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Nate smiled at the girl at the reservations desk, striving for patience. "Fick," he said again. "My last name is Fick. Like it says on the credit card I gave you."
He must not have kept the edge out of his tone after all because the girl glanced up at him sharply. He kept smiling at her, trying to convey that he really had all the time in the world. She rolled her eyes and went back to tapping at the computer.
Nate sighed and rested his elbows on the reservation desk. It was busy in the lobby but he didn't see any of the other guys checking in. Of course, most of them would have flown in together, and from what Mike had said, they'd been trying to arrive earlier in the day so that they could get in a couple of hours on the hills before the runs closed. Marines knew how to optimize their free time while on libo. Nate himself wasn't particularly pleased how long it had taken him to get to the resort, though there was nothing that he could do about the freezing fog that had kept them on the runway in Denver for over an hour. He hated layovers, but finding a direct flight from Boston to Reno was slightly more impossible than finding WMDs in Iraq.
He'd had work with him – with his project due in two months, he always had work with him, but he hadn't been able to focus on it. The flight had been turbulent and his seatmate had been the nervous type who gasped every time they hit a bump. He'd been lucky enough to have an empty seat between them, because she'd clung to her armrest the entire flight. He could just see the marks her nails would have left in his arms if she'd been next to him.
The hotel clerk muttered something that might have been a curse but when he looked at her, she was still looking intently at her monitor and tapping keys, though she'd picked up the phone and was speaking tensely with somebody. Nate heard his name mentioned, and she looked at him and rolled her eyes at the phone. He smiled pleasantly and she smiled back, all the while bitching out whoever happened to be on the other end of the line. Nate appreciated the skills it took to multi-task like that. She'd probably make one hell of a CO.
The reception desk was set up right in the middle of the lobby with a bar directly behind it. Nate scanned it again to see if he knew any of its patrons. His heart quickened as he saw the top of a tall blond head but the man turned, showing his profile, and Nate relaxed. It wasn't Brad.
Fuck, he was going to have to get over that kind of reaction pretty damn quickly. Mike had confirmed that Brad was coming this weekend and Nate had accepted the invitation anyway – he couldn't let the thought of seeing Brad keep him from seeing his other friends forever. It had been a year since the break-up – time enough to get the fuck over it. He was sure Brad didn't get queasy every time he saw somebody in a Harvard sweatshirt or whatever he identified with Nate.
If Nate was honest with himself, it wasn't the turbulent flight or his neurotic seatmate that had left him unable to focus on his laptop during the flight here. There wasn't much he could do if the plane fell from the sky, and between the Marines and Harvard, he was a pro at ignoring annoying people. What he hadn't mastered, even after a year without any contact with the man, was the art of not thinking about Brad Colbert.
Nor had he really been able to do anything about the pang of loss that hit him every time he realized that it was over between them. They'd never defined what they were to each other, but Nate hadn’t needed to call Brad his boyfriend to understand that Brad's carefully worded email meant that he had been dumped. If he'd harbored any uncertainty at all, it had been put to rest by the painful and awkward phone call that had come a day later. Whatever Nate had meant to Brad, he most assuredly didn't any more.
He took a long, slow breath. He was bunking with Mike, and there was no reason for him to have anything but the most limited contact with Brad this weekend. They would be with more than a platoon of men, most of whom Nate hadn’t seen since he'd last been out to Oceanside, almost eighteen months ago now. There'd be plenty to catch up with his friends, and it would be easy to keep a Marine or five between him and Brad. He might be hanging out with the most observant men on the planet, but Nate had all the same training they did, and hopefully the majority of his evasive maneuvers would go undetected. Right.
If nothing else, actually, he could count on the fact that though the men might talk amongst themselves, they'd do so with discretion, just as they'd been discreet during the year and change that he and Brad had been – something. They might be fucking busybodies, but they were a family, and they kept their secrets close. DADT didn't do a damn thing to keep Brad's career safe: the loyalty of his brothers did.
So all Nate was probably going to have to endure was a speculative look or twenty: nobody, not even Person, was going to sit him down and try to get him to talk about his feelings. Even with Brad's looming presences, this was already shaping up better than the last two holidays he'd taken, one with his sisters, and one with old friends who'd met Brad.
He was going to enjoy the reunion with his men, drink enough to forget that he had two months of research ahead of him after this weekend, and treat Brad the same way he'd treat Lovell or Espera - nothing more, nothing less. Nate had told himself this a hundred times since Mike called him about the trip, and he repeated it to himself one more time.
"Any luck finding my reservation?" he asked the hotel clerk, making sure his tone conveyed nothing but patient understanding, like he could easily spend the rest of the day waiting and it wouldn't inconvenience him in the least. And, hell, if it put off seeing Brad for another ten minutes, it really wouldn't.
"Yes, sir, I'm sorry about that delay. I've located your booking. You're under a group reservation."
