Chapter Text
Bravo’s just gotten back state-side from a spin-up in Yemen; tired, battered, and testy. It was a tough one all around, they nearly lost a hostage on the way out, and Jason and Clay had gotten into it pretty bad on the flight home. The rest of them went out for a night of stress relief but Clay had turned down the invitation to join, still stewing. Trent tried to text him a few times over the course of the evening, but they’d gone unanswered and eventually he’d given up. Clay can be stubborn when he wants to be (which is most of the time) but he always comes around. If he needs space, then Trent’s not going to push it. Still, the night had felt a little subdued without their youngest member's presence, and he'd begged out at around one, leaving the rowdier members of the team to finish out the party.
He slouches his way down his hallway, suppressing a yawn. He hadn’t had that much to drink but it’s enough to make him look forward to crawling into his bed. When he gets closer to his apartment though he pauses, brow furrowing. The door to his place is unlocked and slightly ajar. He knows he locked it when he left for the evening, he always locks it. Immediately the alcohol haze starts to fade away as he moves slowly forward to the open door. There’s a couple of college students who live down the hall, maybe one of them partied a little too hard and thought it would be fun to break into the neighbors apartment's. Or maybe it’s just a run of the mill robber who’s about to have the worst luck in the world. Either way, you can never be too careful. Quietly he opens the door wide enough to slip through, mindful not to let it creak. The inside of the apartment is shadowed and still, and Trent blinks his eyes a few times as they adjust to the dark after the well-lit hallway. When his night vision starts to kick in he can just make out a shape on his couch, like a body.
He wishes he had his gun on him, but he settles for the heavy wooden bat he keeps by the door. Adjusting his grip on the makeshift weapon, he reaches out with his free hand and hits the light switch. If it is just some drunk frat boy he’s going to be pissed. The lights come on, and the lump on the couch sits up a little blearily. Very quickly Trent registers two things. The first is that it’s not a hammered student or a robber crashing on his couch, it’s Clay. The second is that his face is busted to hell. Somebody beat the shit out of him, and recently.
“What the hell, Spenser, you trying to give me a heart attack?” Trent asks, his pulse starting to slow from it’s adrenaline rush as he sets the bat back down and closes the door behind him. Clay blinks owlishly at him, taking a second to respond. When he does the words are sluggish and slurred, like he’s drunk, or maybe concussed from the way he’s looking.
“I’m sorry, I-I didn’t know where else to go.” He mumbles, voice uncertain. Trent sighs, to be honest he’s glad Clay had the foresight to seek him out instead of crawling back to his apartment to die of a brain bleed in the middle of the night or something equally stupid. It’s not the first time a teammate’s shown up on his door step in rough shape, probably won’t be the last.
“It’s fine, man. Just, let me take a look at that, huh?”He says, gesturing to Clay’s still bloody face. He hopes he didn’t get too much on the couch, it’s always a bitch to clean out. Clay reaches up, presses two fingers to his lips. They come away stained red and he looks down at them almost in confusion, like he’d forgotten.
“Oh, yeah. Thanks.”
Trent takes a quick detour to the hallway closet to grab the first aid kit he keeps there and a metal mixing bowl from the kitchen, then heads back to the living room. As he gets closer to Clay he can smell the scent of cheap tequila rolling off him in waves. So, drunk then. Kneeling beside the couch and depositing the bowl at Clay’s feet just in case he opens the kit and pulls a pair of gloves on. Up close Clay’s face looks even worse then from far away. One of his eyes is already starting to blacken and swell, and there’s blood dripping from his nose and lip, looping it’s way across his cheek like he’d been lying down when it happened. Trent starts to run his hands through Clay’s hair and along his skull, looking for any hidden wounds, but comes back clean.
“You lose consciousness at all?” He asks, as he begins to palpate Clay’s cheekbone where the worst of the bruising is. Clay shakes his head, wincing a little as Trent presses at a particularly tender spot.
“No, don’t think so.” Trent pauses, and gives him a look.
“You think you didn’t or you know you didn’t?” He asks sternly, finishing his examination of Clay’s face and reaching into his kit for a penlight. Clay’s grimaces, eyes creasing as he thinks.
“Maybe for a few seconds. But not very long. Can remember the whole thing.” Trent nods, clicking on the light and shining it first in one of Clay’s eyes and then the other. The right pupil is a little slow to react, constricting a hair after the left.
“Alright, any dizziness, nausea?” Clay nods carefully.
“Yeah. But, uh, that might just be the alcohol.” Trent sighs, clicking the pen light off and tucking it back into his bag. The fact that Clay’s drunk right now isn’t particularly helpful to his diagnosis.
“Well, face looks okay, no fractures as far as I can tell. I’m going to go out on a limb and say you have a mild concussion. Won’t be able to know for sure till we get an MRI at the hospital though. I’ve had a couple beers so we should call a cab.” He says, starting to push himself to his feet. Clay reaches out and grabs at his wrist before he can, looking up at him with a plea in his eyes.
“No, no hospital. Look, I just want to get some sleep man, I’m tired.” As he moves though his face suddenly goes very pale, and he leans over with his head between his knees, breathing slowly in and out through his nose. For a second Trent thinks he’s going to hurl right there on the carpet, but instead he spits some bloody phlegm out into the bowl. After a few seconds he slowly sits up again, one hand moving unconsciously to brace his ribs. Trent frowns.
