Ray is clean now, mostly, having spent the time to take care of his lower half. The salts have helped soothe battered muscle and, with the adrenaline and fear wearing off, the exhaustion is truly beginning to set in.
"I will."
His face is wet, so it's hard to tell if he's been able to stop crying, but he rinses it again and takes a breath as he sits up a little straighter. "... Sleep will probably help." If he can manage it, and if he doesn't wake up stiff.
"Mm." Ray looks like he could fall over with the wisp of a wind, and so Rip goes to retrieve both a towel and a soft robe for him to wear. Finding slippers isn't so tough, either, but Rip has to remove them from their original container-- there're a lot of luxuries he doesn't use, a lot of things he forgets he has.
The slippers are placed by the tub, and with the robe over his shoulder, Rip unfolds the towel so he's got it hanging over his forearm. His other hand touches Ray's shoulder, over clean skin that hasn't been hurt.
"Shall we work on getting you out of there now, Raymond?"
Ray watches him with tired interest, pursing his lips in thought. "Do you even know what you have in here?" he asks, watching him open the packaging and take out slippers (and, admittedly, Ray is somehow quite honored that he's been given such a privilege.)
But he wants to be out and dry, now, so he nods and pushes himself up out of the water, a little unsteady and a little sleepy. Coherent, though. Cognizant. The important things, those are all intact - he knows who and where he is, when he is, what happened - he's lost nothing, thanks to Gideon and his team. He wants to ask a hundred thousand questions about the technology, but that can wait.
Really, the most concerning part is that he doesn't seem to be fussed about privacy, but that's something he'll think about later, too. "Pretty amazing," he says, as he steps out and steadies himself on the edge and on Rip's shoulder (and gets him wet, in the process,) "how much you don't feel like yourself when you're that dirty."
Rip doesn't seem to react to the pressure on him and the subsequent wetness that seeps into his shirt. He's more focused on getting Ray out, letting him get to his feet without argument, and the moment he's got a hold on himself, Rip starts with two hands ruffling the towel over his hair.
Assuming Ray still can't bend properly, it's probably best if Rip dries him off, too.
"Grime is as much a layer as anything else is," he observes, looking up when he pats at Ray's cheeks and then careful as he starts to work the towel down the rest of his body. "And we all tend to lose ourselves when there're too many layers, don't we?"
It's funny whenever he considers just how tall Ray Palmer is; in the tub he'd looked so small, dwarfed by water and bubbles and his own trauma, but Rip sinks lower to dry his legs, keeping his gaze focused and his touch gentle, even if his mind is methodical.
"I'm glad you're feeling better," he says, rising once more, and with the towel slung over his shoulder, he holds the robe up and spreads it open for Ray's arms. "Come on, now. You can stay in my room while I go get clothes for you from the fabricator."
Ray is tall, but that doesn't mean anything, not really. It's not even that he's insecure, that he lacks confidence - it's just that he has the cadence of someone who needs protection more than he offers it, who needs looking out for. The shame is beginning to set in, so he turns his gaze up to the ceiling and closes his eyes, until Rip's standing again.
Obedient, he slides his arms through the robe and winds himself up in it. "Clothes would be nice. I look better that way."
Well - no. But not the point. He's got to crack jokes, because if he doesn't, he might actually melt altogether, and that's infinitely worse. Smooth it over with humor. "Can't promise I won't get into your snacks, though. You sure you want to leave me unattended?"
"Of all my crew," Rip says without hesitation, "you may be the one I'd trust the most here."
Seeing how Ray's muscles seem to be working better now-- perhaps that healing serum's begin to kick in-- he doesn't bother with the wheelchair, but he does keep a steady hand on Ray's back to lead him into his bedroom. Rip will have to come back for his bloody, dirty clothes later.
But this is a little bit like penance, taking care of Ray after his mistake of leaving him to the gulag. Maybe it'll make things a little better (but then, maybe not).
He guides Ray to sit, and after that excuses himself to the fabricator to have Gideon make a soft, long-sleeved shirt and easyfitting trousers. Then, remembering Ray might want to sleep first, he goes again with a sweater and a pair of sweatpants, and takes these clothes and a pair of underwear back to his bedroom with him.
Rip briefly entertains letting Ray sleep here. He has a bigger bed, after all. More pillows. Just because Rip doesn't sleep here himself doesn't mean it can't be slept in at all.
