Obligatory cliched Christmas story below... I'm sorry it's been so long since I've updated my other story Forged in the Fire, I haven't forgotten it. Life has taken a very unwelcome turn and a happy story isn't in my wheelhouse at the moment, though that's not to say this one is doom and gloom. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to it soon though, the next chapter is half written and waiting for me to finish it. If any of you reading this left reviews on that story, thank you so much, I appreciate it a lot and I promise I won't leave you hanging.
It's been almost two months since they were last in Nashville. Teddy reminds Rayna of her mounting absence each night when she calls to wish the girls sweet dreams, and she's mindful every time to reassure him that she'll be home soon. 'Soon' had seemed far away when she'd first left town, but countless shows and frost-covered cities later and 'soon' is far closer than she's ready for. They'll arrive back on Christmas Eve, just in time to sing carols and unwrap presents - she won't even miss baking cookies with the girls.
The tour is badly timed, Teddy tells her. She knows different. The timing was her own choice, though she's never told him that, and she never will. Her babies are growing, Maddie quiet and tall for nine, Daphne alive with chatter about her new year of school. I'm in first grade, she proudly tells strangers in the grocery store, as though she's twenty-five and has been around the block a time or two.
Rayna's been on many tours since the girls were born; they've come with her on most, Teddy joining for a few days when his job allows. This time, though, she's alone. She hadn't wanted to disrupt the girls' schooling at such crucial points, she'd told Teddy, and them. The truth is she'd needed to get away - from Nashville, from her husband, from responsibility. From the person she's become that she doesn't recognise. She'd needed to be Rayna again. No lunchboxes, no lying awake with her eyes closed waiting for Teddy to finish muttering at financial papers and turn out the light.
She isn't really alone. Deacon is by her side, just as he has been for so long. She'd tried to tour without him after Maddie had been born when she couldn't bear anyone to so much as speak his name. It had been a disaster, and she hasn't done it since. Somehow their inexplicable need for each other has allowed them to be in another space, one where they can not-say all they wish they could and can instead tell themselves that friendship is enough.
They've lied to themselves a lot over the years. And to each other.
'It's really comin' down out there,' their driver calls from up front.
Rayna looks out of the window of the tour bus. She's been engrossed in a notebook of half-written lyrics for so long that darkness has fallen without her noticing, and sure enough, the passing forest that lines the road they're travelling down is coated in a sheet of white.
'Snow,' she breathes, something like a wide-eyed child.
She feels Deacon look at her first, and then out at the flecks blurring as they fall. 'Well would you look at that,' he says quietly.
She catches his eye and they smile at each other, soft smiles that give them away; they both know each is picturing times they've shared in snow just like this. Cosy cold nights in their cabin a million years ago, hot chocolates and makeshift sledges, haphazard snowmen they've built and watched the sun melt as winter has drifted away.
Their drummer lets out a low whistle. 'You gonna pull over Barb? I make a mean snow angel.'
'You can take your chances, Sam, it's -6 out there. Road's freezin' up right under us.'
Rayna, draped in an old knitted blanket, shivers, drifting closer to Deacon without thinking. The line they've had to learn to draw has faded and faltered while they've been out on the road this time, and they both know, but it remains unspoken all the same. She feels his sturdy thigh against hers and looks up at him, and he leans towards her a little more, banishing any cold air between them. For a moment Rayna lets herself reminisce over a time she would have pulled the blanket around both of them and snuggled into his chest to steal his warmth, and just the thought of it makes her flush. The irony that even a memory can heat her up so many years later isn't lost on her.
'How much further 'til we get to Colorado, Barb?' she calls.
'Still a good couple o' hundred miles, doll. Better settle in back there.'
The snow turns to a blizzard, swirling so erratically that Rayna can't see beyond it. The lights in the bus are low, the guys in her band dozing in the late evening, and the white gleam outside is given centre stage. She watches until she starts to feel dizzy, but her breath fogging up the window and receding before she takes her next fascinates her, and she keeps her forehead pressed against the glass.
Deacon's face is reflected just behind hers, his eyes fixed on the passing flurries, and when he rests his chin on her shoulder she doesn't flinch. The weight is welcome, the smell of his skin something she has craved in secret for so long she can't resist savouring it. She thinks she feels him do the same, but she doesn't dwell on it; there have been so many indulgences she's granted herself in the past two months, and the only way she can keep the guilt from overwhelming her is if she quietens the internal voice that is equal parts a devil and an angel on her shoulder.
