Last night's episode? OH MY GOD.
Title: Irrationality
Fandom: ER
Pairing: Ray Barnett/Tony Gates
Challenge/Prompt: 30randomkisses, 008. Coffee
Rating: PG-15 (mild violence)
Genre: Slash
Summary: “When are you gonna stop flirting with me and actually follow through?”
Author’s Notes: Not one of my better works because I’ve never written for ER before, but I would have hated myself if I hadn’t written this. I promised myself I’d never write ER slash, but these guys are teh guh. So damn hot. Set a lot earlier in season 13.
Nought point nought three.
“So,” Gates begins, leaning against his locker and watching Ray make himself a mug of coffee during the briefest of breaks, “When are you gonna stop flirting with me and actually follow through?”
Ray keeps stirring his coffee and grits his teeth so that he can’t betray his shock. Gates plays very twisted headgames and Ray is damned if he’s going to join in.
“Where did you get the idea that I’m flirting with you from?” he asks carefully.
“Ah,” Gates smirks, “You know, all the patronising, glaring at me, insulting me-”
“I’m angry with you for the way you’re treating Neela!” Ray points out.
“This has gone beyond you just being angry with me about Neela,” Gates tells him firmly. “Believe me, the signals I’m getting from you-”
“There are no signals!” Ray almost shouts, shooting an anxious look towards the door and the painfully busy ER beyond it. “I’ve got a girlfriend, for God’s sake.”
“You’re fucking a med student because she’s there,” Gates corrects him, “And the only one who doesn’t seem to know that Katy doesn’t mean a thing is Katy.”
“Shut up,” Ray warns him. He’s not having a great day and Gates has been winding him up for months. Right now, he’s in the mood to kick Gates to pieces and leave him bleeding on the floor. So all the guy has to say is one more word…
Gates, though, has clearly lost interest in speaking because he’s grinning dangerously and standing too close to Ray. Ray feels his right hand curl into a fist and any second now he’s going to land a hit on that stubbled jaw and the floodgates will be opened.
It’s almost a relief when Sam pushes the door open to tell Ray that his patient in curtain two is seizing.
Nought point one four.
Gates is walking out at the end of a shift with Neela. Ray watches, eyes narrowed, wondering if watching this counts as stalking. Gates sees him, and a nasty little grin curls the edges of his mouth. The hand he has resting on Neela’s back slides lower. Neela turns, shocked, murmuring “Tony!”, but then Gates whispers something to her and she laughs instead.
Ray grits his teeth together. If Gates wants a fight then God, he can have one.
Nought point two seven.
“I’ve paged surgery,” Sam says quickly. The room is full of too many people and the patient is crashing and their gloves are red with blood.
“Well, they’d better hurry,” Ray mumbles, “This guy won’t last that long.”
The wailing of machines surrounds them and the patient is bleeding out of his side. Gates sighs, and slides his fingers into the wound, clearly searching for the source of the bleed.
“I can’t find it,” he mutters, teeth clenched. Ray knows that they’re running out of time so he slides his fingers between Gates’, searching for the leak. Gates moves his fingers slightly against Ray’s.
“If you say one word about ‘signals’ I will break your hand,” Ray warns him in an undertone, finding the bleed and pinching, reaching for gauze to try and pack into the wound while they wait for surgery.
“You seem a bit fixated with this ‘signals’ thing,” Gates murmurs, as Neela hurries in.
Ray turns to glare at him and Gates grins in a self-satisfied way, clearly telling Ray that somewhere along the line he’s won something Ray didn’t mean to give away.
Nought point three two.
“Don’t do this to Neela,” Ray tells him when it’s raining so hard outside that the ER is awash with soggy patients. Gates is gulping down a coffee, hair plastered to his skull, from where he had to go and collect a trauma from the ambulance. “She deserves more than this.”
“She deserves you, you mean,” Gates smirks, running a hand back through his damp hair.
“Don’t fuck her around,” Ray warns him.
“Whether she gets fucked over or not all depends on you,” Gates tells Ray calmly, shooting him his best flirtatious smile.
“You’re out of your mind,” Ray snarls, and walks out of the breakroom before he does something he won’t regret but ought to.
Nought point four eight.
The lights are too bright and Ray is actually shaking with anger and he knows that he shouldn’t be overreacting like this and he doesn’t care. All he can see and taste is fury.
“Get up,” he orders, teeth gritted and twisting the words. Gates gives him a lazy smile.
