GK Fic: Tennessee Waltz (B/N, NC-17) 4/4
Master Post
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
“Walt!” Nate exclaimed, stunned. Brad staggered back until his legs hit the couch, and sat down heavily, staring up at Walt, who glared right back.
Nate prepared himself to jump between them before Brad exploded, but to his surprise Brad made no move to rise, only put a hand up to his jaw, working it gingerly. He didn’t even look angry, only… rueful.
“Welcome back,” Walt told him, evenly. Then he dropped Brad from his attention like a ton of bricks, and turned back to Nate.
“I ought to punch you too,” he informed Nate, “but I won’t. The flu, Nate? Really?”
Nate just blinked at him. Walt pulled a business card from his pocket and handed it to Nate, who was too taken aback by the events of the last thirty seconds to do anything except take it.
“I went down to the VA and talked to some guys,” Walt said. “They said this lady,” indicating the card in Nate’s hand, “is a psychologist who specializes in post-traumatic stress disorder cases, and that she’s very good. You have an appointment with her tomorrow at three o’clock, and if you don’t show, she knows to call me. At which point,” Walt said, threat clear in his voice, “I will be back, and I’ll bring Rudy with me. And Ray,” he added as an afterthought.
Well, that was just playing dirty, Nate thought, a bit dazedly. Walt hesitated, and shook his head, but then evidently decided to say something anyway.
“Fix this, Nate,” he said, and it was half a demand and half a plea. “I want my friend back.” Then Walt turned and marched out without another word.
Nate stared in the direction of the door for a good half a minute after he heard it close. Finally he turned to Brad, who was getting up from the couch.
“Did that just happen?” he demanded.
Brad looked wry. “Signs point to yes,” he replied, tonguing the inside of his cheek experimentally.
Nate shook his head and headed into the kitchen to get Brad a cold pack, Brad following. Nate made him sit at the island and hold the pack to his jaw while Nate made more coffee.
“Are you okay?” he asked Brad, setting down a mug in front of him.
“All squared away,” Brad assured him. He pulled the pack away and felt his jaw with his fingers, and his lips quirked in a small smile. “Kid would have made a good Marine,” he remarked, “once he was trained out of telegraphing his moves like that.”
Nate suspected there was no higher praise, coming from Brad, but was more interested in what else his comment implied. “You could have stopped him, couldn’t you,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
Brad gave him a look that was nearly offended. “Of course I could have.”
“Well, why didn’t you then?”
Brad looked rueful again. “When I told Walt I was leaving three months ago, he was rather - angry. Not that I blame him. Among other uncomplimentary things, he told me that he would punch me in the face if he ever saw me again.” Brad shrugged. “And I figured, who am I to make him a liar?”
Nate huffed a surprised chuckle, at Walt just as much as at Brad, and shook his head again. Brad’s gaze darkened a bit, and he reached out to cup his palm along Nate’s cheek.
“Besides,” he added softly, “I had that coming.”
Nate looked at him, then leaned forward to press his lips to Brad’s, briefly but passionately.
“Maybe,” Nate told him, “but you’re square with the house now, okay? No more beating yourself up.” He raised an eyebrow. “By proxy or otherwise. Got it?”
Brad’s answering gaze was full of heat. “Clear copy. Sir.”
Nate gave him an Oh no you didn’t look even as fresh desire uncoiled in his belly, and he felt his eyelids drop to half-mast. Brad almost succeeded in masking his look of triumph as he carefully slid the coffee mugs to the far side of the island and scooted his stool back, grasping Nate’s waist and pulling him in between his legs.
“It occurs to me, sir,” he said, with great seriousness, running his hands lightly up and down Nate’s torso, “that I have made you come in only two rooms of this house so far. I feel,” and he dipped his hands beneath the waist of Nate’s pants to grip his ass firmly, pulling him in, “that this is an unacceptable waste of available resources. May I suggest,” and he paused to capture Nate’s mouth for a brief but very dirty kiss, “that we take swift action to remedy this unfortunate state of affairs?”
Nate leaned forward and ran his tongue along the shell of Brad’s ear. “An excellent suggestion, Marine,” he said, low and harsh. “What do you recommend?”
Brad laid out his plan of action in exacting detail, and Nate grinned in hearty approval.
+
Much later, Brad picked up the business card from where it had fallen to the kitchen floor - fortunately not on the same side as the full coffee mugs. And Nate’s forgotten bowl of Cheerios. Nate made a mental note to start buying less breakable dishes. Or, alternately, stop having sex on the kitchen island, but the former option seemed more palatable.
“Dr. Susanna White,” Brad read, while Nate dug around in the pantry for the mop. “Are you going?”
Nate pulled his head back and looked at Brad. Brad’s face was calm, but Nate was getting better and better at reading him, and he saw the tension underneath the casual-seeming question.
Nate was tired of tension, so he snorted. “Do I have a choice?” he asked.
“You always have a choice, Nate,” Brad answered, seriously, by which Nate inferred that they were going to have to Talk about this. He sighed, and kicked the pantry door shut.
“You agreed,” Brad reminded him.
That they would talk about it, yes. The more fool him. Ignoring the mess on the floor for now, Nate went and fixed himself more coffee, taking his time about it. Brad, of course, just sat there patiently, and eventually Nate admitted to himself that trying to outwait a guy who’d been trained to stay motionless for hours, if necessary, to achieve an objective, was probably a fairly futile tactic.
