FIC: An Ace That I Could Keep (Ray Levoi/Walter Crow Horse, PG)
TITLE: An Ace That I Could Keep
RATING: PG
FANDOM: Thunderheart
PAIRING: Ray Levoi/Walter Crow Horse
SUMMARY: In fact, the house does not always win.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: Prompt from Mundane Bingo, which I am not so much playing as looting: toothache/wisdom tooth removal. Title from Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler.
Crow Horse woke before the alarm, and he woke alone. These were both unusual, but not unheard of. Crow Horse was getting older, sleep becoming less reliable, and Ray got restless even in his dreams. He was probably out running-not that something would be chasing him; apparently, this was something Wasi’chu people did for fun-expensive sneakers pounding up clouds of prairie dust. The damn dog kicked at Crow Horse in its sleep, and Crow Horse cursed and turned over to avoid it. This turned him toward the bathroom; he frowned. The light was on, peeking butter yellow out from under the door.
“Ray?”
There was no answer, and the fucking dog was kicking him with its powerful rabbit legs again, so Crow Horse got up and rapped on the bathroom door.
“Ray?”
There was no answer again, so Crow Horse tried the handle, and found the door locked.
“You on your period or something in there? Open the damn door.”
No words, only the lock clicking back in response. Crow Horse pushed the door open, found Ray in his pajamas and sleep hair, suspended over the sink. The muscles of his bare shoulders were bunched and tense.
“You okay? I was just jokin’ about your period. I know it’s not time for that yet.”
Ray looked over long enough to glare at him.
“Whoa,” Crow Horse said, and Ray hid his face again. The right side was swollen like a chipmunk saving up for winter.
“Fuck you,” Ray mumbled, the slurred words as fat and distorted as if he was speaking through a mouthful of marbles.
“Hey,” Crow Horse said, and took Ray by the shoulders, hands gently manipulating Ray’s jaw so he could get a better look at the damage. “You get stung or something?”
Ray shook his head. He tried to say there was something wrong with his tooth, then realized that, cruelly, tooth is a word nearly impossible to say when there’s something wrong with your mouth.
“Rez have a dentist?”
Crow Horse shook his head. “Sorry. Closest one’s in Rapid.”
Ray moaned and hung his head. Crow Horse squeezed Ray’s shoulder, then went to call in a favor.
***
Ray must have been in some pain, because he let Crow Horse stuff his mouth with Echinacea roots without so much as a raised eyebrow. This even after the trick Crow Horse and Grampa Reaches had played on him about the Indian barter, or the one about buckskins that had made Ray so mad he hadn’t talked to Crow Horse for a full twelve hours afterward.
Ray sat silently in the passenger’s seat the whole drive, watching the pale desert stream past the windows, sucking on his bitter roots. Even with the long drive, they got to the doctor’s office so early Crow Horse had to rap on the doors to have them unlocked.
The receptionist showed them into an exam room, and then went back about the early morning business of brewing coffee and switching on machines. Ray leaned back in the dentist’s chair, looking like a major league pitcher with a jaw full of chaw. Crow Horse sat in the little rolling chair by the sink, and put his boots up on the bottom rung of the instrument table.
“Get your feet down, Walter,” Wendy said, walking into the exam room. “So. What couldn’t wait until I’m on the rez next month?”
She snapped on some latex gloves without breaking stride, then frowned at the unfamiliar man in her exam chair.
Walter took his feet down, and then stood up.
“Wendy, Ray Levoi. Ray, Dr. Wendy Moon Bear.”
Ray waved wanly. Wendy took the chair Crow Horse had vacated, and scooted it up close enough to examine Ray.
“Hi, Ray,” she said. “Lemme take a look.”
Ray opened his mouth. Wendy pulled the Echinacea out, and then poked around for a minute. She frowned.
“Sorry to meet like this, Ray,” she said. “You need a root canal.”
Ray started sitting up, mouth curved as close to an ‘o’ as his current situation would allow. Crow Horse rested his hand on Ray’s shoulder, half comfort and half tether.
