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“Are you fucking naked?”
Brad came awake with a start. It was dark. He blinked groggily up at Ray, who was goggling down at him, mouth open and eyes wide. He seemed to actually be speechless, which probably meant that Brad was, in fact, fucking naked. Brad shivered and took stock of the situation. A damp, chill breeze was blowing in off the ocean, and the sky was still dark and speckled with stars - probably about 0500, his internal clock informed him. His body ached, and there were splinters from Ray Person’s porch digging into his ass.
And he had no fucking idea how he’d gotten here. He would be inclined to blame Ray for this deplorable situation, except Ray couldn’t lie for shit, and he was still staring dumbly at Brad, his running shoes hanging limp in his hands. There were dark circles under his eyes, like he was in a war zone – like he hadn’t been sleeping again.
“Are you alright?” Brad asked hoarsely, and pulled himself up into a sitting position. And fuck, he ached all over, a bone-deep throb that felt like the flu coming on, and he remembered that, at least. Yesterday afternoon, he’d passed on meeting Poke and Rudy for basketball, annoyed at his own immune system for betraying him. He’d curled up on the couch and chugged a carton of orange juice. He was pretty sure vodka hadn’t been involved, and he was absolutely sure that he’d been clothed at the time. But that was it. The next thing he remembered, he was here. Naked at Ray’s feet.
So that was weird.
“Shit, Brad, you coulda knocked if you wanted a booty call,” Ray said finally, voice higher than normal. “I – are you okay? Fuck, should I call someone?”
He was hovering over Brad, eyes unsure and worried, and Brad reached up and patted him on the shoulder, trying to reassure him. Ray’s eyes got wider.
“Think I’m kinda sick,” Brad offered, feeling stupid and vulnerable and trying not to let it bleed through into his voice. Ray’s face lost the careful blankness it’d had, softening into something a little like relief and a lot like confusion.
“You fucking think, you psycho? Either that, or you’re just drunk off your ass,” he huffed, and hauled Brad up to his feet. Brad immediately – and embarrassingly – face-planted into Ray’s shoulder, and Ray caught him with a startled yelp. “Jesus, you’re burning up! And you’re naked. Did I mention you’re naked? God, you are just so …naked.”
“Your observational skills leave me in awe, as ever,” Brad mumbled into Ray’s throat, dizzy and oddly reluctant to right himself. It was nice, having contact. He hadn’t seen Ray in ages, which was stupid. He should have come over before instead of – whatever the fuck he’d been doing that wasn’t hanging out with his RTO. How long had it been since it was just the two of them in the same space? Felt like forever.
“Come on, lie down,” and Brad realized Ray had maneuvered him inside at some point while he’d been zoned out and thinking the sort of thoughts he didn’t usually let himself think. Ray had dimples that showed when he smiled, dimples that Brad sort of wanted to poke, to trace with a finger. It was just a quirk of biology, a variation in the musculature. Knowing the anatomical underpinning somehow didn’t prevent Brad from wanting to touch, though.
“How the fuck did you even get here? You can barely walk, and by the way, fucking oof, you goddamned sasquatch.”
Honestly, Brad didn’t know how he’d gotten here either, what had happened to land him in this sorry fucking state, but he was glad that this was where he’d ended up. He felt shitty, but that was okay. Everything was going to be okay.
Except Ray was practically carrying him now, and that definitely was out of the question.
“I can walk,” he muttered grumpily, and then realized that he’d just pulled Ray down onto the couch alongside him, toppling into a supine position. So maybe his mobility was more limited than he’d previously thought. Ray didn’t rub it in, though, just grabbed the afghan off the back of the couch and draped it over Brad. Brad hunkered down into it miserably, still aching and cold everywhere except where his side was pressed against Ray’s. He inched closer, and Ray shied back, eyeing him warily, but when Brad stared at him, baffled at this unexpected response, he relented.
“Seriously, what the fuck is going on, Brad?” he asked plaintively after a moment, and Brad almost couldn’t answer for a moment, body wracked with shivers, teeth chattering.
“I don’t know,” he confessed after a moment, then offered tentatively, “Ebola?”
“Shit, Iceman, and you crawled all the way here, instead of, what, picking up a phone? Dialing 911?”
“You’re here,” Brad said, pointing out the obvious, and huddled further down into the afghan. Scratchy and not warm enough. Fuck, everything was cold, and he hurt.
“I don’t feel well,” he heard himself whine, and grimaced, dimly sure that he wanted to kick his own ass. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth and rode out another wave of the shakes, Ray’s hand on his back and voice in his ears.
“Oh fuck me, you’re one of those sick people, aren’t you?” Ray kept talking the whole time, a familiar white noise that sounded like home. Something about a whiny-ass step-brother demanding ice cream, and ginger ale, and cough drops, and throwing used Kleenex around like fucking biological hazards all over the place. He’d started petting Brad’s sweaty hair, which Brad suspected was going to be mortifying as hell for both of them later. Much like most of this experience. But for now, it was just nice.
“My momma raised me right,” he mumbled groggily, interrupting a rant about chicken pox, and shifted another half-inch closer. Ray smelled good, almost spicy – warm and familiar. Better than he had in Iraq, that was for damned sure. Not that it’d mattered when everyone in the platoon smelled like an abscessed testicle after a few days stewing in their MOPP suit. He leaned in and inhaled the clean Ray smell, tasted salt, no dust or gunpowder. So much better than in Iraq. “Not gonna – I, I don’t need ice cream.”
“Think you might,” Ray said, voice oddly squeaky. “Homes, you’re… you’re kinda freaking me out, here. I mean, you’re fucking snuggling.”
“Yeah, it might be contagious,” Brad agreed, abruptly worried. “Shit.” He didn’t want to give Ray malaria or ebola, or whatever it was he had. He started to sit up, shake Ray off, but Ray just snorted, dragging him back down, a hand firm on Brad’s lower back. It felt – good. Brad relaxed, settling back down.
“Fuck you, you know that’s not what I meant,” Ray said, and the way he said it sounded almost nice. Sweet, even. “You know I don’t care about that, it’s just – fuck, I wish Doc would call me back.”
Brad lifted his head. “You called Doc?” he asked, vaguely irritated. “When?”
He hadn’t noticed Ray getting a phone at all. Hell, maybe he was a bit more fucked up than he’d thought. He just couldn’t stop zoning out on weird shit, like the way Ray’s t-shirt had little holes worn through at the collar and hem, was soft with age, the black fading into a muzzy gray. Or the way the circles under Ray’s eyes were huge, bruised and deep. He was a little annoyed at the idea of someone else coming over – they didn’t need anyone else here, why had Ray called someone else over? – but the circles distracted him.
“You having trouble sleeping again, Ray?” he asked, concerned, and carefully raised his hand, rubbed his thumb gently over the thin, fragile skin beneath Ray’s eyes. Ray looked freaked, but he leaned into Brad’s touch lightly, let Brad cup his face. He looked tired, and in a month he was moving back to Kansas, away from the base and from the people who knew him, who cared about him. Brad scowled just thinking about it. That wasn’t right at all.
That was wrong. Who would take care of Ray’s dumb ass in Kansas?
“You should sleep,” he commanded grouchily. The asshole didn’t even know how to sleep. “I’ll make room.”
“Maybe I should get you in the tub,” Ray said to himself tremulously, and started to get up. “That’s what you do for fevers, right? Cool water?” Brad glared and dragged him back down, ignoring the squirming. He pinned Ray to the couch, and oh, that actually was kind of perfect. He rested his head against Ray’s warm, familiar shoulder and stretched back out again, feeling a bit better.
“Stay,” he ordered, and Ray made another alarmed noise, but he seemed willing to obey, curling his body around Brad’s, so Brad ignored it. He was getting thin, Brad noticed absently. The ribs beneath his hand felt sharper than they’d used to look. Maybe it was just that Ray couldn’t sleep without the sounds of Marines snoring, the Humvee rattling, or gunfire going off in the distance. Maybe Brad should make gunfire noises for him.
Then Brad frowned. This was definitely snuggling. Ray was right. Brad didn’t usually let himself do this – and there was a good reason for that, he knew there was, but it was eluding him at the moment. He shouldn’t do this. But he just felt so epically shitty right now, and even the vague awareness that he was acting like a cranky toddler with a Ray-shaped teddy bear didn’t seem to matter as much as it should.
“Seriously, I know I am a comfy motherfucker,” Ray said after a moment, voice high. “But honestly, homes—”
“Stop wiggling,” Brad mumbled, and Ray ignored him, talking Ripped-Fuel-fast.
“But I’m thinking we might really want to get you in that tub, or at least, like, get some Tylenol into you, Nyquil, some shit.”
“You are not bathing me,” Brad retorted, certain that that, at least, was going too fucking far. Snuggling might indicate he had a debilitating tropical disease of some sort, he guessed, but the idea of Ray going at him with a loofah was setting off alarm bells in his head.
“Not like you could fend me off, sunshine,” Ray informed him dryly, and then sighed and started wriggling, like he still wanted to get up. Brad frowned at him and wrapped a leg around Ray’s, leaning in, hard, and Ray said, “Jesus fucking Christ, maybe I should take you to the ER,” which was a little offensive. It wasn’t as though Brad was that opposed to physical contact normally. It was just that Ray was so warm, and Brad was so cold. It was only fair. “No, seriously. I’m just getting some Tylenol, keep your pants on. Oh, wait.”
“You’re hilarious,” Brad grumbled, but Ray really seemed serious this time, so Brad sighed and let him up. Ray stood staring at him for a moment, an expression on his face that Brad couldn’t quite read, and then padded off, turning the corner. Brad closed his eyes, settled in to wait, and tried not to shiver himself to pieces. Then he heard something ringing, and Ray saying, “Oh, thank fuck, Doc,” and he drifted off while waiting for Ray to stop taking his sweet-ass time getting off the phone and back to the couch.
***
Someone was there, in the room. Brad reacted automatically, lunging to his feet in one smooth movement. Except then everything went wrong; his feet weren’t where they should be, and he staggered, tangled in limbs that seemed suddenly too long and too short, a room that was too tall. He shook his head, getting his bearings.
And there was an intruder. There was an intruder between him and Ray, an intruder had snuck into their den in the dark. Unacceptable. Intolerable. He bared his teeth, found his feet, and acted.
But someone was shouting at him. Not the stranger. Ray. Ray was shouting. Why was he shouting?
“Brad, what the fuck! Brad. Brad! Come on, stand down!”
“Why?” he growled at Ray, annoyed, and then he blinked, looking down at the man he was currently strangling, and let go. He stumbled backward. Doc Bryan sucked in air and glared, massaging his abused throat. Ray was standing next to him, staring at Brad with an almost cartoonish look of worry on his face.
“I,” Brad said scratchily into the sudden silence. “I, sorry, I didn’t—” Didn’t what? Didn’t recognize Doc’s scent? What the fuck? Brad still felt like his whole body was bristling, like a perimeter had been breached and action needed to be taken. He scrubbed his hands over his face, trying to take stock of the situation.
“I don’t remember you being this, uh, homicidal before coffee, buddy,” Ray said tentatively, coming a step closer, and when Doc raised a wary hand to stall Ray’s approach – like he was afraid Brad was going to hurt Ray, Brad snarled and felt his body coil for a lunge. Everything stopped moving again, everyone freezing wide-eyed and alarmed. Fuck.
This was wrong. Brad knew this was wrong. He shuddered and closed his eyes. His fingers ached for a gun, a K-BAR. Something. He breathed carefully, listening to the blood thundering in his ears, and then he heard murmuring conversation again. Doc and Ray were talking. Footsteps approached, and then he felt a hand, firm and cool, come down on his shoulder.
“Brad, it’s okay,” Ray said, and Brad leaned into his hand and breathed out shakily. “It’s just me. Just your Ray-Ray. Hey. You in there, buddy? You okay?” And it was a question Brad didn’t know how to answer. He opened his eyes, and Ray looked back at him with brown, familiar eyes.
“Yes,” Brad said, because of course he was okay. “What kind of question is tha–”
And then everything clicked into place, who he was, and what he’d been doing. It was his turn to freeze, horrified. He’d just bared his teeth at Doc. What the actual monkey-fucking Christ was going on here?
