Work Text:
Pain had always been a constant in Colt’s life.
Skimmed knees from stunts gone wrong as a child, a bruised eye as a result from that time he stood up to his bullies, the stinging cold in his extremities as water soaked his clothes for hours on end during his first professional stunt job, and all the aches that came with the job afterwards.
Point was, Colt Seavers was used to pain. He could handle it. Really.
But today was different. The pain wasn’t the soft hum in the background like a fan during the summertime. It was an all encompassing agony, shooting lightning through his limbs every time he moved his core.
Still, Colt being Colt, he had gone to the set. It was nothing special, thankfully. Dan hooked his harness up to some wires, explaining in detail every step, and all the precautions they were taking, something that had helped soothe his anxieties after his supposed accident.
“Alright man, you’re good to go.” Dan patted his arm, giving Colt a thumbs up in silent question, the stuntman special. And Colt returned it, teeth clenched.
The machine whirred to life, directors yelled at each other, and the torture began. Metal wires yanked his body every which way, his back collided with the faux boulder more times than he cared to count, instead channeling all his energy on his posture. Angle his side towards the fake rock rather than his back, tense whenever needed, relax wherever needed, and so on.
But the directors, talented as they were, saw every single flaw.
“One more, okay Colt?” Someone called from behind the motorized dolly, the camera lens blocking his view from their face. Fitting.
“Yup,” Colt called back, raising a shaky thumbs up. The hooks on his harness were swiftly checked, decor was set back into place, background actors ordered into position, and _”Action!”_
The actor in front of him charged what would become a magical attack in VFX, and as it was released rather anticlimactically, the machine yanked his body backwards for the umpteenth time. His arms came back slightly to soften his impact, head held steady as not to strain anything, and-
_Thud_
Colt’s back hit the plastic and he could have sworn he felt the old fractures light up in his back like some fucked up Kintstugi. Dan lowered him back down as he had many times before, but when the stuntman didn’t give his buddy a thumbs up and instead rested his hands on his own knees, hunched over, he knew something was up.
“Hey, hey, hey man, what’s up? You good?” Dan called, jogging in close but not daring to touch as he silently reviewed the man in front of him, trying to spot any injury or a mishap with his gear. But there were none. And no response either.
“Colt? Are you okay?”
Colt breathed deeply, nodding more so on instinct than factually. “Yeah, yeah.. Yeah, just need.. I’m just gonna take a few minutes.” His voice felt small, too quiet, but Dan didn’t seem to notice as swift hands undid his harness.
It was rude, he would later realize. He should have said something to Dan, excused himself properly, but all Colt could focus on in that moment was putting one foot in front of the other onto the sandy parking lot until they lead him between housings to his own trailer, away from prying eyes.
The door opened to reveal a messy interior that seemed perpetually stuck in some sad, trashy 80’s trailer park. _Seriously,_ he had wondered many times before, _what was it with these trailers that managed to make them look so dated, regardless of budget?_
Mercifully the curtains were still shut, an unintentional gift from his past self when he had rushed out in a hurry this morning. The sun hitting them cast a soft, sepia glow across the room that did _not_ help the cramped space look more modern.
Colt stumbled his way through the small interior, over discarded clothes that seemed to have been put there just to mess with him and his mobility, towards the bed in the back which, against better judgement, he flung himself onto. The regret was immediate, fire shot up his back, fingers tingled, and his lungs ceased function for a moment. The otherwise silent trailer bounced his own grunt back to him, legs curling in on himself on instinct which only served to make the next noise from him rumble even lower in his throat.
His eyes clenched shut in the foolish hope this was a mindset issue, if he could just _focus_, it would be alright.
He knew better, though. The doctors had told him the same thing over and over again after his fall. _’Some days might be worse than others, mister Seavers.’_
A pitiful whimper tore through his throat as he tried to sit up in the soft bed, normally so inviting and a rest to his weary bones, but now that same bouncy, fluffy mattress was making it difficult to even consider getting up. So, with a shaky breath Colt sunk deeper into it.
Even breathing seemed a monumental task when every pass of oxygen through his expanding lungs jostled his once-shattered spine just too much. _Breathe_. Jody had told him that many times during these episodes, had held him all night with tears of her own as he sobbed into her shoulder.
Jody. _Jody._
If Colt could get his fingers to work he would have dialed her against better judgement, determined not to shut her out of his life again now that he had her back even if his entire being longed to hide away during moments like these. It was no use, though, his yearning was too small compared to the stabbing in his side from reaching for his phone, which tauntingly was still on his nightstand where he had left it this morning.
