Work Text:
“You need to wake up.”
There is a sense of urgency in the person's voice. Ray frowns in his sleep. Who is it? Why are they so frantic?
“Come on, Raymond, wake up.”
Ray does not want to wake up. He feels so good there. He never wants to move, his blanket is keeping him so warm and fluffy, why would he move really.
“WAKE UP!”
He startles awake. The room he is in is dark and for a split second he panics.
Where is he?
“I heard you scream, are you okay?”
Oh.
Len is in his room. Len. What is Len doing here? Wait, that is their room. Their room. They live together. They are married.
How could he forget that?
Ray smiles to his husband.
“I'm fine. It was just a dream.”
He cannot even remember what startled him now.
Ray's life is so close to perfection. His husband loves him and he loves his husband. His company is doing great, he has lots of friends and they often meet. Of course everything is not flawless, but overall he truly is happy.
Then, why does he feel like something is missing?
“Is there something you're not telling me?” Len asks one day, concerned.
(He shouldn't be concerned, not like that, Ray can't help but think.)
“No, it's just work,” Ray lies.
Len believes him.
“Please, Raymond, wake up.”
Ray wakes up crying. Len is still sound asleep, he looks peaceful.
(He looks wrong.)
He keeps hearing a voice telling him to wake up, and it sounds like a different version of Len. A truer version of him.
Ray has an idea that he keeps chasing, but can never catch.
There is something wrong in his life. What is it?
“I need you to wake up, Raymond. Do it for me.”
But he is already awake.
Or is he?
He closes his eyes. He needs to focus. He needs to wake from this slumber.
He thinks, he stops breathing, he concentrates.
What is missing?
He opens his eyes.
“Oh.”
He has an idea but he sounds so crazy. What if he is sleeping? What if he is dreaming?
“Raymond, don't.”
Len – this Len – is awake now. It is day outside.
(He swears it was still pitch black a minute ago.)
“Can't we be happy? Can't we have that?”
“It's not real, is it?” Ray asks, but he already knows the answer.
“It's here, I'm here, isn't it real enough for you?”
Ray shakes his head.
(“Just wake up.”)
Ray forces himself to wake up.
"Where am I?” he screams, he fights, there are people holding him, he needs to breathe.
“Calm down!”
Ray stills. He knows this voice.
His gaze stops on Len.
Who is not his husband.
Who cannot stand him.
“Ray?”
Sara's worried tone breaks him out of his trance.
“Was I... Was I dreaming?”
“You were injected with a puissant drug that makes you live your dreams, makes you think they're real. It gets in someone's brain until it makes the heart stop. But you broke it off, you're safe now.”
Ray knows Rip is trying to comfort him, but he is exhausted and broken.
“Please, leave me alone,” he whispers to the team.
“But, Ray, we – ”
“Just go. Please, I need. I don't know what I need. Just, let me think, please.”
He's desperate and can't look at them in the eyes. They must understand his anguish because soon enough he is alone in the medbay.
Everything he wanted was given to him and then snatched away cruelly.
He cries himself to sleep.
It becomes a rule not to talk about the incident after Kendra and Jax try at separate occasions to mention it to Ray.
He sends them away, and he cries again. He seems to be a whole lot of crying lately.
If the team talks about it, it's never to his face.
Sometimes he wishes he'd have stayed asleep.
His dream felt like weeks, maybe he'd have lived through a lifetime before the drug killed him.
He avoids Len.
“I was in your dream.”
As simple as that, the rule is broken.
“You said it, Len, it was just a dream. It doesn't matter.”
“You can't even look at me in the eyes anymore. Obviously it matters.”
Ray sighs. He has been so tired lately, but he can't get any sleep, he's afraid that if he closes his eyes, he will go back to his secret fantasy world.
And that this time he will not wake up from it.
“What do you want to know?”
Ray is still not looking at Len.
“Simple really, tell me what you dreamed of.”
He wants to tell him that it's none of his business, that he should leave him alone, but he is just so tired.
“We were married.”
Ray laughs somberly. He does not even want to look at Len's surprised and disgusted face.
“We were married and we were happy and, fuck, I know it was fake, but I didn't want to wake up. I mean, I didn't even fully realize I had these feelings for you before all that, but now I can't think of anything else but these weeks married to you. They're not even real, I'm pathetic, I know, and you can laugh all you want but I won't apologize for how I feel.”
Damn, he is crying again.
He is such a mess.
“Raymond.”
(That tone. He knows it. He's heard it. But where?)
(There is a sense of urgency in his voice.)
“Please, look at me.”
Ray looks up to a Len that is totally different from his habitual cocky demeanor. He looks worried and tired, but strangely, his eyes are not as cold as usual.
Len slowly walks to Ray until he is in his personal place. Ray could easily get away. He does not.
“You're not pathetic,” is all he says before he closes the distance between their lips.
It's soft and sweet.
It's real.