want to know. C’mon, you can show me the little hobbit hole you live in.”
“Ha ha, very funny,” Ray says, as he’s pulling open the passenger door. “Just because I can buy regular furniture and don’t have to order my mattresses custom like an NBA player.”
“That’s not really the insult you think it is,” Brad replies serenely from the other side of the vehicle. And he’s right, of course, but Ray doesn’t really care. He’s so glad to see Colbert’s oversized ass right now, he’ll let him get in a few more choice insults before he really starts to bring his a-game.
He directs Brad back to his apartment block, which isn’t far from campus. It’s a pretty small building — no frills, laundry in the basement that smells like mildew, but it’s his, and even if he might eventually have to move to Cuba and adopt a fake identity to escape the crushing weight of his student loans, Ray’s glad to have a place to call his own. Unless his lease runs out next May, anyway.
Brad doesn’t say anything at the sight of the building, or as they’re wandering from the main gate to his unit on the third floor. When Ray sneaks a glance at him he’s looking around with a mild expression. He can’t decide if the lack of shit talk is making him nervous or not. Outside his front door they stop, and as he’s putting the key in the lock he looks up at Brad. “Just know that if you had told me you were coming I would have cleaned and shit,” he says, as he pushes the door open and beckons Brad inside. He has to duck a little to get through the door and Ray bites back a laugh.
He’s had plenty of people over in the time since he moved in – Walt’s visited, plus a whole clutch of his college buddies, and then the modest but not too modest number of men and women he’s invited back, but it feels different, watching Brad move around his space. He leans against the counter in the kitchen part of his open plan living space, and just watches silently as Brad prowls, inspecting Ray’s decor. It’s a pretty modest one bed, kind of a shoe box, but it’s got room for all his shit and his landlord is chill, so Ray’s never really thought about going anywhere else. That’s a problem for the winter, when he gets closer to graduation and has to finally decide what the fuck he’s going to do with his fancy new college degree. For now, he likes being in cosy little mouse hole, with an overstuffed bookcase, two guitars, a modest vinyl collection and the TV he found on the street that hasn’t set the place on fire yet.
“Y’know,” Brad says, turning to him, after he’s finished admiring the framed Evil Dead poster above the television, “If anyone came here and didn’t know you, they might actually think an adult human lives here, instead of an overconfident rodent in Wranglers.”
Ray tilts his head and smiles serenely. “If that’s your way of saying ‘I like what you’ve done with the place’, thank you Brad, that’s very kind of you to say.”
“You’re welcome,” Brad mutters back, as he wanders over to the coach and flops down on it, looking comically big against the cushions. He also looks tired, and Ray wonders how he’s sleeping nowadays.
“How long did the drive take you?” he asks, sidestepping the question he really wants to ask.
“Four days,” Brad yawns. “Figured we could get going tomorrow afternoon, be in Oklahoma by the evening. Got maps in the car.”
Of course he does.
“Please don’t tell me you were planning on sleeping in that thing tonight,” Ray wrinkles his nose. “You’ll get cramp in your freak legs and be moody about it all week.”
“My legs are in proportion with the rest of my body,” Brad replies mildly. “But no, I was gonna see if the Super 6 has a room.”
Ray looks at him like he’s an idiot. “Are you seriously going to shell out fifty bucks for a room with a mattress that would probably light up like the fourth of July under a blacklight?” Maybe he’s been watching too much CSI. Brad grimaces, like maybe that hadn’t occurred to him. “You can stay here, you freak. The couch pulls out. It’s not the Ritz, but you’ve literally slept in a hole in the ground, so I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
Brad looks like he’s considering it. “If it wouldn’t be inconvenient,” he finally says, with his good liberal Californian boy manners.
