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.
Rip barely even gives an answer and Ray's already regretting speaking. His brows furrow when scabbed over skin opens, blood dripping, and he reaches out with one hand to press the pad of his thumb over the open wound to swipe it off.
"You're just worried," he says, sounding lucid despite himself, and he brings his own thumb up to lick the blood there clean. "Wrongfully so-- I'm quite capable of handling myself, you know-- but.
"That's what friends do, isn't it?"
He lets out a short huff of a laugh through his nose. "The answer is no.
"I drink more."
Is that better? Worse? Rip doesn't know, and doesn't particularly care.
It's worse, if the way Ray looks is any indication, with his face creased by a frown and his eyes fixed on his captain's face. He barely registers the thumb sweeping blood off his lip, his brain had short circuited so quickly.
"I know you can handle yourself, you know, I just... wow."
"That's not something you typically 'wow', Raymond." But Rip is reaching out again, and with both hands he takes Ray's cheeks and carefully smooths all the lines away with his fingers. It's such a juvenile thing to do, stupid, and while he may not be drunk, he's certainly had enough that Ray-- the one he'd nearly lost to blood loss, internal bleeding, and broken bones-- is someone he'd love to be sure was real, just in case.
Oh, he's home. And he's safe. But is he Ray? Their Ray? Rip's Ray?
This Ray keeps frowning in worry. It's a pretty damn close call.
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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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"You're just worried," he says, sounding lucid despite himself, and he brings his own thumb up to lick the blood there clean. "Wrongfully so-- I'm quite capable of handling myself, you know-- but.
"That's what friends do, isn't it?"
He lets out a short huff of a laugh through his nose. "The answer is no.
"I drink more."
Is that better? Worse? Rip doesn't know, and doesn't particularly care.
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It's worse, if the way Ray looks is any indication, with his face creased by a frown and his eyes fixed on his captain's face. He barely registers the thumb sweeping blood off his lip, his brain had short circuited so quickly.
"I know you can handle yourself, you know, I just... wow."
hey this tag's a whole loada nothing
"That's not something you typically 'wow', Raymond." But Rip is reaching out again, and with both hands he takes Ray's cheeks and carefully smooths all the lines away with his fingers. It's such a juvenile thing to do, stupid, and while he may not be drunk, he's certainly had enough that Ray-- the one he'd nearly lost to blood loss, internal bleeding, and broken bones-- is someone he'd love to be sure was real, just in case.
Oh, he's home. And he's safe. But is he Ray? Their Ray? Rip's Ray?
This Ray keeps frowning in worry. It's a pretty damn close call.
"...don't sound so sad for me."