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hackthis_archive) wrote2009-07-07 07:52 am
hackthis_archive) wrote2009-07-07 07:52 am
Entry tags:
Generation Kill – Get Some (Nate Fick/Brad Colbert, NC-17 AU), 1/4
July 2009 is the one year anniversary of the premiere of Generation Kill. This is my gift to one of my favorite series and one of my favorite fandoms ever. Thank you David Simon, thank you all of First Recon, thank you 22 awesome actors who crafted this experience, but mostly thanks to all of you who participate in this fandom, who encourage and enjoy and squee with the best of them. This one is for you.
Generation Kill
Nate Fick/Brad Colbert
Word Count: 34,876
Alternate Universe, NC-17
Get Some
Brad Colbert is bored.
Nate knows this because he can feel Brad staring at him from his desk one aisle over and two chairs back. On the other side of the classroom, Ray Person's making obscene hand signals in Nate's general direction, ostensibly to get Brad's attention. At least it better be to get Brad's attention, or somebody's going to have an accident in the weight room before practice.
Regardless of whatever inanity Ray's performing for the viewing public and Marissa Henderson's amusement, Nate's pretty sure it won't work on Brad. Mostly because he can feel Brad's eyes drilling holes into the back of his head. He is not going to turn around, though; that's just what Brad wants him to do.
At the blackboard, Ms. Turner is lecturing on The Grapes of Wrath. Nate actually likes Steinbeck. If you pull out every other chapter of this particular book, and ignore the brambles and tumbleweeds, it's a pretty compelling narrative.
"The Joads suffering in the dust bowl is similar to the Great Depression as we've experienced it in Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie, despite the fact that they seem so dissimilar," Ms. Turner says, which Nate jots down in his notes.
He's not really taking copious notes, but he's taking some.
It's AP English -- on some level you're required to take notes. Even if in reality you’re only writing down plays for football practice in 21 minutes.
A tiny, balled-up wad of paper sails right over Nate's shoulder, bounces off the middle ring of his three-ring binder and rolls to a stop just shy of falling onto the floor.
Nate flicks it away with his thumb and index finger.
Brad definitely wants attention.
Seconds later another wad of paper lands on Nate's desk. And then another. And another.
It's attack by spit balls, minus the spit. They agreed not to do the spit thing anymore after that unfortunate incident where one spit ball went wide and ended up across the aisle and attached to Maureen Trotsky's glasses. She didn't appreciate that much.
Godfather appreciated them being late for practice because they had detention even less.
And yet, something that feels suspiciously like a spit ball lands on Nate's exposed neck, right above the collar of his shirt.
Nate's been slimed.
In the seat behind him, Gina Fitzgerald snickers as he slaps his neck and grumbles softly to himself.
Ms. Turner is drawing parallel timelines of Grapes of Wrath and The Great Depression on the blackboard, so Nate turns around. "What?" he hisses over his left shoulder, pushing his hair behind his ear so it's not obstructing the way he's glowering.
Brad's smile could fool a nun. Nate Fick is not a nun.
As Brad's co-captain on the Oceanside High football team, Nate knows all about the ways in which Brad Colbert fools the world at large. Epically tall, with legs like a thoroughbred and a face that would make any Jewish mother beam with pride, Brad Colbert presents a truly formidable facade.
Brad bats his eyelashes rapidly and blows him a kiss. Nate scowls. "Is there a problem, Nate?" Ms. Turner's nasally tenor cuts through Nate's thoughts of smacking Brad in the back of the head with a football.
"No problem here, Ms. Turner," Brad says guilelessly. "Nate just dropped his pen. I was handing it back to Gina."
Nate dropped his pen. Three seats behind him. Right.
Not that Brad's arms aren't long enough to stretch the length of three chairs and an aisle. At 17, Brad's six feet two according to their football coaches and he's only going to grow more. The college scouts are practically wetting themselves.
Nate just hit six feet a month ago. To celebrate, Brad liberated a six pack of Budweiser from his dad, and he and Nate broke into the OHS football field and drank beer and tossed a ball around until three in the morning.
Nate fell asleep in homeroom the next day.
Gina hands Nate her pen and he turns back around with a broad smile. "Got it, Ms. Turner," he says brightly, showing her a pink sparkly pen with some sort of furry animal on top. Jesus Christ.
Ms. Turner smiles. Teachers are always smiling at Nate.
She turns back to the board and Nate turns around. "You're going down," he mouths to Brad, who grins broadly. Nate smiles at Gina and gives her back the abomination she calls a pen.
Seventeen minutes to go.
Nate spends a lot of time staring at ass. Poke's ass, Walt's ass, Q-Tip's ass, Mike's ass, Brad's ass. Too much ass. At least too much of the wrong kind of ass.
He shades his eyes from the glare of the afternoon sun to get a better look at the varsity cheerleaders practicing at the other end of the football field, and in particular, at Tanya Reyes and Jenny Taylor. Nate's a big fan of flexibility, but all ass is not created the same. Some ass is definitely superior to other ass.
He darts a look at his offensive line running drills just to make sure Poke doesn't catch him scoping out his girlfriend, or worse, that Rudy doesn't catch him eyeballing his little sister.
"She does have a fine pair, doesn't she, Captain?" Nate stiffens automatically, before shooting a glare at Brad.
"Shut up," he says, punching his star wide receiver in the arm with only a mild amount of force. His knuckles glance off Brad's shoulder pads and end up banging his bicep.
Brad rubs his arm. "Such violence, Nate; I don’t know what's brought this on. The youth of today are such a tragic tale. All they think about is pussy and football."
Nate shakes his head. "I didn't know pussy and football were so tragic."
"They are when you get cornered by the head of the National Honor Society, who wants to know why you're wasting your time on the field when you could be in the classroom."
Nate 'hmm's in agreement. "Did you mention the pussy part?"
Brad shrugs. "Yeah, but I don’t think Mrs. Perkins is really into pussy."
"That's a shame for Mr. Perkins," Mike Wynn says, joining their conversation, helmet tucked under his arm.
Brad and Nate nod in agreement. "You know if Poke catches you looking at his girl, he's going to liberate you of your nuts," Brad says.
"I'll tell him you started it by waxing rhapsodic about her 'fine pair' as you put it," Nate says.
"You'd sell me out to the Mexicans like that? I'm hurt."
There's a sharp whistle from Sixta on the sidelines. "You wants to get your asses down here, now," he barks. "'Less you girls wanna spend all afternoon doing suicides! Don’t bother me none, but Godfather mights have a problem with it!"
Nate falls into quickstep with Mike and Brad automatically. In his periphery he can see Walt Hasser dragging Ray down the field by the collar of his red and white practice jersey.
On the sidelines, Godfather's sporting his Oceanside Football hat pulled down almost to his nose and a tight smile. The team drop to one knee to look up at their coach.
Godfather nods approvingly and then clears his throat. "Gentlemen, divisional playoffs start next week, after that regional and then state. Now, some might think that Godfather would be satisfied with having won the regional title in '92 and state in '93, and those pansy-ass bitches would be wrong! Why? Because we're Devil Dogs and a Devil Dog is about gettin' some. Am I right?!"
"Sir, yes, sir!" the team barks in tandem.
"And we're gonna do what?"
"Get some, sir!"
Godfather smiles. "Good, now it's time to go over Godfather's plans for how we're going to fuck up those Delta retards, who stand between us and our next step on the road to state. Not that it's politically correct to call 'em that, but fuck the Board of Education -- they are what they are," he rasps.
The boys laugh dutifully.
"Could you be a sweetheart and pass me the potatoes?" Nate's mom asks. They're having a late dinner, but Nate's been having a late dinner ever since he started playing football in 7th grade.
His dad's hours at the courthouse are anything but regular, especially when there are long trials, and since his sisters have gone off to college, it's mostly just him and his mom at the dinner table.
And Brad.
In fact, as Nate reaches out to grab the mashed potatoes he gets cockblocked by Brad, since Brad's octopus-like arms get there first.
When Barbara Fick laughs, you can see her dimples. Nate has her eyes and his dad's hair. "I meant Brad, sweetheart," she says, patting Nate on the hand, "not you, but I can see how you'd get confused."
Nate scowls at Brad as he passes Nate's mom the bowl and then goes back to the roast beef on his own plate. Brad's just lifting up his fork when Nate kicks him under the table. Brad jumps, his knees bumping the table top and causing all the bowls and plates to shift.
"What was that?" Nate's mom asks.
Nate smiles as Brad smacks him in the arm. "Nothing, mom."
His mom laughs. "Nate, you're a terrible liar."
"He's just mad that you like me better," Brad says sagely.
"That's not true," Nate protests.
"It's okay; everybody likes me better."
"I cannot tell a lie," Nate's mom says before pausing. "I love you both."
"Yes, but you love me more," Brad amends. "Don't worry, we won't tell Nate."
Nate glares at Brad. "Shut up, Colbert."
"Make me, Fick."
Nate's halfway out of his seat before he remembers where he is. His mother just shakes her head. "If you two are done eating, you can clear off the table, and then you can roughhouse."
Brad scoops up some mashed potatoes with his fingers and shoves them between his lips just as Nate pops his last floret of broccoli in his own mouth. They nod. "Done."
His mom just laughs. "I'm going out for a walk," she says, pushing back from the table. "There's strawberries in the refrigerator, if you want them. Don't put them in each other's ears."
"That happened one time!" Brad protests.
Last year Barbara Fick and Rachel Colbert took their sons on a field trip to the Strawberry Festival in Oxnard. On the way home there was a reenactment of Alexander the Great and Darius III at the Battle of the Issus.
Brad smeared strawberries all over Nate and managed to get them in his ears. Brad claimed Nate had incited him to riot; Nate claimed innocence. It wasn't his fault if a few strawberries found their way down Brad's shorts.
"I still have faint strawberry stains in the backseat of my car, Bradley," Barbara says.
Nate snickers, just dodging Brad's elbow. His mother raises an eyebrow. "Also, don't flood the kitchen again. Or burn anything down. Or make any more dents in the wall in the family room."
"That dent was his fault," Brad says, pointing to Nate.
"He tripped me," Nate counters.
Nate's mom points to the sink. "Dishes. Now."
Doing the dishes tends to go a lot faster when it's both of them. At least the dish-washing part goes faster. So does their burping contest. The part where they get suds all over the place and end up swamping the countertop is always a little problematic.
Tonight, when Nate finds himself flinging a pot of soapy suds in Brad's face, he at least has the foresight to make sure Brad's near the sink.
There's absolutely no reason for Brad to toss that pan of cold water at his crotch.
Nate's skin crawls from the sudden change in temperature, and he unbuttons his jeans and shoves them down his thighs to get away from the wet denim. Except he's also standing in a puddle of water, and it's seeping into the hem of those same jeans. Even his underwear is wet.
"I hate you," he says, looking up at Brad with grave honesty.
Of course Brad misses it because he's too busy yanking his own wet tee shirt over his head. He emerges from the cotton cocoon with his hair slicked back in a damp mess. There are streams of water running down his chest and his nipples are hard. Not that Nate notices.
Brad grins at him broadly. "Don't worry. I hate you, too," he says, even as Nate grips Brad's forearm to steady himself and kick off his soaked jeans.
Brad grabs Nate when he slips in the puddle, his fingertips digging in as he holds Nate against his side to keep him on his feet.
