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webgottmilk · 7 years

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~ Heard It Through the Grapevine ~

This fic is a gift for the lovely and patient @ciarlapanics; the fic rec is coming, I promise! In the meantime, enjoy some Bradray feels, since I’m a sucker, and you can never have too many in our little fandom. Enjoy <3

Summary: This is not quite how Ray imagined he’d become Internet famous.

Rating: E

Word Count: 5,237

This is not the way that Ray wanted to become Internet famous - in his mind, rock stardom comes from carefully crafted albums and hours spent in recording booths. Of course his fame is the wretched lovechild of his overactive imagination and (admittedly) poor planning skills.

And yes, perhaps literally jumping into Brad Colbert’s arms upon his arrival back to the States wasn’t the sanest of ideas, but even that he can let his best friend chalk up to his rather poor upbringing. (“If you had any less brain cells Ray, you’d be a drooling vegetable. In fact, the drooling part isn’t far off”). To be fair however, flying directly to Nevada,Missouri after finishing up serving with the Royal Marine Commandos - fucking English frogs in his mind - is no small feat to Ray, and deserves at least a small gesture of gay love on his part.

Ok, yes, Ray may have regretted the action as soon as he tackled Brad since holy shit the fucking Viking can hold on to a lot of weight and god damn those arms. But properly non heterosexual thoughts aside, it’s not really an intelligent idea to display affection in public for any Marine, lest civilians catch on to the idea that they’re actually human beings too! At least, Ray chooses to believe that that’s Brad’s reasoning for his usually reserved nature upon being body slammed at the Joplin Municipal Airport.

Surprisingly, Brad plays along with the reunion, twirling Ray around like some sparkly gay ass princess from Disney’s latest money making gambit, and laughs quietly into his ear.

“I knew you loved me, Iceman!”, Ray crows back - give him an inch and he’ll take a mile…

Brad is obviously thinking along those lines, dropping him faster than Encino Man called danger close strikes on his own men back in Iraq.

“I would question your actions, Ray”, he says, stepping back and lazily drawling, “but I know that there’s barely room for a thought that’s not involving incest or NASCAR in that fucked up head of yours.”

Ray tilts his head upwards to peer at Brad - who is still standing close enough that he can smell the sweat and dirt on his fatigues - and winks lecherously.

“I just couldn’t wait to get my hands back on those Viking arms of yours, homes. They’re irresistible”, Ray draws the last word out in an overexaggerated attempt to mimic Walt’s slow country accent. He blows the bemused Brad a kiss before striking off towards the baggage claim. Brad follows closely, always watching his six, as he crosses the terminal and heads towards carousel four.

“Eat any English sausages?”, Ray asks innocently as they idle side by side, waiting for Brad’s single camo coloured duffle to appear on the conveyor belt.

Brad only snorts, shoving Ray hard enough that he has to struggle the slightest amount to regain his balance, and dignity.

“Civilian life has made you soft, Ray. You’re a goddamn disgrace to every Marine in Nevada”, Brad shoots back, clearly not missing the shorter man’s attempt at recovery. “Don’t worry, you can join me on my six mile run tomorrow, early bird catches the worm, or the sausage, I suppose.” Brad laughs openly at his distress, then nudges Ray again suggestively.

“Homes, if I needed birds to help me find sausage, I would have checked myself into a hospice long before your giant white ass landed back on US soil.” He is obviously teasing, so Brad obliges with a soft huff, then quickly steps forward to grab his bag off the belt.

“Let’s go home, Ray. You clearly need a nap and a bottle before your infantile brain is able to comprehend even the simplest of metaphorical phrases”. With that, Brad marches in the direction of the Parking Area signs, Ray trailing behind him.

The ride home, in Ray’s ancient pickup truck (“Ray, this piece of junk is going to fall apart right out from under us, before I’ve had a chance to consume one of your shitty Coors Lights”.) (“Oh Bradley, you know I bought gay microbrew just for you - no Coors Light for your delicate sensibility”.) is non eventful, even with the occasional jibe about Ray’s Elvis sunglasses - “we pimpin, homes,” he recites with a wry smile, as they coast along the highway, still going a good ten miles over the speed limit.

The night is spent drinking too many shitty beers, and consuming too much shitty media. (“Ray, no matter what you say, Inception is a B+ movie with poor editing and no plot”) and (“Bradley Colbert, your mother raised you better than to insult the good name of Christopher Nolan, shame on you!). Brad passes out on the couch around two am, clearly succumbing to the exhaustion of a day spent airplane hopping. Ray covers him with a blanket, heroically ignoring the strip of pale skin that his ridden up fatigues expose. He gulps, making a mental note to stay far, FAR away from the thought.