They sit that way for miles they don't count, the road twisting and turning beneath them. The cars and trucks that pass start to become fewer, until they seem to be alone, the only ones crazy enough to be out in such conditions.
'I think we got a good one down today,' Deacon says eventually, and he's so close to her ear she feels like he's thinking rather than speaking aloud. She would be able to hear him either way. She always has.
'It's a great one,' she replies, the tune they'd created all she's heard in her head for hours. 'We gotta record that as quick as we can.'
She hadn't written her own music in so long before they set out on the tour that she'd barely been able to remember how. She could recall the feeling, the glorious feeling, of weaving a melody, of finding words that speak to how she feels, how she wants to feel, how she wishes she didn't feel. It had been dim though, a memory of something she once knew, locked away with all it had been wrapped up in.
It's been even longer since she's written with Deacon, almost a decade. Even when he'd rejoined her band after the first couple of years, the years Rayna had been sure she would never get through, their circling of each other had been tentative and wary. Songwriting has always ripped them open, for better and for worse, and back in those painful days they'd had to stitch themselves, jagged and messy, back together as best they could; the songs had had to die.
They'd been two weeks into their current tour when Deacon had found Rayna in the back of the bus struggling over words she'd wanted to say but hadn't known how. She'd looked up from her notebook and he'd gestured towards it in question, so she'd handed it over mutely and watched his face. He's always been her measure of authenticity, today as much as yesterday, and when she'd seen his eyes take in her jottings and look at her with a familiar flickering, she'd known she had potential on her hands. He'd taken her pen and in a ritual they'd once been as familiar with as breathing, he'd started to re-shape and add and build on her work. Each letter he'd scribbled had made her heart beat faster, until they'd found themselves with their heads close together and a song on a jumbled sheet of paper between them, both breathless and as wired as cats in the night.
It's dangerous, Rayna is well aware. They've written many songs since that night, and each one is a stitch bursting open. Each is a siren dancing wickedly down old paths and beckoning for them to follow, teasing them with long-forbidden needs and whispering promises they've buried and broken. Memories Rayna has worked hard to keep in a box rush at her every time she looks at him, every time she doesn't. His hands on her hips, his lips at her neck, skin against skin under silent sunrises, profanities hissed into sweat-drenched sheets. She can't stem the flow, and if she's honest with herself she doesn't want to. She's not honest, though. She can't be. Her husband says he loves her before she hangs up the phone, and her daughters tell her they miss her; how they long for her to come home. They've decorated their Christmas tree without her, and it makes her heart hurt. As much as she's needed this time, she knows it is stolen. Honesty is not an option she can afford herself.
Deacon too knows it has to end, she sees in his eyes how he holds onto every day they have left. Teddy will be at the airport on the 24th, her girls will run into her arms. She'll wave goodbye to Deacon as they claim her as theirs again, and her notebook of songs will be hidden in the discreet pocket inside her suitcase. They haven't recorded most of them, too fearful of what the lyrics would give away, but they'll remember the melodies, the only two people who'll ever hear them.
'Two more shows,' Deacon muses, and Rayna nods. Both are in Colorado, their last stop. Part of her is willing the bus to slow, to take its time getting there. She loves these wheels, this temporary home. She closes her eyes.
'Do you ever wonder if you could stop time, if you wished hard enough?' She barely says it, but he hears.
'Yeah,' he whispers back, and she rests her head against his, leaving it there as they roll along.
She realises she's been asleep only when the bus rumbles and wakes her. It's dark and quiet and she looks around in confusion, rubbing at her eyes. Deacon is sleeping too, and Rayna's stomach flips when she feels his arms wrapped around her. She must have relaxed a little too much against him and they've both ended up under her blanket after all; she lifts her head from his shoulder and he stirs, momentarily tightening his arms to hold her there.
'Time is it?' he mumbles, and when he opens his eyes he sees her and she watches it slowly dawn on him that it isn't a decade ago. He releases her and shakes his head both in apology and to get a hold of himself, and she smiles.
'Little after ten,' she says, checking her watch. 'We must have only been asleep an hour or so.' Everything beyond the window is white, and they're moving with less speed, Barb navigating the roads carefully.
Deacon gives a sleepy noise in acknowledgement and his eyes drop closed again. Rayna watches him, wishing she could reach out and trace the beautiful shape of his lips with her fingertip. She turns away guiltily when the urge gets too much, slipping out from under the blanket and covering him with it.