Nate ends up with his face pressed against Brad's chest, and he chuckles when he regains his footing and pushes Brad away. "Dinner is required before I get this close to anybody," he mocks.
"We just had dinner."
"With my mom. Not the same thing."
"I'll remember that for later," Brad says, all sardonic respect.
Nate snorts and flicks Brad in the chest.
"Hi, Nate!"
Nate glances up from his locker to see a girl with blond hair waving as she walks by with her friends. He can't remember her name. Renee. Renata. Nadia. Right, Nadia.
Another girl waves. Nicky Hodes. Another girl. Melanie Sarren. A few guys, Walt, Christeson, Manimal. Lots of people seem to know Nate.
Of course, Nate is also the quarterback and co-captain of the OHS football team. He's student body vice-president, a member of the National Honor Society and Model UN. Last summer he, Brad, Poke, Mike and a couple of the other guys on the team helped out at a Pee Wees football camp that Godfather was running. And all that really means to anybody over the age of 18 is that teachers are more than willing to write him glowing recommendations for Dartmouth, Stanford and UPenn.
What it means to his classmates is that Nate's popular. He's never lacked for friends or teammates or girlfriends, if he's wanted them. His last relationship, with a girl named Tracy Andrews, lasted six months until she graduated and went off to college.
Nate never thought much of being a junior and dating a senior, but his teammates loved it, and in high school peer standing is everything.
Nate liked Tracy. She was a nice girl -- pretty, smart, uncomplicated. His mom liked her, too. She was the second girl he'd ever had sex with. He wasn't insanely in love with her, but they worked out well enough.
She wasn't Natalie. Then again, nobody's Natalie.
"Hi, Nate." Nate's hands clench around his Calculus book even as he looks around his locker and into dark brown eyes and a wry, slick smile. Nate takes in Natalie Wayne slouched against the locker next to his in a fitted black shirt and denim skirt and his stomach goes tight.
Natalie loves Wet'n'Wild cherry red lip gloss.
And black high-top Chuck Taylors.
But not Nate.
"Hey, Nat," he says evenly.
Natalie Wayne is the first girl that Nate truly had feelings for. They dated for four months in tenth grade, right after Craig Schwetje hurt his shoulder and Nate went from playing reserve to being first-string quarterback for the Devil Dogs.
Natalie's smart and sarcastic. She plays soccer in the fall and lacrosse in the spring. Her dad's a Marine at Pendleton and she has three older brothers, all of whom plan to join the Corps once they're done with college.
Nate remembers these things like he remembers the first time they had sex.
"You ready for the game next week?" she asks, brushing her bangs out of her eyes.
Nate smiles. "As ready as I'll ever be."
"You ready for the SATs on Saturday?" When they were together, Natalie had long hair that reached her shoulders; at the start of their senior year, she came to school with it in a short punky style. Her bangs are now the longest part of her hair.
Nate laughs and pushes his own hair out of his eyes. "Is anybody ever ready for those?"
"Yeah, but what'd you get the last time around? Like a 1400?"
"I wish." Nate got a 1360.
He doesn't have to take them again, but he wants to. Brad got a 1430 without studying. Nate has to redeem himself.
"I'm sure you'll do great," Natalie says cheerfully before a shadow falls over the conversation and her eyes crinkle at the corners. "Hi, Brad."
Nate looks over his shoulder just as Brad bumps him hard in the back. Brad just grunts at Natalie. "I need my Calculus book," he says pointedly to Nate.
"Why?" Nate asks, turning away from Natalie. "You never use it."
"That's entirely beside the point." Brad's grin is all teeth.
Nate shakes his head. "You just want something to draw dirty pictures in."
"I'm enlightening future generations," Brad says judiciously.
"You could use your own locker."
Brad clutches his chest in mock horror. "Why would I do that? Besides, I don't even remember where it is."
"Brad."
Brad doesn't do the innocent thing well. "Yes, Nate?" he says, all false virtuousness.
Nate turns back to Natalie, who's watching their exchange with an air of great amusement. Nate makes an exasperated noise and steps back to grant Brad access to his locker. "You're hopeless," he says, waving Brad on.
Brad digs around before extracting a book and smiling radiantly. "That's why I have you. Unlike some people, I'm not stupid enough to let you go."
Nate can feel his eyes going wide, Natalie just snorts. "Real subtle there, Brad," she says before walking off.
Godfather gives the seniors sitting the SATs on Saturday special dispensation to leave practice early on Thursday and Friday, which is probably the worst thing possible for Nate. The last thing he needs is more time to worry about his future. Or to worry about his Humanities test next week. Or to stress about his Andronicus translation for Latin. Or to think about all the ways he's going to fail Calculus if Brad doesn't manage to imbue him with some of his mathematical brilliance.
About an hour after dinner (stuffed pork chops – Nate's favorite), he finds himself going for a run. The tape in his Walkman is a motivational mix that Ray put together for the team over the summer, which means Snoop's 'Gin and Juice' and Ice Cube's 'It Was a Good Day' are right alongside Beck singing 'Loser.'
He doesn't have a set destination in mind; he just needs to do something to stop staring at his walls, at his prep books. At all that fucking homework.
He instinctively runs towards Brad's house, but there are no cars in the driveway. No motorcycle at the curb. Not that Brad's supposed to be riding his motorcycle during the season, but since he just got his learner's permit in August, that hasn’t stopped him in the slightest.
Nate runs across the lawn that Brad mowed last week and rings the doorbell. He waits and then he waits some more. He steps back and looks up at Brad's window, third from the right, but there's no sign of life.
Eventually he gives up and moves on.
He runs out of their housing development, along the main road until the sky turns pale gold and blue and there's just enough sunlight for him to see his way home.
There's nobody in the house when he gets back, but there's a note from his mom on the kitchen counter: she's at the movies with his dad, his sister Emily called to wish him good luck, and there's a tub of chocolate ice cream in the refrigerator if Nate wants it.
Nate takes the stairs up to his room two at a time. He leaves his clothes in a trail to the bathroom and then takes the hottest shower he can stand and washes his hair. He jerks himself off, bracing one arm next to the shower spray and pulling with the other. He thinks about Natalie, about the way she smiled at him the first time they were together, how wet she was, the noises she made, the way she broke his heart when she said she didn't think it would work out.
His erection dies off in irritation at this line of thought, so Nate ends his shower.
He collects his clothes on his way back to his bedroom, where he turns on the lights and looks around with a sigh. He pulls on a pair of boxers and a tee shirt, tosses his sweaty workout clothes in the hamper and turns on the radio. Tom Petty's singing about Mary Jane as Nate stretches out on his bed. He needs to look at his prep books again. Maybe he should look at his Physics homework instead. He needs to call Mike about that -- he doesn't know what the hell they're doing in that class.
All the diagrams in the world don't make up for practical application.
He doesn't remember falling asleep until a sharp knock wakes him and he falls off the bed with a start.
"Don't tell me I woke you up," Brad teases, poking his head into Nate's bedroom window before climbing inside.
"I feel like I don't tell you enough how much I hate you," Nate says, rubbing at his eyes as Brad turns on the desk lamp. The room is otherwise dark; Nate's mom must've turned out his lights. Brad's in a tee shirt and surfer shorts, but lacking shoes. How Brad. "What time is it?"
After four years Nate should be used to Brad just showing up in his room. The first time Brad knocked on the second story window of Nate's bedroom in the middle of the night, they were 13. Brad had pushed the ladder from his house half a mile away in a wheelbarrow because he was bored and felt that it was Nate's duty to entertain him.
"Time for all good little boys to be in bed," Brad says, dropping down on Nate's messy twin bed with a rattle of the bed frame. "So why are you passed out on the floor?"
Nate punches Brad in the shin even as he climbs up on the bed and stretches out perpendicular to Brad so his legs are thrown over Brad's knees and his head is back on his pillow. "Ow," Brad says belatedly.
"You do know we have SATs tomorrow," Nate says around a yawn. "I know you're insanely brilliant and like to remind the rest of the world of their stupidity on a regular basis, but c'mon."
Nate tosses his forearm over his eyes and tries to go back to sleep. Brad's fingers are stroking along the inside of his knee though. It's making Nate twitch.
"Was there something you wanted?" Nate says, "or did you just think since you were up, I should be up, too?"
"I hate Natalie," Brad says bluntly. "I thought you should know that."
Nate laughs and lifts his forearm so he can push himself up on his elbows. "Brad, I know you hate Natalie. Natalie knows you hate Natalie."
"Oh," Brad frowns. "Well, if you get back with her, I swear I'll kidnap you for your own good."
Nate pushes his hair out of his eyes. "I'm not getting back with Natalie. At this point the only things I'm 'getting with' are my college applications and that fucking playbook," Nate says, pointing to the five-inch binder of all their potential plays listed in alphabetical order.
"So, you're not seeing anybody?" Brad asks.
Nate can feel the confusion on his own face. "Don't you think you'd know if I was seeing anybody? Even if I didn't tell you, my mom would tell your mom and you'd know anyway."
Brad seems to think this over. "I had to check," he says, wriggling out from underneath Nate's legs.
"Why'd you have to check now?" Nate asks, even as Brad crawls up the bed towards him. Nate collapses back on his pillows, staring up at Brad.
His brain scrambles to connect the dots when Brad stops, looming over him and blocking out everything else.
Nate can feel the confused, wary smile struggling on his face. In his periphery he can see Brad's arm moving. He watches in something like fascination as Brad's fingers skirt over his cheek and his thumb brushes over Nate's mouth. And he can't just see it: he can feel it.
Brad's thumb is rough, warm. It drags along the dry skin of Nate's lips, ghosting over the swollen, red part where Nate bit himself when he got sacked at practice earlier.
Nate parts his lips to wet them, to make the slide easier, before he realizes what just happened.
"Brad, what – " Nate's words die off when he realizes that if Brad shifts an inch or two the right, parts are going to be pressing together. Nate normally doesn’t get this close to other guys. At least not off the football field.
"Can I kiss you?"
Nate blinks. "Is this a prank?" he asks suspiciously. "Fuck with Nate so he'll stop stressing out?"
"No."
"No," Nate repeats, not quite processing.
"No," Brad confirms.
A beat.
Another beat.
"Oh god," Nate says, digging his fingers into his sheets as he realizes Brad's serious.
"Nate."
Brad's using that tone. The one Nate's heard him use with his younger cousins and the little kids at football camp. It's the voice he uses on people he wants to coax. It's soft enough to require the listener to strain to hear whatever Brad's saying. And right now, Nate is under a lot of strain: trying to pay attention to Brad, to Brad's eyelashes and the way he just licked his lips.
When Nate inhales, he can smell Brad. Brad who doesn't smell like sweaty, grimy teenage boy, but like soap and shaving cream. Like he cleaned up before he came over.
Oh, holy shit.
Brad's stretching out now, lowering his body and blocking out the light from Nate's desk lamp. Slow enough to give Nate a chance to get used to the idea but fast enough to make his intentions clear. Nate looks away, at the walls around his bed that are plastered with photos of friends and family. Of Brad. Of Brad and Nate, who have been friends since Nate's family moved to Oceanside from Baltimore when Nate was 11.
There have been a lot of crushes in their lives. A lot of girls -- and Nate can't think of the last girl that Brad dated that he liked. Not Sharon or Lisa or Sarah or Monica. He'd kind of liked Helen, but only because she never seemed to think she and Brad were anything serious. Not like the other girls.
