Fic: Heartbeats - 4/4
Heartbeats - 4/4
Characters - Ray/Neela
Word Count - 3745 (this part)
Summary - She wishes they could just get this bollocks out of the way, get back on equal terms, like it used to be, without this absurd side-stepping around each other’s emotional baggage.
Author’s Note - So, I know I’m a little late jumping on this bandwagon, but I haven’t written fanfiction in AGES and it’s taken me a while to work up the courage to post! Years ago, I was compelled by X-Files, Doctor Who and Harry Potter, but, having sat working my way through ER DVD boxsets, I’ve felt compelled again. I got my lovely friend Lissa to check my American ‘voice’ so hopefully my Ray is okay and you can’t tell too much that I’m British!
The title is inspired by the song Heartbeats, and specifically the version by Jose Gonzalez.
Rating - M, for language and… other stuff. ;)
Part Four - Ten days of perfect tunes…
A week flies by and it all becomes improbably normal. They wake up together, go to bed together, spend the nights getting to know each other in a whole new exciting way. Their first weekend, they barely leave the house, the entire time taken up with a gangster movie marathon, punctuated with junk food and really great sex.
Half way through Goodfellas, he tells her he’s missed her.
“I missed you too,” she returns, and nestles closer into his chest. “All the time, actually.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
It’s bliss, Ray thinks. He still keeps looking at her in wonder, like he seriously can’t quite believe that she’s here, or that they are doing this together. Sometimes she catches him doing it. He remembers dating a girl in college who seemed to spend all her time staring at him, like he was some kind of glorious oil painting, and he ended up dumping her ‘cause it just got too damn weird. He hopes he doesn’t put Neela off in the same way.
On Monday, she starts her new job and he takes her up, kissing her goodbye in the hall and loving the little thrill it gives him to be doing it in public. Some juvenile part of him wishes they were back at County so that then they could be the talk of the hospital by lunch.
Back on the wards, he’s got rounds, then the Injured Vets clinic until two and then he’s off. They’ve not really talked out the living arrangements, but he thinks he should probably drive into town and pick up some magazines with places for rent for her. He doesn’t want to; he’d rather she stayed where she was; but he figures that it’s best not to push her into deciding one way or another. He’ll present her with both options and then let her choose in her own time. These days, Ray’s not into upsetting apple carts.
***
She’s eager to get started once he leaves her. For one thing, it’ll stop her thinking about what’s been driving her slowly mad for a few days now. The last week has been strange for a whole bunch of reasons, but the not working thing has been right up there at the top of the list. Back at County she rarely took time off. No work always meant spare time. And spare time always meant time to think about stuff that she’d really rather not think about. Nothing much has changed, if she’s honest. Even the stuff she’d rather not think about is the same.
At first she’d thought she might avoid the frustrating transitional period between jobs. Paul wanted her to start as soon as possible - they’d been short a surgical attending for months - but the hospital had to process her information, sort out her privileges and get all the boring but necessary things like name badges and passwords organised. And apparently, the slower pace of life in Baton Rouge also applied to Le Chatlier’s administration; it was going to take several days, she was told, in no uncertain terms.
So she hung around Ray’s apartment for three days while he went to work. For the first day, it was good - she slept in his bed, read his magazines, went out to buy beer and food and then overcooked some steaks for them on his grill. Over dinner, he remarked on how quickly she’d settled in, mocking her about how she’d managed to drive down town by herself without getting lost. Neela had flushed at his comment and actually felt childishly proud of her achievement.
Sometime around Thursday, though, it occurred to her that she should probably start looking for a place of her own. He’d not mentioned anything - seemed quite happy with her presence in his apartment, to be honest - but she got the feeling that perhaps she ought to at least be looking. She didn’t want to put their fledgling relationship under strain by overstaying her welcome.
But then the weekend arrived with a drunken mix of old movies and the kind of debauchery she hadn’t indulged in since Yale and she conveniently forgot to talk about it with him.
Not that she particularly wants to, of course. She’s enjoyed living with him again this last week more than she imagined she would and suddenly the idea of coming back to an apartment without him in it feels a bit like a needle-stick in her heart.
Her mind is shaken from her thoughts as she lets herself into her office and Paul comes towards her along the hall, greeting her cheerfully. “Hi there, how are you? Ready to go, I hope - there’s an entire board waiting for you!”
Neela grins. No point in thinking about it now, she realises - there’s way too much to do.
***
After work, Ray heads into town for copies of For Rent Magazine and Apartment Guide, then gets distracted with the latest issue of Rolling Stone, and picks that up at the same time.
