Hey guys, I just want to give a massive thank you for all the incredibly kind reviews you guys left on the first chapter of this story. It really meant a lot to me, and helped me get through finals.
The night is quiet, stuck in that impossible stillness that happens as late night turns to early morning. Right before darkness turns to dawn, when the air doesn't hold the same heaviness of midnight, but isn't as free as the first light of day.
Hayes has been on countless missions in his career. From green team to rookie to second to Master Chief, he's seen a lot.
He's never felt the sort of tension that he does now.
"Bravo four in position."
The city lights glitter tauntingly against polluted Jalalabad sky. Warning, ominous, and cold.
Breathe in…
"Clay Spenser - Jason Hayes. Meet your strap."
...breath out.
Hayes drops his goggles and clicks his radio.
The city holds its breath.
"Bravo four, on my mark." He whispers, crouching down and putting a hand on Rays shoulder. The other man nods, tiny and nearly imperceptible, the paramount of focus. Sonny tenses with readiness on the other side of the door.
Breathe in.
"We gotta get our boy."
Breath out.
"Go."
The building explodes into chaos, Trent and Brock breaching the lower level, guns raised and Cerberus attacking while the remainder of DEV group slam their way into the third floor via roof access.
The team is faced with a number of jihadists, all scrambling for weapons while the SEALs rain down hell upon them. Sonny is merciless, weaving around the walls with a deadly accurate aim and putting maybe a few to many bullets in each man. Ray splits his cover between Quinn and Hayes, taking out his fare share while Jason almost makes it to the stairs with his initial entry before he has to stop and take cover to shoot.
The men are yelling in some language, a wide variety of guns are going off rather rapidly, and the teams blood are singing with adrenaline fueled anger. Ray yells back in a language that sounds similar, but either they don't understand it, or they don't care about what he's saying.
Either way, they're dead pretty quickly (and with a stupid amount of satisfaction).
It seems that once he breaks the silence, all the tension is suddenly bleeding free into the air, and he can't stop, can't think for a second, or he's going to lose something important.
And that something might be Clay.
Hayes moves down the stairs the second Ray and Sonny call the floor clear, and the second floor is much more empty. Brock and Trent meet them halfway through, everyone breathing heavy, sped forward with the idea that it's here, that he's here. There has to be more. Ten or so bad guys is not enough.
But there isn't. There's nothing. They've found nothing. How, how have they found nothing. Clay is supposed to be here, they're supposed to have found him, Ellis was sure.
Jason was sure. He knew he shouldn't have gotten his hopes up (Spenser could should very well be dead) but the second he dropped into this city, the moment his feet landed on the roof of this building, he was sure.
Hayes can feel it. The air is charged, the night is vibrating with energy, and its urging him, telling him. He knows Clay is here.
But he can't find him.
"Anything?" Brock shakes his head, and Jason's hand is already on his radio.
"Toc, this Bravo one, three floors cleared, we have negative contact on Bravo six."
"Bravo One this is Toc, we copy. Be advised, we have a several vehicles outside out your location- they appear to be about to leave."
"Leave? With who in them, we just eliminated everyone in the damn house!" Sonny yells, clearly frustrated. However, before Hayes can get two words out in response, Cerberus is growling, staring at the stairs to the first floor. The team goes silent, watching the dog bristel. Jason lifts his gun, the rest of Bravo following suit, everyone aimed at the doorway.
"Toc hold one." Jason says into his comm, then motions with one hand for Brock to let the dog chase whatever scent he's got.
"Cerberus- seek." The handler hisses, and the dog instantly launches down the stairs barking the whole way. Jason runs forward, Brock, Trent, and Ray already launching down the stairs ahead of him. He knows the second they hit the ground floor because they start yelling, and there's more gunfire.
Jason hits the first floor at breakneck speed, Sonny on his heels, and rushes out the front door, shooting and killing two combatants that took aim at him out on the street.
"Where are they?!" He yells.