“Urgh-“ His voice was oddly soft, a sound he barely registered as his own. Though that might have less to do with the pitch, and more to do with the spinning in his head, some cruel punishment for even trying to move, as if this alone wasn’t already enough.
A cold shiver ran down Colt’s spine. His breath caught low in his throat, vision swimming. _Breathe. In and out. In and out. Just like- God, just breathe. Breathe._
The wetness that trickled down his cheek startled him, only now seeing through the blurry vision and identifying the warped imagery as one from tear filled eyes. Another blink, the warm tears slid over roughened skin, prickling uncomfortably, leaving a tight patch of skin where the salty water rapidly evaporated. The droplets gathered on his jaw, threatening to fall down his throat with his next breath-
A gasp shook Colt’s frame. Right. Breathing. He’d almost forgotten.
It was too much. The tingling in his hands, the numbness in his feet that threatened to take his mind back to the day that caused this, the uncontrolled huffs of air.
He was panicking. God, no, _he was panicking._
A cold sweat washed over his brow, eyes shutting as gently as they could when every atom in him screamed at him. _In and out. In and out._
He had no idea how long he lay there in the mess of blankets, trying and failing to get his body back under control, his chest rising and falling without rhythm, looking like a dead body were it not for the sounds he choked back without success.
He had no idea when Judy had knocked, either. The world sounded so far away, it was like he was underwater and everyone was whispering. The sound of her calling out his name was drowned out by the muffled noises he himself made, although he wasn’t even paying attention to those. So, it should come as no surprise that her hurried footsteps did not alert him either.
What should have startled him, only calmed him. As if his body sensed the safety that came with her presence before his mind could catch up. A warm hand slid over his upper arm so gently and with a familiarity that could only belong to one person, that his muscles did little more than twitch. Clenched eyes- _When had that happened?_ -unscrewed themselves with another rush of tears, blinking unfocused at the figure in front of him.
“There you are. That’s it.” She soothed, her hand ghosting up over his shoulder to his eyes, gathering tears both fresh and nearly dried in her wake. Judy’s soft palm enveloped his right cheek, thumb wiping at the wetness there.
“Jude-“ Colt spoke after what felt like years but was probably seconds.
“I’m here, baby.”
Colt’s arm raised with great effort, ever stubborn, pushing through the pain, something Jody was an expert at stopping by now. Her other hand caught his own mere inches off the sheets, which made him feel particularly pathetic since all that pain and strain should at least have amounted to something a little higher than that, really. But it was hard to critique himself when ocean blues stared back into his like he was the only thing in the world.
“Why didn’t you tell me? I could have had your stunts cancelled, you shouldn’t keep things like this to yourself anymo-“
“Jude-“ His broken voice cut off, vocal cords tight, a shaky quality overtaking his usually monotone register.
With the security of his partner, came the crash he had hoped to avoid. His chest was rising and falling even faster now, stuttered. He tried to sit up, do something- all he had to show for it were tears rolling over Judy’s digits as she tried in vain to wipe away the continuous stream of them.
“Oh, Colt,” She said so softly, so lovingly. The sternness in her voice dissipated instantly. It was that sweet, loving whisper that finally broke him.
Hushed tears turned into sobs, his hand in hers squeezed tighter as the movement jostled his frame. His breath became panicked, though this was the safest he had felt since this morning when she slipped out of his trailer.
It wasn’t easy for her either, it couldn’t be, to see him like this. Her heart clenched in her chest as she helped him into the seated position he craved, but whimpered and whined throughout the process.
“I know, it’s okay..” She shushed, easing his head onto her shoulder as she settled him into her lap, maneuvering them both as subtly as she could to the center of the bed. Colt let her, passed up on words as her hand left his to stroke his hair, his own flying out to clutch at the hem of her shirt as if his life depended on it. It felt like it did.
He sobbed, hard, ugly, unfiltered, into the fabric on her shoulder. He would feel bad about it later, but for now he tried to focus on her whispers, her instructions of breath, her hands, her warmth, her presence.
Colt’s nose, slightly crooked from many breaks both treated professionally and not, dug into the junction of her neck, wet rasps tearing their way through his throat. He must have been wetting the skin there, but if he was then she wasn’t mentioning it.
Every inhale was a battle, and every exhale felt like it couldn’t possibly be fast enough. Stutter, cough, repeat. His ribs were working overtime to keep his pounding heart enclosed and adjust to the irregular intervals his lungs took, both hands clenched, digging, nearly _yanking_ her shirt.