“Your whole existence is inconvenient to me,” Ray rolls his eyes. “‘Sides, how many times have I crashed with you? It’s one night. Stop being a dumbass and throw me the keys, I’ll go get your bag.” Brad grunts some sort of response, and tosses them over, so Ray goes back down to the parking lot and hauls Brad’s holdall over his shoulder. By the time he gets back up to the apartment, Brad’s out cold on the couch, looking absolutely ridiculous still mostly sitting up but with his head tucked against his shoulder. Ray doesn’t have the heart to wake him, and he should probably start packing if they’re leaving tomorrow, so he sets the bag down on the floor gently, and quietly creeps into his bedroom, leaving Brad to recharge with a quick power nap.
By the time Brad resurfaces, it’s dark outside and Ray’s just ordered a pizza. He hears the movement from the other room, then footsteps, and a slight knock on his partially-opened door before Brad’s head appears around it.
“Hey sleeping beauty,” Ray grins at him from his desk, where he’s been sorting through his study notes, working out what he can finally throw out and what he needs to keep for next year, just in case. “Good nap?”
“Sure,” Brad nods, blearily rubbing his eyes. “How long was I out?”
“Bout five hours,” Ray glances over at his alarm clock. “Like, out cold too, dude, think it woulda taken a mortar to get you off that couch before you were good and ready.”
Brad makes a sound that’s half grunt, half chuckle. “Yeah. Sleeping a lot better than I was.”
“Yeah?” Ray’s happy to hear that. He’s tried to not be too much of a mother hen when it comes to Brad’s recovery, which is hard because he really, really likes being a mother hen (the winter Walt got the flu he found the only Jewish deli in Riverside and paid their server a not inconsiderable amount to drop him off chicken noodle soup on his lunch break). “That’s good.”
Brad nods a little, but doesn’t say anything else on the subject. Baby steps. “Don’t suppose for one minute you’ve got any actual food in this place?”
“Oh ye of little faith,” Ray scoffs. “I literally just ordered pizza. Got you your disgusting peppers, Italian sausage and mushroom combo, you freak.” Brad perks up, smiling at him. “There’s beers in the fridge, you wanna watch Jeopardy! with me?”
“God help me, I do,” Brad sighs, and Ray beams at the swift acceptance of his offer. Sure, he could be down at the bar getting disgustingly drunk with his classmates right now – in fact, he has six different text messages asking why he’s not doing just that – but Ray knows he’d rather be arguing over Alex Trebek on his couch with the taciturn west coast asshole who kept him alive in a war.
So that’s what they do. The pizza arrives, and Ray burns his tongue on the first slice, too impatient to wait for it to cool before he shoves the molten cheese into his mouth. Brad laughs at him, because he’s a sadist, but then he drops a lump of mozzarella on his heather grey shirt, and Ray tells him it’s karma.
“See? I’ve got Jesus on my side,” he’s gloating, while Brad looks doubtful, scraping the cheese off his clothing. “Which makes sense, because you don’t even believe in him.”
“It’s not that we don’t think he existed, he’s just not the Son of God,” Brad corrects him, dumping the cheese in the box and reaching for a napkin. “Can we not get into it now, anyway? It’s a long story and I know you’ll be annoying about it.”
Ray thinks he detects some fondness in Brad’s voice, even with the content. “Fine, but I’m going to pick this up tomorrow when we’re in the car,” he threatens. “Then you’ll have all the time in the world to explain. Might even convert me, y’know. I’d be willing to convert for you, Bradley, if you promised to put a ring on it.”
It’s the sort of half-conscious joke that Ray’s been making as long as he’s known Brad, even since all the business at Christmas, when they had their ‘We’re homo for each other but acknowledge that’s not going to happen’ conversation. Ray’s fine with where they are now anyway – he doesn’t spend his nights pining after Brad, or at least, he doesn’t spend many nights doing that. The frisson has gone unacknowledged since new year, and for all he knows, they might not acknowledge it again. Maybe one day it will be an amusing anecdote they tell their respective significant others. Yeah, I used to have it bad for this one guy, I don’t know what the hell I was thinking, I was young and stupid and it never would have worked…
But when he makes his lame joke, Brad doesn’t laugh, or even smile like Ray thought would. He just looks down at the pizza boxes on the table and squeezes the paper napkin in his fist.
