FIC: so be it, i'm your crowbar... (Thunderheart, Walter Crow Horse/Ray Levoi, PG-13)
TITLE: so be it, i'm your crowbar (if that's what i am so far)
RATING: PG-13
FANDOMS: Thunderheart
PAIRING: Walter Crow Horse/Ray Levoi
SUMMARY: Until we get out of this mess.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Written for Writer's Month 2019 Day 2 for the prompt hurt/comfort. Title and summary (the latter slightly altered) from Fiona Apple's "I Know". TW: racist language.
Ray sat at the kitchen table as Walter sorted through the first aid kit. He had the strongest feeling of déjà vu, only … only that was for things you hadn’t already been through. This he had been through. He had been through this a lot.
Walter let out a long sigh as he uncapped the rubbing alcohol. Just the smell of it made Ray flinch.
“For all them fancy degrees and training you got under your belt, you can be so damn stupid sometimes, Raymond,” Walter said.
“I know.”
Walter soaked a cotton ball in rubbing alcohol, and went to work cleaning out the wounds on Ray’s face. Ray steeled his jaw and forced himself to breathe slowly while the alcohol burned any possible infection from his flesh. This wasn’t a punishment; Walter just didn’t pussyfoot around. It had to be done, so he was doing it, straight-forward and matter of fact, just like he did everything. Usually, it was something Ray liked a helluva lot about him. Now … now he couldn’t afford to have an opinion.
“You drive me crazy, Ray,” Walter said. “Just absolutely barking mad.”
“I know that, too,” Ray said, surprised to find his voice a little rough.
“You should probably be at the clinic getting stitches put in,” Walter said. “This was a bad one.”
“He was wearing rings.”
Walter took a deep breath, and Ray could practically hear him counting slowly to ten to keep from hitting Ray himself.
“Raymond,” he said finally, softly, “this ain’t a lifestyle either of us wants. Is it?”
Ray took it like a gut punch. He swallowed thickly.
“No,” he whispered.
Walter nodded. Ray tried to catch his eye, but he was focused intently on stretching a butterfly bandage over the cut on Ray’s brow bone, and didn’t see. Ray sighed, closed his eyes until he felt the butterfly bandage secured. He did his own deep breathing; he did his own count to ten. He wasn’t angry anymore, not at the Wasi’chu prick who had called him a prairie nigger in the movie theater parking lot, and certainly not at Walter. He just didn’t want to cry.
“I’m sorry,” he said, punching the words out slowly, laboriously. “I never want to do anything to hurt you. I just … sometimes I lose my temper. And I should be better about it, because I’m not a kid anymore, and I’m trying to be better, believe me. Walter, please, I … I’m sorry.”
He felt a couple tears escape, burning down his cheeks, and he hung his head. He heard Walter moving, and he wondered if he was leaving the room, but a moment later, Walter tipped Ray’s chin up so he’d look him in the eye; when Ray looked up, he saw that Walter had gotten closer.
When Ray finally met his eyes, Walter smiled, just a little.
“Yeah, honey,” he said. “I know.”