Chapter Text
“You sure you wanna do this?”
“Like I have a choice.”
“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to, you know.”
“Yeah, but I kinda do though.” Ray gave Mike a smile that was mostly just punctuation. “It’s Brad’s paddle party.”
-
Life with Ray was surprisingly easy. Mike wasn’t used to sharing his space with another man, or even another person he wasn’t in a relationship with, not since he’d moved out of barracks years ago.
His marriages had never suffered abuse or adultery, but he could still admit that he hadn’t been the best husband. Away a lot, even when he was physically there. A bit too quiet maybe, not open enough about his feelings.
His experience of living at home with someone else was fraught with tension and arguments, which was probably why he’d expected living with Ray to be more difficult than it was.
It was easy beyond the way Mike would leave for work and come home to a clean house, and usually something hot in the oven.
(Mike had asked Ray about it eventually, tentative, uncomfortable with the idea of Ray Cinderella-ing himself in exchange for room and board.
Ray had no idea what Mike was talking about, and then laughed the concern off once Mike had explained.
Ray didn’t mind doing it.
Liked doing it, and Mike should have known that really.
Ray Person was a caretaker at heart; he’d showed that more than once on deployment, there was a reason his team had called him the Humvee mom.)
Ray hadn’t stopped drinking entirely, but he’d stopped trying to use it to erase himself. He’d cut it right down to maybe a couple of beers on the weekend, or a whisky in the evening when Mike was indulging and offered him a small one.
He’d stopped smoking as much too, but that was mostly because he was trying to get back into Recon.
When he wasn’t playing housewife he was going out on long, hard runs, weight training and swimming. He’d get home after Mike had sometimes, dog-tired and shaking with exertion but, Mike thought, less desperately anguished than before.
Ray probably didn’t need to push himself as hard as he was, could probably hit target without this much reconditioning, but Marines tended to be competitive bastards, and Recon Marines were even worse.
Ray wasn’t just trying to hit target, he was trying to beat his younger self. That 18 year old kid who had something to prove, had more determination than sense, had no idea what he was getting himself into.
From what Mike saw, current Ray was winning.
Ray overhauled Mike’s sound system simply because he’d noticed Mike shuffling through his five different remotes (why the fuck did he have five different remotes?) in an attempt to turn the radio on one night, swearing as he went.
He sorted it out for Mike and still kept it understandable, one remote for the TV, one for the stereo, minimal fiddling required.
Ray still slept on the couch, happily so, but you wouldn’t have known it in the morning, despite Ray’s reputation as a slob. He cleaned up after himself with military barracks order, but genuine respect for Mike’s home and gratitude for being invited in.
He rolled with the occasional sudden changes in Mike’s schedule, as adaptable as any good Marine. He liked a check-in if Mike was going to be home late, but otherwise Mike had as much freedom as he’d had when he lived alone, no demands on his time.
Living with Ray was easy.
And then there was also the way Mike watched as the post-discharge softness Ray had relaxed into in the past 7 months melted away while he worked back up to deployment readiness.
He saw a lean hardness come back to Ray’s arms, visible in his biceps when he wandered around the house in a vest top. He saw Ray’s stomach flattening out, the muscle not showing up as any number of pack, but it was there when Ray stretched, arms over his head as he yawned, sleek and taut.
Mike hadn’t so much abandoned his attempts to avoid jacking off to the memory of Ray’s body atop his, heavy enough to be felt, light enough Mike was sure he could pick him up and throw him around, wiry and alive and eager-
Yeah, Mike hadn’t started off thinking about Ray in his lap when he jacked off, but when the memory of that feeling, that sight, came back to him while he was half-hard and buzzed, he didn’t fight it off.
He tried not to think about it during the day.
And okay, maybe there were some things about living with Ray that weren’t completely easy.
-
Ray hurt to have to go back to the place he’d called home for years, a home that wasn’t his now.
The walk up the drive to the front door made Ray feel like he’d just been away temporarily for work, like he was just coming back after a long weekend away.
The garden looked the same, the same marks and oil-spill stains and dips where rain collected into puddles.
His elbow even hiked a little, his hand twitching to his pocket until he remembered that he didn’t have the key for this place any more.
It wasn’t his home.
Kocher opened the door after Mike leaned in over Ray to knock on it for him, greeting them both with hugs and a slap on the back that didn’t break through the weird shell Ray felt coagulating around him.
He looked around through tunnel vision: the same carpet with the same wear; the way the light came through the windows; the things that hadn’t changed.
Some of the furniture had been moved around, since.
Since.
There was new art on the walls. The TV was in a different place. None of it made the feeling of sick, unhappy deja vu any better.
He hadn’t expected to be hit by the familiar smell of the place either, sudden and devastating as an unannounced danger close splashdown.
It was missing a note, his own body spray perhaps, but that smell was still something that hijacked his brain and told him ‘you’re home, this is home, you are home’
Of all the things Ray had been preparing himself for, the gut-punch of memories that smell brought back hadn’t been one. Coupled with the knowledge that he really didn’t belong here anymore, it threatened to take him out at the knees.