"Yes," he said, like he hadn't said that five minutes ago. "The First Reconnaissance Reunion."
She peered at the screen."No, the reservation we have you under is the group 'Devil Dogs.'" She bit her lip, looking worried that she might have to go through that all again. "Is that not your party?"
Nate was surprised that Person had been so restrained when booking their reservation. Then again, even Ray had a sense of decorum, which Nate understood much better after meeting his mother, a true Southern woman. "That's us," he said.
"Good!" She reached over and swiped a keycard through the computer. "The rest of your party has already checked in. You're in the Sierra Chalet. Let me just call somebody to drive you over there."
"I can walk," Nate said.
She shook her head. "No, Mr. Fick, I'm sorry, but you can't. There's a storm coming, and the chalet is a mile away from the main building. I understand that you're male and thus omnipotent, but for the sake of my liability insurance, let me call the car."
"I have a car with me." It had been driven away by valets when he got here, who told him that he had front-door access to the runs, and that there was a quad at the chalet for his use. Just the kind of getaway that would appeal to his friends. Nate foresaw breakneck ATV races through the forest.
"Only resort vehicles are allowed to drive on the premises. It'll be two seconds, Mr. Fick, I promise." She pointed to a big chair by a cozy stone fireplace. "If you'll just wait there, we'll have you at your chalet in no time at all."
Nate could recognize a decisive defeat when he saw one. He managed to refrain from sighing and went over to the chair. At least it was comfortable.
*
It was already dark and the snow was coming down in a wall of white flakes. Nate looked at the driver. "Should we stay at the main lodge for now?"
"Nah," said the guy laconically. "Only gonna get worse. I can find my way around here blindfolded in the dark, and I got GPS. We'll get you to your place safe and sound."
"How much worse is it going to get?" Nate had checked the forecast before he'd picked up his rental car. The weather for Lake Tahoe only called for light snow.
"Class five blizzard blew in out of nowhere." The guy shrugged. "Runs are going to be closed for at least part of the day tomorrow. Hope you brought a good book."
Like he'd have a chance to read for two seconds in a chalet full of Recon Marines with cabin fever. "How long is it supposed to last?"
"What I hear is that the first 24 hours are gonna be bad. They closed the highway 'bout an hour ago and there's a federal weather advisory for the area. We don't get storms like this often, but they're fierce when they come. But, dude, the powder they leave is truly wicked. Day after tomorrow, the hills'll be like nothing you've ever skied before."
Nate stared out the window at the swirling flakes. "Do you know if the chalet has food?"
"Oh, yeah. I dropped off a huge order from the kitchen a couple of hours ago." There was a small smirk on the guy's face that Nate didn't quite understand. "You two sure won't go hungry."
"Actually, there's a group of us. At least ten guys, I think."
The guy shrugged again. "In the Sierra Chalet? I don't think so. And I only dropped one off today." Again with the smirk. "Here we are."
"This is Sierra Chalet?" Nate had been expecting a huge edifice, something big enough to comfortably house ten men. This was a quaint little house, two stories, but hardly wide at all.
"Sure is. You need a hand with your bags?"
"No, thanks." Nate looked at the chalet again. Maybe it was bigger than it looked; the snow could be fucking with his perception.
The snow hadn't affected his perception at all. The cabin wasn't any bigger inside than it looked on the outside. There was a great room, with windows that went up twenty feet, full of comfy chairs and a couch, with a kitchen nook to the side. A staircase led up to what Nate assumed to be a sleeping loft; he could hear the shower going.
With growing suspicion, he climbed the stairs. He was relatively certain he know who the other guest was already, and he was going to wring Person's neck. And Mike's. And – well, the list was long, and Nate didn't consider any of them the least bit distinguished right now. His friends were interfering, gossiping busybodies who should damn well mind their own business.
Nate was tempted to leave while the shower was still running, but that would be cowardly. He walked into the bedroom and sat down on the bed, preparing himself.
"Ray?" Brad called from the bathroom. "You fucked up, you short bus reject. There's only one bed. I hate to disappoint you, but I am not snuggling up to your scrawny ass tonight."
For as much as he was expecting it, Nate still froze at the sound of Brad's voice. It had been a good year since he'd talked to Brad, since that awful, stilted phone call when Brad had explained that it wasn't the eight hour flight between Boston and Pendleton that made it too hard to maintain a long-distance relationship, it was the emotional distance between the service and grad school. Or something like that; Nate didn't remember a lot of the details of Brad's little speech, mostly because he'd been too busy countering with how Brad was a pansy-ass, chicken-shit punk. In retrospect, it hadn't been his finest hour.
The bathroom door opened and Brad stepped out, still talking. "I mean it, Ray. You can –" He stopped abruptly, staring at Nate. "What the fuck are you doing here?"
