Chapter Text
The water was calling Clay. Its song was ringing out across the beach, echoing off the sand and rocks and hypnotising him with each careful step he made. His feet sank into the sand, which went between his toes and grated the skin, and became damp as the promising ocean came closer and closer to him – as he walked closer to his salvation. Clay had never paid attention to how the ocean sang before, the notes and whistles the crashing made as the old water churned and mixed with the environment around him. How everything got swept away, how impersonal and how ephemeral the ocean was.
Everything moved, everything got swept away, and nothing lasted forever when the cold blue took it back to its depths as a punishment, and it was never found again. And before now – not when he was on operations and diving through the oceans and seas or fighting the currents or pushing Sonny into the water off the RHIB because it was hilarious how his face would twist with disgust – Clay had never noticed how well the ocean silenced everything.
The noise was relentless. It was buzzing constantly, a background static that had haunted him his whole life. It might have started at eight, or maybe that was when Clay became aware of it, but in reality it’s been his state intrinsically for his whole life. The static in his head never stopped and served to be nothing but constant torture. It came in waves but never truly left. He felt it at home, he felt it at work, he felt it with a rifle in his hand and it never left until now, until the crashing of the ocean was the only thing able to flush the static from his system and bring peace which Clay had never felt before.
His head was quiet for the first time in years and Clay quickly found himself addicted to the feeling, craving more, ready to beg for more. Clay buried it all and he continued with his life – he adapted and overcame, just like he was raised to and just like his work told him to – but everything had a way of bubbling to the point it spilled from the carefully made seams – and now Clay can see how messy his stitching is and how simply desperate it was, and how the string was nothing more than an illusion he clung to.
Clay wasn’t suicidal. He wasn’t. Not in the way Swanny was and not in the way he always saw on adverts or the TV or the annual mental health meetings they all got dragged to and never actually listened to. Clay just wanted to die. He wanted to silence the static or feel peace. He wasn’t depressed – he had no reason to be and until an episode happened, he was fine, he was happy. He was content with his life, if anything he was finally proud of himself. He had made it to Bravo with his own talent, and he had almost wiped his father’s legacy from his name. He did it all.
The first time he had an episode, as he had come to call them for lack of better words, he was eleven. Clay had been in Africa with his grandparents for a few years and they hadn’t cared when he woke up one morning with the uncontrollable and overwhelming urge to kill himself. The episode lasted a few months before it left and he was fine again, and with that his grandparents had assumed it was over. His episode at fourteen taught Clay to hide when he started losing the solid ground under his feet, lasting the whole year.
The first few months of being fifteen brought little respite, but a small break. Back in the States, his father noticed when his next episode came. He was fifteen when he overdosed on whatever paracetamol he could find and he was fifteen when he woke up the next morning in agony but very much alive. Then he was fine again until a few months passed and another episode happened. He grew suicidal again and a teacher found out. He was sent to therapy and that’s when he learnt the truth. Autism. His parents had hidden the diagnosis he got at age four, and at fifteen the same diagnosis was made.
Extreme emotional dysregulation and a lack of ability to understand how he was feeling and what he was feeling manifested in the episodes he had. When he would wake up feeling suicidal and the feeling would remain for hours, for days or even months before one morning it would disappear. He would wake up happy and be this way until the next episode hit. The episodes never stopped as he got older, but Clay got better at navigating them and ignoring the fact that he was so numb he couldn't feel anything at all or that he wanted to die for the sake of killing himself. He wasn’t suicidal.
Clay wasn’t suicidal even as he walked into the ocean. The water lapped at his feet, brushing over his skin and freezing him in the process. The shallow water didn’t limit his movement and the deeper he got, the more tempting it was to never get out. The water wrapped around his ankles, then his calves, then his thighs and then his hips. It embraced him passionately, arms reaching out and guiding him to the point he didn’t have to think about his feet lifting off the ocean floor as it got too deep to walk. Everything was finally quiet, the static calmed with each wave that crashed over his head and pulled him under. It was natural to let himself sink beneath and let his limbs go heavy as his vision blurred with salt and water.
The burning began subtly. With all his years of training, all the operations he’s done underwater, the burning in his lungs didn’t start for a while or at least what he perceived to be a while. It built as the seconds passed but Clay found it hard to know how quickly time was going in the vacuum he was in, and the pressure rang against his ribs until it felt like they were going to burst. The last thing he registered as his vision began to truly slip was someone in the water with him, though their face was distorted, he could feel hands on his body. And then Clay let go, and the water consumed him.