“Oh, thank fuck,” Ray said, whole body relaxing, head drooping and almost touching Brad’s shoulder. Brad could feel his hair, grown out civilian-long and just brushing Brad’s skin. He wanted to curl an arm around Ray’s back protectively and pull him closer, feel Ray’s body in a long line against his own. And that was definitely not a thought Brad had ever let cross his mind during waking hours. What the shit. “I thought we were gonna have to fucking call in a SWAT team to sedate you or some shit. Fucking dart you with ketamine, whatever the hell they use on rampaging rhinos.”
Even as he was trembling, trying to get a handle on what was happening, to determine that this was in fact reality and not some cracked-out, fever-induced dream, Brad couldn’t help but snort at that. Ray grinned crookedly, looking up at him. Brad recognized the expression, the tight worry behind the easy smile.
“So, Bradley, you want to tell me what the fuck was that?”
“I don’t know.” Had Brad really just been thinking about wrapping himself around Ray, about tearing Bryan’s throat out, for fuck’s sake? It didn’t compute. “Bad dream, I guess,” he continued uneasily, staring down at his hands and groping for an explanation as to why he’d come to in the midst of attacking a friend. One of his fellow men, for fuck’s sake. “My apologies, Doc.”
“Yeah, well,” Doc grumbled, squinting at him. “That’s why you should have fucking called me over before you got this goddamned sick. Why you bastards think you’re immune to bacteria, I have no fucking clue.”
And Ray was saying doubtfully, “Some fucking dream, man,” but Brad had stopped paying attention, momentarily struck dumb with horror as the true nature of the situation began to sink in. Late morning sun was streaming in the window. Brad was still totally, completely, and utterly naked, and he was on the verge of goddamned nuzzling Ray’s neck.
“What the fuck is that?” Doc snapped, suddenly abandoning his diatribe on H1N1 strains, which both Ray and Brad had been ignoring – Brad busy fighting the urge to dive behind the couch, and Ray rambling on about amphetamine-fueled nightmares and LSD.
“Huh?” Ray said, and Bryan stalked forward, stabbing a finger at Brad’s bicep, seemingly totally unconcerned that Brad might attack him again. Maybe he got strangled by naked Marines all the time, and Brad’s current condition was nothing to comment on. Brad would have been more disturbed by that, but he was busy staring at his own arm, amazed that the morning could get even worse than it already was. “You didn’t say anything about a bite on the phone, Person!”
“Fuck, Doc, forgive me for being distracted. I was a little busy!” Ray protested, but Bryan just talked over him, getting out his bag and shoving Brad gingerly down onto the couch. Brad bristled, but he had a better grip on himself now that he was waking up more. Doc was a friend, a fellow Marine. Brad knew that. “Christ, Colbert, you know better than to let something like this go untreated. When the fuck did you get bit? You have any idea how filthy the human mouth is?”
Normally, this was where Brad would have made a comment about Ray’s filthy mouth, but he wasn’t – he didn’t know if he could say that sort of thing after the past few hours, and still sound normal. Say that and not let his mind go to places it shouldn’t.
And he still couldn’t remember how he’d gotten here. As far as terrible mornings-after went, this was pretty fucking low on Brad’s personal list. It wasn’t worse than waking up, stumbling inside his dorm room, and finding his sweetheart in his best friend’s arms, but it was infinitely more confusing – which was saying something.
At least the bite was distracting him from those more mundane concerns, because what the fucking hell. It was a deep motherfucking wound on his body that he hadn’t even noticed until just now, when Doc pointed it out. Brad was dimly outraged – it was one thing to take a hit in battle and be distracted by adrenaline, and another entirely to not be aware of your own body for no good goddamned reason. To wake up naked and disoriented and feverish with a goddamned hole in his arm, like someone had tried to bite through skin and muscle to get to the bone.
Even more inexplicably, it looked a few days old, red and scabbed over. How long ago had it happened? It didn’t hurt at all. He cautiously prodded it with a finger, ignoring Doc Bryan’s growl of protest, and felt a dull ache, like a bruise.
“I… don’t remember what happened,” he admitted. “I don’t…” He realized he wasn’t even sure what day it was. Saturday he’d been at Pendleton, dealing with more fucking paperwork about Trombley and those poor fucking kids. Sunday he’d taken his bike up and down the coast, just clearing his mind. He remembered that perfectly, zoning out on the tarmac and surf, the bright red of blood and the sound of screams washed out and faded by the California sun.
Then, Monday – he frowned. Nothing.
“Wait, you said a human bite. Human. Holy fucking shit, zombies. It’s the fucking zombie apocalypse. I should have fucking known,” Ray was saying, voice edging out of the territory of joking into the realm of potentially serious, which – what the fuck. “What should we – should we take him to the hospital? I mean. Maybe we should.”
“Calm down, Person. I’m not undead,” Brad interrupted, not meeting Ray’s eyes, focusing instead on Doc, who was muttering to himself and attacking Brad’s arm with medical paraphernalia. Anyway, it wasn’t as though zombies showed an especially pronounced tendency towards cuddling, which… sadly, seemed to have been one of Brad’s symptoms. Fucking hell. “I didn’t go after your brains, did I?”
“Oh, please, I’ve been called brain-dead too many times for that argument to hold any goddamned water,” Ray huffed, and at that, Brad couldn’t help but raise his head. Ray had a look on his face like maybe he’d meant that, like he’d started listening to the shit spewed out about him by ignorant fucknuts who couldn’t piece together a coherent sentence, let alone rig a field-expedient antenna during a shamal.
“Ray, if I were undead, I assure you, I would be a connoisseur,” Brad drawled, flexing his arm when Doc told him to flex. “Were I slavering for brains, yours would be at the top of my list. Deviant and malformed though it may be, it is still exceptional in many regards.”
Ray stared at him for a moment, then smiled tentatively. “Aw, Brad. And here I’d thought the magic was gone.” His voice rose a little at the end, though, making it almost a question, and then suddenly his smile turned sharp and sour. “Of course, you are diseased at the moment. Shit, buddy, I’m taking everything you say with a metric ass-ton of salt.”
Brad felt his mouth go dry. Ray was right. If Brad had been in his right mind, he wouldn’t have come here at all, let alone come naked. He still wanted to curl himself around Ray, keep him safe from the world, protect him from – from what? But he couldn’t let himself do that, even if Ray was leaning in towards him still, just slightly.
“Well. I’m fine now,” he managed to say, aiming for nonchalant. “Must have been a 24 hour bug.”
Honestly, he felt better than fine, aside from the horror and nudity and the look on Ray’s face and the fact that, Jesus fucking Christ, he had a fuzzy memory of licking Ray’s neck —when had he done that? Why had he done that? It’d seemed perfectly natural and ordinary at the time, but what the fuck must Ray have been thinking? Especially after – fuck.
Brad was certain that normally he’d be much more concerned about the licking and the nuzzling and the wary but hopeful look on Ray’s face, but it was hard to concentrate on anything except physical sensations at the moment.
Aside from a lingering headache, Brad felt goddamned great. The aches and chills were gone, and he was rested, energized. He felt like he could run a marathon in the desert heat with a full pack. With two full packs. Hard to believe a few hours earlier he’d felt like death warmed over and had been clutching Ray to his chest like the world’s chattiest hot water-bottle – but he couldn’t think about that. That much he did know.
He had to fucking repress those memories of lying together entwined on the couch, because he and Ray could only ever be friends, if that. Friends.
Anyway, Ray was leaving. Leaving the Marine Corps, leaving California. Going to some land-locked hellhole. So really, anything other than repressing would be a criminal waste of resources.
“Are you shitting me? You’re fine?” Ray spluttered, and got further into Brad’s space, expression a caricature of outrage, all exaggerated lines and wide eyes. Brad made himself sit still and not clutch the blanket like a shield. Ray still smelled good. Smelled great, like sleep and Brad. “You were – do you even remember this morning? At all?”
“Well, he’s still got a bit of a temperature,” Doc told him, and then jabbed Brad in the arm with a needle, ignoring Brad’s glare. “We’ll hit you with some antibiotics just in case. I’m more worried about the memory loss. How’s your eye focus? Do you have any contusions on your head?”
Oh, more mystery wounds. Great. He focused on that, on testing his body, shaking out his limbs. All clear.
“I can see fine,” he muttered, batting Doc’s hand away from his face, and then turned to glare at Ray. “Why the fuck didn’t you get me some pants when I showed up?” He wanted to get out of here, go home, but he wasn’t making the run back to his own neighborhood four fucking miles away in the goddamned nude.
“Oh, excuse me, maybe I was distracted by your having fucking ebola, and oh yeah, babbling like a lunatic?” Ray pointed out incredulously. “Like your giant ass could fit in my pants anyway.”
Brad snorted. “Insulting my girlish figure? You cad.” He automatically fluttered his eyelashes, then froze in horror when Ray blushed. Shit. Shit. Ray Person blushing. The situation was officially FUBAR. Brad needed to get the fuck out of here and re-group. Get some of his goddamned perspective back.
“I – sorry. I’ll go find you some sweats,” Ray muttered, and backed out of the room, looking downcast and hunted. Brad watched him go, chest and throat suddenly tight.
“No head wounds,” Doc announced after a beat, having made a visible decision to ignore the fucknut foibles of his platoon mates. He tipped Brad’s head back and forth and narrowing his eyes critically. “Sergeant… I don’t want to bring this up, but could you have been drugged?”
And oh, Christ, that was Doc’s gentle voice, the one that he used on little kids he was patching up.
“Well, I don’t fucking remember, do I?” Brad growled, and then he sighed. “You don’t need to get all concerned, Doc, I’m fine. Really.”
“Fine aside from the arm, the loss of memory, and the fever, and oh, the fact that Ray Person called me in a panic at 5 fucking AM this morning?” Doc asked skeptically, and Brad resisted the urge to stick out his tongue.
“Yes,” he said, aiming for placid and serene. “I’m fine. I just want some fucking clothes.” And to forget that this morning and the rogue, possibly rabies-induced cuddling had ever happened.
“You ask and I deliver,” Ray said, coming out of the bedroom and tossing the clothes at Brad without looking at him – a pair of oversized sweats and a Marine Corps hoodie that was just this side of too small.
“Thank you.” Brad pulled on the pants, leg by leg, and struggled into the shirt, aware that he must look ridiculous, trying to fit his head through the collar like a fucking turtle with an undersized shell, but Ray didn’t comment. Didn’t say anything. “I should get going.”
It took some time, but he finally managed to convince Doc and Ray that he didn’t need a minder for the rest of the day. Although both of them firmly put their feet down on Brad jogging back home, which Brad supposed was fair. He’d have pitched a goddamned fit himself if one of his men had shown up naked and disoriented in the wee hours of the morning, then tried to wander off shortly thereafter, claiming he was totally fine.
Except, well. Brad really was totally fine now. He was presenting none of his earlier symptoms – no urges to tackle either Ray or Doc, anyway, and right now, all he cared about was getting some of his space back. Latent ebola or flesh-eating bacteria or zombieism could wait. He just couldn’t be here anymore.
This wasn’t the worst moment of his entire life by far – that honor went to numerous occasions in Iraq –but it was hard to remember that when he was wearing Ray’s clothes, smelling Ray’s soap and laundry detergent. And there was the couch they’d slept on, and Brad just wanted to crawl back on it, wanted to drag Ray with him and make him actually sleep this time.
And that… was definitely not what his overriding concern should be at the moment. Brad usually had better control of the direction of his thoughts than this. His mental processing had been compromised – and wasn’t that Ray all over. Give him an inch, and he invaded your subconscious and set up base camp in your id. Brad had to get out of there, regroup. Get his head on straight, remember his priorities.
“Thanks,” he said again, aware that it was profoundly inadequate. “For—” he made a vague gesture that couldn’t possibly encompass the morning, the way Ray had held him while Brad had shook apart, cold and confused.
“Ain’t no thing,” Ray said quietly, and Doc Bryan was standing to the side, looking studiously away from the two of them. They stared at each for a while, and then Brad gave a little wave and started down the steps.
“It was nice seeing you.”
That last said quietly under Ray’s breath, like maybe he thought Brad couldn’t hear him, and it made Brad want to reverse, turn around and bound back up the steps, pull Ray towards him and find whatever it was that was making him look so small and fragile, making him sound so unsure. Then he would knock its ever-loving teeth out.