Ray sleeps fitfully, mostly because, “goddammit Brad, pineapple on pizza is not only the gayest thing you have ever suggested to me, but also the most disgusting, which coming from me, should shame you.” Pineapple and Coors Light do not a friendly bedfellow make, so he spends his hours gravitating between the kitchen, where he can just make out the fine blonde hairs of Brad’s head, and his cold, messy bed. Ray knows how pathetic it is to stare longingly over the counter at your best friend, so he actively avoids the kitchen and living room after a couple of passes.

Around six, he checks his Twitter, since if it’s good enough for Donald Trump, it’s good enough for him. (At least that’s how he defended his usage when Brad raised a judgmental eyebrow at him between scenes of The Usual Suspects.) He smothers his laughter when he sees the number one trending tag, because “planking” is literally the dumbest fad since swallowing goldfish. He passes the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Repeal” tag with much less amusement, but makes a mental note to read up on it at a slightly later date. However, it’s trending tag number three that stops him half way through a drink of water; the sheer absurdity of the tag “Marinesinlove” is so substantial that he isn’t sure whether to laugh, or hide his face in his grubby pillow. Marines, displaying emotions? That’s the most retarded fucking thing he’s seen in the last twelve hours, and Brad Colbert’s lustful gaze at a pineapple covered pizza was one of them.

In the end, curiosity kills the cat (fuck you Brad, he can understand simple metaphors, or whatever), so Ray bites the bullet and clicks the tag. And nearly drenches his lap in ice cold fridge water. The first image to appear is a gif of Brad twirling him, HIM, around in a circle, with the tag, “Marine boyfriends in love”, and the addition of three heart eye emojis. The post has over six hundred retweets, with comments such as the disgusting “awwww”, and “this is what true love looks like”, though with a suspicious lack of grammar so common to Twitter.

Numb, Ray continues scrolling - it doesn’t just stop at the gif. There are multiple picture sets of Brad staring into Ray’s eyes - hold on, he swears that they weren’t standing THAT close at the airport - and gif upon gif of him rolling his eyes at Ray’s ridiculous antics. But what Ray can’t help but continuously notice is the overwhelming amount of grammatically incorrect tweets praising the “anonymous” Marines for their candid display of affection. They extol their bravery in openly revealing a “passionate and sweet love” (if Ray rolls his eyes anymore, he’s sure he’s going to contract brain damage, which according to Brad, he can’t really afford to contract).

Seriously, it’s just two guys really excited to see each other, after months and oceans apart - at least that’s what Ray tells himself over and over. Shit. Motherfucking son of a bitch, what is he going to say to Brad? “Hey Brad, I know you just got home from dealing with horrible beer and worse accents for months, but the entire Internet thinks that we’re in love, so I don’t think it’s a good idea if you go outside just yet.”

Oh god, he’s dead. He is so, so, unbelievably dead.

Since the gods are cruel, and just when Ray’s life has taken a u-turn towards ‘your best friend / one who you harbor secret feelings of not so friendship for is about to kill you’, the very object of his thoughts appears in the doorway, strangely lacking any coverage in the torso area. Fuck Ray’s life.

“You’re up!” Brad says, fake joviality clearly meant to annoy Ray, “which means that you can join me for my hard core Marine six mile run, unless of course, your pussy civilian lifestyle has coddled you into comfort and diabetes already.”

Ray blinks at him, still trying to look past the obvious tan lines that mar Brad’s pale skin, and perhaps stop eyeing the toned planes of his stomach quite so obviously.

“Ray…?” Brad’s voice cuts through his thoughts, sending his nerves tumbling around his stomach. “Is your whiskey tango head so fucked up that you can’t even form a coherent thought before seven am? This is a truly desolate day, my friend, truly sad.” Brad is clearly trying to cheer him up through the usual jabs at his upbringing and civilian status, but it’s not really doing anything to ease his thoughts. Mostly because Brad is standing there SHIRTLESS, which is a goddamn distraction in itself.

Finally, he regains his voice: “Seriously homes? It’s day one, and you can’t even let your Ray-Ray have a little bit of a lie in? Come give me a morning kiss and we’ll go from there”. He musters up all the bravado he can, and throws his arms out, head tilted upwards, lips pursing in supposed anticipation.

Instead of replying, Brad huffs and shoves Ray back onto the bed, sprawling himself across the other half, with his hand absently lying on Ray’s chest.

“Ray, if I knew you pussied out so easily, I would have woken you up at four, just to have the satisfaction of seeing you struggle to tie your shoes at ass o’clock in the morning. As it is, this bed is marginally more comfortable than the abominable piece of furniture you call a couch, so I am going back to sleep. But when I wake up, you best be ready to run, or I will throw you out the door naked and laugh as you struggle to walk up a hill without developing blisters on your delicate civi feet.” Brad says all of this whilst staring at Ray’s collar bone, the only thing in his line of sight. Ray is still actively staring at the ceiling, forcing himself not to imagine waking up to a half naked Brad Colbert in his bed everyday. With this speech over, Brad steals the pillow out from underneath Ray’s head, effectively trapping him, with one arm wrapped up in the two now resting under his pillow. He closes his eyes, and is almost immediately asleep.