On the way home he stops at Matherne’s and decides to sweeten the situation with some of her favourite stilton cheese and crackers, a couple of bottles of Belgian beer and a bunch of brightly coloured tulips. As he stands in line at the checkout, he’s realises that he’s never actually bought a girl flowers before - other than his mom, of course - but for some reason, Neela makes him want to.
A vase, however, is something he doesn’t possess, so at home he stuffs the flowers in a beer glass and puts them on the coffee table, flicks on the stereo and searches through his ipod for something to chill out with.
He goes to sleep on the couch listening to Damien Rice and barely hears when she walks in, a little after seven, looking exhausted. She drops her bag beside his wheelchair and, with a sigh, collapses like an upturned turtle in the armchair. “Hey,” he greets. “How was your first day?”
She grunts at him in response, eyes shut tight closed.
“Oh, okay, it’s like that is it?” He grins. “Want a beer?”
She grunts again.
Ray laughs and gets up, goes to the refrigerator then pushes the cold bottle into her hand. She smiles, her eyes still closed, and murmurs, “Thanks, Ray.”
He takes in her delicate, rounded face, the way she’s clearly pushed her hands through her hair on the way home and bits of it are sticking up at weird angles. She’s fucking gorgeous, he thinks. Even though he knows she’s absolutely beat, he can’t help the surge of desire that sweeps over him. He lowers himself onto the coffee table, between her open knees, takes the bottle from her and tugs her body towards him.
Neela’s eyes shoot open. “Ray…” she starts, but then stops as he unties the bow on her scrub pants and begins to ease them down over her hips.
“Shhh,” he says. “Just close your eyes again.”
She blinks at him a couple of times then closes them.
Acquiescence. An invitation.
Ray lets her scrub pants pool on the floor at her feet. His hands rub along her thighs a minute, feeling the muscles tense and relax beneath the skin, kneading them softly once or twice.
She’s wearing white panties. They have a Batman-like ‘pow’ doodle on the front of them that Ray quirks a grin at before his fingers skirt along the edge to hook and pull them down to join the scrubs.
His hands go to her hipbones, then under her butt and he lifts her up a touch, towards him.
Neela’s back arches gently in anticipation.
Ray isn’t sure he’s seen anything quite so beautiful.
He leans forward and breathes over her, his stomach clenching and unclenching.
When his mouth touches her for the first time, she bucks upwards and he has to hold her still. It thrills him as she tenses and grasps onto his forearms. The first time they did this, Ray realised that he’d been kind of missing the point in his life before - the kick of watching her, of knowing that it was he who was doing this to her, that was the point.
It doesn’t take her long to come and when she does, he rides it out with her, keeping his mouth on her until the last shudder subsides. He looks up and his eyes flash at her; she looks punch-drunk on the moment. “Hey,” he says. “Feel better?”
“Mm-hm…” She lets out a long sigh.
For years, doing this to a girl meant sex was a sure thing and he’s not ashamed to admit that it was sometimes a thing he used to get exactly what he wanted. With Neela, though, that suddenly seems unimportant. He wants to hold her, feel her body next to his, so he takes her hands and gets up, pulling her to standing. But instead she resists, simply sits up and places her hands on his hips.
Their eyes meet. Then her fingers begin to work deliberately on his belt. “Neela, it’s…” he begins, but she cuts him off with a frown.
Oh, sweet Jesus.
Ten seconds later and she’s got him in her mouth and all rational thought leaves him. He’s ridiculously hard for her and it takes every ounce of effort not to… move… His eyes close against the explosion of sensation.
His heart feels like it’s playing out the bassline to Tame. Dun, dun, dun…
In between the white noise, something primal shouts and demands noisily to be satisfied.
He wants to be inside her.
With slow, deliberately steady fingers, he pushes her head up, then lifts her to her feet. His weight carries them backwards, across to the bedroom and onto the bed, pushing down, his mouth kissing her hard, over her face and eyes and skin and hair.
He wants to brand her with his mouth. Their kisses are burning him but he can’t stop himself; it’s an expression of something that feels like it’s been banking for an eternity. A flash fire.
Thought disappears and desperation sets in. Hands tug at her scrub top, ineffectual, fumbling, and a groan rips out from his lungs. He gives up on her bra. His t-shirt stays on and it takes him all his concentration to remove his jeans and the prosthetics.
The minute he’s free, she draws him towards her again, kissing him deep. He nips her earlobe and settles himself hurriedly over her. They are a tangle as she wraps her legs around him, drawing him into her. Ray thinks that he’d like to disappear inside her and never emerge.
A few quick movements and he’s there, an urgent little ‘guh’ slipping from his throat.