He picked up the other stool and sat, concentrating on the mug cupped between his hands. Brad waited.
“The drinking… isn’t for the drinking,” Nate said, finally. “The drinking is for the dreams. If I’m drunk enough, they don’t come. If I’m not…”
He took a swallow of coffee, dismayed to realize his hand was shaking a little bit. But saying it out loud was admitting it was real, which was something Nate had avoided since… well, since this whole thing began. He forced himself to continue.
“It’s the same thing every time, and it’s so straightforward it’s ridiculous. It’s that night; the studio, the man with the bat, everything. The only difference is, in the dreams I can’t move. It’s like being trapped in molasses. Can’t defend myself, can’t breathe, can’t - ” Nate’s voice cracked, and he stopped for a moment, drank more coffee. “Sometimes I wake up before he reaches me, sometimes not, but every time, I know I won’t be able to get away.”
His fingers traced the rim of his mug. “The painkillers didn’t work, so I stopped taking them. I mean, they worked on the pain, but they didn’t do anything about the dreams, and I’d rather be in agony than - ” He stopped before he finished the sentence - I’d rather be in agony than ever be that afraid - but he thought it was probably obvious.
He didn’t look at Brad. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what Brad thought about it; he was afraid that he would see pity, or worse, contempt on his face, that Nate could let a few nightmares destroy him like this.
He snorted softly. “Pretty sad, huh?” he asked. “I mean, you went to war, saw things I can’t even imagine, and you’re - and meantime I get jumped by some dumb asshole with a bat, and just - fall apart.”
There was a long silence, during which Nate studied the bits of chicory floating in his coffee with great intensity. He waited to hear some empty platitude or insincere assurance, something that would make him feel worse than before.
“Do you know why I fell in love with you, Nate?” Brad asked.
Nate’s head came up and he stared at Brad, who was looking back at him with calm determination. There was nothing of pity or contempt in his gaze at all.
“I have gone to war,” Brad agreed. “And yes, I have seen shit you would not believe. I saw acts of the greatest bravery and the lowest cowardice. I saw beauty, and I saw horror. But most of all, I saw my brothers in arms get screwed again and again by the incompetence and stupidity and indifference of those who commanded them. And in the end, that was the part I couldn’t stomach. Not the killing, not… any of the rest of it. That’s war; it’s not pretty, but that’s the way it is. But being betrayed by our own… that part, I couldn’t take.”
He shook his head. “I remember thinking, if there were just one, just one officer I could have put my faith in… but there wasn’t.” He shrugged. “So I left. It killed me to do it, but I did. I still can’t decide if I regret it, but there it is.”
Brad’s eyes were far away for a moment, then he looked at Nate again. “You remember that day about two weeks after you hired me, when you and Walt had the meeting with that dickhead executive at MCA?”
Nate blinked, trying to think back. There were so many dickhead executives to choose from… oh yeah. “You mean Griego?”
Brad nodded. “That’s him. He was complaining about the delay on Walt’s album, and the ‘unnecessary personnel expenses’ he claimed you were incurring. Meaning me, I inferred.”
Nate snorted. “Not just you; he meant Person, too. Ray’s one of the best sound guys in the business, and he doesn’t come cheap. Of course, if he had let me hire Ray from the start like I told him we should, we wouldn’t have had to redo the three tracks that got botched to hell and back by the idiot he insisted we use instead, and we wouldn’t have been behind in the first place.”
Nate rolled his eyes. Of course Dave’s rates had been lower; he’d only come to Nashville because every recording outfit in L.A. refused to work with him anymore. And Griego was all, What? I never heard about the thing with Duran Duran! “And then he had the utter gall to suggest - ”
Nate broke off, felt a slow burn just at the memory. Griego, the pissant little weasel, had actually sat there and implied that the death threat notes were fake, a stunt that Walt - Walt, of all people! - had drummed up as an excuse for dragging his feet on completing the album. Nate had hardly been able to believe his ears.
Brad nodded. “Yeah. And you tore him a new asshole,” he said, gleefully. “Threatened to walk out on the label, and make sure they knew it was because he’d slandered Walt’s reputation, and deliberately stuck him with bush-league techs just to save a few bucks and - how did you put it? - crawl up the assholes of his superiors. Then you dared him to call you on it. And the little shitstain folded like a cheap suit.” Brad smiled beatifically, as at a fond memory.
Nate shifted uncomfortably. He hadn’t regarded that as one of his finer moments, personally, losing his temper like that. It was especially inappropriate that Walt (and Brad) had been sitting right there when it happened.
“And I remember thinking,” Brad said, returning to seriousness, “that if I’d had someone like you to follow in Iraq - someone who I could have had such confidence in his leadership, and in his willingness to go to the mat for his men - that maybe, I wouldn’t have left in the first place.”
Nate was dumbfounded. If he’d thought what Brad had said about Walt was a compliment…
Brad was watching his face, and nodded with satisfaction that Nate appreciated what Brad was saying. “Do you remember what I said to you after, on the way out?”
Nate did, emphatically. Not to get homoerotic about this, sir, but I could kiss you. Walt had laughed and agreed, jokingly. Nate had almost tripped over his own feet in the parking lot.