Fuck his life. Really, fuck his life.

<GK>

When Ray manages to extract himself from the BradRay pile that had been forced on him, his first thought is COFFEE. Everything in the world, his mother taught him, can be solved by a cup of black coffee. She always joked that the blacker the soul, the blacker the coffee, though Ray was never sure how much of it was jest, considering there was never any cream or sugar in sight the few times his absent father appeared.

Shaking his head, Ray bullies his French press (“When did you get married, Ray? The only place you can find those metal fuckers are at fucking Crate + Barrel during wedding season.”) (“Of course I’ll marry you, Brad! How could I refuse, with a proposal like that?”) into spouting the foulest, blackest coffee it can muster.

Game plan, he needs a game plan. Ideally, one which ends with Brad and him managing to have an adult conversation about their feelings and all that bullshit. He snorts coffee all over the counter, and down the front of his shirt at the thought. The very idea is both colossally retarded and completely unrealistic. While this thought marinates in his head, Ray hunts for another shirt. Blindly, he reaches for one hanging off of the end of the couch, and, throwing the coffee defiled one on the carpeted floor, pulls the other over his head. Feeling refreshed, Ray walks back across the living room into the kitchen, where he pours himself a third cup of caffeinated murder water.

Ok, so then, how? Perhaps it’s just better to show Brad - he is a visual kind of motherfucker. And, demonstrating that the entirety of Twitter believes he and Ray to be in some kind of idealistic gay love seems like the best way to pound the idea into his neanderthal thick skull. Maybe it’ll even dissuade Brad from clobbering Ray long enough for him to make for higher ground. Apologizing has never been one of Ray’s tactics - he is unapologetic in all that he says and does, a perfect Marine trait - so he doesn’t believe that it will get him anywhere. Resigned, he pours himself another cup of fortification, and hunkers down on a stool to wait out the impending storm.

Blessedly, he doesn’t have to suffer with his own damning thoughts for too long; a shirtless and sleepy Viking clambers from his bedroom about ten minutes later. By now, Ray is starting to feel the effects of his fifth cup of coffee - it’s not unlike the familiar buzz of Ripped Fuel.

“How do you feel about free trade coffee, Brad? In the opinion of this ex-Marine, I think it’s complete bullshit. Like seriously, Starbucks? All of your beans are “ethically sourced”, he makes finger quotes here, “yet your customers throw away more than four million cups every year? And your, ‘one tree for every bag of coffee sales pitch’? Utter shit - if you could even plant trees at that rate, we’d call you fucking Captain Planet and put you in a Marvel comic book.” Ray’s knee won’t stop bouncing off the underneath of the counter and he really needs to get a grip RIGHT NOW.

“Good morning to you too, Ray, and Jesus, I thought you’d detoxed from the Ripped Fuel. The fact that you know specific figures on the waste that Starbucks produces just proves that you’re more of a frappuccino bloated prepubescent teenage girl than I feared. Nevertheless , a six mile run will quickly cure you of this pussiness. Look sharp.” Brad says this lot as he crosses the kitchen, pours himself a cup of steaming coffee, and leans across the counter to examine Ray for signs of Ripped Fuel ingestion. Ray stares back, noticing an almost imperceptible tightnesses that briefly overrules Brad’s expression. He has no idea what that’s about.

“Brad”, Ray begins, and winses, picking at the peeling paint on the side of the counter. He hates that he has to have this conversation, and even more, he hates how terrified he is to have this conversation. If it goes badly, he might very well lose Brad. “I really don’t think that the run is going to happen.” He quickly slips on an impish smile to cover his discomfort, and then adds, “you haven’t even tried my famous caffeinated bean water yet! It’s the best on the block! I swear to god, if you can’t take one day off, I’m FedExing you to Doc Brian for a psych eval, and don’t think I won’t make sure you fail it, even to give you one day of true R&R.”

Brad, who had been contemplatively sipping his coffee and staring into the living room, looks at Ray with an exasperated glance.

“Knew you’d pussy out; fine, I agree to forgo the run, IF, and only if I am allowed to force feed you more pineapple pizza before our run tomorrow morning.” His glance becomes an evil smirk, fully knowing that whether or not allowance is given, he’ll do it anyways.

And goddamnit if Ray wouldn’t willingly allow him to - he is so fucked. Instead of replying, he rolls his eyes and crosses to the living room, where he flops down on the couch. Brad joins him a minute later, coffee cup in one hand, and a plate of toast in another. He silently offers Ray a slice, who happily crunches on it, spraying crumbs and spite everywhere.

