cigarettes 3/3
Part 2
This is not the fucking job Brad had signed up for anymore. It had gone beyond it with the SAW, but this was another level of shit that wasn’t so easily explained. C'est la vie (Brad’s, anyway) and time to get the fuck on with it.
"MOVE," Brad yells, and has to take two steps towards the men who come in through the roller door as it rises so he can grab Trombley by the collar and tug him to his feet. He gives him a good shove towards where Walt and Ray have already ducked behind the nearest truck, backs flat against its side and guns drawn.
He gets off one shot before he gives it up when he hears a sharp whistle that means a bullet has just passed far too close to his ear for comfort, and can only watch as one last man slings himself under the door and behind another of the cigarette trucks, the furthest away from them.
Brad registers faintly that he’s angry. The idea of Nate knowingly having sent them into this is less than pleasing, but whether it’s Nate or Godfather, or both, or some other bullshit that’s landed them in this, there isn’t time to dwell. Brad just can’t be mad in a firefight.
“No one grabbed the fucking SAW?” Ray says, and Brad glances out to the overturned table and the machine gun still laying next to it.
“No one includes you, Ray,” Brad replies. Fortunately, this fresh batch of assholes hadn’t taken the time to grab it either.
They are at am impasse. Equal cover, nearly equal numbers, Brad is unsure what firepower they have, but he is sure there isn’t another SAW or anything as large entering the equation, even at a glance he would not have missed that.
“This is some fucked-up shit,” Ray says.
“Who the fuck are they?” Walt asks.
“There is no point in speculation at this point,” Brad says.
He glances around the edge of the truck, looks past its closed back doors and pulls his head back just in time to avoid getting hit as someone peers around the other truck.
They take a few more pointless shots at nothing, enough to stop Brad returning fire, but ultimately a waste of ammunition.
“Hey,” Trombley says. “We should get the SAW.”
“Negative, Trombley, that’s too much of a risk at this point.”
“He’s right,” Ray says.
“Obviously,” Brad says.
“Trombley is,” Ray qualifies.
Brad looks at him with all the what the shit you whisky tango retard he can convey silently. Ray shrugs and glances at the floor before meeting Brad’s eyes again, looking vaguely disgusted with having to agree with Trombley.
Ray had better give him a good reason; Brad needs these next few minutes to think and think fast before someone behind the other truck decides to take the action back into their own hands. They need to be on the offensive, not the defensive, and they need to do it both fast and safe. They’re not taking a run at them while the other men have the same cover they do.
Brad raises his eyebrows at Ray when he’s been silent for a few seconds, for once in his life Ray isn’t elaborating on his thoughts.
“Ray, feel free to elaborate on that,” Brad says. “Fast.”
Ray just looks downwards and tilts his head. Brad follows his gaze towards the undercarriage of the truck, and gets it when Ray clicks his fingers together and points.
I want to kiss you, Brad does not say. He doesn’t even think it.
It’s a bloody-minded idea, and Brad likes it.
Their only clear line of sight at the other men is directly underneath both the trucks, but there is no point either giving them time for this to occur to them naturally or to attempt to hit each man with only their pistols: too slow, too much room for error, too much time for returned fire, not enough stopping power in a nine millimetre if they only have boots and shins to aim for.
The SAW, though: that’s a different story.
“Ray,” Brad says, “talk to them.” They can’t get the same idea and Brad will need a distraction for this. Brad crouches down where he is and peers around the corner of the truck briefly, head down low.
“It’s fucking hot in here, isn’t it?” Ray half-yells towards the ceiling, bumping the back of his head lightly against the side of the truck. "Are you guys sweating or what? Dave? I assume one of you is Dave. Dave, it's that goddamn hot in here my balls are sweating.”
Ray glances at Brad and Brad nods, keep talking.
There’s no one watching, as Brad peers around the back of the truck again.
“Freeballin' was not the best option. Right? Right? Don't talk to me then, man," Ray says, without pausing to allow a reply, "but I bet your balls are sweating over there too."
“If you put your weapons on the ground and step out from behind this car, we will not shoot you,” a deeply-accented voice replies, from somewhere behind the next truck.
"Brad, you're humming," Ray says, quietly, just for Brad, before launching back into his torrent of filth for enemy ears.
"I’d like to tell you to shut up, Ray," Brad whispers, “but keep fucking talking.”
"Okay, but I think you're freaking Walt and Trombley out."
Trombley does not appear freaked out.
Trombley appears to be ecstatically happy with being shot at. Not entirely normal, but normal reactions to combat do not make a good killer. It’s not terribly far away from Brad’s feeling of Rudy-esque Zen.
Anyway, it’s Ray’s fault he has Cold as Ice in his head. Brad eyes off the SAW across the concrete. It’s only a few feet. He gets down low and makes the brief dash across the fifteen feet of open space in the time it takes to make it though another verse, moving fast but not at a run, no unnecessary noise.
The SAW is heavy in Brad’s hand, but he hefts it quiet as he can and gets his ass back behind the truck.
“Seriously,” Ray says loudly, “fucking ball sweat.”
No one shoots.
Brad breathes for a moment, crouched against the truck’s back wheel.
“Trombley, tell me you’ve fired one of these before,” Brad says quietly and gestures from Trombley to couch next to him, settling the SAW quietly on its bipod.
Trombley nods quick and enthusiastic and reaches out to run a hand over the gun.
Someone leans out and shoots, Brad presumes as much to shut Ray up as anything else. Wouldn't be the first time Ray's mouth has incited violence.
Brad gets down on his stomach next to Trombley, who’s checking the SAW over, as Ray speaks over the top of series small metallic noises. Trombley clearly knows what he’s doing. Brad glances underneath the two trucks to the other side where three sets of booted feet stand in a row.
"Aw," Ray says, and glances around the corner of the truck, head ducked low. Another three shots come in quick succession and Ray laughs, tapping his foot by Brad’s head. "You're sensitive. No need to get mad, homes! Are you one of those guys that gets funky balls? All parmesan cheese smelling flake-y shit huh? It's okay man, there's totally ways to get rid of that -
"You, the very rude one, you need to have your mouth washed with soap - you will not live long enough for that, however.”
Brad pegs the one who’s been talking as possible hired security, though Brad doesn’t know every man the General has. Maybe he’s fucking Godfather’s, at this point, Brad doesn’t feel it would be wise to rule anything out while they’re still in the midst of this fuckery.
"You know what's weird?" Ray replies, "I was going down on your mom last night and when I came up for some fresh air I had to tell her she might wanna invest in some serious douching, and okay, maybe I called her a dirty fucking cunt, but man, you try being nice when you've got a mouthful of femme fresh and cunt porridge - and she said exactly that. I totally took her up on the soap, too, I mean anything to get rid of that fucking taste," Ray's talking loud enough they can hear, but as Brad looks over at him, he's leaning with his shoulder against the side of the truck watching Brad and Trombley set up the SAW as he talks, his mouth is running while his attention is entirely focused on Brad, on the gun.
Ray’s foot tap tap taps beside Brad’s head.
Brad reaches over and puts his hand down over Ray’s boot and pins his foot, the incessant tapping stops and at the same time, Ray stops talking.
“Any time you’re ready, Trombley,” Brad says, his eyes on Trombley handling the gun like an old and cherished pet.
He flicks the safety off, and lays the three foot of ammunition reverently out across the concrete floor. Snaps it open and takes a final glance inside, is apparently satisfied, closes and cocks it.
Brad has seen a SAW turn a an old junker into swiss cheese, though he hasn’t ever handled one himself (he is in no way giving this one up until he gets to unload it himself, even if it’s only on the backwoods firing range he and Ray occasionally let off steam at).
“Ready,” Trombley says, slipping his finger into the trigger guard.
The SAW is loud, louder than Ray on coke, louder than Brad’s Ducati, loud like a motherfucker, it eats up a foot of ammo in a few deafening seconds.
Brad plugs his ears and watches the destruction it reaps: the tearing of clothing and skin and bones alike, the men collapse like buildings being demolished, implosions in the foundations tearing down the whole structure, blood flies instead of dust and debris.
Brad feels a little bit of that Zen Rudy always talked about.
He hum as he picks off each man as they fall, the first two with clean headshots with his pistol and the last he has to wound a few times to get him to uncurl from the inconvenient position he’s scrambled screaming into, knees to his forehead, clutching his shattered shins.
Trombley's got the SAW set up and cocked again, the other screwed shut - ready to cut up the fallen men - Brad taps him lightly on the arm and can almost see the bubble of focussed joy pop Trombley turns towards him and Brad shakes his head.
Negative. Trombley takes a proper look at the dead, both eyes open this time.
Kid definitely had focus. Maybe a little too much focus.
Ray's head appears abruptly next to Brad as he presses himself palms, knees and ear to the concrete to peer underneath the trucks.
"Well, that certainly had an effect," Ray says, half-mumbled into the floor.
Brad can see bone protruding from a flimsily attached boot.
"Ray, when you're right, you're right."
"Cool," Trombley says.
"Pretty cool," Brad agrees. He's definitely keeping that gun.
Ray bounces back to his feet as Brad hauls himself up off the concrete, his right arm feeling a little stiff toward the shoulder from the graze. He puts a hand on it and the material is sticky, but not wet. Good.
Ray holds out his fist and Brad bumps knuckles with him left handed.
"Walt, you should totally check it out," Ray says and gets an arm over Walt's neck. He clings, trying to drag him down. Walt doesn't give him the satisfaction of bending into the headlock and shakes Ray off without answering.
Brad allows them the brief celebration being that that was fairly fucking spectacular. But they've got to move. It's past one. Ray’s glowing, and clearly pumped - they all are, they just kicked some ass, and it’s hot in here, so they’re all damp around the collar and red faced.
Brad twigs abruptly that Ray isn’t completely sober. Should have picked that earlier.
"Right," Brad says and waits for all eyes on him, “keys. Walt, sift through the clusterfuck around the table, Ray, take a walk since you can’t stop tapping your fucking feet anyway, Trombley, we’re rolling corpses.”
The poker players seem most likely to have keys. The body of the first man Brad shot is lying face up where Trombley had rolled him. He’s staring upwards at Brad with dull eyes like a bloody porcelain doll - like one of his sister’s dolls. He reaches down and closes them. He’s not superstitious, he just prefers them not to stare (he’d never liked playing in his sister’s rooms, cabinets full of quiet dead eyes watching everything).
He pats the corpse’s shirt pockets, then works a hand into the front pocket of his jeans - his fingers hit metal and he pulls out keys, the metal still body warm.
Brad whistles and holds the keys out jingling in the air.
“I win.”
“Every time,” Ray mumbles. He’s shuffling around checking under the truck tyres in case anyone’s done the obvious and left the keys perched under the rims.
“Two more to go,” Walt says, then laughs. “Check it out, looks like they were playing poker with some seriously high stakes,” Walt holds up a dollar bill and a banana. “Plus there’s cigarettes everywhere.”
Ray laughs and walks over, holding his hand out and wiggling his fingers. Walt tosses him the fruit.
"Did you know you can get high off bananas?" Ray says, holding up the half eaten fruit by the end.
"No you can't," Trombley says. He looks up at Brad with his hand in a dead man’s pocket, as if for confirmation Ray's full of shit. "You can't, can you?"
Brad shrugs. It’s beneath him to dignify that with an answer, and it’s more amusing to watch Trombley’s face as he tries to figure out if Ray’s being sarcastic. He likes the evil smirk that’s lurking at the corners of Ray’s lips.