“You want something, Ray?” he asks.
“I’m telling you to get up, now,” Ray snarls. Gates obviously sees something in his eyes because he follows Ray out of the hospital and into the parking lot.
“What do you want?” he asks, still irritatingly cocky.
“I didn’t think you’d want anyone else to see this,” Ray says quietly. The fingernails of his right hand are digging too hard into his palm.
“What, you finally decided to-” Gates stumbles back as Ray cuts him off with a punch to the mouth. “What the fuck?”
Ray punches him again, watching blood stain across Gates’ teeth in the half-light.
“You promised,” he hisses, “You promised those kids you’d be there for them, that you’d check on them every fortnight.” He shoves Gates backwards and the other man nearly falls.
“Why the fuck do you care?” Gates demands, spitting blood.
“Because you lied to them,” Ray replies, “You lied to them and messed with their heads and today Paulie called the ER wanting to know if you were ok. Turns out you haven’t been for over a month.”
He hits Gates square in the face, watches impassively as blood streams from the guy’s nose. Gates hits him back, catching him on the jaw, and the sudden shock of pain wakes Ray up a little. He dodges as Gates makes to attack him properly, kicks the man’s feet out from under him, and his foot connects with Gates’ ribs.
“Any excuse,” Gates mumbles, “You were just looking for any damn excuse to attack me and at least this one makes you look righteous. Well done, Dr Barnett.”
Ray kicks him again and for a minute he thinks that he could kill Gates right now, tear him to shreds for the words he says and the lies he tells and his attitude and the way Neela looks at him. Gates moves to sit up and Ray kicks him back down.
“Did I say you could move?”
But Gates drags him down and then they’re just plain fighting, hitting and scratching and snarling, inescapably vicious.
The back door opens and a chink of bright light pours out.
“What the hell are you doing?” Pratt demands.
Nought point five one.
Neela has actually come down from surgery to stare at the two of them while Sam and Abby patch them up. Pratt is boiling over with anger but they’re understaffed enough as it is so he can’t send them home.
“What did you think you were doing?” Neela demands. Ray says nothing, just holds an icepack against his bruised eye. She turns to Gates.
“Tony?”
Ray waits patiently for Gates to tell Neela everything and drop Ray right in it.
“It wasn’t anything I didn’t deserve,” Gates mutters, refusing to meet her gaze, even though he’s bleeding from the nose and mouth and really doesn’t look so good. Ray isn’t sure what that means, but it terrifies him.
Nought point six five.
Ray starts treating Gates with indifference so that no one can say he’s discriminating or anything like that. Gates doesn’t try to flirt with him and never meets his eyes. Ray tries to tell himself that this is better.
Nought point seven three.
“I was wrong,” Gates says calmly, “There were no signals. You just really hate me.”
Ray puts his coffee cup down very carefully. There’s a long enough lull for them both to grab some caffeine, but he knows they’ll both need to get back out into the ER in a moment.
“I never normally get it wrong,” Gates is explaining, “But you’re just annoyingly ambiguous, and everything I get from you is-”
Ray shuts him up, slamming him up against the lockers and kissing him hard. Gates tastes like coffee and he fights Ray for all of about ten seconds before giving in to the kiss.
“You asshole,” he mumbles against Ray’s mouth, right hand coming up to clench on Ray’s shoulder.
Ray resists the urge to smirk because, of course, he’s won. Gates laid out the game and tried all the tricks he could but none of that matters because Ray is the one with all the power now.
Nought point eight one.
“I’m glad that you and Gates get on now,” Neela tells Ray.
“Well,” Ray replies, “I started to get to know him and he’s-” still an asshole “- a really nice guy.”
Neela’s smile is a little twisted.
“I’m glad you think so,” she says, but Ray can see in her eyes that she wants him to go back to being jealous. She deserves so much more than this but then Ray wasn’t made for the baked-goods-and-love-hearts relationship with Katy and Neela won’t give him what he wants, and Gates is practically giving it away. It’s not a nice thing to do to a woman he’s sure used to be his best friend but then Ray learned years ago that playing nice doesn’t get you anywhere.
“He’s good for you,” Ray tells her, twisting the knife a little more, and Neela takes the elevator back upstairs with a troubled look on her face.
Nought point nine nine.
“This doesn’t change anything,” Ray grinds out, nails digging into Gates’ shoulders so hard that there’ll be incriminating marks tomorrow.
“Of course not.” But Tony is grinning and Ray can’t quite believe him.
