fic: Gravity Won't Keep
recipient: thebunnyknows
author: salvadore_hart
title: Gravity Won't Keep
pairing: Brad/Ray
rating: PG13
word count: 2288
summary/warnings: What ought to be an image of the bones in Ray's body, of the lines of his spine and shoulder blades, Brad finds what looks like a set of misplaced ribs mirroring each other on either side of Ray's spine. [or the “Semi-unapologetic Wing!Fic”]
author notes: for the prompt “Not the boy I was the boy I am is just venting venting Dear Gravity, you held me down in this starless city” (FallOutBoy - Tiffany Blows) and this photo (link to photo) I have no actual, practical, knowledge about medical procedure, etc., therefore any of it herein is made up.
-
Ray has pulled all of the blankets from the closet and made a literal nest out of them in the middle of the bed. Despite the weight of the blankets, though, Ray is still shaking like its below zero and all he is wearing is his skin.
Which may, or may not, be better than when a few hours before he had been sweating with a fever. Except Ray is lying between sweat dampened sheets, too exhausted to find a dryer place to rest. Even though the damp spot is making the chills worse.
On top of the chills and the shakes, the headache that Ray has had on-and-off since Monday has gotten worse. What had started as pressure in the front of his skull has become a steady pounding between his temples. A pounding that doesn't seem appeased by his current suicidal intentions and general wish to sever his head from his body. Instead it has permeated through his limbs, making him all the more miserable. Ray's back feels like it has been broken open by a hatchet, sending a throbbing sensation spreading from his shoulder blades to his finger tips. His joints ache bone deep, like they've been over-extended. Ray can usually needs both hands to name the number of times he has felt so bruised that he'd needed to lie in bed for a week. But this, this beats the rest of those times by miles.
///
Ray's busy chewing his bottom lip raw while he concentrates on not moving an inch when Brad gets home. Ray only notices the sound of the front door closing because it makes his headache flare. He groans and presses his face into the mattress. He's drifting in the scent of their laundry detergent when there's the sound of the bedroom door opening, and then the thundering of Brad's voice calling into the darkened bedroom.
“Ray?”
Ray grunts back. He's pawing at the blankets to prove he's there - and to stop Brad from turning on the lights - but it takes him longer than he'd like to find the edge of the blankets. By the time he surfaces Brad has flicked the light switch up and the room is lit up like a sports stadium. Or at least that is how it feels to Ray's head, which is acting as if it's about to explode. It's all he can do to throw his arms around his skull and try to hold bone and brain matter inside beneath the skin.
“Turn off the fucking lights, motherfucker!” Ray tries to yell the words, but his voice is so wrecked. Instead the words come out sounding pitiful, and more like a yelp than a command.
But at least Brad turns off the light.
“Jesus, Ray.”
Brad appears beside him, tugging with his stupidly oversized hands at Ray's forearms. The whine that escapes Ray's throat at the touch is involuntary and doesn't do much, except make Brad recoil. Brad hovers, and Ray can almost feel the fretting rolling off of him in waves.
Ray rolls onto his stomach, and says, “Keep your paws off me, man, or I will cut them the fuck off,” as he buries his head in his arms. Ray's threat loses forces what with the way he mumbles it into his own skin.
“Goddammit, Ray,” Brad says so quietly his voice sounds like a sigh. “I thought you just had a migraine.”
Then, forgoing his hovering and hesitance to touch Ray, Brad grabs for Ray's shoulders and manhandles him onto his back. Ray fights it at first, but his stomach actually recoils when pain shoots across his skin. He murmurs a halfhearted curse before he gives up and goes limp.
That's when Brad gets a hand on Ray's forehead and hisses out words that would make Chaffin blush like a nun.
It just makes Ray's head hurt.
“I'm taking you to the hospital.”
“Like fuck you are,” Ray retorts automatically. He manages to lift his head high enough to shoot Brad a glare. Brad's lips are twisted into a frown, but there's a glint in his eyes that belies it. Ray doesn't like that look, it never spells anything good for Ray. He tells Brad as much as he tries to escape beneath the blankets, reaching for the edge of the mattress with his toes.
Not even a moment later he's being invaded by Brad's arms and being lifted (blankets and all) from the bed.
Ray kicks and struggles. His voice sounds winded when he says, “I'm not a child, Brad.”
“Then stop acting like one.”
Brad tosses Ray over his shoulder and carries him out to the car. Ray's only saving grace is that none of the neighbors see them.
