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Nate’s eyes are burning and blurring – he’s been staring at his computer too long, alternating between the blank white pages he needs to fill for the paper due next week and the books full of information that he needs to know for his upcoming exams. It’s quiet – Ray’s lived through this before, and he bitches a lot but stays out of the way or makes himself useful. Sometimes, like magic, a mug of coffee will appear on the table-turned-desk, and the printer cartridges and paper supply are always replenished. Periodically a sandwich might appear, too.Nate becomes a miserable, neurotic ass at mid-terms and finals – he knows it but can’t seem to help himself. Engulfed in an epic struggle with run-on sentences and punctuation that will not cooperate, Nate told Ray to fuck off a few hours ago, and he seems to have listened and obeyed, which is a perplexing habit he developed once they were both out of the Corps. Certainly obeying had never been Ray’s best skill while he was enlisted.Tossing his pen onto the table, which is a mess of books, journal article print outs, and empty coffee mugs, Nate leans back, presses the heels of his palms into his eyes, then scrubs his hands through his hair, which – he’s not sure – did he bathe this morning? Stretching, he contemplates a break and a shower, and then maybe cooking dinner, something nice with a subtext of I’m sorry for being a total jerk lately. Turning his head and cracking his neck, Nate wonders where Ray has disappeared to: he’s not scheduled to work today and he’s blocked his classes for Tuesday and Thursday, so he’s not in a lecture or the lab. Out of the corner of his eye, Nate catches sight of the partially closed bedroom door. Leaning to the side, he can just see into the bedroom.
Ray’s lying on his side. He might be sleeping. Or he could be reading. Nate doesn’t care though, because all he can see is the blue-black ink on his shoulder blade and the smooth stretch of skin and muscle of his back. His hands twitch and his jeans suddenly feel too tight. He wants to stroke his hands down that skin, slide under the sweatpants and push them down. Run his tongue over the ink before following the trail set by his hands.Almost before the thought is fully formed, Nate is moving. He strips off his jeans, making sure the belt buckle doesn’t clink as it hits the floor, and pulls off his polo shirt. Easing the door fully open, he climbs stealthily onto the bed, moving carefully so as to not jar Ray awake, and stretches himself along Ray’s back, lowering his weight onto him and burying his face in the crook between his neck and shoulder.He can feel Ray’s body tense as he wakes. Rather than say anything, he slides his hands along Ray’s arms and then when he reaches Ray’s hands, threads his fingers through and presses them firmly into the mattress. Ray gets the message, relaxing again beneath him, and leaves his hands in place when Nate lets go to slide his hands back up the length of Ray’s arms to his shoulders. Bracing himself, Nate levers his upper body away. He noses at the ink on Ray’s shoulder, then back to his neck and across to the other shoulder before beginning a meandering trail down his back, starting with each vertebra but taking side-trips to map the muscles.Trapezius, levator scapulae, deltoid, rhomboids, teres minor and major, latissimus dorsi, obliques.He elicits the occasional grunt from Ray as he hits a tender or ticklish spot until he reaches the dimples of his spine, then Ray goes silent. Nate loves those dimples almost as much as the ones on Ray’s face, which appear whenever he smiles or smirks or grins.Nate eases further down on the bed. He tongues at the dimples, back and forth, hands smoothing up and down Ray’s back, eventually down low enough to run light fingers along with cleft of his buttocks, which he follows with his tongue. His mouth slips over and then past Ray’s opening, lower, without hesitating, but the momentary touch prompts a whining sound from Ray and a shift of his hips in Nate’s hands. Well, Ray deserves a reward and I deserve one too for all that studying, Nate thinks, then brings his mouth back where Ray wants it most right then. He grins against Ray’s flesh as Ray moans, “Christ, your mouth…”The sounds Ray makes as Nate tongues around the outside of his hole become louder and lewder and less coherent as Nate lavishes attention on the small patch of sensitive skin. When Ray’s babbling turns to mostly blasphemous prayers and grunts, he pushes his tongue inside. Once Ray’s been reduced to a quivering mass of nerve endings by Nate’s rimming, Nate adds a finger to the push of his tongue, which results in a gasp, then withdraws it and shifts his own balance. Nate taps Ray’s hip to catch his attention and get him to shift enough to wedge a hand between Ray and the bed. His firm grip on Ray’s cock prompts an even louder groan.Returning his attention to Ray’s ass, he uses his tongue in counterpoint to the motion of his hand. Ray’s hips stutter between the two sensations, then