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--- — — — ---
Artificial hydration dug it's way into Raz' veins, cold saline keeping him alive but doing nothing for his cracked lips. Voice thick and harsh as sandstone, Raz reached from the dark with a word, just one.
"Why?"
Ricardo was sitting quiet next to his bed, a kinder watchman than an orderly would be. He startled slightly, surprised Raz was awake, probably, and looked up from his phone. A single dark curl had diverted from the rest, skimming his brow with tender shadow, but the rest of him looked tired under the humming fluorescents. His summer warm eyes were fringed with new lines, his chin rough with stubble. Tired, but not faded, never faded. Even at his worst Ricardo was vivid bright, only imperfect enough to be real. That was probably why.
"Why what?"
Raz' eyes flicked to the too bright tv, footage of Ricardo hauling himself and Chen— recovering now in another hospital room— from the sobbing mouth of Heartbreak. Heroic. The heroism wasn't what Raz was indicating. A banner crawled it's way across the run and re-run fragment of video, promising the brave survivor's appearance for an exclusive interview with Marcus Campbell on ARTRAX Apparel's 'Outdoors in the Morning'.
Raz watched Ricardo's face, not quite squinting against the painful lighting, even though he wanted to. He wished they would turn them off, but the psychiatrists— psychologists?— kept softly whispering about trauma and recovery, as if the constant lights and whispering helped. As if this way was gentle. The dark was gentler than this.
Ricardo's brows twitched in confusion, the line of his lips gone taut as he took in the footage, then the banner.
"The interview?"
Confirmation was held in the silence. In finally shutting his eyes against the too bright lights and waiting for the answer.
He wasn't entirely sure what that answer was. Raz lost his friend somewhere in the explanations, Ricardo's voice fading further and further away. Raz only thought he was screaming for help, just like before. He probably had actually been screaming this time, saying something at least— just not 'help me.' His throat hurt, and his tongue found new blood when it tried to soothe his parched lips. It must have been cruel, whatever he'd said. There was no hiding from the hurt etched in Ricardo's face before the other man left. Left Raz alone in the light.
--- — — — ---
Stone scraped knees, knuckles, ribs. Ribs. Breath. Breath.
Breathe.
He couldn't breathe, the yellow beam of his headlamp flung itself across the rocks in a panic as they pressed close around him, into him, through him.
Couldn't breathe. Couldn't breathe meant couldn't move. His lungs held frantic to any air they could find, his ribs defiantly gasping out, wedging him tighter into the passage. No no no. Needed to move. Just a little further. Let the air out slow. More of it. More. More. Let his lungs ache like screaming, they didn't need the air, he needed the inches. Shoulders and hips. Not even a crawl. Just another inch. Another exhale. Another two. All he had to do was exhale. Ignore his lungs. Ignore the pain in his left knee. Ignore the whispers. They weren't there, not if he remembered not to let them be. No whispers. No air. No need for it. Exhale. Inch. Again. Again. Again.
--- — — — ---
"Oh god, that might be the winner— Raz?"
"Hmm?" Raz grumbled something unintelligible from under his pillow, as if he'd actually been napping. He did have his own place, and he would have gone there if he'd actually wanted to sleep, but he wasn't going to give Ricardo the satisfaction of knowing he had actually been listening to another stupid conversation-turned-game.
"Dumb Tourist of the Week— what's your contender?" Ricardo's voice was too loud and cheery for the bunk room, but this time of year the firehouse was only staffed by FD volunteers and the regular Search and Rescue team, the latter of which were very used to his antics, the former were mostly doing station chores. Raz was the only one bothering to nap, or pretend to. He groaned a more genuine complaint at the question though, tourist season was just starting, and already the incidents of stupidity were piling up.
"I saw Josie arguing with some Texan about why he wasn't allowed to drive over Imogene himself. 'I'm not gonna pay a fifty dollar drivers fee to some dumbass when I can drive my damned self' or something. I don't think he beats Themmy's though, the wall of shame actually shut him up." Josie's Jeeps wasn't the first local tour business to start a wall of shame— sharpie blacked insurance bills and graphic wreck images hung in pride of place like graduation photos— but her's was probably the most impressive. Mainly because when it had been Jackson's Jeeps there had been a self driven tour option.