'Hey Barb,' she says as she sits down on the step next to the driver's seat. 'You doin' okay up here? Want a coffee?'
'Honey, you are sweet as sugar but you can't make coffee for shit.'
Rayna laughs, looking up at the woman fondly. 'That is a valid observation.'
They sit quietly for a minute or two, both watching the road. It's hidden entirely by snow, and the flecks coming at the windscreen make Rayna feel as though she's being hypnotised.
'How can you drive in this?'
Barb glances at her and smiles. 'With practise. When you spend your life at the wheel you see all kinds of conditions.' She looks in her rearview mirror. 'You and Deacon gettin' along well this time out.'
Rayna doesn't look at her. Barb has been driving her bus since their very first tour. She's been there through the many stages of her relationship with Deacon - the good years, the terrible ones. The years when a rotation of unfamiliar guitar players had tried and failed to step into his shoes. She'd been sitting behind Tandy in the church when Rayna had married Teddy, and when Rayna had later broken down in the garden of the manor her Daddy had hired for the reception, Barb had been the one she'd trusted with her confession, that it was Deacon's baby she'd been carrying. Barb, Rayna knows, sees it all but rarely comments. She's an expert in not saying anything.
'Yeah. Don't we always?' Rayna smiles grimly in concession when Barb chuckles. She'd need a lot of hands to count how many times she's been privy to a fight Rayna and Deacon have had. 'I guess we've been feelin' a little more like our old selves.'
Barb nods towards the windscreen. 'You gotta be careful drivin' on icy roads, doll. You just might skid.' She keeps her eyes fixed straight ahead while Rayna picks at a loose thread in her sweater. Her voice is quiet when she speaks again. 'Course, it's easy to get lost from the road you were meant to be on in the first place.'
The wind outside shudders like a rattlesnake and the bus leans precariously to one side. Barb grips the wheel, throwing her weight into it and telling Rayna to hold on. The handrail is the closest thing she can grab and she does, holding tight to the cold metal as the bus straightens up again.
'It's wild out there,' Barb says, shaking her head and rearranging herself. 'Wasn't predicted to snow - just goes to show them weather watchers don't know their hand when it's scratchin' their ass.'
She fiddles with the radio dial and turns it on low, twisting it to a local station. A man's voice crackles into range, and Rayna strains to hear what he's saying.
'Temperatures are set to drop even lower tonight, down to around minus eleven. This snow isn't showing any signs of letting up, folks - blizzard warnings have been issued for the entire state. If you don't have to be out there on the roads tonight, get yourselves indoors and wrapped up warm. It's Thursday night and I'm Parker Storm with KWO News.'
'Easy for you to say, Parker Storm,' Barb scoffs, flicking the radio off again. 'That ain't even your real name.'
Rayna sighs. She looks back at Deacon, who's fast asleep, her blanket tucked securely around him. He hasn't moved from where she left him, as though his arms still hold her ghost. There's a chill on the bus, and she contemplates getting into bed where she can burrow under the covers, but they'll be stopping in a few hours and she knows she won't sleep again if she wakes. She hasn't known a truly peaceful night since she left Deacon's bed all those years ago; falling asleep wrapped up in him had always brought her peace.
The wind picks up again with an ominous howl, sending flakes of snow rushing all around them. This time the bus tilts so far sideways that the wheels lift on one side, and Barb curses, trying to twist them out of the path of the gust. Instead the bus lurches into a skid and Rayna can feel they've hit a patch of ice; the wheels spin loudly and Barb struggles to regain control.
Rayna blindly hangs onto the handrail, her stomach reeling as everything spins. She squeezes her eyes shut instinctively, for all the good it does, and they stay closed until the bus jerks to a stop.
'Rayna?' she hears Deacon call frantically, and she dares to turn towards where he's shouting from, vaguely registering his hurried footsteps.
'I'm here,' she replies, her head swimming. She realises as his big hands clasp her shoulders that she's ended up somehow at the bottom of the steps, and he moves the hair out of her face and surveys her with concern. 'I'm fine, I'm okay,' she tells him. 'Are you?'
'Yeah,' he says, still staring at her, clearly unconvinced. He helps her to her feet and she winces, aching in so many places she doesn't know which to identify first.
'Barb?' She looks up in panic at the driver's seat and sees Barb lifting herself out of it shakily.
'I'm all good. Don't you fuss, you take care of Rayna,' she says when Deacon rushes to her, but she accepts his help to get to her feet. 'Everybody alright back there?'
