Blame It On The Tetons: novembersmith
Title: Voldemort Can’t Stop the Beat
Author: novembersmith
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Brad/Ray
Word Count: 6400~
Warnings: Violence, but no deaths
Summary: All Ray fucking had were his words, except this time he didn’t even have them.
AN: JFC. So. "Blame it on the Tetons" is a song about miscommunications and how language fucks you up. For some reason I took this concept and thought, “I KNOW, A HP AU ABOUT RAY GETTING CURSED TO SPEAK ONLY IN SONG LYRICS. BRILLIANT.” ...IDEK, guys.
Major, major thanks to the mods of this challenge. And ALL THE LOVE IN THE WORLD to my betas/cheerleaders: laliandra, brimtoast, attempt_unique, and moogle62. All errors belong to me. All lyrics belong to… a lot of people. I should probably make a tracklist to go with this. /o\
Download Link: Blame It On The Tetons
This was how it started: Brad’s team was checking a village for Death Eaters, what the fuck else was new. They never stuck around, but Bravo 2 had to check and declare the territory cleared anyway.
They’d poked through all of the huts, casting revelatory spells for traces of magic-users and finding fucking bupkis, as usual. The Death Eaters had already cleared out, leaving terrified and curse-fucked Muggles behind, like they’d found in every fucking village they’d been through for the past few days. The Marines still weren’t allowed to do anything about it-could only flag the buildings that needed mediwizards and hope some would eventually arrive.
They’d already all turned to head back to the cloudbank where their Humvees were waiting when Ray saw it, a flash out of the corner of his eye from a distant clump of brush.
Sometimes pureblood wizards forgot to look for things as mundane and magically inert as a sniper rifle, the glass of the sights shining faintly in the moonlight. This, Ray had kept telling anyone who would listen and a few who wouldn’t, this was why you wanted to have a trailer-trash Muggleborn like him in the ranks, someone who remembered that plain magic-deprived dumb human saps could kill wizards just as easily as any Death Eater.
There was a red dot on the back of Brad’s robes. Ray flung himself at Brad, crashing their brooms together. Something punched through his back, hot and strange, and Ray lost hold of his broom, hands suddenly numb. He watched his own blood fly upward as he fell, the sky racing away from him.
Brad was still in the air, though. That was good.
It was strangely peaceful; there were lots of stars, and the moon was lacy and ragged behind black clouds. Ray would have thought he’d have been more freaked out about dying, but instead he was just blank and quiet, thoughts shocked out of his head entirely.
Brad caught him before he hit the ground, and then things started to hurt.
Ray was dimly aware of shouting. Brad was shouting. Walt was shouting, and so was Trombley-they weren’t yelling at Ray, though, they were just screaming curses. Probably taking that fucking sniper out, poor Imperio’d Muggle bastard. Casualty of war, like Ray. Sorry, buddy, Ray thought, and tried to close his hand around Brad’s wrist, feel his skin, warm and real. Ray was so fucking cold.
Who knew, maybe the Muggle genuinely liked Death Eaters. Maybe he dug the tattoos. Maybe he just hated all wizards equally. Ray thought that was kind of fair.
“Why didn’t you just throw a shield?” Brad was cradling Ray to his chest and racing back to the victors so fast that the stars were a blur, or maybe Ray’s vision was just shot to shit. Ray’s blood soaked them both, and the wind made it tacky, sticky.
“You know those DE fuckers spell the bullets through those, homes,” Ray tried to get out, because they did, but his words were wet and garbled. He wasn’t sure if Brad had heard. He lost consciousness to the sound of Brad cursing, mundanely vulgar, no magic at all.
***
So, okay, Ray got why Brad was freaked out, but that was no fucking reason to dump him.
Not that they’d technically been dating. They’d just-there’d been orgasms. They hadn’t talked about it. Ray hadn’t stolen a lock of Brad’s hair or offered him his letter jacket or asked him to the goddamned Yule Ball.
Now Brad wasn’t talking to him at all, and it was making Ray fucking crazy.
Of course, it didn’t help that he couldn’t talk, either. Per se.
***
The first time he woke up, Brad was there, sitting in the back of the magically expanded medevac Humvee, one hand on his wand and the other on Ray’s shoulder. Doc Bryan was on Ray’s other side, doing something to Ray’s back that felt really fucking weird, coloring the interior of the vehicle an eerie blue and making Ray’s skin jerk and twitch.
“We’re fucking done,” Brad said suddenly, out of fucking nowhere. Ray rolled his eyes, tried to move his head and get a better look at him. Brad was turned away, his eyes on the window. “You hear me, Person? I won’t-this is unacceptable.”
“Your face,” Ray slurred.
“Oh, good, he’s awake this time. Maybe now I can stop hearing it,” Bryan said acerbically, and Brad’s head swiveled towards him. Their eyes met. Then Ray made a protesting noise as something behind his navel flipped and spun, movement where no movement should ever be. Ray really couldn’t feel any pain-it was like when his foot fell asleep and his Kneazle cub Ringo attacked it, just feeling the motion of the claws, nothing else.
Now he could tell that blood was squishing around everywhere: there were sounds.
Brad’s face was blue and wavery. His hand tightened on Ray’s shoulder.
“Ow,” Ray said weakly, and then made the executive decision to pass the fuck back out.
When he woke up again, Brad was gone, and Ray was stuck with Doc Bryan, who was squirreling around in his chest of supplies and brewing some potion that smelled like a blast-ended skrewt’s ass zit.
“I’m not dead,” Ray said wonderingly, voice scratchy. He was trapped in an ass-smelling enclosed space, but whatever, he’d lived with Trombley and Brad and Ray and Reporter for the last six weeks. Ray’d survive.
Except then he tried to sit up and couldn’t. Apparently he was secured to the stretcher with ropes. He got to work on wriggling loose, marveling at the lack of pain-he could still feel it, but it was a tolerable ache. Fuck, he was practically well-rested now. This was the first sleep he’d had in what felt like weeks. Get shot, take a nap. Worked for him.
“Magic fucking rocks.”
“I fucking rock,” Bryan said testily, not turning around. “Go the fuck back to sleep, you moron.” His tone was absent, like he was reciting something by rote. Ray squinted at him, bewildered, and yanked at his bonds again.
“Dude, where’s Brad?” He was almost positive Brad had been there before, and then an awful thought hit him. “Oh, don’t fucking tell me they sent him back in the field already. Who the fuck’s working the comms? If Trombley’s getting his grubby hands all over my meticulous and marvelous and very delicate spellwork, I’m going to straight-up toss his ass out the Humvee without a broom.” Ray paused. The memory of cold air rushing past was suddenly so vivid his chest hurt and his teeth chattered. He regrouped, sucking in air. “Huh. Too soon, I guess. I’ll come up with some other threat, but my point stands. Untie me, motherfucker.”
Bryan had been making soothing, patronizing sounds, all, “Yes, dear,” and “Uh huh,” and “Sleep, you bastard,” which Ray frankly found a little insulting; most people made more of a token effort to hide the fact they weren’t listening to him. But now Bryan’s shoulders stiffened and he turned around, eyebrows high on his forehead.
“Wait. Wait, you’re actually awake?” Bryan regarded him through bug-like goggles for a moment, glower magnified to a truly alarming level, but Ray was a badass death-defying sky cowboy, and he refused to flinch. “Person, that draught should have kept you unconscious for three more hours!”
“Yeah, well, I live to surpass expectations,” Ray said, shrugging, and, okay, he did feel a little groggy and lightheaded, but that was what coffee and Ennervate poppers were for. He was good, ready to go. Great.
“Of course the Draught-Just-Beneath-Living-Death doesn’t work on you,” Bryan muttered, rubbing at his face with the back of his wrist, and then he said, voice gruff, “Ray. Go back to sleep. You’re healing well, but your body’s going to be drained and vulnerable to outside magic for the next few days. Your team can do without you for a while.”
“But Doc, I feel so perky,” Ray protested, glancing down at his bare chest. It was chilly in their makeshift medbay, and his nipples were hard, speaking of perky. There was a new scar on his chest, abstract and sprawling and silvery blue. Ray wavered between thinking, badass and Jesus fuck, I really did nearly die. He suddenly very badly wanted to get out of this tiny, airless room. “Seriously, not tired at all. Up and at ‘er. I’m hungry and I want Death Eaters for breakfast, let’s go.”