“I’d thought of it as a joke at the time,” Brad said. “It was only later that I realized I’d meant it.” He smiled, ruefully. “After that, I was fucked. So to speak.”
He reached over to take Nate’s left hand, laid it out flat on the countertop. He ran his fingers softly over the surgical scars on Nate’s forearm, traced gently where the muscles were slightly misshapen. Nate watched, feeling something like tears pricking the backs of his eyes.
“Before he cut me loose, Detective Espera told me what you said to him at the hospital,” Brad said. “Not just about me, but your statement about what happened in the studio before I got there. You realize that you held off a man armed with a lethal weapon with nothing but empty hands, and almost defeated him? While with a shattered forearm? Do you think just anyone could have done that? You really think that’s how a coward behaves?”
His eyes bored into Nate’s, insisting on an answer. Nate shook his head, dumbly. He’d never thought of it that way.
“No,” Brad said. “It isn’t. Trust me on this one.”
He gripped Nate’s hand in his, tightly. “I know a little bit about what it’s like to feel helpless, to feel like nothing you do can affect the outcome of events. But I’ve never been wounded in battle, like you,” daring him with an eyebrow to challenge his terminology, “so your comparing yourself to me is not applicable, Nate. And I have the utmost confidence that you, of all people, are fully capable of overcoming this thing. And I will have your six, the whole way, just like you had mine. You know that, right?”
Nate swallowed, and nodded. He gripped Brad’s hand back as best he could.
“What I don’t have, though,” Brad said, “is the knowledge to help you overcome it. That is outside my field of expertise, sorry to say. This doctor, though,” and he indicated the card lying between them on the counter, “she does have it, seems like. And we would be remiss,” he told Nate seriously, “if we failed to bring every weapon we have to bear on beating this shit into the ground. Am I wrong?”
Nate drew in a long breath, and picked up the card, examining it as if the typeface could tell him something profound. Finally, he looked at Brad again, and drew his face to his for a long kiss. After, he rested his forehead against Brad’s, and nodded.
“Okay,” he said, “but I’m going to tell her you compared her to a machine gun.”
Brad blinked, and then started to laugh. Nate grinned.
+
Nate squinted his eyes against the blazing Tennessee sunshine, even through his sunglasses, as he got out of the passenger seat of his car and gazed toward the building before them. Brad unfolded himself from the driver’s side and looked over the roof at Nate, waiting for his reaction.
The recording studio looked exactly the same as it always had. Nate didn’t know if he’d been expecting something different, or not.
Walt had suggested they switch to a different studio to finish the album, but Susanna - Dr. White - had advised against it, and Nate agreed with her. If he was going to get past this thing he had to face it, not run away. Get back in the saddle again, as he’d put it to Brad, just for the eye-roll it had produced.
“Okay?” Brad asked now. Nate nodded.
“Okay,” he answered, and walked toward the front doors, Brad on his heels.
They were halfway there when the front doors (with brand new glass on the left side, Nate noted) burst open, and Ray charged through them like a tiny bull on a giant sugar high.
“Bradley!” he shrieked, and launched himself at Brad, leaping up to latch onto his back, piggyback-style. “I missed you like the deserts miss the rain! Welcome back, pooky!”
Brad didn’t even bother to attempt to dislodge him, just stood there with a long-suffering expression on his face as Ray hung off him like the world’s most obnoxious clump of Spanish moss. “I think I preferred Walt’s welcome,” Brad said to Nate, mournfully.
Nate fought to keep his face straight. “Less psychological trauma that way, yes,” he agreed, earnestly.
“Fuck you, you love it,” Ray declared, and dropped back to the ground. “Jesus, it’s like climbing a fucking tree. Hey, Nate. You still a lousy drunk, or did Bradley here kiss it all better?”
“Hey, Ray,” Nate replied, very dryly. “Not that it’s your business, but no, at the moment. And yes.”
“Working on it, anyway,” Brad added. “It’s an ongoing project.”
They smiled at each other, and Ray pretended to make gagging noises.
“Jeez, to think I aided and abetted in this sap-fest,” Ray said. “I must be out of my goddamn mind.”
“I don’t think anyone would disagree with that assessment, Raymond,” Brad told him.
Ray stuck out his tongue at him. The doors swung open again, this time with more decorum, and Walt walked out, grinning fit to split.
“Welcome back, boss,” he said to Nate, and grabbed him in a back-thumping hug, which Nate returned with interest.
“Boss, huh?” Nate said, amused. “Funny, I thought you were in charge these days.”
“I’m only the boss of you when you’re too dumb to do it yourself,” Walt retorted. “Feel free to take back the reins anytime.”
Nate huffed a soft chuckle. “Touché,” he replied wryly.
Walt’s gaze fell on Brad, and he straightened, his expression the peculiar mix of defiance and guilt he’d worn every time he’d seen Brad since the face-punching incident. Privately, both Brad and Nate found this hilarious, but they’d been careful not to let Walt know that. He’d get past it in time, Nate knew.
“Hey, Brad,” Walt said, only slightly stiffly.
Brad nodded cordially to him. “Walt.”
Walt shifted a little uncomfortably, and couldn’t seem to think of anything to add. After a moment, Ray snorted.
“Not that I don’t just adore melting my ass into a steaming puddle of Ray-goo,” he said, gesturing to the baking sun overhead, “but maybe we could move this beautiful moment inside?”