"Yeah, man," Ray says, "you know that fuckin' song? They call me mellow yelllooow. I mean listen to that shit, you know it's about drugs. It's about fucking bananadine, but you’re not meant to know about that shit. You get a shit ton of bananas and skin those bitches, then boil the peels, bake that shit, and you end up with this stuff that looks like gunpowder and makes you see demons coming out of your wallpaper."
"So if it's so secret, how come you know?" Trombley narrows his eyes.
"Internet," Walt surmises with a snort.
Ray laughs.
"Whatever Walt, just because your mom smokes bananas."
"Two your mom jokes in the last ten minutes,” Brad shakes his head in faux disappointment. “Is your head clear, Ray?”
"What're you implying Braaaad?"
"I think he’s implying you’re high as fuck,” Walt says. He dodges the banana as Ray throws it at him.
"I resent that, I am on nothing nothing nothing," Ray says, then pauses to swipe a bloody dollar note off the floor and stuff it happily in his pocket, "I took like, a few Adderall XRs, that shit is practically legal."
"My little brother used to have to take that, he’s got that attention deficit disorder,” Trombley pipes up.
Ray grins. "See, Brad? You keep telling me I act like a retarded twelve year old with ADD."
“Shut up and find the other keys.”
Brad checks his found set on the closest truck. Not strictly necessary, but this clusterfuck is starting to lend some possible truth to Ray’s earlier conspiracy theories. No matter what cigarettes are worth, the amount of security was ridiculous for people who should not have been expecting anyone. He tries the truck’s back doors and they swing open, already unlocked.
He’s face to face with a wall of boxes, one of which has been torn open. It’s full of cigarette boxes, which makes clearer approximately nothing.
Brad sighs.
He’s swinging the door shut when Ray bumps his shoulder into Brad’s uninjured arm., drawn close by the prospect of free cigarettes. Brad’s got no problem with Ray’ pilfering, Godfather isn’t going to miss a few cartons from an already half looted box. Plus Brad feels they deserve the bonus after unfucking this situation successfully. Godfather can take it up with Brad personally should he miss a box or two.
Ray looks up at him, leaning into Brad’s arm with his bare shoulder, and gives him a wide-eyed pleading look. Brad looks down and shrugs.
“Take whatever you want.”
Ray reaches past and tears into a carton, pulls out and opens a packet. He deposits the packet in his back pocket, then perches a cigarette precariously on his lower lip.
“Aw, my fuckin’ zippo, shit,” Ray says after a thoughtful second.
Brad still has Ray’s lighter. He’d pocketed it with his keys. He pulls it out of his front pocket and flicks it on, holding the flame out to Ray.
“Brad, you are straight up my fucking hero,” Ray says and leans into Brad’s hand, cupping his fingers around Brad’s to light the cigarette.
Ray doesn’t ask for it back, just blows smoke out his nose and calls Walt! Over his shoulder. Brad slips the lighter back into his pocket and shuts the back doors of the truck.
Ray waves his cigarette under Walt’s nose.
“There's enough smokes there to kill the fucking Malboro man,” Walt says. He waves Ray’s second hand smoke away violently.
“Come on Sunshine, let’s race! First one to die of lung cancer wins,” Ray says, mumbling the last words around a long drag.
“Ray, stop fucking around, we’re still down two sets of keys.”
“One set,” Walt says and holds out an identical set to Brad’s. “Get out of my face, Ray,” he laughs and shoves at Ray. Ray backs off a step when Ray swings at him jokingly and blows a smoke ring at Walt in retaliation.
“That’s good, Walt,” Brad acknowledges.
“So where the fuck are the other ones then?” Ray asks, bending over a body and rifling through the pockets. “Brad, this is not time for your weird ass thing about dead people staring at you, you have got to get into these bastards front pockets like you’re committing an act of necrophilia. Seriously I think I just felt cock.”
Brad ignores Ray and kicks lightly through the cards and debris on the ground around the overturned table. There’s a dollar bill stuck to the floor with blood. Next to it there are fingers. One that looks to be someone’s index finger, and a little bit of a fingertip a nail shot through, torn and dangling. Brad bends and retrieves the fingers, and grins to himself.
Ray needs to learn not to bring up Brad’s entirely understandable foibles in public.
“Hey Ray,” he says and waits until Ray straightens up and faces him, “catch.”
Ray puts his hands out automatically and the expression on his face as he closes his fingers on the tepid damp skin is almost funnier than when he opens his hand and actually realises what he’s caught. He catapults them back towards Brad with a violent flick of his open palm.
“FUCK you Brad, you sick fuck!
“Says the man who just told me to aim for necrophilia.”
Ray has a stronger stomach than almost anyone Brad’s met, he’s seen Ray joke by painting little stripes of war paint on with someone else’s blood, but he cannot stand severed limbs. Brad, on the other hand, couldn't care less, it’s all meat.
“That’s it!” Ray yells and points a bloody finger at Brad. “I’m going to check that office or whatever for the fucking keys.” Ray gestures with a fling of his arm towards the smaller room within the warehouse, wiping his palms off on his pants a few times in disgust before stomping off.
“Like I asked you to in the first place,” Brad calls after him, and grins. Ray gives him the finger and slams the door behind him. He’ll get over it.
Walt is still bent over laughing and gives Brad a smile when he looks up.
Brad kicks the fingers with the toe of his boot.
“Lucky shot,” he observes.
"Saw his hand creeping up on the SAW and all I could think was no you fucking don't," Trombley says.
“Good shot man,” Walt says.
As a deliberate shot, it was beyond good.
"Good shot, Trombley,” Brad acknowledges, “but in the future there is no reason not to go straight for a good clean kill shot in a real fight: chest, head, wherever you've got it. Don’t fuck around with your life, and more importantly don’t fuck with mine.”
Trombley looks sullen and doesn't reply.
"Trombley, you got me?" Brad asks.
"Yeah."
"Good."
The lights go out.
"What fresh new hell," Brad spits under his breath and puts his back against the wall before gesturing at the vague, shadowy shapes of Walt and Trombley violently until they hit the wall on the other side of the door to Brad - glass shatters somewhere, and Brad thinks Ray, but the door's swinging open. Brad can't see Walt and Trombley for a second, but he can see someone walking in, gun up and NVGs on making their silhouette in the dark look monstrous.
The door swings shut with a bang and it's echoed by an explosion of gunfire from all sides and Brad knows they're briefly on even ground as the muzzle flashes would have whited-out their night vision.
Brad hits the deck to avoid friendly fire and hopes Walt and Trombley were clever enough to do the same on the other side. There’s silence.
"Brad!" Walt calls from somewhere, scrabbling for lights.
"I'm fine!" Brad calls.
"They cut the power," Walt says.
Brad can see him in silhouette flicking at a light switch ineffectually.
"Trombley, are you good?"
"I'm good," Trombley says. He's standing over the body nearest to Brad and prodding it in the back with the end of what looks like a pipe, until he flicks the switch on and Brad realises it's a long metal torch.
Jesus fucking Christ, Brad is displeased.
Words. He and Nate are having words, he and Godfather are having words.
This thing never felt good and Brad is about at his limit, and where the fuck is Ray. This is a fuck up, this is a travesty, this is, Brad imagines, exactly what being fucked dry feels like. He has actually emptied his M9’s entire cartridge tonight.
He dusts himself off and feels his heart beat fast for the first time all night; where the fuck is Ray. Shattered glass, three more dead men and silence.
"Ray!"
Silence.
"Ray!" Brad yells again, already halfway to the door. He turns and hold out a hand to stop Walt following. “Walt, hold position in case there’s more surprises, I’m going to look for Ray.”
“Fucking fucking fuck fuck -" Brad hears Ray’s voice, quiet and tense. Brad shoves the door open.
The office lights are on, the fluorescent tubes casting an unpleasant light that heightens the greyness of Ray's face, his eyes are big and bruised looking. He’s clutching his leg and clenching his teeth and bleeding out.
He’s pale, far too pale, normally tanned skin turning to chalk.
Brad’s ears fill with whitenoise, like being dumped by a wave, and he rides it out as he would there, letting it wash over him (don’t leave me) before striking out under his own steam again.
His normal tan erased.
He's bleeding through the cage of his fingers pressed to his upper thigh, a sluggish pulse, the front of his dark jeans shiny-wet spreading from the wound to his knee, and up to his crotch. He's sitting with his back against the wall and with his legs out straight, and a foot from his boot soles there's a man who's rapidly bleeding out.
Ray’s kicks once with his uninjured leg, foot colliding weakly with the groaning man at his feet. He’s facedown and incapacitated, but alive.
“Fuck you,” Ray says to the man through a grit toothed wince. The man is silent except for faint whining breathes, his arms tucked under his body and blood seeping outwards.
“Brad,” Ray looks up at him and Brad drops to his knees beside Ray.
"Sorry," Ray says.
There’s a man draped over the desk in the centre of the room, a knife in his neck and Ray’s gun on the table beside him. Unfired. Brad hadn’t heard it. There’s a halo of blood sliding slow to the edge of the desk dripping pat pat pat onto the concrete.
They’re all wearing Kevlar and dodging bullets and Ray’s managed to get himself stabbed in the fucking thigh. The window into the room from outside has been broken inwards.
There’s glass shining in the dead man’s hair and over the desk.
Brad’s kneeling in the warm puddle spilling out from underneath Ray’s thigh. Ray’s blood. Not what he should be focusing on. He grabs Ray’s hands to press them firmer onto the wound, he’s bleeding too fast. It’s high on his thigh, but it’s not the femoral artery. It’s too slow for that, Ray would have been gone.
There’s silence and Brad clenches his teeth.
“Sorry, Brad. I put my gun down for one second,” Ray’s voice is too quiet. “I found the keys.”
“Look at me, Ray,” his eyes slip away from Brad’s. “Ray! Look at me. Keep pressure on the wound.”
He’s not dying right now. Ray is not dying with Brad right there, that isn’t happening. Brad refuses. He squeeze his fingers over Ray’s, then grabs the keys off the floor with his free hand and squeezes them too, until his palm aches.
“Ray, look at me.”
“Brad, you’re kind of hurting my leg. More. Than it already does. Fuck, that hurts,” Ray looks up at him like Brad’s going to fix it, and puts his other hand over the top of Brad’s. His fingers are wet.
Trombley and Walt appear in the doorway.
Brad pockets the keys and withdraws his hand from between Ray’s. He doesn’t take a breath, he has no time.
“Pressure, Ray. Trombley, open that fucking roller door all the way and take the truck, direct to the address Nate gave you. Walt, help me with Ray into the other truck.”
Brad and Walt grab Ray under the arms, so he keeps his grip on his leg. He bares his teeth in a grin of pain.
Ray doesn't weigh much (doesn't weigh enough), which may be because he's still just awake enough not to be dead weight, one foot touching the floor every few steps.
For a moment as Walt pops the truck's front door open Brad supports Ray's full weight and he's a little more solid than Brad expected, there's some comfort in the weight. Ray breathes harshly against Brad's neck. His grip on his leg is tight enough his fingers are white.
He doesn’t make a comment about the marriage hold, or not being the chick here. He doesn’t say anything. It’s unsettling. Brad focuses on the strength still in the arm Ray has around his neck.
Walt helps him heft Ray into the cab, and settle him uncomfortably onto the bench seat.
Brad glances at Ray's face and attempts a smile - Ray laughs faintly at whatever expression it is Brad does manage. Walt starts the truck.
"My place is closest," Brad talks over the top of Walt’s protest, and Walt shuts his mouth and listens. “Call Doc on the way. I'll meet you there," and rattles off his address.