“Ray, sometimes I wonder how you managed to survive Iraq without being slaughtered by Q-Tip and eaten as bacon. The way you eat, I’m honestly surprised no one mistook you for livestock.” Brad doesn’t even glance at Ray’s overly obnoxious chewing, instead choosing to flip the TV on, where CNN blares obnoxiously.

“Thank you, Jeff. And in other news, the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Repeal of 2010 has finally been fully implemented. President Obama will host a press conference to celebrate this historical event later this evening. It just so happens that we have a heartwarming clip taken at the Joplin Regional Airport yesterday which I think really demonstrates just what this repeal means for many LBTQ+ servicemen.”

Ray’s stomach drops, but there’s not time to run before the clip is rolled.

The footage is clearly taken on an iPhone, and is slightly blurry, but not enough to obscure the obvious faces in front of him. In the clip, the short, dark haired man drops his backpack on the terminal floor and runs full tilt towards a tall, Viking looking man, jumping practically into his arms, and wrapping his legs around the taller man’s waist. The blonde man laughs quietly and smiles fondly down at the smaller man, but spins him in a circle anyways, Marine fatigues clear, even in the video.

Beside him, Brad goes absolutely still.

The news anchor is talking again, something about the heartwarming affection that can be seen, the obvious love between the two men. “I mean, just look at the way they look at each other,” interrupts a second news anchor, “it’s clear that they share a special bond.” The rest is drowned out by a rushing sound in Ray’s ears, who glances over to gauge Brad’s reaction, only to find him already looking at Ray.

“Brad, I…”, It’s not often that Ray Person is at a loss for words; not a comforting thought in this moment. Instead, Ray shakes his head, and bolts, leaving before he can fuck this up anymore.

“Ray! Ray! Goddamnit, you sister fucking idiot! Stop, Jesus fucking Christ!”, he can hear Brad yelling behind him, but does his best to ignore him; he certainly has practice at it.

Next time he glances at his surroundings, he’s driving ninety down the highway in his truck.

Eventually, he stops to check Google Maps, and realizes that he’s left his phone on the counter, probably in a puddle of black coffee. Miserably, he recalls that it’s probably the last time he’ll listen to Brad’s voice for a long time. He can’t even call him in a drunken haze to hear him rant, that is, if he picks up. The Iceman isn’t really one for words.

Ray finds himself at Walton Lake, where he used to swim as a kid - even when he’s not conscious, he ends up near landmarks that remind him of Brad. He laughs bitterly.

Since it’s only ten in the morning, he hunts around for a beer in the cab of his truck, and slouches down to the lake, laying underneath a tree. He figures that sleeping is his only hope of passing enough time to forget how colossally he has fucked up his life. He skips rocks for a while, and ends up watching the local kids push each other into the water. It only makes him feel worse. He suddenly recalls all the times Brad had given him that wry smile in the Humvee rolling through desolate wasteland after desolate wasteland. He was always checking in on him, “easy on the Ripped Fuel, Ray”, or an (almost) gently phrased “stay frosty, gents.” Ray drops his head between his legs; god, he is so fucked. He knows that he loves Brad, and that’s what terrifies him. It’s so much easier to throw insults back and forth, antagonize him with Avril Lavigne and Ripped Fuel Rants - he knows how Brad will react to those quirks. This… this is uncharted territory.

Finally, Ray decides that wallowing in self pity won’t accomplish anything further - going home to a Brad free house is going to hurt either way, might as well get it over with.

<GK>

He opens the door cautiously, not ready to be confronted with an empty house. He sucks in a breathe when his eyes are immediately drawn to the straight back figure sitting at the kitchen counter. Brad’s eyes meet his, and Ray is suddenly reminded that his demeanor isn’t the only reason they call him the Iceman. Quietly, he closes the door, and makes for his bedroom, hoping for as clean a confrontation as possible, but Brad is off his stool and pinning (?) him against the wall of his bedroom hall.

“No, Ray. We are going to talk about this. Like the semi-adults that the Corpse raised us to be. Do you think your disease ridden brain can handle a simple five minute conversation?” Brad says it calmly, ice laced in his voice, but the grip that he has around Ray’s wrists communicates something entirely different. He nods in response. Still, Brad makes not attempt to move them, only pinning Ray further into the wall.

“Did you know about the media coverage this morning? Is that why you refused to go on a run like a pussy bitch?” Clearly, the interrogation has begun.

Ray avoids Brad’s eyes as best he can: “What do you think, Bradley? That I was just going to drop that kind of bomb on you first thing in the morning? Oh, by the way, the Internet thinks that we’re in love, and it’s trending on Twitter and all the other god forsaken social medias that tween girls consume these days. I know you think you’re some sort of demolitions expert, but not even you’re qualified to diffuse that kind of ammunition, Brad. So fuck you, yes, I knew. And no, I didn’t say anything.”