Ray had gotten mostly free while Bryan had been attempting to ignore him, futzing with his hideous potion creation in the corner. Shit, where was Ray’s fucking wand?
“And anyway, you’re wrong, homes,” Ray said brightly, hoping the small shake in his voice went unnoticed. “They need me. Who’s gonna fly the Humvee? Who’s going to make sweet, sweet music and lift their spirits with a dulcet tune? No fair hogging me all to yourself, Doc, that’s not buddies. Brad will never forgive you. He’ll pine.”
Ray paused, swinging his legs over the side of the stretcher. Now that he was sitting up, he was a little dizzy, but he was going to blame the fumes rising from the Cauldron O’ Ass and call it a day. Ray was totally fine. “Dude, seriously, what the fuck could possibly smell that bad. Are you making a weapon of mass destruction over there?”
Bryan turned to glare at Ray, shoving his goggles up over his head. There was something on his cheek, a streak of rusty brown. Ray wondered if it was blood. He wondered if it was his. Now that he was paying more attention, Doc looked like a wreck, all bloodshot eyes and stubble-apparently Sixta hadn’t gotten a look at him in a while.
“Dammit, Person, at least when you talked in your sleep, you weren’t loud,” Bryan growled. “If you still have to babble about Brad, keep it down. And do not get off that bed, I’m fucking serious. Your system is unstable-you were supposed to sleep through this.”
Oh, shit. Shit, Ray’d been talking in his sleep? About Brad? That was-not so great. Ray threw off the last of the ropes and got to his feet, and then promptly crashed into a tray of creepy looking potions ingredients, some of which were wriggling. Nasty. He made what he would admit was a really high-pitched noise, and then fell heavily against Bryan, who got an arm around him and started swearing.
“Person, I swear on Merlin’s left nutsack, if you ruin this potion, I will fucking grind your bones to make my goddamned brews.”
“Old school,” Ray said admiringly, feeling sweat pop up along his brow. The cauldron was starting to steam, an eerie glowing yellow froth on top. “Hey, listen, did I-you know, when I was asleep-did I say anything?”
“Person, stop-stop fucking struggling, just. Dammit! Look, I don’t give a shit about your fucked up love affair with the Iceman,” Bryan growled, and Ray’s blood went cold-what he had left of it, shit. Now that he was paying attention he could taste a blood-replenishing potion on the back of his tongue, like iron filings. His stomach hurt, and Bryan was still going on, trying to wrestle Ray back to the bed. Ray was almost stunned enough to let him. “He’s pissed, sure, but when you’re healed, just go talk to him. You’re a fucking communications officer. Communicate.”
Oh, that was fucking rich. Ray felt light-headed, and he’d nearly died, and Brad wasn’t there. “You have no idea what you’re fucking talking about,” Ray spit out, and shoved at Bryan’s chest. “What the fuck do you mean-did I say something while he was here? Where is he?” He was starting to remember, now, Brad staring down at him, eyes shuttered and distant, saying, “No more.” But that had been a dream, right? A nightmare. Brad couldn’t be mad at him, Ray had just saved his life.
“He said he’d had enough and at the moment I can’t say I fucking blame him,” Bryan said, and the expression on his face was a lot like a sneer. Ray’s vision went red-he’d thought that was just a turn of phrase. But no, turned out not so much.
And, okay, maybe it wasn’t extremely wise to take a swing at a mediwizard who also happened to have been trained as a tactical recon officer-not that Ray couldn’t have taken him under better circumstances.
As it was, though-not the greatest idea.
A lot of things happened at once: Doc Bryan grabbed his fist before he could land a punch, and Ray stumbled.
“Let me go, you fucking leech.” But he was already feeling like-like an idiot, like his stupid eyes were welling up. He needed to apologize, he needed to stop talking and just get away. He tugged at Bryan’s grip, yanking and pulling backwards, and heard Bryan say, “No,” just as his side collided with something.
A wave of vile-smelling liquid spilled over the lip of the cauldron, splashing Ray’s feet, fizzing gently.
Bryan’s magic rose between the two of them in thick, angry swirls that Ray could almost smell. Wandless, uncontrolled-fuck, fuck. He met Bryan’s eyes as his own magic reflexively jumping out and collided with it.
And ow. It was almost like sneezing, that feeling you got when you’d sneezed for the eighty-ninth time in a row and everything was chapped and stinging and miserable.
Doc already looked panicked, and Ray felt strangely like he was flying through a snowstorm, prickling and cold and wet-magic. Weird magic. And then Doc was tugging him towards the door, towards fresh air and sunlight, and Ray almost felt bad for him, the guy looked so freaked.
“Corporal-are you okay? Merlin, I told you to lie down. Fuck. Fuck!” He shook himself and then started casting Evanseco on Ray’s smoking feet. “I haven’t done accidental magic since I was nine. You just got under my damn skin-I’ve been working on that potion for weeks.”
“Doctor, doctor. Give me the news!” Ray said, and then blinked and clutched his throat. What. What.
“Right. Okay-you look fine so far. The potion should be benign. It’s supposed put curse-wounds in stasis-for the Muggles, you know? We can’t stop to help them most of the time. I wanted to be able to do something.”
Ray felt extra-sheepish that he’d freaked out all over Doc, who was just doing his job and then some, and clearly was running on a sleep deficit and a heaping amount of guilt over all the civilian casualties they’d been forced to ignore lately. The Muggles around them were like the walking dead, stumbling into curse webs left behind by the fleeing Death Eaters, and Bravo was under orders to do nothing. Just watch the poor fuckers rotting from the inside, or their skin peeling free from their bodies like some invisible hand with a knife going after an apple.
The lucky ones just fell where they stood.
“Poor fucking bastards,” Ray agreed, throat tight.
Except that’s not what he said. He hadn’t said what he’d meant to say, for the second time. Instead he’d said-shit, something out of one of those Disney songs his sister loved so much. The one with the mermaids, which, it had to be said, in real life were way less buxom and melodic than the cartoon versions. Way to be a disappointment, wizarding world.
“Poor unfortunate souls, in pain, in need,” he continued, straight out of the fucking song, and dude, what the fuck, he’d even sort of sang it. He stared at Bryan with wide eyes, waiting for him to leap in with a Finite incantatum or a miracle cure, but Bryan didn’t seem to notice anything was weird at all. Well, of course he fucking didn’t, he was a pureblood; he never got any of Ray’s pop culture references.
Brad would have. They’d met at school in Oceanview. Ray’d jury-rigged a television from a sheet of spelled glass and some scavenged wand cores, and Brad had said, “Where the fuck is that noise coming from, Person?” and pulled aside the curtains of Ray’s bunk.
Ray maintained it was the free porn that got Brad to be best friends with him, but he’d never really believed it. He thought probably, really, it was the moment he’d broken the TV apart and put it back together, talking too fast and too loud and apologizing constantly for doing it wrong, he knew it was wrong, this wasn’t how wizards did things. Brad had rolled his eyes and slapped a palm over Ray’s mouth and said, “You talk too much. Show me again.”
Ray had never had someone think he was good at shit before, but Brad had said he was brilliant. Brilliant. They’d watched all kinds of shit during their free time. Brad had mocked his weird Muggle culture, but he’d been fucking enchanted and Ray knew it.
Over breaks, Brad always went home with Ray, stayed in his piece-of-shit trailer and played go-kart Quidditch and ate Kraft Easy Mac and Fruit Loops with every evidence of enjoyment. He’d never offered to invite Ray to his home, but Ray knew that his family didn’t like Muggles much, and Ray, well. He was kind of the epitome, only with magic.
Except now Brad was done with Ray, apparently. What the fuck did that even mean.
“I’m just worried it’s going to fuck with the Drought-Of-Nearly-Living-Death,” Bryan was rattling on. “The Lyre of Orpheus is a weird fucking plant, but in an emergency, brew it with asphodel just right and it brings people on the brink of death back. I don’t normally use it, but-you were in bad shape. I just worry what it’ll do with the stasis potion. And whatever those spells were. Fuck.”
“You took the words right out of my mouth!” Ray accused in disbelief, and then reflexively hummed the next few lyrics.
And Bryan just fucking nodded. “How do you feel? Is anything different?”
“You fucker, you cursed me to speak only in song lyrics,” Ray yelled, and it came out, “My life is like a song.”
That particular edit was probably for the best, since Ray wasn’t entirely, completely, one hundred percent sure this was all Doc’s fault.