shudder as he comes violently, groaning into the blankets beneath him. As soon as he’s finished, Ray collapses in a melted, boneless heap.Resting his cheek on Ray’s butt, Nate pulls his come-streaked hand from where it’s partially pinned beneath Ray, then pushes himself up to straddle Ray, who groans and makes to turn over, muttering, “Gimme a minute to recover.”Nate stays his motion with a hand to the shoulder. “No, you’re perfect right there.”Then he lays himself along Ray’s back, positioning himself so that his cock lies perfectly along Ray’s ass and sprawled legs. He rolls his hips in one experimental stroke – yeah, that’ll work. He begins to move in earnest, riding the cleft of Ray’s ass, enjoying the feeling as his dick presses briefly against Ray’s hole and the head bumps up against Ray’s balls.With a smirk over his shoulder (that Nate’s too busy to see), Ray shifts enough to tighten his legs and ass, giving a little more resistance and friction to Nate’s strokes. Nate’s got his hands braced on the mattress on either side of Ray and his face pressed between his shoulders, rubbing frantically. Ray moves his own hands at last from where Nate had planted them earlier, wrapping them around Nate’s wrists and squeezing hard. Then he tells Nate quietly, “Come now, sir.” Which is *it* for Nate, whose cock twitches and jerks (wow, the “sir”, that’s new and apparently it really works for him, who knew?), coming in almost painful spasms.He’s brain dead and bodily exhausted by the force of his orgasm for the moment, slumped on top of Ray, who’s probably a come-splattered mess. He makes to move but Ray tightens his hold, then manages to twist beneath him enough to face Nate. Nate lifts his head enough to place a sloppy, lazy kiss on Ray’s smiling mouth before lying flat again.“That’s an awesome apology for the dickish behavior, Nathaniel. I can’t wait to see how you make up for finals.”With a snort, Nate gives a sort of full-body shrug, and then buries his head in Ray’s shoulder where he can map more of the blue-black ink as he recovers.
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The shelves are filled with books. Each shelf actually has two rows of books and then more are wedged in horizontally in the free space between the tops of the books and the shelf above. Even the entertainment unit, which by rights should be filled with DVD and game cases, houses more books. Fiction, nonfiction, with spines cracked and pages dog-eared. George RR Martin’s Songs of Ice and Fire series, an entire shelf of Asimov. Bujold’s space operas. Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone series and Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole books. The Grapes of Wrath and The Red Badge of Courage. Jules Verne. Georgette Heyer. Robert Jordan. JD Robb.Kissinger’s Diplomacy. Books by and about Robert MacNamara. Ethics and Statecraft. Biographies of Eisenhower, Wilson, and Metternich, an analysis of the Congress of Vienna, well, Mike expected them, because it’s Nate. And when he randomly selects Elements of Persuasion, he expects to find the Harvard Bookstore stamp on the inside. But instead he finds pages and pages annotated in the cramped, spiky writing of one Ray Person.Who knew that hick knew how to read? But then again, Nate wouldn’t have put up with Ray as a roommate if he’d been a complete idiot. There was loyalty to a fellow Marine and there was common sense. Coincidence, convenience and economic necessity might prompt a roommate. But if Ray had been the complete fuck up he’d seemed like while high on Ripped Fuel, Nate would never have let him have the spare room in his apartment. Ray attending MIT seems like some sort of bizarre joke until Mike remembers his brilliance with radios.Running his index finger along the shelf inset in the hallway, Mike skims past books by Mary Renault, E.M. Forster, and Christopher Isherwood. It isn’t until he’s several books past it that one title clicks in his mind, and at that point his mind grinds to a halt. Then his eyes slide back to confirm it: The Joy of Gay Sex.It’s a mistake, he knows it, but he still pulls the book off the shelf. And finds that some of the pages are bookmarked with post its. And some of them are filled with notes in Person’s chicken scratch, while others begin with Nate’s careful Catholic-school penmanship.Son of a bitch.Mike returns the book to its place carefully, then selects a worn copy of A Game of Thrones. Political machinations? Check. Swords? Check. Seven hundred foot ice wall? Check. Unlikely to include any more startling revelations about his LT and Colbert’s RTO? Check.