“I’ll be right back.” he muttered to Mike, seeing like in greyscale like a dog, his hearing distorted by a high whine like a distant sustained scream while he turned to go back out the front door.
He hustled himself in under the small awning above the garage door, rummaging shaky hands into his jeans pocket for his pack of cigarettes. He was only down three despite having bought them a couple of weeks ago, the habit cut to nearly nothing now that he was in training.
It’d probably be empty by the end of the night.
His lighter was in the lid of the packet, and he tapped out a cigarette but paused for a moment, staring at the visible tremor in his hands.
“You fucking pussy.” he muttered viciously at himself.
His movements were sharp and short as he put the cigarette in his mouth, struggling not to grit his teeth around the thing.
He smoked undisturbed for a few minutes before his attention was caught by movement, a car pulling up with another guest inside.
Dirty Earl, he saw, as the figure locked his car with a beep of his keys and moseyed up towards the house.
“Hey Dirty, whaddup?”
“Ray, man, how you doin’?”
They shared a clasped, back-clapping hug, careful of Ray’s lit cigarette. Ray offered his friend one and Dirty accepted, letting Ray light it and then stepping back in line with him, the pair habitually and unknowingly settling into something like a sloppy parade rest.
“Can’t believe the Iceman’s leaving the Marines.” Dirty commented, after some small talk in which Ray dodged and weaved around tales of what he was doing these days.
Ray hadn’t told anyone except Mike that he was trying to re-enlist; it was probable that one of the other guys still in the business would find out eventually, but he didn’t want to announce it.
He knew he was surpassing the targets he’d hit when he’d first enlisted, but he’d lost something since then. He was unsure of himself these days. Doubtful. Hesitant.
He’d been so determined the first time around, fuelled by a bright, tall rage that towered over him.
Rage against his dead-end home town. The dad who didn’t want him. The kids who tortured him at school. Everyone who thought he was a mouthy little prick with nothing in his head, useless and expendable because he had no height, no bulk and no one in his corner.
That fire had died somewhere along the way and it was just embers now, glowing coals that hurt.
He didn’t want to tell anyone he was training to re-enlist, because he didn’t know if he could cope with the consequences, having to tell everyone if he failed. When he failed.
More than that, quietly and suppressed under his uncertainty and the anticipation of shame… fuck.
He just didn’t want Brad and Nate to find out. He couldn’t think any conversation they might have about it wouldn’t nearly kill him at this point.
“Yeah.” Ray said, heard the dead tone in his voice before Dirty could comment, forced cheer into it when he asked, “Can they still even call it the Marines without Brad there?”
-
It should have been nearly impossible for Ray to avoid spending any time with Brad or Nate at their own party, but Recon were experts at sneaking around unnoticed, and it was a mutual avoidance on both parties parts.
He skirted around the edges of clumps of guests, the other guests, guests like he was. He hung out in the kitchen a little, circulated through his once-home, escaped out to smoke sometimes and made a point not to stay put in one place for very long.
Now and again he’d feel the prickle of attention on him, and when he looked up he’d see Brad hurriedly turning away, Nate’s gaze flicking down from him before he looked back up to someone else with a smile.
He drank, but only beer, nursing the few he had because he didn’t want to get drunk here, afraid of what might come out if he lost control of his tongue.
Under the shock and confusion and, yeah, anger, Ray still loved them both; it could only continue to hurt this bad because he did.
And the Corps might not be a reason to keep their relationship a secret anymore, but he still wasn’t going to expose anything intimate about Brad and Nate without their permission, even by accident.
Mike swung by now and again, not keeping an eye on him as much as having his back. Quick little meetings, a brush of Mike’s hand against Ray’s shoulder, against his elbow when Mike manoeuvred around him.
Ray appreciated it; he felt grounded without feeling babysat.
The night was passing at a smooth clip, but for all that Ray had been able to avoid talking to Nate or Brad, he couldn’t escape the passing over of the paddle.
Brad allowed himself to be shepherded over and into an armchair, the rest of the party gathering around him as though a silent signal had gone out – the Marine hive-mind at work.
The house felt small inhabited by so many people, groaning under the strain of holding them all. Brad had been a Marine for a long time, and he’d been something of an unofficial celebrity, so the party was well-attended. Ray had even bumped into Swarr and had a brief hate-flirt with him.
He ended up being shuffled into place almost directly in front of Brad, and fuck, next to Nate. It was awkward, both of them trying to avoid looking at each other, until Mike made an appearance and kindly put his large body between Nate and Ray, breaking their line of sight.
Ray didn’t want that to be as much of a relief as it was.
The paddle ceremony started with the greenest Marine, some 19 year old PFC that Ray barely knew, someone part of Brad’s career only after Ray had left the Marines.
In the strict order of things, Ray should have taken his turn sometime between Garza and Rudy, but everyone knew that there was something between Brad and Ray, even if they didn’t know it was romantic.