"Here," he says, handing the pyjama set and the underwear over. He lays the other set of clothes out just to show Ray they exist. "Hopefully that's to your liking."
Somehow, it makes Ray warm and fuzzy all at once. It's not like it's explicit praise, but it makes him smile and his eyes soften, and he's not really sure what to do with feeling like that with his captain, of all people, but that's where he is right now.
It's just the vulnerability, probably. The fact that he's been through so much in such a short period of time, and that it's one of the worst things Ray Palmer has ever been through. It feels good to be praised for his good behavior. He decides not to think about that too much.
Rip isn't wrong, either - to his credit, when he comes back, Ray is perched on the edge of the bed where he was left, with one of Rip's pillows wrapped in his arms and his chin atop it. He reaches out to take the new clothes - clean, and dry, and God he's never been so happy to touch anything in his whole damn life - and quirks a tiny smile. "They're great. Thank you."
Without waiting much he moves to pull them on, tugging underwear up under robes and pants, too, and then shedding it off mile-wide shoulders to pull the sweater on over his head. He's still stiff, sore, and it takes some difficulty - but he looks a hundred, thousand times better now, clean and dressed. The blood's gone, his hair is soft and damp, and aside from a few scuffs and bruises and the gash in his lip, Ray looks... relatively okay, with bruises hidden under clothing. He resists the urge to pull the sleeves over his hands, and he looks sheepish when he turns his eyes up to Rip again, grinning. "Sorry, this whole thing is ... probably weird."
Ray apologises, and though Rip expected it, he dismisses it with a quick wave of his hand and a single shake of the head. "I've seen stranger. Being a Time Master, you know-- gives you a bit of perspective on things." And strangeness, he feels, could never outweigh compassion, of which he's not lacking enough to want to do nothing for Ray's well-being.
"Is it..." The image of Ray's arms wrapped around his pillow is stark, somehow, in Rip's mind, and he reaches over to pick the discarded pillow up and look it over. As he hands it back, his gaze turns away, but only because he doubts he could bear whatever expression comes across Ray's face when he says what he says.
It's for the best that Rip is looking away - otherwise, he'd have had to see the unchecked relief that washes over Ray's expression, softening his defensive humor into weary resignation. He takes the pillow back when it's handed to him, and, miraculously. manages to look especially small in it.
"... I would, actually," he admits, soft. He tells himself it's because Rip's quarters are the nicest, the most home-y, and the farthest thing from a gulag. He pauses. "Where will you sleep?"
Somehow, Rip feels the answer I was going to drown myself in drink, actually isn't the one Ray is looking for.
"Erm. I wasn't." And he's not sure if Ray is going to suggest he stay or not, but he sets his hands on his hips and cocks a look in the direction of the desk in the room. "I was going to review the timeline, actually. Gauge the next best time to find Savage so we can stop him with as little damage as possible.
Of course not isn't what he says, but Ray looks sad. Concerned. He doesn't push just yet, but he nods, instead, edging carefully back onto the bed - sitting still out of the warmth of the bath has made things begin to stiffen up again.
"Yeah. No, yeah, of course. That'd be good, I think." He knows. It's somehow less scary to sleep with Rip in the same room, and he curls into the pillows, watching him. "Do Time Masters actually have to sleep? I'm trying to decide how worried I am."
“Time Masters do need sleep,” Rip concedes, and he sheds his wet shirt in favour of grabbing one that looks precisely like it from his closet, “but our body clocks no longer work the same ways that regular humans’ do.
“The amount of time jumps you’re required to do in training is both to learn and to strengthen yourself physically.” He looks back over his shoulder, shrugging. “You’d be surprised how long I can go without sustenance.” In fact, Rip has never had a meal with the rest of the team, and it’s likely a more familiar sight seeing him drink out of a whiskey bottle than consume anything else.
As soon as he’s pulled the new shirt on, he slips into the seat by the desk, tapping at the surface of it to turn its interface on. It’s similar to the table on the bridge, albeit miniature; Rip reaches for a wireless earpiece to put on, Gideon’s voice chipper as ever in his ear.
Ray both looks, and sounds, spectacularly unconvinced when he says "Okay," with his eyebrows raised and his mouth pulled to one side.