Bucky and the rest of Rayna's band make their way forward, all accounted for and shaken but mostly unhurt. They grab coats and Deacon moves back to Rayna, helping her to pull on her parka and follow everyone else off the bus. They stand beside it and survey the tree that acted as their brake; the corner of the windscreen is cracked and a branch has pushed its way through the glass, and steam is pouring out where the hood has popped open. The bus is leaning to one side, and one of the back wheels spins uselessly, unaware it isn't getting anyone anyplace.
Barb shakes her head. 'Damn it,' she says, peering under the hood as far as she can.
'Could have been a lot worse,' Bucky tries to reassure her, but she won't have it.
'Ain't never had an accident in all my years of drivin', Buck. This ain't good at all.'
One of the guitar players in the band claps her lightly on the shoulder in consolation and gives her a weak smile. 'It's bad out here, could really have been a smash if it wasn't for you, Barb. Lord knows I couldn't handle even a pushbike in this kind of weather.'
'That cut on your head is sayin' different, Jimmy.'
Rayna looks around - they've come clean off the road into a clearing, and all she can see in any direction are trees, tall and dark and covered with the relentless snowfall. She shivers, a little violently, and Deacon is there immediately, his body shielding her from the harshness of the cold.
'You really okay?' he asks, and she nods, but he gives her the look that she knows means he doesn't believe her. Discreetly she turns away from everyone but him and opens her coat, lifting her sweater and showing him where she's pretty sure most of the pain is coming from, right where the wool is ripped. She grits her teeth when she sees a gash from the bottom of her ribs to her hip bone, blood seeping from it.
'Jesus Ray,' he says, and she pulls her coat around her before anyone else can see. 'We need to get something on that.'
'It's fine,' she protests, but she feels a little wobbly and she doesn't need to tell Deacon; he hooks her arm into his and stays close to her, letting her lean on him.
'What're we gonna do?' he asks the group, and Bucky rubs his face and visibly puts on his crisis management hat.
'Well, we can't stay on the bus tonight. It's in pretty bad shape, and if it tips all the way over we will be too. This storm is only gonna get worse, we could end up really stuck. Our best bet is to call for roadside assistance to come out here and get us.'
Barb looks out into the distance. 'We're pretty far from anywhere. I'll see who I can get on the radio.' She disappears back through the door of the bus and it sways worryingly. For a moment she looks back at them, wedging herself on the stairs and waiting for it to steady, and when it does they all breathe out in relief.
'Probably shouldn't have let Barb of all people get back on that thing,' Deacon says, and Rayna laughs, her face stiff from the cold, and swipes at him.
'Damn thing's bust. Must've taken a bashing when we hit that tree.' Barb clambers back down the stairs and rattles the cellphone she's retrieved from the bus. 'No signal.'
'Me neither,' Bucky says, holding his phone in the air and waving it about, and Sam and Jimmy do the same.
Rayna tilts her face up to the sky and tries not to blink, but she can't manage more than a handful of seconds before she closes her eyes and lets the cool flakes fall onto her skin.
'If I could move right now I'd challenge you to a snowball fight,' she tells Deacon, and he gives her that signature smile of his; it warms her cold fingers and toes.
'Maybe I'd let you win for once,' he replies, and she gasps in mock outrage. She's about to remind him of all the times she has won, thank you very much, when a creak echoes across the clearing and the branch that's protruding through the front window snaps, falling to the ground in a puff of white powder.
The bus groans, slowly and loudly. The earth feels like it's moving under their feet, and they all stare in horror. Deacon is the first to react; he leaps back, pulling Rayna with him and yelling for everyone else to do the same.
'It's gonna go!' he calls, and he's proven right in all of ten seconds when the hunk of metal dramatically lifts right up like a rearing horse and topples onto its side. The sound is almighty, and snow billows skyward all around it, a freezing rush of air hitting them all and forcing them back further still.
'Well shit,' Barb hollers in disbelief, and they all stand there with their mouths open.
'Beats cow tippin',' Sam says flatly.
Deacon nods. 'Guess we're not gettin' to anyone else's cellphones,' he notes, and Rayna feels a momentary flash of hysteria at their collective peril.
She almost laughs, but the snow is coming down harder than ever and she can't stop shivering now. The blood down her side is soaking into the top of her jeans and it's starting to feel uncomfortable, and she pulls her arm from Deacon's and clambers back towards the roadside. There isn't a vehicle in sight, not so much as a headlight in the distance.