Not like… not like them.
"Nate? Nate, you don't have – we – I – shit."
Nate turns back at the uncertainty he can hear in Brad's voice.
Brad's eyes are downcast and he's not looking at Nate, which Nate can't take. Nate untangles his fingers from the sheets and grips at Brad's waist, at his shirt, pulling him down, keeping him near. He has no idea what he's doing, but he knows he doesn't want Brad running away.
Brad inhales sharply and Nate bites his lip, worrying the injury from earlier with his tongue.
The team nicknamed Brad "Iceman" when they were freshmen. They said he was calm, cold, perfectly collected, but Nate's never really seen that. He's just seen Brad, who is blindingly smart, devastatingly funny and honest, and who is always by his side. Brad who, right now, is hot against him and shaking just that little bit.
Nate lifts his head and brushes his mouth over Brad's lips, eyes wide open. Brad makes this startled noise, pulling back to stare at Nate for the length of a heartbeat, and then he's descending, lips parted.
Nate's not expecting Brad's tongue to lick at the seam of his lips, he's not expecting to open his own mouth, but he does anyway. And then Brad pulls back, nuzzles the side of Nate's face, his jaw, nips at his ear, which unsettles Nate tremendously, and then his mouth is back on Nate's and Nate forgets being startled. He forgets that he doesn't do this with guys.
Brad tastes like toothpaste, like he planned and hoped. Like he wants Nate.
Nate's hands slide up Brad's back, feeling the expanse of muscle from the gym and all those passes he's received from Nate's arm. Brad pulls away and Nate gasps for air, even as Brad's mouth moves down Nate’s neck, biting and then soothing the hurt away with his tongue. His thigh presses down on Nate's cock, and Nate surges upward, his cock jerking in his boxers as Brad murmurs against his neck. Encouraging him. "Off," is probably the only word that processes in Nate's head.
"Nuhhh," Nate replies, his tongue too thick for his mouth.
Brad lifts his head, his lips slick and puffy and his hair everywhere. "Take your shirt off," he says hoarsely, pulling urgently on the hem of Nate's shirt.
Nate swallows. Brad just saw him without a shirt a few days ago, but this isn't like that at all. It doesn't feel wrong, it just feels… different. Very different.
He pulls off his shirt, discarding it over the side of the bed and whacking his wrist on the nightstand. "You too."
Brad sits up automatically, yanking at his shirt with something close to desperation. What should be a fluid movement is decidedly ungainly, and again, Nate has no idea how all those stupid girls could see Brad as anything besides a 17 year-old boy, albeit one with very well-defined muscles.
Nate's not entirely blind; he has noticed this. He also notices the way Brad quivers when Nate touches his stomach. The way Brad leans in when Nate's hand slides up his chest, his ring finger brushing over Brad's right nipple.
Nate's dick jerks in his boxers, spreading precome everywhere, making him feel damp, sticky and very horny. He sits up as much as possible given Brad's place on his thighs and curls a hand around Brad's neck. "C'mon," he says, tugging Brad forward, and then they're kissing again, except this isn't kissing the way Nate's done it with anybody else. Not even Natalie. This is intense and aggressive. There are teeth, slick mouths and all Nate wants to do is suck on Brad's tongue.
His hands are all over Brad's chest, scratching against his ribs, dragging nails up Brad’s back. Brad doesn't have tits, but he responds very vocally to Nate thumbing his nipples, burying his face in Nate's neck and biting him hard.
Nate spares a thought for his parents down the hall, but there are his sisters' two empty bedrooms, a guest room and a bathroom between them and him; everybody's used to Brad being in Nate's room anyway.
Did everybody else see this but him?
Brad's hands are tangling with Nate's fingers, pushing Nate's arms over his head, stretching him out so he can't help but rut against Brad's thigh. Can't help but arch up and make wanting noises that he's never heard anywhere outside of the worn porn tapes that the guys on the team pass around like an STD.
Nate frees his hands and uses them to push Brad back, locking a leg around Brad's calf to urge him over. Brad pulls back, discombobulation writ clear. "What's wrong?" he rasps out, eyes wide and mouth shiny.
Nate sighs even as he leans in to bite at Brad's lower lip. Brad closes his eyes and makes another of those startled noises, but the way he moans against Nate's mouth conveys plenty. Nate moves away and Brad follows blindly, only opening his eyes when another kiss isn't forthcoming.
"On your back," Nate says.
Brad's eyes go dark, and then he's scooting around, physically trying to move Nate when Nate's already moving. Nate laughs softly, even as he gets knocked into the wall. "In a minute," he says, trying to get himself resettled with Brad's hands groping his ass, "in a minu—"
His words are cut off by Brad's hands on his chest, Brad's fingers rolling his nipples between thumb and forefinger. He's using too much pressure. Twisting too hard. Nate gasps roughly, and then Brad curls up and there's a wet tongue soothing away the hurt.
Nate's fingers clutch at Brad's hair to hold him still as every nerve in Nate's body goes on red alert. "Oh, fuck," he hisses, shoving Brad away so he can get his hands on his cock.
Nate jams his hand in the opening of his boxers, the seams ripping as he wraps his hand around his cock, which is swollen and wet, throbbing at whatever sort of insane response Brad's just introduced it to.
"Nate…Nate…" Brad's saying his name, but Nate can't answer right now.
Brad's hands are on his ass, grinding him down on Brad's lap and against Brad's cock, which is pressing rather insistently against Nate's ass through Brad's shorts. Nate bites down hard enough to cut off the groan threatening to escape. He can taste the blood from his now re-injured lip.
There are hands urging him to move, squeezing his ass, fingers digging into the cleft, pressing hard. Nate just goes with it, rides Brad's thrusts while jerking himself off, and then Brad's entire body shakes and goes slack.
Nate's virtually positive that Brad just came in his shorts, which is fine for him, but all the motion has stopped, which is not cool. Nate glares. "Don't you fucking dare stop now, Colbert," he snaps.
Brad fixes him with a perfectly glassy stare and something wails inside of Nate, but then Brad pulls him down, licking at Nate’s mouth and shoving a hand inside his boxers.
Brad's hand is damp and his fingers are longer than Nate's, his palm bigger, with different calluses. Brad wraps his hand around Nate's, urging him to completion with another lift of his hips. His thumb swirls around the head of Nate's cock and then the tips of his fingers brush against Nate's balls, and that's it.
Nate comes, grunting against Brad's mouth, his entire body rioting with the force of something much bigger than him.
Brad tugs his hand out from between them as Nate sprawls on his chest, and Nate watches blearily as Brad wipes his fingers on the sheets. Nate yawns, and underneath him Brad's chest rises and falls -- and Nate's brain begins to panic.
Severely.
Nate sits up so quickly, he staggers when he gets off the bed. "Nate?" Brad says, struggling to push himself upright as Nate moves away. His voice is husky, tone wary.
Nate shakes his head, tripping over his running shoes and knocking into his hamper. Brad's in Nate's bed kind of naked. And messy. With a dark stain on his shorts and his mouth…
"What did I – we – Brad, what the hell?" Nate can't even finish a thought.
He doesn't even want to try.
He fumbles the doorknob trying to get away, staggering down the hall until he's in the bathroom, where he sits down on the floor and stares at the blue, yellow and green Spanish tiling that his sisters love so much. He locks the door and tries to process a thought. Any thought that doesn't have to do with the look on Brad's face when he came.
What the fuck did they just do?
10 (soon to be 11) year-old Nate Fick met Brad Colbert on the first day of summer in 1989. It was the second day Nate's family had been in California and the day they moved into 315 Sycamore Avenue in Bravo Terrace.
Bravo Terrace was a new-ish housing development on the outskirts of Oceanside, California, advertised as suburban living for the middle-class and Marine officers with families.
It was fairly early in the morning, the grass still damp, but Nate's family had been awake for hours. The moving men were all over the house, being directed by Nate's mom and given cold drinks by Nate's sisters, Diane and Emily. Nate and his dad were sitting on the lawn, his dad trying to show Nate how to whistle using a blade of grass.
When Nate asked his dad why they weren't helping the movers, his dad laughed. "Son, one day you'll learn when to fight your battles and when to just let things go. Your mom wants to handle this – I'm letting her. "
Nate didn't get it, but he nodded anyway and went back to spitting on his thumbs. A red blur passed by his house. Nate glanced up and then looked a little harder. The red blur was a boy peddling furiously on a bike.
As Nate watched, the bike skidded hard, and the boy fell off and onto the street. After a moment he got up, brushed off his knees, got back on his bike and peddled over to Nate's house.
The bike was nice, shiny. And very red.
Nate's parents had promised him a new bike when they moved, but they hadn't taken him to pick it out yet.
The boy pushed his bike over the curb, onto the grass, and up to where Nate sat with his dad. His knees were bleeding, but he didn't seem to notice. He stared at Nate boldly, so Nate stared back. "I'm Brad," he said. "Who are you?"
Brad spoke with a lisp and had metal on his teeth, which Nate recognized from the retainer he'd had to wear for the last eight months. "I'm Nate, we just moved here from—"
"I'll get it!" a shrill voice called from the house and seconds later Diane dashed out of the house and into the garage.
Brad looked from Nate to the garage and back to Nate. "That your sister?"
Nate made a face. "Yeah, Diane. I have another one, too -- Emily."
Brad made the same face. "Yeah, I have two sisters, too, only they don't look like me 'cause I'm adopted."
Nate looked over at his dad, who didn't seem to be paying much attention to them. Nate only had a vague idea of what 'adopted' meant, but he didn't think now was the time to ask. So he asked a better question. "D'you wanna see my light saber?"
Brad grinned. "Sure."
And they'd been friends ever since.
Nate wakes up because someone's knocking. He's cramped, his back and his neck are on fire. It takes him a minute to orient himself, to realize he's in the bathroom. Correction: still in the bathroom. Still on the floor with his back against the tub. "Nate?"
"Yeah?" His voice sounds like he's 80.
"Sweetheart, are you okay? Your father said you were in there when he went for his run earlier."
Nate's mind whirs. His dad runs at 5:30 a.m. If his mom's up and his dad's back it has to be after 7.
"I know you have your SATs," his mother carries on, "but if you're not feeling well, you already have that great score. You don’t have to take them again you know. Dartmouth already loves you."
Nate swallows down the bile in his throat. His parents are up. He's been in here all night.
Brad must … oh, god. Brad.
"I'm fine, Mom," he rasps out, getting to his feet despite the protests of his body. "I'll be out soon," he calls, as he turns on the shower to drown out any more questions.
He spares a glance for himself in the mirror and all he sees is the red mark on his collarbone. A mark that Brad left on him -- but Nate doesn't have time to worry about Brad Colbert and his presumption and the way he smiles when Nate laughs. He has to think about geometry and logic equations and diagramming sentences.
He can't think about Brad's fingers stroking the inside of his knee -- when did he start doing that and why didn't Nate notice sooner? Why did Brad do this? What the hell are they going to do?
Nate throws up in the sink.
He doesn't feel any better afterwards.
Nate's spent more Saturdays at Oceanside High than he's spent anywhere else. Football practice. Football games. Student government car washes. Bake sales. When he and Brad were in middle school, Brad's dad used to bring them here on Sunday afternoons, when he wasn't working at his computer consulting business, and toss the ball around with them and let them race each other.
