crack_van | Apres Moi Le Deluge by Lake (Teen+)

Fandom: GENERATION KILL
Pairing: Nate Fick/Brad Colbert
Length:
Author on LJ:

lakeeffectgirl
Author Website:

lakeeffectgirl, AO3
Why this must be read:

(Second one for tonight because I didn't post last night - my bad.)

This fic takes one of the cliches of fanfic - soul-bonding - and made it not only interesting, but fascinating and shockingly real. I've read this fic many times, and every time I've been sucked into it and haven't been able to put it down.

Lake's voices for Nate and Brad are fantastic, and they're amazingly well-drawn. This fic follows them through the development of the bond, and pinpoints their character changes fantastically. The style is fantastically spare - beautifully descriptive but not overdone. This fic is quite simply a work of art, and it's beautifully done.

He moves back to the East Coast. Does an internship in Washington while his platoon goes back to Iraq without him, and tries not to think about all the things that could happen. His mom offers to help him find an apartment. It's something Nate is completely capable of on his own, but he's been gone a long time and she wants to spend time with him, and so he acquiesces. He can tell she tries not to ask too many questions. As the internship comes to an end, he throws himself into the strange process of applying to grad school.

He's not jumpy to the point where anyone other than his family notices, but Nate still feels it, so in between application essays, he lets his mom drag him along to her meditation class, and lets his sisters take him out for a couple of beers. He goes to bed every night with pain creeping along his temples, dull enough but still there, and he wakes up drenched in cold sweat, jolted awake by nightmares that fade away before he can remember more than flashes, more nights than he wants to count.

He gets accepted to HKS and moves back out of his parents' house in the same week. The angry weather of spring gives way to hot and sticky summer as Nate buys a laptop and textbooks and all the school things that make him feel like he's trying to recall a past life. He puts together a cheap desk from IKEA, swearing at the unintelligible directions and wondering if wood glue wouldn't be a better choice.

Classes begin, and before Nate even knows it, he's hip-deep in academic journals, position papers, and econ homework. On the weekends, he tries to unpack the last of the unlabeled boxes, but a few end up stacked in the corner of his bedroom and forgotten. It's not until the weather begins to turn that he thinks one or more of them might hold warmer clothes than what he's been wearing, and he dumps the first out onto his bed.

At the bottom of the second box is an USMC sweatshirt he doesn't recognize. He picks it up and looks at the tag, where COLBERT is written in permanent marker. The fabric is worn and soft against his palms. Nate pulls it over his head without a second thought. The ache at his temples fades in the space of one deep breath. It smells of detergent and something that he can't identify, something that part of him unconsciously recognizes as safety. The feeling of someone watching his six.

Nate wears the sweatshirt all day, and that night, there are no nightmares.

In the morning, he sends Brad a quick email. Found something of yours. To where should I return it?, and gets a smiley face and a San Luis Rey address in reply a day later.

He wears the sweatshirt half-dozen more times (at home only, headache fading every time, writing papers like they're orders), until he's convinced it's not his imagination. He types a few ridiculous search phrases into Yahoo!, feeling stupid that he's even trying, but finds nothing that might explain it. Then he buys a postcard at the campus bookstore. Writes, Do you ever think about a parallel life; what you would have done if not for the Corps?, and sends it with the sweatshirt.

Apres Moi Le Deluge

Apres Moi Le Deluge by Lake (Teen+)

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