Marines who had served since before Ray had even signed up took up Brad’s paddle before Ray did. Ray had been at Brad’s side since he’d left training; strange that Brad had made sure of that, something unsaid in the way Ray had ‘moved in’ with Brad when he’d left Recon.
The stories circled closer as the paddle did, narrowing in towards Brad’s closer friends, to Poke and Pappy and Kocher.
Mike took his turn before Ray did, partly because of his rank, mostly because he was standing there.
When he was done he handed the paddle over to Ray.
Ray didn’t look up at Brad when he took it, heard Nate’s breath catch a little even from where he stood at Mike’s other side.
He hefted the weight of the paddle in his hand, pretending that he was thinking about what to say while he tried to find the courage to look Brad in the eye.
“I was asking Dirty,” he began. “if we can still even call it the Marines without Brad there.”
There was a ripple of chuckles and scoffing at Brad’s expense before Ray kept going.
“I know some of you remember a Recon without the Iceman-”
“The good old days.” Someone, Ray thought it was Swarr, called out.
“-but I think most of us thought he was unboxed when the eagle, globe and anchor were being sketched out.”
Ray looked up in Brad’s direction, but he looked away before they could even make eye contact.
“I know I’m not the only guy who grew from an FNG into an actual Recon Marine under Brad’s wing, but, for some reason, he picked me to torture with his shitting schedule, his musical dictatorship and the indescribable smell of his feet under the guise of being his RTO.”
Ray risked another glance up, and this time his gaze caught Brad’s with the force of a bird flying against a window.
A sudden smack.
Dazed whirling.
Grease prints on the glass, a sign something had been there.
“And thank fuck, because, look at us; devil dogs. Can you imagine what we’d be like if Brad was a sane, functioning human being and not a murder-android with really life-like skin and a malfunctioning digestive system? We’d be running the world, and that sounds like way too much fucking work to me.”
His tone was light, ribboned with a laugh, but his eyes didn’t leave Brad’s and his smile was just bared teeth.
“Poke calls Brad the Iceman, because he’s clearly got a huge man-crush. That or Brad has blackmail material on him-”
Poke shouted something rude at him.
“-but the things that make Brad a good leader aren’t his freaky sixth sense for guys wanting to shoot him, or his imperviousness to sandstorms, or even his ability to find the peanut butter MRE every time, saving Walt’s allergic ass.”
He threw a quick grin at Walt’s raised middle finger.
“Brad’s a good leader because he’s just a good guy. Yeah, he pretends to be a big scary motherfucker, but most of that is just his height because of his troll genes. I mean, who packs cans of Chef Boyardee for a trip across fucking Iraq, just so his team can celebrate the end of a war? Who does that? And the guy doesn’t know how to handle babies, but he fucking melts around kids- you don’t need to hide it anymore, Brad, we’ve all seen how soft you are.”
There was laughter, but Ray knew that the group expected more levity from him, maybe more insults.
But this was the first time since the chance meeting at the bar that he’d spoken to – or in front of – Brad.
And he still wasn’t saying the things he wanted to say, but he was giving as much as he had, doing the best he could when he was tatters inside.
“Brad’s a good leader because he’s the kind of person who risks blowing himself up because it could save the lives of some kids he doesn’t know, even if me and Poke woulda been fucked.”
Ray chewed at his bottom lip for a second.
“I know I’m not the only Marine here who owes their life to the Iceman for one reason or another. I’m not the only person who became a Marine, not just a BRC grad, because of him.”
That was getting a little close to some truths he didn’t want to voice, not here in front of almost everyone he knew.
“Brad’s a good leader because he’s a good person first. And even though the Marines are gonna be less without him, he’s given us enough. He deserves to make choices that make him happy.”
Ray knew that no one else, except maybe Nate and Mike, would hear the second meaning in what he’d said, but the following silence was still a little awkward nonetheless. A little heavy, the kind of quiet that Alpha men make when they’re unwillingly emotional and trying to choke it down.
Ray felt the hangover of those lonely nights in motel rooms in the sudden burning of his eyes and swallowed it back.
“That was worth the fifty bucks, right, Brad?” he asked, to the relieved raucous laughter of everyone else.
Kocher, on Ray’s other side, put a hand on the back of his neck and gave him a fond shake, while Mike clapped Ray on the back and took the paddle Ray handed to him.
Mike handed it over to Nate because Ray couldn’t even look in Nate’s direction.
He couldn’t look back at Brad.
Someone shouted a joke at Brad’s expense, something about the fact that there were other Marines in the Corps who hadn’t coasted along on supermodel good looks and death glares, and Ray used the distraction to excuse himself.
Quite apart from the fact that he couldn’t bear to stand there and hear what Nate would say, he just couldn’t be there anymore, in a house once his, with a man once his, a relationship not his.
Mike watched after him, but Ray raised a hand to wave okay, or wave him off, not like someone drowning, and Mike turned back to the man of the hour.
Ray slipped out of the side door into the garage, out into the twilight night, leaned back against the brick wall and tried to breathe.