Fandom: ER
Pairing: Ray Barnett/Tony Gates
Challenge/Prompt: 30randomkisses, 008. Coffee
Rating: PG-15 (mild violence)
Genre: Slash
Summary: “When are you gonna stop flirting with me and actually follow through?”
Author’s Notes: Not one of my better works because I’ve never written for ER before, but I would have hated myself if I hadn’t written this. I promised myself I’d never write ER slash, but these guys are teh guh. So damn hot. Set a lot earlier in season 13.
Nought point nought three.
“So,” Gates begins, leaning against his locker and watching Ray make himself a mug of coffee during the briefest of breaks, “When are you gonna stop flirting with me and actually follow through?”
Ray keeps stirring his coffee and grits his teeth so that he can’t betray his shock. Gates plays very twisted headgames and Ray is damned if he’s going to join in.
“Where did you get the idea that I’m flirting with you from?” he asks carefully.
“Ah,” Gates smirks, “You know, all the patronising, glaring at me, insulting me-”
“I’m angry with you for the way you’re treating Neela!” Ray points out.
“This has gone beyond you just being angry with me about Neela,” Gates tells him firmly. “Believe me, the signals I’m getting from you-”
“There are no signals!” Ray almost shouts, shooting an anxious look towards the door and the painfully busy ER beyond it. “I’ve got a girlfriend, for God’s sake.”
“You’re fucking a med student because she’s there,” Gates corrects him, “And the only one who doesn’t seem to know that Katy doesn’t mean a thing is Katy.”
“Shut up,” Ray warns him. He’s not having a great day and Gates has been winding him up for months. Right now, he’s in the mood to kick Gates to pieces and leave him bleeding on the floor. So all the guy has to say is one more word…
Gates, though, has clearly lost interest in speaking because he’s grinning dangerously and standing too close to Ray. Ray feels his right hand curl into a fist and any second now he’s going to land a hit on that stubbled jaw and the floodgates will be opened.
It’s almost a relief when Sam pushes the door open to tell Ray that his patient in curtain two is seizing.
Nought point one four.
Gates is walking out at the end of a shift with Neela. Ray watches, eyes narrowed, wondering if watching this counts as stalking. Gates sees him, and a nasty little grin curls the edges of his mouth. The hand he has resting on Neela’s back slides lower. Neela turns, shocked, murmuring “Tony!”, but then Gates whispers something to her and she laughs instead.
Ray grits his teeth together. If Gates wants a fight then God, he can have one.
Nought point two seven.
“I’ve paged surgery,” Sam says quickly. The room is full of too many people and the patient is crashing and their gloves are red with blood.
“Well, they’d better hurry,” Ray mumbles, “This guy won’t last that long.”
The wailing of machines surrounds them and the patient is bleeding out of his side. Gates sighs, and slides his fingers into the wound, clearly searching for the source of the bleed.
“I can’t find it,” he mutters, teeth clenched. Ray knows that they’re running out of time so he slides his fingers between Gates’, searching for the leak. Gates moves his fingers slightly against Ray’s.
“If you say one word about ‘signals’ I will break your hand,” Ray warns him in an undertone, finding the bleed and pinching, reaching for gauze to try and pack into the wound while they wait for surgery.
“You seem a bit fixated with this ‘signals’ thing,” Gates murmurs, as Neela hurries in.
Ray turns to glare at him and Gates grins in a self-satisfied way, clearly telling Ray that somewhere along the line he’s won something Ray didn’t mean to give away.
Nought point three two.
“Don’t do this to Neela,” Ray tells him when it’s raining so hard outside that the ER is awash with soggy patients. Gates is gulping down a coffee, hair plastered to his skull, from where he had to go and collect a trauma from the ambulance. “She deserves more than this.”
“She deserves you, you mean,” Gates smirks, running a hand back through his damp hair.
“Don’t fuck her around,” Ray warns him.
“Whether she gets fucked over or not all depends on you,” Gates tells Ray calmly, shooting him his best flirtatious smile.
“You’re out of your mind,” Ray snarls, and walks out of the breakroom before he does something he won’t regret but ought to.
Nought point four eight.
The lights are too bright and Ray is actually shaking with anger and he knows that he shouldn’t be overreacting like this and he doesn’t care. All he can see and taste is fury.
“Get up,” he orders, teeth gritted and twisting the words. Gates gives him a lazy smile.
“You want something, Ray?” he asks.