“You hurt somewhere else?” Clay shakes his head, dropping his arm back down.
“Nah, it’s nothing-Trent!” Trent doesn’t listen though, reaching down and yanking the hem of Clay’s shirt up to expose his torso, brushing aside his grasping hands. All along his ribs there’s a vivid purple-blue mottling of bruises, Trent can pick out the faint imprint of boot treads in some of the darker spots and for the first time tonight he feels anger start to grow in his stomach. Getting into a bar fight is one thing, but this, this was something else. This was a beating.
Immediately he’s back down on his knees, manhandling Clay into submission he follows the bruises around his side and onto his back. None of them look dark enough to signal any internal bleeding, but there’s still time for it to develop.
“Alright, hospital, now. And you can tell me who the fuck did this on the way.” Clay just shakes his head stubbornly, jaw set.
“I’m not going to the hospital, Trent. I’m fine-” Trent raises an eyebrow and Clay winces, amends his statement. “-okay, maybe not fine, but I’m not on the verge of death. We’d just be stuck there waiting forever. Please, Trent.”
Trent sighs, runs a hand through his hair. Clay has a point. He could take him to the base infirmary, but that would raise questions and he doesn’t want to get Clay in trouble. Plus, the kid looks totally spent. “Alright, alright. Fine. No hospital for now, but you’re spending the night here, and if I see any sign you’re getting worse it’s straight to the ER. Deal?”
Clay nods, pulling his shirt down as Trent sits back. “Yeah, deal.”
“Here, clean yourself up.” Trent says, pulling out a sterile wipe and handing it to Clay. “You should take a couple of Tylenol, for the hangover and the face. I’ll get you some water.”
Clay takes the wipe with a quiet thank you, starting to gingerly dab at the drying blood under his nose. Trent heads to the kitchen and pulls a glass out of his cupboard, filling it from the sink. He watches Clay out of the corner of his eye as he does. If Clay’s aware he’s being watched he doesn’t it show, quietly working at the worst of the gore on his face. Trent sighs, trying to put aside his concern and anger and focusing on what he can do for Clay right now. It’s not easy. Heading back he drops down onto the couch beside Clay, handing him the glass and two pills. He’s managed to get most of the blood off, and he looks a little bit less like a bad Halloween costume now. Clay takes the painkillers, popping them into his mouth and chasing them with a swig of water as he swallows.
“So.” Trent says, “You want to tell me what happened?”
Clay shrugs, setting the cup down on the side table. “Got jumped.”
Trent snorts. “Yeah, no shit Sherlock. I’m more wondering why someone wanted to play whack-a-mole with your face.”
Clay sighs, leaning back against the couch cushions, bracing one hand on his side. “I decided to go out on my own, went to some crappy bar downtown. There were a couple of other Navy guys there. Guess they recognized me, thought I’d been the one leaking mission details to my dad and figured they’d teach me a lesson. I should have been able to handle them but I was too messed up. Stupid.”
Clay’s voice is faintly bitter at the end, like he’s pissed off at himself. Trent barely hears it though, still stuck on the first half. Navy guys, plural, did this to Clay. Trent doesn’t get mad easy- he leaves that to the more hotheaded members of Bravo-but he’s angry now, the feelings he tried to push aside earlier bubbling back to the surface. The work they do is dangerous, as a medic he knows that more intimately then most. He’s seen the physical trauma of their job visited on most of his friends at one time or another, and he’s had to come to terms with that to keep from buckling under the weight of it. But they shouldn’t be in danger here, at home, and especially not from the people who are supposed to have their backs.
“How many.” He asks, voice tight. Clay shrugs one shouldered, eyes already starting to drift shut.
“Three, maybe four. I don’t know, it was dark and I was drunk. Hard to tell.” Trent takes a deep breath, resisting the urge to walk right out of his apartment and hunt the assholes down himself. It’s irrational, and won’t do Clay or himself any good.
“Okay. Okay. I’m going to call Jason-” Clay’s eyes fly open and he starts to sit up again, shaking his head emphatically.
“It’s like two in the morning, please don’t call him, I don’t want to turn this into a whole thing.” Trent just stares at him, uncomprehending.
“Clay,” He says slowly, “This is serious. We can’t keep this from him, he might have to get Blackburn involved.”
Clay winces, like the thought pains him. “I know…but I’m tired and my head hurts like a bitch and I’m not really up for getting chewed out right now, okay? So can we please at least just…wait a little?”
He sounds pained and exhausted and very small and Trent sighs, patting Clay on the knee. “Okay. Get some rest. But we’re calling Jason in the morning, no arguments.”
Clay nods, laying back on the couch and letting Trent position the bowl by his head and throw a blanket over him.
“Thanks, Trent.” He says, quietly, earnestly, as Trent flicks the lights off again. Trent just smiles a little, even though it’s too dark for Clay to see it.
“Yeah, no problem kid.” There’s a long pause. When Clay speaks again his voice is half caught between sheepish and amused, and Trent braces himself for whatever’s coming next.
“Also, I might have thrown up in your bathtub.”