howdy pardner

Exhaustion pulled at the edges of Ryan, at his muscles that ached and at the headache that throbbed just beneath his temples. It made thoughts feel like the slow wax drips on a melting candle.

When the thing shows up, it’s nothing that it hasn’t done before, but Ryan's head head feels like he’s underwater. His reaction time is slowed. This time, the sight of Naim on the side of the road, bruised and bloody and calling for him makes him look longer than he should. Naim…

It feels like forever that his eyes are glued to the figure, a longing in his heart that he can’t help even when he knows better. A sharp pang because it knows that Ryan would do anything to protect Naim.

Even after all these years, it still can make him question everything.

A quick flash brings him back to the road and breaks him away from the mirage, the sight of something four legged dashing out into the glow of his lights.

Ryan swerves.

When he wakes to the sterile walls of a hospital, Naim is the first thing he sees, head tilted back uncomfortably against a chair tucked up close against Ryan's bed.

There’s movement to his other side that Ryan is vaguely aware of, a nurse checking vitals as a monitor beeps. She reads a clipboard of papers. Ryan would read them later and find out the extent of his injuries, a fractured pelvis, a cracked rib. Nothing that time wouldn't fix. Only a thin curtain surrounds them, a thin blue veil to the footsteps and the sounds of a busy hospital beyond them. 

“Naim?” Ryan opens his mouth, dry and cottony and he’s sure he doesn’t sound like himself. 

Naim stirs and lifts his head, so fast that Ryan wondered if he was really sleeping at all.

“Fuck, Ryan. Welcome back,” Naim says with a weak smile, aiming for something light.

But Ryan knows him too well, even drugged up and nauseous he can see the tell tale twitch of the muscles in Naim's face, the red rimmed eyes from tears he probably fought hard to keep inside him. 

"I was so scared," Naim would admit later while they made different plans and rearranged their lives for the nights that Ryan had to work late.

“Oh you're up, I’m gonna go fetch a doctor,” the nurse says before leaving, the blue curtain swaying in her wake.

Naim’s hand crosses the scratchy sheets and holds Ryan’s hand. He looks like he wants to crawl right into the hospital bed with Ryan, like all the space between them is far too much. It’s always too much. 

“It is you, isn’t it?” Ryan manages, and his body feels numb but Naim’s hand is so warm it keeps his eyes open. The hospital is busy, and he knows, he knows it is Naim. But he has to be sure. Has to hear it for himself.