Which would probably necessitate punching himself in the face. Not to mention that, if Ray ever found out that Brad had thought of him as ‘small’ or ‘fragile,’ Ray would probably gleefully join in on said face-punching, with a bonus round of nut-removal.
So Brad didn’t turn around. He kept grimly going forward, suffered through a car-ride of stony silence and suspicious sideways glances, and then finally, finally reached his own domicile. He smiled confidently at the Doc as he got out of the car, hoping to circumvent any potential medical intervention the man might be planning.
‘See?’ he projected with his smile, ‘completely healthy. In fighting shape. No need to babysit, the Iceman can take care of himself.’ He tried to put as much of his customary laconic self-possession in his expression as possible, and it must have passed muster, because Doc rolled his eyes and muttered something at the steering wheel. He jabbed a finger at Brad. “You fucking call me in six hours and report your status, or I’m hauling your ass to the clinic,” he said, and then drove off.
Mission accomplished.
Brad lost the smile. Fuck. Fuck. Okay, time to start re-constructing the previous evening and piecing together the evidence. And shit, his door was locked, and the spare key – Ray still had it. Of course he did. Great. Perfect. He closed his eyes for a moment and then went to go break in his own damned back door.
…except that that didn’t appear to be necessary. That wouldn’t have been bugfuck nuts enough, oh no.
“What the fuck,” Brad said finally, and then sighed and climbed gingerly through the broken, shattered bay window, sliding over his kitchen table. He should probably call the police, but he wasn’t willing to bring anyone else into this mess, not yet. He’d handle it.
Then he paused.
There was no glass on the table, or on the floor. No glass anywhere in the house.
The window had been broken from the inside.
Which meant… okay, Brad had no fucking clue what it meant. But something had happened inside his house. He did a quick recon of the area, found his piece and checked all the rooms, but there were no bad guys still in evidence. It was an empty house. An empty house that was mildly wrecked and smelled like ass, but it was still empty. Small favors.
He ruthlessly quashed the memory of Ray’s house, the smell of the coffee brewing in the kitchen, the bizarrely systematic clutter spread out everywhere, the warmth, and stared out the window at the ocean. As though an answer might magically rise out of the waves, a fucked up naked goddess of roofies, riding on a clamshell. But Venus was un-obliging, as per usual, so Brad unlocked his back door and went outside to inspect the scene again himself.
And there was all the broken glass that had been missing from the interior, scattered in a wide, glittering arc amidst the scraggly tufts of dune grass. A few pieces had blood on them, which… wow, this only got more fucked up, didn’t it?
Brad picked up one of the bloodied pieces gingerly by the clean edge, taking it inside and bagging it in a Ziplock, as though he was going to just whip up a fucking polymerase chain reaction in his bathroom, run a quick DNA analysis. What the fuck was he doing? He should call the police. Call Doc back. Something.
He sat down at the table in front of his newly defaced window, huffing a little with amusement – there was a good breeze coming in now, at least, cutting some of that weird smell in the air. It smelled like dog in here, like animals had gotten in during the night. But fuck it, he’d check for infestations of dune rats later. Cracking open a bottle of beer, he found his laptop and opened a Word document to start compiling the facts as he knew them.
Begin with the obvious. One, nothing had been stolen in whatever shitty break-in had happened. To wit, his laptop and gaming systems were all still here, untouched.
Two… according to his computer, it was now 11:34 AM, Wednesday morning. Brad’s memories were coming back bit by bit, but he was still missing a chunk of time between Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning. And Tuesday morning and Monday night were pretty fucking fuzzy, too, but he could remember a bit more, now. Luckily he had a fairly set schedule of interactions to complete during the week, to fill in his days. Bar night, basketball, dinner with Poke and his family, gym. He could extrapolate from there.
Okay. So he’d met Rudy and Pappy at a sports bar Monday night, as planned. He remembered it vaguely: the Raiders had been playing, there had been Anchor Steam on draft. Brad didn’t remember who the Raiders had been playing, or if they had won. He didn’t remember leaving the bar at all, in fact.
The next semi-clear memory he had was of pussying out of the basketball game the next day because he felt like shit. Tired, aching, cold. He’d been annoyed that his body had been betraying him despite his relatively balanced and healthy lifestyle. Unlike Ray, Brad enjoyed eating well when not in the AO and reduced to subsisting off ravioli at best and reconstituted meat by-products at worst – he took vitamins specifically to avoid his immune system being unnecessarily compromised like this.
At any rate, he’d called Poke, Poke had given him grief, Brad had gotten off the phone and sat on the couch and glared at some obnoxiously addictive reality television show about some crazy-ass cake-makers baking a cake shaped like a motorcycle, with a working spinning wheel and exhaust that billowed out the back. Brad supposed he understood the appeal, despite the flagrant waste of resources and the technical inaccuracies. Either way, it had been fascinating, in an obnoxious sort of way. That show had ended, another show had begun – Iron Chef, maybe? He didn’t know for sure.
And then he’d woken up naked and shivering on Ray’s porch. Eighteen hours, completely gone. He took a moment to grind his teeth in frustration, then shook himself and continued listing the evidence.
Fact: Ray Person had seen him naked – but fuck if he was writing that one down, or the fact about being oddly touchy-feely and inclined towards snuggling, either.
Fact: Something had exited his kitchen window at a high enough velocity to send the glass spraying outward in a 15 meter radius.
Fact: His house was now – not a wreck, but definitely disordered—an end table knocked over, a section of wallpaper in tatters.
Fact: Whoever had wrecked the house had also seen fit to shred a pile of his clothes in front of the couch.
Fact: There was an inexplicable human bite mark on his upper right arm.
He stared at the computer screen, willing the bullet-pointed list to somehow make sense and add up to a rational explanation. The list won the staring contest by dint of being fucking ridiculous, and Brad gave in and called Rudy.
“Hey, brother, how’s that arm?” Rudy asked cheerfully, picking up after the first ring.
Well, that had been easy enough. “You know about that?”
“Crazy fuckers in this world,” Rudy said, humming. “That was a fast, angry little dude. There’s never any call to bring teeth into a barfight.”
“Barfight,” Brad parroted. And now it was coming back a bit more. Someone at the end of the bar yelling at a woman, then throwing a table. Not at the woman, but it was more than enough to bring three pissed off Recon Marines barreling down on the guy, who had been a surprisingly decent fighter despite being a slurring, stupid drunk. Brad had put the fucker in a headlock, and then –
“Definitely uncalled for,” he agreed, glaring at the faded teeth marks in his arm. “Listen, Rudy, aside from that, did you notice anything about the proceedings that was… unusual?”
“Besides that? Just our friend beating feet off into the night,” Rudy said, a slight questioning tone in his voice. “Like I said, a fast motherfucker. Why?”
“The guy didn’t seem…” Fuck, exceptionally cuddly? Naked? Feverish? “Nevermind.”
“Okay,” Rudy agreed easily, sounding bemused. “You alright, Iceman?”
Ask a hard question, Rudy, Brad thought, rubbing his eyes. “Screwby,” he settled on, rolling his eyes at himself.
After he got off the phone with Rudy, he called Poke, who reported that he’d sounded “worse than a POG day after his first shore leave,” when they’d talked on the phone yesterday, and that he’d been on the verge of sending Gina over to check on him.
“You okay now, dog?”
“Peachy keen,” Brad muttered, then set up a surf lesson with the girls that weekend and got off the phone when Poke started spouting his usual shit about Brad being anti-social, looking peaked, what the fuck ever. Poke had always been inclined towards mother-henning in the field, mostly towards his own team of retard kids, but now that they’d gotten back in the states, he’d widened his range of targets. Which was fucking annoying.
Shit. So that had been less than helpful. At least the conversation with Rudy had jogged his memory. Fuck, Brad just had to think back. What the hell had happened? He’d watched that dumb cooking show, then Iron Chef, then… had he called Ray? He had. Shit. He dimly remembered leaving a rambling message on Ray’s machine about the lackluster nature of the entertainment industry, and how context and companionship was everything. Pathetic fucking stuff.
Brad had the urge to hide his face in his palms, but then again, what was the point? The very next morning he’d gone ahead and broken all new ground in inappropriate behavior. A feverish drunk-dial or two paled in comparison.
No wonder Ray had been confused when Brad had showed up in the morning.
Brad shook his head, tried to refocus. He’d called Ray, and then… Then he’d fallen asleep on the couch. Brad twisted in his chair and turned to narrow his eyes at said couch and then the pile of ragged clothing at the foot of it caught his eye again for some reason. There was something about – he’d been wearing that pair of pajama bottoms yesterday, and –
He clutched the back of his chair and blinked. Blinked again.
Okay. Okay, new theory. LSD. Experimental psychotropics slipped to him by his own government in some fucked-up experiment, which – no, that was entirely too liberal of a thought for him to be comfortable with. But still better than what his own mind was presenting him with now, a jumbled collection of memories of being fucking four-legged, and oh, right, furry.
Suddenly the nightmare he’d been having made a lot more sense, for certain values of the word ‘sense.’ The conviction that his limbs had been wrong, that his teeth had been wrong…
Unacceptable. And even if he did provisionally accept that some sort of transformation had occurred, it still didn’t fucking explain why he’d torn off in Ray’s direction, collapsed on his porch, and then crawled in his lap like a puppy, because he was pretty fucking sure that wasn’t part of any werewolf mythology he knew.
A quick internet search revealed that last night had, in fact, been a full moon. Which was clearly either a freaky fucking coincidence or his stoned, feverish brain had decided to take that fact and concoct some unconscious wolf bullshit, made him think he was a Devil Dog for real. Fuck, what if he had hurt someone when he’d been out of it? Hurt Ray?
He was still staring at the torn, shredded remains of his clothes, trying to come up with an alternate explanation for what was going on, when his cell phone rang. He answered it on autopilot.
“Colbert.”
“Brad,” Nate said, and Brad couldn’t really deal with hearing the LT’s voice and remembering being a fucking wolf at the same time. The two concepts didn’t belong in the same world. “So, I just got an interesting phone call from Corporal Person. Something about you turning into a snuggle-time sex zombie?”
“Jesus fucking Christ, I’ll kill him,” Brad swore, and thunked his head against the table miserably.
And yes, that was definitely Nate laughing at him. “He wasn’t very clear about the details, I’ll admit. Should I be calling the CDC right now?”
“We didn’t have sex!” Brad bit out, and thumped his head against the table again for good measure. “There was – he was just running the facts through the usual filter of Ray Person bullshit, sir.”
“Well, you do sound remarkably well-spoken for a zombie,” Nate agreed, and then his voice grew more serious. “Honestly, though, Brad, he said you were pretty sick. Are you alright?”
Everyone kept fucking asking him that. Brad tamped down on the small, stupid part of him that went warm and happy that Ray had been worried enough about him to track down the LT.
“Allow me to translate for you,” Brad said calmly, and then realized he didn’t actually have a good Ray-to-normal-people-English explanation prepared. ‘Well, sir, you see, I’m apparently a werewolf.’ Right. That’d go over like a fucking Scud. “I was ill,” he said slowly. “But it was a twenty-four hour bug that happened to… coincide with my being in a spectacularly inefficient barfight, during which I was, ah. Bitten by our opponent.”
“Bitten?”
“Hence Corporal Person’s theory about the undead,” Brad offered. He wasn’t touching the sex part.
“Well. I suppose I can follow that far, but I confess I’m still confused about the sex aspect of a ‘sex zombie virus.’”
Motherfucker. Nate was such an unbelievable asshole sometimes.
“Who knows how Ray’s twisted little whiskey-tango mind works?” he hedged, wincing and grinding a palm against his eye, and oh, look. There were new faint silvery scars lining his forearm. Probably from jumping through a fucking bay window when he’d gone out of his mind and turned into a wolf, and he had actually just had that thought. He hated the entire world.
“It may well be that Person associates shambling, rotting corpses with intercourse,” he continued hopefully, staring at his arm. Accelerated healing, possibly a symptom of fucked-up-I’m-totally-insane bullshit. Maybe he was hallucinating.
Nate was doing the silent thing, though, patiently waiting him out, and Brad sighed, defeated. “I… may have been a bit delirious at points. And… not wearing much. Of anything.”