But who is he to argue? He doesn't know how Time Masters work, after all, and he trusts Rip implicitly - trusts him not to lie, too.
Not that he has good reason to, but Ray is too trusting to think it through.
All the same, he settles in and watches Rip work through half-lidded eyes, the shape of tired shoulders and the glow of the interface. Ray worries about him more than he should, because it isn't like Rip doesn't know what he's doing and what he can handle, and he is, after all, just an ordinary human eith exceptional intelligence, in the end. He is a human who needs sleep, and it takes him whether he wants it to or not, eventually, dragging him down into the dark.
For... oh, maybe ninety minutes, closer to two hours if you're feeling generous. The nightmare is silent the entire time, but his breathing tightens and picks up, short and ragged; his heart races, and when he wakes it's suddenly, with a gasp and a scream that makes no noise at all. Ray swallows, hard, heart pounding in his ears.
The moment Ray falls asleep-- something Gideon tells him into his earpiece-- Rip is getting to his feet and breaking a promise, because he needs to get himself some god damn whiskey. In his defence, he's not gone for more than ten minutes, and the only reason he's out for longer than two is because he's trying to assure Sara that, yes, everything is all right; and, yes, they'll be back to business as soon as Ray gets up.
That being said, the moment Ray wakes up, Rip's whiskey has been emptied and he's already started on the second one. But the gasp and the shout make him look back, his lips leaving the end of the bottle, and he squints his eyes at the figure on the bed (had he been imagining that?) before realising--
"You're awake." The words don't come out slurred, but Rip's voice is deeper than he intends it to be. One earphone is still in, and he puts the bottle down on his desk and swipes the holographic projection of the timeline out of existence.
Ah, shit. He smells.
But Ray had shouted, and so Rip gets to his feet, running fingers through his hair as he makes his way to the side of the bed. "Raymond--"
"What was that!?" comes from the door, and Rip turns to see Jackson standing there with his hands wrapped around the handle of a frying pan. "Is Ray okay?"
"He, uh--" Rip looks back down at Ray's pale face, and without warning reaches out to cup the side of it in one hand. "...Raymond, are you okay?"
He does not, thankfully, wake up when Rip's out of the room - that would somehow be worse, even though Raymond is an adult who should not be half as needy as he is right now. Something about waking up alone would have broken his little heart so, all things considered, it's better that he wakes like this.
"I'm -" He's still catching his breath, looks toward the door, and blinks twice. Jax continues to be, and Ray loves him for it, absolutely ridiculous. "Are you planning to hit somebody with that?"
Ray rubs his eyes, tips his head into Rip's hand. "I'm fine. Nightmares. I'm fine." His eyes land on the whiskey bottles, then back up to Rip, dark and serious and concerned.
"Jefferson," comes Stein's voice this time, but Rip doesn't even bother looking, "is that from the galley? Why are you so worried--"
Rip barely hears Stein's little 'oh' as he turns to face them. He doesn't care about the confused noise Jackson makes when Stein says some subsequent 'Jefferson, I think it's best we give them their privacy', not when Ray is looking at him in a grave way that makes his brows furrow. Hmmmn.
"That was a loud shout," he says, going to sit at the edge of the bed with a heavier landing than he intended. The hand on Ray's face strokes the lines of concern out with a thumb, and Rip chooses not to acknowledge Ray's look at all.
(Don't look at Rip like that.)
"It makes the, ah... prospect of you witnessing a nightmare even worse."
Ray might have had the sense to be embarrassed if he wasn't so focused on Rip, but he is. His brow is furrowed a little, just enough to look tragic, because he has two eyes that work perfectly fine enough to see the two bottles on the desk, and Rip smells like alcohol.
"I'm fine. I barely even remember it, it faded so quick --" Which is true. Rip strokes his cheek and Ray softens, but the frown is still there. The big, dark eyes, and the way his mouth pulls to one side, brows scrunched as he reaches up to lace their fingers, instead.
"Ah, not..." Not enough to be incoherent, had been his intention of saying, but Rip understands this is no measure of success for the ordinary man.
"Precisely as much as you see." A moment. "And... Sara and I were drinking before you woke up. So I suppose a bit more than two bottles."
But again, his physiology's been messed with to hell and back. The Rip that Ray speaks to now is, actually, quite normal, save for the lower tone and the slight rasp in his throat.