***
Afterwards, they lie together on the top of the bed. It’s getting dark outside and a chorus of crickets and bugs echo through the open window. Neela is hungry, but Ray doesn’t seem in any hurry to move. She’s curled up against his chest, her hands fisted over her heart; he’s breathing quietly.
He knows she’s not asleep.
He pulls gently on a strand of her hair, freeing it from behind her ear and stroking along its length. She tilts her head up and looks at him. “What happened there, hey?” she asks.
“I think we just had really awesome sex,” he grins.
Neela’s laugh rings out. “You know, I think you might be right,” she says.
She threads her hand under his arm and then runs it along the bow of his ribcage, coming to rest on his waist. There’s a tiny tattoo there - new, she thinks - of a pair of Japanese symbols. Her fingers trace the inked design. “What does it mean?”
“Transformation.” For a second, a look of intensity fills his eyes, then just as quickly disappears. “It was my Mom’s idea.” He pauses. “Or at least, that’s what it’s supposed to say. I like to think the guy wasn’t writing ‘For Sale’ or ‘Pervert’.”
She smiles and traces the design again, thinking of butterflies and caterpillars, how much he has changed and how much has stayed the same.
Suddenly, it becomes important to her that she see his legs. It seems a ridiculous concept and it’s not that she’s creeped out by them, except… she wants to see them, to see what he’s become. So far, he’s done a damn good job of hiding them from her, under sheets or duvets or just by not removing the prosthetics the entire day, even though she knows that’s no good for him.
She sits up quickly and he doesn’t have time to react. “Can I?” she asks, but she’s already looking.
There’s a brief moment of terror that passes across his face, like he thinks she’s just caught a glimpse of the lyrics inside the secret songbook she knows he guards with his life, then he seems to force himself to relax. Guilt prickles at her. He swallows.
“Okay…” His voice is a little tight, uncertain. He meets her eyes. She looks down.
The stumps are at slightly different levels, the left lower than the right. The scars are clean incisions, the flesh otherwise flawless and although the skin is a little pink and rubbed around where the prosthetic socks fit, everything looks fully healed and smooth. There’s even the patch of a skin graft on the right stump.
“So, are they what you were expecting?” he asks, quietly.
“I don’t know what I was expecting.” She reaches out and touches the right stump with light, tentative fingers. He shivers.
“That tickles.”
She withdraws her hand, but when she looks up, he’s smiling reassuringly. “I used to get a lot of phantom pain,” he explains. “And believe me, it’s the weirdest thing you can imagine. Now they just itch sometimes.”
Her hand touches again. It feels a bit like she’s touching his very core. Her fingertips burn with the contact.
“You’re amazing, Ray,” she whispers and cannot keep the reverence from her voice.
He laughs, “Yeah, well, I’ve been telling you that for years, but you never paid any attention.”
“It doesn’t count when you have to say so yourself, you know,” she teases.
Then a pause.
“It was the toughest thing, at first,” he continues, “It hurt all the time. And then just when I got fitted for the legs and started doing a bit of standing work on the bars, I had to stop ‘cause one of the incisions got badly infected. Probably started off from the road rash, they said. Ended up on IV antibiotics every day for about three months, then PO for another six. I only just stopped taking the damned things ‘bout a week before I came up at Halloween.” He stops and looks at her carefully. “But, Neela, you can’t be feeling sorry for me. I mean that.”
Neela meets his gaze warily. She hates the fact that he had to go through everything he did on his own, wishes she could have stopped it all from happening in the first place, knows damn well she had a chance to but failed to take it. She knows he doesn’t blame her, but that doesn’t stop it all feeling terribly unfair. He didn’t deserve what happened to him - he’s a good man.
She nods. She can feel tears stinging behind her eyes and fights to hold them back. He doesn’t want her pity. And her guilt… well, that’s just useless to them both. “I know you don’t want me to say it,” she says, “but I’ve got to… I’ve got to say it. I am so sorry, Ray. For everything.”
His hand reaches up and runs along her cheek. “I know… And I know you won’t believe me, but I understand. And I don’t blame you.”
She nods, takes his hand from her face and clasps it tight. If nothing else, she hopes she never has to think of him being alone again. He smiles softly at her. Their breath synchronises. His eyes fall to her lips and then he kisses her.
This time it’s slow and sweet and like he loves her.
***
For some strange reason, Ray wakes early the next morning, well before the alarm clock, and finds himself unable to go back to sleep, his mind playing chords and tunes. He used to wake up like this all the time when he was younger, full to the brim with music just desperate to spill forth. Since the accident, though, it’s happened less frequently, to the point where his guitar has often sat untouched in its case beside the wardrobe for months at a time.
