close your eyes and i'll kiss you (thunderheart, ray/crow horse, pg-13)
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hurt/comfort, with some discussion of physical torture. This story owes something to derangedfangirl's What Remains.Imagine Person A kissing Person B’s scars.
Ray had been gone two solid months, in deep cover somewhere classified past Walter’s pay grade. It was the third time since they’d been together that he’d gone off like this, and Walter swore that it should be getting easier, like a wound healing up, but every time Ray got the call Walter felt the pain fresh and keen as the first time.
Every time he came back, he came back different, lean as a jackal and hard in some way that made Walter ache in his chest. Eventually, it would fade away, and Ray would just be Ray again, but the days leading up to that were worse than the days he was gone. He’d come back last time with broken ribs and it had taken him six solid weeks to smile; it was longer than that before he’d been able to let Walter touch him for more than a second without bucking him off, eyes spooked like a horse and his flesh just shaking.
This time when they’d called for him, Walter had pressed his ear against the door and listened to Ray beg, beg not to be called Home. His voice had broken in a way Walter knew meant tears, and he remembered all of a sudden that Ray was just a kid, really, and he sure as hell didn’t deserve the things that happened to him on the job.
But he’d gone just the same.
Two solid months of living with Ray’s ghost, and Walter got a phone call. The man had a complicated foreign name, lots of consonants, but he asked Walter to call him “Mike.” That name Walter recognized-Ray’s handler. Walter felt his stomach drop through his boots. Something had happened, something bad had happened, and now Ray would never be coming home.
“Can I-can I see him? Can I at least-can I at least know how?”
A brief pause. Then Mike spoke again, his accent tilting the words like the letters were slanted, hard to understand, maybe. “No, Mr. Crow Horse, you misunderstand. Ray’s fine. We’re pulling him out of his operation; I’d like you to be here when he comes in.”
It took a long minute to get his breath back. Walter caught Jimmy watching him while he cried, and shooed him to the next room. Mike sent a plane ticket, and six hours later, Walter was in DC, in a fancy hotel waiting for Ray.
Mike was a small man, older than he sounded on the phone, gray and soft. He had a kind, solemn demeanor, and Walter remembered that it wasn’t his fault that Ray got called out on these missions. He was only the messenger.
Ray was coming straight from debriefing to the hotel, Mike explained, but he didn’t explain why. That information was surely classified, but Walter knew it wasn’t SOP, and he wondered what had gone wrong. “Ray’s fine,” Mike had said, and Walter repeated the words over and over in his head, a mantra.
He didn’t recognize him at first. They came through the hallway into the meeting room the FBI had reserved, two faceless men in dark suits and Ray between them. He was whip-thin, hard thin, wearing some sort of nondescript, gray coveralls. His hair was buzzed off close to the skull, and it made him look younger and rawer from one angle and older and harder from another.
His eyes caught Crow Horse and his face broke open, like water splitting a dam. He brought up a hand, covering his mouth-his knuckles were bruised-but Walter knew by the way his eyes crinkled, the way he flushed in two little dots high up on his cheeks, that he was crying.
“I’m sorry,” Walter said, and stepped forward to meet him. Ray barreled into his arms, pressing himself against Walter so hard Walter could feel the rattle of his ribs as Ray took in shuddery breaths.
“I’m sorry,” Ray moaned low against Walter’s ear, “You shouldn’t have to see me like this.”
Mike had gotten them a room in the fancy hotel, and Walter took Ray there. Ray sat on the edge of the bed, his bruised hands resting on the bedspread, while Walter clicked the deadbolt into place.
“There’s room service,” Walter said, falsely upbeat, as he came to sit with Ray on the bed. “Are you hungry?”
“No.”
They sat for a moment, side by side, on the bed, not speaking. Finally, Walter chanced to reach out and touch Ray, fitting the joint of Ray’s jaw into his palm. Ray bore the touch, squeezing his eyes closed, relaxing ever so slightly.
“Christ, I missed you, Ray.”
Ray opened his eyes. “Me too. So much.”
“You want-you want to sleep?” Walter asked. “I don’t-tell me what you need.”
Ray dropped his eyes. The muscles in his jaw worked for a moment without producing sound.
“Sex,” he said finally. Then, raising his eyes hesitantly, “That is, if you-if you want me.”
Walter paused for a moment, tried to put into words just how much he wanted Ray. Failed. Instead, he reached out and took Ray into his arms, brought Ray’s body against his, their mouths falling together.
“G-gently,” Ray said, hushed, and Walter nodded, made sure his hands were extra soft.
Ray kicked off his shoes, and Walter ran the zipper of the coveralls down. He wore nothing underneath. Walter stopped. Part of him, a fire was lit in him seeing Ray like this after so long, having him so close and so eager. But the other part of him couldn’t go on. There were thick bandages hugging Ray’s middle; in the insides of his thighs, small, uneven circles mottling the flesh. Burns, old. Old enough to have healed over. The math wasn’t hard; Ray had been tortured, for hours, days, weeks-long enough for his flesh to heal to be torn open again. That’s why Mike had broken SOP; Ray had been compromised.
“I understand if you can’t,” Ray said quietly. Walter looked up and saw the anguish written all over Ray’s face-the price of sharing this secret, the gamble that Walter might not want him like this.
Walter rested his fingers, gently as he could, over the scars. “This hurt, honey?”
Ray shook his head. “No. Not anymore.”
Walter nodded. He traced the constellation of the scars with his fingertips, and then he followed the path with his lips, kissing gently. Ray lay back down on the bed, his spine stretching, his fingers balling the comforter. Walter was going to make Ray feel good again, no matter what it took.