Walt goes. Brad turns back to the office.
The man is still on the floor, his legs visible through the open door.
Brad steps over him and does not pause to examine whatever it is that shoots through him, he does pause however to yank to knife from the dead man's neck.
He turns back and watches the man’s legs moving in a slow jerking pattern against the carpet, his cheek pressed to the floor, hands bent underneath his body like a dying roach. Trying to push himself somewhere - towards the wall, to attempt standing, go for a phone? Brad isn’t sure why the man thinks he’ll be getting up.
Brad guesses a gut wound, and when he nudges the man over with his boot he’s gratified both by the fact he's right and that Ray had got some of his own back before hitting the floor. Gut wounds are a slow and immensely painful way to go.
The man's scrabbling legs are ineffective because he obviously cannot bring himself to move his hands from his stomach. The front of his shirt is slashed and bloody around his white knuckled grip, the red stain spilling over his sides. They’re knife wounds, and they look deep.
His legs scrabble double time and he moves one hand finally to push himself backwards when he sees Brad, but he's slow and weak and Brad's foot is on his neck. His free hand comes up immediately to grasp at Brad's ankle, fingers slipping slick and clumsy off the leather of his boot, grasping loosely at his pants and tugging.
Brad applies a measured amount of pressure and the hand falls completely away, the man nodding frantically with Brad's bootlaces scraping the underside of his chin.
Brad keeps eye contact with his wide-eyed friend and he removes his boot, and the man remains still. He squats by his side, one hand loose-wristed over his knee, the other holding the knife just out of sight at his side, and waits for his eyes to stop their spooked horse rolling, waits for his breathing to quiet a little.
The man's breathing does not approach anything like normal, but it slows, just slightly.
Brad pries the man's fingers away and gets a breathless "please" for his trouble, but the man is docile, paralysed by fear or hope. Brad holds his stiff sticky fingers away and slips the point of his knife gently under the shirt, shushing him as he looks.
The wound is two wounds, two deep ragged cuts that have hernia like protrusions beating with a fast pulse, muscle or intestine. Brad curls his lip and expression half disgust, half satisfaction.
He lets the man's hand fall, watches as he jerks intensely as he can’t quite keep it from slapping down on his torn stomach. Brad grins down at him.
"Please," the man says. “Call an ambulance for me. Please. Please, you can call when you’re already out gone. Please, go. Call from a payphone.”
Brad hms noncommittally.
"Tell me how you knew we were here?"
"Please," the man repeats, "I swear if you call the ambulance I will tell you everything I will pay you what they were paying me, please."
"Slow down," Brad suggests, patiently. "You can answer me first. Who’s paying you?"
He shakes his head violently, pale faced and sweating. “Francis MacIntyre. Killed. His… son. You killed his son - please this hurts.” He takes a long breath. “Said you had to go, had to.”
Interesting, since Brad had watched Ray kill three bodyguards in front of Francis, and otherwise they had had no contact with the man. Though it is hard to doubt the honesty of a dying man. He tells it quick and desperate. Nate must have known.
The man breathes please again. Some other time, his compliance might have gotten him a reprieve, but Brad isn’t in a forgiving mood.
The man's hands grip his stomach and he curls in on himself.
“Don’t leave me like this,” he says. He meets Brad’s eyes, face sweating and pale, eyes wet.
It would be far crueller to let him writhe away into the dawn. In a way he is lucky that Brad has no intention of letting him go so awkwardly when he can finish the job himself.
“Okay,” Brad says, “okay,” and places his hand over the man's eyes, brings the knife around quickly to his throat. He presses tip first so it’s quick and deep - it’s both harder and easier to do than people expect. You don’t have to cut so deeply, but it is quicker if you do. The man's hands only make it high enough off his stomach to fall back limp at his sides. The burst of blood is less than it would be had he not been a few hours away from bleeding everything in him out through his gut.
Brad still has to wipe his chin with the collar of his shirt. He brushes the man's eyes closed.
It's not as satisfying as it should have been. He stands, frustrated, and throws the knife so it lands point down in the corpse.
Brad doesn’t have time for this clusterfuck. Whatever this is. Nate had sent them to Francis, and into this, and now Ray was bleeding somewhere. Brad is seriously displeased.
He and Nate are going to have some serious words. Brad would dearly like to know what the fuck is going on, but before that, before he takes his next breath, he needs to see Ray.
Brad leaves the last truck at the drop-off, parked neatly beside the others, and takes the nondescript sedan Nate's provided. Trombley protests at being left stranded, the car keys hanging slackly from his hand, and Brad is cannot muster words for how little he cares. It’s far simpler to shove Trombley against the wall with one hand in the collar of his shirt and yank the keys away with the other.
The old woman who supplies Brad with inedible baked goods cracks her door to the limit of the chain and presses her wizened face to gap, she startles when she sees Brad and slams the door shut again. Brad walks on.
He’d given Walt his address without thinking. No doubt he'll have to move very soon, but so long as Ray’s still breathing -
So long as Ray's still breathing.
Walt opens the door before Brad gets his key in the lock.
Walt gets out of his way without saying anything.
Doc Bryan greets him with a frown and Brad waves him off before he can open his mouth. He must look something like how he's feeling, because Doc Bryan does not shut his mouth that easily when he’s got something to say.
"He's okay," Walt calls, as Brad shoves the bedroom door open. “He’s fine.”
Ray coughs out a surprised laugh then screws his eyes shut when Brad bursts in. When he opens his eyes again slowly he looks up at Brad with a smile on his lips.
“Braaaaad,” Ray says quietly and waves limply before letting his hand fall back to the mattress. Brad has a distinct feeling Ray isn’t actually meant to be awake right now. His body is limp and lax and gives the impression, other than his eyes and mouth, that he’s already half asleep.
He’s obviously feeling no pain.
Ray’s propped up on both Brad’s pillows and a couch cushion, pale and grinning and alive, skinny legged in nothing but underwear and a fresh shirt (another one of Brad’s), with a hand over the bandages covering his thighs.
His hand is dark and relaxed over the white of the bandage; he’s not holding himself together anymore.
Brad nods and sits down on the edge of the bed, turns towards Ray. He takes a deep breath and lets his shoulders slump, abruptly feeling tired. The light outside the window is a blood-red dawn and it’s seeping in the gap between Brad’s heavy bedroom curtains, turning the light orange and red and gold like stained glass.
“Is that the third shirt of mine you’ve stolen?” Brad says, feeling the corners of his lips quirk. “I don’t own that many shirts, Ray.”
Ray presses the collar of the shirt up to his face and mumbles into it, “I like your clothes, you smell good. You smell really fucking good, Brad. Have I ever mentioned how fucking good you smell?” Ray’s eyelids droop. He rubs the shirt collar against his face, nuzzling into it comfortably. “Fuck, Brad, forget I said that. Or you know, don’t.” Ray smiles, tilting his head back so it seems as if the corners of his lips are only held in a faint close mouthed smile by gravity.
He closes his eyes for a long moment.
When he looks back at Brad he laughs for no particular reason. “Hi, hiii, oh shit Brad. Doc Bryan gave me some fucking oxytoofuckinggood shit.”
Brad feels very far from amused now, but finds himself laughing a choked sort of chuckle he can’t hold back. He reaches out and touches Ray’s cheek. He’s too tired to resist the urge, relief as big a high as adrenaline.
Ray’s face is still pale, and the blood on Brad’s hands stands out vividly against his skin.
He’s touching Ray. When he strokes his thumb across Ray’s cheekbone it trails dirty marks like warpaint. Ray leans heavily into the touch with a noise like he’s hurting.
Their faces are very close, and Brad’s sure his heart never beat this fast when worked, when he fucked, not for a long, long time. Ray’s eyes are very dark this close, darker than usual. Brad wants to erase every mark on him, go over every inch of skin and bite bruises over bruises, put his own stitches into Ray’s leg.
Ray licks Brad’s lower lip and Brad bites back, lightly. His hand finds the skin of Ray’s thigh, fingertips brush hair and skin until his finds the edges of the bandage and strokes lightly.
“Ray. I want to fuck you.”
Brad feels his face heat, because that was the wrong thing to say (honest and wrong, Brad’s painfully familiar with the combination).
But Ray leans back in and kisses him fiercely, and Brad can’t, doesn’t want to do anything but kiss back.
They both make a sound into the kiss. His bed, his shirt, his.
Brad’s hand tightens on Ray’s arm and very carefully not on Ray’s thigh, and Ray licks at his mouth (the way he kisses is exactly Ray, open-mouthed and dirty), except he pulls back to lick Brad’s bottom lip and misses, striping his tongue over Brad’s chin, slow and stoned.
“You know you’re covered in blood,” Ray says, laughing. He pats clumsily at Brad’s cheek and twines his fingers with Brad to hold his hand out, pressing his cheek to Brad’s mouth as he turns his head to stare at the red streak across Brad’s knuckles.
Ray’s eyebrows and eyelashes are a dark blur this close. Brad drags his teeth gently over Ray’s cheekbone, then takes a breath against Ray’s skin and tells himself to slow down.
He glances at his own hand, cheek against Ray’s. He hadn’t thought to clean himself up, which is a kick in the guts because he always thinks.
“You taste like it,” Ray says, turning so his lips are back against Brad’s. Brad hums and bites him (gently).
All he can taste is Ray, and the string of antiseptic drifting up from the bandaged wound.
Brad tightens teeth and hands on Ray. He leans down on Ray's leg as he shifts forward to kiss him and Ray whines, "Brad, Brad, fuck," and Brad leans back quickly and takes his hand off Ray, feeling the beat of his own heart again.
There’s a spot of blood blossoming in the centre of the white square of bandage, uneven edged and rosy. Brad watches it slow and stop, thumb print sized.
When he looks up, Ray smiles and fumbles for Brad’s hand, tugs it back to where it was resting over the stained white. Brad fingers the material then slips his hand lower, mostly onto Ray’s skin.
Doesn’t want to open the stitches (the consequences of that are stopping, calling for Doc Bryan to come into the room).
Brad feels strangely calm, he knows there's panic coming because this is a monumental fuck-up, but it's easy to shove down right now with Ray alive under him. He realises after a minute he still feels like he's fighting, his thoughts and feelings are still floating somewhere quiet and only faintly connected to the action of here and now; the blood in his mouth and the teeth he's sinking into Ray's lip until Ray makes a sound and he gentles himself, a little, just as much as he can.
And his hand on Ray’s thigh and his fingertips at the edges of the bandage, pressing into material and skin. He doesn't want to let go.
He keeps kissing Ray until Ray shoves at him, a weak hand flat against his shoulder.
Brad moves his hand and watches blood very slowly colour in the fingermarks he’s left on the skin of Ray’s thigh, just below the bandages. He feels guilt, stinging like a bullet graze
“You definitely have to move, now,” Ray says, “sorry,” before he passes out, head listing to one side and a smile on his lips.
Brad’s fingers still under his hand and over his thigh.
Brad watches Ray breathe deeply for a minute, head turned to one side and lips parted, eyelashes dark and cheeks pale, but already more alive than he’d looked under the fluorescent lights of the warehouse.
The door opens and Brad’s M9 is in his hand on autopilot, pointed at Doc.
“Stow that shit, Colbert,” the Doc says, wagging his finger at Brad like he’s a dog that’s pissed on the rug, unconcerned by Brad’s gun aimed dead between his eyes. “Get the fuck out. Ray needs to sleep and unless you’re giving him a transfusion right now, you’re not helping his recovery.”