“Shut up, Ray,” Walt said automatically, but his eyes were on Nate, worried. “This gonna be okay, you think?” he asked.
He meant the studio. Nate looked at it, then back at Walt.
“Let’s find out, shall we?” he said.
+
Nate wasn’t sure whether he was relieved or oddly disappointed that they had replaced the carpet in the hall. The four of them stood there, looking at the spot where Nate had almost lost his life, and there was no trace to show that it had ever happened.
Nate glanced at Brad, who looked to be busy reliving his own memories. After a moment, though, he met Nate’s gaze, and raised an eyebrow. Nate pursed his lips, thinking, and then shrugged slightly. Brad nodded, satisfied, and headed for the breakroom. Nate followed, because coffee was definitely the right idea at this juncture.
From behind them, Nate heard Ray tell Walt, “Man, it’s fucking creepy when they do that telepathy shit, I swear.” Walt snorted, and Nate smiled to himself.
He didn’t look back at the spot in the hall.
+
The track they were doing today was a cover, of a classic old song. Walt had initially been very uncertain about trying to follow in the wake of such legends as Patti Page, Patsy Cline and Leonard Cohen, but Nate knew Walt loved the song, and had convinced him to put it in. It was very different from Walt’s usual style, but that was why Nate thought it would work so well. Time would tell if he was right.
Nate, Brad, and Ray sat in the control booth, listening to Walt in the live room as he sang:
I was dancin' with my darlin to the Tennessee Waltz
When an old friend I happened to see
I introduced him to my darlin' and while they were dancin'
My friend stole my sweetheart from me.
I remember the night and the Tennessee Waltz
Now I know just how much I have lost
Yes, I lost my little darlin' the night they were playin'
That beautiful Tennessee Waltz
She goes dancin' with the darkness to the Tennessee Waltz
And I feel like I'm falling apart
And it's stronger than drink and it's deeper than sorrow
This darkness she left in my heart
I remember the night and the Tennessee Waltz
Cause I know just how much I have lost
Yes I lost my little darlin' the night they were playin'
That beautiful Tennessee Waltz.
There was silence a moment after Walt finished. Then Nate leaned forward and clicked on the mike.
“That was great, Walt. Let’s take a break and then do it again, okay?”
Walt sighed, sounding happy and sad at the same time, and nodded, taking off his headphones and heading out. Nate turned his chair around to look at Brad. He hadn’t really remembered about the lyrics to this song until Walt had started, but now… Brad looked back at him, and it was clear he knew exactly what Nate was thinking.
“Well?” Nate asked.
“See, here’s the problem with country songs,” Brad began.
“Jesus H. Christ on a lubed-up pogo stick, not this shit again,” Ray interrupted irritably. “Thank God we never took a road trip together, dude, we would have killed each other. I’m going to get more coffee.”
He stomped out of the booth in high dudgeon, and Nate shared an amused look with Brad. “You were saying?” Nate asked with a show of great interest.
Instead of answering, Brad crooked a finger at Nate, inviting him onto the couch. Nate smirked, stood, and swiftly plunked himself down in Brad’s lap, straddling his legs. Brad snorted a laugh and pulled him in for a lazy kiss.
“So what’s the problem with country songs again?” Nate murmured against Brad’s lips.
“The problem with country songs,” Brad replied, interspersing his words with exploratory kisses and nibbles along Nate’s neck and jaw, “is that they’re all misery porn. They never allow for the happy ending.”
“Really,” Nate said, dryly. “Misery porn, every single one of them.”
“Yes,” Brad confirmed, licking Nate’s collarbone.
“I think we might need a ruling on that,” Nate remarked, combing his hand through Brad’s hair.
“This one, for instance. Sure, that guy lost his sweetheart to his best friend, and he’s going to be sad every time he hears that waltz - not that he wouldn’t be anyway, because seriously, waltzes? - but it doesn’t tell the rest of the story.”
He pulled back to look Nate in the eye, gaze laughing and yet serious at the same time. “What if that guy finds out, a few years down the road, that losing his sweetheart was the best thing that ever happened to him? Because it led him on the road to finding the person who wouldn’t be his sweetheart, but the love of his life?”
Nate breathed in, shakily, held by those blue eyes so steady on his own. “I guess that would put a different light on it,” he conceded casually, but he let his own eyes say what he didn’t say aloud, and he felt Brad’s hands tighten on his hips.
“Exactly,” Brad said, and kissed him again. At length, he pulled away, and tilted his head thoughtfully.
“But you know,” he said, “even so? I think I like it.”
THE END
NOTES:
This was not in a million years what I expected to be my first fic, but I really like it, and had a lot of fun writing it. Thanks to the original prompter on the Kink Meme for prompting something so plotty, because that is apparently my kink. I’m sorry I didn’t get more actual porn in there (though I think I did pretty good at hitting the hurt/comfort tag, fo sho), but believe it or not it took me longer to write that one sex scene than 90% of the entire fic. Apparently shameless smut takes practice! I’ll work on that, promise.
Everything I know about head trauma, orthopedic surgery, physical therapy, PTSD, Tennessee criminal law, and country music, I learned from popular fiction, TV, Wikipedia, and/or YouTube. Or I made it the hell up. The intake of large quantities of NaCl particles are therefore recommended re: the factual basis of any of this.
As a final note, you wanna know the best part? I hate country music only slightly less than Brad does. Go figure, eh?