*****Brad found out about Nate and Ray accidentally: he told Person he'd be in town for a couple of days around Thanksgiving, but not which days exactly. So when Brad knocked on the apartment door, he was treated to the sight of Nate half naked, cash in hand, and the sound of Ray shouting in the background, "Pay the damn delivery boy then get your Ivy League ass back in this bedroom, altar boy!" Nate looks like the aforementioned altar boy, but one who just got caught stealing from the offering plate or drinking the sacred wine after late services. And when Ray barges into view, wearing nothing but pimp shades and a rhinestone g-string, Brad steps back across the threshold and closes the door, announcing that he'll be back in an hour, please be presentable by then.They didn't actually talk about what Brad had interrupted during his visit, instead they watched a lot of football, drank beer, and gossiped like Marines about their old teammates. About a week after Brad's visit, a box arrived from Amazon. Which wasn't a big deal, both Ray and Nate order books from a variety of online sources including Amazon. But not that one. The package included a note to Ray pointing out that whatever skills he may have picked up having sex with his cousins or small farm animals probably weren't helpful when it came to the LT, so maybe this book would come in handy.Ray snarked to Brad on Skype and rolled his eyes at Nate, then stuck the book on the back of a shelf. He didn't need a book to tell him about sex, fuckyouverymuch, he and Nate communicate pretty well in the bedroom and elsewhere. They didn't give the book away (hello, gift) or throw it away (destroying a book is sacrilege), so it just sat on the shelf.Until Nate had surgery on his knee and was confined to the apartment for days. He was not the best of patients and Ray was not the most patient of nurses. After he caught up on all his school work and was ahead in all his readings for class, Nate got pretty stir crazy and kind of hard to live with. To keep him entertained, Ray kept a selection of books and dvds in rotation, but Nate exhausted their supply of unread books fairly quickly.As the end of the enforced bed-rest approached, Ray delivered a pile of books and then sped off to class. It wasn't until he was gone that Nate realized the books were all Ray's Orson Scott Card books, which Nate refused to read on principal. All except that big book on the bottom, with bits of paper sticking out and some pages dog eared. It's book jacket was gone though, so Nate didn't realize what it was until he flipped to the title page. The joy of gay sex? What gay sex? There'd been no sex of any sort while he was stuck in bed, dammit.At the beginning of the book, the notes were joking, with messages like, "Duh, I learned that when I was 14!" and "if you turn the book 90 degrees clockwise, this picture makes much more sense". But as it went on, they became slightly more serious ("you would be amazing like that" and "I want to try that but with better leverage than they've got"). There were still some jokes mixed in ("if we want to bend that way, we'll have to try yoga first" and "only someone with a spine made of spaghetti could possibly do that") but more of the notes were about the things that intrigued Ray or that he thought Nate might like to try. Midway through, Nate digs his post its and colored flags (Nate is *organized* when it comes to his studying) and starts flagging pages he wants to draw Ray's attention to and making notes for them to follow up on.And when Ray gets home, he finds The Joy of Gay Sex on the table by the door where they usually drop their keys and the mail. And there's a big post it on the front: "Check page 44, Josh Ray. Then come find me. xoxo"
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Juggling grocery bags, Nate grabs the door before it can slam shut behind him. Ray’s supposed to be working on the final project for his advanced fluid dynamics class -- it was his excuse for wriggling out of the hell that is Whole Foods on a Saturday morning. The sooner he’s done, the sooner they can get to and escape from the family birthday party they’ve been conned into attending. A damn Marine marshmallow, that’s what Ray is when it comes to their niece Annie. As he unloads the reusable carrier bags and sorts items for storage in the fridge, pantry, and medicine chest, Nate mutters under his breath about chores and family obligations clogging up the weekend and ruining Naked Saturdays. (As opposed to Half-Naked Sundays: as Ray announced on their very first Sunday together, the day requires brunch, and it’s really not safe to cook without some sort of clothing covering up strategically important body parts.)Groceries and supplies safely stowed, Nate creeps along the hall to peer into the second bedroom-cum-office, feeling like an idiot. Yes, he was trained in stealth but it’s a wasted effort since it’s another retired Recon Marine he's trying to sneak up on. The idiotic feeling turns to irritation when he finds the office empty, papers spread over the desk and open books splayed over the floor. Dammit, where has Ray disappeared to? He’d better not have fucked off after making Nate brave that crunchy-granola, overpriced, organic, hipster paradise on his own. Stomping all the way, Nate heads back downstairs and does a circuit of the floor, but Ray’s nowhere to be found. No note, no indication of where he’d gone or when he’d be back. Inconsiderate jackass.Flinging himself down on the couch, Nate works up a mental rant, ready to give Ray a dose of his own medicine whenever he returns from wherever the hell he’s gone. As his mad wears off, Nate realizes something’s poking his hip. Reaching down, he pulls a battered copy of Artistophanes’ plays from the depths of the cushions where it was wedged. How’d that get there? Last time he saw this book was when he and Ray were unpacking and negotiating shelf space. Shrugging philosophically, he opens to a random page and starts reading.An hour later, he hears the front door open and close, then the jingle of keys as footsteps approach.