Bryan may not have done any accidental magic since he was a tyke or whatever, but Ray did it all the fucking time. He’d grown up doing it-motoring around the trailer park in heaps of junked cars that he’d brought back to life with a touch, setting his momma’s boyfriend’s nuts on fire. The usual for a budding Muggleborn wizard in a southern state that didn’t have a lot of funding for regular Muggle schools, let alone magical ones. His mom hadn’t been able to afford his first two years of magical schooling, and by the time they’d saved up enough for books, Ray had gone most of his life without a wand.
It wasn’t a bad thing all the time. He mostly didn’t flip out and accidentally disintegrate shit, or summon a herd of turtles, or animate random bicycles or cars anymore. And having a good grip on wandless, instinctual magic turned out to help a lot with maintaining their comms, and their Humvee. Wands helped, sure, but Ray had never been a big fan of pulling out a wooden dick and jizzing invisible sparkles all over the fucking place.
Wands were good for giving you direct, predictable results, but who needed that shit? Except now his magic had apparently collided with a bunch of other magic in the epitome of ‘unpredictable,’ and Ray was rethinking his stance.
Bryan stared at him. “Something’s fucking with your speech patterns,” he concluded, clearly using all of his vast medical knowledge and training and technique to make this brilliant diagnosis.
“Madness is the gift that has been given to me,” Ray agreed, grumpily melodic, and rubbed a hand over his face. “You mother get up, come on, get down with the sickness.”
“The thing is, you don’t sound that much stranger than you usually do,” Bryan mused, and Ray contemplated taking another swing at him. He scowled and sang, “Never underestimate the importance of body language,” and shook his fist menacingly.
“Merlin,” Bryan said, but his mouth twitched, like he thought it was funny. Which it actually kind of was, but Ray’s body felt like a blown fuse and he had to talk to Brad, and now he couldn’t. All Ray fucking had were his words, except this time he didn’t even have them.
At least he had a pretty wide musical repertoire. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the side of the Humvee. Doc Bryan hovered over him, casting more diagnostic spells and muttering to himself.
“I think you’ll live. Whatever this is, it’s external. It’s changing your speech as it leaves your mouth, like a translations spell.” A highly bastardized one. “Your brain should be fine-as fine as your brain gets. It’ll should off in the next few days, if you take it easy. Which you should be doing anyway. You didn’t exactly get a splinter in your big toe, Person. The kind of healing you went through takes a toll on your body.”
“Hallelujah,” Ray said, rolling his eyes and then rubbing at his temples. Fine, so his head hurt a bit.
“Can I trust you to actually lay down this time?”
Ray shrugged. To be honest, he sort of thought lying down was unavoidable at this point. He could barely keep on his feet. He let Bryan lead him back into the cool dimness of the vehicle.
He collapsed down on the cot and put an arm over his eyes and hoped that he’d wake up in his grave, familiar wards around him and Brad snoring nearby. Once Brad had stayed in Ray’s grave after they’d both gotten off, fallen asleep drooling into Ray’s neck. That had been nice. Ray wouldn’t mind waking up to that again, if not to the alarm for incoming Curse Nets that had come shortly thereafter.
Instead, he woke to a door slamming open and Brad bursting in like an avenging Viking god. Better than being cursed, but otherwise, Ray was reserving judgment. Sunlight spilled in with him, and Ray winced, looking away. He heard Brad come a few steps closer, then halt abruptly.
Ray blinked, turning to look at him. Brad looked like shit, drawn and exhausted, but his face was stony and his arms were crossed over his chest. He wasn’t saying anything, just looking Ray up and down, cool and assessing.
Ray wanted to ask what was going on-what the team was doing now, why Brad had a fucking AK-47 in one hand, which was horrifying on several levels.
And why he had that look on his face. Why he was looking at Ray like a stranger.
Because Ray’s life sucked, instead he asked, “Why’d you come in here looking like that?”
He knew Brad recognized the lyrics, because Ray had dragged him to Dollywood for his fifteenth birthday. Brad had been appalled. But in the good way-Brad liked being appalled sometimes. Sure, he said he hated country music and that Ray was under no circumstances to sing it within his hearing or he’d remove Ray’s vocal cords without magic. But really, he just liked an excuse to yell at Ray, and who was Ray to deny him the opportunity to drawl out insults like unmetered poetry?
Brad stared at him, eyes narrowed. “You think that’s funny?” No insult, just ice. This had never happened before in the history of their friendship-or in their weird-ass, possibly-dating, now-apparently-over relationship.
Ray got that sex changed things, but he hadn’t thought it’d change them.
Ray shrugged. “Laugh, I nearly died.” Oops, probably too soon-not that it was Ray’s fucking fault, here, he was operating under a serious impediment. All he’d wanted to say was, ‘Not really.’
Brad looked like someone had punched him in the gut, so Ray quickly followed that with, “I told the witch doctor I was in love with you.”
Well, that was incredibly worse. Ray continued weakly, “Ooo ee, oo ah ah, ting tang, walla walla bing bang?” He wiggled his fingers towards his throat, then shrugged again. Doc Bryan got pissed, I got pissed, magic happened, now I sing. It was worse than a fucking translation spell going between OId English and Latin. But he figured Brad got it. Brad usually got him. It wasn’t like Ray didn’t communicate through song most of the time anyway. But he was just squinting at him now, brow furrowed.
“Bryan said he cursed you, but-”
Ray tried again.
“I speak to you like the chorus to the verse. I chop another line like a coda. With a curse,” Ray finished, getting to his feet and staggering a couple steps before having to clutch at the nearest table, woozy and nauseous.
Brad took a step towards him, hand out, and then visibly shook himself, drawing it back. Ray’s chest had hurt last night; now it just felt like there was something missing. Like Bryan had forgot to put something important back in.
“I should have hit Bryan harder,” Brad concluded, and Ray’s jaw dropped open. Was Brad crazy? “But you’re not dying, you’re just singing more than usual?” Ray didn’t answer, afraid of what would come out of his mouth this time. Brad said, “Fine,” then nodded curtly and turned towards the door. “Report back when you’re fit for duty.”
No, Ray thought, and shook his head. “Girl, don’t you know you can’t escape me. Ooh, darling, you’ll always be my baby,” he said threateningly, and then paused for a moment to thump his head on the tabletop. His best friend-cum-what-the-fuck-ever was breaking up with him and Ray could only communicate his extreme displeasure via Mariah Carey. Still. Lady had a point he could use. “No way you’re ever gonna shake me,” he reiterated, glaring, and Brad rolled his eyes reluctantly, like he couldn’t help himself.
“Yeah, it’s cute that you think so,” he said witheringly, which what the fuck ever, Ray could fucking cast tracking spells and do evasive maneuvers with the best of them, even if Brad had taught him most of that shit. But now Brad had his hand on the doorknob and was leaving.
“What is wrong, goddammit?” came out as an extremely vehement rendition of “Express Yourself,” which actually probably gave Ray an edge, since Brad totally had a thing for Madonna.
“Just-let it go, Ray,” Brad gritted out. “It’s-we should never have started this. It was stupid.”
Ray sucked in a breath and fought to keep his face straight. “You make me come,” he said, which, great, that was definitely what he’d wanted to say right then. Awesome. Thanks, magic. “You make me complete, you make me completely miserable,” he finished unwillingly, because he didn’t want to say any of it. Why couldn’t Bryan have just hit him with a fucking Silencio? Communicating via semaphore would be better than this bullshit.
“I get that you like thinking with your dick, Corporal,” Brad was saying, cutting and cold. “But suck it the fuck up. Your right hand still works.”
Wait. Wait. Wait. Ray squinted at Brad’s face, took in the lines of his mouth and the way his eyes darted to the side, the stiff way he was holding himself, and something clicked into place, and now Ray was pissed.
“Sex is not the enemy!” Ray hissed, and he didn’t even care that he sounded a lot like fucking Captain America with his ‘the enemy is the enemy” bullshit, because, what the fuck, Brad had thought it took blowjobs to make Ray willing to take a bullet for him? Ray thought he probably could spit bullets right now. “You’re my best friend.”
“You weren’t thinking clearly,” Brad snarled back. “Clearly the sex is an issue. I should have known better than to think you were actually a goddamned adult.”
Okay, Ray had a finely-honed appreciation for bullshit, but this was fucking ridiculous. Like Brad hadn’t taken a curse from him just last fucking month. If sex was fucking with anyone’s head here, it wasn’t Ray’s.