Doc glances at where Brad and Ray’s hands are linked, then at Ray’s bandages and the red rose spots dotting it down the middle.
He glares at Brad. “Did you let him move?”
Brad likes Doc Bryan, normally. He’s the very rare man in this business that has no secondary motivations, he’s honest and he speaks his mind. Brad likes that. When it’s not directed at him. If he hadn’t just saved Ray’s life, Brad would be inclined at this point to thank him for his advice and dole out some of his own about fucking and the horse he rode in on.
“No,” he says. He can’t muster more words to specify, just no. He’s not going. He look at Ray, eyes closed and face slack and easy, painkillers giving him an easy sleep. His fingers limp in Brad’s. Brad looks back at Doc Bryan and shrugs.
Doc Bryan does not look pleased.
“He’s asleep,” Brad says, but doesn’t say anything regarding leaving the room. He isn’t.
“See that he stays in bed, Brad, and rests. That means doesn’t fucking move around. Make him eat,” Doc says, frowning. He probably thinks Ray’s too skinny - Brad doesn’t disagree. “I’m not sure you understand how close that was. In all reality, Ray needs more than the little I could do for him here. He might walk with a limp for months. For longer.”
“Thank you, Doc,” Brad says and meets Doc Bryan’s eyes until he looks away and leaves Brad alone with Ray.
Brad pulls up in front of Nate’s at six, the setting sun hot at his back as he parks his bike in the drop-off zone out front.
Nate's building is a monster made of glass, head to foot cool and reflective. Brad watches himself in the front doors, a shadowy image in his last clean shirt (Ray), jeans, sweating in his bike jacket and boots.
It's still sticky as the previous night, the temperature dipping only marginally with the sun. It's hot and he's bothered, his back hurts from the day spent napping on the couch, a few hours of sleep broken up by glances into his bedroom at Ray (most of the day sound asleep on top of the covers, fingers dragging his borrowed shirt up as they pressed down into the elastic of his underwear).
Might not only have been the couch keeping Brad half-awake and restless.
It’s easier to put aside thoughts of his lips on Ray's (and hands, and teeth) now he’s sluiced off sweat and blood and brushed away the taste in a cold shower. Easy enough to think of other things (that the faint headache he has gets worse when he does think about it isn’t relevant).
Nate. He and Nate have a few things to discuss.
Most of which can be condensed down to a neat little question: how much did you know? Why fail to mention that they had apparently knocked off Francis’s son in front of him? Did Nate know?
Did he know that they were walking into a warehouse full of heavy machinery and back up?
Brad fingers creak the leather of his jacket and he unclenches them deliberately, stowing it in the Ducati’s pannier.
Brad's phone rings before he can buzz to be let up. NATE, this display reads.
"Brad, Doc Bryan called."
Brad appreciates Nate skipping any small talk, and does likewise. He is not in the mood for fucking around.
"Are you going to let me in?" Brad asks.
"Should I?"
"That was an interesting little clusterfuck you dropped us into. I imagine you'll want to hear the full story," Brad says. He watches himself in the glass, expressionless.
“That isn’t what I asked. Should I?” Nate’s hesitating. If he hadn’t, Brad’s estimation of him would have lowered somewhat.
“Oh but Nate, I seem to remember you talking about how much you trust me,” Brad doesn’t bother keeping the edge out of his voice, and watches the white line of his teeth appear in his shadowed reflection.
Brad isn’t going to do anything untoward - he isn’t even armed. He’s not going to bother telling that to Nate, though. He can prove his trust. Brad is enjoying Nate’s hesitation: it stems from intelligence, but there’s fear underneath and it’s satisfying and cools Brad’s ire.
Nate has to know, too, that if Brad wanted him dead he’d find a way. Right now what he wants his Nate to look him in the eye and tell him the truth. He’s not getting ahead of himself.
Nate laughs, short and humourless. Brad grins at his dark reflection in the glass.
“Come on up, then.”
The doors open as Brad approaches. Q-Tip stands aside to let him in and Christeson hovers in front of the elevator banks. They’re clearly downstairs to pat him down or to otherwise gauge his mood before they let him up to Nate.
That isn’t happening.
"Yo, we're meant to uh, frisk you and shit,” Q-Tip says, shifting on the spot uncomfortably.
Brad looks at him.
Q-Tip looks at the floor.
Christeson comes away from the elevators and claps a hand on Q-Tip's shoulder, and nods at Brad. They both keep a respectful distance as the elevator dings and Brad gets in.
Nate watches him as Brad sits down in front of his desk, blanks his face and fucking radiates calm.
“How is Ray?”
“Alive,” Brad says.
"What happened?"
“You don’t know?” Brad asks, still calm enough.
"I don’t,” Nate says and shrugs, “not entirely. I only know what Doc Bryan told me, and that we have recovered all three trucks.”
“When I give my word I mean it.”
Brad leans back in his chair and folds his arms over his chest, and they study each other for a moment.
Someone had fucked them over (fucked Ray over), either Nate had had them or been fucked too. Brad's never been so acutely frustrated with the unreadable quality Nate has as right at this moment, staring across the wide desk at Nate’s cold blue eyes.
“Tell me?” Nate asks.
Brad does, from the first surprise of the sniper on the roof, down to Ray’s injury, and how they had apparently become targets of Francis MacIntyre’s vendetta, because they had taken out his son. On Nate’s word.
Nate sighs, looks at his hands. He looks genuinely unhappy for a moment. Then again, Nate is by definition a good actor. You don’t stay alive through what Nate has without being good.
He stands and walks around the table to lean on the edge of the desk. Brad recognizes it for the manipulative gesture it is, Nate mirrors his body language and without the expensive expanse of oak between them this seems more personal, as it had the night Nate had called them into this room to tell them about the job.
It works, on some level, despite Brad being conscious of it. Nate seems more honest on this side of the table.
“Before Godfather, there was an undercover job I took - my first. It was a quick job. Mike Wynn was my contact, he’d been with Francis for over a year when I came in. Mike Wynn was one of my best friends, Brad. Mike,” Nate glances at the ground briefly, then back at Brad with grief on his face Brad believes, “he was my family, he was the closest I’ve ever had to a big brother. Without him-- without Mike I wouldn’t have known how to survive. Francis MacIntyre killed Mike. He shot him in the fucking head, Brad,” Nate spits the words with a venom and a tone Brad has never heard from him, something real. “I watched him do it. If that was Francis’s son you and Ray shot… I wasn’t sure he’d be there. I’m glad, though, Brad. I’m fucking ecstatic.” Nate’s cheeks are flushed as he finishes, and Brad is sure his eyebrows are raised, solely because he has never yet heard Nate swear so violently about anything.
He’s bordering on uncontrolled, and Brad is somewhat off-balance. He smiles at Brad. It’s not a happy smile. It’s so contrary to what Brad is used to, it gives Brad pause.
“Why didn’t you inform us of this?” Brad asks. Any of it.
“I wasn’t sure he’d be there.”
Which doesn’t entirely answer Brad’s question, but he’s not going to push. If Nate doesn’t want to speak any further about this Mike Wynn, Brad won’t force it.
“Brad, if it was Ray -"
“It nearly fucking was Ray,” Brad snaps. He takes Nate’s point, though. He’s already done several grossly unprofessional things today simply because someone made Ray bleed.
“I did not think Francis would do this, Brad. You have my word on that. I never thought it'd come back on you Brad, not me. And I wasn't sure about the security intel Godfather handed me, and I'm sorry for that. The fact that they had back-up was a possibility I suspected, but. There was no other way to see." Nate pauses.
Brad listens, and waits him out. You can get a lot out of someone if you keep quiet, dole out the rope, and let them go. It’s something Brad is very good at.
Nate shifts from the desk and paces along its front slowly before apparently making a decision and glancing at Brad.
“Apart from the possibility that Godfather knew about the ambush and didn’t inform me, it just doesn't make sense for Godfather to do this to Patton." He pauses again, and looks away from Brad, and when he looks back he looks more like Brad is used to seeing him. "I have a lot of respect for Godfather's intelligence, but there was something about this that I disliked from the beginning. I don't know, Brad. He wants something from Patton, and it isn’t cigarettes.”
“The thought had occurred to me,” Brad says. "Could you not have shared this with me before now? You mentioned trust, Nate," Brad asks.
“It’s not entirely about trust, Brad. It’s also about self-preservation. If you repeat what I just said then, well,” Nate’s lips quirk.
“Tell me something worth keeping secret,” Brad prompts. Nate wants to say more, Brad can see it in him.
“Whatever Godfather is doing." Nate pauses and looks, for a moment, his age, which Brad tends to forget is quite a few years younger than himself, "it isn’t how I would do it."
That’s not quite what Brad has expected, but it clicks something into place for Brad. Nate is walking a fine line. They are walking a fine line here, Brad amends inside his own head: it feels right to think of himself as behind Nate in this.
Nate knows more than Brad does, and Brad is starting to get the feeling Nate knows something big.
Brad can't help smile, an acceptance of Nate’s apologies. Nate's definitely not telling Brad everything he knows, and Brad files that away, but for all he intellectually, logically knows trusting Nate further is a bad idea, there is something in his gut that says yes.
"To be frank, sir, whatever it is? You'd do it better.” It’s the easiest way to show Nate he’s forgiven. Brad doesn’t call anyone else sir, and he is certain Nate has noticed that.
“Thank you, Brad. Does that mean you’ll take the next job?”
Nate smiles at him and Brad smiles back fully and with teeth this time, smiles because Nate’s got the balls to push. He’s impressed.
“What’s it entail?”
“More violence, I imagine. It’s entirely possible it will be another clusterfuck like the last, though we will deal with Francis beforehand. That will not be a further problem,” Nate says. He leans back against the desk again. “The General runs on cancer and guns, this time Godfather wants the guns.”
“Why should we do another bullshit job for Godfather’s benefit?”
"Godfather wants it done, but I could ask Rudy and Pappy, or Poke. I want you to do it. I know you may not want to hear it, but I do trust you Brad. You’re my men. I need time to think, and I need to know you’ll be there,” Nate says fiercely. He looks as dangerous right now as Brad has always imagined he is, somewhere under his unassuming, baby-faced exterior.
When Brad nods, he knows he is agreeing to something more than running a second job for Godfather. For Nate. They shake hands, Nate’s eyes clear as a summer sky as they meet Brad’s.
Brad knows he wouldn’t have agreed to this for Godfather, had Godfather personally asked Brad himself. Not to another potential fuck-up like the last job. Not with Ray hurt, not with the thought of that still turning his stomach to this moment. Ray, who he’d left sleeping, two of Doc Bryan’s pills on the bedside table next to a hopefully edible muffin and a glass of water.
“And Nate? Thanks to this monumentally retarded clusterfuck, I'm moving. Tomorrow,” Brad says.
“I’m sorry, Brad. Do you need a place? I can arrange it.”
“No,” Brad says. “I’m good, sir.”
So far as he’s decided Nate had not meant any harm this time he still doesn’t feel the need to have him know where he lives (or to be holed up in some soulless place like this under Godfather’s personal watch).
With the blood and Ray's wound and the truck, he's not fucking around however. He’ll pay his month’s rent and go quietly, take Ray home and spend a week at Ray's and make sure he doesn't fuck himself up any further - it's not just the thought of Ray's Ray-sized couch that makes that uncomfortable, but he can't leave him right now. Though he’s desperate to ride out of the city, and desperate for the oblivion of the sea.
“We’ll talk details later, Brad. Go back to Ray.”
Brad feels his face flush and doesn’t look back at Nate as he leaves. He hadn’t thought he was that obvious.