Brad forces Ray’s chin up with one hand, while the other pins both of his wrists above his head. “Why?”, he asks simply, his eyes like chips of hard sapphire.

“Fuck you, Brad. You wanna know why? You dying to know that fucking badly? Because I knew that you finding out would ruin this,” - he jerks his chin to indicate the two of them. “But, if the Internet found out, then I guess it’s pretty fucking obvious”. Ray laughs again, a caustic sound.

“What’s obvious?”, Brad’s voice is almost a growl now, clearly beyond pissed off with Ray. “Ray?”

“That I’m fucking in love with you, that’s what.” Ray practically spits it in his face; he’s so tired of holding it in. Fuck it, if Brad wants him to ruin this with the truth, then so be it.

Brad steps back so suddenly that Ray is slammed against the wall, his head cracking painfully. He closes his eyes against the sensation, waiting for Brad to walk away, to walk out - it’s the only ending to this unfortunate series of events.

“You’re what?” The softness of Brad’s tone is the most startling aspect of the phrase to Ray - why hasn’t he walked away yet? “You’re what?”, Brad repeats, blinking almost owlishly as Ray finally looks at him.

“I’m in love with you”, Ray says flatly. What does Brad want out of this? To rub in the satisfaction that he’s managed to force his biggest secret out of him?

“Say it again”, Brad steps closer, effectively repinning Ray, who is frankly getting tired of his internal organs being punished over five treacherous words.

“I’m in love with you?” The end comes up in a question like inflection, seriously Brad, what is going on…?

Brad laughs out loud, probably the strangest turn of events in an already bizarre day; Ray is too exhausted to fight any longer, so he just rests his head against the wall.

“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for you to tell me”, Ray’s head snaps back up. “Seriously?”

It’s Brad’s turn to nod. “You jumped out of our Humvee screaming at Batista to back the fuck up, since apparently your mother gave you barely enough braincells to eat fucking toast, toast, Ray. That’s when I knew.” The confession is quiet, splitting the air, since Brad is only inches now from Ray’s face.

“You love me?”, the questions is hedged in hesitation, but goddamnit if Ray doesn’t want to hear it back.

The Iceman nods, but it’s all the confirmation that Ray needs. It would be easy, so easy, to bridge the gap. All Ray would have to do is lean in. Fuck it. So he does.

Brad reacts immediately, pinning both of Ray’s wrists against the wall with one massive hand, and cupping his face with the other. The kiss isn’t by any means gentle, nor is it coordinated. It’s wet, and messy, and (cliched as it might be) everything Ray imagined it would be. Ray stretches upwards to tug Brad’s lower lip into his mouth, and Brad lets out an imperceptible moan. He shoves at Ray’s t-shirt until he musters up enough coordination to lift it over his head.

“I couldn’t concentrate this morning, with you in my t-shirt”, Brad mutters against his neck. “I couldn’t stop thinking about how many ways I could think of getting it off you”. Ray groans and tilts his neck, giving Brad better access with which to suck marks along the column of his throat. When Brad scrapes his teeth along his Adam’s apple, he practically whimpers - self-respect has just hit an all time low.

Ray’s hands, which have found their way to Brad’s waist dip lower, and squeeze. He growls against Ray’s throat, and sets them on his shoulders. Ray uses the leverage to wrap his legs around Brad’s waist, laughing internally at the familiar position. “Bedroom?”, he mutters to Brad. The jerk of breathe that he takes from the query seems to be answer enough, as he bodily carries Ray to his bed, dumping him on it in the process. Brad shucks off his sweatpants and crawls up the bed, intent on getting Ray out of his jeans as quickly and (ideally) with as little finesse as possible, or so it seems to him.

As Brad curses up a small storm, fighting with the buttons like they’re grenades, Ray deftly unbuttons them, squirming indelicately out of them, and making Brad snort with laughter. Ray grins back at him, “if the early bird gets the worm, does that mean I get the sausage?”. The fond and bemused smile that Brad gives him is worth the blow to his pride that the joke costs him. Without warning, Ray flips them, positioning himself firmly between Brad’s thighs, and begins sucking at his clavicle.

He trails kisses trails down to one nipple, and scrapes his teeth across it, eliciting a moan from Brad. “Didn’t know you were a nipple man, Brad”, Ray jibes softly, choosing to divert his attention to the other aforementioned object.

“Shut up, Ray”, Brad’s words come out stilted, through clenched teeth, as he attempts to keep himself from making too much noise.

Ray merely hums, and continues his oratory exploration.

He finds that tonguing over Brad’s abs make them jump in succession, and that his belly button is surrounded by a delicate trail of white blonde hair that disappears into his navy boxers. (“Navy, Brad? What kind of Marine are you? You don’t want your nuts to be disguised in camo? It’s so sad, that I show more priority to them than you do!”)