He waited for the laughter – even fucking now, months after the war, he still found himself working for Nate’s smiles. Ray had said his schoolboy crush was pathetic, but it wasn’t about that, not really. Nate Fick was a good man who’d been in a fucked situation, and Brad respected that, respected how much he’d tried and how much of a toll it’d taken on him. There was something noble about it. Brad himself couldn’t do much about how shitty command was, or the things they’d seen, but he could, from time to time, make Nate laugh.
He wasn’t laughing now, though, which was… unexpected.
“Sergeant, are you telling me you were bitten, and then showed up at Person’s this morning, naked?” There was none of the anticipated teasing tone at all – in fact, Brad hadn’t heard that edge to Nate’s voice since Iraq.
“…yes, sir, that is what I’m telling you. But like I said, I’m fine now.”
“I’m coming over,” Nate said, and hung up on him. Brad stared at the phone and began, quietly, to panic.
He’d gotten most of the house put back together – not much he could do about the window at the moment – by the time he heard a car door slam. Then he heard Nate’s measured footsteps coming up the drive, audible even over the hum of the fridge and the roar of the surf.
Improved hearing, some distant clinical part of himself noted. Useful in a combat situation. Unless his newly lupine ears would be too sensitive to deal with missiles and gunfire, which, fuck. Fuck. He still wasn’t entirely convinced he wasn’t asleep, but he kept pinching himself, trying to alter reality, to give himself a more badass, X-Men-type of power. He’d read an article on the subject of lucid dreaming in Scientific American the other week – but no dice. He was forced to conclude that he was, in fact, awake.
He made it to the door and opened it while Nate’s hand was still raised to knock. Nate stared at him then went white and slumped against the doorframe.
“Sir?” Brad said uncertainly, and then he frowned and leaned in, not believing what he was smelling. “Oh, for fuck’s sake – seriously? You?”
“This is such a violation of our code of conduct,” Nate said miserably, and Brad was pretty confident he wasn’t referring to any military organization at that moment. Then Nate ran a hand over his face and stepped inside. Then they stared at each other. And kept staring.
Finally Brad just swore and stomped off to the kitchen and got two bottles of beer, and Nate took one gratefully. At least this was a familiar situation – waiting for the LT to explain a fucked-up, unexplainable situation. Brad had a hard time believing that whatever was going on could possibly be worse than finding out their platoon commander had duct taped his own windows shut, or that they were being sent without armor into a killzone. Really, Iraq had kind of fucked with Brad’s concept of ‘unbelievable.’
“So,” he said into the silence between them. Brad was not going to be the one to say the word ‘werewolf’ out loud.
“I just do not have a speech prepared for this,” Nate said to his beer, most of which he’d pounded pretty quickly. “Look. You’re not a monster. The feelings you’re experiencing are completely normal—”
Which was so cloyingly after-school special that Brad raised an eyebrow in disbelief. Nate glanced up, catching Brad’s expression, and grinned, tiny and crooked. Brad felt himself relax minutely.
Okay. He could do this.
“Werewolves,” he said experimentally, and Nate made a face.
“Fuck, I hate that word.”
“Lycanthropes?” Brad offered, and Nate made a slightly less disgusted face.
“Sergeant,” he said, shaking his head. “Everything you know is wrong. About this!” he clarified hastily when Brad glared. “Normally, well. You’d have been informed of all of the relevant facts before you were turned – this is such a major breach, honestly, I’m going to have to talk to the San Diego head and hunt the fucker that bit you down. It’s supposed to be a choice.”
“I have to tell you, sir, I don’t recall enlisting for this particular adventure,” Brad said dryly, but it was honestly a bit ridiculous how much better he felt knowing he wasn’t just completely and utterly going insane. Nate dealt with this bullshit, and he was one of the best men, the best officers, that Brad knew. Ergo, this bullshit was survivable. Brad would make this goddamn wolfy nonsense his bitch, somehow.
He got up and fetched another two bottles of beer and set one down in front of Nate. “So, enlighten me, lupine guru. Should I be avoiding high dining and sterling silver?”
“I should have brought the pamphlets,” Nate sighed, and Brad was about to make a disbelieving scathing comment – pamphlets? Was Nate fucking joking? – but then he saw the small curve to Nate’s lips.
“I know sixty-seven ways to kill you with this beer bottle,” Brad threatened, and Nate laughed.
“Only sixty-seven?” he asked disapprovingly, wrinkling his nose at Brad. Brad scowled and Nate laughed again. “Okay, okay. Well, basically – you’ve caught the Lycaon virus. Welcome to the community.” Brad felt the eyebrow he’d already raised go even higher. “You’re not inhuman now – well, not anymore than you already were, Iceman – but you do have some extra DNA.”
“Extra DNA,” Brad parroted, blinking, then stood up to get the tequila.
“It’s not anything paranormal!” Nate protested as Brad thumped the tumblers down on the table. “Well, not that there aren’t certain associated beliefs, but honestly, it’s understandable from a scientific standpoint. It started out as a cross-contamination of DNA from African hunting dogs to our ancestors – a few of our ancestors.”
“African hunting dogs,” Brad said, licking his teeth and savoring the flavor of the agave, closing his eyes – had it always tasted so rich? He didn’t remember. “Are not wolves. They’re not even in the same genus.”
“No,” Nate agreed, toying with his glass. “But the virus mutated. There are several strains now, mostly associated with large predators, and, well, humans spent a lot of time with Canis lupus, which turned out to be a very compatible strain – most humans can’t catch the hunting dog strain, but almost anyone can catch the wolf one. If you like, I can forward you some articles on the evolution and phylogeny of the virus.”
It did make a sick sort of sense. More sense than Captain America or Encino Man ever had, anyway.
“Do,” Brad said, and tossed back the rest of the tequila.
“Actually,” Nate said, leaning forward, eyes brightening, “there’s been some excellent academic work done on the Lyacon virus – the history of our kind, and the spread through human migration to all corners of the globe, even before the Age of Exploration. Do you know there are werewolf myths and beliefs on almost every continent?”
“You can blow your geeky, soft-science load all over me later,” Brad said, irritated, but, alright, a bit amused at the same time. Christ preserve him from soft-dicked, mealy-mouthed Anthropology majors. Not that Nate really fit any of those descriptors, but the point remained. Nate wrinkled his nose at him again, and Brad shook his head. “I don’t need the goddamned the story of a cultural meme, LT. Just give it to me straight. What’s going on? Biologically.”
“Well, I can’t get into too many details here, the high-level endocrinology’s beyond me, but… basically, the wolf DNA binds to the human, and there’s a number of hormonal changes associated with the transformation. It’s adaptive, obviously – I’m sure you’ve noticed the improved senses, Brad?”
“Yes,” Brad said, “and really, sir, a Starbucks caramel frappe? Rudy would garrote you.”
“Their coffee is mostly free trade,” Nate protested sheepishly, doomed to be lectured by Rudy at some later date about consumerism and capitalism and trans fats. Rudy always found this shit out. “The point is, the hormones, if left unchecked, build over the course of a natural cycle, which typically lasts twenty-eight to thirty days, until a transformation is imperative. Now, it’s not always tied to the—”
“PMS,” Brad grated out, brain catching up. “You’re telling me I’m having the fucking fur-covered version of menstruation forced upon me every month?”
Nate looked entirely too amused. “Actually, pre-moon syndrome is the common terminology, but it’s a bit of misnomer – like I was about to say, the phases of the moon aren’t actually all that involved with the process, except from a meditation standpoint. But some packs sync up, and it turns out the Oceanside wolves tend towards syncing up around the full moon. I’ve started following their schedule myself.”
“Never tell Ray,” Brad begged, unashamed to deploy the puppy eyes – because seriously, fucking PMS, the ammunition would be endless – and Nate made a thoughtful moue, way too pleased with himself, the fucker. Brad jabbed a threatening finger at him. “You’d suffer just as much as I would, sir.”
“Point,” Nate conceded. “But I suspect he’ll make the mental leap himself, Brad. Your doom wouldn’t be delayed much.”
“Ray doesn’t…” Ray didn’t need to know about this at all, even though part of Brad was already imagining Ray’s response, hearing him giggling about doggy-style and making any number of inappropriate, low-level puns. Irrelevant.
For one thing, there had to be some degree of need-to-know going on, since he’d never fucking heard of any of this shit before, and wasn’t that disturbing. “Isn’t there some sort of pact of secrecy, sir?” Another thought struck him. “Does the US Marine Corps know about this?” Fuck, if this was going to get him kicked out of the service, he was going to find the fucker that bit him and bash his skull in. Then possibly have a small breakdown.
“It’s… kind of a DADT thing, to be honest,” Nate said, obviously weighing his words. “We don’t want it to get out, but you can tell the people you’re closest to – that’s actually encouraged. And our senses of smell give us away to each other, as you may have noticed. Obviously some of the people in Command know – I’ll put you in contact with one of our liaisons in the branch.”
Brad breathed out and closed his eyes for a moment. Well, obviously if Nate was still a Marine, it couldn’t be that big of a problem, but still, for a moment... It was just a lot of new information to process
“And it’s not as though it impedes performance in battle – quite the opposite, so long as you have a good supply of hormone suppressors.” Nate suddenly got an impish look. “Which are based on the concept behind oral contraception, actually.”
Brad filed the rest of the information away to ponder later – right now, he felt more comfortable with dealing with the hard facts.
Oral contraception, though. Fucking hell, the men were going to have a field day with that. If he told them, that was. Brad wasn’t sure – this was a bit much, even as far as open secrets went. He’d have to re-evaluate.
Nate grinned at him, looking almost sympathetic, before going on. “What you need to know right now is that you can’t postpone transformation too often without dramatic side effects – illness like you had with the first transformation. Loss of control, a degree of amnesia… it’s best to do regular voluntary transformations whenever possible.”
“It can be voluntary?” Brad asked, interest piqued. That, he could get behind.
“It takes a certain degree of self-discipline, but I have faith in you and your iron will, Sergeant. I can teach you the basics.”
“Thank you, LT,” Brad said drolly. “So what do we call ourselves, then? Because I have to tell you, this is all still sounding a lot like ‘werewolf’ to me.”
“That’s the term for civilians,” Nate said, looking pained again. “And it involves a considerable degree of misunderstanding. ‘Werewolf’ implies a loss of control, as though we’re all just bloodthirsty animals—”
“Well, I don’t know, I’ve seen you in the field,” Brad joked, but Nate just talked earnestly over him.
“Which just isn’t the case if you manage the symptoms of the virus correctly. Obviously the language has changed somewhat over the millennia, but the most commonly accepted term that our linguists have come up with is a Nigerian word: Ukpon– the bush souls.”
Christ, bush souls. Ray would be all over that one – except Brad wasn’t going to tell him. Ray was leaving. This was none of his concern. And the LT was continuing – Brad almost felt he should fire up his laptop again, start taking notes.
“There are cultural variants, of course, but that’s the universal lingo you should be familiar with. And of course, different packs have different names.”
Packs. Jesus fucking Christ. Like he didn’t already have a pack of miserable, Marine miscreants to deal with. He poured Nate and himself another inch or two of tequila. Okay, several inches.
“And the virus is transmitted by what vector?” he inquired, swirling the amber liquid, tasting the scent of it on his tongue. This he liked. His senses had already been honed as keen as the human body was capable of. Going beyond that… he couldn’t complain, though he suspected he’d have to put in some extra hours training to adapt to the differences. “Saliva?”
“Saliva in open wounds, yes. So not sexually unless you’re especially rough in bed.” Brad blinked and Nate just looked back, face suspiciously innocent. “It can also be hereditary – my family is actually one of the older ukpon lineages.”
“The wolf prince,” Brad mused. “Makes sense. You do have that silver-spoon, Ivy League air to you, sir.” Nate glared at him.
“Scary,” Brad smirked, and Nate sighed and rolled his eyes, tossing back his own drink.
“You’ll find your drinking tolerance is improved,” he commented, staring down at the empty glass. “Though not that dramatically. Winning drinking contests should be marginally easier. Though I’d advise you steer clear of chocolate-based beverages. Chocolate in general, actually.”
“Good to know.”
Nate bit his lip and shot Brad a sideways look. “To be honest, Brad,” he said lowly, looking away, “In a way, I’m glad you know now. Being in command… well, there haven’t been many people I could talk to about this in the Corps. And I’m not as close with the Oceanside pack anymore. It’s been… difficult.”
He looked apologetic, and Brad smiled for him, one of those involuntary smiles Nate seemed to pull out of him with ease.