"This way!" Sonny shouts back, the Texan hauling ass down the side of the building to turn into an alley. Hayes scrambles to follow, the road dirt packed and the neighborhood now wide awake with the sounds of gunfire. The night is alive now, dogs are barking, voices are speaking, and the SEALs less than quiet yells are mixing to create auditory chaos.
Three vans are parked in the alley between the two buildings. It's close compact insanity, with a number of people still in the vans shooting out of them as Bravo floods the alley.
The first van gets decimated rather quickly, but the next two are more difficult to clear. They have to watch for assailants coming in from the street that's behind them, and the first van only offers so much cover. Trent and Brock are on the other side of the first van, shooting at the passengers while Ray is crouched behind Jason, trying to pop out from cover to shwack the drivers who are firing AKs out the windows.
It's close and its tight and Hayes feels like his heart might just explode from the amount of adrenaline coursing his system. He's not thinking about the bullets making contact meer inches from his head, he's not thinking about how lucky they are that no one's been hit yet, he's not really thinking about anything except the fact that Clay could be here, and he needs to get to him.
Cerberus is still barking, loud and sharp, when Hayes stands from cover and delivers two headshots to each driver. Ray is next to him, breathing heavy with an hand on his shoulder, and then it goes eerily quiet the second the two men are dead. The whole block seems to hold its breath again, like the world had stopped to watch and now its peaking around a corner to see the aftermath.
Cerberus whines, and Hayes surges forward, not hearing a single warning from the members of his team. Fuck whoever else is in the vans. He dares them to point a gun at him.
Trent had Cerberus smell one of Clays gloves before they began infil. The explosives ordinance dog would've been able to find that scent.
Hayes feels an adrenaline high like nothing in his entire career of as a Navy SEAL operator. He doesn't feel his feet hit the ground as he rushes the third vehicle, barely registers Sonny coming in behind him and Ray slipping to the other side of the alley. The dog stops barking the moment Jason reaches the back of the van, and only through the night vision abilities of his goggles does he see the dog paw at the back door.
Jason crouches down and grabs the handle. Ray nods to him and Hayes shifts backwards, yanking it open as he goes.
His second instantly fires off two shots, and there's a light thump as a body drops.
"Clear!" Ray yells, and then Hayes is leaning forward, staring desperately into the back of the van, searching, hoping, knowing-
There's a man splayed out, very dead, AK-47 on his chest and blood on his clothes. The other door is still closed, so Hayes has to step forward to look into the rest of the cabin and there's another body, another body, slightly smaller, lying on their side with hands tied behind them and a hood over their head and-
Breathe in.
Jason darts forward into the belly of the van, shoving his weapon aside and reaching for the person's neck, not to check a pulse, but to find the one thing that could identify his teammate.
His fingers wrap around a chain, and he looks down at the dog tags.
Breath out.
"I got him! I have Bravo six, repeat confirmed Jackpot!" Hayes just about screams, an explosion of relief audible in his voice as the tension, the fear, the horrible dread in his stomach, all of it just falls away.
He's got him. They found Clay.
Suddenly there's gunfire again, and Davis is yelling at them over the radio to get out of there, and they're sitting ducks in the alley, roof extraction not an option with the Clay the way he is. Urgency rushes back in, and everything starts going faster.
"Take the vans! Ray, drive!" Jason yells, taking a second to shove the dead jihadist out the back. The team splits, Ray, Jason and Sonny in the last van, Brock and Trent and their furry companion in the second. Sonny somehow ends up in the second row of seats, and Ray pulls the dead driver out in order to take control of the vehicle. The alley is narrow as hell, but they floor it, and Brock (who drives insane on a normal day) rams the first van out of the way in order to clear their path.
"Toc where's our exfil?!" Hayes yells, quickly ripping the hood off of Clay. The younger man stirs, and the van accelerates out of the alley to follow the rest of the team. "Stay with me kid, we gotcha." He says quieter when a pair of cloudy blue eyes blink up at him.