Ray concentrated really, really, really hard, focusing the raw, ragged feeling of his magic to wriggle a hole in the web of the spell surrounding him. He could beat this shit. He managed to croon out, “Oh, ohh, you think you’re special?” Brad’s eyes locked onto his, and one of his eyebrows twitched, very slightly. “You think you’re something else?”
What the fuck, Brad’s eyebrows communicated with startling clarity.
Ray shrugged, glad of the pause this time. “Okay, so you got a dick.” He brushed an invisible speck off his shoulder, savoring the anticipation of the next line. “That don’t impress me much.”
Ray might as well have hit Brad with a brick. Brad stared at him. “You liked it just fucking fine last week!” he protested, for a moment looking like a very attractive, very blond, very offended frog. Like Ray’s friend from school, instead of a pissed off commanding officer.
“Lick you like a lollipop should be licked,” Ray agreed--dammit, he hadn’t meant to say that. Brad’s eyes got dark and focused and hot, like maybe he was turned on a little despite the anger still evident on his face.
And, okay, so last week, Ray’d finally gotten to blow his best friend, after years of dancing around it. And Brad had been totally fucking hung and Ray had moaned for it like a slut and gone to town. If Brad wasn’t being a total irrational motherhen, Ray’d totally go to his knees again right now. But that wasn’t the point, dammit.
Brad scowled at him and said, “See, Ray, this is exactly my fucking point. You can’t focus. You’re distracting. This isn’t-it’s dangerous.”
Ray had no idea how long this song bullshit was going to last, and Brad was clearly fucked up in the head and needed his Ray to unfuck the situation.
If he’d had his fucking tongue back, he’d have hit Brad with a fucking grandiloquent soliloquy on the Sacred Bands of Thebes and Carthage, composed totally of homosexual lovebirds, and Harmodius and Aristogeiton, and how even fucking Plato thought love made you stronger, not vice versa.
Sadly, that shit didn’t scan. Ray was a marine; he’d make do with Pink Floyd and Jay-Z for now. His lecture on the extreme gayness of the Greeks was getting temporarily shelved for when he could make Trombley listen to it, too.
“The dogs of war,” Ray said darkly, gesturing between the two of them. “Dealing in death is the nature of the beast.” Then, “Whoopee, we’re all gonna die.” Remember, Brad? Remember, you sang that with me, what the fuck did you think it meant?
“I’d prefer it if you didn’t die because of me,” Brad gritted out, and looked away from him, and Jesus fucking Christ, once this was all over and Brad had admitted Ray’s brilliance and rightness and begged him for forgiveness on his knees, Ray was going to make so much fun of his squishy inner marshmallow core. For now, he just marshaled all his strength and staggered across the interior of the medevac and attempted to jab Brad in the chest and wound up collapsing against it instead.
Which would have totally detracted from his argument, except then Brad held him up, arms warm and strong and familiar. He smelled like sweat and blood and, for the first time, cordite. Gunsmoke. While Ray’d been in here getting the Doc pissed enough to jizz magical sing-along spells all over him, Brad had been outside, learning about guns. Ray should have known.
“I’d do a bid, loose a rib, bust a cap, trustin’ that run up to heaven doors, exchange my life for yours.” Ray managed to slap a hand over Brad’s mouth before he could respond. “I’d do anything--” Falsetto now, batting his lashes and eyes wide, he asked, “‘Anything?’” Brad snorted beneath his palm, and Ray dropped back to his normal register. “Yes, anything for you.”
“Ray,” Brad said, and he looked some combination of pained and furious and terrified. “You know I don’t-I don’t want you to fucking do that. I should have seen that sniper myself. I have to focus. I have to-we weren’t briefed on these Muggle Death Eater units properly, I have to learn. I will. I will.”
Not without me. “Can I kick it (yes I can),” Ray said, and Brad blinked. “If you get the urge to freak do the jitter bug. Come and spread your arms if you really need a hug.”
“If the jitterbug is some freaky Kama Sutra shit, no. And I don’t need a hug,” Brad said as he hugged the crap out of Ray. That was Ray’s repressed death-dealing soldier soulmate. Ray had been operating in crisis mode, but now he relaxed. Brad still wanted him. Somehow, somehow, he did, and Ray wasn’t letting go.
“Baby. Don’t fear the reaper,” he said, too seriously, so he made a cow sound, because, well, more cowbell. It made Brad laugh wetly and press his forehead to Ray’s.
“Just-don’t do it again. Please.”
“Sugarpie, honeybun,” Ray said, shaking his head. “I can’t help myself.” He couldn’t promise Brad that, because he would do it again. Ray didn’t have any regrets, except maybe for getting up in Doc Bryan’s grill. “Life is too short, so love the one you got. You might get run over or you might get shot.”
Brad did that thing where he swore to himself beneath his breath for a few minutes, then he said, slow and heavy, “Okay. Okay.” His head was hanging down and Ray could barely hear him. “I just-it was hard watching it happen. I didn’t… I knew it could happen, but I didn’t know what it’d be like.”
“However long I stay, I will always love you,” Ray said, throat tight, and then had to look away too, because, okay, they’d only been boning for, like, a week. It was one thing to say it with a stupid song about the witch doctor, which Brad could totally ignore if he wanted to. It was another to say it with The Cure.
“Me too. I mean. I’d-for you too. You know that.”
Ray rolled his eyes, but his face went hot, because, well. He’d hoped, but maybe the time Brad’d jumped in front of a Death Eater’s wand for him had been a fluke. Which, by the way, once he had his fucking actual voice back, he was going to have an actual discussion about heroic double-standards and all this bullshit.
“And for the record,” Brad said lightly, cheeks a little pink himself, which Ray thought was awesome, “You’re getting a pass on the pet names for now. But only for now.”
“Shorty, you’re my angel, you’re my darling, angel.” Ray smirked and pinched Brad’s cheek, and then laughed out loud when Brad glared and caught his wrist. Ray grinned up at him, and Brad’s face softened.
“Who the fuck are you calling short, midget?” And then he picked Ray up-which was almost as hot as it was insulting-and carried him back to the stretcher, setting him down and raising a smug eyebrow. Whatever, like it was Ray’s fault that he hadn’t gotten Valkyrie genes.
“Okay. We’ll-we’ll work on this together. Later. Just, sleep for now.” He hesitated, then leaned down and pressed a kiss to Ray’s mouth, closed and sweet, like he’d just flown Ray home after a school dance. Ray surged up and got a hand around the back of Brad’s head, ignoring the dizziness, curled his fingers in his short, dirty hair, and kissed back. Brad didn’t take much convincing to deepen it, pushing Ray down into the cushions and making small, desperate noises and running his hands up and down Ray’s back, over the torn, mended skin.
Then he pulled himself away, shaking his head. “You’re still hurt. You need to rest.”
I feel fine, Ray wanted to protest, but he was so fucking tired, and his magic still felt grated and raw, like his insides had been attacked by sandpaper-wielding gnomes. So maybe Brad was right about that much. Fine, fine. They could have life-affirming hotass monkey sex later, when Ray felt less like the undead. But he still wanted Brad there with him when he fell asleep.
“Yo, I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want,” Ray said hopefully, holding on to Brad and refusing to let him up.
Brad sighed, and then chanted back in a monotone voice, “So tell me what you want, what you really, really want.”
“Voulez vous couchez avec moi ce soir?” Ray added in a tiny leer, but mostly he was just fighting a yawn.
“You need to fucking rest,” Brad said, looking exasperated and fond. Ray nodded, because, yeah, exactly, how was he supposed to be able to rest without Brad there? He patted the bed next to him, scooting over, pressing himself against the wall and making space.
Brad said, “Oh.” He hesitated for a moment, and there was an expression on his face that reminded Ray of being hit, of bleeding out as he fell through the sky. And then he was climbing next to Ray, pulling him in close and wrapping his arms and legs around him until it felt like every inch of them was touching.
“Goodnight, Ray,” he said into Ray’s neck, muffled and shaky.
“Sleep well, you giant drama queen,” Ray said, and it came out soft and sweet instead, quiet verses: “Someday we'll all be gone, but lullabies go on and on.” Brad breathed out against Ray’s neck and Brad could feel him smiling. “They’ll never die, that’s how you and I will be.”
“You’re a fucking sap,” Brad said, and kissed his pulse. “Sleep, baby. We’ll fight more tomorrow.”
