Miles to Go

Once you learn to travel light, it stays with you.

Of course, in Nate’s case, travelling light is relative, and the term used to encompass everything, from clothes and toiletries to grenades. Airlines have different ideas.

“I tried that one bag concept,” Anna says breezily one day at lunch, when the ten minutes they have allotted to work-related conversation has passed and they’re grasping at subjects. It’s Anna’s rule, she insists they need half an hour that’s free of work. Nate never points out that they’re having lunch right across the street from the office and that she checks her blackberry every four minutes on the dot.

“How did that work out for you?”

“Came back from Paris with three additional bags I bought there,” she shrugs with a small smile and checks her phone absently. “But I suppose it’s different for you.”

It’s an unspecified ‘you’, and she could mean Nate specifically, and all of his training, or she could mean ‘you guys’ and all the people to whom she ascribes the general lack of tendency to buy shoes. Nate doesn’t ask for clarification.

“Have you seen the memo Tom sent this morning?” he asks instead and Anna extends her hand.

“Five bucks,” she orders and Nate fishes out his wallet and hands her a crisp bill. She leaves it on the table, by the phone. There’s still a chance she’ll have to give it back in the next few minutes. They are both pretty crap at following the no work talk rule, Nate does realise. “When’s your flight?” Anna asks, her foot nudging at the bag under the table.

“Four hours. I’m leaving early to avoid the traffic.”

“I’d be jealous if I didn’t know you could probably even make a trip to Europe all about work.”

Not exactly.

There’s nothing spontaneous about the whole thing, not really. It’s not a spur of the moment decision if you give your assistant adequate notice to reschedule your appointments and make arrangements and have time to ask the neighbour to water the plants and pick up the mail.

It still feels like a giant fucking leap.

*

They didn’t really have that much time to talk at the paddle party at Mike’s house. The place has been to crowded for privacy, and Nate didn’t trust himself enough to try for any serious conversations within anyone’s earshot. Especially within Ray Person’s earshot. Nate’s also been a bit busy trying not to cry like a little bitch. (Brad’s assessment, but nevertheless accurate.)

And besides, it wasn’t exactly avoiding conversation when you didn’t quite know what it would be about.

The evening was winding up to a close when Nate sat down on the porch, a moment to take a breath and clear his head. Someone let Rudy mix the drinks and while they somehow probably were healthy and organic, they also packed a mean punch.

“Someone is spreading vicious rumors about you abandoning us for some Ivy League dive of liberal dicksucking scum,” Brad offered, leaning against the railing, staring ahead, as if the swing set in Mike’s garden was the most interesting thing in the world. “I could punch them for you, sir.”

“Can’t punch people for speaking the truth.”

“On the contrary, sir, you’ll find that this is exactly what usually earns you the blows.”

Brad’s voice was thoughtful, almost poignant. If Nate’s head didn’t feel heavy and wrapped in wool he could maybe read between the lines, but as it was, he just sighed and leaned back, resting on his elbows.

Sound of breaking glass carried from the house, followed by cheering and Ray’s quick denial of his involvement. “Ray,” Hasser said loudly, sounding for all the world like Nate’s mother when she was cross with his father.

Brad didn’t move, didn’t even turn his head at the sound. “For what it’s worth, I think you’ll fit right in,” he said.

Nate wasn’t sure what conversation they were having. It wasn’t the time or the place for any of the conversations they could be having, but you made do.

“In some Ivy League dive of liberal dicksucking scum? I’ll do my best, I’d hate to disappoint you.”

“I don’t think you could,” Brad said, quiet enough to sound intimate. It wasn’t a new sentiment, not exactly, but there was something different beyond the words, a warm feeling pooling in Nate’s stomach.

The sound of laughing from inside grew louder, Ray’s voice rising above everything else, and Brad pushed himself away from the railing. “I guess someone needs to make sure the kids don’t break any more of Mike’s good china,” he muttered and went inside, leaving Nate with a strong feeling that he had missed something important.

The warm feeling from just a moment ago was turning tepid under the cold breeze of the evening.

*

Nate’s youngest sister has a ritual after every break-up she goes through. In high school, Nate lived through more repetitions of this than anyone could take. There are stages of grief, involving denial and loud music and ice cream and finally, marathons of really bad movies the entire family is subjected to.

Nate has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the romantic comedy genre of the late 80s and the early 90s he could really do without. And even worse, his oldest niece seems to favour that crap just as her auntie does, and he already knows too much about High School Musicals and Katherine Heigl’s career choices.

He’s waiting through customs and thinking of the airport scenes. He had seen too many of those, too, and it’s always a mad dash and a heated reunion and other such bullshit. Definitely no customs to go through, though, he’d notice that.

“You look as if someone pissed in your in-flight meal.”

“And then they showed me a Chevy Chase in-flight movie,” Nate mutters, looking Brad over. Jeans and worn-out t-shirt, and now Nate feels just a bit overdressed for the occasion, even though he eased off his tie when he boarded the plane, stuck it in his pocket.

“Such is the American way we so valiantly fought to uphold,” Brad agrees, reaching out to shake Nate’s hand. His hand is dry and warm, and the handshake lingers, not long enough to be uncomfortable or awkward, but long enough for Nate to turn wistful, to wish for more.

“How’s the British way, then?” he asks conversationally. Nate’s good at small talk, in fact, he’s become fucking fantastic at it, because some days it seems that the only talk in DC is small talk. It doesn’t really work all that well with Brad, they’re at their best when they’re not saying anything at all, the words come out stilted and strange.

“Better tv. Terrible food.” Brad looks at him for a moment. Nate feels both overdressed and exposed now but he stares back, holds Brad’s gaze. “It’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you too, Brad.”