"We're working on it." Blackburn says over the radio, voice a trickle of calm in the amidst the screeching chaos.
"Work a little fucking faster- shit!" Jason yells as a bullet narrowly misses his head. The van swears, going way to fast over the shitty roads of Jbad. He glances down at Clay, who hasn't moved an inch and who he's managed get half sitting up with his back against the side of the van, tape still on his mouth and skin the color of a sheet.
Clay, who'd been in enemy hands for almost an entire day, and who was put there by one arrogant son a bitch-
"Contact rear!" Sonny yells.
"Toc I need an exfil!" Hayes barks into the radio, then grabs Clay under the arms and lays him flat on his back. Gunfire rips through the open doors of the back, and Jason turns on one knee, raises his rifle and fires straight through a magazine, tearing up the windshield of the truck behind them. He must hit the driver somewhere, because the junky red pick-up swerves then crashes.
"Bravo team you have an exfil. LZ is two miles east of your current position, the same open field from your previous mission, how do you copy?"
"Copy Toc! Ray-"
"I got it!" He yells back, swerving suddenly sending Jason and Clay tumbling into the side of the van.
"Sonny I need you back here, I gotta take care of the kid!"
"Copy!"
Hayes reaches forward to get rid of the tape on Clays mouth and Sonny rolls over the top of the second row of seats. He's unconscious again, and Ray is now skidding around corners to get out of the city. Bullets shatter the small windows on either side of Jason and he ducks with Sonny, covering Clays body with his own and breathing hard.
Deal with the kid. Deal with Clay. That's his job right now.
He pulls his knife on autopilot, slicing through the rope binding Spensers wrists and taking in the bleeding, raw skin he finds underneath the coarse rope. Ray pulls another high speed corner, making Hayes almost kiss the floor with his face. Spreading his legs a little farther apart he leans over Clay, keeping his body out of the range of the windows where bullets are still flying. The offending vehicle isn't behind them anymore, instead the terrorists are beside them, speeding through Jbad with guns blazing.
Hayes is running a hand over Clay, patting down his arms and is just making it to his shoulders and chest when his whole body convulses. They hit a bump so big all three of them in the back lift a solid few inches from the ground and float there for a second.
The van slams back down, and Hayes idly wonders how much more abuse Clays body can take. Sonny puts a hand on Jason's shoulder, and starts shooting out the window, using Hayes to balance on one knee while the van keeps jolting and skidding through the streets.
Jason rolls Clay onto his side, letting him puke. It's mostly watery bile, but there's blood in it too. It doesn't last long, and when he's done, Clay is shaking, whole body tremors and fluttering eyelids that reveal only the whites of his eyes are visible.
Hayes presses two fingers to his neck, feels the weak, thready pulse there, fluttering feebly against his skin and knows that they're out of time.
"Ray, you need to move!"
"What in the fuck do you think I've been doing the last twenty minutes?! Eating a sandwich?!" Ray screams back.
"He doesn't have much time!"
"Neither do we!" Ray yells back, and they go skidding sideways for a few seconds before coming to a complete stop. Jason blinks, panting with adrenaline and stress and feeling oddly off balance now that he he isn't rattling across the ground.
"Sonny, cover!" Ray yells as he jumps from the driver's seat. Jason puts his hand on Clays side, just barely registering the blood seeping into his gloves.
"I got 'em!" Sonny yells back, kicking out a door, gun at the ready. Hayes scoops up Spenser like he weighs nothing, and slides from the van to speed walk the few yards to the waiting helicopter. Once he's close enough, Ray hauls Clay into the cabin of the bird, and then grabs the back of Jason's vest to pull him in faster.
"We need to go!" Ray yells, and the pilot needs no encouragement. The chopper starts to rise, and only after Hayes checks to make sure all of his team got on does he spare a glance outside, where the lights of the city are rapidly getting smaller.
Only then goes he put a hand on his radio and take a deep breath.