End (... for now).
This is not the fucking job Brad had signed up for anymore. It had gone beyond it with the SAW, but this was another level of shit that wasn’t so easily explained. C'est la vie (Brad’s, anyway) and time to get the fuck on with it.
"MOVE," Brad yells, and has to take two steps towards the men who come in through the roller door as it rises so he can grab Trombley by the collar and tug him to his feet. He gives him a good shove towards where Walt and Ray have already ducked behind the nearest truck, backs flat against its side and guns drawn.
He gets off one shot before he gives it up when he hears a sharp whistle that means a bullet has just passed far too close to his ear for comfort, and can only watch as one last man slings himself under the door and behind another of the cigarette trucks, the furthest away from them.
Brad registers faintly that he’s angry. The idea of Nate knowingly having sent them into this is less than pleasing, but whether it’s Nate or Godfather, or both, or some other bullshit that’s landed them in this, there isn’t time to dwell. Brad just can’t be mad in a firefight.
“No one grabbed the fucking SAW?” Ray says, and Brad glances out to the overturned table and the machine gun still laying next to it.
“No one includes you, Ray,” Brad replies. Fortunately, this fresh batch of assholes hadn’t taken the time to grab it either.
They are at am impasse. Equal cover, nearly equal numbers, Brad is unsure what firepower they have, but he is sure there isn’t another SAW or anything as large entering the equation, even at a glance he would not have missed that.
“This is some fucked-up shit,” Ray says.
“Who the fuck are they?” Walt asks.
“There is no point in speculation at this point,” Brad says.
He glances around the edge of the truck, looks past its closed back doors and pulls his head back just in time to avoid getting hit as someone peers around the other truck.
They take a few more pointless shots at nothing, enough to stop Brad returning fire, but ultimately a waste of ammunition.
“Hey,” Trombley says. “We should get the SAW.”
“Negative, Trombley, that’s too much of a risk at this point.”
“He’s right,” Ray says.
“Obviously,” Brad says.
“Trombley is,” Ray qualifies.
Brad looks at him with all the what the shit you whisky tango retard he can convey silently. Ray shrugs and glances at the floor before meeting Brad’s eyes again, looking vaguely disgusted with having to agree with Trombley.
Ray had better give him a good reason; Brad needs these next few minutes to think and think fast before someone behind the other truck decides to take the action back into their own hands. They need to be on the offensive, not the defensive, and they need to do it both fast and safe. They’re not taking a run at them while the other men have the same cover they do.
Brad raises his eyebrows at Ray when he’s been silent for a few seconds, for once in his life Ray isn’t elaborating on his thoughts.
“Ray, feel free to elaborate on that,” Brad says. “Fast.”
Ray just looks downwards and tilts his head. Brad follows his gaze towards the undercarriage of the truck, and gets it when Ray clicks his fingers together and points.
I want to kiss you, Brad does not say. He doesn’t even think it.
It’s a bloody-minded idea, and Brad likes it.
Their only clear line of sight at the other men is directly underneath both the trucks, but there is no point either giving them time for this to occur to them naturally or to attempt to hit each man with only their pistols: too slow, too much room for error, too much time for returned fire, not enough stopping power in a nine millimetre if they only have boots and shins to aim for.
The SAW, though: that’s a different story.
“Ray,” Brad says, “talk to them.” They can’t get the same idea and Brad will need a distraction for this. Brad crouches down where he is and peers around the corner of the truck briefly, head down low.
“It’s fucking hot in here, isn’t it?” Ray half-yells towards the ceiling, bumping the back of his head lightly against the side of the truck. "Are you guys sweating or what? Dave? I assume one of you is Dave. Dave, it's that goddamn hot in here my balls are sweating.”
Ray glances at Brad and Brad nods, keep talking.
There’s no one watching, as Brad peers around the back of the truck again.
“Freeballin' was not the best option. Right? Right? Don't talk to me then, man," Ray says, without pausing to allow a reply, "but I bet your balls are sweating over there too."
“If you put your weapons on the ground and step out from behind this car, we will not shoot you,” a deeply-accented voice replies, from somewhere behind the next truck.
"Brad, you're humming," Ray says, quietly, just for Brad, before launching back into his torrent of filth for enemy ears.
"I’d like to tell you to shut up, Ray," Brad whispers, “but keep fucking talking.”
"Okay, but I think you're freaking Walt and Trombley out."
Trombley does not appear freaked out.
Trombley appears to be ecstatically happy with being shot at. Not entirely normal, but normal reactions to combat do not make a good killer. It’s not terribly far away from Brad’s feeling of Rudy-esque Zen.
Anyway, it’s Ray’s fault he has Cold as Ice in his head. Brad eyes off the SAW across the concrete. It’s only a few feet. He gets down low and makes the brief dash across the fifteen feet of open space in the time it takes to make it though another verse, moving fast but not at a run, no unnecessary noise.
The SAW is heavy in Brad’s hand, but he hefts it quiet as he can and gets his ass back behind the truck.
“Seriously,” Ray says loudly, “fucking ball sweat.”
No one shoots.
Brad breathes for a moment, crouched against the truck’s back wheel.
“Trombley, tell me you’ve fired one of these before,” Brad says quietly and gestures from Trombley to couch next to him, settling the SAW quietly on its bipod.
Trombley nods quick and enthusiastic and reaches out to run a hand over the gun.
Someone leans out and shoots, Brad presumes as much to shut Ray up as anything else. Wouldn't be the first time Ray's mouth has incited violence.
Brad gets down on his stomach next to Trombley, who’s checking the SAW over, as Ray speaks over the top of series small metallic noises. Trombley clearly knows what he’s doing. Brad glances underneath the two trucks to the other side where three sets of booted feet stand in a row.
"Aw," Ray says, and glances around the corner of the truck, head ducked low. Another three shots come in quick succession and Ray laughs, tapping his foot by Brad’s head. "You're sensitive. No need to get mad, homes! Are you one of those guys that gets funky balls? All parmesan cheese smelling flake-y shit huh? It's okay man, there's totally ways to get rid of that -
"You, the very rude one, you need to have your mouth washed with soap - you will not live long enough for that, however.”
Brad pegs the one who’s been talking as possible hired security, though Brad doesn’t know every man the General has. Maybe he’s fucking Godfather’s, at this point, Brad doesn’t feel it would be wise to rule anything out while they’re still in the midst of this fuckery.
"You know what's weird?" Ray replies, "I was going down on your mom last night and when I came up for some fresh air I had to tell her she might wanna invest in some serious douching, and okay, maybe I called her a dirty fucking cunt, but man, you try being nice when you've got a mouthful of femme fresh and cunt porridge - and she said exactly that. I totally took her up on the soap, too, I mean anything to get rid of that fucking taste," Ray's talking loud enough they can hear, but as Brad looks over at him, he's leaning with his shoulder against the side of the truck watching Brad and Trombley set up the SAW as he talks, his mouth is running while his attention is entirely focused on Brad, on the gun.
Ray’s foot tap tap taps beside Brad’s head.
Brad reaches over and puts his hand down over Ray’s boot and pins his foot, the incessant tapping stops and at the same time, Ray stops talking.
“Any time you’re ready, Trombley,” Brad says, his eyes on Trombley handling the gun like an old and cherished pet.
He flicks the safety off, and lays the three foot of ammunition reverently out across the concrete floor. Snaps it open and takes a final glance inside, is apparently satisfied, closes and cocks it.
Brad has seen a SAW turn a an old junker into swiss cheese, though he hasn’t ever handled one himself (he is in no way giving this one up until he gets to unload it himself, even if it’s only on the backwoods firing range he and Ray occasionally let off steam at).
“Ready,” Trombley says, slipping his finger into the trigger guard.
The SAW is loud, louder than Ray on coke, louder than Brad’s Ducati, loud like a motherfucker, it eats up a foot of ammo in a few deafening seconds.
Brad plugs his ears and watches the destruction it reaps: the tearing of clothing and skin and bones alike, the men collapse like buildings being demolished, implosions in the foundations tearing down the whole structure, blood flies instead of dust and debris.
Brad feels a little bit of that Zen Rudy always talked about.
He hum as he picks off each man as they fall, the first two with clean headshots with his pistol and the last he has to wound a few times to get him to uncurl from the inconvenient position he’s scrambled screaming into, knees to his forehead, clutching his shattered shins.
Trombley's got the SAW set up and cocked again, the other screwed shut - ready to cut up the fallen men - Brad taps him lightly on the arm and can almost see the bubble of focussed joy pop Trombley turns towards him and Brad shakes his head.
Negative. Trombley takes a proper look at the dead, both eyes open this time.
Kid definitely had focus. Maybe a little too much focus.
Ray's head appears abruptly next to Brad as he presses himself palms, knees and ear to the concrete to peer underneath the trucks.
"Well, that certainly had an effect," Ray says, half-mumbled into the floor.
Brad can see bone protruding from a flimsily attached boot.
"Ray, when you're right, you're right."
"Cool," Trombley says.
"Pretty cool," Brad agrees. He's definitely keeping that gun.
Ray bounces back to his feet as Brad hauls himself up off the concrete, his right arm feeling a little stiff toward the shoulder from the graze. He puts a hand on it and the material is sticky, but not wet. Good.
Ray holds out his fist and Brad bumps knuckles with him left handed.
"Walt, you should totally check it out," Ray says and gets an arm over Walt's neck. He clings, trying to drag him down. Walt doesn't give him the satisfaction of bending into the headlock and shakes Ray off without answering.
Brad allows them the brief celebration being that that was fairly fucking spectacular. But they've got to move. It's past one. Ray’s glowing, and clearly pumped - they all are, they just kicked some ass, and it’s hot in here, so they’re all damp around the collar and red faced.
Brad twigs abruptly that Ray isn’t completely sober. Should have picked that earlier.
"Right," Brad says and waits for all eyes on him, “keys. Walt, sift through the clusterfuck around the table, Ray, take a walk since you can’t stop tapping your fucking feet anyway, Trombley, we’re rolling corpses.”
The poker players seem most likely to have keys. The body of the first man Brad shot is lying face up where Trombley had rolled him. He’s staring upwards at Brad with dull eyes like a bloody porcelain doll - like one of his sister’s dolls. He reaches down and closes them. He’s not superstitious, he just prefers them not to stare (he’d never liked playing in his sister’s rooms, cabinets full of quiet dead eyes watching everything).
He pats the corpse’s shirt pockets, then works a hand into the front pocket of his jeans - his fingers hit metal and he pulls out keys, the metal still body warm.
Brad whistles and holds the keys out jingling in the air.
“I win.”
“Every time,” Ray mumbles. He’s shuffling around checking under the truck tyres in case anyone’s done the obvious and left the keys perched under the rims.
“Two more to go,” Walt says, then laughs. “Check it out, looks like they were playing poker with some seriously high stakes,” Walt holds up a dollar bill and a banana. “Plus there’s cigarettes everywhere.”
Ray laughs and walks over, holding his hand out and wiggling his fingers. Walt tosses him the fruit.
"Did you know you can get high off bananas?" Ray says, holding up the half eaten fruit by the end.
"No you can't," Trombley says. He looks up at Brad with his hand in a dead man’s pocket, as if for confirmation Ray's full of shit. "You can't, can you?"
Brad shrugs. It’s beneath him to dignify that with an answer, and it’s more amusing to watch Trombley’s face as he tries to figure out if Ray’s being sarcastic. He likes the evil smirk that’s lurking at the corners of Ray’s lips.