He remembered this vividly. Of course, the last time he drowned it was in his mind, his father dragging him down. Last time, Brian was there to save him in a thousand ways he didn’t know he needed saving.
Brian hasn’t changed. The man sitting next to Clay is the splitting image of the man who died on the field that day, which seemed impossibly far away now considering everything he’s been through. His hair is still the same and his eyes still sparkle in the light the same way, and when he smiles his lips still curl in the way Clay remembered. Except Brian is dead, and this is just some torturous visage that his oxygen-deprived mind made up for him. Maybe this was his sign to give in to the water, but Clay can no longer feel the cold liquid wrapping around him and pulling him down.
The same is in his socks. Clay’s shoes are discarded to the side, just like Brian’s are. Both of them are sitting in the golden sand, which is dry and free from the dampness of the sand nearer the lake. It’s soft under his body and shifts with his weight and it’s warm. Everything is warm as Clay sits next to his friend. The sand is warm under his body, his skin is warmed by the sun’s kisses against his bare arms, his blood is pulsing beneath his skin sending fire around his body.
Light dances across the surface of the lake, the water glistening a bright white. It’s a stark difference from the murky, dark blue he walked into earlier. This feels welcoming, something idyllic and calming and something that Clay would happily submit to. The water is painfully still and only broken by the odd bird flying too close, sending small ripples across the surface. The sun shines across the blue and Clay thinks he must have died. It’s peaceful and Clay is finally at peace, and he craves the feeling and quickly found himself becoming addicted.
This is peace. If he wasn’t dead, then Brian wouldn’t be with him and if he wasn’t dead yet, he will be soon. The idea doesn’t scare him now, and the brief panic he felt as the water swallowed him and he couldn’t breathe. There is this moment when he panicked and thought, when the lack of oxygen terrified him because it was wrong on every level, but then his body gave in, and it all became easier. Now, he feels none of this panic. Brian is content sitting beside him, eyes shut as his head tipped back slightly.
Brian lies back, his arms outstretched like an angel. The grains of sand that make their way into his hair form a halo around him. Clay wants to run his fingers through the dark hair, brush it all out. He forced himself to keep his hands to himself and remain happy watching. He didn’t have the right to do such a thing, not when Clay got Brian killed.
“Do you think I would have suited Alpha?” Brian suddenly asked, his eyes remaining shut. The questions left Clay shaken, something unexpected that he didn’t have an answer to. The most painful part is the fact that Clay had never thought about such a thing because anytime the man crossed his mind, it left the empty hole inside of him festering.
His words are forming before he can go too deep down that rabbit hole, before the calmness that had washed over him could be corrupted “I think you would have been the best on any team.” It was his honest opinion “You were always better than me. Everyone knew it.”
“I never could beat your scores.” Brian pointed out like that made any impact on what Clay said.
“You never had to.” Clay said, and this is a truth he had been forced to come to terms with again after COP Redding. Clay was never good at doing anything well without tearing apart his relationships in the process, without ruining everything he worked for because of a stupid goal and his inability to think. “I’m not very good. I can shoot, but I cause problems. You never did that. Everyone adored you.”
Brian finally opened his eyes, his head turning to Clay lazily. He props himself up on his arms, turning dramatically serious as he stares at Clay “You don’t think you deserve to be saved.” Clay didn’t know what to say to that “Oh, Clay. You really don’t know anything, do you?”
“What do you mean?” He settled on.
Brian sighed, his head tipping to the side as his shoulders drooped “You never do change. I thought that after all this time you would realise what they thought, but you don’t. You don’t at all.”
“I don’t get what you mean.”
Brian stands, pulling Clay up with him “I’ll teach you and then you’ll understand.” He whispers the words into Clay’s ear, cupping the back of his head as he spoke “It will all make sense then. COP Redding, Jason, everything will make sense. The fact that you got back onto Bravo. Do you think that just happened? Did you just accept that?”
Clay’s heart raced, the words hanging between them. When Clay had been allowed back onto Bravo, Lindell had told him it was due to a re-evaluation of the letter’s source. Clay was told not to look into it and he didn’t. Clay wanted to, need to be selfish and just accept that maybe, just maybe, good things happened to him.
Brian raised an eyebrow at him “Well?”
Clay remained quiet. Brian took that as his sign to lead Clay into the water. They moved slowly across the sand. Brian moved, and Clay allowed himself to be dragged along.
“That ambition is the same.” Brian said “I remember that well. People loved you at COP Redding.” He continued walking with Clay “You don’t know what Bravo felt.”