Worked for Ray.
Author: novembersmith
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Brad/Ray
Word Count: 6400~
Warnings: Violence, but no deaths
Summary: All Ray fucking had were his words, except this time he didn’t even have them.
AN: JFC. So. "Blame it on the Tetons" is a song about miscommunications and how language fucks you up. For some reason I took this concept and thought, “I KNOW, A HP AU ABOUT RAY GETTING CURSED TO SPEAK ONLY IN SONG LYRICS. BRILLIANT.” ...IDEK, guys.
Major, major thanks to the mods of this challenge. And ALL THE LOVE IN THE WORLD to my betas/cheerleaders: laliandra, brimtoast, attempt_unique, and moogle62. All errors belong to me. All lyrics belong to… a lot of people. I should probably make a tracklist to go with this. /o\
Download Link: Blame It On The Tetons
This was how it started: Brad’s team was checking a village for Death Eaters, what the fuck else was new. They never stuck around, but Bravo 2 had to check and declare the territory cleared anyway.
They’d poked through all of the huts, casting revelatory spells for traces of magic-users and finding fucking bupkis, as usual. The Death Eaters had already cleared out, leaving terrified and curse-fucked Muggles behind, like they’d found in every fucking village they’d been through for the past few days. The Marines still weren’t allowed to do anything about it-could only flag the buildings that needed mediwizards and hope some would eventually arrive.
They’d already all turned to head back to the cloudbank where their Humvees were waiting when Ray saw it, a flash out of the corner of his eye from a distant clump of brush.
Sometimes pureblood wizards forgot to look for things as mundane and magically inert as a sniper rifle, the glass of the sights shining faintly in the moonlight. This, Ray had kept telling anyone who would listen and a few who wouldn’t, this was why you wanted to have a trailer-trash Muggleborn like him in the ranks, someone who remembered that plain magic-deprived dumb human saps could kill wizards just as easily as any Death Eater.
There was a red dot on the back of Brad’s robes. Ray flung himself at Brad, crashing their brooms together. Something punched through his back, hot and strange, and Ray lost hold of his broom, hands suddenly numb. He watched his own blood fly upward as he fell, the sky racing away from him.
Brad was still in the air, though. That was good.
It was strangely peaceful; there were lots of stars, and the moon was lacy and ragged behind black clouds. Ray would have thought he’d have been more freaked out about dying, but instead he was just blank and quiet, thoughts shocked out of his head entirely.
Brad caught him before he hit the ground, and then things started to hurt.
Ray was dimly aware of shouting. Brad was shouting. Walt was shouting, and so was Trombley-they weren’t yelling at Ray, though, they were just screaming curses. Probably taking that fucking sniper out, poor Imperio’d Muggle bastard. Casualty of war, like Ray. Sorry, buddy, Ray thought, and tried to close his hand around Brad’s wrist, feel his skin, warm and real. Ray was so fucking cold.
Who knew, maybe the Muggle genuinely liked Death Eaters. Maybe he dug the tattoos. Maybe he just hated all wizards equally. Ray thought that was kind of fair.
“Why didn’t you just throw a shield?” Brad was cradling Ray to his chest and racing back to the victors so fast that the stars were a blur, or maybe Ray’s vision was just shot to shit. Ray’s blood soaked them both, and the wind made it tacky, sticky.
“You know those DE fuckers spell the bullets through those, homes,” Ray tried to get out, because they did, but his words were wet and garbled. He wasn’t sure if Brad had heard. He lost consciousness to the sound of Brad cursing, mundanely vulgar, no magic at all.
***
So, okay, Ray got why Brad was freaked out, but that was no fucking reason to dump him.
Not that they’d technically been dating. They’d just-there’d been orgasms. They hadn’t talked about it. Ray hadn’t stolen a lock of Brad’s hair or offered him his letter jacket or asked him to the goddamned Yule Ball.
Now Brad wasn’t talking to him at all, and it was making Ray fucking crazy.
Of course, it didn’t help that he couldn’t talk, either. Per se.
***
The first time he woke up, Brad was there, sitting in the back of the magically expanded medevac Humvee, one hand on his wand and the other on Ray’s shoulder. Doc Bryan was on Ray’s other side, doing something to Ray’s back that felt really fucking weird, coloring the interior of the vehicle an eerie blue and making Ray’s skin jerk and twitch.
“We’re fucking done,” Brad said suddenly, out of fucking nowhere. Ray rolled his eyes, tried to move his head and get a better look at him. Brad was turned away, his eyes on the window. “You hear me, Person? I won’t-this is unacceptable.”
“Your face,” Ray slurred.
“Oh, good, he’s awake this time. Maybe now I can stop hearing it,” Bryan said acerbically, and Brad’s head swiveled towards him. Their eyes met. Then Ray made a protesting noise as something behind his navel flipped and spun, movement where no movement should ever be. Ray really couldn’t feel any pain-it was like when his foot fell asleep and his Kneazle cub Ringo attacked it, just feeling the motion of the claws, nothing else.
Now he could tell that blood was squishing around everywhere: there were sounds.
Brad’s face was blue and wavery. His hand tightened on Ray’s shoulder.
“Ow,” Ray said weakly, and then made the executive decision to pass the fuck back out.
When he woke up again, Brad was gone, and Ray was stuck with Doc Bryan, who was squirreling around in his chest of supplies and brewing some potion that smelled like a blast-ended skrewt’s ass zit.
“I’m not dead,” Ray said wonderingly, voice scratchy. He was trapped in an ass-smelling enclosed space, but whatever, he’d lived with Trombley and Brad and Ray and Reporter for the last six weeks. Ray’d survive.
Except then he tried to sit up and couldn’t. Apparently he was secured to the stretcher with ropes. He got to work on wriggling loose, marveling at the lack of pain-he could still feel it, but it was a tolerable ache. Fuck, he was practically well-rested now. This was the first sleep he’d had in what felt like weeks. Get shot, take a nap. Worked for him.
“Magic fucking rocks.”
“I fucking rock,” Bryan said testily, not turning around. “Go the fuck back to sleep, you moron.” His tone was absent, like he was reciting something by rote. Ray squinted at him, bewildered, and yanked at his bonds again.
“Dude, where’s Brad?” He was almost positive Brad had been there before, and then an awful thought hit him. “Oh, don’t fucking tell me they sent him back in the field already. Who the fuck’s working the comms? If Trombley’s getting his grubby hands all over my meticulous and marvelous and very delicate spellwork, I’m going to straight-up toss his ass out the Humvee without a broom.” Ray paused. The memory of cold air rushing past was suddenly so vivid his chest hurt and his teeth chattered. He regrouped, sucking in air. “Huh. Too soon, I guess. I’ll come up with some other threat, but my point stands. Untie me, motherfucker.”
Bryan had been making soothing, patronizing sounds, all, “Yes, dear,” and “Uh huh,” and “Sleep, you bastard,” which Ray frankly found a little insulting; most people made more of a token effort to hide the fact they weren’t listening to him. But now Bryan’s shoulders stiffened and he turned around, eyebrows high on his forehead.
“Wait. Wait, you’re actually awake?” Bryan regarded him through bug-like goggles for a moment, glower magnified to a truly alarming level, but Ray was a badass death-defying sky cowboy, and he refused to flinch. “Person, that draught should have kept you unconscious for three more hours!”
“Yeah, well, I live to surpass expectations,” Ray said, shrugging, and, okay, he did feel a little groggy and lightheaded, but that was what coffee and Ennervate poppers were for. He was good, ready to go. Great.
“Of course the Draught-Just-Beneath-Living-Death doesn’t work on you,” Bryan muttered, rubbing at his face with the back of his wrist, and then he said, voice gruff, “Ray. Go back to sleep. You’re healing well, but your body’s going to be drained and vulnerable to outside magic for the next few days. Your team can do without you for a while.”
“But Doc, I feel so perky,” Ray protested, glancing down at his bare chest. It was chilly in their makeshift medbay, and his nipples were hard, speaking of perky. There was a new scar on his chest, abstract and sprawling and silvery blue. Ray wavered between thinking, badass and Jesus fuck, I really did nearly die. He suddenly very badly wanted to get out of this tiny, airless room. “Seriously, not tired at all. Up and at ‘er. I’m hungry and I want Death Eaters for breakfast, let’s go.”
Ray had gotten mostly free while Bryan had been attempting to ignore him, futzing with his hideous potion creation in the corner. Shit, where was Ray’s fucking wand?