///
Brad sits in the waiting room for hours. No one comes to tell him what's going on, which is beyond frustrating after having waited hours just to get a doctor to look Ray over. There's nothing interesting about People Magazine, and Brad wouldn't pick up a Martha Stewart if it would save his life so he I stuck with people watching and counting the lines the linoleum.
Ray comes stumbling down the hall with a doctor hot on his heels. But what makes Brad stand from his seat is the look on Ray's face. His eyebrows are drawn together and he's gone white. There's a tightness about his eyes that Brad knows is due to stress, but it's also a look that precedes an action that is stupid and self-destructive. Brad takes quick strides toward Ray, though if it's because he wants to make sure Ray doesn't fall over or because he thinks Ray is about to punch the doctor Brad's not sure.
“Mr. Person!”
Ray whips around at the sound of his name and Brad lifts a hand forward, fingers grasping the air around Ray's elbow.
“Is there any rule that obligates me to stay in this shit hole,” Ray asks, voice dangerously low. The doctor must catch the threat in Ray's voice because he takes a step back. Brad catches the man's eyes for a moment while the doctor seems to assess the situation. Then the doctor is setting his folder on the nurse's station which Ray has conveniently managed to lean his hip on. To anyone else, the way Ray is standing would seem casual but Brad can read the stiff set of Ray's shoulders. He knows that Ray didn't stop arbitrarily in the waiting room, but that he sought out a surface to lean on.
“No, Mr. Person,” the doctor is saying. “You can sign out, I can't stop you.”
Ray bares his teeth in a mockery of a grin.
The doctor turns to ask a nurse about forms, but Brad's watching Ray. Specifically the way Ray slides the folder across the counter top, thin fingers snagging on the one of the pages. An x-ray, Brad realizes as he watches Ray pull it free and off of the counter. Ray hides it in the back of his pants, the loose shirt he'd stolen from Brad manages to hide the shape of it.
///
Brad doesn't ask any questions until they are back in the car.
“It's definitely not mono,” Ray offers. He has his forehead pressed against the window and the pinched lines around his eyes are back. He tries to hide the pain with a closed lip grin and it makes Brad tighten his fists around the steering wheel.
There's a silence between them where Brad is biting his tongue and white knuckling it to keep from dragging answers out of Ray.
“You know how birds have hollowed out bones and shit,” Ray asks. His words are slow and quiet. Brad can see Ray's Adam's Apple bobbing as he forces himself to swallow.
Ray closes his eyes too long for it to be a blink, more like he is trying to center himself. Like that the bruises beneath his eyes are blunt, and the pallor to his skin isn't helping matters. Ray turns toward Brad before he slowly opens his eyes again. He opens his mouth as if to speak then looks stricken.
“Pull the fuck over,” he rasps.
Brad does.
The car has barely stopped before Ray throws his door wide open ad bends at the waist, dry heaving on the tarmac.
///
At home Brad tries to get Ray stripped and into bed, but what little lucidity Ray had from the hospital to the house is lost and Ray turns into an octopus. Thin fingers had clung to every piece of Brad that gets too close, fabric being curled into Ray's fists as Ray tries to pull Brad down over him. Shaking and whining about being cold, Ray tries to wrap Brad in his limbs.
“Fucking freezing, homes,” is the last thing Ray says before he passes out.
It's so fucking domestic, for them, that it scares the crap out of Brad.
That and the rising temperature Ray is running.
///
Brad looks at the x-ray Ray stole and realizes neither of those things is truly terrifying. Not like the unknown, not like the x-ray.
What ought to be an image of the bones in Ray's body, of the lines of his spine and shoulder blades, Brad finds what looks like a set of misplaced ribs mirroring each other on either side of Ray's spine.
///
Ray wakes up to Brad staring at him like he has just sprouted wings. He rolls his eyes and sits up to tell Brad to fuck off when - hey, what would you know?
///
They're not the sort of wings Ray would have imagined. For one, they are fucking huge in a potentially inconvenient way. And this weird off white color that's almost gray, and Ray thinks there is a joke about angels and sinners or some shit hanging in the air. He shifts and the wings flap about him for a moment before they settle. The weird part is the way that Ray can feel the muscles in his back moving to accommodate them. Ray shudders.
Then he looks back up at Brad who (for all his ability to deal with bullshit) looks like thie might be the point where he tosses in the towel.
“You were out for three days.”
“Jesus,” Ray whistles. He can feel the stale sweat like a second coat over his skin, his stomach aches and he doesn't doubt Brad for a moment.
“Ray.”
Ray looks up at the call of his name to find that Brad has moved closer to the bed.
“What the fuck did you mean by 'hollowed out bones?'”