Ortega didn't even take offense to the Texan qualifier, it always was the damned Texans, at least when it wasn't the wanna-be hippies from 'El Ay' coming to the mountains to 'attune with nature.' Fucking tourists. He did jump on the evidence that Raz had been paying attention all along though.
"I knew you were just ignoring me, asshole." Raz didn't bother dodging the pillow Ricardo threw at him, just raised his middle finger in response. It was probably too fun to antagonize him.
The pillow didn't escalate to more violent measures because Chen cleared his throat from the doorway, presumably having come from the dispatch room. He hadn't called over the station speakers, so it wasn't anything urgent.
"Some photographers up at Heartbreak Caverns missed their check-in, their manager was having a panic attack on the phone about it, I promised to go check myself— up for a grocery run?"
Ricardo rolled his eyes. Chen always did sound more like the team lead on the phone than he did. His voice was only a little teasing-sarcastic when he asked about something that was technically his call.
"Oh? Think we should get the on-calls in to cover?"
"Can't imagine it'll be more than two hours, probably just didn't realize sat-phones aren't all that reliable in this weather. Dispatch says they can call in the others if something else comes up." Chen didn't rise to the bait, he never did care about the local politics that set Ortega in charge of S&R and not him, and Ricardo seemed to only care enough to tease his friend about it.
"Sounds good, Raz, you coming?"
"I'm not on shift."
Ricardo's gasp was soap opera dramatic. "What?? Does that mean you have plans? Oh my god, do you have a date? Tell me you have a date, are they from out of town? Raz are you dating a tourist?!"
"Jesus Christ, fine, I'm coming."
Raz caught Themmy's gaze as he dragged himself out of the bunk. She pointedly glanced at Ricardo's back, the overenthusiastic idiot already jogging to the equipment closet. It had been a while since they did any cave rescues. Even though the photographers were probably just sitting outside it and arguing about batteries and cloud cover, they'd have to grab different kit than usual, just in case. Who knows, maybe one of them had broken a leg or something and actually needed rescue, might even be fun.
Themmy elbowed him, as if he'd been staring at Ricardo and not thinking about work, so Raz flipped her off too. He expected a peal of laughter and yet another joke about getting over his hangups. Instead she just looked at him, her eyes a sudden flat green, no visible pupils to offset her bonebright smile.
"Aren't you tired of trying? Aren't you ready to rest? Just let go. You can rest if you let go."
--- — — — ---
No.
Raz squeezed his eyes shut, inviting a different quality of dark than the kind that haloed the beam of his headlamp.
Now wasn't then. She hadn't said that. Time didn't slip that way, no-matter how deep he went. Not even in Heartbreak. Not even here.
A slow slow exhale sank into the stone as he packed the voices (memories?) back away. He didn't need to listen, not to that. There were more important sounds than echoes. Like the quiet and where it broke. The straps of his gear bag etched another man's lifeline into his palm. He didnt matter here, just moving. Moving was easy, forward and down.
Time to move.
--- — — — ---
"Well... I'll call you next month ok?"
The echo tore Raz out of sleep. Fear swapped itself out with pain, fast and mostly preferable— he'd hit his head on the underside of the coffee table.
"Fuck— ow..." He grumbled the complaint for Chen's benefit more than his own. A locator beacon, even though he was pretty sure that Wei knew exactly where he'd been napping.
"You should sleep in your actual bed, less of a concussion risk."
"And you shouldn't listen to other people's voicemails after breaking into their apartments." Raz crawled out from under the low table, fully accepting that he must look like shit. He'd gotten back at 3 am, maybe, and hadn't even showered. He wasn't entirely sure if it had been 3 or 5 or maybe 1 though, there wasn't a clock or calendar in the world that could save him from the way minutes and days kept bleeding into one another. Wei could though, sometimes.
"You gave me a key."
"Semantics."
Wei pretended not to smile as he sifted through Raz' mail, then disappeared into the kitchen. The rattle of the loose hinge on the top left cupboard said he was going to make tea, confirmed by the low electric hum as the kettle turned on. Raz hated tea, he only kept any stocked in that cupboard because the other man drank it. Still, Raz heard the sound of ceramics clinking together, then on the counter, two mugs. Wei was wearing his running blades and he smelled faintly of sweat and pine, a scent which was ultimately not joined by an herbal tea, small mercies. It was before 10 then, his militant caffeine cut-off, but not so early the trails between their places would be icy. Or— it was still February wasn't it?