“I think,” he starts, in a register low enough to count as a murmur. “Maybe we could start with a date first.”
Ray’s sure he’s misheard, or maybe Brad’s doing his straightest, strangest bit yet. Quick as a flash he decides to roll with the latter. “Yeah, sure, you can take me to Red Lobster, I’ll make a bad call on the shellfish and spend all evening in the bathroom wailing ‘ Oh no, the jumbo shrimp have betrayed me!’ while you really regret all the choices that have led up to the present moment.”
That, at least, does make Brad smile. His lips quirk into a grin, and he nudges Ray’s shoulder with his. “Tempting offer, but I have never been to a Red Lobster before and have no plans to start now. Pick somewhere less hillbilly.”
Ray really wants to unpack the fact that Brad’s never been to a Red Lobster, and maybe check if he’s been to a TGI Friday’s or an Appleby’s too while they’re on the subject of chain restaurants that Ray grew up thinking were the height of culinary sophistication.
“Jesus, why don’t you just club me over the head and drag me back to your cave, keep it real classy?” He suggests taking another swig from his can of Budweiser (Brad had wrinkled his nose when he saw that was the only option, but Ray had told him to either go out and buy his own beer or stop being a little bitch).
Brad hums like he’s considering it. “As much as I have fantasized in the past about knocking you out, you’d never go down without a fight,” he shakes his head. “Be like wrestling a cat.”
“Too fuckin’ right it would,” Ray nods. “I ain’t no bitch. Can you imagine? Recon Marine letting himself be manhandled like that? No sir. Not on the first date, anyway.” Maybe on the second or third. Ray’s not opposed to it, though he’s never really been with anyone who was that interested in that particular flavour of bedroom––
“I’m serious.”
He looks back at Brad with a “Hm?” and finds him staring back expectantly. “Serious about what you cryptic bastard,” Ray rolls his eyes, having completely forgotten how they even got onto the subject.
Brad huffs and fidgets, like he’s starting to lose his patience. Like Ray is someone the one being an obtuse motherfucker rather than him. “Us,” Brad gestures a hand between the two of them.
“What’s us?” Ray is still baffled.
“Us,” Brad repeats insistently, like Ray’s the one being obtuse. “You and me. A thing. Now.”
“What?” Ray says again, now even more confused.
“I’m out,” Brad is exasperated now, Ray can tell – he’s seen the look on his face before, albeit not since they were both in Iraq.
Suddenly the penny drops, and his eyes widen.
“Oh.”
“Not, like, out out, I’m––” Brad backs up, and sighs. “I’ve left the Marines.”
Silence. Ray, for the first time in perhaps years, doesn’t have a clue what to say to that.
“So.” Brad adds awkwardly. He shrugs. “You know.”
It’s funny. Ray knows he had a dream like this, where Brad turned up on his doorstep and told him he was finally ready, that they could finally be together, but the room was on fire and there were bombs going off outside the window, and before he could say anything, Brad turned to ash before his eyes. Ray woke up in a cold sweat, panicking, and didn’t calm down until he’d been for a walk around the block and smoked three emergency cigarettes.
But Brad doesn’t seem combustible right now, hunched on his ugly but ridiculously comfortable second hand couch. He seems to ache with his own humanity, like a God made mortal learning to breathe air into his lungs for the first time.
“When?” Ray asks quietly.
Brad looks at him funny, like he can’t believe that’s what Ray’s zeroing in on, but he exhales shakily and humours him. “Final day was last Friday. Though, paddle party isn’t til Thursday. Didn’t want one but Nate insisted.”
Ray can’t help grinning at that. Of course Brad didn’t want to make a fuss, and of course Nate wasn’t going to let him off that easy.