"Toc this is Bravo one...confirmed exfil, we have Bravo six, requesting medical to meet us at touchdown."
"Strong copy Bravo one, we will make sure they are ready to receive." There's a pause and then Blackburns voice comes over once more, tone loaded with tension, like he's talking to someone who isn't Hayes. "Glad you got our boy home."
"You know Hayes, but when I said to get him back to me in one piece, I didn't mean it as a challenge." A sharp voice echoes aroundf the pristine waiting room, and a girl with light brown hair and a medics uniform waltzes into the waiting room. The same one who checked Jason right after Clay was kidnapped.
A lifetime ago.
The waiting room is white and clean, and like every other waiting room in the world the chairs are super uncomfortable and the clock runs backwards. Hayes is situated in the middle of one row of chairs, Sonny to his left, Ray to his right, Trent on the adjacent wall and Brocks sitting on the floor with Cerberus' head resting on his thigh.
They've been here for hours. And the few poor souls who've dared walk through the waiting area without news for them have been subjected to some very deadly glares, and not just from Hayes. Ray is doing that quiet thing he always does when he's really angry or worried and Sonny is fidgeting and Jason is just fucking exhausted, having been staring at his hands until the memories stopped flashing behind his eyes and then staring some more, analyzing every detail, from the blood on his palms to the frayed threads of the stitching on his thumb.
He's done. He's so done with this shit show of a mission, done with the politics of the job, done with the anger and fear and frustration and worry that's been mixing and churning inside his chest.
So its with exhaustion, both physically and emotionally, that Jason lifts his head and without an ounce of tact says, "Who the fuck are you?"
The woman stops, almost past the team and into the next hall, and turns on a heel. There's a piercing look sent his way, and something sharp in her that screams danger. She looks him up and down, a bright gleam in her eye that's akin to how a predator looks at its dinner.
Hayes is just a tad freaked out, but hell if he'd ever admit that. She seems to take pity on him though, seeing as he has blood all over him and has been sitting in his gear for the past five hours with the rest of the team, refusing to leave even to change, just waiting for news on Clay.
The sharpness fades, and what's left instead is a bit of amusement and exasperation, and when she pins her gaze on Hayes he feels chills go down his back. The small smirk, that smile with the hint of cockiness and only partly hidden enthusiasm, it's stupidly familiar.
"I suppose we ought to be properly introduced." She sticks out a hand. "Callie Spenser."
Jason takes her hand without a second thought, and then freezes mid handshake. To his right, Sonny leans over to look at her.
"Did you just say Spenser?" He drawls slowly, and Jason drops her hand like it was on fire. She laughs, and yep, there's certainly no doubt in anyone's mind now that they're related. Especially since Ray actually jolts back in surprise at the noise and Sonny looks like someone just proved to him that two plus two equals five.
"Yeah, Texan, I did." She chirps at him. "And yes, that Spenser. Hence, my presence here."
Hayes just keeps staring at her with his mouth open and confusion on his face. Ray nudges his shoulder, then shakes his head.
"You'll have to excuse this one, we've had a rough few days." Ray says fondly, and the lightness drops from her face. She adjusts her ponytail in what seems to be a nervous tick as she speaks.
"Yeah, I know, it's why I'm here actually. I have to get on a plane in about…" She snorts. "...two hours ago, but I did promise this fly trap over here that I would put our boy back together when he found him, so, here I am." Jason blinks, snapping his mouth shut at the chirp and finally finds his voice.
"I'm sorry - you're Clay's sister?" She nods, looking down at her phone.
"Half-sister. And yes. We have the same dad, which unfortunately means we both have to deal with his reputation, although being a medic, I guess I got the lighter end of the bullshit."
Something between Hayes brain and his mouth has short circuited in the past few hours, and he can't seem to stop his thoughts from passing straight into the air via his tongue and lips.
"Why didn't I know about this?" He blurts, and the shocked anger is audible in his voice. She instantly shifts to the defensive, that sharp look back but different from before - more protective than an open threat.