"Getting screwed one last time by Marines," said Nate, refusing to allow himself to register that Brad was only wearing a towel wrapped around his waist. It wasn't a big towel, either, and there were droplets of water dripping down his chest – and where the fuck was his self-control? He wasn't looking. "We seem to be the only ones here for the Recon Winter Reunion."
Brad had never been slow to grasp a concept. "I'm going to fucking kill him," he said. "That manipulative little fuck. I'm going to start by tearing out his toenails and broiling them before I make him eat them. I told him to leave this well enough alone."
"I can always trust you to be creative in your wrath, Brad," said Nate. "What are you going to do to Mike, Tony, Rudy, Lovell, Walt, and the others?"
Brad stared at him incredulously. "What are you talking about, Nate? Ray told me it was just the two of us."
"Romantic getaway for two?" Nate asked, only half-kidding.
"You clearly haven't met Nancy," said Brad. "Ray's fiancée would have me drawn and quartered if I had intentions toward him. Which, fuck, I don't. But I digress."
"Imagine that," Nate muttered. Brad grinned at him, and Nate straightened his spine, determined not to be the bitchy ex. "You realize that we're stuck here for at least tonight, right?"
Brad shrugged. "I'm sure the resort can find another room somewhere."
"No. Every single bed is booked – something about spring break at all UNLV. And even if they could, I'm not sure they'd come for me in this weather – there's a white-out."
Brad walked over and looked out the windows. He whistled. "Jesus fucking Christ, that came in fast. There's zero visibility out there." He looked over at Nate. "Guess you'd better dig in, sir."
It didn't hurt when Brad called him that, not one bit. Nor did it make Nate think of long nights with Brad shuddering under him, all sorts of profanity coming from his kiss-swollen mouth as he made 'sir' sound like the dirtiest word on the planet.
Shit. "I'll take the couch downstairs. I'm sure one of them is a pull-out bed."
"After two years in the Ivy League, I question if your ass can take anything less than a double mattress with a box-spring, sir, and those sofa beds can be damn springy. Best if I take it."
He wasn't going to let Brad get to him like this. And, fuck, now who was being the bitchy ex? "Stow it, Colbert. I'm taking the sofa bed, and I'll be just fine."
Brad opened his mouth and Nate cut him off. "And don't you fucking 'Yes, sir' me. I'm not your CO, and I'm not – I'm not anything but your roommate for the next twelve hours. I'm going to take a shower, and when I get out, I'm going to make something to eat and go to bed."
Something flashed in Brad's eyes but Nate refused to allow himself to think that it might be hurt. Brad had made it clear a year ago that Nate wasn't to concern himself with his feelings. He just nodded, though, and walked over to where his duffel was sitting on the bed. Nate watched the muscles flex under his tattoo. It was going to be a long fucking night.
*
Nate felt better after his shower. He pulled on his warmest, thickest sweats and a Harvard hoodie – the grad student equivalent of Kevlar and a flak jacket. A year ago it would have seemed ridiculous to be protecting himself from Brad, but if there was one thing he'd learned since they'd broken up it was that he was vulnerable in ways he'd never before imagined.
He went downstairs and found Brad in the kitchen, prepping steaks for the broiler. "I made baked potatoes, too," said Brad. "Somebody stocked this place up good."
"I guess we'll have to thank Person for not making us starve out here," said Nate.
"Marines think with their stomachs when they aren't thinking with their dicks."
"He sure as hell wasn't thinking with his head," said Nate, half to himself.
Brad looked at him, and for once Nate couldn't read what he was thinking. "You can make a salad," was all he said.
Nate did. While he was scrubbing carrots, he looked over at Brad. "I thought you were still in Fallujah?" That wasn't quite a lie: he'd thought that until last week, when Mike called to tell him Brad would be coming skiing with them.
"Your sources need to get their ear to the ground. We're on standby while the Supreme Allied Command unfucks some dispute between the RM and Blackwater about who's working which sector."
"Are you serious?"
Brad shook his head. "I only wish I was joking. It's a complete fucking gong show. My squad leader said as long as we could get to Plymouth with twenty-four hours notice, he doesn't give a shit where on the planet we are."
"So you came home."
"There's some shit I need to take care of," said Brad obliquely, and Nate didn't ask any more questions. Some things he didn't want to know. Maybe Brad had a new girlfriend and nobody had the balls to tell Nate yet.
Their entire meal was like that, half-complete conversations that one of them would pull back from when it got too close anything more than impersonal chatter. Nate's head ached by the end of it. It was so strange and awful to have this stilted dialogue with Brad, after years of being able to just look at the man and know what he was thinking. After a while he just gave up and ate quietly, listening to the wind howling through the trees.
"This kind of weather typical up here?" Nate asked as they were doing the dishes.
"No." Brad frowned. "I've been coming here my entire life and I've never seen anything like this. It should pass soon."