Deacon appears beside her after a minute and casts his eyes up and down the road too, biting his lip when he sees nothing. 'You hurtin' anywhere else Ray?'
'I don't think so. Maybe a couple of cuts and bruises, but nothin' bad.' She blows into her hands and rubs them together. 'What do we do, Deacon? We can't get back on the bus. We can't even get any warmer clothes out of there.'
'Barb reckons there's a town a couple of miles up ahead - you think you can make it if we try to walk there?'
'Is she sure?'
Deacon's grimace doesn't pass Rayna by. 'As sure as anyone can be at this point.'
/
They walk in single file along the side of the road, leaving a trail of footprints in their wake. Barb leads, Bucky at the back, and they trudge along for what feels like miles, passing nothing but trees that all look the same.
'I saw a horror film like this once,' Deacon deadpans at one point, and Rayna turns around and gives him a raised eyebrow.
'I think we're in the sequel right now.'
'We'll look back at this and laugh one day,' Sam says. brushing a mini avalanche off the fur around his hood. 'Either that or they'll find us frozen by the side of the road come morning.'
Rayna can't feel her limbs at all by the time they see lights in the distance. She wonders for a Hollywood moment if they might be her imagination playing tricks on her, but a ripple of adrenaline runs through their little group and they start to move with renewed energy. They follow the road around a bend and it forks, the first variation in the mind-numbing straight line that's started to make them feel like groundhog day is a reality.
The town turns out to be a handful of small houses and a closed bar that wouldn't look out of place in Deacon's horror movie. A grocery store that's just about hanging onto its roof sits on the furthest edge, and across the street is what looks like a derelict building, but the flickering sign outside reads Motel: Pay by the Nite.
They all exchange glances. Rayna tries to hide her apprehension and they have no alternative anyway, so she claps her hands together decisively and pushes open the door. It grates on rusty hinges and a bell half-heartedly chimes when she steps inside. She turns back to look at the rest of them, and they usher her forward in encouragement, shuffling in behind her and crowding the small room.
The smell of mothballs is heavy in the air and there's a loud dripping noise, though it would be impossible to say where it's coming from. The reception desk, if it can be described as such, is piled high with old newspapers and takeaway food cartons, and an ancient shaggy dog sits beside it ignoring them, the only other occupant of the room.
'Maybe no one's home,' Deacon says, somewhat hopefully.
Rayna reaches out and pings the little bell on the desk, and they wait for someone to emerge. Eventually a door in the back opens and an old man with a dirty beard that dangles all the way down to his overhanging belly limps out, in no hurry whatsoever.
'What?' he grumbles, as though they're greatly bothering him.
Rayna puts on her most forced-polite tone. 'Erm, we'd like some rooms, please.'
The man stares at her as though she's spoken to him in Chinese. 'You'd like some rooms?'
She nods, keeping the smile on her face. She glances around at their group, doing a quick headcount and feeling grateful the majority of her band and crew are on other buses, hopefully still upright. 'Six, please.'
He barks out an unexpected laugh, startling Rayna, who is sure his papery face is about to crack into pieces before their eyes. 'Well lady, you're shit outta luck. I ain't got six rooms. This is a popular establishment, you know.' He turns to walk away, shaking his head and muttering to himself.
'No room at the Inn,' Deacon says under his breath, looking around at the rest of them. Rayna purses her lips, a sure sign she's about to get what she wants, and pings the bell again, louder this time.
'Hey,' she fires at the man, who turns over his shoulder but doesn't come back to the desk. 'Our bus just hit a tree. We're cold, we're tired, we've walked for what might as well have been a hundred miles in this snowstorm, and I'm so hungry I could eat your damn dog. Hell, I'd eat you, if I had some ketchup.' She leans over the desk and looks him right in the eye, and he falters visibly. 'So you get back over here, you get us some Goddamn rooms, and you can call us in some pizza while you're at it.'
The old guy hobbles back to the desk faster than any of them would have thought he could, and opens a drawer. He pulls out a weathered key and holds it up to Rayna. 'This is all I got empty. It's the old barn out back, two bedrooms and a couch in the main room. It's small, mind, but there's a log fire and a stove for boiling water.'
'Well that's wonderful,' Rayna says warmly, taking the key and pocketing it before he can change his mind, but she keeps her gaze on him, waiting, and he sighs.
'My nephew owns an Italian joint the next town over,' he concedes, sighing heavily. 'I'll get him to bike out here. I'll have to wake him up, and don't you doubt he won't be happy about it, but the kid owes me a favour. You people like pepperoni?'