“I’m telling you to get up, now,” Ray snarls. Gates obviously sees something in his eyes because he follows Ray out of the hospital and into the parking lot.
“What do you want?” he asks, still irritatingly cocky.
“I didn’t think you’d want anyone else to see this,” Ray says quietly. The fingernails of his right hand are digging too hard into his palm.
“What, you finally decided to-” Gates stumbles back as Ray cuts him off with a punch to the mouth. “What the fuck?”
Ray punches him again, watching blood stain across Gates’ teeth in the half-light.
“You promised,” he hisses, “You promised those kids you’d be there for them, that you’d check on them every fortnight.” He shoves Gates backwards and the other man nearly falls.
“Why the fuck do you care?” Gates demands, spitting blood.
“Because you lied to them,” Ray replies, “You lied to them and messed with their heads and today Paulie called the ER wanting to know if you were ok. Turns out you haven’t been for over a month.”
He hits Gates square in the face, watches impassively as blood streams from the guy’s nose. Gates hits him back, catching him on the jaw, and the sudden shock of pain wakes Ray up a little. He dodges as Gates makes to attack him properly, kicks the man’s feet out from under him, and his foot connects with Gates’ ribs.
“Any excuse,” Gates mumbles, “You were just looking for any damn excuse to attack me and at least this one makes you look righteous. Well done, Dr Barnett.”
Ray kicks him again and for a minute he thinks that he could kill Gates right now, tear him to shreds for the words he says and the lies he tells and his attitude and the way Neela looks at him. Gates moves to sit up and Ray kicks him back down.
“Did I say you could move?”
But Gates drags him down and then they’re just plain fighting, hitting and scratching and snarling, inescapably vicious.
The back door opens and a chink of bright light pours out.
“What the hell are you doing?” Pratt demands.
Nought point five one.
Neela has actually come down from surgery to stare at the two of them while Sam and Abby patch them up. Pratt is boiling over with anger but they’re understaffed enough as it is so he can’t send them home.
“What did you think you were doing?” Neela demands. Ray says nothing, just holds an icepack against his bruised eye. She turns to Gates.
“Tony?”
Ray waits patiently for Gates to tell Neela everything and drop Ray right in it.
“It wasn’t anything I didn’t deserve,” Gates mutters, refusing to meet her gaze, even though he’s bleeding from the nose and mouth and really doesn’t look so good. Ray isn’t sure what that means, but it terrifies him.
Nought point six five.
Ray starts treating Gates with indifference so that no one can say he’s discriminating or anything like that. Gates doesn’t try to flirt with him and never meets his eyes. Ray tries to tell himself that this is better.
Nought point seven three.
“I was wrong,” Gates says calmly, “There were no signals. You just really hate me.”
Ray puts his coffee cup down very carefully. There’s a long enough lull for them both to grab some caffeine, but he knows they’ll both need to get back out into the ER in a moment.
“I never normally get it wrong,” Gates is explaining, “But you’re just annoyingly ambiguous, and everything I get from you is-”
Ray shuts him up, slamming him up against the lockers and kissing him hard. Gates tastes like coffee and he fights Ray for all of about ten seconds before giving in to the kiss.
“You asshole,” he mumbles against Ray’s mouth, right hand coming up to clench on Ray’s shoulder.
Ray resists the urge to smirk because, of course, he’s won. Gates laid out the game and tried all the tricks he could but none of that matters because Ray is the one with all the power now.
Nought point eight one.
“I’m glad that you and Gates get on now,” Neela tells Ray.
“Well,” Ray replies, “I started to get to know him and he’s-” still an asshole “- a really nice guy.”
Neela’s smile is a little twisted.
“I’m glad you think so,” she says, but Ray can see in her eyes that she wants him to go back to being jealous. She deserves so much more than this but then Ray wasn’t made for the baked-goods-and-love-hearts relationship with Katy and Neela won’t give him what he wants, and Gates is practically giving it away. It’s not a nice thing to do to a woman he’s sure used to be his best friend but then Ray learned years ago that playing nice doesn’t get you anywhere.
“He’s good for you,” Ray tells her, twisting the knife a little more, and Neela takes the elevator back upstairs with a troubled look on her face.
Nought point nine nine.
“This doesn’t change anything,” Ray grinds out, nails digging into Gates’ shoulders so hard that there’ll be incriminating marks tomorrow.
“Of course not.” But Tony is grinning and Ray can’t quite believe him.