The SATs are being held in the Science corridor, and Nate recognizes several people milling around.
He checks in and makes his way to whatever classroom Duquesne through Finnegan is assigned to.
The classroom is half full. Nate picks a desk and puts down his sweatshirt and four No. 2 pencils. He goes back into the hall to get some water and take a leak, and gets ambushed by Ray Person coming out of the bathroom.
"Where's Brad?" Ray says.
It could be a trick question. Nate just blinks. Ray's black hair is everywhere and he looks slightly manic. Which is pretty much par for the course with Ray. He's wearing a Metallica shirt and his shoes are unlaced.
"Nate," Ray waves frantically in Nate's face. "Anybody home at the WASP house? All that New England inbreeding collapse your brain?"
Nate rolls his eyes. "What do you mean 'where's Brad'? Why the hell are you asking me?"
Ray's scoffs loudly. "Why the hell do you think I'm asking you? Who the fuck else should I ask? His parole officer? His moms? Actually, you gotta quarter? I should call; maybe he overslept."
"Ray, shut up and calm down," Nate orders.
Ray taps his foot rapidly. "He's not here, Nate."
"Of course he's here. Just because your little Brad radar didn't ping automatically when he walked in doesn't mean he's not here."
Ray grabs Nate's wrist and drags him across the hall to a room labeled Chung-Dunhill. "Look," Ray says dragging him inside. "See this room? See how there's no Brad here? I am telling you 'he's not here'."
"Ray, he'll be here," Nate says, freeing himself from a surprisingly tight grasp. "And if he's not, it's not as though he hasn't already taken them anyway."
Ray stares at Nate. "Are you shitting me? Are you even here today? I'm seeing you, but maybe your brain is still at home dreaming about using a football like a pussy. They didn't count last time."
Nate can feel his eye twitching. "What do you mean it didn't count last time? He told me he got like a 14-something."
"He got a 1430, 40, whatever on the practice SAT," Ray says peevishly. "He hasn't taken real ones."
Nate can feel his blood going cold. "He'll be here, Ray," he says, refusing to let his voice waver. "You know he will. And if he's not, they're offered again in November. Enough with the fire drills."
"But, Nate—"
"Enough, Ray!" Nate snaps.
Nate can feel people staring as he turns around, and down the hall Walt Hasser and Steven Lovell are watching them curiously. Nate nods curtly before going back into his classroom to get settled.
He slides into his chair and tries not to think about what it means if Brad doesn't take his SATs. Cal-tech and M.I.T. have been sniffing around Brad for ages, ever since he got caught hacking into the IRS in 8th grade. Of course, Brad's parents almost sent him to military school after that fiasco, too. God knows Florida or USC would love to have Brad playing ball for them. Brad wouldn’t jeopardize that just because Nate – they --
No.
Brad would never jeopardize his future because of some misunderstanding between them. Not that this is a misunderstanding.
Nate isn’t sure what it is, but he knows this is far past a misunderstanding. If the roles were reversed – not that Nate ever thought they'd be here in the first place – but if they were different, Nate's not sure he'd be thinking very clearly either.
Hell, Nate's not sure he's thinking clear anyway.
He's not mad. It kind of hard to be mad since he kissed Brad first. But he had to. He wanted to. But he's not – and they don't – and he's just… he's confused.
He is so fucking confused.
The SATs are just as much of a nightmare the second time around. Nate goes home after they're through and goes directly to bed. It's not as though he got much sleep last night.
He sleeps until there's a knock at his door and his mom appears with a tray of food. "I brought you some dinner," she says sliding the tray onto his desk. "Try to eat something, okay?"
Nate nods blearily and then goes back to sleep. His dreams are all specific: Brad's in danger and Nate has to save him. They're in the jungle. They're in the desert. They're locked in a building, a goddamn dragon after them, and Nate's rushing everywhere, desperate to find Brad, but around every corner is Ray, who keeps yelling at Nate, "What the hell were you thinking?"
His subconscious is not very subtle.
Nate spends Sunday morning in his room. He goes down for pancakes in the morning and informs his mom and dad that he's going to be studying for his Humanities test today, but he's been sitting on his bed surrounded by his notes about Plato's Republic for the last hour and his eyes keep roving over the copious pictures plastered up with tacks and clear tape.
There are music posters: Nirvana, Green Day and the obligatory Cindy Crawford fold outs, but there are also old worn photos of Nate with Brad. The first camping trip Nate took with Brad's family to Yellowstone when they were 12. Two summers ago Brad went with Nate's family to the Hamptons for three weeks and Nate's 17 year-old cousin took an entirely inappropriate liking to Brad.
Ever since puberty, older women have acted inappropriately around Brad.
Nate reaches up and yanks down the photo of him on the beach with a surfboard and a bloody nose from the summer before 9th grade. It had taken Brad three weekends at the beach to teach Nate how to stand on his board. Of course those weekends were interspersed with their flirting with Cindy Margolis and Sara Reid -- and what the hell is Nate supposed to think about that? Had Brad just been playing along? Brad's had girlfriends… and Nate had hated all of them except Helen. But that was them, not Brad.
Brad's the one who cheered when Nate finally managed to stand on his board on his own – and then he snaked Nate in the wave and Nate fell off and hit his nose.
Brad's mom had taken this picture right before Nate'd tried to knock Brad unconscious with his board. Brad ended up eating a lot of sand that day, which served him right.
Nate looks up when there's a knock on his door. "Yeah?"
His dad's head peeks around the corner of the door and Nate looks up, near the top of the door frame. At 6'3, Kevin Fick is a very tall man. The sun from Nate's window glances off his father's gold-wire frames and he gives Nate a rueful smile. "You going to come out sometime today? Your mom's starting to worry."
"I'm fine."
His dad shrugs. "I had to check. She'll ask me when I go back downstairs." Nate nods. That's just how his mom is. "Also, there's a Ray Person at the door to see you."
Fuck. Nate didn't even know Ray knew where he lived. "Okay," he says.
He can just imagine what this is about. Actually, he'd rather not. He tosses the photo on his nightstand, gets up and follows his dad, jogging down the stairs behind him to where the front door is wide open and Ray's standing in all his 5 foot and change glory.
Ray’s small for a football player, but he's a terrific kicker, if you can ignore his mouth.
Nate nods to Ray and glances in the living room. It's empty. His parents must be in the kitchen. His parents are always in the kitchen: cooking, gossiping, ignoring the huge TV in the family room to watch the tiny black and white or talking on the phone to his sisters in college.
"I didn't know you knew where I lived," Nate says, leaning against the doorframe and scratching the back of his neck. He's tired. He feels tired.
Ray stares at him hard, and something goes on alert in Nate's head. Brad wouldn't… there's no way he told Ray. "What's up?" Nate prods.
"I dunno, Cap, why don't you tell me what's up?"
Nate doesn't have to pretend to be confused. "I don't know what you’re talking about."
"The hell you don't," Ray counters.
Nate takes two steps onto the porch and looks around the neighborhood. He doesn't see anybody else, but this could be a team prank. Two months ago, they toilet papered Poke's house after the recruits from USC came around, just to remind him he wasn't big time yet.
There's something about the way Ray's shifting back and forth that tells Nate this isn't something he's going to laugh about. "Ray, spit it out."
Ray shakes his head like he can't believe what he's about to say. "First the SATs and now this."
"What, Ray?"
"Brad quit."
"Brad quit what?" Nate says automatically.
Ray's incredulous stare says everything Nate doesn't want to know.
"The team!" Ray snaps. "Brad quit the team!"
Nate's narrows his eyes. "What do you mean Brad quit the team? Brad can't quit the team."
"You try telling him that!" Ray says. "What did you do to him?"
Nate can hear his heart beating in his ears. "I didn't do anything to him."
Ray's eyes narrow. "You're lying."
A muscle in Nate's temple ticks. "What was that?" he says, his voice just this side of a warning. "What'd you just say to me?"
Ray's chin juts out even as he takes a step back on the porch. "What did you do to him, Nate?"
"I didn't do anything to him." Nate can hear the edge in his tone. "I know in your hero-worship of all things Colbert-related it never crossed your fucking pea brain that maybe Brad did it himself. That maybe this is his decision."
Ray shakes his head. "He wouldn't do that," he says stubbornly.
Nate can feel his lip curling. "Then maybe you don't know Brad as well as you think you do," he says, turning around and shutting the door in Ray's face.
That would make two of them.
Nate doesn't realize his sweatpants are on backwards until he's knocking on the Colbert's front door. He sighs and pushes his hair out of his eyes. After Ray's little announcement, Nate ran upstairs, got dressed, dashed back out of the house and ran the half a mile here.
He's sweaty and his hair is sticking to his forehead.
He hasn't even brushed his teeth today.
He rings the doorbell, shifting from one leg to the other and smiling nervously when Brad's mom opens the door. Rachel Colbert is a little bit over five foot three, but she has a personality as big as her son.
"Hi, Mrs. C," Nate says, biting his lip and trying not to think about what he did with her son Friday night, which is, of course, when Nate gets a massive flashback of Brad's tongue flickering over his nipple and his hands in Brad's hair. Yurgh.
"Oh thank God you're here," Brad's mom says, patting her chest as though trying to calm herself. "What's going on with Brad?"
Nate blinks. "I don't – something's wrong?"
Mrs. Colbert's face falls. "He was fine on Friday night; on Saturday morning he looked as though somebody had stolen his bike in the middle of the night. He was gone all day yesterday. I thought he was at his SATs, but Ray called in a panic last night convinced Brad had been eaten by bears or something."
"Mrs. C, you know you can't listen to Ray. Ray's like a crack baby."
She smiles wanly. "Don't say things like that about Ray; he's just different."
"If that's what you want to call it."
"What's wrong with Brad, Nate? I'm trying not to bother him; I know how you boys are. I just – I'm worried."
Nate doubts she knows quite how they are. Hell, he doesn't even know how they are, but he'll keep that to himself. "I know you're worried about his SATs, but he can retake them in November."
Mrs. Colbert gives him a dismissive wave. "I'm not worried about his SATs; those school's've been waiting since his freshman year. I'm worried that my baby didn't eat his dinner last night and that nobody seems to know what's wrong with him. Do you really not know what's wrong, Nate? You don't have any idea?"
Nate glances over Mrs. Colbert's shoulder, trying to think of something to say but his thoughts are drowned out by the familiar rumble of a motorcycle engine. He turns in time to see Brad pulling into the driveway. Nate rubs his hands on his shirt because they feel clammy.
He watches as Brad cuts the engine and pulls off his helmet. Brad sits there for several seconds, very much not looking at Nate. Then he climbs off of his motorcycle, and walks up the stone pathway to the front door, cutting directly between Nate and his mother as he stalks into the house.
Brad slows down just enough to give Nate a look that's almost despairing before it slides into something much angrier. It's the sort of hard look that earned Brad his nickname in the first place. Nate's lungs aren't giving him enough air to breathe through this.
Nate watches Brad walk away from him and years of friendship start flashing before his eyes. He opens his mouth, but he has no idea what to say. The only thing that comes out is Brad's name. It's plaintive and desperate; Brad pauses down the hall.
Nate tries to walk into the house, to follow him, but he's stopped by Mrs. Colbert's hand on his chest.
"Maybe you should go," she suggests lightly.
Nate nods wordlessly and walks away.