“And anyway, you’re wrong, homes,” Ray said brightly, hoping the small shake in his voice went unnoticed. “They need me. Who’s gonna fly the Humvee? Who’s going to make sweet, sweet music and lift their spirits with a dulcet tune? No fair hogging me all to yourself, Doc, that’s not buddies. Brad will never forgive you. He’ll pine.”
Ray paused, swinging his legs over the side of the stretcher. Now that he was sitting up, he was a little dizzy, but he was going to blame the fumes rising from the Cauldron O’ Ass and call it a day. Ray was totally fine. “Dude, seriously, what the fuck could possibly smell that bad. Are you making a weapon of mass destruction over there?”
Bryan turned to glare at Ray, shoving his goggles up over his head. There was something on his cheek, a streak of rusty brown. Ray wondered if it was blood. He wondered if it was his. Now that he was paying more attention, Doc looked like a wreck, all bloodshot eyes and stubble-apparently Sixta hadn’t gotten a look at him in a while.
“Dammit, Person, at least when you talked in your sleep, you weren’t loud,” Bryan growled. “If you still have to babble about Brad, keep it down. And do not get off that bed, I’m fucking serious. Your system is unstable-you were supposed to sleep through this.”
Oh, shit. Shit, Ray’d been talking in his sleep? About Brad? That was-not so great. Ray threw off the last of the ropes and got to his feet, and then promptly crashed into a tray of creepy looking potions ingredients, some of which were wriggling. Nasty. He made what he would admit was a really high-pitched noise, and then fell heavily against Bryan, who got an arm around him and started swearing.
“Person, I swear on Merlin’s left nutsack, if you ruin this potion, I will fucking grind your bones to make my goddamned brews.”
“Old school,” Ray said admiringly, feeling sweat pop up along his brow. The cauldron was starting to steam, an eerie glowing yellow froth on top. “Hey, listen, did I-you know, when I was asleep-did I say anything?”
“Person, stop-stop fucking struggling, just. Dammit! Look, I don’t give a shit about your fucked up love affair with the Iceman,” Bryan growled, and Ray’s blood went cold-what he had left of it, shit. Now that he was paying attention he could taste a blood-replenishing potion on the back of his tongue, like iron filings. His stomach hurt, and Bryan was still going on, trying to wrestle Ray back to the bed. Ray was almost stunned enough to let him. “He’s pissed, sure, but when you’re healed, just go talk to him. You’re a fucking communications officer. Communicate.”
Oh, that was fucking rich. Ray felt light-headed, and he’d nearly died, and Brad wasn’t there. “You have no idea what you’re fucking talking about,” Ray spit out, and shoved at Bryan’s chest. “What the fuck do you mean-did I say something while he was here? Where is he?” He was starting to remember, now, Brad staring down at him, eyes shuttered and distant, saying, “No more.” But that had been a dream, right? A nightmare. Brad couldn’t be mad at him, Ray had just saved his life.
“He said he’d had enough and at the moment I can’t say I fucking blame him,” Bryan said, and the expression on his face was a lot like a sneer. Ray’s vision went red-he’d thought that was just a turn of phrase. But no, turned out not so much.
And, okay, maybe it wasn’t extremely wise to take a swing at a mediwizard who also happened to have been trained as a tactical recon officer-not that Ray couldn’t have taken him under better circumstances.
As it was, though-not the greatest idea.
A lot of things happened at once: Doc Bryan grabbed his fist before he could land a punch, and Ray stumbled.
“Let me go, you fucking leech.” But he was already feeling like-like an idiot, like his stupid eyes were welling up. He needed to apologize, he needed to stop talking and just get away. He tugged at Bryan’s grip, yanking and pulling backwards, and heard Bryan say, “No,” just as his side collided with something.
A wave of vile-smelling liquid spilled over the lip of the cauldron, splashing Ray’s feet, fizzing gently.
Bryan’s magic rose between the two of them in thick, angry swirls that Ray could almost smell. Wandless, uncontrolled-fuck, fuck. He met Bryan’s eyes as his own magic reflexively jumping out and collided with it.
And ow. It was almost like sneezing, that feeling you got when you’d sneezed for the eighty-ninth time in a row and everything was chapped and stinging and miserable.
Doc already looked panicked, and Ray felt strangely like he was flying through a snowstorm, prickling and cold and wet-magic. Weird magic. And then Doc was tugging him towards the door, towards fresh air and sunlight, and Ray almost felt bad for him, the guy looked so freaked.
“Corporal-are you okay? Merlin, I told you to lie down. Fuck. Fuck!” He shook himself and then started casting Evanseco on Ray’s smoking feet. “I haven’t done accidental magic since I was nine. You just got under my damn skin-I’ve been working on that potion for weeks.”
“Doctor, doctor. Give me the news!” Ray said, and then blinked and clutched his throat. What. What.
“Right. Okay-you look fine so far. The potion should be benign. It’s supposed put curse-wounds in stasis-for the Muggles, you know? We can’t stop to help them most of the time. I wanted to be able to do something.”
Ray felt extra-sheepish that he’d freaked out all over Doc, who was just doing his job and then some, and clearly was running on a sleep deficit and a heaping amount of guilt over all the civilian casualties they’d been forced to ignore lately. The Muggles around them were like the walking dead, stumbling into curse webs left behind by the fleeing Death Eaters, and Bravo was under orders to do nothing. Just watch the poor fuckers rotting from the inside, or their skin peeling free from their bodies like some invisible hand with a knife going after an apple.
The lucky ones just fell where they stood.
“Poor fucking bastards,” Ray agreed, throat tight.
Except that’s not what he said. He hadn’t said what he’d meant to say, for the second time. Instead he’d said-shit, something out of one of those Disney songs his sister loved so much. The one with the mermaids, which, it had to be said, in real life were way less buxom and melodic than the cartoon versions. Way to be a disappointment, wizarding world.
“Poor unfortunate souls, in pain, in need,” he continued, straight out of the fucking song, and dude, what the fuck, he’d even sort of sang it. He stared at Bryan with wide eyes, waiting for him to leap in with a Finite incantatum or a miracle cure, but Bryan didn’t seem to notice anything was weird at all. Well, of course he fucking didn’t, he was a pureblood; he never got any of Ray’s pop culture references.
Brad would have. They’d met at school in Oceanview. Ray’d jury-rigged a television from a sheet of spelled glass and some scavenged wand cores, and Brad had said, “Where the fuck is that noise coming from, Person?” and pulled aside the curtains of Ray’s bunk.
Ray maintained it was the free porn that got Brad to be best friends with him, but he’d never really believed it. He thought probably, really, it was the moment he’d broken the TV apart and put it back together, talking too fast and too loud and apologizing constantly for doing it wrong, he knew it was wrong, this wasn’t how wizards did things. Brad had rolled his eyes and slapped a palm over Ray’s mouth and said, “You talk too much. Show me again.”
Ray had never had someone think he was good at shit before, but Brad had said he was brilliant. Brilliant. They’d watched all kinds of shit during their free time. Brad had mocked his weird Muggle culture, but he’d been fucking enchanted and Ray knew it.
Over breaks, Brad always went home with Ray, stayed in his piece-of-shit trailer and played go-kart Quidditch and ate Kraft Easy Mac and Fruit Loops with every evidence of enjoyment. He’d never offered to invite Ray to his home, but Ray knew that his family didn’t like Muggles much, and Ray, well. He was kind of the epitome, only with magic.
Except now Brad was done with Ray, apparently. What the fuck did that even mean.
“I’m just worried it’s going to fuck with the Drought-Of-Nearly-Living-Death,” Bryan was rattling on. “The Lyre of Orpheus is a weird fucking plant, but in an emergency, brew it with asphodel just right and it brings people on the brink of death back. I don’t normally use it, but-you were in bad shape. I just worry what it’ll do with the stasis potion. And whatever those spells were. Fuck.”
“You took the words right out of my mouth!” Ray accused in disbelief, and then reflexively hummed the next few lyrics.
And Bryan just fucking nodded. “How do you feel? Is anything different?”
“You fucker, you cursed me to speak only in song lyrics,” Ray yelled, and it came out, “My life is like a song.”
That particular edit was probably for the best, since Ray wasn’t entirely, completely, one hundred percent sure this was all Doc’s fault.
