Sequel/partner to Funeral Pyre

Notes: in referring to a few things that they've touched on but not elaborated: i got the impression that sonny and ray didn't have the best past, and that ray was not always the calm collected and loyal person he is now

TW: blood, reference to past involuntary drug use, suicide attempt, swearing

Sonny has never claimed to be the most emotionally available person on the planet. He is familiar with emotion - familiar with fear, with anger, with all consuming sorrow and guilt - but he does his best to not pay attention to it.

It worked for a while. In fact, Sonny Quin was doing just fucking fine without having to use any of those emotions (one night stands were nice, but he wasn't ever going to be carrying a torch for someone) and when he did have to touch that raging ball of feeling inside him, it was normally easier to bring out anger.

He was fine. Maybe had a bit of reputation as a loose cannon, but he was a good SEAL, on the best team, with the best leader. He was proud of what he'd done, and what their team had accomplished. He had everything figured out, and the anger helped release the stress of holding in the pain. It worked.

And then Jason Hayes decided to select one blond, cocky little asshole shitface, who smiled too much for the kind of job they had and who refused to take shit from Sonny without giving it back to him.

Honestly that's where it all went to hell.

He may have had his problems with some of his teammates - just because they're on the same team, doesn't mean they're going to agree about everything all the time - and he may not have been best friends with Nate, or have a particularly good history with Ray, but this kid tore right through his ideas about what the team was, and then he proceeded to systematically introduce new ones.

Of these new ideas, Clay brought something that Sonny was familiar with, even if the phenomenon was rare. He noticed it a little after their first "oh shit" moment with Clay, after he got hit in the vest. See, what would happen is that Sonny would be sitting with the guys, shooting the shit, doing the randomest of things, and then, when he'd normally mourn the lack of feeling in his chest (because above all, Sonny was always afraid of the lack of feeling he had, because he was always afraid of repressing so much that one day he'd not be able to feel anything at all, and then, then he would be truly empty) there would be this stupid warmth instead.

He thought, after Nate, that it would be better to simply not care. They had close calls in that space between Nate and Clay, and Sonny managed to detach himself so much that he almost didn't feel fear.

Then Clay wormed his way under his wing, and that warm feeling he gets when he looks at the kid is the same he gets when he thinks of his sisters, or his mom. And recently, he's started to feel it during those outings too, when he looks at his brothers, and he thinks 'this is my family'.

The problem with that warm spot, is that it can be cold too.

It can be freezing, it can be like a chunk of dry ice is inside of his chest, instead of the nice flame.

It can be terror, just as easily as it can be love, but Sonny isn't stupid enough to think he can get one without the other.

They find him in less than twelve hours. They find him before he can be taken out of the city, they find him with all his limbs, with all ten fingers and all ten toes, with all ten fingernails, with everything he had when they lost him.

It's not enough.

It's a dirty cellar floor, a rare basement that's got nothing in except for a small window and a table that's pushed against the wall.

It's Clay, wrists shackled and chained to the wall, slumped on the ground, breathing like he can't get enough air, blood running down his arms and body trembling.

"All call signs this is Bravo three." Sonny sucks in a breath of air, and it feels like the first one he's taken since seven and a half hours ago, when he found Clays radio smashed and his gun lying on the ground of a back alley.

"Jackpot, I repeat, I have jackpot. I have bravo six."

Ray has always done his best to remain calm. It doesn't really matter when, or where, or why, but ever since he hit green team - ever since he met Niema, ever since that night - he tries to stay calm.

He could even call it his current life goal. Stay calm. Don't jump to conclusion. Don't let anger blind you.

Just like he promised god that he would try and stick to this- this idea, this hard but attainable thing - god decided to test him even further.

(Because Jason Hayes wasn't enough, they had to throw a Clay Spenser in the mix as well.)

"Keep him steady!" He hisses, trying to get the gauze around the pulsing hole in Clays wrist.

"Doing our fucking best Ray!"

Ray gets Sonny's tone. He does. It's angry and harsh because Sonny is scared, because Clay is bleeding out under their hands, and there's about twenty or so armed combatants shooting at them while they drive over potholes created by bombs in fucking scooby vans, and they just got him back, they can't lose him again.

Ray understands Sonny's tone. He does.