"Yeah, man," Ray says, "you know that fuckin' song? They call me mellow yelllooow. I mean listen to that shit, you know it's about drugs. It's about fucking bananadine, but you’re not meant to know about that shit. You get a shit ton of bananas and skin those bitches, then boil the peels, bake that shit, and you end up with this stuff that looks like gunpowder and makes you see demons coming out of your wallpaper."
"So if it's so secret, how come you know?" Trombley narrows his eyes.
"Internet," Walt surmises with a snort.
Ray laughs.
"Whatever Walt, just because your mom smokes bananas."
"Two your mom jokes in the last ten minutes,” Brad shakes his head in faux disappointment. “Is your head clear, Ray?”
"What're you implying Braaaad?"
"I think he’s implying you’re high as fuck,” Walt says. He dodges the banana as Ray throws it at him.
"I resent that, I am on nothing nothing nothing," Ray says, then pauses to swipe a bloody dollar note off the floor and stuff it happily in his pocket, "I took like, a few Adderall XRs, that shit is practically legal."
"My little brother used to have to take that, he’s got that attention deficit disorder,” Trombley pipes up.
Ray grins. "See, Brad? You keep telling me I act like a retarded twelve year old with ADD."
“Shut up and find the other keys.”
Brad checks his found set on the closest truck. Not strictly necessary, but this clusterfuck is starting to lend some possible truth to Ray’s earlier conspiracy theories. No matter what cigarettes are worth, the amount of security was ridiculous for people who should not have been expecting anyone. He tries the truck’s back doors and they swing open, already unlocked.
He’s face to face with a wall of boxes, one of which has been torn open. It’s full of cigarette boxes, which makes clearer approximately nothing.
Brad sighs.
He’s swinging the door shut when Ray bumps his shoulder into Brad’s uninjured arm., drawn close by the prospect of free cigarettes. Brad’s got no problem with Ray’ pilfering, Godfather isn’t going to miss a few cartons from an already half looted box. Plus Brad feels they deserve the bonus after unfucking this situation successfully. Godfather can take it up with Brad personally should he miss a box or two.
Ray looks up at him, leaning into Brad’s arm with his bare shoulder, and gives him a wide-eyed pleading look. Brad looks down and shrugs.
“Take whatever you want.”
Ray reaches past and tears into a carton, pulls out and opens a packet. He deposits the packet in his back pocket, then perches a cigarette precariously on his lower lip.
“Aw, my fuckin’ zippo, shit,” Ray says after a thoughtful second.
Brad still has Ray’s lighter. He’d pocketed it with his keys. He pulls it out of his front pocket and flicks it on, holding the flame out to Ray.
“Brad, you are straight up my fucking hero,” Ray says and leans into Brad’s hand, cupping his fingers around Brad’s to light the cigarette.
Ray doesn’t ask for it back, just blows smoke out his nose and calls Walt! Over his shoulder. Brad slips the lighter back into his pocket and shuts the back doors of the truck.
Ray waves his cigarette under Walt’s nose.
“There's enough smokes there to kill the fucking Malboro man,” Walt says. He waves Ray’s second hand smoke away violently.
“Come on Sunshine, let’s race! First one to die of lung cancer wins,” Ray says, mumbling the last words around a long drag.
“Ray, stop fucking around, we’re still down two sets of keys.”
“One set,” Walt says and holds out an identical set to Brad’s. “Get out of my face, Ray,” he laughs and shoves at Ray. Ray backs off a step when Ray swings at him jokingly and blows a smoke ring at Walt in retaliation.
“That’s good, Walt,” Brad acknowledges.
“So where the fuck are the other ones then?” Ray asks, bending over a body and rifling through the pockets. “Brad, this is not time for your weird ass thing about dead people staring at you, you have got to get into these bastards front pockets like you’re committing an act of necrophilia. Seriously I think I just felt cock.”
Brad ignores Ray and kicks lightly through the cards and debris on the ground around the overturned table. There’s a dollar bill stuck to the floor with blood. Next to it there are fingers. One that looks to be someone’s index finger, and a little bit of a fingertip a nail shot through, torn and dangling. Brad bends and retrieves the fingers, and grins to himself.
Ray needs to learn not to bring up Brad’s entirely understandable foibles in public.
“Hey Ray,” he says and waits until Ray straightens up and faces him, “catch.”
Ray puts his hands out automatically and the expression on his face as he closes his fingers on the tepid damp skin is almost funnier than when he opens his hand and actually realises what he’s caught. He catapults them back towards Brad with a violent flick of his open palm.
“FUCK you Brad, you sick fuck!
“Says the man who just told me to aim for necrophilia.”
Ray has a stronger stomach than almost anyone Brad’s met, he’s seen Ray joke by painting little stripes of war paint on with someone else’s blood, but he cannot stand severed limbs. Brad, on the other hand, couldn't care less, it’s all meat.
“That’s it!” Ray yells and points a bloody finger at Brad. “I’m going to check that office or whatever for the fucking keys.” Ray gestures with a fling of his arm towards the smaller room within the warehouse, wiping his palms off on his pants a few times in disgust before stomping off.
“Like I asked you to in the first place,” Brad calls after him, and grins. Ray gives him the finger and slams the door behind him. He’ll get over it.
Walt is still bent over laughing and gives Brad a smile when he looks up.
Brad kicks the fingers with the toe of his boot.
“Lucky shot,” he observes.
"Saw his hand creeping up on the SAW and all I could think was no you fucking don't," Trombley says.
“Good shot man,” Walt says.
As a deliberate shot, it was beyond good.
"Good shot, Trombley,” Brad acknowledges, “but in the future there is no reason not to go straight for a good clean kill shot in a real fight: chest, head, wherever you've got it. Don’t fuck around with your life, and more importantly don’t fuck with mine.”
Trombley looks sullen and doesn't reply.
"Trombley, you got me?" Brad asks.
"Yeah."
"Good."
The lights go out.
"What fresh new hell," Brad spits under his breath and puts his back against the wall before gesturing at the vague, shadowy shapes of Walt and Trombley violently until they hit the wall on the other side of the door to Brad - glass shatters somewhere, and Brad thinks Ray, but the door's swinging open. Brad can't see Walt and Trombley for a second, but he can see someone walking in, gun up and NVGs on making their silhouette in the dark look monstrous.
The door swings shut with a bang and it's echoed by an explosion of gunfire from all sides and Brad knows they're briefly on even ground as the muzzle flashes would have whited-out their night vision.
Brad hits the deck to avoid friendly fire and hopes Walt and Trombley were clever enough to do the same on the other side. There’s silence.
"Brad!" Walt calls from somewhere, scrabbling for lights.
"I'm fine!" Brad calls.
"They cut the power," Walt says.
Brad can see him in silhouette flicking at a light switch ineffectually.
"Trombley, are you good?"
"I'm good," Trombley says. He's standing over the body nearest to Brad and prodding it in the back with the end of what looks like a pipe, until he flicks the switch on and Brad realises it's a long metal torch.
Jesus fucking Christ, Brad is displeased.
Words. He and Nate are having words, he and Godfather are having words.
This thing never felt good and Brad is about at his limit, and where the fuck is Ray. This is a fuck up, this is a travesty, this is, Brad imagines, exactly what being fucked dry feels like. He has actually emptied his M9’s entire cartridge tonight.
He dusts himself off and feels his heart beat fast for the first time all night; where the fuck is Ray. Shattered glass, three more dead men and silence.
"Ray!"
Silence.
"Ray!" Brad yells again, already halfway to the door. He turns and hold out a hand to stop Walt following. “Walt, hold position in case there’s more surprises, I’m going to look for Ray.”
“Fucking fucking fuck fuck -" Brad hears Ray’s voice, quiet and tense. Brad shoves the door open.
The office lights are on, the fluorescent tubes casting an unpleasant light that heightens the greyness of Ray's face, his eyes are big and bruised looking. He’s clutching his leg and clenching his teeth and bleeding out.
He’s pale, far too pale, normally tanned skin turning to chalk.
Brad’s ears fill with whitenoise, like being dumped by a wave, and he rides it out as he would there, letting it wash over him (don’t leave me) before striking out under his own steam again.
His normal tan erased.
He's bleeding through the cage of his fingers pressed to his upper thigh, a sluggish pulse, the front of his dark jeans shiny-wet spreading from the wound to his knee, and up to his crotch. He's sitting with his back against the wall and with his legs out straight, and a foot from his boot soles there's a man who's rapidly bleeding out.
Ray’s kicks once with his uninjured leg, foot colliding weakly with the groaning man at his feet. He’s facedown and incapacitated, but alive.
“Fuck you,” Ray says to the man through a grit toothed wince. The man is silent except for faint whining breathes, his arms tucked under his body and blood seeping outwards.
“Brad,” Ray looks up at him and Brad drops to his knees beside Ray.
"Sorry," Ray says.
There’s a man draped over the desk in the centre of the room, a knife in his neck and Ray’s gun on the table beside him. Unfired. Brad hadn’t heard it. There’s a halo of blood sliding slow to the edge of the desk dripping pat pat pat onto the concrete.
They’re all wearing Kevlar and dodging bullets and Ray’s managed to get himself stabbed in the fucking thigh. The window into the room from outside has been broken inwards.
There’s glass shining in the dead man’s hair and over the desk.
Brad’s kneeling in the warm puddle spilling out from underneath Ray’s thigh. Ray’s blood. Not what he should be focusing on. He grabs Ray’s hands to press them firmer onto the wound, he’s bleeding too fast. It’s high on his thigh, but it’s not the femoral artery. It’s too slow for that, Ray would have been gone.
There’s silence and Brad clenches his teeth.
“Sorry, Brad. I put my gun down for one second,” Ray’s voice is too quiet. “I found the keys.”
“Look at me, Ray,” his eyes slip away from Brad’s. “Ray! Look at me. Keep pressure on the wound.”
He’s not dying right now. Ray is not dying with Brad right there, that isn’t happening. Brad refuses. He squeeze his fingers over Ray’s, then grabs the keys off the floor with his free hand and squeezes them too, until his palm aches.
“Ray, look at me.”
“Brad, you’re kind of hurting my leg. More. Than it already does. Fuck, that hurts,” Ray looks up at him like Brad’s going to fix it, and puts his other hand over the top of Brad’s. His fingers are wet.
Trombley and Walt appear in the doorway.
Brad pockets the keys and withdraws his hand from between Ray’s. He doesn’t take a breath, he has no time.
“Pressure, Ray. Trombley, open that fucking roller door all the way and take the truck, direct to the address Nate gave you. Walt, help me with Ray into the other truck.”
Brad and Walt grab Ray under the arms, so he keeps his grip on his leg. He bares his teeth in a grin of pain.
Ray doesn't weigh much (doesn't weigh enough), which may be because he's still just awake enough not to be dead weight, one foot touching the floor every few steps.
For a moment as Walt pops the truck's front door open Brad supports Ray's full weight and he's a little more solid than Brad expected, there's some comfort in the weight. Ray breathes harshly against Brad's neck. His grip on his leg is tight enough his fingers are white.
He doesn’t make a comment about the marriage hold, or not being the chick here. He doesn’t say anything. It’s unsettling. Brad focuses on the strength still in the arm Ray has around his neck.
Walt helps him heft Ray into the cab, and settle him uncomfortably onto the bench seat.
Brad glances at Ray's face and attempts a smile - Ray laughs faintly at whatever expression it is Brad does manage. Walt starts the truck.
"My place is closest," Brad talks over the top of Walt’s protest, and Walt shuts his mouth and listens. “Call Doc on the way. I'll meet you there," and rattles off his address.
