When Brad's ex-wife dies and Brad and Nate find themselves in charge of Brad's three sons, things get complicated.

In which Brad is a desperately self-sacrificing HRH, Nate is not happy about being blind-sided, Ray wants to kill the Swedish press corps, and Walt is present in the background like a good bodyguard.

It's around when Ray wants to hold Walt's hand like a goddamn teenage girl with stars in her eyes and wet panties that he starts to worry.

"We're not going to talk about this."

It’s the oldest trick in the book. It’s a fucking cliche, emphasis on fucking. It’s been done by every dicksuck James Bond wannabe and perpetually repeated by every new agent who doesn’t know shit. It never works.

This was not a normal day. This day existed to prove that hell was real and it came with musical accompaniment by will.i.am. On this day, Steve figured out how to get him out of the office and torment him at the same time by sending him to the godforsaken DNC where it was all 'we shall overcome,' oh-happy-day bullshit.

Brad meets a Nate on his first day at the new school. It's a beginning.

“The others are running late?” he asks and Brad blinks at him slowly, because he doesn’t think he actually knows this guy. It’s true, he doesn’t remember everyone he has classes with, but he’s pretty damn sure he’d know if he made lunch arrangements.

And while some people simply have no sense of decorum (Ray) or refuse to acknowledge all the hard work Brad puts into seeming as unapproachable as humanly possible (Ray) to save himself from idiots (also Ray), this one looks like he attends Sunday school and says all the thank yous and pleases in the right places.

What he doesn’t look is confused, at least not until Brad stares at him.

Brad Colbert and Nate Fick had met on the set of a now cancelled sci-fi show, years ago. Now, Hollywood turns out to be a small town after all, and it’s hard to avoid someone you broke up with. Especially when you both sign up for the same movie.

Their sophomore year the whole school was suddenly bursting with gossip, the scuttlebutt having Nate caught on a steamy make-out session with Rick Sykes. Rick protested a great deal, maintained he was drunk or stoned or temporarily insane, and then he transferred to another school. Nate laughed when asked, rolled his eyes at the occasional spiteful comment, and then went and joined the cheerleading squad and started volunteering with the homecoming committee.

Few weeks later he dated the homecoming queen for a while and she was gushing about him to everyone who wanted to listen and to a few who didn't.

The entire school quietly wondered what the fuck.

"Bisexuality, look it up," Nate advised Ray earnestly, not a hint of mocking in his voice or on his face, just the helpful smile, like he was ready to lend Ray his dictionary.

It’s the fucking DADT thing, everyone gets a bee in their bonnet about it, or whatever the fuck. Not that it isn’t a relief in some ways, but from the first rude e-mail card he gets from Ray (he outdoes himself with the timing, too, couldn’t be more than thirty seconds after the news, probably tripped over his shoelaces to get to his computer), Brad knows it’s going to be trouble.

Nine months after the end of events in Half Past the Point of Oblivion, Brad gets word he's being deployed. Arrangements must be made and goodbyes said, when a warrior goes off to war.

Brad's pretty sure it would have gone diferently if he had actually seen Nate's movies.

Brad's sister is the one to call and tell him. Of all the people.

“I think they’re re-running our movie on the Genovian first channel.”

“The Disney one or the documentary one?”

“Disney,” Nate says, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. Damn him. He knows damn well Brad can’t resist the Disney one, they’ve made Ray into a girl and gave Grandfather a Russian accent. It’s fantastic.

“I’ll get the remote.”

“You know,” Nate says, settling against the pillows. “If nothing else, we’re the reason Disney made a gay movie.”

Brad supposes that complaining about having too good a boyfriend wouldn’t win him any support from anyone.

"Brad Colbert, Christ-Killer."

"Ainsley Seaborn, Blond Republican Sex Kitten," Ainsley said, deadpan. She took his offered hand firmly.

Groundhog Day AU. Brad Colbert wakes up and it's the same day over and over again.

Brad’s plans for the Friday night included: pizza, working on his bike in Doc’s garage, listening to Ray’s band butcher whatever song they’re working on and listening to Ray’s rant on modern music, radio fascists who block his career, and how Brad never listens to him at all.

Also planned: trying not to kill Ray. It’s a constant struggle.

What he did not plan at all was to learn that, apparently, he was the sole heir to the Genovian throne. As you do.

"I'm having a hard time believing you flew all the way from England for a holiday you don't celebrate."

Brad flies home for three days.

"Sometimes it's hard to shut down, stop thinking. I understand that. If you need help exhausting yourself into a state in which you are capable of actually resting," Nate murmurs, eyes on Ray's mouth. "The Sergeant and I would be more than happy to assist you. In fact, we might have to insist on it. Brad's very concerned about you, and I admit, Ray, I share that concern.”

Nate's car breaks down in front of Brad's vineyard.

Brad gets a new call-sign.

Not that Poke's complaining, but he's never, ever again playing a motherfucking yenta to anyone on his team. Or anyone ever again. Sure, the mental soap opera was driving him nuts, but this is worse, this time the stray sexual thoughts coming from certain retards are real, and it's a hell lot more than he had ever wanted to know.