The water that covered his feet sent a full-body shiver through him. The images that flooded his mind of the ocean stole his breath away, and for a split second he couldn’t remember where he was and then Brian applied pressure to the hand he was holding. It landed Clay back into whatever present this was, whatever mindscape. Brian led him in further, mumbling things that Clay didn’t have the energy to decipher. Things about Jason, about all of the team, about guilt and about family. He wasn’t really speaking to Clay though with the way he mumbled under his breath.
Clay lived in the ocean as a child. He adored the water and any sort of water would do. He would wade through rivers, fishing in the process. Clay would spend hours splashing and swimming in the ocean when the summers got too hot to bear. His grandparents had been more practical around the water, only using it when they needed it. His grandfather had taught him how to fish, using a makeshift spear that he carved for Clay. The first time Clay killed a fish, spearing it, he cried. His uncle watched as Clay sobbed on the side of the water, shaking uncontrollably.
“Do you trust me?” Brian asked. By this point, they were chest deep into the lake. The water lapped around his clothes, which soaked up the liquid and weighed him down.
Clay didn’t have to think before he answered “Always.”
Brian smiled, nodding, before he led Clay in deeper. When his feet could no longer touch he floor, Clay swam out with Brian. Every few seconds Clay would go and touch the floor, and every time he missed it, he swam harder. The thought of going under made it hard to breathe, flooding him with anxiety.
“Trust me.” Brian repeated, swimming close. Both of them were treating water, and then Brian directed his shoulder backwards taking his body with it. Then Clay was on his back just as Brian had been earlier. Water touched his ears, making his mouth dry until Clay shut his eyes and simply breathed. He could breathe and when his body remembered that, it all became quiet in his mind.
Brian’s hands remain solid on him, keeping him afloat if Clay’s legs failed him. They wouldn’t, Clay knew that. “Why didn’t you fight?”
Clay’s eyebrows furrowed “Excuse me?”
“Why didn’t you fight?” Brian repeated, as if that was supposed to make his words easier. How was Clay supposed to know what he was talking about? Too many times in Clay’s life he didn’t fight hard enough, good enough. Too many times in his life he had fought until his hands were raw and bloody, and his spirit nearly broken. “It was pathetic.”
Anything Clay would have said was left fruitless as Brian dragged him under in one quick flurry of hands. Water entered his lungs immediately, suffocating him from inside. It felt like his soul was alight, burning furiously and trying to grow. Clay tried to fight but Brian dragged him down deeper and deeper, and deeper.
Brock is staring at him when he next wakes up, face distorted as Clay’s body shakes. Something is on his mouth but when he tries to grab it, Brock stops him. Clay has no clue why the man is here, or when he got with Clay or where he even is, but as his body slides again on whatever surface he’s on, it looks like an ambulance. Everything is blurred, colours shifting as he blinks heavily and his body is numb. His head tips backwards, almost lolling as he is left staring at the ceiling.
Brock – he knows it could only be him – holds his hand and is muttering something too quiet for Clay to hear. Clay studies the man the best he cannot quite remember the last time he looked so scared. Clay doesn’t know why Brock would feel that way, his head is thick and his mind can’t form thoughts, but he knows it’s wrong. Something wet nudges his hand. Once, twice. Clay looks down to see Cerberus sitting on his right-hand side, nudging into his hand with his nose. It's wet, cold.
His face feels tight. A band wraps around it, tight on his mouth and Clay does his best to reach it. His hands cup around the plastic he recognises as an oxygen mask. Once he realises this, he intends to let his hand flop back down to his side but Brock, clearly misinterpreting his actions, brings his hand down for him. Clay wanted to speak, say he wasn’t going to take the mask off, but he could barely form the words in his mind, let alone speak.
Brock’s gaze softens as he looks at Clay. It’s something Clay has never seen before, at least not directed at Clay himself. He’s seen the lock on Brock after Cerberus does something adorable, and the man isn’t prideful enough to pretend that he isn’t soft for the dog. But for Clay, he’s never seen it. Clay wants to ask why Brock saved him. Now, he realises that the arms that dragged him from the water were Brock’s. Clay can’t figure out why Brock thought Clay was worth the effort. Before he could ask, or work up the energy to ask, he passed out falling back into the darkness.
Brock is staring at him again, only this time he’s clearly defined. Clay can’t move from the bed he’s on, his body heavy as lead. His mind is dulled and foggy, and the memories are harder to piece together than it should be. He should be dead. He should have died, but he didn’t because Brock pulled him out of the water. Irrationally, it angers Clay. What right did Brock have to decide whether Clay should live or die? It leaves nothing behind but a growing frustration, but over all of that is the numbness that took control of Clay’s life. He feels too numb to be angry, and he just doesn't care.