Walt goes. Brad turns back to the office.
The man is still on the floor, his legs visible through the open door.
Brad steps over him and does not pause to examine whatever it is that shoots through him, he does pause however to yank to knife from the dead man's neck.
He turns back and watches the man’s legs moving in a slow jerking pattern against the carpet, his cheek pressed to the floor, hands bent underneath his body like a dying roach. Trying to push himself somewhere - towards the wall, to attempt standing, go for a phone? Brad isn’t sure why the man thinks he’ll be getting up.
Brad guesses a gut wound, and when he nudges the man over with his boot he’s gratified both by the fact he's right and that Ray had got some of his own back before hitting the floor. Gut wounds are a slow and immensely painful way to go.
The man's scrabbling legs are ineffective because he obviously cannot bring himself to move his hands from his stomach. The front of his shirt is slashed and bloody around his white knuckled grip, the red stain spilling over his sides. They’re knife wounds, and they look deep.
His legs scrabble double time and he moves one hand finally to push himself backwards when he sees Brad, but he's slow and weak and Brad's foot is on his neck. His free hand comes up immediately to grasp at Brad's ankle, fingers slipping slick and clumsy off the leather of his boot, grasping loosely at his pants and tugging.
Brad applies a measured amount of pressure and the hand falls completely away, the man nodding frantically with Brad's bootlaces scraping the underside of his chin.
Brad keeps eye contact with his wide-eyed friend and he removes his boot, and the man remains still. He squats by his side, one hand loose-wristed over his knee, the other holding the knife just out of sight at his side, and waits for his eyes to stop their spooked horse rolling, waits for his breathing to quiet a little.
The man's breathing does not approach anything like normal, but it slows, just slightly.
Brad pries the man's fingers away and gets a breathless "please" for his trouble, but the man is docile, paralysed by fear or hope. Brad holds his stiff sticky fingers away and slips the point of his knife gently under the shirt, shushing him as he looks.
The wound is two wounds, two deep ragged cuts that have hernia like protrusions beating with a fast pulse, muscle or intestine. Brad curls his lip and expression half disgust, half satisfaction.
He lets the man's hand fall, watches as he jerks intensely as he can’t quite keep it from slapping down on his torn stomach. Brad grins down at him.
"Please," the man says. “Call an ambulance for me. Please. Please, you can call when you’re already out gone. Please, go. Call from a payphone.”
Brad hms noncommittally.
"Tell me how you knew we were here?"
"Please," the man repeats, "I swear if you call the ambulance I will tell you everything I will pay you what they were paying me, please."
"Slow down," Brad suggests, patiently. "You can answer me first. Who’s paying you?"
He shakes his head violently, pale faced and sweating. “Francis MacIntyre. Killed. His… son. You killed his son - please this hurts.” He takes a long breath. “Said you had to go, had to.”
Interesting, since Brad had watched Ray kill three bodyguards in front of Francis, and otherwise they had had no contact with the man. Though it is hard to doubt the honesty of a dying man. He tells it quick and desperate. Nate must have known.
The man breathes please again. Some other time, his compliance might have gotten him a reprieve, but Brad isn’t in a forgiving mood.
The man's hands grip his stomach and he curls in on himself.
“Don’t leave me like this,” he says. He meets Brad’s eyes, face sweating and pale, eyes wet.
It would be far crueller to let him writhe away into the dawn. In a way he is lucky that Brad has no intention of letting him go so awkwardly when he can finish the job himself.
“Okay,” Brad says, “okay,” and places his hand over the man's eyes, brings the knife around quickly to his throat. He presses tip first so it’s quick and deep - it’s both harder and easier to do than people expect. You don’t have to cut so deeply, but it is quicker if you do. The man's hands only make it high enough off his stomach to fall back limp at his sides. The burst of blood is less than it would be had he not been a few hours away from bleeding everything in him out through his gut.
Brad still has to wipe his chin with the collar of his shirt. He brushes the man's eyes closed.
It's not as satisfying as it should have been. He stands, frustrated, and throws the knife so it lands point down in the corpse.
Brad doesn’t have time for this clusterfuck. Whatever this is. Nate had sent them to Francis, and into this, and now Ray was bleeding somewhere. Brad is seriously displeased.
He and Nate are going to have some serious words. Brad would dearly like to know what the fuck is going on, but before that, before he takes his next breath, he needs to see Ray.
Brad leaves the last truck at the drop-off, parked neatly beside the others, and takes the nondescript sedan Nate's provided. Trombley protests at being left stranded, the car keys hanging slackly from his hand, and Brad is cannot muster words for how little he cares. It’s far simpler to shove Trombley against the wall with one hand in the collar of his shirt and yank the keys away with the other.
The old woman who supplies Brad with inedible baked goods cracks her door to the limit of the chain and presses her wizened face to gap, she startles when she sees Brad and slams the door shut again. Brad walks on.
He’d given Walt his address without thinking. No doubt he'll have to move very soon, but so long as Ray’s still breathing -
So long as Ray's still breathing.
Walt opens the door before Brad gets his key in the lock.
Walt gets out of his way without saying anything.
Doc Bryan greets him with a frown and Brad waves him off before he can open his mouth. He must look something like how he's feeling, because Doc Bryan does not shut his mouth that easily when he’s got something to say.
"He's okay," Walt calls, as Brad shoves the bedroom door open. “He’s fine.”
Ray coughs out a surprised laugh then screws his eyes shut when Brad bursts in. When he opens his eyes again slowly he looks up at Brad with a smile on his lips.
“Braaaaad,” Ray says quietly and waves limply before letting his hand fall back to the mattress. Brad has a distinct feeling Ray isn’t actually meant to be awake right now. His body is limp and lax and gives the impression, other than his eyes and mouth, that he’s already half asleep.
He’s obviously feeling no pain.
Ray’s propped up on both Brad’s pillows and a couch cushion, pale and grinning and alive, skinny legged in nothing but underwear and a fresh shirt (another one of Brad’s), with a hand over the bandages covering his thighs.
His hand is dark and relaxed over the white of the bandage; he’s not holding himself together anymore.
Brad nods and sits down on the edge of the bed, turns towards Ray. He takes a deep breath and lets his shoulders slump, abruptly feeling tired. The light outside the window is a blood-red dawn and it’s seeping in the gap between Brad’s heavy bedroom curtains, turning the light orange and red and gold like stained glass.
“Is that the third shirt of mine you’ve stolen?” Brad says, feeling the corners of his lips quirk. “I don’t own that many shirts, Ray.”
Ray presses the collar of the shirt up to his face and mumbles into it, “I like your clothes, you smell good. You smell really fucking good, Brad. Have I ever mentioned how fucking good you smell?” Ray’s eyelids droop. He rubs the shirt collar against his face, nuzzling into it comfortably. “Fuck, Brad, forget I said that. Or you know, don’t.” Ray smiles, tilting his head back so it seems as if the corners of his lips are only held in a faint close mouthed smile by gravity.
He closes his eyes for a long moment.
When he looks back at Brad he laughs for no particular reason. “Hi, hiii, oh shit Brad. Doc Bryan gave me some fucking oxytoofuckinggood shit.”
Brad feels very far from amused now, but finds himself laughing a choked sort of chuckle he can’t hold back. He reaches out and touches Ray’s cheek. He’s too tired to resist the urge, relief as big a high as adrenaline.
Ray’s face is still pale, and the blood on Brad’s hands stands out vividly against his skin.
He’s touching Ray. When he strokes his thumb across Ray’s cheekbone it trails dirty marks like warpaint. Ray leans heavily into the touch with a noise like he’s hurting.
Their faces are very close, and Brad’s sure his heart never beat this fast when worked, when he fucked, not for a long, long time. Ray’s eyes are very dark this close, darker than usual. Brad wants to erase every mark on him, go over every inch of skin and bite bruises over bruises, put his own stitches into Ray’s leg.
Ray licks Brad’s lower lip and Brad bites back, lightly. His hand finds the skin of Ray’s thigh, fingertips brush hair and skin until his finds the edges of the bandage and strokes lightly.
“Ray. I want to fuck you.”
Brad feels his face heat, because that was the wrong thing to say (honest and wrong, Brad’s painfully familiar with the combination).
But Ray leans back in and kisses him fiercely, and Brad can’t, doesn’t want to do anything but kiss back.
They both make a sound into the kiss. His bed, his shirt, his.
Brad’s hand tightens on Ray’s arm and very carefully not on Ray’s thigh, and Ray licks at his mouth (the way he kisses is exactly Ray, open-mouthed and dirty), except he pulls back to lick Brad’s bottom lip and misses, striping his tongue over Brad’s chin, slow and stoned.
“You know you’re covered in blood,” Ray says, laughing. He pats clumsily at Brad’s cheek and twines his fingers with Brad to hold his hand out, pressing his cheek to Brad’s mouth as he turns his head to stare at the red streak across Brad’s knuckles.
Ray’s eyebrows and eyelashes are a dark blur this close. Brad drags his teeth gently over Ray’s cheekbone, then takes a breath against Ray’s skin and tells himself to slow down.
He glances at his own hand, cheek against Ray’s. He hadn’t thought to clean himself up, which is a kick in the guts because he always thinks.
“You taste like it,” Ray says, turning so his lips are back against Brad’s. Brad hums and bites him (gently).
All he can taste is Ray, and the string of antiseptic drifting up from the bandaged wound.
Brad tightens teeth and hands on Ray. He leans down on Ray's leg as he shifts forward to kiss him and Ray whines, "Brad, Brad, fuck," and Brad leans back quickly and takes his hand off Ray, feeling the beat of his own heart again.
There’s a spot of blood blossoming in the centre of the white square of bandage, uneven edged and rosy. Brad watches it slow and stop, thumb print sized.
When he looks up, Ray smiles and fumbles for Brad’s hand, tugs it back to where it was resting over the stained white. Brad fingers the material then slips his hand lower, mostly onto Ray’s skin.
Doesn’t want to open the stitches (the consequences of that are stopping, calling for Doc Bryan to come into the room).
Brad feels strangely calm, he knows there's panic coming because this is a monumental fuck-up, but it's easy to shove down right now with Ray alive under him. He realises after a minute he still feels like he's fighting, his thoughts and feelings are still floating somewhere quiet and only faintly connected to the action of here and now; the blood in his mouth and the teeth he's sinking into Ray's lip until Ray makes a sound and he gentles himself, a little, just as much as he can.
And his hand on Ray’s thigh and his fingertips at the edges of the bandage, pressing into material and skin. He doesn't want to let go.
He keeps kissing Ray until Ray shoves at him, a weak hand flat against his shoulder.
Brad moves his hand and watches blood very slowly colour in the fingermarks he’s left on the skin of Ray’s thigh, just below the bandages. He feels guilt, stinging like a bullet graze
“You definitely have to move, now,” Ray says, “sorry,” before he passes out, head listing to one side and a smile on his lips.
Brad’s fingers still under his hand and over his thigh.
Brad watches Ray breathe deeply for a minute, head turned to one side and lips parted, eyelashes dark and cheeks pale, but already more alive than he’d looked under the fluorescent lights of the warehouse.
The door opens and Brad’s M9 is in his hand on autopilot, pointed at Doc.
“Stow that shit, Colbert,” the Doc says, wagging his finger at Brad like he’s a dog that’s pissed on the rug, unconcerned by Brad’s gun aimed dead between his eyes. “Get the fuck out. Ray needs to sleep and unless you’re giving him a transfusion right now, you’re not helping his recovery.”
Doc glances at where Brad and Ray’s hands are linked, then at Ray’s bandages and the red rose spots dotting it down the middle.