And the fact Ray's grip has him exhaling softly.
"Listen," he says, thumb brushing over Ray's knuckles. "You need to rest. We've got to get our ducks in a row later, and I need you at 100% for that."
"Doesn't make me not worried," Ray points out, soft, and his other hand comes up to touch a few knuckles, gently, to Rip's jaw, grazing the scruff before he drops his arm. Shame isn't exactly right, but realizing he may have crossed boundaries.
He drops his eyes, too. "I know." And he does, intellectually speaking. But he's not so tired that he'll crash, now, and he's worried, and he wants Rip to rest. "...Will you do me a favor and lay with me for a bit?"
"What?" He sounds surprised. Kind of confused. Looks it, too.
"That..." He notices their joined hands and gently pulls away, giving a soft pat to Ray's arm before he shakes his head. "I'm not tired yet, Raymond. There's no need to worry."
There's something about being looked at by those big, brown eyes, and the most earnest expression in the world. Rip isn't necessarily weak to it, strictly speaking, but Ray's extensive well-meaning is something he hasn't experienced in a long time.
(Not since Miranda.)
He exhales, slowly. "...besides. I have to shower and brush my teeth first anyway, lest you smell like whiskey yourself."
If he wasn't so concerned, Ray would have laughed at what? just because of the purity of it. He lets Rip pry his hands away, though, folds them in his lap and then, nervously, tucks them under his thighs like he's ashamed of them.
"Okay." Right. Don't be fucking needy. Don't be clingy. Let Rip live his damn life, he's your Captain, not your alpha - it's not his job to fix you, Raymond.
He smiles, exhales to try to settle himself. "Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry. This whole thing just --" Freaked him out.
"...mm." He may not be wholly inebriated, but he's drank enough that it takes maybe a few more moments to catch up to what it is Ray was leading to.
Of course he's scared. That's what torture is supposed to do to a person, isn't it?
So Rip pats a hand on Ray's head (something he would never do without the whiskey, frankly), and then murmurs a quick 'wait'. Then he grabs some clothes from his wardrobe and disappears into the bathroom.
It's maybe five or so minutes later that he comes out looking much the same, save for the washed face and the fact his hair's been combed through with his fingers. Rip hasn't showered, per se, but he has brushed his teeth, and then subsequently washed his hands with something vanilla-scented.
He picks up the earbud left behind at the desk first, then backtracks to the bed.
Ray blinks stupidly at him, for patting his head - and he immediately wants to get up and run off, but he does not (if only because, frankly, the Waverider isn't that big, and it's not like Gideon won't rat him out.) He's not even mortified, but he feels bad, and he feels like he's done something inherently wrong - he's not sure what it is, but he doesn't like it.
He likes that Rip comes back, though. Looks relieved, tension falling out of his shoulders like a dropped weight. He smiles, then - obedient, scoots.
Ray wants to apologize, but he isn't sure what for. Instead, he rolls over a little to watch him. "Sorry for interrupting your stuff," he says, finally. That seems fine.
"Bah," Rip says, waving a hand whilst the other rests on his hip. "It's quite all right, Raymond. I realised it was significantly hypocritical of me to tell you to rest if I couldn't do it myself."
But he's still got an earbud in, and the second one will follow suit. For now, though, it stays in his pocket, and when Rip moves to lie down at Ray's side, he spares a glance at how much farther Ray's legs reach down the mattress and raises a brow at them.
Ah, well. No matter.
"Besides." He shifts, turns slightly so he's looking at Ray-- they're at total eye-level now, lying down instead of standing. "I wouldn't want to run out of whiskey before the next landing."
Edited (ok im done i swear) 2020-01-24 05:03 (UTC)
"You're not wrong," Ray agrees, and when he draws his legs up it's not really intending to look smaller, but that's what he accomplishes. At some point, he picked the pillow back up and has it tucked to his chest again, like a security blanket in the face of all this.
He opens his mouth to ask a question, then closes it again. Reconsiders. Takes a breath. "Do you always drink this much?"
Stop worrying, he tells himself, and promptly ignores his own advice in favor of furrowing his brow at Rip. Easier to worry about someone else, not himself; Ray drags both hands over his face. "I swear, I'll stop. I trust your judgment, I do --" He does. Ray chews at the cut in his lip until it opens up again.
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"I will."