He doesn’t know how long it takes him to get home, but when he does, his mother is waiting on the front steps. She has the portable phone next to her, and by the consoling look on her face Nate doesn't even have to guess who she was talking to. When he gets close, she tugs on the leg of his pants and he sits down next to her. When she pats his knee, he rests his head on her shoulder.
At least he still has her.
Part II
Generation Kill
Nate Fick/Brad Colbert
Word Count: 34,876
Alternate Universe, NC-17
Brad Colbert is bored.
Nate knows this because he can feel Brad staring at him from his desk one aisle over and two chairs back. On the other side of the classroom, Ray Person's making obscene hand signals in Nate's general direction, ostensibly to get Brad's attention. At least it better be to get Brad's attention, or somebody's going to have an accident in the weight room before practice.
Regardless of whatever inanity Ray's performing for the viewing public and Marissa Henderson's amusement, Nate's pretty sure it won't work on Brad. Mostly because he can feel Brad's eyes drilling holes into the back of his head. He is not going to turn around, though; that's just what Brad wants him to do.
At the blackboard, Ms. Turner is lecturing on The Grapes of Wrath. Nate actually likes Steinbeck. If you pull out every other chapter of this particular book, and ignore the brambles and tumbleweeds, it's a pretty compelling narrative.
"The Joads suffering in the dust bowl is similar to the Great Depression as we've experienced it in Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie, despite the fact that they seem so dissimilar," Ms. Turner says, which Nate jots down in his notes.
He's not really taking copious notes, but he's taking some.
It's AP English -- on some level you're required to take notes. Even if in reality you’re only writing down plays for football practice in 21 minutes.
A tiny, balled-up wad of paper sails right over Nate's shoulder, bounces off the middle ring of his three-ring binder and rolls to a stop just shy of falling onto the floor.
Nate flicks it away with his thumb and index finger.
Brad definitely wants attention.
Seconds later another wad of paper lands on Nate's desk. And then another. And another.
It's attack by spit balls, minus the spit. They agreed not to do the spit thing anymore after that unfortunate incident where one spit ball went wide and ended up across the aisle and attached to Maureen Trotsky's glasses. She didn't appreciate that much.
Godfather appreciated them being late for practice because they had detention even less.
And yet, something that feels suspiciously like a spit ball lands on Nate's exposed neck, right above the collar of his shirt.
Nate's been slimed.
In the seat behind him, Gina Fitzgerald snickers as he slaps his neck and grumbles softly to himself.
Ms. Turner is drawing parallel timelines of Grapes of Wrath and The Great Depression on the blackboard, so Nate turns around. "What?" he hisses over his left shoulder, pushing his hair behind his ear so it's not obstructing the way he's glowering.
Brad's smile could fool a nun. Nate Fick is not a nun.
As Brad's co-captain on the Oceanside High football team, Nate knows all about the ways in which Brad Colbert fools the world at large. Epically tall, with legs like a thoroughbred and a face that would make any Jewish mother beam with pride, Brad Colbert presents a truly formidable facade.
Brad bats his eyelashes rapidly and blows him a kiss. Nate scowls. "Is there a problem, Nate?" Ms. Turner's nasally tenor cuts through Nate's thoughts of smacking Brad in the back of the head with a football.
"No problem here, Ms. Turner," Brad says guilelessly. "Nate just dropped his pen. I was handing it back to Gina."
Nate dropped his pen. Three seats behind him. Right.
Not that Brad's arms aren't long enough to stretch the length of three chairs and an aisle. At 17, Brad's six feet two according to their football coaches and he's only going to grow more. The college scouts are practically wetting themselves.
Nate just hit six feet a month ago. To celebrate, Brad liberated a six pack of Budweiser from his dad, and he and Nate broke into the OHS football field and drank beer and tossed a ball around until three in the morning.
Nate fell asleep in homeroom the next day.
Gina hands Nate her pen and he turns back around with a broad smile. "Got it, Ms. Turner," he says brightly, showing her a pink sparkly pen with some sort of furry animal on top. Jesus Christ.
Ms. Turner smiles. Teachers are always smiling at Nate.
She turns back to the board and Nate turns around. "You're going down," he mouths to Brad, who grins broadly. Nate smiles at Gina and gives her back the abomination she calls a pen.
Seventeen minutes to go.
Nate spends a lot of time staring at ass. Poke's ass, Walt's ass, Q-Tip's ass, Mike's ass, Brad's ass. Too much ass. At least too much of the wrong kind of ass.
He shades his eyes from the glare of the afternoon sun to get a better look at the varsity cheerleaders practicing at the other end of the football field, and in particular, at Tanya Reyes and Jenny Taylor. Nate's a big fan of flexibility, but all ass is not created the same. Some ass is definitely superior to other ass.
He darts a look at his offensive line running drills just to make sure Poke doesn't catch him scoping out his girlfriend, or worse, that Rudy doesn't catch him eyeballing his little sister.
"She does have a fine pair, doesn't she, Captain?" Nate stiffens automatically, before shooting a glare at Brad.
"Shut up," he says, punching his star wide receiver in the arm with only a mild amount of force. His knuckles glance off Brad's shoulder pads and end up banging his bicep.
Brad rubs his arm. "Such violence, Nate; I don’t know what's brought this on. The youth of today are such a tragic tale. All they think about is pussy and football."
Nate shakes his head. "I didn't know pussy and football were so tragic."
"They are when you get cornered by the head of the National Honor Society, who wants to know why you're wasting your time on the field when you could be in the classroom."
Nate 'hmm's in agreement. "Did you mention the pussy part?"
Brad shrugs. "Yeah, but I don’t think Mrs. Perkins is really into pussy."
"That's a shame for Mr. Perkins," Mike Wynn says, joining their conversation, helmet tucked under his arm.
Brad and Nate nod in agreement. "You know if Poke catches you looking at his girl, he's going to liberate you of your nuts," Brad says.
"I'll tell him you started it by waxing rhapsodic about her 'fine pair' as you put it," Nate says.
"You'd sell me out to the Mexicans like that? I'm hurt."
There's a sharp whistle from Sixta on the sidelines. "You wants to get your asses down here, now," he barks. "'Less you girls wanna spend all afternoon doing suicides! Don’t bother me none, but Godfather mights have a problem with it!"
Nate falls into quickstep with Mike and Brad automatically. In his periphery he can see Walt Hasser dragging Ray down the field by the collar of his red and white practice jersey.
On the sidelines, Godfather's sporting his Oceanside Football hat pulled down almost to his nose and a tight smile. The team drop to one knee to look up at their coach.
Godfather nods approvingly and then clears his throat. "Gentlemen, divisional playoffs start next week, after that regional and then state. Now, some might think that Godfather would be satisfied with having won the regional title in '92 and state in '93, and those pansy-ass bitches would be wrong! Why? Because we're Devil Dogs and a Devil Dog is about gettin' some. Am I right?!"
"Sir, yes, sir!" the team barks in tandem.
"And we're gonna do what?"
"Get some, sir!"
Godfather smiles. "Good, now it's time to go over Godfather's plans for how we're going to fuck up those Delta retards, who stand between us and our next step on the road to state. Not that it's politically correct to call 'em that, but fuck the Board of Education -- they are what they are," he rasps.
The boys laugh dutifully.
"Could you be a sweetheart and pass me the potatoes?" Nate's mom asks. They're having a late dinner, but Nate's been having a late dinner ever since he started playing football in 7th grade.
His dad's hours at the courthouse are anything but regular, especially when there are long trials, and since his sisters have gone off to college, it's mostly just him and his mom at the dinner table.
And Brad.
In fact, as Nate reaches out to grab the mashed potatoes he gets cockblocked by Brad, since Brad's octopus-like arms get there first.
When Barbara Fick laughs, you can see her dimples. Nate has her eyes and his dad's hair. "I meant Brad, sweetheart," she says, patting Nate on the hand, "not you, but I can see how you'd get confused."
Nate scowls at Brad as he passes Nate's mom the bowl and then goes back to the roast beef on his own plate. Brad's just lifting up his fork when Nate kicks him under the table. Brad jumps, his knees bumping the table top and causing all the bowls and plates to shift.
"What was that?" Nate's mom asks.
Nate smiles as Brad smacks him in the arm. "Nothing, mom."
His mom laughs. "Nate, you're a terrible liar."
"He's just mad that you like me better," Brad says sagely.
"That's not true," Nate protests.
"It's okay; everybody likes me better."
"I cannot tell a lie," Nate's mom says before pausing. "I love you both."
"Yes, but you love me more," Brad amends. "Don't worry, we won't tell Nate."
Nate glares at Brad. "Shut up, Colbert."
"Make me, Fick."
Nate's halfway out of his seat before he remembers where he is. His mother just shakes her head. "If you two are done eating, you can clear off the table, and then you can roughhouse."
Brad scoops up some mashed potatoes with his fingers and shoves them between his lips just as Nate pops his last floret of broccoli in his own mouth. They nod. "Done."
His mom just laughs. "I'm going out for a walk," she says, pushing back from the table. "There's strawberries in the refrigerator, if you want them. Don't put them in each other's ears."
"That happened one time!" Brad protests.
Last year Barbara Fick and Rachel Colbert took their sons on a field trip to the Strawberry Festival in Oxnard. On the way home there was a reenactment of Alexander the Great and Darius III at the Battle of the Issus.
Brad smeared strawberries all over Nate and managed to get them in his ears. Brad claimed Nate had incited him to riot; Nate claimed innocence. It wasn't his fault if a few strawberries found their way down Brad's shorts.
"I still have faint strawberry stains in the backseat of my car, Bradley," Barbara says.
Nate snickers, just dodging Brad's elbow. His mother raises an eyebrow. "Also, don't flood the kitchen again. Or burn anything down. Or make any more dents in the wall in the family room."
"That dent was his fault," Brad says, pointing to Nate.
"He tripped me," Nate counters.
Nate's mom points to the sink. "Dishes. Now."
Doing the dishes tends to go a lot faster when it's both of them. At least the dish-washing part goes faster. So does their burping contest. The part where they get suds all over the place and end up swamping the countertop is always a little problematic.
Tonight, when Nate finds himself flinging a pot of soapy suds in Brad's face, he at least has the foresight to make sure Brad's near the sink.
There's absolutely no reason for Brad to toss that pan of cold water at his crotch.
Nate's skin crawls from the sudden change in temperature, and he unbuttons his jeans and shoves them down his thighs to get away from the wet denim. Except he's also standing in a puddle of water, and it's seeping into the hem of those same jeans. Even his underwear is wet.
"I hate you," he says, looking up at Brad with grave honesty.
Of course Brad misses it because he's too busy yanking his own wet tee shirt over his head. He emerges from the cotton cocoon with his hair slicked back in a damp mess. There are streams of water running down his chest and his nipples are hard. Not that Nate notices.
Brad grins at him broadly. "Don't worry. I hate you, too," he says, even as Nate grips Brad's forearm to steady himself and kick off his soaked jeans.
Brad grabs Nate when he slips in the puddle, his fingertips digging in as he holds Nate against his side to keep him on his feet.
Nate ends up with his face pressed against Brad's chest, and he chuckles when he regains his footing and pushes Brad away. "Dinner is required before I get this close to anybody," he mocks.
"We just had dinner."
"With my mom. Not the same thing."
"I'll remember that for later," Brad says, all sardonic respect.
Nate snorts and flicks Brad in the chest.