/
The barn is a field away from the main motel building. The key turns with a shove and they find themselves in a small room almost entirely filled by a fleabitten couch and an old rocking chair. Wood panelling covers every inch of the walls and floor, and a considerable dusting of straw has managed to survive the quasi-restoration.
'Now I know how Mary and Joseph felt,' Deacon murmurs, leaning into Rayna, who tries to ignore the odd little thrill that runs through her.
'Smells like there's a donkey or two still kickin' about.' She peers down the little hallway that leads to a couple of cramped, basic bedrooms. Opposite them, behind a saloon door no less, is a bathroom she knows there isn't a chance in hell she will sit down to pee in.
'Anyone know how to light a fire?' Bucky asks, and Barb throws off her coat and rolls up her sleeves, squatting before the empty grate in front of the couch.
'Stand aside, Buck. I wasn't a Scout leader for nothin'.'
'You were a Scout leader?' Rayna asks, watching as she plucks logs from a pile next to the grate and tosses them in.
'Summer of '69, kid.' Sure enough, flames start to flicker to life at her hands; she sits back on her haunches and after a minute or so the flames whoosh higher. She stands and ushers Rayna and the others closer. 'Defrost yourselves before y'all shiver your teeth out, will you?'
Heat quickly fills the room, and they squeeze onto the couch, Rayna on the rocking chair. Deacon sits at her feet, warming his toes as close to the fire as he can stand. With every rock the chair creaks and as they chatter quietly about the events of the night, it becomes a comforting constant, like the lull of a ticking clock.
The pizzas arrive just as Rayna's eyes are drifting closed, and she startles at the knock on the door. Jimmy gratefully takes the boxes from a harassed-looking man in a snow-covered fleece who tells them his uncle has sent him, and Deacon passes him a generous tip for his troubles. They tuck in and a warm feeling fills Rayna's belly along with the cheesy goodness; she looks around at each of her friends and finds herself grateful to be stranded with them, for the smell of firewood and the cool peace the snow has lent to the fields beyond the cobwebbed windows.
Deacon looks up at her just as she's saying a silent thank you for him especially, his familiar flannel he's had since they were barely adults that she's worn herself many times, the little tuft of hair above his ear that's dried at an angle. He gives her a big smile, happily munching on his pizza, and she sees a little smudge of tomato sauce at the corner of his lip. It makes her feel all of a sudden like she might cry, and she lets herself love him in that moment more honestly than she's allowed herself in years. She reaches out one hand and puts it on his cheek to steady his face, enjoying his momentary confusion before she lifts a napkin with the other and wipes at the splodge. He grins at her sheepishly when he realises, and she can't help but let her thumb stroke his jaw before she drops her hand. It's the little moments, the ones they don't deny themselves among all the ones they know they must - those moments have to be enough.
'Where we gonna sleep?' Jimmy asks eventually, glancing at Bucky who has closed his eyes and started to snore. 'We got two beds and one couch, which I'm thinkin' Bucky's called shotgun on by droolin' on it.'
'I'll take the rockin' chair,' Barb says.
'You'll ruin your back sleepin' on this chair,' Rayna objects. 'You take one of the beds, Barb.'
'I've slept on worse in my time, believe me. There are four of you and two beds - you don't want me bunkin' in there with you. I spread out. Way out.' She pats her large belly and belched for good measure.
'Well,' Sam says, looking like he's trying to shake that particular image as quickly as he can, 'Rayna one of them is yours, I'm guessin' you'd be more comfortable sharin' it with Deacon than either of us two idiots.' He gestures towards Jimmy, whose socks are hanging over the edge of the grate drying, his hairy feet the size of small boats hanging over the edge of the couch.
Rayna looks at Deacon. 'You okay with that?'
Deacon nods without any need for consideration and tilts his head at her. 'Are you okay with that Ray?'
She hesitates, thinking not of Teddy and how very pissed he would be to learn of her sharing a bed with Deacon, but of how much willpower she has to be able to resist undeniable temptation. She wonders if it will be anywhere near enough.
'Yeah,' she answers before anyone can question her silence, 'I am.'
They notice, of course. The depth of Rayna and Deacon's history is no secret to anyone in the room, and their pull towards each other has always been obvious to those around them. The slippery slope they've been tumbling down during the tour hasn't been without witnesses either. There's a loaded pause during which no one speaks, and Barb breaks it with a slap of her hands on her thighs.