"Because while Clay is one of my best friends, he also has a protective streak the size of Kansas, and while he respects and trusts you guys, he learned real quick in green team to keep his shit to himself. Lets just say it carried over." She shrugs. "I haven't talked to him since he deployed, so don't take this the wrong way, but he...probably forgot."
"Forgot." Jason says slowly, rolling the idea around in his head. She nods, and there's a cheeky glint in her eye now, the same thing that shows in Clays eyes whenever he's about to hit Sonny with a quip of sarcasm.
"Probably." She says again, then her phone buzzes again and she looks down. "So, uh, I have to go, but I can give you an update?"
Hayes blinks quickly, rapidly stunned by the random changes in mood and tone over the last few minutes of conversation.
"Uh, yeah, I mean they haven't-"
"They won't come out and tell you for a while, and when they do, if you aren't ready then you'll be on a different plane than him, so I'd suggest you get out of here and pack your shit as fast as you can." She looks up, then down the hall, like she's checking that no ones around. "It wasn't an easy surgery, because god forbid he do anything half way, and right now they're trying to figure out whatever the hell was pumped into his system while also making sure he keeps breathing so it's been a rough few hours."
"He was shot?" Hayes asks, needing the confirmation even as his stomach go cold at her words. He certainly appreciates that she doesn't dance around anything like they can't handle it. She nods.
"Yeah, but it wasn't the main issue. Just added trauma to his body." She taps her left side, two fingers skimming over the lower ribs to indicate where. "Lucky bastard had the bullet miss just about everything important, but of course it didn't go through clean, hence the need for surgery."
"What was the main problem then?" Ray asks, and Jason jerks a little, startled by the closeness and sending a half hearted glare at his second. Ray just raises an eyebrow at him and looks back to Callie.
"A bunch of stuff I guess." She bites her lip, and tightens her ponytail again. Definitely a nervous tick. "Like...what I meant was there wouldn't have been any need for surgery had it not been for the bullet, and so the anesthesia was mixing with whatever drugs they hit him with and...well in simple terms, we'll say his body was like nope fuck that, and that's where things got tricky, so once he's stable, they'll send him home, but they got the bullet fragments out really cleanly, so he'll only be out a few weeks really." She shrugs at the end, and runs a hand through her hair again.
"They have to watch him for secondary drowning too, but they think that it's been long enough that-"
"Woah wait- secondary drowning?" Ray nods.
"Yeah there was water in his lungs." And she says it like she's informing them of the weather, like it doesn't mean that Clay was held underwater to the point of inhaling, like it doesn't light up every cell in Jason's body with rage.
"Other than that, it's making sure there's no infection from his wrists, and some bruises to deal with." Her phone buzzes again, and she flinches at it, quickly leaving the waiting room in the direction of the elevators, throwing a "nice to meet you kinda sorta!" over her shoulder as she leaves.
Everyone stares after her for a second, and then everyone turns to look at him, like Jason is somehow more to put together than the rest of them.
Then again he's the TL for a reason, so he guesses he should be. But for the moment, all he can do is lean forward, put his head in hands, and breath, letting everything else fade away for a few seconds to just exist in the overwhelming relief that's so bright and powerful that it calms the emotion inside him. It's nearly euphoric, because she talked about Clay in the present tense, telling them things that were already done, talking to them about taking him home and she didn't mention a caskett as she did.
So he's alive. Clays alive and barring complications, he'd managed to survive to the point of being able to look at recovering and coming back to the team. Jason didn't realize how afraid he was of losing this kid for good until he knew he wasn't, and yeah, maybe a part of it that when he looks at Clay it's like seeing the last bit of Nate alive and breathing, but the rest is because he- because it'd be like losing Sonny or Ray. Like losing his left hand. Spenser has been steadily working his way into their little team and now he's a part of it, a strong, bright, loud part of it, that changed them but in the best way.