“I just spent a damn hour in the library trying to find a reference book that was supposed to be on the shelf. Not checked out, not on a carrel, but none of the library staff could fucking find it. Some obtuse, zit-popping, community college reject of an undergrad is probably hoarding the thing, has it wedged in between stacks of dusty, crusty old copies of some social sciences journal volumes where only he can find it and the rest of us are screwed. And of course there's only one copy, in paper, no electronic version -- it's the most retarded thing I've encountered this month.”And with that, Ray flops on top of Nate onto the couch, totally missing the fact that Nate’s ignoring him. (Well, really, Ray’s pretty un-ignorable. That’s part of his charm.) Nate murmurs, "It's early in the month, surely you'll encounter more and better idiocy," and keeps reading; he’s gotten halfway through Lysistrata when Ray loses patience and starts wriggling around. As he shifts, Nate wraps his arm around him to keep him from flipping off the couch and asks, “Don’t you have a project to finish?”Ray’s response is a snort. And then after a pause, he leans into Nate’s neck and nuzzles at him. “Is that what you’re calling sex these days, Nathaniel, a project? That’s a sad commentary about you, I guess. Is this what I have to look forward to when I reach your venerable age and august education level?”He’s gearing up, Nate can hear it in his tone; he’s about to be gifted with a Ray Person diatribe on the evils of maturity, academia, how over-education leads to a lack of sex, and any number of tangential things. Nate usually likes to settle in and hear where Ray's mouth and imagination will go -- it's a pretty interesting trip most of the time. But not today. Tossing the book aside, Nate shifts on top of Ray and wedges one leg between Ray’s. “I think we both know that you like my age and education, especially when applied to our sex life, Ray.” And then his mouth is covering Ray’s, cutting off whatever profane, inflammatory blather was about to burst forth. Nate can feel Ray resist a little at first, wanting to keep control, then he relaxes back into the couch and bends one leg at the knee, making more room for Nate to settle into. Nate’s not sure how much time has elapsed when he eventually lifts his head. Ray’s eyes are heavy-lidded and his lips are red and swollen. Nate can feel the lingering sensation of teeth on his neck and shoulder, and their shirts have been tugged up to permit access for wandering hands. Ray’s rolling his hips just so, and Nate’s got the perfect friction on his dick, he could almost come that way…except he doesn’t want to come in his pants. Pushing himself up, he creates just enough space between them for Ray to work their flies open and then shove their trousers down. Ray shifts beneath him, and the head of his cock slides along the underside of Nate’s, catching at the rim, and Nate’s arms turn to noodles. Collapsing back onto Ray, Nate slides toward the back of the couch and Ray turns with him, reaching for Nate’s mouth again and gripping both their dicks in his hand. Now he’s the one shifting, making space for Ray to fit into as he rubs and strokes just right, using the perfect amount of pressure to bring Nate off. Ray’s mouth, god, his mouth, and his hand, and the way the ink on his bicep flirts in and out of view at the edge of his sleeve as his arm moves between the two of them, and the way he feels against, around, inside Nate, it’s not enough and too much and just right.When Nate manages to organize his Ray-and-sex scrambled brain into some coherence, Ray is slumped against him, still breathing heavily. Their clothes are a mess, the couch cushion is probably going to need to be recovered, and he’s pretty sure the thing stabbing him in the back is that book. Again. He’s got a stupid grin on his face, he knows it: it’s all Ray’s fault, all his best and worst moods are Ray-related anymore.Ray leans back to look Nate in the face and smirks, then announces, “If that kind of project is what I’d be doing on a daily basis, maybe I should’ve taken that project manager job instead of going to grad school.” He heaves himself to his feet and holds out a hand. “Up and moving, Captain. We’ve got a Hello Kitty birthday party to get to.” He herds Nate toward the stairs and the shower. “Hello Kitty. Who comes up with that shit? All that pink? It is not natural, and there’s something wrong with a character that has no mouth.”