It’s barely dawn and there’s a good two hours or so before they have to be up, so he slips away from her embrace, dons shorts and legs, grabs up the guitar and creeps out to the living room. He closes the door behind him as quietly as he can.
He finds a pencil and paper from the kitchen, then opens up the French windows. A rush of cool morning air greets him. He drags a couple of dining chairs out onto the terrace and sits, half naked as the sun begins to rise above the clouds.
After what happened last night, he feels a little bit like he’s been exorcised of something, something that was rattling around unacknowledged in his brain but that they were constantly bumping into. An elephant right in the middle of their relationship.
He begins to pluck quietly.
The lines come easily. Note after note, chord after chord, tumbling painlessly onto the page. It’s a gentle tune, lilting and simple, and he thinks she might like it. It cleanses his spirit.
So engrossed is he that he doesn’t even notice when she walks up behind him and whispers, “Ray, that’s beautiful.”
He turns sharply and looks at her, standing there barefoot and wearing his t-shirt once again. Her hair is wild and her dark, dark eyes sleepy and smiling. His mind recalls the rental magazines still pushed between the pages of Rolling Stone. The idea of not seeing her this way every morning makes him feel strange inside, like someone’s sucked out his innards and replaced them with packing material.
The sun is coating them both in milky, early morning light - he can feel its warmth on his bare thighs.
A smile haunts across his face, then he lifts through a flourished major scale. “I was awake and I needed to get it down on paper before it disappeared. Sorry I woke you - I was trying to be quiet.”
“I know.” She goes to him and he puts down the guitar and draws her into his lap. Her weight settles on him and they are silent.
She smells of herself and his bed.
He puts his nose to her hair and breathes in.
“Neela, there’s something I need to say,” he begins. He rests his chin lightly on her temple. “Yesterday I picked you up some rental magazines. You said you wanted to look for somewhere, but, I…”
He pauses and she twists slightly in his arms, freeing herself enough to look him in the eyes. Her eyebrows are doing that crinkling thing they do when he knows she’s trying hard to cover up her emotions.
Quickly, he continues, “I was thinking I don’t think I want you to go anywhere. I’d like you stay here. Move in with me.” He braces himself for a rejection.
Neela stares at him, her body very still. She stands up, moves a step away from him. “Do you mean that?”
Ray can hardly breathe. Flippantly, he replies, “Well, it’s not as if I don’t know what I’m getting myself into.” He pauses and studies her expression. What the hell, he thinks. He’s done it now; he might as well go the whole nine yards. He swallows and blurts out, “And the thing is, I think I might just be in love with you.”
He thinks of the last time he said those words to her, how he wanted her to understand how bitter he was, how much he’d invested and how much he’d lost. He’d wanted her to hurt like he was hurting.
She’s still staring at him. He wonders if she’s thinking the same. She hasn’t moved. Finally, she says, “You think?”
He nods.
“Oh…” She sounds disappointed and Ray instantly wishes he’d kept his goddamn mouth shut. Why does he have to go push it too far every time? “Well, that changes things, I guess,” she says a second later. “Because I was thinking that I was going to have to find somewhere to live too.” She looks back up at him. “But now you’ve said that, I think I might just have to stay here.”
Something sounds in Ray’s chest like an explosion. “Yeah?”
She grins. “Yeah.”
***
Two days later, she Skypes County from her laptop in her new office. It feels odd to see them on the screen as if she could reach out and touch them.
Part of her misses them. Part of her doesn’t.
It’s all going to take a bit of getting used to, she thinks.
Ray comes in with the last of the boxes of textbooks that have been cluttering up the floor of his spare bedroom since she arrived. He puts them down and asks her who she’s talking to, then comes over to show his face.
Part of her looks for signs of jealousy in Simon’s face, part of her feels sorry for him, and a smaller, joyful part of her smiles inside as Ray quietly and ever so subtly rests his arms on the back of her chair and rubs his knuckles along her bra band.
The conversation over, she spins her chair around and points her finger at him. “I think you were marking your territory just there.”
He shrugs his shoulders. “You think I’m that base?” he asks, his mouth quirking.
“Probably, yes,” she says.
She stands into his arms.
He takes her hands and interlaces their fingers, tilts his head on one side. One look at his face and Neela feels the fire flicker inside her. “Then you’d probably be right,” he admits. He’s unashamed. He leans forward and kisses her, delicate, quiet-like, and then stands back. “Are you really late for the OR?” he asks, grin growing. “Or was that just an excuse?”
She stands on tip-toes, kisses him again. “Probably just an excuse,” she murmurs against his lips.