Hayes can say he's damn glad he isn't losing that.
He looks up, and there's the rest of his team, deflated and smiling tentatively, reminding him that they're pretty damn glad too.
"Let's go get changed I guess." He mumbles, and the idea of going home is enough to get him up and out of the chair.
Going home with all of his team however, is enough to get him a lot farther.
Hayes doesn't expect Clay to wake up on the plane. None of them do, and after the first little shifts in his sleep that yield nothing, he thinks that everyone settles in for the long trip back home.
Normally, the straps get their part of the plane, and the team spreads out, setting up hammocks and stowing their shit and doing whatever to pass the time. Jason normally uses the time to go through AARs and other bullshit paperwork he has to do because being Master Chief of a Tier One SEAL team brings the kind of paperwork that makes one feel like their brain is leaking out of their ears.
Not today.
Today, the straps still get their spot on the plane, but so does Clay. The medic assigned to them assures them of his status, that he's okay, they got whatever drugs in his system under control, he's stable. He'll be fine.
Jason has to hang onto the last reassurance, because right now, the kid certainly does not look fine. Doesn't even look remotely okay. If anything, he looks closer to what he did when they found him. His skin is so pale it's almost grey, and there's not a singular sign of life on his face. There's a thin shin of sweat on his skin, a low fever that the doctor had assured him was normal and not life threatening in anyway, shape or form. He did that a lot, (the whole he's fine its normal barring no complications he'll be fine you won't lose him thing) when Hayes went back to the base hospital to talk to him and saw how bad his rookie looked.
Hayes has the grace to feel a little guilty about not telling the rest of the team how not okay Clay was gonna be, but then again he really didn't have time, because he went from the hospital straight to the plane and, well, he doesn't think words would have done it justice.
He was the first one there, out of the rest of Bravo team anyway, and stowed his shit while they strapped down the gurney and checked him one more time. Then he grabbed a foot locker, dragged it next Clay, strapped it down, and sat. He watched, and stayed silent, pushing his palm back and forth against his thigh as everyone else had climbed aboard. No one said anything to him, not as they all set up their hammocks in a close circle around them, not as Ray pressed a hand to Clays forehead, sweeping his hair back and murmuring a prayer, not as Sonny make a fist so hard his knuckles turned white and he cursed a streak so long Jason actually felt impressed.
They took off without a word, and it's been tense, heavy silence ever since. Hayes has long since lost comfort with the feeling of rough material under his palm, and leaned forward with his elbows on his thighs and his hands hanging between his legs. He doesn't remember doing it, but at some point Clays dog tags ending up in his palm, and he let his head hang and his vision zone out to the blurry movement of the chain winding between his fingers.
He doesn't know how long it's been. He doesn't care. This was all too much, too close. He's very aware of how lucky they are, to find him so quickly, and to find him alive. It's actually something of an insane rarity. There's soldier that have been missing for years. Others are tortured to death. Mostly, if you do manage to rescue one from captivity, they aren't the same person that went in.
Hayes doesn't want that for Clay. He knows that this job changes you, but he doesn't want it to change the kid like he's seen it change so many others. He doesn't want this to change him.
When Clay stirs again, he doesn't think anything off it really. He can hear the soft shuffle, but it's somewhere far away. It isn't until he hears an actual, coherent, word slip into the air that he get snapped out of his daze by a bolt of adrenaline. He blinks, lifting his head to stare at Spenser with wide eyes and confusion on his face.
"Fuck." The injured man mumbles, eyes half open and hazy.
"Yeah." Hayes manages to murmur after a few seconds of shock, easily sharing the sentiment. Sonny is passed out in a hammock, and neither of their soft voices wake him, although Ray does sit up in his, book momentarily forgotten. "You okay kid?"
"S think?" He slurs a bit, and Hayes raises an eyebrow, resigned to the fact that Spenser isn't going to be really with it any time. He frowns, thinking a bit. "Good." Comes next, and he sounds amusingly proud that he got the vowels mostly right.