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Mike's good at not seeing things. It's an acquired skill, mandatory in order to survive the idiocy of command's decisions for just about every tour he's been on. Good NCOs know it's just as important to not-see some things as it is to see the shit that can get you killed.Which is why he doesn't see the smug grins that cross LT's face when he hears one of Ray's rants over the radio. There's not much to ignore anyway; only a sourpuss wouldn't snicker at Person's mouth, and the LT is wearing his Officer Face by the time they approach 2-1 for a sitrep, any lingering amusement wiped away as if by magic. Mike also carefully didn't see the way LT palmed Person's face at Matilda, tilting up his chin and locking eyes, ostensibly in order to observe the espresso burn and verbally dress him down.Everyone saw Nate follow Brad as he trailed after Ray following the football debacle, and it was no big deal for him to dismiss Colbert and talk to Person alone. But Mike has to see the giant bruise that appears on Nate's collarbone the next day...so he can remind him to police his uniform before Sixta gets a look at it. Sixta's never mastered the art of not seeing; or rather, he sees all the wrong things and then can't shut up about them.
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A raucous beep jolted Nate awake. Still more than half asleep, he slapped at the alarm on the bedside table -- wrong side, dammit -- to end the piercing noise. Except smacking the clock failed to make the screeching stop. Fuzzy brained with lack of sleep and the lingering effects of too much Resurrection Ale, he couldn't understand why the clock wouldn't stop screaming at him at first; then he rolled out of bed and toward the bedroom door and the source of the noise.Dammit, pants, must put on pants, he mumbled to himself. Ray might be slaughtering small children or electronics to make that noise, but there could be others in the apartment who didn't need to see his naked ass, so he grabbed the sweats discarded on the floor. The screeching became louder as he walked down the hall approaching the kitchen, and then suddenly ended with a crash. Peering around the corner, he could see Ray lowering a broom to the floor among scattered bits of plastic, and a disemboweled fire alarm dangling from the ceiling. The malodorous gray smoke wafting from the skillet was being sucked up into the stovetop fan and out the open kitchen window. A pot of coffee was brewing, and what looked like the ingredients for a huge omelet covered the counter. Ray set the broom aside gently, glaring at the mess on the stove and gripping the edge of the counter so tightly that his knuckles went white. Nate couldn't hear what Ray was muttering under his breath but it surely included enough curses to turn the air blue and make a Marine blush.Moving up behind Ray as quickly and quietly as he could, he slid his arms around Ray's waist and rested his lips on the back of Ray's neck."While I appreciate your initiative, Person, you're interfering with my plans for the morning.""You mean you didn't want to wake up to a grease fire in your kitchen, sir?""Meaning it's too early for breakfast. And the stove is a fire hazard -- the landlord is supposed to replace it soon. Come back to bed. I think we can set some sheets on fire instead.""Cheesy, Nate." Ray turned around and grinned at Nate, boosting himself up to lay a smacking kiss on Nate's lips. "But I can support that initiative. Double time, back to the bedroom."And with a bigger grin he was gone down the hall, leaving Nate to follow.