Raz pressed his palm into his eye, wanting to blame the headache on his graceless awakening, but worrying he was slipping again. He'd been in the French Alps yesterday, playing reluctant instructor for a flooded cavern rescue course, hadn't he? No, Wei would have been there for that... wouldn't he? He was weighing whether or not he should ask, if it would lead to answers or just another discussion he didn't want, when his friend started another discussion he didn't want.
"You should call him back."
Raz' lungs squeezed out too much air, like he'd just noticed a fray in the rope suspending him over a long drop. Ricardo was supposed to stay in the ignored monthly calls, in the growing pile of answering machine tapes Raz refused to play back but never quite managed to erase. He wasn't supposed to be the subject of conversation, even if he and Wei were still close.
"You should leave."
"Raz..."
Raz tracked Chen's steps with his eyes shut, mapping his path from the kitchen through the tapping of expensive hard rubber grips on cheap laminate floor. If he listened close enough maybe there would be morse code trapped in the sound, not whispers. A distress signal goodbye of the leaving to the left behind. Chen didn't walk to the door though, stopping in front of Raz instead. Still here, but maybe if Raz pushed...
"You know I'm not going to do that." Wei's voice was soft, but not a whisper, firm and solid and not edged with echoes.
"I don't. You alrea—" Raz snapped his mouth violently shut to save Wei pain, tasting some of his own instead as his tongue was caught in the trap. Too late though, he felt the hurt, even if he kept his eyes resolutely shut. He held stubbornly tight to his own dark, even in this apartment with its compromise cracked blinds. He felt the hurt in the pause, the guilt weighing in how many heartbeats blurred between sounds. There wasn't a fight though, just a slow sigh, underscored by a crack from the awful old sofa as Wei sat, a little too heavily.
"I'm sorry..." Raz said it before Wei could. It hadn't been his fault Raz had been left behind. It hadn't even been Ricardo's, not really, even though it still felt like it. Raz had been dead. Any rescue worker would have assumed as much. He would have assumed as much. Raz would have left himself back in Heartbreak too. Hell, maybe he had...
When Raz finally opened his eyes again he saw that Wei was kneading his thigh. His stiff fingers pressed along the knotted scarring above his absent knee, where Raz knew the ache sat the worst. His face was as quiet as he was though, thinking before a response. Steady foundations, he never did lash out even when Raz was trying to hurt him— definitely not when he wasn't. Raz shifted closer, pushing his friend's (his friend's?) hand aside to massage out the worst tension for him. It wasn't further apology, just that he could do this better, and Wei shouldn't have to exchange one ache for another. He tried to ignore the gentle way scarred knuckles brushed against his scarred cheek instead. Raz was an ache of a different sort, but Wei kept reaching for him anyway...
"I won't argue with you, but he's trying to fix this, you know that. You know that Ricardo is the only reason I can still work in the field at all."
The words 'work helping you' remained unsaid, but Raz heard clear enough. Even as an operations manager and not doing active rescues himself, Wei wouldn't be able to work if he couldn't get to locations in the back country. And Wei's solidity was the only reason Raz could leave his apartment at all, let alone go far enough to help save anyone. He had guessed that Ortega paid for Wei's more specialized prosthetics, for the ongoing physical therapy for his hands too. The debt from Raz' involuntary commitment after Heartbreak had also been cleared 'anonymously' a while ago. Confirmation still felt like shit.
So Raz found himself trapped being the unreasonable one, again. It had been years though, at this point he didn't know how to stop.
"He made a different choice Raz, that doesn't mean it was the wrong one. Just think about it."
--- — — — ---
Spat from the stone throat into a gasp, Raz found himself once more in cavernous space.
The Ventricle.
His mind supplied the name for him, taken from the map made back before this system was synonymous with a search grid. Now it was nothing more than a circulatory system for the lost.
