ficlet: Wholly Imaginary, Generation Kill, Brad/Nate
this is about one-fifth of the generation kill story i want to write, but it fit a request at combat_jack's prompt post for good cookies, and i'm not doing yuletide or any other challenges, so i figured i'd go ahead and get at least this much out now:
read it here or after the cut.
thanks to gigantic for sharing this very specific meta obsession.
[all of these bits are supposed to take place somewhere in that overlap between the rolling stone articles, evan wright's and nate fick's books, the miniseries and the press/dvd extras around it, the actors and the men they play. chronologically, this is roughly in the middle.]
Camp Pendleton, 2008
He only looks a little like the LT, but he delivers orders exactly the same.
Behind Brad, all through the theater, Marines hoot and holler and yell at the screen. More than one echoes a "yes sir" or "KILL!" in response to a C.O.'s bullshit moto. In response to an actor.
Rudy and Kocher trained these pretty boy Hollywood types up good but at the end of the day they still have no fucking idea what it means to be a cold blooded killer.
Alex seems harmless enough, and there are worse ways to go down in history than looking like a Swedish supermodel. Brad likes how still he can be, how he turned to the handful of waiting photographers and stared out carefully between them, never looking directly at a camera, like all the flashes were bullets and zig-zagging would no more save him on a red carpet than in the middle of a firefight.
The kid playing the LT, Stark - he's quiet in a different way. Softer. Brad wouldn't have made it through the war if those cheekbones were leading the way. But when the camera comes in close, so close you can see real sand and dirt smudged so deep in his pores it's not coming out just because a beautiful British woman yells cut - in those shots, weary and disillusioned and still so much stronger than he ever gave himself credit for, Brad sees the Nate he knows and has to look away.
Espera is sitting to his left and when Brad stares down at his legs for a long moment, Tony nods. Later he says, "I got my own memories to protect," and Brad is shocked how much he wants to hug him for understanding. Everyone has a story about the Iceman, almost all bullshit and now all painted over with Evan's way of seeing things. Evan's not wrong but he's not completely right.
Nate's not coming to this half-assed reunion, to the screening here or tomorrow night up in LA. He made some sorry excuse about how it wasn't his story, was never supposed to be his story. Brad said, "Bullshit," and Nate laughed into the phone. Nate told his side in just the way Brad thinks they all should have expected - easy on everyone else, unsparing for himself.
"Did I really look that boot?" Nate asks when he calls the next week. The images are already starting to fade, the episodes bleeding together like a photograph left out in the sun. Brad did some interviews, elbowed his way through an afterparty, let Rudy drunkenly embrace him while rambling about the karmic resonance of their counterparts living on in celluloid.
He's counting down the days until he leaves again, doing laundry and cleaning out the fridge. "You looked cherry fresh," Brad says, mostly because he loves that sputtering noise Nate makes when he's annoyed. "Right up until you looked as beat down as the rest of us," he amends.
"I never like movies if I like the book," Nate allows.
"It's all make-believe," Brad says. "A wholly imaginary world unto itself."
They both breathe in and out, soft whispers across a nation of functional telecommunications. Nate clears his throat. "Stay safe out there in the real world," he says, a command, and Brad says, "I shall."
read it here or after the cut.
thanks to gigantic for sharing this very specific meta obsession.
[all of these bits are supposed to take place somewhere in that overlap between the rolling stone articles, evan wright's and nate fick's books, the miniseries and the press/dvd extras around it, the actors and the men they play. chronologically, this is roughly in the middle.]
Camp Pendleton, 2008
He only looks a little like the LT, but he delivers orders exactly the same.
Behind Brad, all through the theater, Marines hoot and holler and yell at the screen. More than one echoes a "yes sir" or "KILL!" in response to a C.O.'s bullshit moto. In response to an actor.
Rudy and Kocher trained these pretty boy Hollywood types up good but at the end of the day they still have no fucking idea what it means to be a cold blooded killer.
Alex seems harmless enough, and there are worse ways to go down in history than looking like a Swedish supermodel. Brad likes how still he can be, how he turned to the handful of waiting photographers and stared out carefully between them, never looking directly at a camera, like all the flashes were bullets and zig-zagging would no more save him on a red carpet than in the middle of a firefight.
The kid playing the LT, Stark - he's quiet in a different way. Softer. Brad wouldn't have made it through the war if those cheekbones were leading the way. But when the camera comes in close, so close you can see real sand and dirt smudged so deep in his pores it's not coming out just because a beautiful British woman yells cut - in those shots, weary and disillusioned and still so much stronger than he ever gave himself credit for, Brad sees the Nate he knows and has to look away.
Espera is sitting to his left and when Brad stares down at his legs for a long moment, Tony nods. Later he says, "I got my own memories to protect," and Brad is shocked how much he wants to hug him for understanding. Everyone has a story about the Iceman, almost all bullshit and now all painted over with Evan's way of seeing things. Evan's not wrong but he's not completely right.
Nate's not coming to this half-assed reunion, to the screening here or tomorrow night up in LA. He made some sorry excuse about how it wasn't his story, was never supposed to be his story. Brad said, "Bullshit," and Nate laughed into the phone. Nate told his side in just the way Brad thinks they all should have expected - easy on everyone else, unsparing for himself.
"Did I really look that boot?" Nate asks when he calls the next week. The images are already starting to fade, the episodes bleeding together like a photograph left out in the sun. Brad did some interviews, elbowed his way through an afterparty, let Rudy drunkenly embrace him while rambling about the karmic resonance of their counterparts living on in celluloid.
He's counting down the days until he leaves again, doing laundry and cleaning out the fridge. "You looked cherry fresh," Brad says, mostly because he loves that sputtering noise Nate makes when he's annoyed. "Right up until you looked as beat down as the rest of us," he amends.
"I never like movies if I like the book," Nate allows.
"It's all make-believe," Brad says. "A wholly imaginary world unto itself."
They both breathe in and out, soft whispers across a nation of functional telecommunications. Nate clears his throat. "Stay safe out there in the real world," he says, a command, and Brad says, "I shall."