“I have to admit, sir, apart from how much the last twenty-four hours have blown an enormous cock, it doesn’t seem like the worst condition to be saddled with.” Better than rabies or an STD by far.
Nate was frowning again, shaking his head. “Spending your first change completely alone… Shit, Brad, I’m sorry that happened to you. I’m pretty impressed with how well you handled it. It could have been much worse.”
Brad snorted. “If you can call turning up on Ray’s porch naked and trying to strangle the Doc ‘handling it.’”
Nate’s gaze sharpened again. “It could have been much worse,” he repeated, voice growing thoughtful. “It’s lucky Ray lives so close by, and that he means that much to you.” Brad was not, repeat, not touching that. “But don’t worry – the first change is the worst. So long as you maintain a healthy hormone balance, the symptoms should be much milder in the future. You’ll have more control over yourself.”
“Duly noted, sir,” Brad said crisply, and carefully didn’t think about the rest of what Nate had. Of course, when had his life ever been that easy?
“So,” Nate said immediately, like a homing missile for any of Brad’s potential weak spots, setting down his tumbler and squinting narrowly at Brad. “Speaking of Ray.”
“He’s justly very confused at the moment?” Brad hedged hopefully, but Nate continued on unabated.
“Well, that too. But. Well, you really might want to talk to him. If you notice yourself, uh, acting a little differently than you did before, or feeling differently –”
“There are no feelings,” Brad said, horrified. “This conversation is unnecessary.”
“No, it’s just… Pack is what you make it, and wolves can be very territorial. Just something to keep in mind.” Nate leaned over and fucking patted Brad’s hand. This was a new low in a day that had been filled with record-breaking lows. “I know he’s moving soon, and –”
Brad could not begin to convey how much he didn’t want to talk about this. Ever. He stood up and started taking off his shirt. Nate blinked up at him.
“You said you could learn to shift whenever and that you could teach me. Fucking teach, then. Let’s go.”
Nate gave him a look that said he knew Brad was changing the subject, but he still stood up and took off his own shirt.
“Okay,” Nate said easily, and what followed was a lot of New Age, Rudy-esque bullshit about finding his inner core and feeling the pull of the moon and tide, and blah fucking blah.
“I thought you said the virus and the moon weren’t linked,” Brad complained, after making what he suspected was a very constipated face, trying to find his inner moonblood or something equally insipid and revolting.
“Well,” Nate said, shifting back – and he made it look so effortless, a smooth leap from skin to silky gray fur. “It doesn’t have to, but there is a certain… allure towards hunting on the night of a full moon. A lot of rituals are built around that – and it’s one of the easiest ways to teach a new member how to identify and isolate the new hormones. It’s a basis for understanding.”
“Fuck that,” Brad said, and focused again. How did his body feel differently now? There was a thrum to his bones that hadn’t been there before, a bone-deep awareness of his environment: the smells around him, the air, the ground beneath the floorboards. It was a little like the place he went when sighting a target, with the gun becoming an extension of himself, another limb of metal, with optical scopes and night vision attached. Very like that, actually.
And it turned out that really was all it took. Two fucking hours of Nate going back and forth between a fucking wolf – a real, live fucking wolf, dark gray with pale, pale green eyes and a stupidly earnest canine expression – and then back to a naked human lecturing him on feeling the orbit of his inner moon, when all it’d required was a bit of Marine training to make his new fucking hormonal balance his bitch.
Brad had no idea what he looked like as a wolf, but he felt great. He barked up at Nate triumphantly, and Nate blinked down at him before laughing.
“I should have known better,” he said ruefully, and Brad agreed completely, giving Nate a canine stink-eye.
Nate shifted himself, downward into a familiar form that felt good, that felt like companionship and pack and home, and also a bit like a challenge. Brad wanted to tackle Nate, so he did, partially feeling playful and eager, and another part of him serious, genuinely testing this out, feeling out the new boundaries of this thing between them.
Nate let out a low growl and fuck, that was unfair, Nate clearly had more familiarity with this A-O than Brad did. He pinned Brad effortlessly and put his teeth lightly around Brad’s throat, and then shook him like a puppy. Fine, fine, Alpha, Brad thought, a little disgruntled and a little pleased, and backed down, rolling over and showing his belly.
It was Nate, after all, the LT. Captain now, whatever. Wolf or not, this made sense.
Nate nodded, then backed up and sat, watching him. Taking this as tacit approval, Brad bounded back up and began examining his den, now enticingly full of human and wolf smells. He knew better than to shred his human things this time around, and anyway, he had an exit pre-made, right where the window had been. He was no longer caged by the walls and doors and stupid brass knobs that weren’t made for padded paws or teeth to turn.
And he wanted to run, to feel the wind in his hair – fur, whatever – right this fucking second. Nate huffed out a doggy laugh and nudged him away from the window, shaking his head.
“That was pretty fucking excellent,” Brad said when he gave in and changed back – it took a bit more effort to concentrate, to want to do it. But he had to admit, being a human had its benefits, and clarity of speech was one of them. That helped him want to change back, even though being a wolf felt much freer, somehow, than being human. Everything had seemed wonderfully simple – he wanted to run, to hunt, to possibly piss all over everything – which now that he thought of it, actually explained some of the rank odor his house had at the moment.
Shit. So being a wolf had some downsides; he’d have to learn to curb that particular urge. Not that it was that different than being in combat, pissing wherever you could, occasionally as part of one dominance battle or another. Marines and wolves weren’t that different, when you got down to it, and that was comforting, too. Maybe his life hadn’t changed all that much. Just another facet to get used to, a new set of lines and boundaries that he’d sniff out and identify, and then follow as suited him.
Nate beamed at him. “You’re picking this up very quickly,” he praised, and Brad felt the customary low thrum of pleasure at Nate’s approval. “We’ll have to go hunt someti—” Nate stopped, cocking his head and turning to look at the door, eyes widening.
“Oh, hell,” he said, wincing, and then Brad caught it too, a familiar scent and the familiar cadence of footsteps.
“Fuck,” Brad said feelingly, and then the door was opening. Ray stuck his head inside.
“Hey,” he called out perfunctorily, not looking over, just shuffling in and then staring at his feet, looking kind of miserable, which made Brad feel like the biggest tool in the entire world, and why the fuck did he care about that right now? What was wrong with his brain?
“I know things were sort of weird earlier,” Ray continued into the silence, “And that you’ve – I know you’ve been busy lately, but I just thought we should talk before – ” and then he looked up. “Holy fucking shit.” His face went from misery to blank shock, like someone had unexpectedly opened fire right next to his head, set off a grenade by his grave.
“Hi,” Nate said weakly, hands over his dick. Brad just sighed and stood balls-out naked, because it wasn’t as though Ray hadn’t already gotten a good look. Ray stared, looking back and forth between the two of them, and you could almost see his ridiculous brain clicking away at high speed, neurons firing, signals connecting.
“Sex zombies,” Ray hissed disbelievingly, and Brad sighed.
“That is absolutely the most retarded thing that’s ever come out of your mouth,” Brad retorted, because honestly. At least werewolves existed in popular fiction. Although Ray had hit startlingly close to the heart of the matter. Shit was sort of supernatural at the moment.
“Shit, Brad, you’ve started an orgy epidemic and you’re blaming me?” Ray snorted. “Not that I can’t see why you’d think that in most cases.” And fuck, Brad had missed this, the easy conversation and the banter and the understanding and why the fuck had he stopped hanging out with Ray stateside, again? When Ray smelled so fucking good and just fit with him, like the pieces of a carbine snapping together.
Then Ray’s eyes dipped down Brad’s chest, almost involuntarily, and fuck, Brad remembered why not. Because they couldn’t do this. Brad couldn’t have this. He’d fucking been there before, and there was no happy ending to that story.
“I assure you,” Nate said, voice quiet and authoritative and just the slightest shade of amused, “There are no zombies in the room, Corporal.”
“Then what in the flaming gay-ass hell are you two—oh.” Ray stopped. “Oh.”
Christ, what now?
“You and the Captain?” Ray offered after a beat, voice oddly quiet, and it was Brad’s turn to freeze, disbelieving. “I didn’t – uh. Congratulations. I’ll – you could have –” He stopped himself again, and shit, he was staring at his shoes. “Look, I’ll, uh. Let you guys get dressed. Or – whatever.” And then he was letting himself out the door. It closed behind him with an awful finality, and then there was the sound of a car peeling out.
“Fuck,” Brad said into the echoing, Ray-less silence, and Nate just looked at him, clearly trying to beam a message into Brad’s brain with his big stupid green eyes, and Brad was just… Being a wolf didn’t change anything, not really. Not like that. There were still lines Brad couldn’t cross let himself anymore, not for anyone.
“Do whatever the fuck you want, sir,” Brad said finally, and searched for his inner wolfmoon, or blood tide, or Christ, who knew. “But I’m going running.”
Nate didn’t stop him this time, and didn’t change back to his lupine form, either. He just watched Brad go, springing out the broken window effortlessly and hitting the ground running.
And then he just ran. He figured he could pass for a husky – apparently his coat was white and his eyes were blue – so he wasn’t too worried about someone raising the alarm about a fucking wolf being on the loose. And it was really fucking something, better even than his bike, just flat out running down the beach, sand flying up beneath the pads of his feet and every molecule of himself focused on just being alive, on feeling the heat of the sun and smelling the world all around him – the surf wax and human sweat, the seagulls and suntan oil and dead fish. It was all equally awesome, like smelling real cooked food after months of MREs and rancid humrats.
After a while, though, it felt like something was missing. It occurred to him that if he kept running, kept going another mile or two, he’d hit Ray’s house, and sure, they’d been out of sorts earlier but what the fuck did it matter now? He wanted to see Ray, and he could, so he would.
When he got there, he flopped down in the sand, panting and thirsty. Stupid salt ocean, useless and undrinkable and stretching out endlessly, taunting him with liquid he couldn’t have as far as the horizon.
It took him a few seconds to register the smell of smoke. Ray was sitting out on his porch with a cigarette and an overflowing ashtray on the step beside him. Brad barked and got back to his feet, wagging his tail madly. He had a tail. How fucking bitching was that?
Ray seemed to share this opinion, because he raised an eyebrow and smiled at Brad.
“Hey, buddy,” he said, and Brad bounded over, wagging with his whole body, and got scratched behind the ears. Ecstasy. He closed his eyes and leaned into Ray’s hand blissfully, the sensation overwhelming all possible thought of propriety. “Whoa, friendly boy, huh? You don’t have a collar, that’s pretty fucking irresponsible of somebody. Maybe you got away. Did you get away from your family, boy?” Brad didn’t really have a good answer for that, plus he couldn’t talk, so he just made a whuffling noise and laid his head on Ray’s leg, hoping the scratching would continue. And the talking, he liked the talking. It sounded like home.
Actually, the whole porch smelled like home, like Ray, with Brad’s own scent overlaying it all. This was his territory; he’d marked it and claimed it – this place and this man – as his, and any other wolves or pathetic domestics that came by would know it. Knowing that made Brad more content than he’d felt in years, than he could remember feeling since high school. Fuck, since puberty.
“I’ve never seen you out here. You’re probably some tourist’s pet, I guess. Woulda noticed you if you’d been out before, you look fucking fierce. Badass wolf-dog.” Ray laughed and Brad couldn’t resist craning up and licking his face, tasting salt. “But you’re a fucking marshmallow, huh?” Brad cocked his head, considering this. He wasn’t a marshmallow. One of the surfers had tried to hold out a hand to him earlier and Brad’s first instinct had been for his hackles to raise, a growl building in his chest – stupid civilian human with no right to get near him, to touch him.
But this was different.
“I hope you’re not lost, buddy,” Ray continued, and then got kind of quiet, voice lowering. “Being lost sucks, I can tell you that. Man, I never had a dog, but you – you are pretty awesome. Maybe I could use a dog. Dogs are good company, who fucking knew? Better than some people, huh?”
Brad emphatically agreed. Ray finished his cigarette and leaned back, absently petting Brad’s neck. Brad whuffled in concern, and then hunched his shoulders. Fuck. Ray was sad. He was scrubbing at his face with his other hand and breathing carefully. Brad nosed him, and Ray drew in a wobbly breath.