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
“Walt!” Nate exclaimed, stunned. Brad staggered back until his legs hit the couch, and sat down heavily, staring up at Walt, who glared right back.
Nate prepared himself to jump between them before Brad exploded, but to his surprise Brad made no move to rise, only put a hand up to his jaw, working it gingerly. He didn’t even look angry, only… rueful.
“Welcome back,” Walt told him, evenly. Then he dropped Brad from his attention like a ton of bricks, and turned back to Nate.
“I ought to punch you too,” he informed Nate, “but I won’t. The flu, Nate? Really?”
Nate just blinked at him. Walt pulled a business card from his pocket and handed it to Nate, who was too taken aback by the events of the last thirty seconds to do anything except take it.
“I went down to the VA and talked to some guys,” Walt said. “They said this lady,” indicating the card in Nate’s hand, “is a psychologist who specializes in post-traumatic stress disorder cases, and that she’s very good. You have an appointment with her tomorrow at three o’clock, and if you don’t show, she knows to call me. At which point,” Walt said, threat clear in his voice, “I will be back, and I’ll bring Rudy with me. And Ray,” he added as an afterthought.
Well, that was just playing dirty, Nate thought, a bit dazedly. Walt hesitated, and shook his head, but then evidently decided to say something anyway.
“Fix this, Nate,” he said, and it was half a demand and half a plea. “I want my friend back.” Then Walt turned and marched out without another word.
Nate stared in the direction of the door for a good half a minute after he heard it close. Finally he turned to Brad, who was getting up from the couch.
“Did that just happen?” he demanded.
Brad looked wry. “Signs point to yes,” he replied, tonguing the inside of his cheek experimentally.
Nate shook his head and headed into the kitchen to get Brad a cold pack, Brad following. Nate made him sit at the island and hold the pack to his jaw while Nate made more coffee.
“Are you okay?” he asked Brad, setting down a mug in front of him.
“All squared away,” Brad assured him. He pulled the pack away and felt his jaw with his fingers, and his lips quirked in a small smile. “Kid would have made a good Marine,” he remarked, “once he was trained out of telegraphing his moves like that.”
Nate suspected there was no higher praise, coming from Brad, but was more interested in what else his comment implied. “You could have stopped him, couldn’t you,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
Brad gave him a look that was nearly offended. “Of course I could have.”
“Well, why didn’t you then?”
Brad looked rueful again. “When I told Walt I was leaving three months ago, he was rather - angry. Not that I blame him. Among other uncomplimentary things, he told me that he would punch me in the face if he ever saw me again.” Brad shrugged. “And I figured, who am I to make him a liar?”
Nate huffed a surprised chuckle, at Walt just as much as at Brad, and shook his head again. Brad’s gaze darkened a bit, and he reached out to cup his palm along Nate’s cheek.
“Besides,” he added softly, “I had that coming.”
Nate looked at him, then leaned forward to press his lips to Brad’s, briefly but passionately.
“Maybe,” Nate told him, “but you’re square with the house now, okay? No more beating yourself up.” He raised an eyebrow. “By proxy or otherwise. Got it?”
Brad’s answering gaze was full of heat. “Clear copy. Sir.”
Nate gave him an Oh no you didn’t look even as fresh desire uncoiled in his belly, and he felt his eyelids drop to half-mast. Brad almost succeeded in masking his look of triumph as he carefully slid the coffee mugs to the far side of the island and scooted his stool back, grasping Nate’s waist and pulling him in between his legs.
“It occurs to me, sir,” he said, with great seriousness, running his hands lightly up and down Nate’s torso, “that I have made you come in only two rooms of this house so far. I feel,” and he dipped his hands beneath the waist of Nate’s pants to grip his ass firmly, pulling him in, “that this is an unacceptable waste of available resources. May I suggest,” and he paused to capture Nate’s mouth for a brief but very dirty kiss, “that we take swift action to remedy this unfortunate state of affairs?”
Nate leaned forward and ran his tongue along the shell of Brad’s ear. “An excellent suggestion, Marine,” he said, low and harsh. “What do you recommend?”
Brad laid out his plan of action in exacting detail, and Nate grinned in hearty approval.
+
Much later, Brad picked up the business card from where it had fallen to the kitchen floor - fortunately not on the same side as the full coffee mugs. And Nate’s forgotten bowl of Cheerios. Nate made a mental note to start buying less breakable dishes. Or, alternately, stop having sex on the kitchen island, but the former option seemed more palatable.
“Dr. Susanna White,” Brad read, while Nate dug around in the pantry for the mop. “Are you going?”
Nate pulled his head back and looked at Brad. Brad’s face was calm, but Nate was getting better and better at reading him, and he saw the tension underneath the casual-seeming question.
Nate was tired of tension, so he snorted. “Do I have a choice?” he asked.
“You always have a choice, Nate,” Brad answered, seriously, by which Nate inferred that they were going to have to Talk about this. He sighed, and kicked the pantry door shut.
“You agreed,” Brad reminded him.
That they would talk about it, yes. The more fool him. Ignoring the mess on the floor for now, Nate went and fixed himself more coffee, taking his time about it. Brad, of course, just sat there patiently, and eventually Nate admitted to himself that trying to outwait a guy who’d been trained to stay motionless for hours, if necessary, to achieve an objective, was probably a fairly futile tactic.