It was raw, like his body felt, every nerve exposed and oh so vulnerable. The version of him that isolated itself after the accident would be repulsed by him. But, then again, that version didn’t have Judy as a result to that exact instinct.
“There you go, just breathe, Colt.” She sounded near his ears.
He hadn’t noticed before, but somewhere along the way, his grasp had loosened, his breathing attempted to match hers, his heart rate- certainly still elevated- began to come back down.
Judy never stopped her soothing ministrations, never stopped whispering into his ear, sounds that only now were being converted into words by his fogged brain.
“I-“ Colt began, hoarse from sobs, wet from mucus, but determined past the strain it caused his battered throat.
“Sh sh sh, don’t you dare apologize.” She tutted.
He didn’t need to see her face to _see_ that sad smile of hers. He could picture it perfectly, the way her brows furrowed just enough to crease the skin between her eyebrows where a faint wrinkle had started months ago, how her lips would always pull into a tight smile to feign a sense of certainty and strength for the both of them, or how those piercing blues almost seemed to dim a few shades as they downcast to him as though he was all there was in that moment.
He huffed a laugh through his nose, and this time there was no need to follow up with a quip or a retort. She knew him through and through, better than he did himself sometimes. It was terrifying, the ordeal of being known so deeply, but he had trusted her with his life in the past, this should be alright too, then, he figured.
They sat like that for a while longer, the rattle once in Colt’s chest dissipated into a rhythmic rise and fall of it, safe the soft gasps whenever another wave would crash his exhausted form. The idea of going back to the shoot had been scrapped a long time ago by now, so there was no rush, just Judy.
Colt almost drifted off into a fitful sleep when the sturdy warmth holding him against it loosened its limbs, the blanket of safety falling for a time so irrelevant to Colt’s nervous system it might as well have been decades since he felt the touch that was still cooling on his skin. And Jude was aware, a hushed apology whispered against the crown of his hair before she even started the inched movements that needed the apology to begin with.
Blunt fingers wrapped tighter around her shoulder with every molecule of movement. Thankfully the ringing in his ears wasn’t quite as intense this time around, and it was with pleased surprised he noticed the dull throb of an headache instead of the sharp stab of a migraine, too, upon every switch.
“Sorry, sorry baby. But you’re going to feel even worse tomorrow if you fall asleep like that.” It was spoken with a certainty only possible from past experiences, the very same reason Colt didn’t fight her on this. Though the hissing through clenched teeth and the tightening grip on her would signal a pause, the surrender to gravity was more like a conquest, a track through knee-high mud.
Somehow, mercifully, his back hit the soft mattress not with a tension borne from a fear of sinking too deep into that softness, but rather the bone deep relief to find Judy had already prepared for it by sliding a pillow under the small of his back.
“Thank you,” It was meant to be a whisper but the sound was ragged, the lack of sleep and the toll these past few hours had taken on him finally catching up in the safety of his partner.
The rustling of blankets was the only response he got for a little bit, a soft plush- _brown with little stars, he knew, they had just bought it last week during their coffee date_ -fabric falling over him with an instantaneous warmth, though it was nothing compared to the heat in his heart when her familiar weight finally settled beside him.
“Of course,” She hummed, the silence lingering in the tone of her smile, painting words she didn’t have to utter. She was thankful of him, too. That he’d let her help in the first place, something she was glad to see become more common.
Her digits teased under the hem of his shirt and caressed the skin as it eased up, bunching the fabric slightly. It settled on his diaphragm, a gentle, grounding pressure that reminded him to inhale fully with every expanse of his chest, the coolness of her skin a balm to his overheated senses.
He was safe.
His back still ached, the tension in his neck still pulled at the space behind his eyes- but there was a light now, not at the end of the tunnel, but guiding him there instead, a constant illuminating the way ahead.
Judy watched, her own anxieties melting away when Colt’s eyelids lost their tension and his lips parted with soft breaths to take over the whimpers.
It hurt, it was agonizing to see her boyfriend in pain without being able to do anything. The memory of their separation was always heavy on her mind. But like this, it felt a foolish fear.
She leaned forward slightly, curled against his side as an anchor in the calming sea, and pressed a soft, barely there yet lasting kiss to his forehead. “I’ll be right here,” She whispered so softly it almost passed by her own ears before settling down to study the man with an eagerness that belied the subject, not an ancient book or a famous painting. To her, this was better than any of it.