"Hi, Nate!"
Nate glances up from his locker to see a girl with blond hair waving as she walks by with her friends. He can't remember her name. Renee. Renata. Nadia. Right, Nadia.
Another girl waves. Nicky Hodes. Another girl. Melanie Sarren. A few guys, Walt, Christeson, Manimal. Lots of people seem to know Nate.
Of course, Nate is also the quarterback and co-captain of the OHS football team. He's student body vice-president, a member of the National Honor Society and Model UN. Last summer he, Brad, Poke, Mike and a couple of the other guys on the team helped out at a Pee Wees football camp that Godfather was running. And all that really means to anybody over the age of 18 is that teachers are more than willing to write him glowing recommendations for Dartmouth, Stanford and UPenn.
What it means to his classmates is that Nate's popular. He's never lacked for friends or teammates or girlfriends, if he's wanted them. His last relationship, with a girl named Tracy Andrews, lasted six months until she graduated and went off to college.
Nate never thought much of being a junior and dating a senior, but his teammates loved it, and in high school peer standing is everything.
Nate liked Tracy. She was a nice girl -- pretty, smart, uncomplicated. His mom liked her, too. She was the second girl he'd ever had sex with. He wasn't insanely in love with her, but they worked out well enough.
She wasn't Natalie. Then again, nobody's Natalie.
"Hi, Nate." Nate's hands clench around his Calculus book even as he looks around his locker and into dark brown eyes and a wry, slick smile. Nate takes in Natalie Wayne slouched against the locker next to his in a fitted black shirt and denim skirt and his stomach goes tight.
Natalie loves Wet'n'Wild cherry red lip gloss.
And black high-top Chuck Taylors.
But not Nate.
"Hey, Nat," he says evenly.
Natalie Wayne is the first girl that Nate truly had feelings for. They dated for four months in tenth grade, right after Craig Schwetje hurt his shoulder and Nate went from playing reserve to being first-string quarterback for the Devil Dogs.
Natalie's smart and sarcastic. She plays soccer in the fall and lacrosse in the spring. Her dad's a Marine at Pendleton and she has three older brothers, all of whom plan to join the Corps once they're done with college.
Nate remembers these things like he remembers the first time they had sex.
"You ready for the game next week?" she asks, brushing her bangs out of her eyes.
Nate smiles. "As ready as I'll ever be."
"You ready for the SATs on Saturday?" When they were together, Natalie had long hair that reached her shoulders; at the start of their senior year, she came to school with it in a short punky style. Her bangs are now the longest part of her hair.
Nate laughs and pushes his own hair out of his eyes. "Is anybody ever ready for those?"
"Yeah, but what'd you get the last time around? Like a 1400?"
"I wish." Nate got a 1360.
He doesn't have to take them again, but he wants to. Brad got a 1430 without studying. Nate has to redeem himself.
"I'm sure you'll do great," Natalie says cheerfully before a shadow falls over the conversation and her eyes crinkle at the corners. "Hi, Brad."
Nate looks over his shoulder just as Brad bumps him hard in the back. Brad just grunts at Natalie. "I need my Calculus book," he says pointedly to Nate.
"Why?" Nate asks, turning away from Natalie. "You never use it."
"That's entirely beside the point." Brad's grin is all teeth.
Nate shakes his head. "You just want something to draw dirty pictures in."
"I'm enlightening future generations," Brad says judiciously.
"You could use your own locker."
Brad clutches his chest in mock horror. "Why would I do that? Besides, I don't even remember where it is."
"Brad."
Brad doesn't do the innocent thing well. "Yes, Nate?" he says, all false virtuousness.
Nate turns back to Natalie, who's watching their exchange with an air of great amusement. Nate makes an exasperated noise and steps back to grant Brad access to his locker. "You're hopeless," he says, waving Brad on.
Brad digs around before extracting a book and smiling radiantly. "That's why I have you. Unlike some people, I'm not stupid enough to let you go."
Nate can feel his eyes going wide, Natalie just snorts. "Real subtle there, Brad," she says before walking off.
Godfather gives the seniors sitting the SATs on Saturday special dispensation to leave practice early on Thursday and Friday, which is probably the worst thing possible for Nate. The last thing he needs is more time to worry about his future. Or to worry about his Humanities test next week. Or to stress about his Andronicus translation for Latin. Or to think about all the ways he's going to fail Calculus if Brad doesn't manage to imbue him with some of his mathematical brilliance.
About an hour after dinner (stuffed pork chops – Nate's favorite), he finds himself going for a run. The tape in his Walkman is a motivational mix that Ray put together for the team over the summer, which means Snoop's 'Gin and Juice' and Ice Cube's 'It Was a Good Day' are right alongside Beck singing 'Loser.'
He doesn't have a set destination in mind; he just needs to do something to stop staring at his walls, at his prep books. At all that fucking homework.
He instinctively runs towards Brad's house, but there are no cars in the driveway. No motorcycle at the curb. Not that Brad's supposed to be riding his motorcycle during the season, but since he just got his learner's permit in August, that hasn’t stopped him in the slightest.
Nate runs across the lawn that Brad mowed last week and rings the doorbell. He waits and then he waits some more. He steps back and looks up at Brad's window, third from the right, but there's no sign of life.
Eventually he gives up and moves on.
He runs out of their housing development, along the main road until the sky turns pale gold and blue and there's just enough sunlight for him to see his way home.
There's nobody in the house when he gets back, but there's a note from his mom on the kitchen counter: she's at the movies with his dad, his sister Emily called to wish him good luck, and there's a tub of chocolate ice cream in the refrigerator if Nate wants it.
Nate takes the stairs up to his room two at a time. He leaves his clothes in a trail to the bathroom and then takes the hottest shower he can stand and washes his hair. He jerks himself off, bracing one arm next to the shower spray and pulling with the other. He thinks about Natalie, about the way she smiled at him the first time they were together, how wet she was, the noises she made, the way she broke his heart when she said she didn't think it would work out.
His erection dies off in irritation at this line of thought, so Nate ends his shower.
He collects his clothes on his way back to his bedroom, where he turns on the lights and looks around with a sigh. He pulls on a pair of boxers and a tee shirt, tosses his sweaty workout clothes in the hamper and turns on the radio. Tom Petty's singing about Mary Jane as Nate stretches out on his bed. He needs to look at his prep books again. Maybe he should look at his Physics homework instead. He needs to call Mike about that -- he doesn't know what the hell they're doing in that class.
All the diagrams in the world don't make up for practical application.
He doesn't remember falling asleep until a sharp knock wakes him and he falls off the bed with a start.
"Don't tell me I woke you up," Brad teases, poking his head into Nate's bedroom window before climbing inside.
"I feel like I don't tell you enough how much I hate you," Nate says, rubbing at his eyes as Brad turns on the desk lamp. The room is otherwise dark; Nate's mom must've turned out his lights. Brad's in a tee shirt and surfer shorts, but lacking shoes. How Brad. "What time is it?"
After four years Nate should be used to Brad just showing up in his room. The first time Brad knocked on the second story window of Nate's bedroom in the middle of the night, they were 13. Brad had pushed the ladder from his house half a mile away in a wheelbarrow because he was bored and felt that it was Nate's duty to entertain him.
"Time for all good little boys to be in bed," Brad says, dropping down on Nate's messy twin bed with a rattle of the bed frame. "So why are you passed out on the floor?"
Nate punches Brad in the shin even as he climbs up on the bed and stretches out perpendicular to Brad so his legs are thrown over Brad's knees and his head is back on his pillow. "Ow," Brad says belatedly.
"You do know we have SATs tomorrow," Nate says around a yawn. "I know you're insanely brilliant and like to remind the rest of the world of their stupidity on a regular basis, but c'mon."
Nate tosses his forearm over his eyes and tries to go back to sleep. Brad's fingers are stroking along the inside of his knee though. It's making Nate twitch.
"Was there something you wanted?" Nate says, "or did you just think since you were up, I should be up, too?"
"I hate Natalie," Brad says bluntly. "I thought you should know that."
Nate laughs and lifts his forearm so he can push himself up on his elbows. "Brad, I know you hate Natalie. Natalie knows you hate Natalie."
"Oh," Brad frowns. "Well, if you get back with her, I swear I'll kidnap you for your own good."
Nate pushes his hair out of his eyes. "I'm not getting back with Natalie. At this point the only things I'm 'getting with' are my college applications and that fucking playbook," Nate says, pointing to the five-inch binder of all their potential plays listed in alphabetical order.
"So, you're not seeing anybody?" Brad asks.
Nate can feel the confusion on his own face. "Don't you think you'd know if I was seeing anybody? Even if I didn't tell you, my mom would tell your mom and you'd know anyway."
Brad seems to think this over. "I had to check," he says, wriggling out from underneath Nate's legs.
"Why'd you have to check now?" Nate asks, even as Brad crawls up the bed towards him. Nate collapses back on his pillows, staring up at Brad.
His brain scrambles to connect the dots when Brad stops, looming over him and blocking out everything else.
Nate can feel the confused, wary smile struggling on his face. In his periphery he can see Brad's arm moving. He watches in something like fascination as Brad's fingers skirt over his cheek and his thumb brushes over Nate's mouth. And he can't just see it: he can feel it.
Brad's thumb is rough, warm. It drags along the dry skin of Nate's lips, ghosting over the swollen, red part where Nate bit himself when he got sacked at practice earlier.
Nate parts his lips to wet them, to make the slide easier, before he realizes what just happened.
"Brad, what – " Nate's words die off when he realizes that if Brad shifts an inch or two the right, parts are going to be pressing together. Nate normally doesn’t get this close to other guys. At least not off the football field.
"Can I kiss you?"
Nate blinks. "Is this a prank?" he asks suspiciously. "Fuck with Nate so he'll stop stressing out?"
"No."
"No," Nate repeats, not quite processing.
"No," Brad confirms.
A beat.
Another beat.
"Oh god," Nate says, digging his fingers into his sheets as he realizes Brad's serious.
"Nate."
Brad's using that tone. The one Nate's heard him use with his younger cousins and the little kids at football camp. It's the voice he uses on people he wants to coax. It's soft enough to require the listener to strain to hear whatever Brad's saying. And right now, Nate is under a lot of strain: trying to pay attention to Brad, to Brad's eyelashes and the way he just licked his lips.
When Nate inhales, he can smell Brad. Brad who doesn't smell like sweaty, grimy teenage boy, but like soap and shaving cream. Like he cleaned up before he came over.
Oh, holy shit.
Brad's stretching out now, lowering his body and blocking out the light from Nate's desk lamp. Slow enough to give Nate a chance to get used to the idea but fast enough to make his intentions clear. Nate looks away, at the walls around his bed that are plastered with photos of friends and family. Of Brad. Of Brad and Nate, who have been friends since Nate's family moved to Oceanside from Baltimore when Nate was 11.
There have been a lot of crushes in their lives. A lot of girls -- and Nate can't think of the last girl that Brad dated that he liked. Not Sharon or Lisa or Sarah or Monica. He'd kind of liked Helen, but only because she never seemed to think she and Brad were anything serious. Not like the other girls.
Not like… not like them.
"Nate? Nate, you don't have – we – I – shit."
Nate turns back at the uncertainty he can hear in Brad's voice.