He picked up the other stool and sat, concentrating on the mug cupped between his hands. Brad waited.
“The drinking… isn’t for the drinking,” Nate said, finally. “The drinking is for the dreams. If I’m drunk enough, they don’t come. If I’m not…”
He took a swallow of coffee, dismayed to realize his hand was shaking a little bit. But saying it out loud was admitting it was real, which was something Nate had avoided since… well, since this whole thing began. He forced himself to continue.
“It’s the same thing every time, and it’s so straightforward it’s ridiculous. It’s that night; the studio, the man with the bat, everything. The only difference is, in the dreams I can’t move. It’s like being trapped in molasses. Can’t defend myself, can’t breathe, can’t - ” Nate’s voice cracked, and he stopped for a moment, drank more coffee. “Sometimes I wake up before he reaches me, sometimes not, but every time, I know I won’t be able to get away.”
His fingers traced the rim of his mug. “The painkillers didn’t work, so I stopped taking them. I mean, they worked on the pain, but they didn’t do anything about the dreams, and I’d rather be in agony than - ” He stopped before he finished the sentence - I’d rather be in agony than ever be that afraid - but he thought it was probably obvious.
He didn’t look at Brad. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what Brad thought about it; he was afraid that he would see pity, or worse, contempt on his face, that Nate could let a few nightmares destroy him like this.
He snorted softly. “Pretty sad, huh?” he asked. “I mean, you went to war, saw things I can’t even imagine, and you’re - and meantime I get jumped by some dumb asshole with a bat, and just - fall apart.”
There was a long silence, during which Nate studied the bits of chicory floating in his coffee with great intensity. He waited to hear some empty platitude or insincere assurance, something that would make him feel worse than before.
“Do you know why I fell in love with you, Nate?” Brad asked.
Nate’s head came up and he stared at Brad, who was looking back at him with calm determination. There was nothing of pity or contempt in his gaze at all.
“I have gone to war,” Brad agreed. “And yes, I have seen shit you would not believe. I saw acts of the greatest bravery and the lowest cowardice. I saw beauty, and I saw horror. But most of all, I saw my brothers in arms get screwed again and again by the incompetence and stupidity and indifference of those who commanded them. And in the end, that was the part I couldn’t stomach. Not the killing, not… any of the rest of it. That’s war; it’s not pretty, but that’s the way it is. But being betrayed by our own… that part, I couldn’t take.”
He shook his head. “I remember thinking, if there were just one, just one officer I could have put my faith in… but there wasn’t.” He shrugged. “So I left. It killed me to do it, but I did. I still can’t decide if I regret it, but there it is.”
Brad’s eyes were far away for a moment, then he looked at Nate again. “You remember that day about two weeks after you hired me, when you and Walt had the meeting with that dickhead executive at MCA?”
Nate blinked, trying to think back. There were so many dickhead executives to choose from… oh yeah. “You mean Griego?”
Brad nodded. “That’s him. He was complaining about the delay on Walt’s album, and the ‘unnecessary personnel expenses’ he claimed you were incurring. Meaning me, I inferred.”
Nate snorted. “Not just you; he meant Person, too. Ray’s one of the best sound guys in the business, and he doesn’t come cheap. Of course, if he had let me hire Ray from the start like I told him we should, we wouldn’t have had to redo the three tracks that got botched to hell and back by the idiot he insisted we use instead, and we wouldn’t have been behind in the first place.”
Nate rolled his eyes. Of course Dave’s rates had been lower; he’d only come to Nashville because every recording outfit in L.A. refused to work with him anymore. And Griego was all, What? I never heard about the thing with Duran Duran! “And then he had the utter gall to suggest - ”
Nate broke off, felt a slow burn just at the memory. Griego, the pissant little weasel, had actually sat there and implied that the death threat notes were fake, a stunt that Walt - Walt, of all people! - had drummed up as an excuse for dragging his feet on completing the album. Nate had hardly been able to believe his ears.
Brad nodded. “Yeah. And you tore him a new asshole,” he said, gleefully. “Threatened to walk out on the label, and make sure they knew it was because he’d slandered Walt’s reputation, and deliberately stuck him with bush-league techs just to save a few bucks and - how did you put it? - crawl up the assholes of his superiors. Then you dared him to call you on it. And the little shitstain folded like a cheap suit.” Brad smiled beatifically, as at a fond memory.
Nate shifted uncomfortably. He hadn’t regarded that as one of his finer moments, personally, losing his temper like that. It was especially inappropriate that Walt (and Brad) had been sitting right there when it happened.
“And I remember thinking,” Brad said, returning to seriousness, “that if I’d had someone like you to follow in Iraq - someone who I could have had such confidence in his leadership, and in his willingness to go to the mat for his men - that maybe, I wouldn’t have left in the first place.”
Nate was dumbfounded. If he’d thought what Brad had said about Walt was a compliment…
Brad was watching his face, and nodded with satisfaction that Nate appreciated what Brad was saying. “Do you remember what I said to you after, on the way out?”
Nate did, emphatically. Not to get homoerotic about this, sir, but I could kiss you. Walt had laughed and agreed, jokingly. Nate had almost tripped over his own feet in the parking lot.
“I’d thought of it as a joke at the time,” Brad said. “It was only later that I realized I’d meant it.” He smiled, ruefully. “After that, I was fucked. So to speak.”
