Generation Kill

Just a small fic i wrote after watching Generation Kill. The Brad/ Ray love is palpable. There are spoilers so beware.



Ray does shut up. Although it requires special circumstances. And one has to know when to look, when to pay attention. Like when they're on a recon mission. Obviously. However sort of an annoying shit he was, Ray is the best RTO Brad knows.
Or when he's out of Ripped Fuel. Everyone knows that shit makes anyone hyper. And Ray? Well, he turns in to a 24hr talking machine. No pauses, no stops. Just pure bullshit until it wears down.
And the third circumstance? It's his favourite. Because he'd be the one actually shutting him up with his lips and his tongue and his cock. He loves it. When he's got Ray pinned under him, babbling nonsense that whittles out in to nothing as they're both reaching the end and Ray would just look at him. And Brad would come with those stormy blue eyes fixed on his.

---

He'd known Ray for a long time. The first time he'd realised he wanted more from their relationship had been in Afghanistan. They'd gone out on a regular patrol and had come under heavy machine gun fire. It was all they could do to haul ass back to camp ASAP. When the Humvee was finally parked, he'd sat there, eyes closed, just trying to breathe. When he opened his eyes and looked across at Ray, he'd been watching him with a small grin. There was blood on his face where a stray bullet had grazed his cheek.

Brad had leaned across the seat and kissed him. Ray had tasted like blood and tobacco. It had been the best thing he'd ever tasted. And that night Ray had dragged him in to an empty room in the abandoned office building they were currently occupying and had gone down on him. Brad had fisted his fingers in Ray's hair and shook against the wall.

"Been wanting to do that since fucking forever" Ray had murmured in his ear afterwards. Brad had pressed his lips on to that dark hair and laughed softly.

Ray had fallen asleep soon after, head on Brad's shoulder and he had spent the night propped up against the wall, wondering why, after all this time, things finally felt like they fit in the right places.

---

"Fuck, my face!" Ray drops on to the pillow with a pained grunt. Brad rolls over and props up on an elbow. Ray's eyes are closed, face slightly pinched with pain. The left hand side of his face is covered in gauze in a few places.

"Teach you to make non-regulation coffee in the future" he leans down and kisses the edge of Ray's lips. Ray smiles and then winces as the movement catches at his burns.

"You gonna make it all better?" Ray asks, not opening his eyes.

Brad looks around the tent. No sounds, no movements. But these are marines. First recon marines. No way to tell whether they're awake or not. He gives a mental shrug and pushes his free hand down Ray's pants. Ray gasps and Brad catches it with his lips.

"Only if you can keep quiet"

Ray opens his eyes in slits.

"You are a cruel motherfucker, you know that?" he asks, voice quiet.

Brad grins.

"But that's why you love me"

---

Iraq was a cluterfuck of a situation. The incompetence of some of the officers in this unit was unbelievable. How they made it so far in the corps was a mystery to him. All he could do was to interpret the orders creatively and try to keep his men alive. Trying to take a city the size of Al Kut with only a few hundred marines in paper-thin Humvees was probably not the height of the marine corps' tactical genius. But he was a marine. He did as he was ordered. No matter how mind numbingly dumb they appeared to him.

---

Brad looks up from the grass and sees Ray, driving their Humvee around the convoy and getting in between the F16 fire from those Delta morons and Brad's recon group. Everything is okay in the end. No one's dead or even injured. But it could have been so much worse.

"Are you a fucking moron?" he grinds out, shoving Ray in to the side of their Humvee after they've stopped for the night. Walt gives them one glance and drags Trombley and the reporter away to two-two without a word.

"What the fuck?" Ray sounds confused but he doesn't try to push back.

"Getting in front of the F16 fire? Did you want to die? What the fuck were you thinking?" he hisses.

"What did you want me to do? Let them keep on firing at you? Jesus!" Ray swears.

"What if you'd gotten hit, you goddamn moron? Did you think you could have survived getting hit at that range?"

The anger fades from Ray's eyes.

"Brad…" Ray grips his hands in Brad's MOPP to keep him in place when he tries to step back, "Hey. Nothing happened. I'm okay"

Brad looks at him. The faint burn scars, and the dimples and those eyes that can see through him without effort. He leans his forehead against Ray's.

"Don't do it again. I wouldn't fucking know what to do"

Ray huffs out a laugh.

"Same goes for you, asshole"

---

When he was younger, he used to pretend he was a bird, an eagle flying over fields, above clouds, free of everything that tied him down on earth. He's not sure why this came to his mind when the reporter asked him about what he would have been if not a marine. So he flew. Through the grass and the flies and the voices around him drifting past him. When he finally drops to his knees in front of Ray, he feels lighter than he had in a long time. He sees the surprise on Ray's face before he collects himself. It's not often he lets himself go like this.

"You alright?" Ray asks, eyes fond.

They'd fought another war and gotten out of it alive. Yeah, he was just fine.

"Yeah. I'm good"

Ray smiles, dimples brightening his whole face.

"You sure? 'Cos it looked like you might have finally lost the plot there"

---

He knows why Ray is so antsy. Knows the reason why he lashed out at Rudy at the footy match. Another mission over and as it looks as though their unit will get split up if Nate gets in to trouble over the whole disobeying a direct order from a higher officer drama.

---

He finds Ray on the roof, sitting on a crate, shoulders a tight line of tension.

"Hey" he greets.

Ray doesn't say anything. Not that Brad expected him to. When he's upset, really upset about something, it's one of the few times Ray goes quiet.

"I told them I wouldn't go to war without you."

Still no response. Brad sighs.

"It's a promise." he says quietly and after a long moment watching Ray's tense shoulders, he walks away.

---

He smiles as he accepts the coffee. And Ray smiles back. It's a small smile but to Brad, it's blinding. He leaves the room when Evan's homemade war montage starts. He'd already been through it once, he doesn't need to see it again.

Ray finds him soon after, sitting on the stairs watching a few of the marines playing cards in the garden below them. He shifts to make space as Ray sits down next to him. Ray leans in to him, sunnies covering his eyes. Brad wraps an arm around him with a chuckle.

"Wake me up when we're out of this place" Ray says, breathing evening out already. Marines can sleep anywhere.

Brad watches the sunset colouring the sky with fire and smiles to himself as Ray mumbles softly in his sleep. He doesn't know what the future holds. There's always another war, another battle. He will go where he's told, kill people he's never met but as long as he has Ray, he knows he'll be alright.

Stay frosty.