'That's settled then,' she declares, getting up before anyone can change their minds, and Rayna catches the telltale smile she tries to hide. She goes to retrieve some ratty blankets they'd found stacked in the hallway and covers Bucky with one of them, propping another under his head as a makeshift pillow.
They bid each other goodnight as the fire starts to burn lower, and Sam trails into a room after Jimmy, warning him in no uncertain terms that he better keep strictly to his side of the bed.
'Your missus gonna be jealous when she hears about this?' Jimmy retorts right before the door closes and Rayna and Deacon are left alone in the hall.
'So,' she says awkwardly, not sure what to do. He gestures towards the other bedroom and she steps in, hovering at the foot of the bed.
It's a single, and they both stare at it apprehensively. The covers are worn and thin but they look clean, and they're just about wide enough to go over both of them.
'Well, it ain't Egyptian cotton, but it ain't Barb spoonin' us, so I'd say we're doin' okay here.' Deacon sits on the bed and bounces gently, mock-testing the comfort levels. He gives Rayna a thumbs up and she laughs, letting her eyes fall to the floor.
'You really okay with this Ray?'
She nods and lifts her head to look at him; his expression is earnest and open but there's something Rayna can see that she knows no one else would be able to. He's nervous, and she acknowledges it with a nudge of her foot against his. She is too.
They have no pyjamas to change into, so Deacon faces the wall while Rayna unbuttons her jeans, sliding them off her legs. She pulls off her sweater and he turns back around when she hisses, the wound in her side disturbed when she'd raised her arms. He'd tried to help her with it when they'd arrived at the barn but she'd refused, the cold having numbed it and stemmed the bloodflow. Truth be told she'd been afraid to examine it too closely given that they had no way of getting to a doctor to have it looked at, and she'd wrapped herself in a blanket so no one would see, careful not to move too much.
'Let me see, Ray.'
Deacon takes the sweater from her and drops it onto the bed, and she doesn't stop him when he lifts the hem of her blood-soaked t-shirt. He peels it upwards ever so carefully and she blanches, gripping the bicep of his opposite arm and digging her fingers in.
'Shit,' she gasps, reluctant to look at it, but Deacon frowns when he does and she can't help it. Dark blood has dried around the edges of the ripped skin and it flows afresh from the centre. The area around it is swollen and bruised an angry red, and she's aware of a surging pain when she breathes in and out.
'I think I might've broken a rib,' she confesses, 'or two.'
Deacon's frown deepens and he eases her shirt up further. 'We're gonna need to take this off. You can have mine. Lift your arms just a little.'
She does as he says and he helps her remove it. She stands in front of him in only her underwear and she's sure it should feel stranger than it does, given that it's been almost a decade since he's seen her this way.
'I hope this t-shirt wasn't one of your favourites,' he says as he rips a strip from it. He folds the rest of the material and presses it over the bleed, tying the strip around Rayna's body to hold it there.
They both admire his handiwork, and she grows a little self-conscious under his gaze, however functional it may be. He senses it and sheds his flannel and t-shirt, evening things out, much to her gratitude. He motions in the vague area of her chest, unable to stop himself from glancing down at her breasts, and clears his throat.
'What?'
'Um, you're gonna need to take off your bra.'
'I'm sorry?'
'If you've broken any ribs,' he explains, almost shyly, 'I don't think it'd help to sleep with a bra on.'
'Oh, right,' she says, and stares at him expectantly.
'Shit, I'm sorry,' he stutters after a moment, realising he needs to turn the other way and jumping to it.
Rayna smirks to herself. 'It's nothin' you haven't seen before.' She tries to reach up to her back but pain sears through her and she drops her arms. 'Hey Deacon? Can you… give me a hand, actually?'
She can tell he's smiling as she turns away from him and he steps closer. His hands reach up and Rayna clenches her jaw to stop herself shivering as she feels his fingers unhook the clasp of her bra. It's an achingly familiar action for both of them, and for a small second it's like going back in time; he'll go for her panties next, she'll unzip his jeans, they'll fall into the bed in one tangled mess.
He doesn't, of course, though she can feel that it's against his body's muscle memory instincts. Instead he picks up his t-shirt and lifts it over her head, gently pulling it down her body; it comes to the tops of her thighs and his smell envelops her instantly. It takes her a moment with her eyes closed breathing it in before she can turn around again, and when she does, he knows what she's thinking. He wordlessly piles her ruined clothes and his shirt onto the floor, and takes off his own jeans to join them. Rayna tries her best not to look at him in just his boxers, but her best isn't enough, and her eyes greedily take in his muscular back, his toned legs. His ass. She has always loved Deacon's ass. He leans over the bed to snag the covers and pull them back and she swallows hard, curling her fists into balls as though that will stop her hands from flying to him.