“Man, I am so fucking stupid sometimes,” he said finally. “You appreciate your doggy life, buddy, because being human sucks complete cock. Or not, as the case may be. Case in point. Shit.” Brad was, again, in complete agreement. And it was starting to dawn on him that this – this was his fault. Ray looked hurt and broken, lonely. His fault. Brad whined and tried to make himself small, and Ray smiled down at him and said, “Oh, hey, no, you’re cool, puppy. I mean, it’s not your fault humans can’t lick their own balls.”
And that was just so fucking Ray that Brad wanted to tackle him. He hadn’t heard Ray talk talk like this in so fucking long. Since, well. Since that morning when Ray’d thought Brad had the zombie ebola flu, but that’d been different, because Brad had been fucking out of it and hadn’t really been able to listen properly. Yeah, a long fucking time – a few months was eternity sometimes, and it’d been that long since Ray came out, said he liked men, and then looked at Brad, and Brad had left before he could say anything else, took off on his bike and disappeared and he’d never come back, not really.
He knew all the human reasons why he’d done that. Ray had reached out a hand, and human-Brad had known it was the end of something, that there was danger, somehow. But it all seemed really fucking stupid now. Pack was better together. Brad should have stayed, stayed where he could take care of Ray, make sure he was happy and fed and sleeping well.
He spent the rest of the afternoon there, and Ray alternately talked at him, fetched him water and fed him some scraps of jerky. At one point, Ray even made a half-hearted attempt to throw a stick, looking at Brad expectantly. Brad stared back, unmoved.
He was a fucking wolf. He wasn’t fetching a goddamned stick.
Ray stared off into the distance, at the stick still lying in the sand, and then said, hand in Brad’s fur, “You know, Walt says I’m an idiot. That we’re all idiots. That I should just – but what the fuck does Walt know? He’s getting married in two months.” He was quiet for a minute, and then, “hey, you wanna be my date to the wedding, boy? Better than stag again, right?”
Fine, Brad would fucking fetch the damn stick.
He brought it back, feeling stupid as hell, and Ray took it, looking disproportionately pleased to receive a slobbery piece of driftwood. But that was Ray all over.
“Shit, man, maybe I’ll just hire a hooker, huh? A professional escort, tits out to here. Or hell, I’ll go stag, I dunno. I guess it’s not so bad,” Ray mused, twirling the stick between his fingers. “People get horny as fucking goats at weddings, right? Maybe I’ll just fuck him out of my system—whoa!”
Brad had tackled him, full of an unreasoning fury. Ray was his. He fought the urge to growl, trembling with it, and Ray looked up at him wide-eyed, a slight whiff of adrenaline and alarm coming off him until Brad forced himself to wag his tail, lower his hackles. Ray shouldn’t be afraid, not of him.
“Shit, you wanna come along that bad,” Ray said, laughing unsteadily as he sat back up. “I’ll get you a fucking tie.” Brad barked agreeably, despite the fact that he had delivered numerous lectures on how dogs should not wear human clothes, because that was a travesty on numerous levels of indignity and also implied an alarming level of anthropomorphism that could only lead to bestiality. Which was sort of ironic, now. But Brad was not going there.
He nudged the stick again, ignoring the goddamned Freudian part of his brain, and barked. And he would never admit it, but it was sort of fun, in a way. Ray had a good fucking arm – he’d better, after all the training they’d done with grenades and shit – and it was a good game, trying to catch the thing before it hit the ground, tearing back, doing leaps and twists, reveling in his own agility.
Eventually, though, Ray looked at his watch and swore, though, giving Brad a last skritch between the ears.
“Gotta run, buddy. I hope you find your family, though. I’ll leave some water out for you just in case, okay?”
Brad barked and went up on his hind legs, put his front paws on Ray’s shoulders, and Ray fucking giggled at him like a goddamned schoolgirl, like he wasn’t a fucking warrior, like he wasn’t a total badass stone-cold killer. It was the best sound in the whole world.
“Crazy fucking dog,” Ray said, and then put on his sunglasses and got in his car, and left.
Brad sat there on the porch for a while, feeling mournful and sorry for himself, fighting the urge to howl, and then headed back home to mope in private. He flopped on his couch, feeling an odd dissociation with his human self. He rolled, shedding viciously all over the upholstery.
Finally he managed to convince himself that yeah, yeah, he probably should go back to human again, not least because he couldn’t open the fucking fridge and he was goddamned starving.
He stood up on his two legs and stretched, scratching at his head and snorting at the sand he felt there, and then he remembered the look on Ray’s face before he’d seen Brad-the-wolf. And the look on his face when he’d seen Brad and Nate naked in the living room, and the look, when he’d said, months ago, brave and fucking trusting and open and hopeful, “Hey, so, I know I’m not supposed to tell, but…”
“I’m an idiot,” Brad said to the empty room, and then pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and took a few quiet breaths before he went to go call Doc Bryan and tell him that he was still fine and didn’t need to be abducted and taken to the hospital by force.
“You don’t sound fucking fine,” Doc said suspiciously, and when Brad started laughing, he wasn’t incredibly surprised at how much it made his eyes sting. “If that isn’t hysterical laughter, I’m not a fucking medic. I’m coming the fuck over.”
“Just having a few belated personal realizations, Doc,” he managed, sobering eventually. “Nothing under your purview, I assure you.”
There was a pause, and then Doc said approvingly, “About fucking time,” and then hung up.
Brad stared at the phone a moment, not sure whether or not he should be totally embarrassed that news of his travesty of a personal life had clearly reached the company grapevine, then hung up and went to stare at himself in the bathroom mirror. He had circles under his eyes to match Ray’s. He looked tired. He missed being a wolf, missed the world being uncomplicated and joyful.
“You’re a fucking pussy,” he told his reflection grimly, and went to find some pants.
***
He pulled up in front of Ray’s place, adrenaline rushing through his system, and only remembered that Ray had been leaving his house earlier when he started to kick out the kickstand. Some Recon Marine he was. Fuck. He started the engine back up and spent a while circling the neighborhood on his motorcycle, working himself into an embarrassingly tense state while he tried to remember the Plan, the speech he was going to make and what he was going to say.
It wasn’t that he didn’t love Ray, and Ray had better fucking appreciate that he was emasculating himself with this lilac-scented bullshit about his feelings.
It was just that Brad didn’t have it in him anymore. He wasn’t a man that did relationships, not the kind Ray wanted. Brad just wanted his best friend back, and how pathetically junior high was that? But somehow Ray had insinuated himself into Brad’s life so thoroughly that even after months away, Brad found himself getting in the passenger side, bookmarking porn that he thought would make Ray snort, hearing Ray’s voice in his ears when he was alone in the dark and silence. He’d even started listening to the alt-country stations on the radio – that was pretty fucking bad. That one he wasn’t admitting unless absolutely necessary.
Then, on the thirteenth pass, he saw Ray’s car in the driveway. The sight hit him like a two-by-four. Just a shitty fucking excuse for a vehicle with a bad paint job, and it made his mouth go dry. He slowed, stopped, feeling oddly disconnected with his own body. He dismounted, took off his helmet, ran a hand over his hair.
Ray opened the door before he could knock and Brad blinked at him, fist still raised mid-air.
“Heard your bike,” Ray explained succinctly, and there was something like anger glittering in his eyes, and shit, he – he totally had a right to be angry.
“I’m not sleeping with Nate,” Brad said, and oh, great, apparently his mouth had chosen to completely bypass his brain and skip ahead in his carefully planned speech without his consent.
“But,” Ray said, blinking. “The naked, and the – you don’t have to goddamned lie. Not to me.”
“It’s hard to explain,” Brad said, looking at his feet. There was the water dish Ray’d put out earlier, and for some reason it made a lump rise in his throat. “I. Can I come in?”
“Mi casa is su casa,” Ray said, leaning against the doorframe, and the smile on his face was edged and bitter. Brad looked at it and said, “Stay.”
Ray twitched. “What?”
Back up. Start again. “You’re going back to Kansas in a month,” Brad managed to say, clutching his helmet so hard he was surprised the plastic didn’t crack. “Why?”
Ray crossed his arms under his chest and shot him a sideways look. “Didn’t have much reason to stay in California, and I got family back there. You know I’m not a lifer, Brad. Marine Corps’ not keeping me here.”
“What if I gave you a reason,” Brad said, holding the helmet against his stomach, not meeting Ray’s eyes.
“What if you – okay, you know what, you are really fucking with me here, Bradley.” And now Ray was yelling, voice raised and cracking. He’d gotten in Brad’s face, jabbing at his chest with a hard finger, and he was so close, and fuck, so angry. “You just fucking show up out of nowhere, after months of fucking cold-shoulder bullshit, and avoiding even being alone with me, god, even looking at me, for fuck’s sake. And then when you finally do show up? You’re naked, and, I don’t know, diseased or something! I am seriously questioning your sanity right now, buddy, because—”
Ray could go on for hours like this if you let him get momentum. Brad needed to shut him up, and maybe there was something left of the wolf lingering in his system, because his first impulse was to lean in and kiss Ray’s angry mouth. Ray froze and went quiet, so mission accomplished, except for how Brad’s brain was shorting out and he was having to do a split-second re-evaluation of his objectives. And they were both just standing there, lips pressed together, not moving. Brad mentally punched himself in the face and shuffled backwards, feeling awkward and ungainly.
“I – sorry. That wasn’t in the plan,” Brad said wretchedly, and stared at Ray. He wanted to kiss Ray again. He could admit it. He wanted that, he did. All his carefully constructed reasons why he couldn’t do this seemed flimsy and contrived now.
Ray’d already gotten too far inside Brad’s skin to be just a friend. It was time to face the music and accept it, stop being such a fucking coward.
While Brad was busy having this self-revelation, Ray was staring at him, mouth opening and closing, and then suddenly he hissed, “You had a plan? What the fuck does that even—you planned, what, the naked ambush? I know you got your wee baby heart broken way back when, Brad, but this is fucking beyond the pale—”
“None of that was – no, dammit, shut up for a second.” Brad closed his eyes and took a breath, not sure where to start, how to admit how fucking wrong he’d been. “Ray. You were right. About a lot of things. Or, well.” He stuttered to a stop, feeling vulnerable and more naked than he’d been that morning, than he’d ever been. He tried again. “I’m not a sex zombie. I’m, uh. I’m a werewolf.”
After a moment or two of silence, Brad opened his eyes and saw murder written on every inch of Ray’s body. He reflexively caught the punch Ray threw at him, hard enough that Brad’s hand hurt. Shit.
“I am going to fucking kill you, you sick motherfucker,” Ray spit out, and Brad wrestled him to the ground. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Fucking – Christ, you’re like a fucking eel – hold still, Person!” he growled, and Ray snarled at him, and oh, fucking fine, Brad was just going to have to ruin a second set of clothes. A second later he was on top of Ray’s chest, shaking a shred of pants leg off his paw, and Ray was staring up at him.
“I am seriously about to piss myself,” he said faintly. “Did someone roofie me? Did you slip me LSD with your tongue?” And Brad couldn’t stop the low whine rising in his throat, and then he threw caution to the wind and licked Ray’s nose.
Ray blinked up at him, starting to say something, and then closed his mouth again. The process repeated several times.
“Brad,” he said, and Brad barked softly, wagged his tail. “Brad, holy shit.”
Brad waited.
“I am not doing the dog-fucking thing,” Ray said finally, voice shaky. “I know you fucking make jokes about farm-animal-fucking hicks all the goddamned time, but I am seriously not doing it. I may have low standards, you fucker, but—”
Brad cut him off, barked joyfully and licking Ray’s face again, and Ray was protesting and trying to shove him off, laughing and slightly hysterical, but Brad had heard the ‘yes’ in all that bullshit, had had years of translating Ray-Person-ese to English. And what Brad heard was that Ray was staying. He might be angry, but he was staying, and Brad had a chance to fix this, make it better again.
“Okay, change back, fucker, no fair avoiding the conversation just because you’re a fucking canine,” Ray said finally, having managed to squirm out from under Brad. He got to his feet, staring down with his hands on his hips. “Christ, this is too damned weird.”
Brad huffed sheepishly and then he was totally ass-naked in front of Ray, again, sprawled on the floor, and Ray had a disbelieving look on his face, shaking his head and muttering to himself before jabbing a finger down at Brad.
“So you’re a fucking wolf. Whatever. I don’t care. Talk, motherfucker.”