There was a crashing sound in the distance, and the lights went out.
"I think you jinxed us," Nate said lightly. "Smooth move, Iceman."
Even in the dark, he could see the gleam of Brad's grin on his face. Maybe that was a skill picked up in Iraq he'd have for the rest of his life, the ability to tell Brad's expression no matter what their sit-rep.
"I think there's a back-up generator around the back of the chalet," said Brad. "That'll be my mission. Prevailing weather conditions indicate that building a fire or two would not be ill-advised in the meantime, sir."
"In the dark?" Nate asked dryly. He didn't even bother to question the wisdom of Brad going outside in these conditions. A million dollars of training should see him through switching on a generator just fine, regardless of inclement weather.
Brad opened a drawer in the kitchen and pulled out two flashlights. "I did some recon when the weather got bad," he said, when Nate raised an eyebrow. "Needless to say, I highly approve of the way this place is run."
Nate was kindling a fire in the downstairs fireplace when the lights came back on. A few minutes later the front door flew open and Brad came in, bringing a gust of snow and icy cold air with him. "Christ on a motherfucking cross, it's ferocious out there. I think it's worse than that storm in the Hindu Kush a year ago, and we lost contact with home base for three days in that," said Brad.
Nate hadn't heard that story and he wasn't about to ask about Brad's exploits, especially those that had taken place while Nate was in Cambridge, reeling from being dumped while trying to keep his head above water in grad school. "I lit the fire in your room already," he said, watching with satisfaction as the logs in the fireplace caught the flame. "We should turn out the lights; conserve the fuel in the generator." Familiar words, and for a minute he felt like he'd never left Iraq, like the orders he was issuing to Brad were to preserve the well-being of twenty-men going into an ambush, not to keep the two of them comfortable in this luxurious cabin at a five-star ski resort.
Brad grinned at him. "Old habits die hard."
"Some of them," said Nate. "Some you just shake off and never think about again."
He hadn't meant for it to be a shot, but it clearly hit Brad anyway, and the Iceman mask dropped over his features. "Stunning insight from the Ivy contingent," he said frostily. "I'd like to go to bed now, Nate, so if there's anything you need from upstairs…"
Nate nodded. "I'll be five minutes."
In the bathroom, he held onto the counter and exhaled deeply, trying to let go of the tension and the need that had been building up all night. After everything that had transpired over the last year – a year of trying to figure out what had happened between them; a year of sleepless nights when he knew Brad was in the field, when being awake was better than the nightmares that came when he slept – being around Brad again was hell, pure and simple. He couldn't imagine how Mike and Ray had thought this would be good for either him or Brad, and he intended to have strong words with the two of them as soon as he got the fuck off this mountain and had cell reception again.
When he came back downstairs he found that Brad had pulled out the sofa bed and made it up, crisp white sheets, fluffy pillows, and at least three quilts. "Thanks," said Nate, nodding at the blankets. "But I don't think I'm going to freeze in the night, between the generator and the fire.
Brad shrugged, his expression carefully blank. "I know how you like to feel all bundled up," he said. "Good night." He started up the stairs.
Nate stared after him. "Good night," he said finally, Brad already most of the way up the stairs. Brad paused and nodded before disappearing into the bedroom.
Nate stripped down to his boxers and t-shirt and climbed into bed, his head spinning with all the contradictions Brad had thrown at him tonight. He clearly hadn't been expecting Nate, but even though he'd seemingly been pissed that the guys had set them up like this, at no point had he looked unhappy to see Nate. And what the hell was all this about, anyway? Ray Person wouldn't take his own life in his hands for something he thought Brad didn't want, and nobody knew Brad better than Ray, now that Nate was out of his life.
Brad had cooked Nate's steak to perfection, made the potatoes just the way he liked them, and laid out two pillows stacked on top of each other so that Nate could read like he always did before he went to sleep. Besides agreeing whenever Nate said anything about them unfucking this situation tomorrow, he hadn't said anything to indicate that he wanted Nate to leave.
He was reaching, Nate thought, too eager to see things that weren't there. Brad had ended them, and he was making the best of a bad situation, the way Nate had done. He pulled out his copy of Gordon Kent's latest espionage novel but despite the compelling plot, he had trouble focusing on anything besides the idea that Brad was just upstairs, settling into that big bed, maybe jacking off, maybe just sleeping, his long body naked under the heavy blankets.
It took Nate a long time to fall asleep.
*
He was fighting his way through the snow drifts, his cold hands making it even harder to point his M-16 at the enemy. He could barely make out the men in the flurries ahead of him, but he wouldn't let himself miss. Too many Marines depended on him for him to fail now, and as he aimed and shot he could see another gush of red erupt against the white snow. Beside him, Brad grinned as he raised his own weapon, and more red marred the winter landscape about 100 yards ahead of them.