His face is wet, so it's hard to tell if he's been able to stop crying, but he rinses it again and takes a breath as he sits up a little straighter. "... Sleep will probably help." If he can manage it, and if he doesn't wake up stiff.
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The slippers are placed by the tub, and with the robe over his shoulder, Rip unfolds the towel so he's got it hanging over his forearm. His other hand touches Ray's shoulder, over clean skin that hasn't been hurt.
"Shall we work on getting you out of there now, Raymond?"
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But he wants to be out and dry, now, so he nods and pushes himself up out of the water, a little unsteady and a little sleepy. Coherent, though. Cognizant. The important things, those are all intact - he knows who and where he is, when he is, what happened - he's lost nothing, thanks to Gideon and his team. He wants to ask a hundred thousand questions about the technology, but that can wait.
Really, the most concerning part is that he doesn't seem to be fussed about privacy, but that's something he'll think about later, too. "Pretty amazing," he says, as he steps out and steadies himself on the edge and on Rip's shoulder (and gets him wet, in the process,) "how much you don't feel like yourself when you're that dirty."
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Assuming Ray still can't bend properly, it's probably best if Rip dries him off, too.
"Grime is as much a layer as anything else is," he observes, looking up when he pats at Ray's cheeks and then careful as he starts to work the towel down the rest of his body. "And we all tend to lose ourselves when there're too many layers, don't we?"
It's funny whenever he considers just how tall Ray Palmer is; in the tub he'd looked so small, dwarfed by water and bubbles and his own trauma, but Rip sinks lower to dry his legs, keeping his gaze focused and his touch gentle, even if his mind is methodical.
"I'm glad you're feeling better," he says, rising once more, and with the towel slung over his shoulder, he holds the robe up and spreads it open for Ray's arms. "Come on, now. You can stay in my room while I go get clothes for you from the fabricator."
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Ray is tall, but that doesn't mean anything, not really. It's not even that he's insecure, that he lacks confidence - it's just that he has the cadence of someone who needs protection more than he offers it, who needs looking out for. The shame is beginning to set in, so he turns his gaze up to the ceiling and closes his eyes, until Rip's standing again.
Obedient, he slides his arms through the robe and winds himself up in it. "Clothes would be nice. I look better that way."
Well - no. But not the point. He's got to crack jokes, because if he doesn't, he might actually melt altogether, and that's infinitely worse. Smooth it over with humor. "Can't promise I won't get into your snacks, though. You sure you want to leave me unattended?"
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Seeing how Ray's muscles seem to be working better now-- perhaps that healing serum's begin to kick in-- he doesn't bother with the wheelchair, but he does keep a steady hand on Ray's back to lead him into his bedroom. Rip will have to come back for his bloody, dirty clothes later.
But this is a little bit like penance, taking care of Ray after his mistake of leaving him to the gulag. Maybe it'll make things a little better (but then, maybe not).
He guides Ray to sit, and after that excuses himself to the fabricator to have Gideon make a soft, long-sleeved shirt and easyfitting trousers. Then, remembering Ray might want to sleep first, he goes again with a sweater and a pair of sweatpants, and takes these clothes and a pair of underwear back to his bedroom with him.
Rip briefly entertains letting Ray sleep here. He has a bigger bed, after all. More pillows. Just because Rip doesn't sleep here himself doesn't mean it can't be slept in at all.
"Here," he says, handing the pyjama set and the underwear over. He lays the other set of clothes out just to show Ray they exist. "Hopefully that's to your liking."
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Somehow, it makes Ray warm and fuzzy all at once. It's not like it's explicit praise, but it makes him smile and his eyes soften, and he's not really sure what to do with feeling like that with his captain, of all people, but that's where he is right now.
It's just the vulnerability, probably. The fact that he's been through so much in such a short period of time, and that it's one of the worst things Ray Palmer has ever been through. It feels good to be praised for his good behavior. He decides not to think about that too much.
Rip isn't wrong, either - to his credit, when he comes back, Ray is perched on the edge of the bed where he was left, with one of Rip's pillows wrapped in his arms and his chin atop it. He reaches out to take the new clothes - clean, and dry, and God he's never been so happy to touch anything in his whole damn life - and quirks a tiny smile. "They're great. Thank you."