He needs to be worried about his job, about his friends, about Ash but he isn’t. He just feels empty and Clay is so sick of feeling empty. He wants to rip the feeling out, the actually feel something outside of nothing. The band around his face had been removed so he must be getting better, which is almost a taunt. He’s healthy and strong enough to breathe on his own. Clay stares back at Brock, who looks so very worried and so very happy that he’s awake even if he’s hiding it, and Clay felt nothing. Clay could turn to his side, but that would be rude. What could he even say to Brock?
“Take deep breaths.” Brock suddenly instructs when the silence directed by Clay becomes too long. His voice is gentle, and he moves slowly like Clay’s some sort of victim and not a failure. Clay wouldn’t consider himself a victim in any way. He knew what he was doing. “Do you want some water. The doctors said your throat would be dry.”
Like Clay didn’t have enough water in his body. Clay’s lips curl slightly, quickly, and from Brock’s expression it’s clear he didn’t approve of what Clay thought. Brock gets the glass of water for him though, brings it to Clay’s lips and lets Clay drink.
“The water you took in will make your throat sensitive.” Brock explained “It will get better on its own. The doctor said it would have been worse if I didn’t get you out when I did.”
Clay blinked at Brock, still unsure what to say.
Brock sits by his side, taking refuge on the uncomfortable plastic chairs. His hands hover, like he wants to hold Clay, but he stops himself. “The Navy and the hospital think it’s an accident.” Brock’s jaw grins with his visible discomfort. “I told them that we were swimming together and you got caught in a rip tide, and I got you out.”
Clay’s eyes widened, shock filling him. Brock lied for him. That was huge, and something Clay would never be able to repay. It also meant his life wasn’t over in the non-literal sense. The Navy never handled attempts well, and someone like Clay would be scrutinised and most likely discharged.
“The Navy accepted that it was a freak accident and aren’t looking into the incident. I got a grumble from Blackburn about swimming in the sea at night, but that’s all.” Brock added “None of the doctors questioned it because a few weeks ago they had a girl drown in a rip tide. It made sense.”
Clay sensed a but coming.
“I told all of Bravo the truth.” Brock said bluntly. Cold water should have washed over Clay, he should have frozen, he should have been protesting and insisting he’s fine. But Clay was so tired, and he didn’t care. Brock’s face faltered at his lack of reaction to the point that it almost made him guilty. “Don’t worry about any of that right now. I told Bravo to give you space. Trent’s here, but he’s only here to look you over. That was the deal but everyone else is waiting until you’re ready.”
“Thank you.” Clay said, his voice hoarse and rough from disuse and the abuse it was put under. He was genuinely grateful for what Brock had done, even if he couldn’t find the words to verbalise that. The relief he felt at the fact that Bravo weren’t here was flooring, but Brock knew that. The man nodded, simply understanding everything Clay couldn’t say.
“You do have to go in a wheelchair.” Brock said, wheeling the chair closer “Hospital rules. The doctor told me you can leave whenever you want, they’re happy you aren’t going to face any more symptoms or dry drowning.”
Clay rolled his eyes at the chair, feeling it was dramatic, but his legs were sore. He shuffled close to the bed, sliding onto the chair. Again, Brock frowns at his compliance, and again, Clay had done nothing but worry him. These past hours might be the most expressive he’s ever seen the man.
“Trent is staying with you tonight to monitor you, but no one else has to stay over if you don’t want them to.” Brock starts pushing him through the hospital, rolling him past white walls and doctors and nurses and other people. A man is repeatedly slamming his finger against the vending machine, growing more frustrated. The air reeks of bad coffee as a group of people wait outside of a door, a young woman crying on the shoulder of a man.
Clay’s been at the hospital before, normally after Sonny gets into a fight and needs stitches and they can’t afford to send him to a Navy hospital. The entrance is so near. Brock is at the front desk, filling out some paperwork for Clay. The doors open with each person who passes too near the sensor. The air drifts through the room, tickling Clay slightly from where he sits.
Brock walks to him once he’s done. “Ready to go?” At some point Cerberus reappeared by his side, the dog walking calmly as trained until he came to Clay’s side. Cerberus presses his nose against Clay’s hands, the wet nose gentle.
Clay nods, a growing desperation to leave bubbling inside of him. Then Clay goes through the doors and he takes a deep breath. The numbness hasn’t gone, only changed but Clay can handle that.