“I’m an idiot,” Brad said, and that was not part of his carefully strategized speech either, but Ray’s mouth quirked into a faint smile, so Brad kept going, let the wolf part of the conversation lie. There’d be time to talk about it later. He hoped. “I – it’d be pretty hard for you to steal my best friend or my girlfriend. Since you’re kind of – anyway.”
Ray mimed ‘keep going,’ waving a hand, quirking an eyebrow, which fucking sucked, because Brad could tell from the way Ray had just rocked back on his heels that he knew exactly what Brad was saying. He just wanted to torture Brad by making him talk about his fucking feelings some more. Brad supposed he deserved that, though, so he continued doggedly on.
“You wouldn’t have done that to me. They were… it was never like that with you. You always had my six. I’m sorry. Ray, I’m sorry. I should have trusted you.”
“Go back to the part where I’m your girlfriend,” Ray said after a long, cruel pause. “Because that’s kinkier than I expected from you, Iceman,” and Brad had never had that image even enter into the periphery of his thoughts, but now he was sort of pole-axed by the idea of Ray in heels with eyeliner and lipgloss. A short skirt and fuck-me-pumps. Mother of God.
“Whoa, really?” Ray asked, studying his face, sounding startled and impressed, and Brad felt his cheeks get warm. “Well, fuck me.”
“If you ask nicely,” Brad said, mouth dry, and now that his brain had gone there, it was like he couldn’t shut it off. Ray, splayed out for him, lips red and wet. Wanting him. Brad wanted that, wanted it right fucking now, with every atom of his body. He’d held himself back from this for so long, and now it was hitting him all at once, in a rush.
“Fuck no, homes, you have got this situation ass-end backward,” Ray snorted. “You, Bradley Colbert, will be asking me nicely, after all the fucking bullshit you’ve put me through. Do you even know how goddamned lame my life has been lately? Trombley’s been getting more play than me. Trombley. I actually went out and got drinks with that fucker the other week because I had that goddamned much free time. So I think if anyone’s going to be fucking begging in this pathetic twosome of ours, it’s – oh, Jesus fucking Christ, Brad.”
“You want me to beg?” Brad looked up from under his lashes and wet his lips, gloating inwardly when Ray sucked in a breath. Fuck, was this what Brad had been afraid of? This made sense, this slotted in perfectly to what they already had, made it better. “You want me to get on my knees for you, like this? What do you want me to beg you for, Ray? I’ll do – what do you want, Ray?”
Anything, he tried to put it in his eyes. I’ll do anything.
“You,” Ray stuttered, and then ran a hand over his face, and Brad couldn’t help but lean forward, biting his lip and begging with his eyes. “You are the biggest fucking cocktease in the history of mankind. Wolfkind, what the fuck ever, I should have known you weren’t human, because Jesus, this is like, the definition of inhuman. Inhumane. Cruel.”
“Ray,” Brad said. “Ray, please.” He leaned in and nuzzled, smiling against Ray’s inseam when Ray’s hands found his head, cupped his skull, pulled him in. God, yes, this. How had he said no to this?
“Everything,” Ray said hoarsely. “Beg me for everything. You want my fucking cock, Brad? You wanna taste it? Want me to fuck your perfect fucking – yeah, you’re fucking drooling for it. Oh, fuck, god, get my pants open. No, wait,” he panted. “Fuck you, you can’t – you can’t have it yet.”
Brad made a hurt noise and made his hands stop on Ray’s fly, and then Ray was tugging him up. His eyes were blown and dark and Brad abruptly reevaluated his objectives.
“Let me kiss you,” he said, staring down at Ray, and Ray closed his eyes and his breath – maybe later Brad would taunt him about his breath hitching like a goddamned Harlequin heroine about to get her bodice ripped open, but now it just made him hurt. “Ray. Please.”
“Ask nicer,” Ray managed, eyes still closed. “I don’t – you left me.”
“I know,” Brad said, and didn’t let himself touch, and tried to put the raw bleeding feeling in his throat into words. “I wasn’t – I didn’t think I’d ever be able…” And then suddenly he was laughing, his hands bracketing Ray’s hips, because he knew just what to say. He had it. “You make me feel like a virgin, Ray,” he intoned earnestly. “Touched for the very first time.”
“Oh, oh, that’s fucking cheating,” Ray said, and his hands went around Brad’s waist and tugged him in. Fucking yes. “That’s like, an allusion fucking imbued with meaning, you educated motherfucker, and also expressly designed to make me want to shut your mouth with my cock. I think I’m touched.”
“Ray,” Brad begged, and brought a hand up, ran his thumb over Ray’s lower lip, let Ray taste it with the tip of his tongue. “Let me kiss you.”
“Yeah, I guess you could do that,” Ray said, but his voice was low and broken, and Brad could feel his mouth moving against his hand, and it was almost too much, it was driving him crazy. “But you better make it a goddamned good one, I’m talking Princess Bride-level shit up in here—”
“You make me so crazy,” Brad said despairingly, and then kissed him, and it was like the conversation just kept going, Ray moaning and biting Brad’s lip and hands scrabbling at Brad’s shoulders, and Brad finally had to hold his head still, just hold Ray in place and kiss him, biting back and tasting cigarettes and coffee and Ray. He licked Ray’s teeth and his tongue and the roof of his mouth, drank in the noises he made. This was how Ray should always be, noisy and infuriating and entwined with him, just like this.
“Air,” Ray moaned into him at some point, and punched his shoulder. Brad frowned. “Fuck you, you fucking supernatural beastman, I have to goddamned breathe.” So Brad pulled back and mouthed at the corner of Ray’s mouth and the curve of his cheek and the line of his jaw, and let Ray breathe, which for Ray seemed to involve more cursing than respiration. Status quo regained, Brad thought fondly. No, status quo improved. He nuzzled Ray’s skin and waited for judgment to be passed.
“That wasn’t a kiss,” Ray said finally, and grabbed Brad’s chin. Brad waited, and Ray darted in, kissed him closed-mouthed and sweet, and Brad made an embarrassingly pleased noise. “That’s a kiss. That other thing – I should have fucking known. You were fucking eating my face, Iceman. Wolfman.”
“You taste good,” Brad hummed happily, vaguely aware he had a soppy grin on his face and not caring. He leaned in and copied Ray’s kiss, then deepened it into something wet and lewd and invasive. He broke off a minute later, said wonderingly, “You like it. You’d rank that kiss in the top ten, wouldn’t you? You fucking love it. You like being bitten, Ray?”
“God, I hate you,” Ray moaned. “All these fucking months, you can’t just be fucking normal and sane, you have to fucking—” He grabbed Brad’s ass and pulled him in harder, like he could just get them closer, just like that, like he’d fucking forgotten there were still clothes in the way. Fuck, the feeling of Ray’s jeans against Brad’s naked cock was just this side of painfully good. And Brad hadn’t even let himself think about this, about Ray’s eyes dark and heavy-lidded and his mouth wet and red and used-looking in between kisses, and the – well, okay, he’d had thoughts about the filthy fucking things Ray might say in bed, but no one could blame him for that.
“I fucking love your mouth,” he said unsteadily, and then had to press his forehead against Ray’s shoulder for a second, overwhelmed.
“Yeah?” Ray said, sounding almost uncertain, and Brad closed his eyes.
“Yeah,” he said, and let himself sink his teeth in Ray’s collarbone, let himself picture the mark that would be there later. His mark on Ray’s skin. His.
Ray panted above him, hands tight on the back of Ray’s neck, then let go. “Okay, alright.” Ray shook off Brad, ignoring his scowl, the motherfucker, but Brad forgave him almost immediately when he started shucking off his jeans. “You win. You always fucking do.”
“Had that fact not sunk in over the many years of our acquaintance?” Brad inquired politely, idly stroking himself, and then, “What are you—no, I wanted—”
“You love my mouth,” Ray said from his newly kneeling position. “No take-backsies.”
“I wanted to suck you,” Brad managed. “I wanted – Ray, you have to let me, oh fucking Christ,” because Ray had taken him in his hand and licked a long wet line from the base of his cock to the crown, licked over Brad’s fucking fingers, and Brad lost the thread of the conversation. He’d had something to say a second ago, hadn’t he? God, Ray’s sloppy fucking mouth, and it was on Brad’s dick, wet and messy and unabashedly filthy. Fuck. “Ray.”
“Don’t have to let you do anything,” Ray murmured, and sucked the tip in his mouth, hollowed his cheeks, and Brad’s knees buckled and he had to put a hand out behind him, brace himself against the wall. “You fucking – have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this to you. Yeah, make that face again. God, Brad.”
“Ray,” Brad panted. “Ray, Ray, Ray. Fuck. God, you suck cock like a fucking pro. Ray, can I touch you?” And put his hands in Ray’s hair before Ray could hum an affirmative, closing his eyes at the sight of it, his fingers twined in Ray’s dark hair and Ray looking up at him. “Ray, please.”
“Yeah, like that,” Ray said, pulling off and nuzzling at Brad’s thigh, mouth wet and hands slick, pumping Brad’s cock. “Beg me. I wanna see you want it, you have to fucking let me see it, Brad, gimme. Gimme that.”
“Ray,” Brad moaned, and came unexpectedly, overwhelmed and shocked, and god, that was his come on Ray’s lips, on his collar bone. He slid down the wall in a heap and dragged Ray on top of him, shaking and shivering as much as he’d been that morning.
“Holy fuck, I’d barely begun, you schoolgirl,” Ray started to say, and then shut up when Brad licked at his mouth, started rubbing his own spunk into Ray’s skin.
“You smell like me,” he said, wide-eyed and shivering with it. “God, Ray, you smell like me.”
“Jesus,” Ray said, and let him, let him do it, and god, it was so good Brad already felt himself getting hard again. “You like that? Is that a wolf thing, you kinky—oh, God. I have a bed, you know, we can – oh fuck, you feel so fucking good, Brad.” And Brad rubbed up against him again, whining, so much naked skin everywhere and he wanted to taste and mark and feel it all.
“You come on me now,” Brad ordered, and arched his back and pulled Ray down on top of him, messy and hot and wet, and Ray said something, a gibberish mix of Brad’s and the Lord’s name being taken in vain, and then he did, he came, just like that, all over Brad’s stomach. Fucking filthy and sticky and perfect.
“I swear I have more stamina than that,” Ray said into his shoulder a moment later, sounding dazed.
“Promises, promises,” Brad rumbled happily, and let his hand cup Ray’s ass, the swell of it, asking with his touch. Begging. Ray just pushed back into his hand and then leaned up on one elbow and raised an eyebrow.
“Got something you wanna ask me, Bradley?”
“I want to fuck you,” Brad said immediately. “Let me.” And Ray’s face fucking lit up like Christmas. “What, you thought I wouldn’t go all the way? All blowjobs and no anal, like a fucking prom date?”
“Well,” Ray started to say, and fuck if he didn’t start to tell his own prom night story, and Brad did not want to hear it. Didn’t want to hear about any of Ray’s dates, his nights, the other people he’d kissed and blown and fucked.
“You can fuck me, if you want,” he said, and just like that Ray stopped mid-sentence, mouth hanging open and eyes dark, and then he grabbed his own balls and swore.
“You cannot fucking say things like that,” he gritted out, and Brad grinned, savored the anticipation of it, the way his own cock twitched and the way Ray settled between his spread legs.
“Only following orders,” he said, tasting each word, delighted with the response he was getting. “You said you wanted me to beg. I’m begging, Ray. Fuck me. Show me that legendary stamina. Make me forget my own name. I wanna feel your cock in my throat. I want,” he said, pausing for effect, “you to come inside me.”
“Shut the fuck up, oh my God!” Ray yelped. “You’re fucking evil. I mean. Seriously? Seriously? Is this, like – is this the werewolf thing talking? Because – am I taking advantage?” He put the back of his hand against Brad’s forehead. “Are you fucking feverish still?”
“You can take advantage,” Brad said throatily, and Ray groaned and hauled him up to his feet, dragging him to the bedroom with such speed that Brad was tripping along behind him, laughing and giddy with it. And maybe it was sort of the werewolf thing in a way. Being a wolf had shifted his perspective, let him see the things his human self had missed, but it hadn’t put anything in Brad’s brain that hadn’t already been there.