“Fourteen years, homes, there ain’t a chance in hell you were ever gonna get away without one,” Ray tells him, and Brad’s lips quirk up a little at that.
“Point.”
Ray mentally unpacks the rest of what Brad’s told him. Got out a week ago, drove down here three days later to collect Ray. In time for his fucking paddle party. Showed up, confessed his feelings in an absolutely shambolic manner. Currently sitting awkwardly but politely on Ray’s couch, clearly bracing for bad news. What a gigantic fucking nerd.
“But, what I said at Christmas,” he murmurs, and Ray can tell how hard this is for him to say. “I still feel the same. I want...I want to try this. With you.”
He’s waited so fucking long to hear those words.
“I told you I wasn’t gonna wait around forever while you figured your shit out,” Ray tells him with a sigh, and Brad nods a little, having set his jaw into a stoic clench, like showing any sort of emotion to whatever Ray says goes against his warrior spirit. He contains multitudes, Bradley Colbert. Happy enough to drive his ass across the United States to tell someone he’s single, but God forbid he’s let down gently.
“Yeah, you did,” he agrees. “But in the end it only took me seven months.”
Ray scoffs. “There is absolutely no way on earth you have managed to unfuck the wiring in your weird little brain in less than a year, Colbert.”
“Why is my brain little?” Brad frowns.
“Because you’re a dumbass,” Ray tells him seriously. “How the hell can it take one man so long to realise what’s right in front of him? Swear to God, it’s a good job you’re handsome, because you’re dumb as a bag of rocks.”
Brad pouts, his eyebrows still knitted together, and it looks absolutely ridiculous on a grown man of his proportions. Ray laughs at him to illustrate as much, and Brad punches him in the arm.
“Okay, ow,” Ray says, rubbing at the spot, even though it wasn’t even half as hard as it could have been. “You have a weird and kinky way of showing your affection, and I’m not sure I’m into it.”
“My God, I’d forgotten how irritating you are,” Brad grouses, but Ray just smiles brightly.
“No you didn’t,” he says. “You knew, you’ve always known. And you drove your ass a thousand miles for me. You knew what you were getting into, you’ve had months to figure it out.”
Brad looks at him wearily, but doesn’t deny it.
“All roads lead to my couch,” Ray declares, as he sets his empty beer bottle down on the coffee table. “And now your icy heart, once thought by many to not exist at all, is in the palm of my hand.”
“Ray,” Brad warns him quietly, but Ray doesn’t let him finish the thought. He grabs him by the collar of his pizza-stained t-shirt and kisses him the way he’s been thinking of for years.
Except, it’s not like that, not at all, because it’s real, and that makes it a thousand times better, even though they both taste like tomato sauce and cheap beer. The material taste gives away to whatever it is Ray’s been holding onto since December – the little seed of hope has blossomed into a bright bloom, and he’s laughing against Brad’s mouth, nipping at his bottom lip, doing it again when Brad makes a noise of protest, until fingers tug at his hair, like he’s a badly behaved dog.
“You’re feral,” Brad mutters against his mouth.
“I’ve been waiting five fucking years for you to catch up, can you blame me?” Ray tells him, before he gets bored of talking and redirects his attention to Brad’s lips. It’s different from how it was at Christmas – more urgent, more insistent, now they know what they want. Now they're ready, both of them this time.
“That was gross,” he says, when they have to stop so they can actually breathe, and Brad immediately looks affronted. “Not the–– you know what I mean,” Ray rolls his eyes, and he’s about to move off the couch to go get the mouthwash from the bathroom, but Brad’s hand catches his wrist, pulling him back down. Needy bastard. Did he learn that in therapy?
“When did you get so tactile?,” he rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling, he can’t stop smiling, and his cheeks much be bright red, the way he’s blushing, so it undercuts the snark in a way that would be embarrassing if Ray had an ounce of shame left in his body.
“I’m not,” Brad grouses, refusing to appear anymore human apparently. “I just.”