The End.
Characters - Ray/Neela
Word Count - 3745 (this part)
Summary - She wishes they could just get this bollocks out of the way, get back on equal terms, like it used to be, without this absurd side-stepping around each other’s emotional baggage.
Author’s Note - So, I know I’m a little late jumping on this bandwagon, but I haven’t written fanfiction in AGES and it’s taken me a while to work up the courage to post! Years ago, I was compelled by X-Files, Doctor Who and Harry Potter, but, having sat working my way through ER DVD boxsets, I’ve felt compelled again. I got my lovely friend Lissa to check my American ‘voice’ so hopefully my Ray is okay and you can’t tell too much that I’m British!
The title is inspired by the song Heartbeats, and specifically the version by Jose Gonzalez.
Rating - M, for language and… other stuff. ;)
Part Four - Ten days of perfect tunes…
A week flies by and it all becomes improbably normal. They wake up together, go to bed together, spend the nights getting to know each other in a whole new exciting way. Their first weekend, they barely leave the house, the entire time taken up with a gangster movie marathon, punctuated with junk food and really great sex.
Half way through Goodfellas, he tells her he’s missed her.
“I missed you too,” she returns, and nestles closer into his chest. “All the time, actually.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
It’s bliss, Ray thinks. He still keeps looking at her in wonder, like he seriously can’t quite believe that she’s here, or that they are doing this together. Sometimes she catches him doing it. He remembers dating a girl in college who seemed to spend all her time staring at him, like he was some kind of glorious oil painting, and he ended up dumping her ‘cause it just got too damn weird. He hopes he doesn’t put Neela off in the same way.
On Monday, she starts her new job and he takes her up, kissing her goodbye in the hall and loving the little thrill it gives him to be doing it in public. Some juvenile part of him wishes they were back at County so that then they could be the talk of the hospital by lunch.
Back on the wards, he’s got rounds, then the Injured Vets clinic until two and then he’s off. They’ve not really talked out the living arrangements, but he thinks he should probably drive into town and pick up some magazines with places for rent for her. He doesn’t want to; he’d rather she stayed where she was; but he figures that it’s best not to push her into deciding one way or another. He’ll present her with both options and then let her choose in her own time. These days, Ray’s not into upsetting apple carts.
***
She’s eager to get started once he leaves her. For one thing, it’ll stop her thinking about what’s been driving her slowly mad for a few days now. The last week has been strange for a whole bunch of reasons, but the not working thing has been right up there at the top of the list. Back at County she rarely took time off. No work always meant spare time. And spare time always meant time to think about stuff that she’d really rather not think about. Nothing much has changed, if she’s honest. Even the stuff she’d rather not think about is the same.
At first she’d thought she might avoid the frustrating transitional period between jobs. Paul wanted her to start as soon as possible - they’d been short a surgical attending for months - but the hospital had to process her information, sort out her privileges and get all the boring but necessary things like name badges and passwords organised. And apparently, the slower pace of life in Baton Rouge also applied to Le Chatlier’s administration; it was going to take several days, she was told, in no uncertain terms.
So she hung around Ray’s apartment for three days while he went to work. For the first day, it was good - she slept in his bed, read his magazines, went out to buy beer and food and then overcooked some steaks for them on his grill. Over dinner, he remarked on how quickly she’d settled in, mocking her about how she’d managed to drive down town by herself without getting lost. Neela had flushed at his comment and actually felt childishly proud of her achievement.
Sometime around Thursday, though, it occurred to her that she should probably start looking for a place of her own. He’d not mentioned anything - seemed quite happy with her presence in his apartment, to be honest - but she got the feeling that perhaps she ought to at least be looking. She didn’t want to put their fledgling relationship under strain by overstaying her welcome.
But then the weekend arrived with a drunken mix of old movies and the kind of debauchery she hadn’t indulged in since Yale and she conveniently forgot to talk about it with him.
Not that she particularly wants to, of course. She’s enjoyed living with him again this last week more than she imagined she would and suddenly the idea of coming back to an apartment without him in it feels a bit like a needle-stick in her heart.
Her mind is shaken from her thoughts as she lets herself into her office and Paul comes towards her along the hall, greeting her cheerfully. “Hi there, how are you? Ready to go, I hope - there’s an entire board waiting for you!”
Neela grins. No point in thinking about it now, she realises - there’s way too much to do.
***
After work, Ray heads into town for copies of For Rent Magazine and Apartment Guide, then gets distracted with the latest issue of Rolling Stone, and picks that up at the same time.