He reached over to take Nate’s left hand, laid it out flat on the countertop. He ran his fingers softly over the surgical scars on Nate’s forearm, traced gently where the muscles were slightly misshapen. Nate watched, feeling something like tears pricking the backs of his eyes.
“Before he cut me loose, Detective Espera told me what you said to him at the hospital,” Brad said. “Not just about me, but your statement about what happened in the studio before I got there. You realize that you held off a man armed with a lethal weapon with nothing but empty hands, and almost defeated him? While with a shattered forearm? Do you think just anyone could have done that? You really think that’s how a coward behaves?”
His eyes bored into Nate’s, insisting on an answer. Nate shook his head, dumbly. He’d never thought of it that way.
“No,” Brad said. “It isn’t. Trust me on this one.”
He gripped Nate’s hand in his, tightly. “I know a little bit about what it’s like to feel helpless, to feel like nothing you do can affect the outcome of events. But I’ve never been wounded in battle, like you,” daring him with an eyebrow to challenge his terminology, “so your comparing yourself to me is not applicable, Nate. And I have the utmost confidence that you, of all people, are fully capable of overcoming this thing. And I will have your six, the whole way, just like you had mine. You know that, right?”
Nate swallowed, and nodded. He gripped Brad’s hand back as best he could.
“What I don’t have, though,” Brad said, “is the knowledge to help you overcome it. That is outside my field of expertise, sorry to say. This doctor, though,” and he indicated the card lying between them on the counter, “she does have it, seems like. And we would be remiss,” he told Nate seriously, “if we failed to bring every weapon we have to bear on beating this shit into the ground. Am I wrong?”
Nate drew in a long breath, and picked up the card, examining it as if the typeface could tell him something profound. Finally, he looked at Brad again, and drew his face to his for a long kiss. After, he rested his forehead against Brad’s, and nodded.
“Okay,” he said, “but I’m going to tell her you compared her to a machine gun.”
Brad blinked, and then started to laugh. Nate grinned.
+
Nate squinted his eyes against the blazing Tennessee sunshine, even through his sunglasses, as he got out of the passenger seat of his car and gazed toward the building before them. Brad unfolded himself from the driver’s side and looked over the roof at Nate, waiting for his reaction.
The recording studio looked exactly the same as it always had. Nate didn’t know if he’d been expecting something different, or not.
Walt had suggested they switch to a different studio to finish the album, but Susanna - Dr. White - had advised against it, and Nate agreed with her. If he was going to get past this thing he had to face it, not run away. Get back in the saddle again, as he’d put it to Brad, just for the eye-roll it had produced.
“Okay?” Brad asked now. Nate nodded.
“Okay,” he answered, and walked toward the front doors, Brad on his heels.
They were halfway there when the front doors (with brand new glass on the left side, Nate noted) burst open, and Ray charged through them like a tiny bull on a giant sugar high.
“Bradley!” he shrieked, and launched himself at Brad, leaping up to latch onto his back, piggyback-style. “I missed you like the deserts miss the rain! Welcome back, pooky!”
Brad didn’t even bother to attempt to dislodge him, just stood there with a long-suffering expression on his face as Ray hung off him like the world’s most obnoxious clump of Spanish moss. “I think I preferred Walt’s welcome,” Brad said to Nate, mournfully.
Nate fought to keep his face straight. “Less psychological trauma that way, yes,” he agreed, earnestly.
“Fuck you, you love it,” Ray declared, and dropped back to the ground. “Jesus, it’s like climbing a fucking tree. Hey, Nate. You still a lousy drunk, or did Bradley here kiss it all better?”
“Hey, Ray,” Nate replied, very dryly. “Not that it’s your business, but no, at the moment. And yes.”
“Working on it, anyway,” Brad added. “It’s an ongoing project.”
They smiled at each other, and Ray pretended to make gagging noises.
“Jeez, to think I aided and abetted in this sap-fest,” Ray said. “I must be out of my goddamn mind.”
“I don’t think anyone would disagree with that assessment, Raymond,” Brad told him.
Ray stuck out his tongue at him. The doors swung open again, this time with more decorum, and Walt walked out, grinning fit to split.
“Welcome back, boss,” he said to Nate, and grabbed him in a back-thumping hug, which Nate returned with interest.
“Boss, huh?” Nate said, amused. “Funny, I thought you were in charge these days.”
“I’m only the boss of you when you’re too dumb to do it yourself,” Walt retorted. “Feel free to take back the reins anytime.”
Nate huffed a soft chuckle. “Touché,” he replied wryly.
Walt’s gaze fell on Brad, and he straightened, his expression the peculiar mix of defiance and guilt he’d worn every time he’d seen Brad since the face-punching incident. Privately, both Brad and Nate found this hilarious, but they’d been careful not to let Walt know that. He’d get past it in time, Nate knew.
“Hey, Brad,” Walt said, only slightly stiffly.
Brad nodded cordially to him. “Walt.”
Walt shifted a little uncomfortably, and couldn’t seem to think of anything to add. After a moment, Ray snorted.
“Not that I don’t just adore melting my ass into a steaming puddle of Ray-goo,” he said, gesturing to the baking sun overhead, “but maybe we could move this beautiful moment inside?”