He glares at Brad. “Did you let him move?”
Brad likes Doc Bryan, normally. He’s the very rare man in this business that has no secondary motivations, he’s honest and he speaks his mind. Brad likes that. When it’s not directed at him. If he hadn’t just saved Ray’s life, Brad would be inclined at this point to thank him for his advice and dole out some of his own about fucking and the horse he rode in on.
“No,” he says. He can’t muster more words to specify, just no. He’s not going. He look at Ray, eyes closed and face slack and easy, painkillers giving him an easy sleep. His fingers limp in Brad’s. Brad looks back at Doc Bryan and shrugs.
Doc Bryan does not look pleased.
“He’s asleep,” Brad says, but doesn’t say anything regarding leaving the room. He isn’t.
“See that he stays in bed, Brad, and rests. That means doesn’t fucking move around. Make him eat,” Doc says, frowning. He probably thinks Ray’s too skinny - Brad doesn’t disagree. “I’m not sure you understand how close that was. In all reality, Ray needs more than the little I could do for him here. He might walk with a limp for months. For longer.”
“Thank you, Doc,” Brad says and meets Doc Bryan’s eyes until he looks away and leaves Brad alone with Ray.
Brad pulls up in front of Nate’s at six, the setting sun hot at his back as he parks his bike in the drop-off zone out front.
Nate's building is a monster made of glass, head to foot cool and reflective. Brad watches himself in the front doors, a shadowy image in his last clean shirt (Ray), jeans, sweating in his bike jacket and boots.
It's still sticky as the previous night, the temperature dipping only marginally with the sun. It's hot and he's bothered, his back hurts from the day spent napping on the couch, a few hours of sleep broken up by glances into his bedroom at Ray (most of the day sound asleep on top of the covers, fingers dragging his borrowed shirt up as they pressed down into the elastic of his underwear).
Might not only have been the couch keeping Brad half-awake and restless.
It’s easier to put aside thoughts of his lips on Ray's (and hands, and teeth) now he’s sluiced off sweat and blood and brushed away the taste in a cold shower. Easy enough to think of other things (that the faint headache he has gets worse when he does think about it isn’t relevant).
Nate. He and Nate have a few things to discuss.
Most of which can be condensed down to a neat little question: how much did you know? Why fail to mention that they had apparently knocked off Francis’s son in front of him? Did Nate know?
Did he know that they were walking into a warehouse full of heavy machinery and back up?
Brad fingers creak the leather of his jacket and he unclenches them deliberately, stowing it in the Ducati’s pannier.
Brad's phone rings before he can buzz to be let up. NATE, this display reads.
"Brad, Doc Bryan called."
Brad appreciates Nate skipping any small talk, and does likewise. He is not in the mood for fucking around.
"Are you going to let me in?" Brad asks.
"Should I?"
"That was an interesting little clusterfuck you dropped us into. I imagine you'll want to hear the full story," Brad says. He watches himself in the glass, expressionless.
“That isn’t what I asked. Should I?” Nate’s hesitating. If he hadn’t, Brad’s estimation of him would have lowered somewhat.
“Oh but Nate, I seem to remember you talking about how much you trust me,” Brad doesn’t bother keeping the edge out of his voice, and watches the white line of his teeth appear in his shadowed reflection.
Brad isn’t going to do anything untoward - he isn’t even armed. He’s not going to bother telling that to Nate, though. He can prove his trust. Brad is enjoying Nate’s hesitation: it stems from intelligence, but there’s fear underneath and it’s satisfying and cools Brad’s ire.
Nate has to know, too, that if Brad wanted him dead he’d find a way. Right now what he wants his Nate to look him in the eye and tell him the truth. He’s not getting ahead of himself.
Nate laughs, short and humourless. Brad grins at his dark reflection in the glass.
“Come on up, then.”
The doors open as Brad approaches. Q-Tip stands aside to let him in and Christeson hovers in front of the elevator banks. They’re clearly downstairs to pat him down or to otherwise gauge his mood before they let him up to Nate.
That isn’t happening.
"Yo, we're meant to uh, frisk you and shit,” Q-Tip says, shifting on the spot uncomfortably.
Brad looks at him.
Q-Tip looks at the floor.
Christeson comes away from the elevators and claps a hand on Q-Tip's shoulder, and nods at Brad. They both keep a respectful distance as the elevator dings and Brad gets in.
Nate watches him as Brad sits down in front of his desk, blanks his face and fucking radiates calm.
“How is Ray?”
“Alive,” Brad says.
"What happened?"
“You don’t know?” Brad asks, still calm enough.
"I don’t,” Nate says and shrugs, “not entirely. I only know what Doc Bryan told me, and that we have recovered all three trucks.”
“When I give my word I mean it.”
Brad leans back in his chair and folds his arms over his chest, and they study each other for a moment.
Someone had fucked them over (fucked Ray over), either Nate had had them or been fucked too. Brad's never been so acutely frustrated with the unreadable quality Nate has as right at this moment, staring across the wide desk at Nate’s cold blue eyes.
“Tell me?” Nate asks.
Brad does, from the first surprise of the sniper on the roof, down to Ray’s injury, and how they had apparently become targets of Francis MacIntyre’s vendetta, because they had taken out his son. On Nate’s word.
Nate sighs, looks at his hands. He looks genuinely unhappy for a moment. Then again, Nate is by definition a good actor. You don’t stay alive through what Nate has without being good.
He stands and walks around the table to lean on the edge of the desk. Brad recognizes it for the manipulative gesture it is, Nate mirrors his body language and without the expensive expanse of oak between them this seems more personal, as it had the night Nate had called them into this room to tell them about the job.
It works, on some level, despite Brad being conscious of it. Nate seems more honest on this side of the table.
“Before Godfather, there was an undercover job I took - my first. It was a quick job. Mike Wynn was my contact, he’d been with Francis for over a year when I came in. Mike Wynn was one of my best friends, Brad. Mike,” Nate glances at the ground briefly, then back at Brad with grief on his face Brad believes, “he was my family, he was the closest I’ve ever had to a big brother. Without him-- without Mike I wouldn’t have known how to survive. Francis MacIntyre killed Mike. He shot him in the fucking head, Brad,” Nate spits the words with a venom and a tone Brad has never heard from him, something real. “I watched him do it. If that was Francis’s son you and Ray shot… I wasn’t sure he’d be there. I’m glad, though, Brad. I’m fucking ecstatic.” Nate’s cheeks are flushed as he finishes, and Brad is sure his eyebrows are raised, solely because he has never yet heard Nate swear so violently about anything.
He’s bordering on uncontrolled, and Brad is somewhat off-balance. He smiles at Brad. It’s not a happy smile. It’s so contrary to what Brad is used to, it gives Brad pause.
“Why didn’t you inform us of this?” Brad asks. Any of it.
“I wasn’t sure he’d be there.”
Which doesn’t entirely answer Brad’s question, but he’s not going to push. If Nate doesn’t want to speak any further about this Mike Wynn, Brad won’t force it.
“Brad, if it was Ray -"
“It nearly fucking was Ray,” Brad snaps. He takes Nate’s point, though. He’s already done several grossly unprofessional things today simply because someone made Ray bleed.
“I did not think Francis would do this, Brad. You have my word on that. I never thought it'd come back on you Brad, not me. And I wasn't sure about the security intel Godfather handed me, and I'm sorry for that. The fact that they had back-up was a possibility I suspected, but. There was no other way to see." Nate pauses.
Brad listens, and waits him out. You can get a lot out of someone if you keep quiet, dole out the rope, and let them go. It’s something Brad is very good at.
Nate shifts from the desk and paces along its front slowly before apparently making a decision and glancing at Brad.
“Apart from the possibility that Godfather knew about the ambush and didn’t inform me, it just doesn't make sense for Godfather to do this to Patton." He pauses again, and looks away from Brad, and when he looks back he looks more like Brad is used to seeing him. "I have a lot of respect for Godfather's intelligence, but there was something about this that I disliked from the beginning. I don't know, Brad. He wants something from Patton, and it isn’t cigarettes.”
“The thought had occurred to me,” Brad says. "Could you not have shared this with me before now? You mentioned trust, Nate," Brad asks.
“It’s not entirely about trust, Brad. It’s also about self-preservation. If you repeat what I just said then, well,” Nate’s lips quirk.
“Tell me something worth keeping secret,” Brad prompts. Nate wants to say more, Brad can see it in him.
“Whatever Godfather is doing." Nate pauses and looks, for a moment, his age, which Brad tends to forget is quite a few years younger than himself, "it isn’t how I would do it."
That’s not quite what Brad has expected, but it clicks something into place for Brad. Nate is walking a fine line. They are walking a fine line here, Brad amends inside his own head: it feels right to think of himself as behind Nate in this.
Nate knows more than Brad does, and Brad is starting to get the feeling Nate knows something big.
Brad can't help smile, an acceptance of Nate’s apologies. Nate's definitely not telling Brad everything he knows, and Brad files that away, but for all he intellectually, logically knows trusting Nate further is a bad idea, there is something in his gut that says yes.
"To be frank, sir, whatever it is? You'd do it better.” It’s the easiest way to show Nate he’s forgiven. Brad doesn’t call anyone else sir, and he is certain Nate has noticed that.
“Thank you, Brad. Does that mean you’ll take the next job?”
Nate smiles at him and Brad smiles back fully and with teeth this time, smiles because Nate’s got the balls to push. He’s impressed.
“What’s it entail?”
“More violence, I imagine. It’s entirely possible it will be another clusterfuck like the last, though we will deal with Francis beforehand. That will not be a further problem,” Nate says. He leans back against the desk again. “The General runs on cancer and guns, this time Godfather wants the guns.”
“Why should we do another bullshit job for Godfather’s benefit?”
"Godfather wants it done, but I could ask Rudy and Pappy, or Poke. I want you to do it. I know you may not want to hear it, but I do trust you Brad. You’re my men. I need time to think, and I need to know you’ll be there,” Nate says fiercely. He looks as dangerous right now as Brad has always imagined he is, somewhere under his unassuming, baby-faced exterior.
When Brad nods, he knows he is agreeing to something more than running a second job for Godfather. For Nate. They shake hands, Nate’s eyes clear as a summer sky as they meet Brad’s.
Brad knows he wouldn’t have agreed to this for Godfather, had Godfather personally asked Brad himself. Not to another potential fuck-up like the last job. Not with Ray hurt, not with the thought of that still turning his stomach to this moment. Ray, who he’d left sleeping, two of Doc Bryan’s pills on the bedside table next to a hopefully edible muffin and a glass of water.
“And Nate? Thanks to this monumentally retarded clusterfuck, I'm moving. Tomorrow,” Brad says.
“I’m sorry, Brad. Do you need a place? I can arrange it.”
“No,” Brad says. “I’m good, sir.”
So far as he’s decided Nate had not meant any harm this time he still doesn’t feel the need to have him know where he lives (or to be holed up in some soulless place like this under Godfather’s personal watch).
With the blood and Ray's wound and the truck, he's not fucking around however. He’ll pay his month’s rent and go quietly, take Ray home and spend a week at Ray's and make sure he doesn't fuck himself up any further - it's not just the thought of Ray's Ray-sized couch that makes that uncomfortable, but he can't leave him right now. Though he’s desperate to ride out of the city, and desperate for the oblivion of the sea.
“We’ll talk details later, Brad. Go back to Ray.”
Brad feels his face flush and doesn’t look back at Nate as he leaves. He hadn’t thought he was that obvious.
End (... for now).