Nate was so cold, and he could tell Brad was too, the tips of his spiky hair icy, but there were more bad guys out there – and one of them must have gotten the jump on them, his cold hand coming down on Nate's shoulder out of nowhere. Nate yelled and tried to spin around, but the hand was holding him down –
"Nate." Brad said. "Nate, you have to wake up."
Nate sat up, throwing off the dream the way he had taught himself to do in Iraq. It was Brad's hand on his shoulder, and the reason he was cold was because the fire had burned down to embers and the room was freezing. The three quilts Brad had stacked on the bed were gathered around him, but that didn't seem to matter. "What happened?" he asked, only lifting his head out of his nest enough to see Brad.
"The emergency generator went off about fifteen minutes ago. I didn't want to wake you, so I went out to check it. It's fucking out of oil, and there isn't any stored here. I tried calling the front desk but the lines seem to be down." Brad looked worried, and Nate sat up a little more.
"Are we out of wood, too?" There hadn't been a lot of logs stored by the fireplaces: Nate assumed that they were restocked daily.
"We've got enough to keep one fireplace going until morning. I'd go out there and cut us some more but the snow changed into fucking ice-rain, and not only is there zero visibility, it's treacherous without having a sense of the terrain." Nate could feel the frustration seeping out of Brad. All that training was useless if you couldn't see because your eyes were frozen shut, and neither of them had the right gear to try to take on these elements. He was just glad Brad recognized that it would be stupid to try. "You're going to have to come sleep with me."
Then again, that had seemed a little too easy. Maybe Nate wasn't awake after all. "What?"
"It’s the only thing that makes sense, Nate. Warm air rises, and it's colder down here because there's drafts coming from the doors. We've only got enough wood for one fireplace, and sharing body heat is the best way to guarantee warmth under these conditions. In a few hours it should be light enough to walk to the main cabin, but in the meantime we're going to have to make do."
"Since when has sleeping with me constituted 'making do?'" Nate asked wryly. "Or sleeping with you, for that matter? Did the famous Colbert ego freeze while you were out there checking the generator?"
"I didn't think that would be your preferred option."
Nate was so tired of seeing that blank expression on Brad's face, of his cautious words. "Rather than freezing to death?" He didn't wait for an answer, just got out of bed and grabbed the quilts. "You bring the rest of the wood that's down here."
Fuck, it was so much colder outside of his cocoon of blankets. Nate ran up the stairs, surprised he couldn't see his breath in the frigid chalet. It wasn't much warmer in the loft, despite fire burning in the hearth. Brad must have stoked it before he came downstairs. Still, all those big windows were draining the heat from the room.
He tossed the blankets on top of the bed, spreading them out over the duvet Brad had been sleeping under, and climbed under them all.
Brad followed him into the bedroom, a stack of wood in his arms. He looked at Nate in the bed and raised an eyebrow. "As always, your leadership is inspirational."
"You're just jealous because I'm warming up and you're not," said Nate smugly, pulling another pillow under his head.
Brad stacked the wood in the big copper kettle next to the fireplace. "Eight logs. That should hold us until morning. Maybe."
Nate looked over at the clock. They'd gone to bed early and it was only just half-past one. "If we run out, we can start burning the furniture. Let them try to charge us for that after not taking adequate care with emergency supplies."
"It's a shame that the platoon isn't here after all. Some of the guys get off on the destruction of public property."
"It's what makes them good at their jobs," said Nate, thinking of Manimal gunning down an entire building in Al Gharaf. He watched Brad stand by the fireplace, like he was prepared to keep watch over it all night. "I thought the idea here was to share some body heat."
"I just about froze outside," said Brad. "I thought I'd warm up a little before I turned you into a block of ice, too."
"I'm not exactly toasty myself," said Nate. "Quit making bullshit excuses. Take off those wet clothes and get your ass under the covers."
Brad nodded and stripped down to his t-shirt and skivvies. "I think they got wet, too," he said apologetically.
Nate could tell by the way they were sticking to him. God, Brad had been soaked down to the skin. "You can check the false modesty, too," said Nate dryly. "There's nothing there I haven't seen before."
"It's one thing to see it and another to have it pressed up against you in bed," said Brad. "I'll just go towel off and get a change of clothes."
"Brad, you're shivering. Stop being a macho idiot and get in the damn bed."
Brad pulled off his shirt, and Nate didn't even pretend to not be watching him. Before they'd broken up, Brad had managed to put on most of the weight he'd lost in Iraq but the last year of deployments had clearly taken their toll, and every muscle was cut sharply into his skin.
"Enjoying the show?" Brad asked, his mouth twisting in a way that tore at Nate's heart, like he might actually be worried that Nate didn't want to look at him.
"I've never seen a better one," said Nate honestly. Break-up or not, there was no pretending otherwise. "Give me the full monty and then get your frozen ass over here."