On the way home he stops at Matherne’s and decides to sweeten the situation with some of her favourite stilton cheese and crackers, a couple of bottles of Belgian beer and a bunch of brightly coloured tulips. As he stands in line at the checkout, he’s realises that he’s never actually bought a girl flowers before - other than his mom, of course - but for some reason, Neela makes him want to.
A vase, however, is something he doesn’t possess, so at home he stuffs the flowers in a beer glass and puts them on the coffee table, flicks on the stereo and searches through his ipod for something to chill out with.
He goes to sleep on the couch listening to Damien Rice and barely hears when she walks in, a little after seven, looking exhausted. She drops her bag beside his wheelchair and, with a sigh, collapses like an upturned turtle in the armchair. “Hey,” he greets. “How was your first day?”
She grunts at him in response, eyes shut tight closed.
“Oh, okay, it’s like that is it?” He grins. “Want a beer?”
She grunts again.
Ray laughs and gets up, goes to the refrigerator then pushes the cold bottle into her hand. She smiles, her eyes still closed, and murmurs, “Thanks, Ray.”
He takes in her delicate, rounded face, the way she’s clearly pushed her hands through her hair on the way home and bits of it are sticking up at weird angles. She’s fucking gorgeous, he thinks. Even though he knows she’s absolutely beat, he can’t help the surge of desire that sweeps over him. He lowers himself onto the coffee table, between her open knees, takes the bottle from her and tugs her body towards him.
Neela’s eyes shoot open. “Ray…” she starts, but then stops as he unties the bow on her scrub pants and begins to ease them down over her hips.
“Shhh,” he says. “Just close your eyes again.”
She blinks at him a couple of times then closes them.
Acquiescence. An invitation.
Ray lets her scrub pants pool on the floor at her feet. His hands rub along her thighs a minute, feeling the muscles tense and relax beneath the skin, kneading them softly once or twice.
She’s wearing white panties. They have a Batman-like ‘pow’ doodle on the front of them that Ray quirks a grin at before his fingers skirt along the edge to hook and pull them down to join the scrubs.
His hands go to her hipbones, then under her butt and he lifts her up a touch, towards him.
Neela’s back arches gently in anticipation.
Ray isn’t sure he’s seen anything quite so beautiful.
He leans forward and breathes over her, his stomach clenching and unclenching.
When his mouth touches her for the first time, she bucks upwards and he has to hold her still. It thrills him as she tenses and grasps onto his forearms. The first time they did this, Ray realised that he’d been kind of missing the point in his life before - the kick of watching her, of knowing that it was he who was doing this to her, that was the point.
It doesn’t take her long to come and when she does, he rides it out with her, keeping his mouth on her until the last shudder subsides. He looks up and his eyes flash at her; she looks punch-drunk on the moment. “Hey,” he says. “Feel better?”
“Mm-hm…” She lets out a long sigh.
For years, doing this to a girl meant sex was a sure thing and he’s not ashamed to admit that it was sometimes a thing he used to get exactly what he wanted. With Neela, though, that suddenly seems unimportant. He wants to hold her, feel her body next to his, so he takes her hands and gets up, pulling her to standing. But instead she resists, simply sits up and places her hands on his hips.
Their eyes meet. Then her fingers begin to work deliberately on his belt. “Neela, it’s…” he begins, but she cuts him off with a frown.
Oh, sweet Jesus.
Ten seconds later and she’s got him in her mouth and all rational thought leaves him. He’s ridiculously hard for her and it takes every ounce of effort not to… move… His eyes close against the explosion of sensation.
His heart feels like it’s playing out the bassline to Tame. Dun, dun, dun…
In between the white noise, something primal shouts and demands noisily to be satisfied.
He wants to be inside her.
With slow, deliberately steady fingers, he pushes her head up, then lifts her to her feet. His weight carries them backwards, across to the bedroom and onto the bed, pushing down, his mouth kissing her hard, over her face and eyes and skin and hair.
He wants to brand her with his mouth. Their kisses are burning him but he can’t stop himself; it’s an expression of something that feels like it’s been banking for an eternity. A flash fire.
Thought disappears and desperation sets in. Hands tug at her scrub top, ineffectual, fumbling, and a groan rips out from his lungs. He gives up on her bra. His t-shirt stays on and it takes him all his concentration to remove his jeans and the prosthetics.
The minute he’s free, she draws him towards her again, kissing him deep. He nips her earlobe and settles himself hurriedly over her. They are a tangle as she wraps her legs around him, drawing him into her. Ray thinks that he’d like to disappear inside her and never emerge.
A few quick movements and he’s there, an urgent little ‘guh’ slipping from his throat.