"Yeah, you're good." Jason agrees softly. "We got you out. You're gonna be fine kid."
Clay blinks, nods a bit, and slurs out something that might've been an attempt at "thanks" but doesn't ever turn into something discernable as a word. He drops off again almost immediately after, and Hayes can almost imagine he looks better somehow (not really, he still looks half dead, but Jason can have fun convincing himself otherwise).
"Not bad for a guy with enough sedatives in his system to knock out an elephant." Ray's voice, while quiet, seems to shatter the air around them. Hayes would like to think he did a pretty good job hiding his surprise, but this is Ray, and the raised eyebrow he gets when he makes eye contact with him makes it clear that his best friend hasn't suddenly gone blind.
"Yeah, well, when has he ever listened to the rules huh?" He replies, shifting a bit to get comfortable for the lecture that's about to follow.
"I don't really have to give you this talk right?" Ray starts. Jason sighs.
"Depends on which talk it is you're giving, because if it's the 'sleep is an okay thing to do' one, then no."
"Well it's good to know that it only took five or so years of telling you that every mission before it sunk into your head." He deadpans, and Jason doesn't even have it in him to roll his eyes.
He just lowers his gaze, dragging a hand down his face and letting the panic that he's pushed down for so long, bubble up just for a few seconds. Just to feel it. Because with Ray, he can.
"Ray…" He lets his voice drop lower, indicating his seriousness as his eyes are drawn back to Clay.
"No, Jace, this isn't on you." Boots hit the floor, but quietly enough that everyone who was sleeping, stays. Hayes doesn't even look up. "This is on the jackass General who sent us there on a whim, with a flimsy excuse and not a singular care for what happened to us."
He just shakes his head, even as Ray walks his way over to him, plopping down on the crate next to him.
"Jay, you gotta know this isn't your fault." And he does, he does, but that doesn't stop him from regretting it, or from thinking that he should have noticed something was off.
"I do." He says eventually. "I do but...Ray, this kid is…" He stops, takes a deep breath, and plows forward, even though the words taste bitter on his tongue. "He's part of my team, I am, in some way responsible for everything that happens to him. To all of you guys. I- this shouldn't have happened. Not to him."
"You sayin you wish it was you?"
"Hell yes." Jason answers the soft question without hesitation, although he's instantly suspicious about it. Sure enough, the shoe drops after a moment of contemplative silence.
"I don't."
Hayes finds himself exaggerating the movement his head makes as he turns to stare incredulously at his best friend. "Excuse me?! You sayin' that if you had the chance your wouldn't have taken his place?"
Ray - the ever patient bastard that he is - shakes his head slowly.
"I would've traded places with him in a heartbeat - but I didn't, because I didn't have the option. Neither did you, and neither did Sonny. That's not what I'm saying though."
"Then what the hell's your point here Ray?!" He snaps, familiar frustration at his friend bubbling to the surface. His head hurts, his heart hurts, his back is stiff and achy and he's fucking tired. Dealing with this shit is not high up on his priority list.
"My point is that he can handle it better than you can!"
And that's...what the fuck?
"Oh come on Jason, don't look at me like that." Ray continues as Jason stares at him in shock. "You and I both know he's stronger than we are. He'll bounce back from this like it was nothing, because to him, it is nothing. You? You'd lock it up where no one can help you find it, and you'd let it eat at you."
"Gee thanks." He huffs, because really-
"It's not an insult Master Chief I'm just saying that at least with Clay, if this ever catches up to him, I'm going to be able to see it. And if I can see it, I can help him."
"Unlike me?" Hayes sighs.
"Unlike you." Ray agrees happily, and leans over to knock his shoulder against Jasons. "Now prove that you really were listening the last five years and get some fuckin sleep, you raging insomniac."
"There is zero chance that actually happened." Sonny growls from underneath the bench press. Hayes doesn't say anything in response, but doesn't try to hide his smirk as he spots.