Without waiting much he moves to pull them on, tugging underwear up under robes and pants, too, and then shedding it off mile-wide shoulders to pull the sweater on over his head. He's still stiff, sore, and it takes some difficulty - but he looks a hundred, thousand times better now, clean and dressed. The blood's gone, his hair is soft and damp, and aside from a few scuffs and bruises and the gash in his lip, Ray looks... relatively okay, with bruises hidden under clothing. He resists the urge to pull the sleeves over his hands, and he looks sheepish when he turns his eyes up to Rip again, grinning. "Sorry, this whole thing is ... probably weird."
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"Is it..." The image of Ray's arms wrapped around his pillow is stark, somehow, in Rip's mind, and he reaches over to pick the discarded pillow up and look it over. As he hands it back, his gaze turns away, but only because he doubts he could bear whatever expression comes across Ray's face when he says what he says.
"Would you prefer to stay here, Raymond?"
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"... I would, actually," he admits, soft. He tells himself it's because Rip's quarters are the nicest, the most home-y, and the farthest thing from a gulag. He pauses. "Where will you sleep?"
Please don't leave me alone.
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"Erm. I wasn't." And he's not sure if Ray is going to suggest he stay or not, but he sets his hands on his hips and cocks a look in the direction of the desk in the room. "I was going to review the timeline, actually. Gauge the next best time to find Savage so we can stop him with as little damage as possible.
"Would you mind if I worked here?"
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"Yeah. No, yeah, of course. That'd be good, I think." He knows. It's somehow less scary to sleep with Rip in the same room, and he curls into the pillows, watching him. "Do Time Masters actually have to sleep? I'm trying to decide how worried I am."
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“The amount of time jumps you’re required to do in training is both to learn and to strengthen yourself physically.” He looks back over his shoulder, shrugging. “You’d be surprised how long I can go without sustenance.” In fact, Rip has never had a meal with the rest of the team, and it’s likely a more familiar sight seeing him drink out of a whiskey bottle than consume anything else.
As soon as he’s pulled the new shirt on, he slips into the seat by the desk, tapping at the surface of it to turn its interface on. It’s similar to the table on the bridge, albeit miniature; Rip reaches for a wireless earpiece to put on, Gideon’s voice chipper as ever in his ear.
“I’ll sleep when I’m tired,” Rip says.
Except he always is.
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But who is he to argue? He doesn't know how Time Masters work, after all, and he trusts Rip implicitly - trusts him not to lie, too.
Not that he has good reason to, but Ray is too trusting to think it through.
All the same, he settles in and watches Rip work through half-lidded eyes, the shape of tired shoulders and the glow of the interface. Ray worries about him more than he should, because it isn't like Rip doesn't know what he's doing and what he can handle, and he is, after all, just an ordinary human eith exceptional intelligence, in the end. He is a human who needs sleep, and it takes him whether he wants it to or not, eventually, dragging him down into the dark.
For... oh, maybe ninety minutes, closer to two hours if you're feeling generous. The nightmare is silent the entire time, but his breathing tightens and picks up, short and ragged; his heart races, and when he wakes it's suddenly, with a gasp and a scream that makes no noise at all. Ray swallows, hard, heart pounding in his ears.
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That being said, the moment Ray wakes up, Rip's whiskey has been emptied and he's already started on the second one. But the gasp and the shout make him look back, his lips leaving the end of the bottle, and he squints his eyes at the figure on the bed (had he been imagining that?) before realising--
"You're awake." The words don't come out slurred, but Rip's voice is deeper than he intends it to be. One earphone is still in, and he puts the bottle down on his desk and swipes the holographic projection of the timeline out of existence.
Ah, shit. He smells.
But Ray had shouted, and so Rip gets to his feet, running fingers through his hair as he makes his way to the side of the bed. "Raymond--"
"What was that!?" comes from the door, and Rip turns to see Jackson standing there with his hands wrapped around the handle of a frying pan. "Is Ray okay?"
"He, uh--" Rip looks back down at Ray's pale face, and without warning reaches out to cup the side of it in one hand. "...Raymond, are you okay?"
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"I'm -" He's still catching his breath, looks toward the door, and blinks twice. Jax continues to be, and Ray loves him for it, absolutely ridiculous. "Are you planning to hit somebody with that?"
Ray rubs his eyes, tips his head into Rip's hand. "I'm fine. Nightmares. I'm fine." His eyes land on the whiskey bottles, then back up to Rip, dark and serious and concerned.