Ray grins back, just this side of self-deprecating. Then Brad is within reach and Ray gets his hands on Brad's biceps and is drawing him in. Ray licks his lips in an attempt to be distracting.
“I just grew big ass, gay motherfucking wings and you want to talk about something I said? Way to ignore the elephant in the room, Colbert.”
“Fuck off, Ray,” Brad shoots back with a grin. He's sliding his fingers through Ray's short hair to get a grip on what he can of the slightly-longer-than regulation hair cut. Ray's head jerks back when Brad tugs at his hair, baring his neck. His wings fucking flap and Ray would be more embarrassed if Brad wasn't suddenly staring at them like he was transfixed.
///
“So birds are capable of flying due to their wingspan in correlation with their body mass.”
Brad hums in response, watching for their exit into LA.
“Well, those fuckers are only able to have low enough body masses because of their hollow bone structure.”
“What the fuck does that have to do with you, Ray?”
Ray's grin is positively predatory.
“My bone density fucking disappeared man. Mystery of life - I should be fucking dead.”
“Instead you are turning into a bird.”
“Don't ruin this for me, Brad.”
///
Brad follows Ray up the stairs to the roof of the ten story building. Even though they tried to tie Ray's wings down Brad can see them shifting beneath the fabric of Ray's shirt. They'd had to nearly fold them in half just to get them to lay over Ray's back. They'd strained against Brad's hands when he had pressed them under the gauze. By the way Ray keeps rolling his shoulders impatiently, Brad figures it isn't a comfortable solution. He reaches out a hand and presses it to the small of Ray's back. Ray pauses for less than a second, leaning into Brad, before he is taking the last few steps two at a time.
The sun is already high in the sky and there isn't any wind, even standing on the roof. Ray's wearing his pimp glasses and somehow his grin from in the car has grown. He's already working at the button of his shirt, no hesitation.
“You better be absolutely sure about this, Ray,” Brad says with an edge of warning to his voice.
Ray's dimples are showing when he turns to look at him. He cocks one eyebrow and Brad doesn't even bother biting back his responding grin.
Then Ray is tossing his shirt to the ground, and unwrapping the gauze. The wings spring free just as Ray leans over to lay his sunglasses down on the ledge. They stretch back from Ray's body, anticipating and as restless as Ray was in the car.
Below them the traffic is a steady thrumming sound.
“Ready to see me fly, homes?”
author: salvadore_hart
title: Gravity Won't Keep
pairing: Brad/Ray
rating: PG13
word count: 2288
summary/warnings: What ought to be an image of the bones in Ray's body, of the lines of his spine and shoulder blades, Brad finds what looks like a set of misplaced ribs mirroring each other on either side of Ray's spine. [or the “Semi-unapologetic Wing!Fic”]
author notes: for the prompt “Not the boy I was the boy I am is just venting venting Dear Gravity, you held me down in this starless city” (FallOutBoy - Tiffany Blows) and this photo (link to photo) I have no actual, practical, knowledge about medical procedure, etc., therefore any of it herein is made up.
-
Ray has pulled all of the blankets from the closet and made a literal nest out of them in the middle of the bed. Despite the weight of the blankets, though, Ray is still shaking like its below zero and all he is wearing is his skin.
Which may, or may not, be better than when a few hours before he had been sweating with a fever. Except Ray is lying between sweat dampened sheets, too exhausted to find a dryer place to rest. Even though the damp spot is making the chills worse.
On top of the chills and the shakes, the headache that Ray has had on-and-off since Monday has gotten worse. What had started as pressure in the front of his skull has become a steady pounding between his temples. A pounding that doesn't seem appeased by his current suicidal intentions and general wish to sever his head from his body. Instead it has permeated through his limbs, making him all the more miserable. Ray's back feels like it has been broken open by a hatchet, sending a throbbing sensation spreading from his shoulder blades to his finger tips. His joints ache bone deep, like they've been over-extended. Ray can usually needs both hands to name the number of times he has felt so bruised that he'd needed to lie in bed for a week. But this, this beats the rest of those times by miles.
///
Ray's busy chewing his bottom lip raw while he concentrates on not moving an inch when Brad gets home. Ray only notices the sound of the front door closing because it makes his headache flare. He groans and presses his face into the mattress. He's drifting in the scent of their laundry detergent when there's the sound of the bedroom door opening, and then the thundering of Brad's voice calling into the darkened bedroom.
“Ray?”
Ray grunts back. He's pawing at the blankets to prove he's there - and to stop Brad from turning on the lights - but it takes him longer than he'd like to find the edge of the blankets. By the time he surfaces Brad has flicked the light switch up and the room is lit up like a sports stadium. Or at least that is how it feels to Ray's head, which is acting as if it's about to explode. It's all he can do to throw his arms around his skull and try to hold bone and brain matter inside beneath the skin.