It still makes him grit his teeth and count to five before allow himself to snap back to try a little fucking harder, because if he doesn't get this tied right, Clay's dead before they get to the helos.

Part of remaining calm involves not panicking. It is, ironically, part of what being a SEAL is - not panicking under pressure. Finding a way out. Finding a safe place. Being the best under the worst circumstances. Ray is not such a fool as to think that staying calm is the same as not feeling fear or panic. Moreover those things are felt, but he must stay level headed anyway.

How lucky for him then, that Hayes gave him enough experience in functioning with absolute all encompassing panic before he took on Spenser. It was sort of like getting a dog that's already trained, and then once he thought he got that one figured out, the trained dog brought home a puppy.

Ray's never taken care of a puppy.

Clay is crying. No, that's inaccurate - Clay is sobbing, tears streaming down his face like someone's ripped out his heart and soul, or at the very least hurt him so bad that it's destroyed every mental wall that he has, and so here he is, with nothing left but to bare his pain to the world.

He ties the bandage as tightly as he can, and then ducks as bullets shatter the back window.

"Shift." He orders, and they do - Ray scrambling over Clay to get at his other arm, Sonny to press on both shoulders now, Jason moving so that one leg holds down Clay's two while his opposite knee presses on Clay's hand, keeping the arm from moving. It's smooth and it's fast and it's disgustingly well practiced, because the three of them have had to move around injured soldiers so much, it's no longer something that they can claim inexperience to.

Ray has always done his best to stay calm. But despite it all (despite all his training, his experience, his numbness to fear) hearing Clay sob next to him while he stares down at a sterile needle hovering over the dirty skin of his arm, it makes his hands shake, and it makes his breathing pick up, and it makes something deep inside him roll with uncontained panic and terror.

If he does any of this wrong - Clay dies. If they miss the exfil waiting for them, Clay dies. If one of the bullets being fired at them hits a tire, if Clay's system goes into shutdown from the drugs, if he manages to get free from Sonny and Jason's hold - he dies.

If they do everything right - he might live to see another mission.

He swallows, takes a deep breath, and sticks the needle into the crook of his rookies arm.

Jason never questioned himself over a singular decision as much as he has about this one. Even when Nate died, and he spent months struggling to come to terms with his choice to stay on the boat, it was nothing compared to how much he questions himself on this.

Now, normally when he stares up at the sky and asks himself "What the actual fuck were you thinking choosing this kid to be on your team" it's usually because he just watched Clay do something especially stupid (running at Sonny full speed while both of them held a stability ball and watching them bounce off each other), or he caught him pranking Sonny (did he really think putting shaving cream in his boots was a good idea?), or he's in the process of testing Jason's patience again (no he isn't changing his mind, yes that's the best way of doing it, yes that's an order Clay).

Normally.

"Toc to Bravo one, Exfil window is closing fast, you guys need to pick up the pace. How copy?"

Jason feels his heart, his bruised and battered heart that's got little pieces missing from it, nearly crack as Spenser- as Clay- as his fucking rookie, his team member, their kid- screams out in agony, as he begs in every language Jason can identify and probably fifty others, "kill me, please, please, let me go it hurts it hurts it hurts please kill me-"

He barely remembers how to grab the radio, but he manages to hit the right buttons as they speed through the city streets. "Copy Toc, going as fast as we can-"

The van slides around another corner, this one so sharp it throws everyone to one side, Jason included, although he doesn't lose his footing like Ray and Sonny do.

Which means he's the only one in a position to lunge forward when Clay grabs Sonny's glock, and for maybe the first time in his life he's glad that Clay is weakened right now, because as he slams Spensers arm down against the floor of the van and pries the gun from his fingers, Jason knows that if Clay was at full capacity right now he'd had been able to get at least one round off.

"Not today kid." He breaths, and shoves the gun back at Sonny, who'd been aware of what was happening but was too busy just trying to get back up to stop it. His shout is still ringing in his ears.

The vans stop so hard Jason almost goes straight into the back of the seats. It's a rush, getting out, screaming at everyone to move, move, move while he throws Clays writhing body over his shoulder and runs to the helo's. They get up, they reach altitude, they leave the city behind, and it's Clay, still struggling under the medic's hands that keeps Hayes grounded.