Ray bites at Brad’s left hipbone, watching for the way his entire body jumps with pleasure at the pain. Before he can continue though, Brad has flipped them again, and beginning biting his way down Ray’s chest.

“Dude, whoa, Jesus, it’s going to look like I was attack by a wolf. Fuck Brad, fuck, fuck”, Ray can’t seem to make his mouth stop, watching Brad suck marks onto his abdomen and hip bones. He noses his way further down, pulling Ray’s boxers down with his teeth. Ray wants to make a snarky comment about the coordination that that must take, but is currently lacking the brain cells to even think, let alone speak.

It now appears Brad has pulled his boxers down far enough to bite at his inner thighs, making Ray’s cock jump, and littering his legs with messy bites. “Jesus Brad, are you some kind of fucking vampire? Fuck.” He starts to move lower, but Ray grabs his wrist before he can move. “Whoa there, Lone Ranger, we don’t have to do it all in one night, we can take it slow. Seriously. C’mere, Bradley. Come cuddle your Ray-Ray.”

“Ray, I swear you were dropped on the head as a child. No, I guarantee that if I asked your mother, she would tell me she purposely dropped you, thinking it might improve that face.” Brad seems slightly disgruntled at being interrupted from his task, but complies nonetheless. Effectively, he wraps his body around Ray’s in a pseudo cuddle position, crushing him. “Happy?”

Ray squirms and shoves until he’s pushed Brad onto his back, and is sprawled on Brad’s chest, chin propped up so he can look at him.

“We have all the time in the world, Brad. Seriously, we could not move for the next six days, and the world wouldn’t notice. Plus, who else is going to force feed me pineapple pizza?”

“Ray, if you eat anymore pizza, you’re going to gain ten pounds, develop diabetes, and then be rushed to the hospital for a coronary heart transplant. Now go to sleep, or I’ll knock you out myself.”

“You’d still hold my hand during the ambulance ride, though.” Ray Person, finally getting the guy, and the last word.

And, when the alarm clock blares at six the next morning, and Brad forces Ray to run five miles to make up for the loss of yesterday, they’ll both laugh and shove each other, and it will feel like nothing has changed. The after workout shower might now involve two bodies instead of one, but who would notice, except for them?

And, when an official invite to attend the Obama’s annual Easter Egg Hunt arrives in April, Ray will just laugh and claim that they’re Jewish and cannot attend (“bullshit Ray, we’re both atheists, stop using my parents as an excuse”), and Brad will call them exactly what they are, the poster children of DADT, big fucking stereotypes, and to many, big fucking heroes. And no, Ray is still not a rock star, but he is Internet famous, thanks to his hyper active brain, and a ten foot tall Jewish Viking. But you just heard it through the grapevine, didn’t you…?

#generation kill #bradray #fic #feels #gift #au #kinda?

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marypsue · 7 years

Text

Beth leaves shortly after Summer heads upstairs to pack. Slams the headset down on the counter hard enough to put a crack in the viewscreen, sick of the nausea curdling in the pit of her stomach at the sight of the empty house, the birdcages dominating every corner of the main room. Sure, it's a dream life. It's also completely out of her grasp. And the darkness of the room is suffocating.

"Can we find another channel?" Jerry's complaining, as Beth makes her way behind the couch to the stairs. "Think we've all seen just about enough of ourselves for one lifetime."

She isn't planning to leave, at first. She's just planning to remove herself from the kitchen, and earshot of her family, and easy reach of the wine. Make it easier for herself to make positive life decisions, to do something constructive instead of destructive, all those platitudes she's picked up from the (useless) marriage counseling sessions. She's better than this, she's better than - she won't let a little (enormous) thing like this drag her down. Beth will rise above, she will be steady in the face of adversity and she'll set a good example for the kids and - and -

There's a thump from down the hall, Summer slamming her closet door, and Beth sags against the wall.

Summer opens her mouth to yell when Beth pushes open her door, but stops when Beth grabs the garbage bag full of clothes and says, "If you can't carry it down the stairs, then you're not going to be able to haul it all the way across the country. And you'll want it to be able to fit in the overhead bins on an airplane or a bus. Don't you have a duffel bag somewhere?"

"Wait, you're...helping me run away from home?" Summer asks, squinting suspiciously and pulling the garbage bag in close to her chest. Beth can't blame her. "You're my mom. Aren't you supposed to, like, try and talk me out of it?"

"Probably," Beth says. "Did you pack a good winter coat? It gets cold in the desert at night, and you'll probably end up spending a few of them outside."

"Oh, I get it. This is some kind of reverse psychology thing where you pretend you're helping me, but really you're just trying to scare me out of going," Summer snaps. "Well, don't bother. Just get out of my room, okay? Haven't you already made enough of a mess of your own life?"

