carlyinrome | FIC: slow burn (Ray Levoi/Walter Crow Horse, PG)

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      Life may be sweeter for this, I don't know,
      See how it feels in the end.
      May lady lullaby sing plainly for you soft, strong, sweet and true.
      Cloud hands reaching from a rainbow tapping at the window, touch your hair
      So swift and bright strange figures of light float in air.
            —The Grateful Dead, Crazy Fingers

There was nowhere on the rez you couldn’t smell the smoke. They had filled the basement with barrels of water, stocking up long before the drought began. Ray couldn’t sleep with the orange blaze burning star bright at the edge of the horizon, with the heat and his throat constantly raw with smoke inhalation, so at night he would sneak downstairs and lie on the cool concrete floor, surrounded by the squat, sweating kegs. If he concentrated hard enough, he could almost smell the damp, soil smell of the basement floor instead of the smoke. Almost.

Ray heard the stairs squeaking beneath Crow Horse’s weight and winced, waiting for the harsh light of the one bare bulb to assault his eyes. But it didn’t come; Crow Horse just navigated the barrels in the dark, cursing every time he banged into one, splashing water onto the cement floor, onto Ray’s thirsty skin.

“It’s not because I’m afraid,” Ray said, although he was. Wildfires terrified him on a primal level, in a way and with a ferocity that he had not expected. The first time he had seen one in person, he had wanted to run, and only Walter’s hands on him had held him in place.

“I know that, kola,” Crow Horse said.

He came to lay beside Ray, the two of them sweating in their shorts on the cold cement floor. Walter cupped Ray’s cheek in his hand; his skin was cool and wet from water spilled from the barrels. Ray closed his eyes and leaned into the touch.

“Think I’m gonna take you off roadblocks tomorrow,” Crow Horse said. “You been workin’ real hard, and I know the fires make you wanna run on home.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

Walter pulled Ray’s face close to his, kissed him.

“Now, darlin’, we can leave Terry to mind a roadblock without anything too disastrous happening. I don’t want you runnin’ off, goin’ home.”

Ray nuzzled Walter’s cheek. The familiar smell of Walter, leather and sweat and the low, earthy spice note, crowded his senses, and for a moment he was unaware of the smell of smoke, of the heat of the fires raging outside. Ray curled his hands in Walter’s hair and held fast.

“I am home.”