“Shut up, Ray,” Walt said automatically, but his eyes were on Nate, worried. “This gonna be okay, you think?” he asked.
He meant the studio. Nate looked at it, then back at Walt.
“Let’s find out, shall we?” he said.
+
Nate wasn’t sure whether he was relieved or oddly disappointed that they had replaced the carpet in the hall. The four of them stood there, looking at the spot where Nate had almost lost his life, and there was no trace to show that it had ever happened.
Nate glanced at Brad, who looked to be busy reliving his own memories. After a moment, though, he met Nate’s gaze, and raised an eyebrow. Nate pursed his lips, thinking, and then shrugged slightly. Brad nodded, satisfied, and headed for the breakroom. Nate followed, because coffee was definitely the right idea at this juncture.
From behind them, Nate heard Ray tell Walt, “Man, it’s fucking creepy when they do that telepathy shit, I swear.” Walt snorted, and Nate smiled to himself.
He didn’t look back at the spot in the hall.
+
The track they were doing today was a cover, of a classic old song. Walt had initially been very uncertain about trying to follow in the wake of such legends as Patti Page, Patsy Cline and Leonard Cohen, but Nate knew Walt loved the song, and had convinced him to put it in. It was very different from Walt’s usual style, but that was why Nate thought it would work so well. Time would tell if he was right.
Nate, Brad, and Ray sat in the control booth, listening to Walt in the live room as he sang:
I was dancin' with my darlin to the Tennessee Waltz
When an old friend I happened to see
I introduced him to my darlin' and while they were dancin'
My friend stole my sweetheart from me.
I remember the night and the Tennessee Waltz
Now I know just how much I have lost
Yes, I lost my little darlin' the night they were playin'
That beautiful Tennessee Waltz
She goes dancin' with the darkness to the Tennessee Waltz
And I feel like I'm falling apart
And it's stronger than drink and it's deeper than sorrow
This darkness she left in my heart
I remember the night and the Tennessee Waltz
Cause I know just how much I have lost
Yes I lost my little darlin' the night they were playin'
That beautiful Tennessee Waltz.
There was silence a moment after Walt finished. Then Nate leaned forward and clicked on the mike.
“That was great, Walt. Let’s take a break and then do it again, okay?”
Walt sighed, sounding happy and sad at the same time, and nodded, taking off his headphones and heading out. Nate turned his chair around to look at Brad. He hadn’t really remembered about the lyrics to this song until Walt had started, but now… Brad looked back at him, and it was clear he knew exactly what Nate was thinking.
“Well?” Nate asked.
“See, here’s the problem with country songs,” Brad began.
“Jesus H. Christ on a lubed-up pogo stick, not this shit again,” Ray interrupted irritably. “Thank God we never took a road trip together, dude, we would have killed each other. I’m going to get more coffee.”
He stomped out of the booth in high dudgeon, and Nate shared an amused look with Brad. “You were saying?” Nate asked with a show of great interest.
Instead of answering, Brad crooked a finger at Nate, inviting him onto the couch. Nate smirked, stood, and swiftly plunked himself down in Brad’s lap, straddling his legs. Brad snorted a laugh and pulled him in for a lazy kiss.
“So what’s the problem with country songs again?” Nate murmured against Brad’s lips.
“The problem with country songs,” Brad replied, interspersing his words with exploratory kisses and nibbles along Nate’s neck and jaw, “is that they’re all misery porn. They never allow for the happy ending.”
“Really,” Nate said, dryly. “Misery porn, every single one of them.”
“Yes,” Brad confirmed, licking Nate’s collarbone.
“I think we might need a ruling on that,” Nate remarked, combing his hand through Brad’s hair.
“This one, for instance. Sure, that guy lost his sweetheart to his best friend, and he’s going to be sad every time he hears that waltz - not that he wouldn’t be anyway, because seriously, waltzes? - but it doesn’t tell the rest of the story.”
He pulled back to look Nate in the eye, gaze laughing and yet serious at the same time. “What if that guy finds out, a few years down the road, that losing his sweetheart was the best thing that ever happened to him? Because it led him on the road to finding the person who wouldn’t be his sweetheart, but the love of his life?”
Nate breathed in, shakily, held by those blue eyes so steady on his own. “I guess that would put a different light on it,” he conceded casually, but he let his own eyes say what he didn’t say aloud, and he felt Brad’s hands tighten on his hips.
“Exactly,” Brad said, and kissed him again. At length, he pulled away, and tilted his head thoughtfully.
“But you know,” he said, “even so? I think I like it.”
THE END
NOTES:
This was not in a million years what I expected to be my first fic, but I really like it, and had a lot of fun writing it. Thanks to the original prompter on the Kink Meme for prompting something so plotty, because that is apparently my kink. I’m sorry I didn’t get more actual porn in there (though I think I did pretty good at hitting the hurt/comfort tag, fo sho), but believe it or not it took me longer to write that one sex scene than 90% of the entire fic. Apparently shameless smut takes practice! I’ll work on that, promise.
Everything I know about head trauma, orthopedic surgery, physical therapy, PTSD, Tennessee criminal law, and country music, I learned from popular fiction, TV, Wikipedia, and/or YouTube. Or I made it the hell up. The intake of large quantities of NaCl particles are therefore recommended re: the factual basis of any of this.
As a final note, you wanna know the best part? I hate country music only slightly less than Brad does. Go figure, eh?