“Turn off the fucking lights, motherfucker!” Ray tries to yell the words, but his voice is so wrecked. Instead the words come out sounding pitiful, and more like a yelp than a command.
But at least Brad turns off the light.
“Jesus, Ray.”
Brad appears beside him, tugging with his stupidly oversized hands at Ray's forearms. The whine that escapes Ray's throat at the touch is involuntary and doesn't do much, except make Brad recoil. Brad hovers, and Ray can almost feel the fretting rolling off of him in waves.
Ray rolls onto his stomach, and says, “Keep your paws off me, man, or I will cut them the fuck off,” as he buries his head in his arms. Ray's threat loses forces what with the way he mumbles it into his own skin.
“Goddammit, Ray,” Brad says so quietly his voice sounds like a sigh. “I thought you just had a migraine.”
Then, forgoing his hovering and hesitance to touch Ray, Brad grabs for Ray's shoulders and manhandles him onto his back. Ray fights it at first, but his stomach actually recoils when pain shoots across his skin. He murmurs a halfhearted curse before he gives up and goes limp.
That's when Brad gets a hand on Ray's forehead and hisses out words that would make Chaffin blush like a nun.
It just makes Ray's head hurt.
“I'm taking you to the hospital.”
“Like fuck you are,” Ray retorts automatically. He manages to lift his head high enough to shoot Brad a glare. Brad's lips are twisted into a frown, but there's a glint in his eyes that belies it. Ray doesn't like that look, it never spells anything good for Ray. He tells Brad as much as he tries to escape beneath the blankets, reaching for the edge of the mattress with his toes.
Not even a moment later he's being invaded by Brad's arms and being lifted (blankets and all) from the bed.
Ray kicks and struggles. His voice sounds winded when he says, “I'm not a child, Brad.”
“Then stop acting like one.”
Brad tosses Ray over his shoulder and carries him out to the car. Ray's only saving grace is that none of the neighbors see them.
///
Brad sits in the waiting room for hours. No one comes to tell him what's going on, which is beyond frustrating after having waited hours just to get a doctor to look Ray over. There's nothing interesting about People Magazine, and Brad wouldn't pick up a Martha Stewart if it would save his life so he I stuck with people watching and counting the lines the linoleum.
Ray comes stumbling down the hall with a doctor hot on his heels. But what makes Brad stand from his seat is the look on Ray's face. His eyebrows are drawn together and he's gone white. There's a tightness about his eyes that Brad knows is due to stress, but it's also a look that precedes an action that is stupid and self-destructive. Brad takes quick strides toward Ray, though if it's because he wants to make sure Ray doesn't fall over or because he thinks Ray is about to punch the doctor Brad's not sure.
“Mr. Person!”
Ray whips around at the sound of his name and Brad lifts a hand forward, fingers grasping the air around Ray's elbow.
“Is there any rule that obligates me to stay in this shit hole,” Ray asks, voice dangerously low. The doctor must catch the threat in Ray's voice because he takes a step back. Brad catches the man's eyes for a moment while the doctor seems to assess the situation. Then the doctor is setting his folder on the nurse's station which Ray has conveniently managed to lean his hip on. To anyone else, the way Ray is standing would seem casual but Brad can read the stiff set of Ray's shoulders. He knows that Ray didn't stop arbitrarily in the waiting room, but that he sought out a surface to lean on.
“No, Mr. Person,” the doctor is saying. “You can sign out, I can't stop you.”
Ray bares his teeth in a mockery of a grin.
The doctor turns to ask a nurse about forms, but Brad's watching Ray. Specifically the way Ray slides the folder across the counter top, thin fingers snagging on the one of the pages. An x-ray, Brad realizes as he watches Ray pull it free and off of the counter. Ray hides it in the back of his pants, the loose shirt he'd stolen from Brad manages to hide the shape of it.
///
Brad doesn't ask any questions until they are back in the car.
“It's definitely not mono,” Ray offers. He has his forehead pressed against the window and the pinched lines around his eyes are back. He tries to hide the pain with a closed lip grin and it makes Brad tighten his fists around the steering wheel.
There's a silence between them where Brad is biting his tongue and white knuckling it to keep from dragging answers out of Ray.
“You know how birds have hollowed out bones and shit,” Ray asks. His words are slow and quiet. Brad can see Ray's Adam's Apple bobbing as he forces himself to swallow.