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~~~In the months before Rebecca Jane arrived, Nate worried about all the things that had to be done and the plans that had to be made. There were wills and powers of attorney with guardianship provisions to have executed; college savings plans to establish; day care and then primary school to plan for; and a gender neutral nursery to furnish. At night, Ray would rub his back and shoulders until he fell into an uneasy sleep, thinking he hadn’t seen bags or bruises like that under Nate’s eyes since Baghdad. Ray, on the other hand, was the proverbial grasshopper, mostly thinking about the possibility of little league sports, scouts of some sort, and exploding volcanoes for future science projects. He had to be talked out of buying a race car bed for the nursery; his theory was that it fit well with the gender neutral thing Nate wanted – girls could like racing, too, look at the crowds at NASCAR races, and at drivers like Danica Patrick. He was going to be the cool, hip dad, while Nate would be the slightly dorky dad who worried about stuff like vaccines and baby-proofing things.Rebecca Jane arrived on a Tuesday morning, finally making an appearance after nearly 24 hours of labor. Nate left a staff meeting when he got the call. Ray abandoned a lab full of Chem 101 students who were supposed to be determining the make up of salicylic acid. (Fortunately for Ray and the Chemistry department, no one was permanently injured and there was no significant damage to the lab.)When she finally came home with them to the rowhouse in Patterson Park, the dark circles disappeared from beneath Nate’s eyes. It wasn’t that he was sleeping more, although baby-napping became a popular father-daughter pastime, just behind peekaboo and playing airplane as very favorite activities. It was that she was there and theirs at last. Nothing could be too terrible, no matter what the future brought, because they were a family.Instead, the dark circles migrated to Ray’s face. Holding her in his lap on the antique rocking chair his momma sent from Nevada made her real. And ohmygod, who gave them a baby? Why did anyone think that was a good or safe idea? Nate would be okay with her, but he would totally screw her up! Nothing Nate said could convince him otherwise, and Rebecca Jane’s tendency to squall when Ray held her did not help his confidence.When Momma Person (Meemaw, she murmured to Rebecca Jane when she held her) came to visit after they’d settled into a sort of routine, she took one look at Ray and rolled her eyes. That first night, after RJ was asleep, dreaming baby dreams in her safe-as-humanly-possible crib, Momma cornered Ray in the den. Without giving him a chance to crack a joke, she gave him the parental speech her mother had given her when she was wigged out about being responsible for the child growing inside her.
Things break; people make mistakes; kids get sick; parents screw up. But people have been having and raising children for thousands of years, and most of them turn out all right. Spanking’s okay but don’t hit. Some yelling is almost inevitable, given your mouth and temperament, but don’t yell too much or too often. Make reading bedtime stories a ritual for you all to share. Respect her like you expect to be respected by her as she grows up. Be prepared to be the bad guy sometimes and the superhero other times. Sometimes a hug and a drumstick will make the tears go away, and other times the tears just have to come until she’s worn out. Nate’s right here with you and you will be okay.
After the fact, Ray wished he’d recorded The Speech, because having it to replay sometimes would have been helpful. But that night, after Momma kissed him on the forehead and sent him upstairs, he slept the night through for the first time since RJ had come home. And the circles gradually faded away. (Until she was old enough to date.)
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Ray can only stare at the charred mess that used to be one of the walls of the privacy fence enclosing their tiny backyard. It had been perfectly fine when he left less than an hour ago, enclosing Nate, Rebecca Jane, and four other Brownies as they did a practice run for the upcoming camping trip. Now it is a smoldering mess, leaving a gaping hole onto the alley out back, the girls are huddled together around the kitchen table, and Nate is braced against the counter looking shellshocked and in need of a shot or two of whiskey."What the hell happened here? Was there a freak lightning strike? A natural disaster? A visit from one of the X-Men?"When Nate just shakes his head, RJ pipes up."It was the s'mores, Pop. And the practice camp fire. Well, the pitiful excuse for a bonfire we could try to have in this yard. We needed to test them out. The fire wasn't growing fast enough, so I decided to fix it when Dad went inside to get the marshmallows. Who knew lighter fluid would ignite so fast?"