***
Afterwards, they lie together on the top of the bed. It’s getting dark outside and a chorus of crickets and bugs echo through the open window. Neela is hungry, but Ray doesn’t seem in any hurry to move. She’s curled up against his chest, her hands fisted over her heart; he’s breathing quietly.
He knows she’s not asleep.
He pulls gently on a strand of her hair, freeing it from behind her ear and stroking along its length. She tilts her head up and looks at him. “What happened there, hey?” she asks.
“I think we just had really awesome sex,” he grins.
Neela’s laugh rings out. “You know, I think you might be right,” she says.
She threads her hand under his arm and then runs it along the bow of his ribcage, coming to rest on his waist. There’s a tiny tattoo there - new, she thinks - of a pair of Japanese symbols. Her fingers trace the inked design. “What does it mean?”
“Transformation.” For a second, a look of intensity fills his eyes, then just as quickly disappears. “It was my Mom’s idea.” He pauses. “Or at least, that’s what it’s supposed to say. I like to think the guy wasn’t writing ‘For Sale’ or ‘Pervert’.”
She smiles and traces the design again, thinking of butterflies and caterpillars, how much he has changed and how much has stayed the same.
Suddenly, it becomes important to her that she see his legs. It seems a ridiculous concept and it’s not that she’s creeped out by them, except… she wants to see them, to see what he’s become. So far, he’s done a damn good job of hiding them from her, under sheets or duvets or just by not removing the prosthetics the entire day, even though she knows that’s no good for him.
She sits up quickly and he doesn’t have time to react. “Can I?” she asks, but she’s already looking.
There’s a brief moment of terror that passes across his face, like he thinks she’s just caught a glimpse of the lyrics inside the secret songbook she knows he guards with his life, then he seems to force himself to relax. Guilt prickles at her. He swallows.
“Okay…” His voice is a little tight, uncertain. He meets her eyes. She looks down.
The stumps are at slightly different levels, the left lower than the right. The scars are clean incisions, the flesh otherwise flawless and although the skin is a little pink and rubbed around where the prosthetic socks fit, everything looks fully healed and smooth. There’s even the patch of a skin graft on the right stump.
“So, are they what you were expecting?” he asks, quietly.
“I don’t know what I was expecting.” She reaches out and touches the right stump with light, tentative fingers. He shivers.
“That tickles.”
She withdraws her hand, but when she looks up, he’s smiling reassuringly. “I used to get a lot of phantom pain,” he explains. “And believe me, it’s the weirdest thing you can imagine. Now they just itch sometimes.”
Her hand touches again. It feels a bit like she’s touching his very core. Her fingertips burn with the contact.
“You’re amazing, Ray,” she whispers and cannot keep the reverence from her voice.
He laughs, “Yeah, well, I’ve been telling you that for years, but you never paid any attention.”
“It doesn’t count when you have to say so yourself, you know,” she teases.
Then a pause.
“It was the toughest thing, at first,” he continues, “It hurt all the time. And then just when I got fitted for the legs and started doing a bit of standing work on the bars, I had to stop ‘cause one of the incisions got badly infected. Probably started off from the road rash, they said. Ended up on IV antibiotics every day for about three months, then PO for another six. I only just stopped taking the damned things ‘bout a week before I came up at Halloween.” He stops and looks at her carefully. “But, Neela, you can’t be feeling sorry for me. I mean that.”
Neela meets his gaze warily. She hates the fact that he had to go through everything he did on his own, wishes she could have stopped it all from happening in the first place, knows damn well she had a chance to but failed to take it. She knows he doesn’t blame her, but that doesn’t stop it all feeling terribly unfair. He didn’t deserve what happened to him - he’s a good man.
She nods. She can feel tears stinging behind her eyes and fights to hold them back. He doesn’t want her pity. And her guilt… well, that’s just useless to them both. “I know you don’t want me to say it,” she says, “but I’ve got to… I’ve got to say it. I am so sorry, Ray. For everything.”
His hand reaches up and runs along her cheek. “I know… And I know you won’t believe me, but I understand. And I don’t blame you.”
She nods, takes his hand from her face and clasps it tight. If nothing else, she hopes she never has to think of him being alone again. He smiles softly at her. Their breath synchronises. His eyes fall to her lips and then he kisses her.
This time it’s slow and sweet and like he loves her.
***
For some strange reason, Ray wakes early the next morning, well before the alarm clock, and finds himself unable to go back to sleep, his mind playing chords and tunes. He used to wake up like this all the time when he was younger, full to the brim with music just desperate to spill forth. Since the accident, though, it’s happened less frequently, to the point where his guitar has often sat untouched in its case beside the wardrobe for months at a time.