"And once again, an officer exploits a grunt for his own perverse pleasure," Brad sighed, but pulled off his underwear.
"Former officer," said Nate mildly. "And you'll have to forgive me if it pleases me to not see you freeze to death in soaking wet clothing." There was much more to it that than seeing Brad naked, and they both knew it. Brad gave him a knowing look, but Nate ignored it, too busy taking in Brad's long, smooth legs, the way the muscles in them looked sinuous as Brad walked toward the bed. His cock was soft, his balls drawn up slightly. Nate should look away instead of torturing himself with what was no longer his. He didn't.
Brad climbed into bed but didn't immediately scoot over to Nate's side. In fact, he barely looked at Nate, lying down with his head on a pillow and staring up at the ceiling. He looked stiff and uncomfortable, and the worried look still hadn't left him. Clearly, Nate was going to have to take the initiative here. "What the fuck are you doing over there?" he asked, turning on his side so that he could see Brad's profile.
Brad looked at him like he was an idiot. "I'm giving you your space."
"Have I for one second given you the impression that space is what I want from you?" said Nate, his voice heated. "I mean, fuck, I'm in your bed. That in itself implies a certain willingness to be close to you."
"You didn't have much choice, Nate. It was either that or freeze to death."
"I had four pieces of wood, three quilts, and full ski gear down there. I could have stayed alive, if not comfortable, for several hours," said Nate. "But you're right. The easiest and best way to conserve body heat under these conditions is to share it. So, first, all that space you think I need isn't the most effective execution of the plan, and secondly, I never wanted that space to begin with. You broke up with me, asshole." He took a breath. "Fuck this shit," he said, and moved over to Brad's side of the bed.
It was like rolling into an iceberg. "Jesus Christ, Brad, you're still frozen solid. And you're shivering." Nate pushed off several layers of blankets and sat up.
"You're letting in the cold air," said Brad, looking up at Nate.
Nate ignored him. Brad might think that he could laugh this off, but for all that he excelled at taking care of other people, he completely lacked self-preservation instincts. Hypothermia was no laughing matter. Nate ran over his first aid training in his head. Brad was pale and shivering, but he didn't appear overly fatigued, and he was obviously alert and thinking clearly. It was difficult to ascertain without a thermometer but Nate was relatively sure that Brad's core body temperature hadn't dropped more than a few degrees. But the shivering was worrisome; Brad had stayed in those wet clothes far too long.
"Turn and face me," he said. He was pissed off and worried. It felt a lot like being in command again, and his tone reflected it. On the upside, Brad had always responded to his officer voice.
Brad did as Nate said, barely moving the blankets. He was beginning to look even more tired, and Nate frowned. He looked closely at Brad's eyes, and Brad blinked at him. "I can see you just fine, sir."
"Yeah? Can you see the picture on the wall behind me?"
"That god-awful Rockwell reproduction? I can make out every detail on the knit hat of the precious cherub who fell off his skis into the snow. It's revolting the way he pandered to the American public and still called himself an artist."
Well, he clearly wasn't confused or suffering from a lack of mental acuity. "Can you touch your little finger to your thumb?"
"Is there any point in telling you that you're over-reacting?"
"No. Show me."
Brad slid a hand out from the blankets and did as Nate asked. He was still shivering, but he performed the action without problem.
"Okay. So it's probably not hypothermia, or if it is, it's really mild. You should still probably drink something warm."
"And how do you propose I do that? The stove is electric."
"I said you should, I didn't say that you could. Don't be such a bitch. Can you move down a bit without uncovering your feet?" Brad shifted down, taking the pillow with him. Instead of tucking his knees up into himself, he pushed them out, into what would be Nate's space if Nate were still lying down. Nate gave him a knowing look, and Brad shrugged. "We both know where this is headed, especially since I can't have my warm cup of cocoa with marshmallows and sprinkles."
"You hate sprinkles." Nate leaned over him to pull the blankets up so that they came up over Brad's head, and were tucked in snuggly around his neck and shoulders. A hot water bottle right there would be ideal, but, again, not an option. Nate was going to have one hell of a discussion with the resort's management tomorrow.
Satisfied that Brad was as well-covered as he could be, he stripped off his t-shirt and reached down to pull off his boxers, tossing them both over the side of the bed.
"Sir, your lack of modesty is – well, it's both appalling and appealing. I'm not sure that your colleagues at the Kennedy School would approve of such a wanton display," Brad drawled.
"Nah, they know that I was hopelessly corrupted before I joined their august company. I mean, they think the Corps is a cesspool of perversion and violence, but they really get off on thinking about how many ways I know to kill our Global Security professor." Nate slid under the covers and pulled them up over his head, too. He tangled his legs in Brad's and pressed as close as he could to him, pulling him into his chest.