...

It's so much easier than she'd imagined.

Well. No. If Beth is being honest with herself - and she's trying to, she's done with lying to herself - it's exactly as easy as she'd always imagined it would be. She makes sure she has her passport, all her ID and credit cards, her best clothes and her good jewellery. Something warm to wear on cold nights. The taser, from when Summer was little and they lived in that shitty apartment downtown and she'd had to take the bus back from the surgery at all hours.

And she leaves.

She walks straight past the living room and no one even turns around. Nobody notices the squeaky wheel of her suitcase as she drags it across the floor, nobody notices the creak of the hinges when the door opens. A tinny voice from the television makes a lame dick joke, and her father - the father who'd almost miraculously reappeared in her life after abandoning them without a word, after being away for so long that she'd started to think she'd never see him again, the man she's spent her entire lifetime simultaneously longing to have back and yet trying not to become - bursts out laughing.

Beth slams the door behind her on the way out.

Nobody comes running out to the driveway when she starts the car. Nobody appears in her rearview mirror as she pulls out of the driveway and peels off down the street. As far as her family's concerned, Beth might as well not even be gone.

She wonders, in the back of her mind, why she didn't do this years ago.

Beth fixes her eyes on the horizon, and pushes the gas pedal to the floor.

...

She starts small. Paris, Athens, Rome. Cities known for - yes, thank you, Jerry - their sexually aggressive men. And incredible food, and architecture, and art, and history. Their culture. (And wine.)

It’s exciting, for a while. Living like a fugitive, like a libertine. Beth maxes out her credit cards and doesn’t feel a shred of guilt. She’s the one who’s been paying the bills all these years, anyway. Might as well get a little enjoyment out of it.

She lives in hotels and hostels, takes tours of art galleries and medieval towns, visits churches older than her home country and marvels at beautiful frescos of worlds beyond the one she lives in, worlds beyond the mundane agony of earthly life. She eats all kinds of local delicacies and learns to cook some of them. She makes friends with other travellers and locals alike. She does odd jobs - some of the oddest jobs she’s ever done. She learns how to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and ‘where is the washroom’ in seven different languages. She swims in the ocean under a shimmering blue sky, so perfect and even that it’s like the dome of an eggshell seen from inside. She pays five hundred euros for a pair of Swarovski-crystal-bedazzled high heels.

It’s meaningful. It’s fulfilling. It’s everything she ever wanted when she was back at home in her suburban house, on her suburban street, married to someone she could generously call her high school sweetheart, with two children and a dog.

And then one day she’s standing in an art gallery with the beefy arm of a beautiful Norwegian almost ten years her junior nestled around her waist, squinting at an ornate, gilded empty frame hanging in the dead centre of a huge white wall, and something in Beth, something small and vital that’s been straining for longer than she can even know, snaps.

The Norwegian - Nils or Jens or something - is in the middle of waxing rhapsodic about the use of negative space and the artist’s incisive commentary on the emptiness of consumer culture when Beth interrupts him by throwing her wineglass as hard as she can at the wall. It strikes a little right of centre in the middle of the empty frame, shattering explosively and spraying a rather cheap red across the wall.

Pale red droplets start to trickle down the wall, the only sound in the sudden, shocked hush the slow tap tap tap of wine dripping against the hardwood floor.

“And there’s my incisive commentary on the relative worth of modern art,” Beth says, as the Norwegian draws back, looking stunned and betrayed. The look is mirrored on just about every face around the room.

The crowd parts for Beth as she strides out, snagging two more glasses of wine from a paralysed waiter as she goes. She knocks one back before she even makes it to the door.

...

It’s not raining, outside, just drizzling, a fine foggy mist that turns Beth’s carefully-coiffed hair into a ball of frizzy curls and makes the ancient cobblestones treacherously slick. Beth kicks off her heels, clumsily but carefully peels off her stockings as she wanders down a street that drunken Romans have been staggering down since long before anyone even knew that the Earth was round. She finds that this piece of cultural heritage, which had so awed her when she’d first arrived, just doesn’t seem to matter as much anymore.

What does matter is that somewhere in this city, there is a party, and Beth is going to find it.

She follows flashing lights and the heartbeat-thump of bass to a door in a wall between a narrow stone building with elaborate ironwork and what looks like the crumbling remains of an ancient Roman watchtower. They’d told her when she’d arrived that what Rome is built on is mostly Rome. Ancient buildings and earthworks that, back home, would have been revered as priceless places of immense historical and cultural significance, here get bulldozed so they can put in an ‘aesthetically-consistent’ McDonald’s.

For some reason, this strikes Beth as both hilarious and fitting. She aims a vicious kick at the falling-down tower wall as she passes, but luckily for her bare feet, misses.