Poke's quite good at cutting off the stream of people's thoughts, but every once in a while something gets through and it's going to put him in therapy for years. No one should be exposed to fucking Iceman's rhapsodizing on LT's eyes. Or his dick. Poke's not sure which one is worse – the cheese or the porn.

Ray stops and reconsiders. There are at least four telepaths on the base, that he knows of, and he has been repeatedly told his thoughts are disruptive and inappropriate for the workplace.

He says, fuck them, it's probably the only time the goat-fucking nutjobs get to have any fun in here, Ray is doing them a huge favor and should be rewarded.

Nate’s in a circle of women, and Brad scans their faces, surprised to recognize them all. He saves Nate for last, so busy savoring each second of taking him in that it takes embarrassingly long to see the little girl he’s holding. “That’s a baby.”

Stafford would like you to know, Ray is not the only person who can know somebody really well.

"It's just sick, that's what it is."

"What's sick, Trombley?" Not that Brad really wants to know, or even cares. Trombley's idea of sick and other people's, well, they don't always match.

"Our ex-CO."

Brad raises his eyebrows. "He's sick?"

"No. He's a fucking fudge-packing homo, that's what's sick."

Brad and his emotions have an understanding: he doesn't talk about, or think about, anything that might affect his combat effectiveness, and his emotions do whatever the fuck he tells them to.

Nate is a vampire, but this war is making him feel more human than ever.

It was just not fucking on to be having wet dreams about the LT when they were back, all safe and sound and resettled at Pendleton. That did not fucking compute.

Brad is in his hallway, leaning against the wall.

Brad is in England. Brad is in his hallway.

Brad and Nate are models. They fall in love.

The man didn't make idle threats.

Brad and the LT are always doing their eyefucking thing, with the LT's honest-to-fuck cocksucker mouth tilted up to one side and Brad letting his whole Iceman facade down. Even now, when they've finally stopped and the LT is here talking to Brad with his shiny green fuck-me eyes. (Not that Ray will ever tell Brad about the LT's mouth or eyes. Ray might be in a motherfucking war, but he doesn't have a death wish.)

Nate Fick wasn’t always a Marine and he won’t always be one.

“It’s easy for you to say things are fine when you’ve got Nate’s hand on your dick. We’re still waiting for Walt,” Ray says. “And, you know, the 65 million dollars in jewelry.”

Great. Rudy poisoned us with his Zen health crap and now we're all going to go crazy, vomit rainbows, and die. Thanks Rudy!

“You know we can’t be friends. None of us are friends, sir. Brothers, yes. But we’re not friends. Friends get you killed.”

Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world.

Nate's trying very hard not to sound interested, though Brad can read the signs of his body. He can read Nate better than he can read himself, and he knows that this isn't a casual acquaintance. This isn't just someone Nate shared a class with. This is someone Nate's shared a bed with.

Brad's known Nate was going to leave them –- him -- since the first time Brad climbed out of the BRC practice pool at Oceanside, unzipped his wetsuit and saw his fresh-faced lieutenant standing off to the side, watching them all and smiling as though he had a secret that Brad would spend a war and a lifetime trying to find.

But the war is over, at least for Nate, and a lifetime is shorter than you'd think.

The slide from “the LT and the Iceman” towards “Nate and Brad” is slow. Their identities are blurred by a hundred different small interactions that mean very little on their own, outside of a larger context. One thing is clear; some of it was Ray’s fault. We are assured of this.

Brad unexpectedly meets a charming street hustler who insinuates himself into Brad's heart and life. Can Brad get him off the street? Does he want off the street?

When Nate disappears, Brad doesn't stop until he gets him back.

Bravo platoon as a fraternity.

"I'm leaving, Brad."

Brad is hiding under the Humvee again.

"People on the Internet are writing porn about us..."

Nate's half-tempted, sometimes, to call up Mike and ask if he’s created his and Brad’s easy vibe out of thin air and memory, because they’re stilted and full of awkward silence on the phone; post-series.

It starts with a pair of skates (they have toe picks). It doesn’t end there. A story of two skaters featuring a cat, a gender-specific couch and a lot of ice.

Brad's a cop, Nate's an FBI agent. They go undercover as a gay couple.

Brad considers it a good sign that when he sits down and says, “I have to hit on you,” the guy’s only response is raised eyebrows. “Sorry. I’d hoped for more creative hazing, but I guess gay chicken appeals to the developmentally stunted.”

Nate spares a thought for his parents down the hall, but there are his sisters' two empty bedrooms, a guest room and a bathroom between them and him; everybody's used to Brad being in Nate's room anyway.

Did everybody else see this but him?

There is little that Agent Mike Wynn takes more seriously than the life of Vice President Nate Fick. When the number of death threats starts to climb, he calls in the one person he's sure he can trust, USMC Sgt. Brad Colbert, and assigns him the 24/7 task of being the Vice President's shadow.

What happens after.

Nate's pretty sure that most Marine Corps recruitment drives don't include lusting after your potential Marine brothers, but it's not Nate's fault.

"That," he says, "is how you know it was close." - Sebastian Junger, War