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"Jefferson," comes Stein's voice this time, but Rip doesn't even bother looking, "is that from the galley? Why are you so worried--"
Rip barely hears Stein's little 'oh' as he turns to face them. He doesn't care about the confused noise Jackson makes when Stein says some subsequent 'Jefferson, I think it's best we give them their privacy', not when Ray is looking at him in a grave way that makes his brows furrow. Hmmmn.
"That was a loud shout," he says, going to sit at the edge of the bed with a heavier landing than he intended. The hand on Ray's face strokes the lines of concern out with a thumb, and Rip chooses not to acknowledge Ray's look at all.
(Don't look at Rip like that.)
"It makes the, ah... prospect of you witnessing a nightmare even worse."
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"I'm fine. I barely even remember it, it faded so quick --" Which is true. Rip strokes his cheek and Ray softens, but the frown is still there. The big, dark eyes, and the way his mouth pulls to one side, brows scrunched as he reaches up to lace their fingers, instead.
"How much have you had?"
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"Precisely as much as you see." A moment. "And... Sara and I were drinking before you woke up. So I suppose a bit more than two bottles."
But again, his physiology's been messed with to hell and back. The Rip that Ray speaks to now is, actually, quite normal, save for the lower tone and the slight rasp in his throat.
And the fact Ray's grip has him exhaling softly.
"Listen," he says, thumb brushing over Ray's knuckles. "You need to rest. We've got to get our ducks in a row later, and I need you at 100% for that."
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He drops his eyes, too. "I know." And he does, intellectually speaking. But he's not so tired that he'll crash, now, and he's worried, and he wants Rip to rest. "...Will you do me a favor and lay with me for a bit?"
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"That..." He notices their joined hands and gently pulls away, giving a soft pat to Ray's arm before he shakes his head. "I'm not tired yet, Raymond. There's no need to worry."
There's something about being looked at by those big, brown eyes, and the most earnest expression in the world. Rip isn't necessarily weak to it, strictly speaking, but Ray's extensive well-meaning is something he hasn't experienced in a long time.
(Not since Miranda.)
He exhales, slowly. "...besides. I have to shower and brush my teeth first anyway, lest you smell like whiskey yourself."
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"Okay." Right. Don't be fucking needy. Don't be clingy. Let Rip live his damn life, he's your Captain, not your alpha - it's not his job to fix you, Raymond.
He smiles, exhales to try to settle himself. "Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry. This whole thing just --" Freaked him out.
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Of course he's scared. That's what torture is supposed to do to a person, isn't it?
So Rip pats a hand on Ray's head (something he would never do without the whiskey, frankly), and then murmurs a quick 'wait'. Then he grabs some clothes from his wardrobe and disappears into the bathroom.
It's maybe five or so minutes later that he comes out looking much the same, save for the washed face and the fact his hair's been combed through with his fingers. Rip hasn't showered, per se, but he has brushed his teeth, and then subsequently washed his hands with something vanilla-scented.
He picks up the earbud left behind at the desk first, then backtracks to the bed.
"Scoot," he says, simple.
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He likes that Rip comes back, though. Looks relieved, tension falling out of his shoulders like a dropped weight. He smiles, then - obedient, scoots.
Ray wants to apologize, but he isn't sure what for. Instead, he rolls over a little to watch him. "Sorry for interrupting your stuff," he says, finally. That seems fine.
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But he's still got an earbud in, and the second one will follow suit. For now, though, it stays in his pocket, and when Rip moves to lie down at Ray's side, he spares a glance at how much farther Ray's legs reach down the mattress and raises a brow at them.
Ah, well. No matter.
"Besides." He shifts, turns slightly so he's looking at Ray-- they're at total eye-level now, lying down instead of standing. "I wouldn't want to run out of whiskey before the next landing."
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He opens his mouth to ask a question, then closes it again. Reconsiders. Takes a breath. "Do you always drink this much?"
Stop worrying, he tells himself, and promptly ignores his own advice in favor of furrowing his brow at Rip. Easier to worry about someone else, not himself; Ray drags both hands over his face. "I swear, I'll stop. I trust your judgment, I do --" He does. Ray chews at the cut in his lip until it opens up again.
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hey this tag's a whole loada nothing