The night and the rain blur into sweat and neon and the ear-shattering throb of music, house or EDM or whatever they’re calling the music kids get high and dance to these days. One drink turns into three, turns into a line of shots and a crowd of Italians who look like extras from some television show about high schools of the rich and famous all chanting something in Italian, turns into sitting in a bathroom stall listening to a girl sobbing her heart out on the shoulder of one of the cluster of friends standing around her and blocking the paper towel dispenser. Beth’s knuckles sting from when she thinks she punched some teenager who called her a cougar, probably, the rest of it was in Italian but the winking and the nudging and the pointing and the dropped English word said more than enough.

Her head is spinning when she stumbles back out the door in the wall. She vomits on the cobbles and is reminded that the most brilliant, important, and historically significant human achievement in this whole storied city is its sewer system, and can’t stop laughing.

“Y’know,” she slurs at the kind person holding back her hair, “I came here to see some real culture. Like havin’ a history that’s based on...bein’ in one place for millennia...means you’ve got anythin’ figured out.”

The kind person hums, rubs her back soothingly.

“I’m an idiot,” Beth says, and the street is so narrow and the light is turning a pale, pathetic grey and her vomit on the cobbles of an ancient Roman street is suddenly not funny anymore. The sky looms, infinite, overhead. “I really am an idiot. You’ve just got more practice at buildin’ gilded frames around nothin’ at all. Where are my shoes?”

“Can’t take credit for any of it, sorry,” the kind person says, in a smooth, delicious accent unlike any Beth’s heard so far on her European tour. Unlike any Beth’s ever heard at all. “Not being from around here.”

Beth forces her eyes to focus.

“You’ve got two heads,” she observes.

“I do,” the kind person agrees, leaning in closer, and Beth suddenly realises why he’s being so kind. “And that’s not all I’ve got two of.”

Beth tries to fix at least one of his heads in her wavering vision, gives up. “Jus’ tell me you’ve got a spaceship or a portal generator or something that can get me off this godforsaken rock, an’ I’m yours.”

Both heads seem to pause at this.

“Well, usually I’m the one who brings that up,” the head to Beth’s left says, “but what the hell.”

...

There’s really no such thing as day or night onboard a spaceship in high orbit, but somehow when Beth wakes up, it still feels obscenely early. She slips out of the bed as carefully as she can, hoping not to set the mattress moving again and wake the two-headed stranger. Who even has a waterbed these days, anyway?

Last night’s champagne has already gone flat, the bottle standing open and forgotten beside the bed. Beth grabs it anyway, and one of the discarded glasses, pouring herself a flute of warm champagne as she pads across the room to the walk-in closet. She’s not sure whose benefit the glass is for. She already knows she’s going to finish the bottle on her own.

The gold lamé robe she finds and wraps around herself is cold, silky and shivery against her bare, goose-pimpled skin. The bedroom is carpeted in something lusciously soft and thick, and the metallic surface of the hall outside meets Beth’s bare feet with a shock of cold. She presses on, though. Somewhere on this flying bachelor pad, there has to be something that can make her a decent cup of coffee.

That’s how she finds herself on what she’s helpless not to call the bridge, staring out the vast window that wraps halfway around the ship’s front, out into the infinite starfield falling away before her. The ship lists in its lazy orbit, and the Earth rises slowly into view, looking small and impossibly lonely against the vast backdrop of the cosmos, one small bright speck in an eternity of darkness.

Beth hears the voice right in her ear before she realises the two-headed stranger’s come up behind her. “Real hoopy view, huh?”

“I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing,” Beth admits, as the two-headed stranger pulls her close, deftly lifting the bottle of champagne from her hand. “I’m - sort of new to all of this.”

Her laugh sounds high, nervous, girlish, fake, but the stranger doesn’t seem to mind or notice.

“You sure seemed like an old pro last night,” he murmurs into her left ear, while his other head nips at her right earlobe.

“No, I - it’s complicated.”

“Hey, you wanted outta there. I got you outta there. What’s complicated about it?”

Beth looks down on her tiny speck of a planet. Down on Earth, the sun is starting to rise somewhere around Asia, lighting up the edges of the planet in a ring of golden fire. The planet flares once, brilliant, beautiful, burning, and then Beth has to look away or have her retinas seared.

What’s complicated about it?

“If I keep giving you sexual favours, will you take me as far as the Horsehead Nebula?” she asks the stranger, who has finished sucking on her earlobe and moved on to her neck.

“Sure, why not,” the stranger’s other head says, before taking a swig of flat champagne directly from the bottle.

Beth lets her eyes slip closed, relaxing into the stranger’s embrace. She’s got time to enjoy herself, indulge herself a little.

After all, she’s got until the Horsehead Nebula to figure out how she’s going to steal this spaceship.

#rick and morty #this is mary's fic tag #is it still an AU if all the AUs are technically canon

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