He needs to do something. He needs to be moving, helping, working, something, so he blocks out all the medical jargon so he can pretend he doesn't know how bad off his rook is, and he positions himself at Clay's side, and grips his good hand. One of the medics goes to say something, but Jason raises his eyes in a glare that he normally reserves for terrorists, and they go back to work.

The team is quiet, breathing heavy with adrenaline still singing through their veins from the rush out of there.

Clays eyes are open, but they're vacant and cloudy as they stare right through Jason.

"You're okay." He lies. "You're going to be fine. You hear me Spenser? You're going to be fine. Just hang for a little bit longer okay? Hang on kid."

"He's stable enough for transport stateside, although they should hold him in the hospital for at least another twenty four to forty eight hours, maybe longer depending on how the withdrawal will affect him." The base doctor looks at Hayes with indifference on his face, like he doesn't care how those words will affect the remaining members of Bravo that stand behind him. Like he doesn't know the massive weight that lifts from their shoulders, or the relief that makes them nearly dizzy, or the unease that return when he says, "He is still pretty incoherent however, and semi-combative, although that may be because of the lack of a familiar face."

Davis barely contains the sigh of disappointment. She wants to scream at the doctor to show just a little more emotion, to explain exactly what happened, what was the drug, what can they expect- but he just excuses himself to go check on other patients, and she's left with a big fat pile of nothing.

Well. Almost nothing.

Lisa Davis is good at her job. She certainly didn't get to this position by staying idle either, so while the guys huddle to have a small conversation, she starts making lists - if Clays combative, they need soft restraints, which this base definitely doesn't have, but they do have extra cargo straps, so that'll have to do, even if the image of Clay being tied to a gurney makes her stomach churn. She'll have to talk to whatever doctor or nurse ends up briefing them back in Virginia, because she needs to know his recovery - are there medications he can't have, what's his wrist look like, what kinds of complications do they need to watch out for - because it's so important that when he comes back (and it's a when) she needs to know what guns he can use, what will irritate his wrist, what will give him flashbacks, what things he needs to have with him, because it's- it's not a known drug, it was something that was made in the backyard of a warzone, without measurements or antidotes, they have no idea what this could do to Clay, and she is not having him die because of some complication that she could've helped avoid.

And then there's the team, and there's right now - the guys need to eat, hydrate, she needs to make sure they have everything they left with, they have to pack the plane, she's probably going to have to steal Sonny's bottle of jack - and then when they land, there's going to be a nice pissing contest to navigate because the order to stay in the city and look for Clay was not technically approved from the higher ups. And then she's going to have to-

"-Davis!"

"What?!" She snaps, before her eyes widen in shock. "Sorry Sir, I-"

Blackburn just holds up his hands. She straightens up from the wall she was leaning against, and notices that the guys have disappeared. "It's alright. I think we're all a little high strung right now."

Davis bites her lip but doesn't say anything. They may be a little high strung, but that doesn't mean she should've reacted like that. She's worked to hard and come to far to be anything less than what she swore she would be, and lashing out because of emotion is not something that's becoming of a petty officer in the US Navy.

The Commander stares at her for a second longer before asking, "Are you okay?"

She'd like to say no.

She'd like to say that hearing Jason confirm over comms that Spenser was gone was one of the most terrifying experiences of her life. She'd like to say that from the moment she realizes she couldn't contact Bravo Six to right now, she hasn't relaxed once. She'd like to explain to him how every second of the seven hour and forty three minute time span between losing Clay and finding him were probably the longest of her live, and how they must've aged her another twenty years just from stress.

But this is her job, her life and theirs, and if there's one thing Lisa can pride herself on, it's that she's good at her job. She's strong. And she can sure as hell handle everything it throws at her.

"All good Sir." She responds. "Just a little lost in my head."

He smiles at her, and it's small and pained and lets her know that Blackburn knows exactly how she's feeling right now.

"Well, don't get too lost. We've got a plane to catch."

"Yes, sir, we do." She smiles back, and allows herself to take a deep breath. "All of us."

The plane is...well, it's shit. Blackburn is used to tense plane rides, both going home and leaving it, but this is a whole different type. He doesn't think it's fair to call the atmosphere tense either. It's too simple of a connotation.

This is grief. This no one sleeping despite exhaustion, no one talking despite their busy minds, no one relaxing despite everyone being safe.

This is Clay, half awake and delusional, not making sense as he slips in and out of consciousness. It's the team circled around him, every time hopeful as he wakes up and disappointed and disheartened as he falls back asleep.