It’s barely dawn and there’s a good two hours or so before they have to be up, so he slips away from her embrace, dons shorts and legs, grabs up the guitar and creeps out to the living room. He closes the door behind him as quietly as he can.
He finds a pencil and paper from the kitchen, then opens up the French windows. A rush of cool morning air greets him. He drags a couple of dining chairs out onto the terrace and sits, half naked as the sun begins to rise above the clouds.
After what happened last night, he feels a little bit like he’s been exorcised of something, something that was rattling around unacknowledged in his brain but that they were constantly bumping into. An elephant right in the middle of their relationship.
He begins to pluck quietly.
The lines come easily. Note after note, chord after chord, tumbling painlessly onto the page. It’s a gentle tune, lilting and simple, and he thinks she might like it. It cleanses his spirit.
So engrossed is he that he doesn’t even notice when she walks up behind him and whispers, “Ray, that’s beautiful.”
He turns sharply and looks at her, standing there barefoot and wearing his t-shirt once again. Her hair is wild and her dark, dark eyes sleepy and smiling. His mind recalls the rental magazines still pushed between the pages of Rolling Stone. The idea of not seeing her this way every morning makes him feel strange inside, like someone’s sucked out his innards and replaced them with packing material.
The sun is coating them both in milky, early morning light - he can feel its warmth on his bare thighs.
A smile haunts across his face, then he lifts through a flourished major scale. “I was awake and I needed to get it down on paper before it disappeared. Sorry I woke you - I was trying to be quiet.”
“I know.” She goes to him and he puts down the guitar and draws her into his lap. Her weight settles on him and they are silent.
She smells of herself and his bed.
He puts his nose to her hair and breathes in.
“Neela, there’s something I need to say,” he begins. He rests his chin lightly on her temple. “Yesterday I picked you up some rental magazines. You said you wanted to look for somewhere, but, I…”
He pauses and she twists slightly in his arms, freeing herself enough to look him in the eyes. Her eyebrows are doing that crinkling thing they do when he knows she’s trying hard to cover up her emotions.
Quickly, he continues, “I was thinking I don’t think I want you to go anywhere. I’d like you stay here. Move in with me.” He braces himself for a rejection.
Neela stares at him, her body very still. She stands up, moves a step away from him. “Do you mean that?”
Ray can hardly breathe. Flippantly, he replies, “Well, it’s not as if I don’t know what I’m getting myself into.” He pauses and studies her expression. What the hell, he thinks. He’s done it now; he might as well go the whole nine yards. He swallows and blurts out, “And the thing is, I think I might just be in love with you.”
He thinks of the last time he said those words to her, how he wanted her to understand how bitter he was, how much he’d invested and how much he’d lost. He’d wanted her to hurt like he was hurting.
She’s still staring at him. He wonders if she’s thinking the same. She hasn’t moved. Finally, she says, “You think?”
He nods.
“Oh…” She sounds disappointed and Ray instantly wishes he’d kept his goddamn mouth shut. Why does he have to go push it too far every time? “Well, that changes things, I guess,” she says a second later. “Because I was thinking that I was going to have to find somewhere to live too.” She looks back up at him. “But now you’ve said that, I think I might just have to stay here.”
Something sounds in Ray’s chest like an explosion. “Yeah?”
She grins. “Yeah.”
***
Two days later, she Skypes County from her laptop in her new office. It feels odd to see them on the screen as if she could reach out and touch them.
Part of her misses them. Part of her doesn’t.
It’s all going to take a bit of getting used to, she thinks.
Ray comes in with the last of the boxes of textbooks that have been cluttering up the floor of his spare bedroom since she arrived. He puts them down and asks her who she’s talking to, then comes over to show his face.
Part of her looks for signs of jealousy in Simon’s face, part of her feels sorry for him, and a smaller, joyful part of her smiles inside as Ray quietly and ever so subtly rests his arms on the back of her chair and rubs his knuckles along her bra band.
The conversation over, she spins her chair around and points her finger at him. “I think you were marking your territory just there.”
He shrugs his shoulders. “You think I’m that base?” he asks, his mouth quirking.
“Probably, yes,” she says.
She stands into his arms.
He takes her hands and interlaces their fingers, tilts his head on one side. One look at his face and Neela feels the fire flicker inside her. “Then you’d probably be right,” he admits. He’s unashamed. He leans forward and kisses her, delicate, quiet-like, and then stands back. “Are you really late for the OR?” he asks, grin growing. “Or was that just an excuse?”
She stands on tip-toes, kisses him again. “Probably just an excuse,” she murmurs against his lips.
The End.