Brad tensed when they touched but Nate ignored that and waited as Brad relaxed into him. Massaging Brad's limbs was counter-indicated – it could send a rush of cold blood to his heart. The most important tool he had at his disposal right now was his own body, sharing his warmth with Brad to make sure that he didn't get any colder. He gently lifted Brad's arm to slide his own arm under it, pressing his bicep into Brad's armpit to interrupt the flow of cold blood, and wrapped his arm around Brad's back. Brad was still for a minute and put his arm over Nate's shoulder and nestled closer.
Their hearts were pressed together, and Nate kept his breathing deliberately slow, trying to not shock Brad's system anymore than it already had been. He was gratified when he felt Brad match his breathing to Nate's, easy inhalations and exhalations that would gradually move hot air into his body and warm him more. Brad's skin was still cool against his, but getting warmer, and even though Nate knew it was completely fucking self-destructive, he let himself enjoy the feeling of holding Brad again. They'd never be this close again, but at least Nate knew that this time. He was going to take what he could from it.
"Don't fall asleep," Nate warned, after they'd lain there for several minutes. Brad was getting heavier in his arms, and while his shivering had lessened, Nate wasn't entirely convinced they were past point of danger.
"Don't want to wake up to find me a block of ice in the morning, hmm? I think it's safe to say that you've gone above and beyond to ensure my well-being. Much more than most people would probably do in your situation."
Nate sighed. "Which situation is that, Brad? Lying in bed with a man I served with for a year, who saved my life numerous times? Or a man who dumped me without any reason that made any sense and then disappeared from my life as easily as though he'd never been there at all?"
Brad's face was tucked into the crook of Nate's neck and Nate felt his sigh, hot air on his cold skin. "For a lot of people, the last one would cancel out the other two."
Getting angry wouldn't make this any better, Nate told himself. He took another deep breath and bit back all the harsh words on the tip of his tongue. "I thought you knew me better than that."
"Christ," Brad moved as though to pull back but Nate put his hand on Brad's neck, to keep him right where he was. He could have this conversation, but he didn't want to have to look Brad in the eye while Brad told him, once again, exactly how much he didn't want Nate. He could do it, if he had to, but once really had been enough. "Are you gunning for sainthood, Nate?"
"Fuck off, Brad. I'm not a fucking martyr, not even for you. But I'm sure as hell not letting a man go down on my watch, and you damn well know that. Now, could we just sit here quietly and listen to pleasant crackling of the fireplace while I make sure you don't go into hypothermic shock because you were stupid enough to go out in a goddamn blizzard?"
"I thought it was the right thing to do," said Brad, after a moment of silence.
"I know," Nate sighed. "I would have too, if I'd woken up first."
"No." Brad pulled back harder this time and Nate let him go. Under the blankets, with just a faint glow of light coming in from the fire, Brad's face was softly lit but his eyes were bright. "I thought that breaking up with you was the right thing to do, for you."
This time, Nate let rage wash over him, clean and hot. "Bullshit."
Brad just nodded.
"Why the fuck would you think that? And what the fuck gave you the right to make that decision for me?"
"I see now that it was both misguided and arrogant of me to do so."
"You see now –" Nate repeated after him; Brad's stiff language was masking something. "You got called on it, didn't you?"
"As retarded as my actions might have been, I am capable of recognizing when I fucked up. I don't need to have it pointed out to me that I might have had my head so far up my ass that I could have removed my own tonsils."
"Uh huh," said Nate. "So Person, then. Or Poke?"
Brad sighed. "Don't forget the vanguard protector of cherry officers everywhere, the venerated Gunny Wynn. Or the next incarnation of the Dalai Lama, Rudy. Fuck, Tim Bryan almost ripped me a new one after he visited you. I thought that would just be some jack-off together over your intellectual accomplishments, but no, he emailed me all this shit about how you're lousy at hiding a broken heart and what an asshole I am. I almost expected a summons from Godfather to be waiting for me when I got back from Plymouth. It's like somebody announced it over the goddamn Pendleton intercom."
"You didn't honestly think we could keep any of this a secret from a company of Recon Marines?" Nate asked rhetorically. "Let me guess: you told them all to fuck off, and they said, 'sure, buddy, whatever you want!' And the next thing you knew, you were on a ski trip for twenty."
"Something like that." Brad paused. "I didn't think they would interfere with your life too, Nate."
Nate laughed. "You've been away too long, Marine. Like Ray Person would let what I might want stand in the way of your potential happiness."
"Mike would, though."
Nate nodded. "Yes, he would. What does that tell you, Brad?"
"God, you can be a pissy bitch," said Brad, his expression lightening a little. "I already said that I fucked up. Do you want a pound of flesh, too?"
"I don't think it weighs quite that much," said Nate thoughtfully. "Your ego really is something else, isn't it?"
He'd thought that would make Brad laugh, but it had the opposite effect, and Brad tried to turn away. "I was operating with the best of intentions, Nate."