Bryan may not have done any accidental magic since he was a tyke or whatever, but Ray did it all the fucking time. He’d grown up doing it-motoring around the trailer park in heaps of junked cars that he’d brought back to life with a touch, setting his momma’s boyfriend’s nuts on fire. The usual for a budding Muggleborn wizard in a southern state that didn’t have a lot of funding for regular Muggle schools, let alone magical ones. His mom hadn’t been able to afford his first two years of magical schooling, and by the time they’d saved up enough for books, Ray had gone most of his life without a wand.
It wasn’t a bad thing all the time. He mostly didn’t flip out and accidentally disintegrate shit, or summon a herd of turtles, or animate random bicycles or cars anymore. And having a good grip on wandless, instinctual magic turned out to help a lot with maintaining their comms, and their Humvee. Wands helped, sure, but Ray had never been a big fan of pulling out a wooden dick and jizzing invisible sparkles all over the fucking place.
Wands were good for giving you direct, predictable results, but who needed that shit? Except now his magic had apparently collided with a bunch of other magic in the epitome of ‘unpredictable,’ and Ray was rethinking his stance.
Bryan stared at him. “Something’s fucking with your speech patterns,” he concluded, clearly using all of his vast medical knowledge and training and technique to make this brilliant diagnosis.
“Madness is the gift that has been given to me,” Ray agreed, grumpily melodic, and rubbed a hand over his face. “You mother get up, come on, get down with the sickness.”
“The thing is, you don’t sound that much stranger than you usually do,” Bryan mused, and Ray contemplated taking another swing at him. He scowled and sang, “Never underestimate the importance of body language,” and shook his fist menacingly.
“Merlin,” Bryan said, but his mouth twitched, like he thought it was funny. Which it actually kind of was, but Ray’s body felt like a blown fuse and he had to talk to Brad, and now he couldn’t. All Ray fucking had were his words, except this time he didn’t even have them.
At least he had a pretty wide musical repertoire. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the side of the Humvee. Doc Bryan hovered over him, casting more diagnostic spells and muttering to himself.
“I think you’ll live. Whatever this is, it’s external. It’s changing your speech as it leaves your mouth, like a translations spell.” A highly bastardized one. “Your brain should be fine-as fine as your brain gets. It’ll should off in the next few days, if you take it easy. Which you should be doing anyway. You didn’t exactly get a splinter in your big toe, Person. The kind of healing you went through takes a toll on your body.”
“Hallelujah,” Ray said, rolling his eyes and then rubbing at his temples. Fine, so his head hurt a bit.
“Can I trust you to actually lay down this time?”
Ray shrugged. To be honest, he sort of thought lying down was unavoidable at this point. He could barely keep on his feet. He let Bryan lead him back into the cool dimness of the vehicle.
He collapsed down on the cot and put an arm over his eyes and hoped that he’d wake up in his grave, familiar wards around him and Brad snoring nearby. Once Brad had stayed in Ray’s grave after they’d both gotten off, fallen asleep drooling into Ray’s neck. That had been nice. Ray wouldn’t mind waking up to that again, if not to the alarm for incoming Curse Nets that had come shortly thereafter.
Instead, he woke to a door slamming open and Brad bursting in like an avenging Viking god. Better than being cursed, but otherwise, Ray was reserving judgment. Sunlight spilled in with him, and Ray winced, looking away. He heard Brad come a few steps closer, then halt abruptly.
Ray blinked, turning to look at him. Brad looked like shit, drawn and exhausted, but his face was stony and his arms were crossed over his chest. He wasn’t saying anything, just looking Ray up and down, cool and assessing.
Ray wanted to ask what was going on-what the team was doing now, why Brad had a fucking AK-47 in one hand, which was horrifying on several levels.
And why he had that look on his face. Why he was looking at Ray like a stranger.
Because Ray’s life sucked, instead he asked, “Why’d you come in here looking like that?”
He knew Brad recognized the lyrics, because Ray had dragged him to Dollywood for his fifteenth birthday. Brad had been appalled. But in the good way-Brad liked being appalled sometimes. Sure, he said he hated country music and that Ray was under no circumstances to sing it within his hearing or he’d remove Ray’s vocal cords without magic. But really, he just liked an excuse to yell at Ray, and who was Ray to deny him the opportunity to drawl out insults like unmetered poetry?
Brad stared at him, eyes narrowed. “You think that’s funny?” No insult, just ice. This had never happened before in the history of their friendship-or in their weird-ass, possibly-dating, now-apparently-over relationship.
Ray got that sex changed things, but he hadn’t thought it’d change them.
Ray shrugged. “Laugh, I nearly died.” Oops, probably too soon-not that it was Ray’s fucking fault, here, he was operating under a serious impediment. All he’d wanted to say was, ‘Not really.’
Brad looked like someone had punched him in the gut, so Ray quickly followed that with, “I told the witch doctor I was in love with you.”
Well, that was incredibly worse. Ray continued weakly, “Ooo ee, oo ah ah, ting tang, walla walla bing bang?” He wiggled his fingers towards his throat, then shrugged again. Doc Bryan got pissed, I got pissed, magic happened, now I sing. It was worse than a fucking translation spell going between OId English and Latin. But he figured Brad got it. Brad usually got him. It wasn’t like Ray didn’t communicate through song most of the time anyway. But he was just squinting at him now, brow furrowed.
“Bryan said he cursed you, but-”
Ray tried again.
“I speak to you like the chorus to the verse. I chop another line like a coda. With a curse,” Ray finished, getting to his feet and staggering a couple steps before having to clutch at the nearest table, woozy and nauseous.
Brad took a step towards him, hand out, and then visibly shook himself, drawing it back. Ray’s chest had hurt last night; now it just felt like there was something missing. Like Bryan had forgot to put something important back in.
“I should have hit Bryan harder,” Brad concluded, and Ray’s jaw dropped open. Was Brad crazy? “But you’re not dying, you’re just singing more than usual?” Ray didn’t answer, afraid of what would come out of his mouth this time. Brad said, “Fine,” then nodded curtly and turned towards the door. “Report back when you’re fit for duty.”
No, Ray thought, and shook his head. “Girl, don’t you know you can’t escape me. Ooh, darling, you’ll always be my baby,” he said threateningly, and then paused for a moment to thump his head on the tabletop. His best friend-cum-what-the-fuck-ever was breaking up with him and Ray could only communicate his extreme displeasure via Mariah Carey. Still. Lady had a point he could use. “No way you’re ever gonna shake me,” he reiterated, glaring, and Brad rolled his eyes reluctantly, like he couldn’t help himself.
“Yeah, it’s cute that you think so,” he said witheringly, which what the fuck ever, Ray could fucking cast tracking spells and do evasive maneuvers with the best of them, even if Brad had taught him most of that shit. But now Brad had his hand on the doorknob and was leaving.
“What is wrong, goddammit?” came out as an extremely vehement rendition of “Express Yourself,” which actually probably gave Ray an edge, since Brad totally had a thing for Madonna.
“Just-let it go, Ray,” Brad gritted out. “It’s-we should never have started this. It was stupid.”
Ray sucked in a breath and fought to keep his face straight. “You make me come,” he said, which, great, that was definitely what he’d wanted to say right then. Awesome. Thanks, magic. “You make me complete, you make me completely miserable,” he finished unwillingly, because he didn’t want to say any of it. Why couldn’t Bryan have just hit him with a fucking Silencio? Communicating via semaphore would be better than this bullshit.
“I get that you like thinking with your dick, Corporal,” Brad was saying, cutting and cold. “But suck it the fuck up. Your right hand still works.”
Wait. Wait. Wait. Ray squinted at Brad’s face, took in the lines of his mouth and the way his eyes darted to the side, the stiff way he was holding himself, and something clicked into place, and now Ray was pissed.
“Sex is not the enemy!” Ray hissed, and he didn’t even care that he sounded a lot like fucking Captain America with his ‘the enemy is the enemy” bullshit, because, what the fuck, Brad had thought it took blowjobs to make Ray willing to take a bullet for him? Ray thought he probably could spit bullets right now. “You’re my best friend.”
“You weren’t thinking clearly,” Brad snarled back. “Clearly the sex is an issue. I should have known better than to think you were actually a goddamned adult.”
Okay, Ray had a finely-honed appreciation for bullshit, but this was fucking ridiculous. Like Brad hadn’t taken a curse from him just last fucking month. If sex was fucking with anyone’s head here, it wasn’t Ray’s.