He can't even join in, because he's got to write up incident reports and AAR's and a bunch of other bullshit because the team wasn't supposed to stay in the city after they lost clay, but damn it if Jason was going to leave the kid in Jbad when he knew they could still find him.

Hayes is tired of losing Clay. He can tell that. Whether it be bad intelligence, or higher ups meddling in places they should never be, or whatever the hell the reason - Jason is tired. And frankly, so is he. They've had more close calls in the time since they got Clay than they've had in the last five years combined.

He used to find every grey hair and think 'this one's Hayes, and this one is Hayes, and this one is definitely from that mission a few weeks ago, also Hayes'. Now he has twice the close calls, and twice the grey hairs, and spends double the time he used to with contemplating retirement. Except now it's more to remind himself why he doesn't retire, because if he retired, Blackburn has no doubt that within two missions Jason would have himself courtmarshaled and Clay would be dead or MIA.

Neither are even remotely desirable.

Something happens that makes everyone stand up, and Blackburn jerks his head up. Clay moved, apparently but even from his point of view in the back, he can see there isn't much coherence in his expression. The rookie says something to Jason, and Jason says something back, but there's no further conversation. Everyone resettles and Blackburn sighs. He's over trying to get at least a few of them to rest properly.

He's learned by now that this team won't rest until they know everyone is safe. And Clay is okay.

He's got to add that last part on, because with Spenser, even if he is safe they won't relax. Not until he's okay. The problem with this time, is that...well they don't know what he saw. They just know what state it put him in. So really, they don't know when he'll be okay.

The Commander looks down at the report he's currently writing, and sighs. Most of it is correct, save for a relatively large hole in the events of transport out of the city. And when they left the city. And how, and who, and- well it's technically semi accurate. He's taken to include as much detail as he can, without writing 'Bravo six tried to kill himself with Bravo threes gun.'

God this team is going to send him to an early grave. He picks up the pen once more and gets back to work.

"This is not why I invited you over for beers." Jason grumbles, poking around at the engine of his truck just for the exercise of it. Mostly to avoid having to stand still and look Ray in the face.

"Convenient, since I didn't come over your house at eleven in the morning to drink." Ray snipes back, casual as alway despite having a beer in his hand anyway.

Albeit he hasn't opened it, but whatever. Semantics.

"He's going to be fine." He checks his fluid levels again. Maybe he could do another oil change.

"I'm aware."

"Doc even said he'll be back in less than a week once the drug clears out."

"Aware of that too. You may recall that I was standing next to you when the base doctor told us all this."

Hayes stills his hands and walks over to pick up his beer. Ray just stares at him, wearing that look he always gets when he wants Jason to say something first so that he doesn't have to.

Jason is tired. Clay's been with them for almost thirty six hours, and he still hasn't been coherent. The cuts on his wrists have been healing pretty well, and apparently weren't that bad to begin with, really just a result of him pulling against his restraints.

It makes him irrationally angry to picture Clay restrained, nauseous to think about him pulling so hard on them that he cuts that deep.

Ray is done avoiding the elephant in the room.

"You gonna talk to him?"

He closes his eyes and gets a flash of Sonny's face when they met up, the soldier alone where he should've had a partner.

"He doesn't need me to talk to him."

Ray scoffs. "Oh nice, did god tell you that or are you above his word too?"

"Oh come on, Ray!" He turns around in frustration, wanting to throw the beer bottle at the wall but knowing that if he does then he's got to clean it up and Ray will be even more concerned. He doesn't need that.

"I'm serious Jace. You need to talk to Sonny. He thinks this is his fault."

"How would you know that?" He questions, because Sonny sure as shit never told him. He's nitpicking, really, because he's stressed and he almost lost the kid again and he's home but he's not and he doesn't know if he can handle having a one on one with Sonny Quinn.

"Because I know if it were me, that I'd be blaming myself." Ray snaps back.

"You're not Sonny."

"And I thank god for that every day." His second jokes, forever calm about things that Jason never is. Ray raises an eyebrow when Jason turns to face him again but doesn't say a thing. "You tryin to tell me, that if it were you, if you were paired up with the kid and this happened, that you wouldn't feel guilty at all?"