Words still don’t come easy to him. Only Brad could make a confession of love into such an ordeal. Mr. Darcy has nothing on his ass. Actually, he should get Brad to read Pride and Prejudice. Might make him feel seen.
“I missed you.”
Ray’s eyes widen again at that, which might as well be an I love you from this emotionally stunted sweetheart who can't even admit he cares about his own mother.
“You missed me?! Ooh can I get that in writing?! Hang on, I want to go call Walt, hell, I’m gonna call the whole platoon, they’re not gonna believe Iceman’s got feelings,” Ray’s whooping, laughing, as Brad rolls his eyes, pulling him into his lap, kissing him again, maybe just to shut him up.
“I missed you too, you asshole,” he tells him, biting Brad’s neck gently, undercutting the magnitude of his own words. “Even when you came back, I missed you.”
Brad looks at him curiously, but after a moment his expression softens, like he finally (finally, finally) understands.
In the end, Brad doesn’t sleep on the sofa.
Tangled in Ray’s sheets – inexpensive ones from Ikea that Ray knows Brad is trying hard not to bitch about, because he’s a princess at heart and likes his nice Egyptian cotton – Ray makes him switch on the bedside lamp, and he props himself up on one arm, studying Brad’s naked body like there’s going to be a test on it in the morning.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Brad asks quietly after silently humouring him for a moment.
“Uh, something I’ve wanted to do for fucking years,” Ray says, like it’s obvious. “Committing to memory every freckle, every mole, every inch of your body.” Brad looks a little bashful, until Ray adds “So I can jack off whenever I want.”
He pulls a face at that, the prissy madam. “You’re disgusting.”
“Aw babe, d’ya mean that?” Ray flutters his eyelashes, and leans over to kiss a freckle at the base of Brad’s ribcage. His skin smells like sex and sweat. Brad just sighs, and lazily reaches down to run a hand through Ray’s hair.
It’s soothing, the gentle scratch of nails against his scalp, and Ray settles, cheek against Brad’s chest, gazing up at him, half bathed in the lamplight. It’s a hot night, and the curtains dance gently in the breeze from the open window. Every so often a car drives past in the street, or there’s the low murmur of a conversation three floors below. Ray could rhapsodise about how Brad looks ethereal like this, strange and holy and entirely too good for a tiny apartment in a glorified suburb, with an ex-tweaker soon-to-be penniless college graduate. His hair is a little longer than Ray remembers, and he’s regained the weight he lost while he was away, more himself now than he was when he returned. Ray realises he didn’t come home then, but he’s home now, the desperado who’s finally come to his senses.
In the morning they’ll wake up together, sweating in the heat and muzzy from the trifecta of beer, carbs and sex. Ray will insist they go out for waffles for breakfast, and he’ll order an extra plate of bacon, only to drown it in maple syrup, ignoring Brad’s disdainful expression, because he’ll kiss the taste of it out of his mouth all the same. They’ll pack up their shit, get in the car, and drive across state lines, Ray banned from singing country and Brad pretending he doesn’t find all the weird roadside tourist traps interesting, even though he’s the one who always spots the signs. They’ll make it back to California, see all their friends, and Ray will finally get to meet baby Olivia, stand in the church when she’s baptised and claim his rightful place as godfather (so long as he keeps the Brando impression in check). The rest, they’ll figure out. What Brad does next, what happens when Ray goes back to school. Who they tell, when they tell them. Everything that exists beyond the luminescent present, and this moment that stretches out between them, so still it doesn’t quite feel real.
But it is. Thank fuck it is.
“It was always you,”
Brad whispers it like a secret, as his knuckles gently brush Ray’s jawline, and Ray feels the smoothness of a scar against his own skin, trace evidence of Brad’s will to survive. He smiles, shaking his head a little, like maybe he’s amazed.
“Before I had any idea.”
“And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.”
— John Steinbeck, East of Eden