Nate put a hand on his face, making Brad look at him. "I believe you. What I don't understand is why you thought that."
Brad sighed and shook his head. "You were so unhappy when we got back. Even after you left the Corps, you were unhappy. I know the job in DC wasn't really your thing. But it went deeper than that and you clearly weren't getting over all the shit that happened during that clusterfuck of an invasion. So when you started school, I thought the best thing for you would be a clean break from everything related to the Corps. If you stayed with me, some part of you would always be hooked into the hive mind. If I was out of your life, maybe you could start fresh. You could meet somebody at Harvard who didn't remind you of every single fuck-up over there."
Jesus Christ. That was so fucking Brad, all that noble self-sacrifice, however misguided it might be. Nate took a deep breath, and then another, trying to quell the anger within him. "That wasn't your goddamn choice to make!"
Brad raised his eyebrows. "You're yelling, Nate. WASPS don't yell."
"Fuck that. I'm a Marine, and Marines yell. And fuck you, Brad, for thinking that I could leave any of that part of me behind. So I was supposed to find a good piece of Ivy League ass and fuck my way through my problems? Is that what you really wanted, Brad, me in somebody else's bed, fucking or being fucked until I, what, forgot the last five years of my life?" Nate paused as something dark and dangerous flashed over Brad's face, just for a second. But Nate knew that look, and everything fell into place. It was so obvious; he could only marvel that he hadn't seen it before.
He'd been fooled by Brad's Iceman demeanor, had been blind to everything but what he was thinking and feeling. "Except that's what you were afraid of, wasn't it? That I would find somebody at school and leave you behind. Or maybe do what Allison did and string you along until it was convenient to tell you that I'd been fucking that hot chick in my IR seminar and that we were going to get married. So you issued a preemptive strike. You leveled the AO and then retreated."
"I wasn't trying to take you out with fucking shock and awe," said Brad softly. "There weren't supposed to be any casualties."
"You never looked back," said Nate. "You have no idea what kind of devastation you wrought. Bad tactics, Brad, all around. Poor planning, shitty execution, and no follow-up. Frankly, I expected better from you."
He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth and Brad's expression went carefully blank; it was like he was on the other side of the world again, instead of sharing a pillow with Nate.
"Hey," Nate said sharply. "No disappearing under the Humvee this time, Iceman."
Brad just looked at him. "I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. It was vital to our mission that all that tar be removed from the undercarriage of that victor."
There was a shadow of a smile on his face and that was enough for Nate. He surrendered the higher ground; experience had taught him it was lonely up there. "You're so full of shit, Colbert," he said, sliding over so that he and Brad were lying chest to chest again.
"Roger that," said Brad, putting his arm around Nate. "I take it from the way you're once again acting as my own personal heating pad that all is forgiven?"
"That depends. Are you going to keep falling on your sword like a demented Galahad, or are you going to talk to me like we have a normal, healthy relationship? Because I'm on to you, Brad. The next time you bolt for a foreign country to avoid a conversation, I will follow you and tie you down until you talk to me."
"Duly noted." Brad kissed him softly. "I would suggest a vigorous round of sweaty make-up sex, but I think if we move too much, the bed will get cold."
"You're still a little chilled yourself," said Nate, tangling his legs with Brad's and resting his warmer feet on Brad's icy ones. "Let's work on that first. We'll save the calisthenics for the morning when the heat's back on."
"Are you going to let me go to sleep now? Or do you want to warm me some more? I'm open to both, I want you to know, but, again, things might get sweaty if your efforts are too successful." asked Brad, somehow managing to pull Nate even closer, so that once again Nate could feel the pounding of Brad's heart throughout his own body.
"Well, then you should definitely sleep now," said Nate, kissing the top of Brad's head. "There's nothing that we can't do in the morning."
"Mmm. I can do you, you can do me," muttered Brad, sounding drowsy. "So many permutations and combinations, it's like one great big sexual equation."
He was asleep before he even finished his last word and Nate wasn't surprised. After all, Brad's body was trained to sleep whenever it could.
Nate tried to stay awake; he wanted to be awake to stoke the fire when it began to die out. And maybe he'd hear when the hotel crew came around to check on their guests in the outlying cabin and get some more oil for the generator. He could use some time to think, too, and to enjoy lying next to Brad again. But he'd had a lot of sleepless nights alone, and without meaning to, he found himself matching Brad's deep breaths and closing his eyes. It was the smart thing to do considering that he probably wouldn't sleep again for the rest of the trip.
They'd be apart more than they were together until Brad retired or Nate moved back to California or some other impossible thing happened. So he would take this night with Brad, and wrap the memory around him like a warm blanket when he was back in Cambridge and Brad was back fighting bad guys. It wouldn't keep either of them safe but at least nobody would be alone again, no matter where they were.