Brad's eyes are downcast and he's not looking at Nate, which Nate can't take. Nate untangles his fingers from the sheets and grips at Brad's waist, at his shirt, pulling him down, keeping him near. He has no idea what he's doing, but he knows he doesn't want Brad running away.
Brad inhales sharply and Nate bites his lip, worrying the injury from earlier with his tongue.
The team nicknamed Brad "Iceman" when they were freshmen. They said he was calm, cold, perfectly collected, but Nate's never really seen that. He's just seen Brad, who is blindingly smart, devastatingly funny and honest, and who is always by his side. Brad who, right now, is hot against him and shaking just that little bit.
Nate lifts his head and brushes his mouth over Brad's lips, eyes wide open. Brad makes this startled noise, pulling back to stare at Nate for the length of a heartbeat, and then he's descending, lips parted.
Nate's not expecting Brad's tongue to lick at the seam of his lips, he's not expecting to open his own mouth, but he does anyway. And then Brad pulls back, nuzzles the side of Nate's face, his jaw, nips at his ear, which unsettles Nate tremendously, and then his mouth is back on Nate's and Nate forgets being startled. He forgets that he doesn't do this with guys.
Brad tastes like toothpaste, like he planned and hoped. Like he wants Nate.
Nate's hands slide up Brad's back, feeling the expanse of muscle from the gym and all those passes he's received from Nate's arm. Brad pulls away and Nate gasps for air, even as Brad's mouth moves down Nate’s neck, biting and then soothing the hurt away with his tongue. His thigh presses down on Nate's cock, and Nate surges upward, his cock jerking in his boxers as Brad murmurs against his neck. Encouraging him. "Off," is probably the only word that processes in Nate's head.
"Nuhhh," Nate replies, his tongue too thick for his mouth.
Brad lifts his head, his lips slick and puffy and his hair everywhere. "Take your shirt off," he says hoarsely, pulling urgently on the hem of Nate's shirt.
Nate swallows. Brad just saw him without a shirt a few days ago, but this isn't like that at all. It doesn't feel wrong, it just feels… different. Very different.
He pulls off his shirt, discarding it over the side of the bed and whacking his wrist on the nightstand. "You too."
Brad sits up automatically, yanking at his shirt with something close to desperation. What should be a fluid movement is decidedly ungainly, and again, Nate has no idea how all those stupid girls could see Brad as anything besides a 17 year-old boy, albeit one with very well-defined muscles.
Nate's not entirely blind; he has noticed this. He also notices the way Brad quivers when Nate touches his stomach. The way Brad leans in when Nate's hand slides up his chest, his ring finger brushing over Brad's right nipple.
Nate's dick jerks in his boxers, spreading precome everywhere, making him feel damp, sticky and very horny. He sits up as much as possible given Brad's place on his thighs and curls a hand around Brad's neck. "C'mon," he says, tugging Brad forward, and then they're kissing again, except this isn't kissing the way Nate's done it with anybody else. Not even Natalie. This is intense and aggressive. There are teeth, slick mouths and all Nate wants to do is suck on Brad's tongue.
His hands are all over Brad's chest, scratching against his ribs, dragging nails up Brad’s back. Brad doesn't have tits, but he responds very vocally to Nate thumbing his nipples, burying his face in Nate's neck and biting him hard.
Nate spares a thought for his parents down the hall, but there are his sisters' two empty bedrooms, a guest room and a bathroom between them and him; everybody's used to Brad being in Nate's room anyway.
Did everybody else see this but him?
Brad's hands are tangling with Nate's fingers, pushing Nate's arms over his head, stretching him out so he can't help but rut against Brad's thigh. Can't help but arch up and make wanting noises that he's never heard anywhere outside of the worn porn tapes that the guys on the team pass around like an STD.
Nate frees his hands and uses them to push Brad back, locking a leg around Brad's calf to urge him over. Brad pulls back, discombobulation writ clear. "What's wrong?" he rasps out, eyes wide and mouth shiny.
Nate sighs even as he leans in to bite at Brad's lower lip. Brad closes his eyes and makes another of those startled noises, but the way he moans against Nate's mouth conveys plenty. Nate moves away and Brad follows blindly, only opening his eyes when another kiss isn't forthcoming.
"On your back," Nate says.
Brad's eyes go dark, and then he's scooting around, physically trying to move Nate when Nate's already moving. Nate laughs softly, even as he gets knocked into the wall. "In a minute," he says, trying to get himself resettled with Brad's hands groping his ass, "in a minu—"
His words are cut off by Brad's hands on his chest, Brad's fingers rolling his nipples between thumb and forefinger. He's using too much pressure. Twisting too hard. Nate gasps roughly, and then Brad curls up and there's a wet tongue soothing away the hurt.
Nate's fingers clutch at Brad's hair to hold him still as every nerve in Nate's body goes on red alert. "Oh, fuck," he hisses, shoving Brad away so he can get his hands on his cock.
Nate jams his hand in the opening of his boxers, the seams ripping as he wraps his hand around his cock, which is swollen and wet, throbbing at whatever sort of insane response Brad's just introduced it to.
"Nate…Nate…" Brad's saying his name, but Nate can't answer right now.
Brad's hands are on his ass, grinding him down on Brad's lap and against Brad's cock, which is pressing rather insistently against Nate's ass through Brad's shorts. Nate bites down hard enough to cut off the groan threatening to escape. He can taste the blood from his now re-injured lip.
There are hands urging him to move, squeezing his ass, fingers digging into the cleft, pressing hard. Nate just goes with it, rides Brad's thrusts while jerking himself off, and then Brad's entire body shakes and goes slack.
Nate's virtually positive that Brad just came in his shorts, which is fine for him, but all the motion has stopped, which is not cool. Nate glares. "Don't you fucking dare stop now, Colbert," he snaps.
Brad fixes him with a perfectly glassy stare and something wails inside of Nate, but then Brad pulls him down, licking at Nate’s mouth and shoving a hand inside his boxers.
Brad's hand is damp and his fingers are longer than Nate's, his palm bigger, with different calluses. Brad wraps his hand around Nate's, urging him to completion with another lift of his hips. His thumb swirls around the head of Nate's cock and then the tips of his fingers brush against Nate's balls, and that's it.
Nate comes, grunting against Brad's mouth, his entire body rioting with the force of something much bigger than him.
Brad tugs his hand out from between them as Nate sprawls on his chest, and Nate watches blearily as Brad wipes his fingers on the sheets. Nate yawns, and underneath him Brad's chest rises and falls -- and Nate's brain begins to panic.
Severely.
Nate sits up so quickly, he staggers when he gets off the bed. "Nate?" Brad says, struggling to push himself upright as Nate moves away. His voice is husky, tone wary.
Nate shakes his head, tripping over his running shoes and knocking into his hamper. Brad's in Nate's bed kind of naked. And messy. With a dark stain on his shorts and his mouth…
"What did I – we – Brad, what the hell?" Nate can't even finish a thought.
He doesn't even want to try.
He fumbles the doorknob trying to get away, staggering down the hall until he's in the bathroom, where he sits down on the floor and stares at the blue, yellow and green Spanish tiling that his sisters love so much. He locks the door and tries to process a thought. Any thought that doesn't have to do with the look on Brad's face when he came.
What the fuck did they just do?
10 (soon to be 11) year-old Nate Fick met Brad Colbert on the first day of summer in 1989. It was the second day Nate's family had been in California and the day they moved into 315 Sycamore Avenue in Bravo Terrace.
Bravo Terrace was a new-ish housing development on the outskirts of Oceanside, California, advertised as suburban living for the middle-class and Marine officers with families.
It was fairly early in the morning, the grass still damp, but Nate's family had been awake for hours. The moving men were all over the house, being directed by Nate's mom and given cold drinks by Nate's sisters, Diane and Emily. Nate and his dad were sitting on the lawn, his dad trying to show Nate how to whistle using a blade of grass.
When Nate asked his dad why they weren't helping the movers, his dad laughed. "Son, one day you'll learn when to fight your battles and when to just let things go. Your mom wants to handle this – I'm letting her. "
Nate didn't get it, but he nodded anyway and went back to spitting on his thumbs. A red blur passed by his house. Nate glanced up and then looked a little harder. The red blur was a boy peddling furiously on a bike.
As Nate watched, the bike skidded hard, and the boy fell off and onto the street. After a moment he got up, brushed off his knees, got back on his bike and peddled over to Nate's house.
The bike was nice, shiny. And very red.
Nate's parents had promised him a new bike when they moved, but they hadn't taken him to pick it out yet.
The boy pushed his bike over the curb, onto the grass, and up to where Nate sat with his dad. His knees were bleeding, but he didn't seem to notice. He stared at Nate boldly, so Nate stared back. "I'm Brad," he said. "Who are you?"
Brad spoke with a lisp and had metal on his teeth, which Nate recognized from the retainer he'd had to wear for the last eight months. "I'm Nate, we just moved here from—"
"I'll get it!" a shrill voice called from the house and seconds later Diane dashed out of the house and into the garage.
Brad looked from Nate to the garage and back to Nate. "That your sister?"
Nate made a face. "Yeah, Diane. I have another one, too -- Emily."
Brad made the same face. "Yeah, I have two sisters, too, only they don't look like me 'cause I'm adopted."
Nate looked over at his dad, who didn't seem to be paying much attention to them. Nate only had a vague idea of what 'adopted' meant, but he didn't think now was the time to ask. So he asked a better question. "D'you wanna see my light saber?"
Brad grinned. "Sure."
And they'd been friends ever since.
Nate wakes up because someone's knocking. He's cramped, his back and his neck are on fire. It takes him a minute to orient himself, to realize he's in the bathroom. Correction: still in the bathroom. Still on the floor with his back against the tub. "Nate?"
"Yeah?" His voice sounds like he's 80.
"Sweetheart, are you okay? Your father said you were in there when he went for his run earlier."
Nate's mind whirs. His dad runs at 5:30 a.m. If his mom's up and his dad's back it has to be after 7.
"I know you have your SATs," his mother carries on, "but if you're not feeling well, you already have that great score. You don’t have to take them again you know. Dartmouth already loves you."
Nate swallows down the bile in his throat. His parents are up. He's been in here all night.
Brad must … oh, god. Brad.
"I'm fine, Mom," he rasps out, getting to his feet despite the protests of his body. "I'll be out soon," he calls, as he turns on the shower to drown out any more questions.
He spares a glance for himself in the mirror and all he sees is the red mark on his collarbone. A mark that Brad left on him -- but Nate doesn't have time to worry about Brad Colbert and his presumption and the way he smiles when Nate laughs. He has to think about geometry and logic equations and diagramming sentences.
He can't think about Brad's fingers stroking the inside of his knee -- when did he start doing that and why didn't Nate notice sooner? Why did Brad do this? What the hell are they going to do?
Nate throws up in the sink.
He doesn't feel any better afterwards.
Nate's spent more Saturdays at Oceanside High than he's spent anywhere else. Football practice. Football games. Student government car washes. Bake sales. When he and Brad were in middle school, Brad's dad used to bring them here on Sunday afternoons, when he wasn't working at his computer consulting business, and toss the ball around with them and let them race each other.
The SATs are being held in the Science corridor, and Nate recognizes several people milling around.
He checks in and makes his way to whatever classroom Duquesne through Finnegan is assigned to.
The classroom is half full. Nate picks a desk and puts down his sweatshirt and four No. 2 pencils. He goes back into the hall to get some water and take a leak, and gets ambushed by Ray Person coming out of the bathroom.