'You wanna take this side?' he asks, having just as much trouble as she is keeping his eyes on her face. She nods and he helps her in, tucking the blankets over her before he retreats to the other side and joins her.
The bed is even smaller than it looks. There isn't any room for keeping to either edge, and they lie side by side, their arms pressed against each other's. It feels comforting, and Rayna leans her head a little closer to him on the shared pillow than she maybe should.
'Sam's gonna be gettin' a whole lot more of Jimmy than he bargained for tonight, huh?' Deacon remarks, trying to break any tension.
The air has an intense chill and Rayna rubs her feet together, trying to warm herself. The blankets offer some heat but it's minimal, and she twists onto her good side and into as much of a ball as she can, succeeding only in parking her ass right up against Deacon.
'Your toes are freezin',' he says playfully, and she laughs.
'You always knew how to warm 'em up,' she replies, before she can realise what she's said. 'I mean, that's not what I mean. You know, that other thing you used to do, when you…'
He chuckles deep in his throat at her backtracking and she gives up and joins in, glad it's dark so he can't see her blush.
'That thing, huh?' He scoots onto his side too and manoeuvres their legs so her feet are between his inner calves, and he rubs them against her, mindful to keep his hands to himself. 'You mean this thing?'
Rayna, for her part, really does try to find her breath when she answers him. She fails, but - so she tells herself - at least she tried. 'Uh huh, that thing.'
Her toes thaw in minutes, and she lets herself relax, remembering so many winter nights curled up with Deacon. She's sure she never spent a single one shivering, not from the cold, anyway, in all the years they were together. His head is directly behind hers and she can feel his breath on her neck; it's hot, and she enjoys how it sneaks down the back of his t-shirt and trails her spine.
She can't help the contented sigh that escapes her, and he keeps moving his legs, their body heat mingling and creating a small oven under the covers. 'That's so nice. I feel like my feet have been cold for years.'
'Doesn't Teddy do this?' Deacon asks, surprising her. They don't talk about Teddy, not unless absolutely necessary, and certainly not in this kind of situation.
Rayna tenses ever so slightly. Her answer is somewhere between a whisper and a thought. 'No, he doesn't. There are a lot of things Teddy doesn't do that you always did.'
Deacon falls quiet. His movements slow but don't stop, and Rayna finds herself reaching for his hand. She knows it's on his hip just behind hers, and it takes only a small movement to snag it and wind their fingers together. She brings them forward and lets them rest on her thigh, his thumb caressing the top of hers. It feels like a cliff edge, the moment where they choose. The culmination of all of their wishful tip-toes and daring strides during the past two months.
'Why did you want to come on this tour Ray?'
She sighs. Her fingers twist in his. 'I needed to be me again.'
'You don't feel like you at home?'
'This is home,' she murmurs after a pause. Deacon shifts imperceptibly closer. His forefinger traces a tiny circle on her bare thigh.
'This bein' on the road this,' he says into her ear, slowly, 'or this bed?'
That's the thing about cliffs: either you turn and run back to safety, or you jump. She teeters, her skin tingling exquisitely under his touch. Teddy could make love to her ten times over and she wouldn't feel even a fraction of the soaring lust Deacon is able to send through her body with one fingertip.
'Deacon,' she says, not sure what's going to come out of her mouth. He doesn't push, but he doesn't move his hand back.
The curtains are threadbare and don't cover the window, and the darkness outside is illuminated by the snow. Rayna can see it's still falling, and she watches it for a while. It would be so easy. And so impossible. She could turn her face towards him and his lips would be waiting, hers again like she's wished so many times.
'Fall asleep with me Deacon,' she says, knowing with anguish that it's all she can take from him. One night to lay together with no one to see, two more shows and home by Christmas Eve, no damage done. Not to anyone else, anyway. Their footprints in the snow will be covered over by morning like they haven't been here at all.
'Goodnight Rayna,' he says, and he lifts his head, pressing his lips to her neck. He kisses her there, as gently as can be, letting himself linger against her hair and breathe her in. She squeezes his hand, pulling it up to her chest and holding it over where her heart is racing beneath her broken ribs. She's meant to be his, it's what she's always known, but it can't be.
This bed feels like home.