Raz forced a shaky inhale, needing to remember safer ways of thinking. Lost didn't mean gone, not yet. There was still time. He pressed his watch to life, raising his wrist so the artificial glow could tell him just how much time. Gone or remaining. It was impossible to tell down here even with the watch. He could barely think, and the numbers refused to shape right in his vision. His mind kept twitching towards the whispers instead of the necessary things. They wormed their way into his ears, or maybe not his ears. His mind? He needed to keep from listening no matter where they came from.
A Sisyphean effort and not a Herculean one was what finally got him to his feet. There was no heroism in this place, not from him. He just needed to keep going. Maybe he could keep some of it from being a tragedy. Just keep going.
The jaundiced beam of his headlamp reflected back a thousand fold when he looked around. Quartz and pyrite dominated the walls in this chamber, stars more intense and populous than any night sky. Natural pillars seemed to support a far off ceiling, stalactine crystals found only here in the deep. His head spun dizzy as he looked up, not up? He wasn't sure which way he would fall if he let go of the search, just that whispers kept promising he wouldn't.
No. The wrong things. Raz couldn't stop the way his breaths kept coming in short little gasps, but he turned his focus back to searching anyway, scouring the brightened walls for what he needed.
He found them one by one, each swallowing his light as it skimmed over the places where the walls gave way. Three aortic passages, life and doom unclear in the choice. Time was the center of it all, too long and it wouldn't matter where he looked. It had only been 10 hours past the missed check-in when Raz had crawled after the missing, maybe only a few more in the search. Not days, not yet. They had time, dehydration took longer. Exposure varied. Heartbreak was the most unpredictable.
Scouring the entrances did nothing for answers, the stone had been scuffed before, and he couldn't tell if any of the scratches were fresh enough to be from too much equipment dragged by the optimistic. No chalk or string left to guide the way home either. Fuck. Focus. Focus.
Left.
Felt it? Heard it? Knew it? Didn't know. He couldn't know. He didn't know. But he'd reacted, let himself listen. No. All the voices he'd been ignoring saw him now, knew him. He was here and now and a beacon and they knew and they whispered directions and directions and chances and promises and lies and just go left just start moving that's what he'd been doing this whole time anyway that's why he was here wasn't it just go to the left and everything would be ok they promised. No. No.
NO.
Whisperchokedsob in his throat. No. Not here. Not real. Not familiar. No fresh wind of an exit no one searching for him no hopeful lies. No.
Back. Back. Find a gap in the rocks. Scrape shoulders, tear his jacket. Get in further, wedge tight. Not a sound not a sound. Headlamp. Turn it off turn it off stop breathing just be quiet.
Dark.
--- — — — ---
Blood was too red. Bone too white. Her eyes too green, bright green, her pupils consumed. He could still see her eyes.
"Hold on Themmy, I've got you." The words tasted desperate as lies even to Raz. Tied in pairs, her rope biting into his waist and the chasm-side stones biting into his hands. He had her, he did, but that didn't matter.
Let go. Let go. Let go.
Whispers clawed at his white knuckle grip. No.
Let go. Let go and finish it and you can both rest she wants to rest just let go and it will finally be over.
No. He'd found a hold as they'd dropped. He had her. He wouldn't let her go.
"Please Them, just talk to me. I've got you. Please."
There wasn't any use, his words drowned out the whispers now, but not everything else. Ricardo and Chen shouted above, telling Raz to just hold on, they were coming to get them. Below, tied to him with the bruising umbelicus, Themmy choked through the crush of bones the rocks had made of her. She had made of her. He had made of her. The line snapped taut as Raz caught their fall. Her jump, his join. Tied together fate. Bone gave before stone. Sick wet crunch eggshell in a fist. There were no words left, no Themmy left, even though he still heard her gurgled breaths. Even though he still saw her eyes.
No.
--- — — — ---
The dim blue phosphor glow of the tv was the only light in the hotel room, and still it felt on the edge of too much. Harsh, even though it was only the dark bloody scrapes on his (his?) knuckles that gave the impression. The volume was too low and too familiar, some wilderness adventure show he'd set whisper quiet. Was it a punishment or a comfort?
Raz curled tighter on the still-made bed, his clothes leaving cave dust echoes of his body (his body?) on the quilt. On the bed, not under. Exposed. Punishment then.
