Chapter Text
Ray tapped at the DS’s buttons unthinkingly, the Pokémon battle taking absolutely zero priority in his mind. It may not have his interest, but he had to do something. He couldn’t just sit there and do nothing, even if this something wasn’t actually fucking helping.
There was a deep breath from the bed he sat beside, and Ray stiffened to attention. He watched the bandaged chest fall back down in a way that looked like it probably hurt, but Ryan didn’t otherwise stir. Ray let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
Ray watched him, lying there. He’d been awake when they’d stumbled their way into the med bay, so they were at least pretty sure he wasn’t concussed. Just hurt. Just very, very hurt. Just so stupidly hurt. Ray volunteered to keep an eye on him until he woke up – wouldn’t be the first time one of them woke up hurt and popped stitches trying to get up. Jack tried to argue, say he should be resting too, but Ray insisted he probably wasn’t sleeping tonight anyway. To be fair, he wasn’t sure if Jack was – she gets so worried – but she can be worried about all the other things there are to be worried about. Ray’s got this one covered.
This whole thing is Ryan’s fault, anyway. Ray told him to get in the car and go. Ray told him he was fine and had his bike as backup. But then Gavin blew something up, some other pieces of the plan got rearranged on-site, and Ryan refused to leave until he was sure Ray was able to get out without getting caught. Which is stupid, because yeah, there were more police swarming the place than anticipated, but Ray usually gets out fine. The last time was a fluke, and he got out of the handcuffs before they even realized he was a Fake and not just some random criminal, so it really doesn’t count.
If Ryan had gotten out sooner… At least he won his stupid knife fight in that stupid alley. At least he didn’t fall off the bike while Ray raced to their medic. At least there weren’t any complications sewing him up or getting him to this safe house. Ray tried to be comforted by these thoughts, but he just couldn’t be – not without having Ryan wake up first. If Ryan were awake, Ray could tell him what an idiot he was and feel better. Right now, all he can do is think it and hope he gets to say it.
Ray sighed and returned to his game, mind wandering off elsewhere. Ray’s got to say, at least working for Ramsey gets them the best healthcare he’s ever had. And they’ve needed it. He can still feel the phantom pain of a shot to his leg from some pig chasing him. The shot wasn’t as bad as the scare of tumbling off the roof he’d been running on – he was way lucky to have gone off the side with the fire escapes.
Before Ramsey, when it was just little ol’ Ray against the world, he got himself pretty savvy in fixing himself up. Studied a combination of Red Cross first aid guides and Wiki-how articles and got by just fine. Should he have done this studying before going into the situations in which he became injured? Arguably. Did he live? Apparently. So, there’s always that.
Well, and it wasn’t all internet wisdom. He and his mom didn’t exactly have health insurance back in the days before… well, before the rest of his life. Bags of peas for bumps and bruises, store-brand bandages are no different than name-brand, VapoRub and honey for coughs. Not to mention his mother’s habit of just ignoring when things hurt and praying it went away.
Well, and the kisses.
It definitely felt silly thinking back to it now, but he was, once-upon-a-time, an actual little kid who got treated like it. Whenever there was a cut or a scrape or a bump or a single trouble, his mother would fix him up the best she could, and kiss wherever it hurt. For all the good a couple bandages and some rubbing alcohol could do, Ray really had been convinced that the kissing did the actual healing. Kisses were love, and love was magic, and magic could heal and protect. That’s what his mom said, anyway.
They needed the protection, too, what with all the monsters lurking in the closet and under the bed and in Ray’s dreams. They looked like the landlord with his big cigar, like the teenagers down the street that messed around the whole day long, and like a weird fish monster he’d seen watching power rangers once. So long as they had their magic, though, nothing could touch them.
Ray smiled sadly to himself. He wished that was how it all worked. He wondered how his mom was doing; he knew, but only in a remote way. He knew she still lived in New York, had a better job and a better apartment, and that she was seeing someone (his background check cleared fine, so it wasn’t a concern). But those were all numbers and bullet points from some people he had keeping tabs on some stuff. They didn’t tell him how she was, how she felt and what she thought and the last thing she saw on TV and if she’d picked back up on knitting. He wished he could know. It’s not safe, though, for them to know each other, and even if it was, he doubts she’d be very proud of her son: the wanted criminal. Making your way in life as an assassin isn’t exactly the bright future someone wants for their child. It was better this way.
Ray leaned his head back against the wall and sighed deeply. Why does he bother to think about things that don’t matter? He glanced over at Ryan again. The only thing that matters at the moment is that Ryan wakes up at some point. Ray can’t help but laugh a bit to himself at the thought that a little bit of magic wouldn’t be too bad right about now. Kissing and making things better doesn’t work, though. He knows that and it’s a fact and the little voice in the back of his head that insists that maybe it does, though, is very stupid.
He’s not going to fucking kiss Ryan in his sleep, that would be weird. He’s not going to kiss Ryan at all ever, because he’s a friend and a coworker and he doesn’t like Ryan like that. He just thinks he’s hot – which is honestly an objective fact and therefor cannot be held against him – and smart and skilled and maybe Ray appreciates his upper arm strength more than normal, but he never claimed to be normal, so it’s fine. Everything is fine. Ryan is fine. Not that kind of fine, like hot fine, though he is that, but like fine as in physically like going-to-live fine.
Ray put a hand over his face to try and stop his brain from snowballing further. Why was he here? Why did his brain insist on rambling to itself about nothing? Oh, right, get-better kisses. Ray looked at Ryan. He has to admit, for a guy passed out from blood loss he looks pretty serene. The moonlight streaming in was definitely shading his features in an unfairly dramatic way. Ryan would be happy that he woke up in a suburban safe house, he likes getting away from the city every now and then.
Ray looked at the bandaging on Ryan’s chest, watching it all rise and fall with each breath. He tried not to think about how it looked when he’d helped the medic cut away the shirt, before he was shooed out of the room and made to wait outside for everything to stabilize. So stupid, putting himself in danger. The need to do something, anything, returned to Ray. He wished there was a way to help other than being patient. Being patient right now sucked. He needed to do literally at least something. Even if it was stupid.
It couldn’t really hurt anything, right?
Ray pressed his lips together and watched the bandages. Fuck it. “No homo,” he whispered as he bent down, and, before he could talk himself out of it, gave a soft, chaste kiss to the bandages. He pulled up and looked at them for a long moment, as if expecting something to suddenly happen. But nothing did.
Ray’s face burned in embarrassment and he sat back properly in his chair, burying himself in his DS. That was stupid, he felt stupid. Ryan being hurt is stupid. The Pokémon battle he barely realized he was in was stupid. This was all stupid.
It’ll all be better and be put back in the right place once stupid Ryan wakes up, already.
Until then, Ray will be right here watching his stupid ass and playing this stupid game.
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Everyone – Jack, the medic, Ryan himself – was surprised at how quickly Ryan recovered.