"You that pessimistic?" Ray calls from the bench he's currently sitting on, dumbbells in each hand as he does another set of hammer curls.
"I'm that realistic, my luck isn't that good." Sonny huffs back, letting the bar sit in the rack for a couple seconds before readjusting his grip to do a few more reps before finally setting the bar back for good. "There is no way that that asshole got what he deserved like that." He mutters, a familiar tone of anger in his voice as he sits up.
"Course not." Jason chimes in, thinking back to what he heard from Blackburn the night before. "What he deserves it go through what Clay did, and that'll never happen. He did however, get a very embarrassing dressing down from his fellow colleagues. Something about 'getting his operators kidnapped due to being a fucking idiot'? But that's just conjecture on my part." Hayes says with a laugh, putting air quotes in the appropriate places and letting the satisfaction bleed into his tone.
Sonny makes some noise that might've been a laugh, but it's mixed with something of a growl, so Jason just smirks and goes about taking the weights off the bar.
"Asshole should get a lot more than a light admonishment from his superiors and peers." Ray mutters.
"Who's the asshole?" A voice chimes from across the weight room and Ray swears loudly as he just about drops the fifty pound dumbbell on his foot.
"God damn it Spenser!" He yells and Jace stands up so fast his vision does that weird multicolor fading thing. Sonny seems to be just as surprised as the rest of them, if the delay on the good natured ribbing is anything to go by, but they both get their shit together quick enough that Clay doesn't ask what's wrong with them.
"They finally bust you out or what?" Sonny ask rhetorically, finally standing from the bench and moving to the other side of the bar to fix the weights there (Hayes is only slightly jealous that he has something to do).
Jason can literally predict what Clay will do in reaction to bringing up his time in the hospital. They'll be a light shrug, since he's leaning against the doorway, and then he'll look down at his feet, and mumble something of an affirmation that's just barely audible, but then none of them will call him on it because they were there when he woke up. They were there, in the hospital stateside, when they realized he didn't really remember most of it, if any.
"Just flashes." He had said. "Nothing useful."
Hayes hadn't even tried to touch whatever the fuck he meant with that, but had very quickly run over Ray and Sonny when they tried to explain the mission and shit. They got the memo really quickly, and a general consensus went about Bravo team and ensamble - you can tell Clay about the mission, but not about the General who almost got him killed.
Ray had cornered him after, wondering why the fuck that was thing, and at the time he didn't really have an answer. Later, after visiting hours were over on day three, (the first day the kid was actually coherent), he admitted it to both of them.
Because it's not that Clay would let it go. He would despite being angry, and if he looked like he wasn't, all Jason would have to do is tell him too, and then he'd drop it.
It's just - Jason doesn't want this guy looking any closer at Spenser than he already is. He knows that he has a target on his back - this guy definitely hates Hayes now - and grudges in his line of work have a way of getting people hurt . If something's going to happen in revenge, it better be to him, not anyone else on his team.
He's right in his prediction though. Clay does exactly what he knew he would, and Sonny chirps him about looking like shit still, and Spenser's stupid smile slides back across his face. He meets Jason's eyes then, and the older man is proud to know that his face is schooled to the perfect expression to belay any suspicion. Clay's to smart for his own good sometimes.
If the flicker of wariness that crosses their youngest members features is anything though, Clay at the very least has the idea that somethings up.
"No seriously, what'd I miss?"
"Nothing. You didn't miss anything." Hayes knows that there is no way that Spenser isn't going to be incredibly skeptical of that, but he hopes, that for once in his life, he lets it be. That maybe, maybe Jason giving a rare smile and walking forward to put an arm around his shoulders is enough.
"Glad to have you back kid." He says, and he means it, means every word.
Says it, because he knows.
It's not enough.
Bada boom. So there will be a sort of maybe part three? But not for a while. And it take place separate from this incident, if you will, so later down the line. And will hold more Clay whump.
Thank you so much for reading!