The deep scrapes on his knuckles felt fresh, even if old wounds looked just as dark in blue light. It hadn't been long then. Not still bleeding though, scabbed, so at least a couple hours gone. Time passed even when he didn't quite feel it.
It was harder when it was a recovery. Hardest when it wasn't supposed to be, when he'd heard the begging voice and felt the frantic pulse in a warm wrist, until he didn't. He never was much good at comfort, but he'd tried anyway. He'd held her hand and promised to keep her safe, to get her out of the crushing collapse. He wasn't sure if he lied, only able to bring her empty body back to the waiting arms of home.
Raz turned his hand over, feeling far distant from it. Was he imagining the flutter of blood beneath the thin skin of his wrist? He had been a recovery, right? No... just supposed to be, like today (today?) gone backwards. Time still gone though, whatever direction it had left.
Yellow hall-light met the blue on his hand, but somehow it didn't muddy into green, only shifted its way back with a soft click of the latch. No voice met the one from the speakers though, just a slow breath. Then the tv went mute. Mute but not gone. Just not here.
Silence held when time wouldn't.
Then Raz was held too, a steady body curling around him like shelter. Warm lips pressed firm into his nape, an enduring hand pressed firm into his chest. Wei pressed Raz firm into himself. Recovery of a different kind.
"Do you want to keep doing this?" Wei's voice was a low rumble in Raz' skin, but not a whisper. Never a whisper. Honest like those weren't.
"No." A truthful answer, but too short, only continued after an uncertain pause. Even steadied, time could slip, his circadian rhythms lost far underground. "But I have to."
Raz couldn't explain why, after everything, he had to keep doing this. He should have stopped rescues after Heartbreak, would have if he listened to any of the therapists. PTSD. Hallucinations. A danger to himself. Not to others though. So he didn't stop, he specialized. He crawled his way deep into could-be tombs, listening in the reluctant beam of his headlamp to find strangers in the dark. Find them, then help them claw their way back to life.
Warm breath shifted to his shoulder, Wei pulling Raz in closer. A nod, felt and not seen. Understanding unspoken. Somehow he always seemed to understand, even though Raz himself didn't.
--- — — — ---
Don't leave me.
"Raz?! Raz, can you hear me?"
I'm here. I'm alive. Please.
Him or the whispers, he didn't know, he only screamed.
Please
Rockfall crush luck. Curled tight, dust bright bright blinding bright in his headlamp. Not hurt, not bad. Not dead. Trapped. Screaming.
"God, Raz, answer me, please—"
Ricardo, help, help me
"Don't be dead, please dont be dead— Raz, just say something, dime algo, por favor—"
I'm here, I'm alive, help me please help me I'm alive I'm here here here
Hot wet tears on his face, screaming, screaming, but Ricardo's words were choking desperate and unhearing. Apologies. Sobs. Leaving. Leaving.
No no no don't leave me not here not with them don't leave me please
Couldn't move and he was being left and screaming didn't matter when the whispers choked it out of his lungs. All around him. He was here and they were here he was safe with them he'd be safe if he let go just needed to finish it now here with them here forever he could rest with them soon now just rest.
Couldn't move his arms. Had his helmet on still, couldn't tear it off and jump like Themmy had, couldn't move. Tried anyway. Cracked his head against the rock. Again. Again. The helmet would give before the rocks and then his bones would too. More hot wet on his face. Not just tears now.
Again so close just rest here almost there he could rest soon rest here with them
The headlamp gave out as his helmet cracked again against unyielding rock. Dark. Quiet. Quiet, not dead.
Quiet.
A complete and gentle darkness wrapped Raz in a sudden peace, the only sound that of the deep earth shelter stones and his own breathing. Quiet. Safe. Still trapped. Still alone. Still left behind. He had been left behind. He would die alone, but there was a kinder end for him now, here in the embrace of the silent dark.
--- — — — ---
Raz let his breathing steady in the safety of darkness. He welcomed a slow breath in until his lungs ached with it, then blew it out just as slow until the same. Alone and aching with the quiet.
Heartbreak wasn't in the dark, it was in the breaking of it. Light inviting whispers, inviting promises, inviting lies.