Ray closes his eyes too long for it to be a blink, more like he is trying to center himself. Like that the bruises beneath his eyes are blunt, and the pallor to his skin isn't helping matters. Ray turns toward Brad before he slowly opens his eyes again. He opens his mouth as if to speak then looks stricken.
“Pull the fuck over,” he rasps.
Brad does.
The car has barely stopped before Ray throws his door wide open ad bends at the waist, dry heaving on the tarmac.
///
At home Brad tries to get Ray stripped and into bed, but what little lucidity Ray had from the hospital to the house is lost and Ray turns into an octopus. Thin fingers had clung to every piece of Brad that gets too close, fabric being curled into Ray's fists as Ray tries to pull Brad down over him. Shaking and whining about being cold, Ray tries to wrap Brad in his limbs.
“Fucking freezing, homes,” is the last thing Ray says before he passes out.
It's so fucking domestic, for them, that it scares the crap out of Brad.
That and the rising temperature Ray is running.
///
Brad looks at the x-ray Ray stole and realizes neither of those things is truly terrifying. Not like the unknown, not like the x-ray.
What ought to be an image of the bones in Ray's body, of the lines of his spine and shoulder blades, Brad finds what looks like a set of misplaced ribs mirroring each other on either side of Ray's spine.
///
Ray wakes up to Brad staring at him like he has just sprouted wings. He rolls his eyes and sits up to tell Brad to fuck off when - hey, what would you know?
///
They're not the sort of wings Ray would have imagined. For one, they are fucking huge in a potentially inconvenient way. And this weird off white color that's almost gray, and Ray thinks there is a joke about angels and sinners or some shit hanging in the air. He shifts and the wings flap about him for a moment before they settle. The weird part is the way that Ray can feel the muscles in his back moving to accommodate them. Ray shudders.
Then he looks back up at Brad who (for all his ability to deal with bullshit) looks like thie might be the point where he tosses in the towel.
“You were out for three days.”
“Jesus,” Ray whistles. He can feel the stale sweat like a second coat over his skin, his stomach aches and he doesn't doubt Brad for a moment.
“Ray.”
Ray looks up at the call of his name to find that Brad has moved closer to the bed.
“What the fuck did you mean by 'hollowed out bones?'”
Ray grins back, just this side of self-deprecating. Then Brad is within reach and Ray gets his hands on Brad's biceps and is drawing him in. Ray licks his lips in an attempt to be distracting.
“I just grew big ass, gay motherfucking wings and you want to talk about something I said? Way to ignore the elephant in the room, Colbert.”
“Fuck off, Ray,” Brad shoots back with a grin. He's sliding his fingers through Ray's short hair to get a grip on what he can of the slightly-longer-than regulation hair cut. Ray's head jerks back when Brad tugs at his hair, baring his neck. His wings fucking flap and Ray would be more embarrassed if Brad wasn't suddenly staring at them like he was transfixed.
///
“So birds are capable of flying due to their wingspan in correlation with their body mass.”
Brad hums in response, watching for their exit into LA.
“Well, those fuckers are only able to have low enough body masses because of their hollow bone structure.”
“What the fuck does that have to do with you, Ray?”
Ray's grin is positively predatory.
“My bone density fucking disappeared man. Mystery of life - I should be fucking dead.”
“Instead you are turning into a bird.”
“Don't ruin this for me, Brad.”
///
Brad follows Ray up the stairs to the roof of the ten story building. Even though they tried to tie Ray's wings down Brad can see them shifting beneath the fabric of Ray's shirt. They'd had to nearly fold them in half just to get them to lay over Ray's back. They'd strained against Brad's hands when he had pressed them under the gauze. By the way Ray keeps rolling his shoulders impatiently, Brad figures it isn't a comfortable solution. He reaches out a hand and presses it to the small of Ray's back. Ray pauses for less than a second, leaning into Brad, before he is taking the last few steps two at a time.
The sun is already high in the sky and there isn't any wind, even standing on the roof. Ray's wearing his pimp glasses and somehow his grin from in the car has grown. He's already working at the button of his shirt, no hesitation.
“You better be absolutely sure about this, Ray,” Brad says with an edge of warning to his voice.
Ray's dimples are showing when he turns to look at him. He cocks one eyebrow and Brad doesn't even bother biting back his responding grin.
Then Ray is tossing his shirt to the ground, and unwrapping the gauze. The wings spring free just as Ray leans over to lay his sunglasses down on the ledge. They stretch back from Ray's body, anticipating and as restless as Ray was in the car.
Below them the traffic is a steady thrumming sound.
“Ready to see me fly, homes?”