“Lie down,” Ray said once they’d gotten to the bed, and when Brad did, he sucked in a shaky breath. “God, Brad – just, hold on, let me…”
Brad waited while Ray rummaged in a desk, watching him from beneath half-lidded eyes. He wanted to take, but he made himself lay still and pliant, and was rewarded by Ray crawling back on top of him, clutching a tube of KY in one hand.
“You sure, Iceman?” he asked, and Brad spread his legs, let one knee fall to the side.
“Quit pussying around, Ray. Unless you don’t feel up to it?” He raised an eyebrow inquisitively.
Ray scowled and stuck the cap of the lube between his teeth, twisting it open. “Well, fuck, Brad, forgive me for wanting to be sure,” he bitched, and pushed Brad’s knee up, spread him open. Brad shivered and reminded himself that he wanted this, that it was okay to be splayed out like this. Ray had him. “I mean, last time we had a heart to heart, you fucking bolted. Now I’m taking your ass cherry, and I’d like to know that, you know, maybe you won’t fucking stop talking to me again afterward.”
“I want you to,” Brad said, and maybe his voice came out a little too softly, because Ray’s face changed and he stopped dithering around with his lube-slick fingers and leaned up.
“Yeah, well, you’re going to love it,” he said, and kissed Brad’s jaw, his nose, the corner of his mouth, missing the target every time. Which wouldn’t have given Brad much confidence in Ray’s fucking abilities, but he had a feeling Ray didn’t care so much about managing mouth-to-mouth contact as he did about finding skin. “You’re gonna scream like a little bitch for me, and you’re going to love it,” he promised.
“Then get to it,” Brad gritted out, and fuck, bickering like this – the way they did over what turn to take on the road – shouldn’t have him this fucking hard. Ray noticed, of course he did. He smirked and stroked a lube-slick finger over Brad’s balls. Brad forgot that he’d meant to be goading Ray into action and just moaned, bucked his hips.
“Oh, not yet, Bradley,” Ray said, and slid down Brad’s body again. “Trust me. I’m so good at this, I’ll make it so good for you.”
I know, Brad wanted to say. I do, I do trust you, but then Ray’s mouth was on his cock again, and oh god, his fingers were sliding lower, then dipping back behind his balls.
“Yeah, yes,” he stuttered, and the first fingertip felt wrong, alien and invasive. Brad shuddered, and opened his eyes a slit to see Ray’s spit-slick lips, his mouth right there, pulling off of Brad’s cock with a wet noise.
“Let me in, Brad,” Ray begged, husky and low, finger still pressing inward, and Brad just… breathed, and did. And oh, God. “Yeah, Brad, that’s it baby, like that,” Ray murmured, and kissed the crown of Brad’s cock. “God, I’m fucking you with my finger, fucking looks so good, Brad, wish you could see it. Look at you.”
“Anatomically impossible,” Brad managed, and Ray laughed, startled, and looked up and met Brad’s eyes again.
“We’re fucking Marines,” he said. “We’ll make it work. Later. Some other time. With mirrors, you’ll watch me, fuck, it’ll blow your fucking mind. I’m about to bust a nut already, homes, you’re so fucking hot.”
“Don’t you dare,” Brad warned, and then moaned and arched his back, felt like a thousand dollar whore, because Ray was sliding another finger in, and he really had a rhythm now, one Brad recognized. And god, it was – it was good, it felt filthy and wrong and right. Ray inside him, yeah, this was right.
“You like that?” Ray breathed smugly, and Brad tried to glare. He suspected he fell short of the mark, because Ray just smiled wickedly up at him and did something that twisted, and fuck. Fuck. “Yeah, you like that.”
“More,” Brad growled, impatient. Ray was holding his hips down, wiry strong motherfucker, not letting Brad thrust down on his hand, and it was getting old, fast. Brad was pretty sure he could break Ray’s grip, and he didn’t want to hurt him, but he wanted. “Ray, please.”
“That’s my good boy, saying the magic word. Didn’t think you’d be so polite in bed,” Ray murmured, and Brad felt his cock jerk at the ‘good boy.’ That was embarrassing, but he really couldn’t be bothered worrying about it, because Ray was up to three fingers now, and he was keeping a steady, pounding, maddening rhythm, and Brad couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Enough,” he bit out, and sat up, distracted briefly at how that made Ray’s hand shift inside him – God. But he had a fucking mission, here. He shoved at Ray’s chest until Ray backed up, removed his fingers, and Christ, if he didn’t already know that Ray had him by the balls, had him deep inside and completely, he’d have known then. The empty feeling was almost unbearable.
Ray blinked up at him. “Brad?” he asked, voice high and uncertain, and Brad smiled, licked his teeth, then flipped Ray over in one smooth motion.
“You’re too slow,” he drawled, and then lowered himself down until he could feel his ass brushing Ray’s cock. “My turn.”
“Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck,” Ray chanted, eyes huge, babbling about combat jacks and wet dreams, some fucking bullshit story or another, but it was all white noise. Brad was too busy concentrating on relaxing, on letting Ray in. It hurt, but in a good way, a good burn. He liked it. He closed his eyes and slid down and down until Ray was fully inside him. Ray was scrabbling at his hips, nails scoring Brad’s skin, and he liked that too, liked the sting of it. It was all good.
“Brad,” Ray said, voice wrecked, and Brad opened his eyes.
“Yes, Ray?” he asked, and experimentally raised up an inch, slid back, and oh, yeah. “Am I doing it right?” he asked, keeping his face straight, and then broke and laughed when Ray scowled and punched him in the shoulder.
“I hate you,” Ray reminded him, and Brad smiled down at him.
“Yeah?”
“Fucking move,” Ray growled, and Brad did.
“Don’t come, Ray,” he warned, and then got an arm around Ray’s back, hauled him up into a sitting position. God, so good, with Ray right there, right here with him, breath coming out in sobs against Brad’s neck. He ground his hips down, felt his own eyes flutter shut with how raw it felt, and buried his face against Ray’s shoulder.
“Perfect,” he said, and mouthed the skin, ran his hand along Ray’s spine, feeling the vertebrae. “I missed you.”
“Brad, I’m – I can’t—” Ray babbled, and Brad let his teeth graze Ray’s collarbone, tasted himself there and moaned.
“You can,” he said, feeling drunk with it. “Ray, you can – can I bite you?”
“Fuck. Fuck, oh god, yeah, do it,” Ray said, and his hands were pressing the shape of themselves into Brad’s hips, and Brad let himself bite down, hard, hard enough to bruise, and laved the skin there with his tongue, and then worried it again with his teeth.
“Mine,” he purred, and Ray gave a quiet, choked gasp, and came, wet and warm. “So good for me, Ray.”
He lowered Ray back to the bed, laid him out against the pillows, shaking and desperate with it, and took himself in his hand, stripped his cock hard and mercilessly and came all over Ray’s skin a second time in less than an hour. He collapsed on top of Ray smugly and closed his eyes.
“Brad, you may be unaware of this, but you are a giant, freak of nature, man-wolf. You’re crushing me,” Ray informed him a minute later. He didn’t sound very sincere with his bitching, though, so Brad ignored him, nuzzlingly contentedly at the monstrous hickey he’d left on Ray’s neck. Ray was beneath him, and Brad was wrapped around him, had Ray pinned in place. Life was pretty fucking good.
“Hey,” Ray said, and Brad raised his head and eyed him.
“What?” he asked suspiciously, because there was a mad gleam in Ray’s eyes, one that boded ill for everyone within hearing range.
“You better not think you’re getting out of being my date to Walt’s white-bread wedding,” Ray crooned, and Brad groaned. “No, what, you think being a dog when you agreed is a get-out-of-jail free card? You’re gonna wear a tie for me, fucker. You’re gonna slow dance.”
“I absolutely will not,” Brad stated, and then paused, considering. Well, why not? It wasn’t like he and Ray didn’t act like giant homosexuals around each other in the AO and out anyway. “No dancing,” he clarified, and Ray’s grin was startled and enormous. “And I pick the tie.”
“Whatever you say, Iceman.”
***
A month later, when Brad was making small talk with an obnoxiously smug-looking Nate by the punch bowl, the DJ said over the speakers about this next request going out to all the Devil Dogs in the room. A familiar pounding beat began. Walt let out a shout of laughter and Poke howled, loud and mocking.
“They’re not very subtle, are they?” Nate inquired, hiding a smile, and Brad sighed and went to go collect his fucknut of a mate from the dance floor.
“Are you hungry?” Ray asked innocently when Brad came up behind him. Ray’s dance partner, a stacked blonde in her twenties, saw Brad and immediately retreated. Wise of her. “Like the wolf, Brad?”
“You are a disgrace to our noble lupine lineage,” Brad intoned threateningly, stepping in closer.
“Not ‘our’ lineage, not until you get off your fucking high horse and change me already,” Ray grumbled, sticking his tongue at Brad and crossing his eyes. Normally Brad would chastise him for bringing the subject up in public, but, well. They were standing close together, and the music was loud. There wasn’t much risk of being overheard. He’d allow it, just this once.
“Against protocol,” Brad said loftily. “Another five weeks waiting period, minimum. You can’t make the decision lightly. Have you been through all the pamphlets yet, Ray? They’re very informative.”
“Oh, because you read all the pamphlets and signed on the dotted line,” Ray whined, but there was an edge of genuine frustration beneath the put-upon pout. Brad sympathized, but there were downsides to catching the Ukpon virus, even for a civilian, and Brad wasn’t subjecting Ray to them unless Ray was one hundred-percent ready.
Still. The tight lines by Ray’s eyes weren’t something Brad liked to see. He closed his own eyes, sighed, and then swung Ray into a spin, caught him by the waist and dipped him.
“Happier now?” Brad asked, setting Ray back on his feet and letting go, straightening his tie.
“Brad, you’ve been holding out on me,” Ray said, eyes sparkling back at him. “You’ve got moves.”
And what the hell. Stafford and Christeson had started doing some moronic dance on the sideline, and Rudy and Pappy were swaying to the beat, arms around each other’s shoulders. They were all friends here. Brad supposed he could lower himself to look like an idiot on the dance floor just this once. He tugged Ray back towards him, fought the urge to stick his nose in Ray’s neck and nuzzle, and let his feet move with the beat, just for now.
It wasn’t so bad.
Afterward, attempting to make a tactical retreat to the dessert table, he was intercepted by one of Poke’s tiny humans, dolled up in lace and taffeta. Clearly Brad had set a precedent and would have to face the consequences. He sighed, bowed, and submitted to another dance, this one with a six-year-old girl approximately three feet shorter than himself. He could see Ray laughing at him as he spun her around the room, and raised a sardonic eyebrow back.
“Thought the Iceman didn’t dance,” Poke grinned at him over the rim of a punch glass. Brad shrugged, handing over Maria to her proper owner in exchange for a cup of the punch.
“Under the right circumstances, I will allow it,” he said, sipping the beverage and watching Ray out of the corner of his eye. He was approaching with the bride and groom in tow, all of them smiling a mile wide.
“Iceman’s melted. Brad’s fucking whipped,” Walt announced, and then yelped when his bride goosed him.
“Who’s whipped, now?” Ray teased. He leaned over and gave Walt a noogie. Ray’s tie was undone again, and a faint red mark showed on his skin, just above the collar.
Brad smiled and said, “No comment.” He graciously refrained from dragging Ray off into the coatroom to examine the mark further, add a few more, let the bridesmaids know Ray Person wasn’t on anyone’s menu but Brad’s own. It was Walt’s special day, after all, and anyway, he suspected the new Mrs. Hasser would hand him his ass if he dragged the best man off the dance floor this early in the festivities.
“Having fun?” Ray asked, stealing Brad’s cup of punch. “Told you you would, homes. You gotta learn to trust your RTO. When have I ever led you astray?”
“You are the best in the business,” Brad agreed, and Ray beamed at him, further testing Brad’s resolve about not visiting the coatroom. But it was fine – he could wait. He had time, and he was happy with this, just standing here in his dress blues, holding a cup of watered-down punch, surrounded by his family.
He still refused to join Ray for the Cupid Shuffle afterwards, though. Brad might be willing to slow dance, but he wouldn’t line dance for anyone. But then Ray turned around and did a cha-cha slide, shaking his hips and widening his eyes at Brad. Brad sighed and set aside his punch.
Maybe just this once.
***
FIN