Another slow breath, letting himself listen now, really listen. First he just heard his body, pulse and breath. Then a little further, the subtle shift of fabric against stone. Then further still, the cave system itself— not what haunted it. The hush of distant water, the weight of rock all around. The echoes of fearful voices, closer than he'd thought.
Still alive then, a chance at staying that way.
Raz resisted the way he wanted to stay, to keep himself safe in the gap he'd found and let time slip past. It was a gentler death calling, but only for him, and it was nearly as dangerous to consider as Heartbreak's whispers. He'd need to invite those back now, not even he could find his way without light.
A third of the aching deep breaths, the most he could allow himself, and Raz crawled back out of the gap. He turned on his light. He started down the left passage, knowing now that it was the correct one.
Soon enough he found them frantic, skittering flashlights and argument a panicked crescendo that broke as he dropped into the chamber among them. Dramatic, the fuckers probably got it on camera, but that didn't matter now. All that mattered was getting them out.
His voice snapped unquestionable authority as they spotlit him with the whispers.
"Lights off, NOW."
The last thing he saw as the lights cut out was Ricardo's face.
--- — — — ---
Bright lights had Raz squinting, falling back to the shadowy edges even as the lost fell into their relieved families' arms. Found now, his part done. A camera flashed, as if the lights of the operations tent by the cave mouth weren't more than enough to capture the scene by. He felt sick and tilting, lost, but his own rescue didn't come. Where was—?
He'd lost words somewhere back in the dark, couldn't understand the ones being thrown at him now, questions? An interview? No, someone was handing him a bottle of something, gesturing towards a rock. Did he need to sit down? Raz wasn't sure how he didn't vomit as he shook his head, he saw his hand stutter in the light as he waved them off. Time or the lights flickering? Maybe he was just shaking.
Knowing better than to go back into the cave, even if it was a quiet one, Raz walked towards the trees instead. That way was away from the lights too. He wasn't followed. Where—?
Time slipped so strangely after a rescue, he didn't know how long it had been when Wei finally found him. Had it been long enough for finally even? He wanted to ask, but he faltered on the thought. Wei hadn't been there when Raz had emerged from the cave, why—? The set of his mouth was wrong too. He looked afraid.
The question Raz had been going to ask shifted, words found as he looked at the man standing afraid in front of him.
"What's wrong?"
"I—" the hesitation wasn't normal, Wei's voice halting like it was too dry. Something was wrong. All of this was wrong. "I just got a request call. Some documentarians investigating Heartbreak missed their rendezvous."
"No."
Not that cave, not that system. It had been closed seven years ago, after the deaths. He had been one of them. No one should be there. No one could be helped there. Not even by him.
Wei flinched at the single word, and that, that was when Raz got scared too. Not lost, but deeply, terribly afraid. No…
"Ricardo is with them."
Time caught him like a taut line, bruised his ribs, crushed him into the rocks. No. His fear was caught in Wei's face too, the rescue lights not filtered enough through the trees to soften it. No. No.
Raz understood now, everything gone clear in a moment that passed exactly at the rate it was supposed to. The weight of the fear, of the choice. Wei's request, the one he couldn't voice. His best friend was dying underground, and Raz, something adamantly undefined, was here, with him, and the only one in the world who might be able to save the other. More likely he would lose them both. Raz could see the words unasked and trapped in Wei's throat, in the tears tracking down his scarred cheeks. He couldn't go back, but Raz could.
No.
Raz felt every second with new clarity as he reached up to touch Wei's face. He wiped the tears away from his scars, fingers tracing over history from before they'd even met, his callused hands as careful as they could be. Not careful enough, he couldn't stop the hurt. Raz had never been good at gentleness. No. Not this choice. Wei wasn't asking Raz to go back to that death to save Ricardo. He cared too much to deal that hurt, would let himself break before he asked for Raz to bear it. Raz knew just how he would break if neither of them came back. He knew it would be worse if only one did.
So Raz kissed him soft and interrupting, slow saltwater erosion, all the things left unsaid. So many things left unsaid. He didn't pull away, even when he did. He didn't whisper, never a whisper, only spoke the truth into Wei's collarbone, quiet as the safety of the dark.
"You didn't ask. This is my choice, not yours." The closest thing Raz had to 'I love you' was an attempt to lift the guilt.
It was his choice to go back.
--- — — — ---