*

The first e-mail from Brad surprised him more than Nate would like to admit. He stared at the screen for a full minute and even then he didn’t click it open. He went through the mail in the order he received it, every next one adding to the anticipation he felt running through his veins.

There was the conference schedule in the second-to-last e-mail and Nate read it three times before he admitted defeat.

‘So far came up with seven ways to break into the Buckingham Palace’ it said, in its entirety. Signed just ‘Brad’, those two lines and nothing more. It wasn’t exactly what Nate had expected, but it startled a laugh out of him, and he couldn’t help but smile throughout the day whenever he recalled it.

“You look like a loon,” Anna told him kindly and switched his coffee to decaf.

‘Better idea. Get invited,’ Nate wrote back and the response was waiting for him after lunch. ‘Not everyone can be a liberal messiah. And I’ve been told the Queen serves plain biscuits, no chocolate. Can you believe this shit?’

The messages continued, infrequent and random, from one-liners to long diatribes on the daily fuckery Brad had to deal with, but they didn’t dry out and they didn’t stop as Nate feared they would.

The last one in December ended with ‘how are things back home?’ and Nate thought that Brad probably meant Stateside, this side of the Atlantic, nothing else and nothing more, but the pang of longing was unmistakable. He wanted it to mean more.

The first message in January arrived three seconds after midnight. ‘Happy New Year. I contemplated sending you an e-card, but you’re going to get one from Person, and that’s enough of a traumatic experience for anyone. Whatever you do, do yourself a favor and don’t open any attachments from him. There’s not enough of alcohol in the world to wash those images off your brain.”

Nate thought he already had his New Years Resolution all ready. He wasn’t going to keep it anyway.

*

Brad’s flat is rented out from a friend in Royal Marines who’s on deployment. It’s within walking distance from St. Pancras, in a building that would be considered old by the American standards but is probably relatively new here.

“Used to be a red-light district,” Brad says absently, his smirk automatic, as if he had offered that bit of information to a lot of people on various occasions. Ray probably got a kick out of it.

Nate just nods and drops his duffel bag on the lumpy couch. He’s not sure how he’s supposed to feel, but he’s probably failing at it anyway. Jet-lag hadn’t yet quite kicked in, and the nervous excitement and anxiety he was still carrying all around him at the airport are gone now.

It’s just... It’s Brad, and his gaze is familiar and comfortable on Nate’s skin. Nate’s aware of all the things that are between them, of which the ocean is possibly the smallest one, but with just them in the room it’s easier than anything else in Nate’s life.

“Would you like some tea?” Brad asks after a moment, and the proper way he’s saying that and the completely deadpan expression are good indications that he’s fucking with Nate. And this joke, unlike the red district crack, is theirs.

“Only if I get the chocolate biscuits.”

*

He gave in on January 3rd at four in the morning, sent a message with a string of numbers. They weren’t coordinates, but it was a set of orders all the same. Brad’s cellphone service was permanently volunteering that the number was unavailable at the time, and besides, Nate didn’t want to presume.

Except he really wanted to.

Brad called seven minutes later, his voice fading in and out, complaining about the crappy reception and blaming everything on the fucking blizzard and going on about something like ‘the wrong sort of snow’.

“So, you’re enjoying England,” Nate concluded.

“Been to worse places,” Brad agreed, a ringing endorsement if Nate had ever heard one. “Of course, that’s not saying much.”

There had been nothing but crackling static for a moment, before Nate decided that in for a penny wasn’t nearly close enough and neither would be a pound, but he’d make do with whatever he got. “Thought about seeing for myself,” he offered, and the answering silence made him think that maybe his words got lost, somewhere over the Atlantic, in the deep silence of the water and sky and nothing else for miles and miles. “Brad, you’re still there?”

“I’m still here,” Brad muttered, his voice carefully steady, controlled. It sounded as if he really was right there, next to Nate, a serendipitous moment of good reception carrying it over clearly. Nate didn’t quite believe in signs, but maybe he’s been owed one. “Yeah. You should come.”

*

It’s not at all like he expected it to be. Then again, he has no clue what he expected in the first place, so there’s that.

It’s better. Whatever he expected, this is better.

Brad tastes like coffee they’ve just had, because even though he offered, there was no tea anywhere in the house. Brad maintains there’s enough of that crap everywhere else. Nate leans over the kitchen island, the edge of it digging into his stomach. He stubs his toe against the edge of the drawer and swears into Brad’s mouth.

“Who knew,” Brad says, his lips swollen and wet, his breathing shallow. His left hand grips the edge of the counter, as if he needed to hold on for balance, knuckles white, but his other hand is tangled in Nate’s shirt, fisting the material right over Nate’s heart. “I might have actually missed you.”

“You’re so full of shit,” Nate smiles, shakes his head. He wonders how you could miss something you never really had, or didn’t know it was yours. It’s certainly possible, because he’s been missing this for years, an empty space deep inside. Warmth trickles in, like water, filling the void.

*

On the day of his flight, Nate’s phone perked up with a text message. Nate estimated the time difference; it was around four in the morning in London. ‘Interrogative. Am I going crazy or are we really doing this?’

Fuck if he knew. The thing with wordless communication was that a lot was left unsaid. ‘I’ll see you at the airport,’ he wrote back.

His phone buzzed in his hand seconds later, echoing in his bones. ‘Solid copy.’

Nate kept on turning the phrase in his mind, remembering how it had sounded over the radio, way back when, Brad’s voice sure and calm and never wavering.

One of the flight attendants looked at him with slight curiosity, like she was trying to place him. A few news programs featured his soundbyte about the latest changes in command and he had been getting similar looks for the last few days. It would pass soon. “You seem miles away, sir” she told him when she brought him the meal.

By Nate’s count, they were right about in the middle of the journey, somewhere over the Atlantic. “Getting closer,” he said.