Jason feels his shoulders drop in defeat. Damn Ray for knowing him so well. He's right though - Ray usually is - he needs to talk to Sonny. He knows the Texan was shaken by this, because he was shaken by it, and he wasn't nearly close enough to try and stop it from happening.

He's supposed to take care of his team. It's literally his job. Above everything else, despite what the officers will say, his job, his job as Master Chief is to keep his team safe.

"Fine. Fine. I will talk to Sonny, okay? Can we move on please?" He exaggerates raising his hands in surrender and gets an unamused look in return.

"Sure we can move on." Ray allows. "We can talk about what the hell we're do about Clay if he remembers what happened."

Jason's head hits the wall with a satisfying 'thunk'.

Mandy's heels click as she walks down the halls towards a specific room. The med bay is quiet, visiting hours long over, but it's Bravo. If you were to google the phrase 'the exception to the rule', shes pretty sure their faces would pop up if they were not classified.

She glances down at her phone one more time, reviewing the texts from Jason.

'He's back.' She reads, for maybe the fiftieth time, and right below it, the letter spelling out 'he remembers something'.

The intelligence officer in her jumps at those words, so many questions to ask, so many clues to pick apart.

The friend in her - the part that nearly threw up when see saw what they did to Clay, what that did to the team - that part wishes Clay didn't remember a damn thing.

And then there's where those two parts meet, when one considers the tox report shes got in her safe at home.

When she pushes through the last set of double doors, Ray is sitting in a chair outside the room. He looks up when she gets closer, the rigidity of his muscles relaxing as quickly as he tensed.

"Hey." She nods to the room. "How is he?"

Ray looks at her for a few seconds, then leans back into the chair and sighs. "He's Clay."

Mandy levels him with a look of her own. "Ray."

"Mandy." He raises an eyebrow back at her. "He's Clay. But he's...tired. Remembers everything, talks fine, he'll have to go through a ton of tests before he comes back but he will come back at least."

"But?"

"Well he hasn't looked any of us in the eye since he woke up and he almost had a panic attack when Sonny and Jace went to leave."

Mandy closes her eyes for a moment and sighs. "Damn it."

"Yeah." Ray agrees, then sits forward. "Hey did you ever...find that thing you were looking for?"

The hallway of medbay is maybe the last place she wants to have this conversation, but according to Ray's texts Jason and Sonny are out getting a drink, and the rest of the team is enjoying a bit of leave.

"I did actually." The tox report in her safe - the real tox report, not the one that the team was given - tells a very interesting story. Not that there was much of a doubt that the compound in Clays blood was a hallucinogen. Just that-

Well the hallucinogenic compound was pretty specific.

Specific, in that it's primarily created, produced, and used by the United States Military for torture.

So there's that little detail.

"And?"

Mandy lets her eyes dart to the side, checking, just again, that they're alone.

"We may need to have a talk with the Master Chief."

bonus:

"If you're gonna say anything, please don't tell me it's not my fault." Jason heaves a deep sigh, and goes to sit on the edge of the large boulder the Texan is currently perched on.

He doesn't say anything, then. The park is quiet, considering how late it is. He didn't even know that Sonny knew about the overlook until he texted the address.

He silently passes over a beer. Sonny takes it without question.

They sit for a while, just existing in the cold night air. The city glitters out below them, quiet.

Eventually, though, Sonny talks, just like Jason knew it would.

It hurts too. Just like Jason expected it too.

"I can't keep doing this boss."

"I know."

"Loosin' him- loosin' any of you guys- I can't."

"I know."

"Jas-"

"No, Sonny." He turns, finally looking at the younger man, letting him see the seriousness, the sincerity, in his eyes. "I know."

Sonny returns the looks for a second before dropping his eyes and turning back to look out the sky. "Yeah I guess you do."

Jason takes a swig of his beer. "You know, Mandy...she thinks there's something else going on. Something a little higher up. All the bad intel lately...she doesn't really believe in coincidences."

He feels the incredulous look Sonny gives him. "Oh and you do?"

Hayes shakes his head with a humorless chuckle. "No, I guess not."

Sonny sighs and kicks his heels against the rock. "What's so different about this kid, boss?"

Jason just shakes his head.

"I don't know Sonny. I don't know."

Thanks for reading! Comments feed the writer :) I've been having a hard with motivation lately, especially with writing SEAL team :P