Ray concentrated really, really, really hard, focusing the raw, ragged feeling of his magic to wriggle a hole in the web of the spell surrounding him. He could beat this shit. He managed to croon out, “Oh, ohh, you think you’re special?” Brad’s eyes locked onto his, and one of his eyebrows twitched, very slightly. “You think you’re something else?”
What the fuck, Brad’s eyebrows communicated with startling clarity.
Ray shrugged, glad of the pause this time. “Okay, so you got a dick.” He brushed an invisible speck off his shoulder, savoring the anticipation of the next line. “That don’t impress me much.”
Ray might as well have hit Brad with a brick. Brad stared at him. “You liked it just fucking fine last week!” he protested, for a moment looking like a very attractive, very blond, very offended frog. Like Ray’s friend from school, instead of a pissed off commanding officer.
“Lick you like a lollipop should be licked,” Ray agreed--dammit, he hadn’t meant to say that. Brad’s eyes got dark and focused and hot, like maybe he was turned on a little despite the anger still evident on his face.
And, okay, so last week, Ray’d finally gotten to blow his best friend, after years of dancing around it. And Brad had been totally fucking hung and Ray had moaned for it like a slut and gone to town. If Brad wasn’t being a total irrational motherhen, Ray’d totally go to his knees again right now. But that wasn’t the point, dammit.
Brad scowled at him and said, “See, Ray, this is exactly my fucking point. You can’t focus. You’re distracting. This isn’t-it’s dangerous.”
Ray had no idea how long this song bullshit was going to last, and Brad was clearly fucked up in the head and needed his Ray to unfuck the situation.
If he’d had his fucking tongue back, he’d have hit Brad with a fucking grandiloquent soliloquy on the Sacred Bands of Thebes and Carthage, composed totally of homosexual lovebirds, and Harmodius and Aristogeiton, and how even fucking Plato thought love made you stronger, not vice versa.
Sadly, that shit didn’t scan. Ray was a marine; he’d make do with Pink Floyd and Jay-Z for now. His lecture on the extreme gayness of the Greeks was getting temporarily shelved for when he could make Trombley listen to it, too.
“The dogs of war,” Ray said darkly, gesturing between the two of them. “Dealing in death is the nature of the beast.” Then, “Whoopee, we’re all gonna die.” Remember, Brad? Remember, you sang that with me, what the fuck did you think it meant?
“I’d prefer it if you didn’t die because of me,” Brad gritted out, and looked away from him, and Jesus fucking Christ, once this was all over and Brad had admitted Ray’s brilliance and rightness and begged him for forgiveness on his knees, Ray was going to make so much fun of his squishy inner marshmallow core. For now, he just marshaled all his strength and staggered across the interior of the medevac and attempted to jab Brad in the chest and wound up collapsing against it instead.
Which would have totally detracted from his argument, except then Brad held him up, arms warm and strong and familiar. He smelled like sweat and blood and, for the first time, cordite. Gunsmoke. While Ray’d been in here getting the Doc pissed enough to jizz magical sing-along spells all over him, Brad had been outside, learning about guns. Ray should have known.
“I’d do a bid, loose a rib, bust a cap, trustin’ that run up to heaven doors, exchange my life for yours.” Ray managed to slap a hand over Brad’s mouth before he could respond. “I’d do anything--” Falsetto now, batting his lashes and eyes wide, he asked, “‘Anything?’” Brad snorted beneath his palm, and Ray dropped back to his normal register. “Yes, anything for you.”
“Ray,” Brad said, and he looked some combination of pained and furious and terrified. “You know I don’t-I don’t want you to fucking do that. I should have seen that sniper myself. I have to focus. I have to-we weren’t briefed on these Muggle Death Eater units properly, I have to learn. I will. I will.”
Not without me. “Can I kick it (yes I can),” Ray said, and Brad blinked. “If you get the urge to freak do the jitter bug. Come and spread your arms if you really need a hug.”
“If the jitterbug is some freaky Kama Sutra shit, no. And I don’t need a hug,” Brad said as he hugged the crap out of Ray. That was Ray’s repressed death-dealing soldier soulmate. Ray had been operating in crisis mode, but now he relaxed. Brad still wanted him. Somehow, somehow, he did, and Ray wasn’t letting go.
“Baby. Don’t fear the reaper,” he said, too seriously, so he made a cow sound, because, well, more cowbell. It made Brad laugh wetly and press his forehead to Ray’s.
“Just-don’t do it again. Please.”
“Sugarpie, honeybun,” Ray said, shaking his head. “I can’t help myself.” He couldn’t promise Brad that, because he would do it again. Ray didn’t have any regrets, except maybe for getting up in Doc Bryan’s grill. “Life is too short, so love the one you got. You might get run over or you might get shot.”
Brad did that thing where he swore to himself beneath his breath for a few minutes, then he said, slow and heavy, “Okay. Okay.” His head was hanging down and Ray could barely hear him. “I just-it was hard watching it happen. I didn’t… I knew it could happen, but I didn’t know what it’d be like.”
“However long I stay, I will always love you,” Ray said, throat tight, and then had to look away too, because, okay, they’d only been boning for, like, a week. It was one thing to say it with a stupid song about the witch doctor, which Brad could totally ignore if he wanted to. It was another to say it with The Cure.
“Me too. I mean. I’d-for you too. You know that.”
Ray rolled his eyes, but his face went hot, because, well. He’d hoped, but maybe the time Brad’d jumped in front of a Death Eater’s wand for him had been a fluke. Which, by the way, once he had his fucking actual voice back, he was going to have an actual discussion about heroic double-standards and all this bullshit.
“And for the record,” Brad said lightly, cheeks a little pink himself, which Ray thought was awesome, “You’re getting a pass on the pet names for now. But only for now.”
“Shorty, you’re my angel, you’re my darling, angel.” Ray smirked and pinched Brad’s cheek, and then laughed out loud when Brad glared and caught his wrist. Ray grinned up at him, and Brad’s face softened.
“Who the fuck are you calling short, midget?” And then he picked Ray up-which was almost as hot as it was insulting-and carried him back to the stretcher, setting him down and raising a smug eyebrow. Whatever, like it was Ray’s fault that he hadn’t gotten Valkyrie genes.
“Okay. We’ll-we’ll work on this together. Later. Just, sleep for now.” He hesitated, then leaned down and pressed a kiss to Ray’s mouth, closed and sweet, like he’d just flown Ray home after a school dance. Ray surged up and got a hand around the back of Brad’s head, ignoring the dizziness, curled his fingers in his short, dirty hair, and kissed back. Brad didn’t take much convincing to deepen it, pushing Ray down into the cushions and making small, desperate noises and running his hands up and down Ray’s back, over the torn, mended skin.
Then he pulled himself away, shaking his head. “You’re still hurt. You need to rest.”
I feel fine, Ray wanted to protest, but he was so fucking tired, and his magic still felt grated and raw, like his insides had been attacked by sandpaper-wielding gnomes. So maybe Brad was right about that much. Fine, fine. They could have life-affirming hotass monkey sex later, when Ray felt less like the undead. But he still wanted Brad there with him when he fell asleep.
“Yo, I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want,” Ray said hopefully, holding on to Brad and refusing to let him up.
Brad sighed, and then chanted back in a monotone voice, “So tell me what you want, what you really, really want.”
“Voulez vous couchez avec moi ce soir?” Ray added in a tiny leer, but mostly he was just fighting a yawn.
“You need to fucking rest,” Brad said, looking exasperated and fond. Ray nodded, because, yeah, exactly, how was he supposed to be able to rest without Brad there? He patted the bed next to him, scooting over, pressing himself against the wall and making space.
Brad said, “Oh.” He hesitated for a moment, and there was an expression on his face that reminded Ray of being hit, of bleeding out as he fell through the sky. And then he was climbing next to Ray, pulling him in close and wrapping his arms and legs around him until it felt like every inch of them was touching.
“Goodnight, Ray,” he said into Ray’s neck, muffled and shaky.
“Sleep well, you giant drama queen,” Ray said, and it came out soft and sweet instead, quiet verses: “Someday we'll all be gone, but lullabies go on and on.” Brad breathed out against Ray’s neck and Brad could feel him smiling. “They’ll never die, that’s how you and I will be.”
“You’re a fucking sap,” Brad said, and kissed his pulse. “Sleep, baby. We’ll fight more tomorrow.”
Worked for Ray.