***
Ray was limp with nitrous, his spine so liquid Crow Horse swore he had stretched a few inches taller than usual. Wendy’s steady hands floated over Ray’s slack mouth, and Crow Horse hovered behind her, arms crossed over his chest, until she called and had the receptionist bring a chair back for him so he would stop spooking her.
“A white guy? she asked in Lakota.
Crow Horse shrugged. “Nah. He’s a half-breed, a quarter Lakota.”
“He speak any?” she asked, glancing at Ray’s glassy eyes roaming lazily over the room.
“He’s learning, but not really. He knows some words.”
Wendy looked up from her work. “You could have told me the appointment was for your boyfriend, cousin. I would have been just as helpful, and I wouldn’t have teased you so much.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“No? What would you call him?”
Crow Horse shrugged mulishly, mouth a tight line.
“I call him Ray,” he said finally.
“Okay,” Wendy said. “You know, when I first heard you went out to DC hunting down some Fed, I wasn’t surprised. I thought, ‘Good. Walter’s found some FBI he can stand; of course he’ll chase him down.’ Then I heard the FBI you could stand moved in, and that surprised me. You haven’t lived with anybody since Susie Little Wolf, and we thought you were going to marry her.”
“I never thought that,” Crow Horse said. “We were young, anyway.”
Wendy clicked her tongue. “Quarter blood. He was raised white, though, enit? Never stepped foot on a rez before he was FBI.”
“What are you, Wendy Moon Bear, psychic tooth doctor?”
“I can tell. He’s got all this expensive dental work. He’s been drinking fluoride-enriched water his whole life. Probably drank fluoride-enriched breast milk.”
“Funny.”
Ray shifted a little, and Wendy patted his arm.
“Just a little pressure, honey. You’re doing great.” She looked up at Crow Horse. “He’s not used to rez living, is my point. He settling in okay?”
“Sure. He’s coming along.”
“He’s really cute, Walter, and it’s worth something-a lot-I’m sure, that he moved away from his city for you. I just worry that he’ll get tired of coyotes and frybread, and run back off to his big, white city. I worry about it, and you should worry about it, too. You’re risking an awful lot. I hear your folks aren’t too happy.”
“You hear a lot.”
“Come on.”
Crow Horse shrugged. “You know, in life you sometimes have to trade things. Sometimes you have to give up something just in hopes you’ll get something better-”
“That’s called ‘gambling,’ cousin.”
Wendy ran the drill again, and Ray’s eyes closed; his fingers closed down on the rounded end of the armrest.
“Almost done, honey,” Wendy said.
Crow Horse left his chair. He walked to the head of the dentist’s chair, and laid his hand over Ray’s. Ray relaxed, his fingers abandoning the armrest to curl around Crow Horse’s.
Wendy smirked.
“Shut up,” Crow Horse said.
“Guess you’re not worried about the house winning.”
“Shit, of course I am. But I’m willing to make the bet, anyway.”
***
Wendy got Ray cleaned up and packed full of cotton and painkillers. Crow Horse got him to his feet.
Wendy hugged Crow Horse, and then she hugged Ray.
“Welcome to the family, honey.” She arched her brow at Crow Horse. “Honeymoon's over, Walter. Once he’s ready for solid food, I expect an invitation to dinner.”
Crow Horse managed to dodge Ray’s look until they were back on the highway.
“She’s my cousin,” he said finally.
Ray’s eyes rolled heavenward, and Crow Horse was glad for the cotton gag.
“Look. I know that’s not how you want to meet my family, but you needed help, and that was the best way I knew to get it for you. And I knew if I told you who she was beforehand, you’d just get all stressed, and I figured you had enough stress on your plate for one morning.”
Of course Ray couldn’t answer, but he could look at Crow Horse, and he didn’t do that either.
“It was a gamble,” Crow Horse said. “You still pissed?”
Ray nodded, but he brought his eyes down from the truck’s rusted ceiling. He quirked his mouth, and then flinched. He rested his hand on Crow Horse’s leg, instead. Crow Horse smiled. Some bets paid off.