"Where's Brad?" Ray says.
It could be a trick question. Nate just blinks. Ray's black hair is everywhere and he looks slightly manic. Which is pretty much par for the course with Ray. He's wearing a Metallica shirt and his shoes are unlaced.
"Nate," Ray waves frantically in Nate's face. "Anybody home at the WASP house? All that New England inbreeding collapse your brain?"
Nate rolls his eyes. "What do you mean 'where's Brad'? Why the hell are you asking me?"
Ray's scoffs loudly. "Why the hell do you think I'm asking you? Who the fuck else should I ask? His parole officer? His moms? Actually, you gotta quarter? I should call; maybe he overslept."
"Ray, shut up and calm down," Nate orders.
Ray taps his foot rapidly. "He's not here, Nate."
"Of course he's here. Just because your little Brad radar didn't ping automatically when he walked in doesn't mean he's not here."
Ray grabs Nate's wrist and drags him across the hall to a room labeled Chung-Dunhill. "Look," Ray says dragging him inside. "See this room? See how there's no Brad here? I am telling you 'he's not here'."
"Ray, he'll be here," Nate says, freeing himself from a surprisingly tight grasp. "And if he's not, it's not as though he hasn't already taken them anyway."
Ray stares at Nate. "Are you shitting me? Are you even here today? I'm seeing you, but maybe your brain is still at home dreaming about using a football like a pussy. They didn't count last time."
Nate can feel his eye twitching. "What do you mean it didn't count last time? He told me he got like a 14-something."
"He got a 1430, 40, whatever on the practice SAT," Ray says peevishly. "He hasn't taken real ones."
Nate can feel his blood going cold. "He'll be here, Ray," he says, refusing to let his voice waver. "You know he will. And if he's not, they're offered again in November. Enough with the fire drills."
"But, Nate—"
"Enough, Ray!" Nate snaps.
Nate can feel people staring as he turns around, and down the hall Walt Hasser and Steven Lovell are watching them curiously. Nate nods curtly before going back into his classroom to get settled.
He slides into his chair and tries not to think about what it means if Brad doesn't take his SATs. Cal-tech and M.I.T. have been sniffing around Brad for ages, ever since he got caught hacking into the IRS in 8th grade. Of course, Brad's parents almost sent him to military school after that fiasco, too. God knows Florida or USC would love to have Brad playing ball for them. Brad wouldn’t jeopardize that just because Nate – they --
No.
Brad would never jeopardize his future because of some misunderstanding between them. Not that this is a misunderstanding.
Nate isn’t sure what it is, but he knows this is far past a misunderstanding. If the roles were reversed – not that Nate ever thought they'd be here in the first place – but if they were different, Nate's not sure he'd be thinking very clearly either.
Hell, Nate's not sure he's thinking clear anyway.
He's not mad. It kind of hard to be mad since he kissed Brad first. But he had to. He wanted to. But he's not – and they don't – and he's just… he's confused.
He is so fucking confused.
The SATs are just as much of a nightmare the second time around. Nate goes home after they're through and goes directly to bed. It's not as though he got much sleep last night.
He sleeps until there's a knock at his door and his mom appears with a tray of food. "I brought you some dinner," she says sliding the tray onto his desk. "Try to eat something, okay?"
Nate nods blearily and then goes back to sleep. His dreams are all specific: Brad's in danger and Nate has to save him. They're in the jungle. They're in the desert. They're locked in a building, a goddamn dragon after them, and Nate's rushing everywhere, desperate to find Brad, but around every corner is Ray, who keeps yelling at Nate, "What the hell were you thinking?"
His subconscious is not very subtle.
Nate spends Sunday morning in his room. He goes down for pancakes in the morning and informs his mom and dad that he's going to be studying for his Humanities test today, but he's been sitting on his bed surrounded by his notes about Plato's Republic for the last hour and his eyes keep roving over the copious pictures plastered up with tacks and clear tape.
There are music posters: Nirvana, Green Day and the obligatory Cindy Crawford fold outs, but there are also old worn photos of Nate with Brad. The first camping trip Nate took with Brad's family to Yellowstone when they were 12. Two summers ago Brad went with Nate's family to the Hamptons for three weeks and Nate's 17 year-old cousin took an entirely inappropriate liking to Brad.
Ever since puberty, older women have acted inappropriately around Brad.
Nate reaches up and yanks down the photo of him on the beach with a surfboard and a bloody nose from the summer before 9th grade. It had taken Brad three weekends at the beach to teach Nate how to stand on his board. Of course those weekends were interspersed with their flirting with Cindy Margolis and Sara Reid -- and what the hell is Nate supposed to think about that? Had Brad just been playing along? Brad's had girlfriends… and Nate had hated all of them except Helen. But that was them, not Brad.
Brad's the one who cheered when Nate finally managed to stand on his board on his own – and then he snaked Nate in the wave and Nate fell off and hit his nose.
Brad's mom had taken this picture right before Nate'd tried to knock Brad unconscious with his board. Brad ended up eating a lot of sand that day, which served him right.
Nate looks up when there's a knock on his door. "Yeah?"
His dad's head peeks around the corner of the door and Nate looks up, near the top of the door frame. At 6'3, Kevin Fick is a very tall man. The sun from Nate's window glances off his father's gold-wire frames and he gives Nate a rueful smile. "You going to come out sometime today? Your mom's starting to worry."
"I'm fine."
His dad shrugs. "I had to check. She'll ask me when I go back downstairs." Nate nods. That's just how his mom is. "Also, there's a Ray Person at the door to see you."
Fuck. Nate didn't even know Ray knew where he lived. "Okay," he says.
He can just imagine what this is about. Actually, he'd rather not. He tosses the photo on his nightstand, gets up and follows his dad, jogging down the stairs behind him to where the front door is wide open and Ray's standing in all his 5 foot and change glory.
Ray’s small for a football player, but he's a terrific kicker, if you can ignore his mouth.
Nate nods to Ray and glances in the living room. It's empty. His parents must be in the kitchen. His parents are always in the kitchen: cooking, gossiping, ignoring the huge TV in the family room to watch the tiny black and white or talking on the phone to his sisters in college.
"I didn't know you knew where I lived," Nate says, leaning against the doorframe and scratching the back of his neck. He's tired. He feels tired.
Ray stares at him hard, and something goes on alert in Nate's head. Brad wouldn't… there's no way he told Ray. "What's up?" Nate prods.
"I dunno, Cap, why don't you tell me what's up?"
Nate doesn't have to pretend to be confused. "I don't know what you’re talking about."
"The hell you don't," Ray counters.
Nate takes two steps onto the porch and looks around the neighborhood. He doesn't see anybody else, but this could be a team prank. Two months ago, they toilet papered Poke's house after the recruits from USC came around, just to remind him he wasn't big time yet.
There's something about the way Ray's shifting back and forth that tells Nate this isn't something he's going to laugh about. "Ray, spit it out."
Ray shakes his head like he can't believe what he's about to say. "First the SATs and now this."
"What, Ray?"
"Brad quit."
"Brad quit what?" Nate says automatically.
Ray's incredulous stare says everything Nate doesn't want to know.
"The team!" Ray snaps. "Brad quit the team!"
Nate's narrows his eyes. "What do you mean Brad quit the team? Brad can't quit the team."
"You try telling him that!" Ray says. "What did you do to him?"
Nate can hear his heart beating in his ears. "I didn't do anything to him."
Ray's eyes narrow. "You're lying."
A muscle in Nate's temple ticks. "What was that?" he says, his voice just this side of a warning. "What'd you just say to me?"
Ray's chin juts out even as he takes a step back on the porch. "What did you do to him, Nate?"
"I didn't do anything to him." Nate can hear the edge in his tone. "I know in your hero-worship of all things Colbert-related it never crossed your fucking pea brain that maybe Brad did it himself. That maybe this is his decision."
Ray shakes his head. "He wouldn't do that," he says stubbornly.
Nate can feel his lip curling. "Then maybe you don't know Brad as well as you think you do," he says, turning around and shutting the door in Ray's face.
That would make two of them.
Nate doesn't realize his sweatpants are on backwards until he's knocking on the Colbert's front door. He sighs and pushes his hair out of his eyes. After Ray's little announcement, Nate ran upstairs, got dressed, dashed back out of the house and ran the half a mile here.
He's sweaty and his hair is sticking to his forehead.
He hasn't even brushed his teeth today.
He rings the doorbell, shifting from one leg to the other and smiling nervously when Brad's mom opens the door. Rachel Colbert is a little bit over five foot three, but she has a personality as big as her son.
"Hi, Mrs. C," Nate says, biting his lip and trying not to think about what he did with her son Friday night, which is, of course, when Nate gets a massive flashback of Brad's tongue flickering over his nipple and his hands in Brad's hair. Yurgh.
"Oh thank God you're here," Brad's mom says, patting her chest as though trying to calm herself. "What's going on with Brad?"
Nate blinks. "I don't – something's wrong?"
Mrs. Colbert's face falls. "He was fine on Friday night; on Saturday morning he looked as though somebody had stolen his bike in the middle of the night. He was gone all day yesterday. I thought he was at his SATs, but Ray called in a panic last night convinced Brad had been eaten by bears or something."
"Mrs. C, you know you can't listen to Ray. Ray's like a crack baby."
She smiles wanly. "Don't say things like that about Ray; he's just different."
"If that's what you want to call it."
"What's wrong with Brad, Nate? I'm trying not to bother him; I know how you boys are. I just – I'm worried."
Nate doubts she knows quite how they are. Hell, he doesn't even know how they are, but he'll keep that to himself. "I know you're worried about his SATs, but he can retake them in November."
Mrs. Colbert gives him a dismissive wave. "I'm not worried about his SATs; those school's've been waiting since his freshman year. I'm worried that my baby didn't eat his dinner last night and that nobody seems to know what's wrong with him. Do you really not know what's wrong, Nate? You don't have any idea?"
Nate glances over Mrs. Colbert's shoulder, trying to think of something to say but his thoughts are drowned out by the familiar rumble of a motorcycle engine. He turns in time to see Brad pulling into the driveway. Nate rubs his hands on his shirt because they feel clammy.
He watches as Brad cuts the engine and pulls off his helmet. Brad sits there for several seconds, very much not looking at Nate. Then he climbs off of his motorcycle, and walks up the stone pathway to the front door, cutting directly between Nate and his mother as he stalks into the house.
Brad slows down just enough to give Nate a look that's almost despairing before it slides into something much angrier. It's the sort of hard look that earned Brad his nickname in the first place. Nate's lungs aren't giving him enough air to breathe through this.
Nate watches Brad walk away from him and years of friendship start flashing before his eyes. He opens his mouth, but he has no idea what to say. The only thing that comes out is Brad's name. It's plaintive and desperate; Brad pauses down the hall.
Nate tries to walk into the house, to follow him, but he's stopped by Mrs. Colbert's hand on his chest.
"Maybe you should go," she suggests lightly.
Nate nods wordlessly and walks away.
He doesn’t know how long it takes him to get home, but when he does, his mother is waiting on the front steps. She has the portable phone next to her, and by the consoling look on her face Nate doesn't even have to guess who she was talking to. When he gets close, she tugs on the leg of his pants and he sits down next to her. When she pats his knee, he rests his head on her shoulder.
At least he still has her.