Chapter Text
“Jesus fuh - - ”
She sucks in a wet breath, squirming back against the hard concrete floor of the basement, the pain at her shoulder sharpening with every movement, every pulse, every rapid, pinging thought. Blinking, golden spots appear before her eyes, and they remind her briefly of fairy tales she’s read to her daughters, one only the other night – something set in Australia, and what had they called them?
Min Min Lights.
That’s right.
Her head lolls back, only to be caught in a big hand.
“’ey, c’mon now,” his voice sounds, hoarse above her. “You said you’d stay with me, didn’t you? Ain’t backin’ out of a promise now, are you?”
Beth shakes her head, or tries to. Can’t quite find the energy to, and his hand is too easy to sink back into. Big enough it cradles the back of her head entirely, his fingers pressing almost gently into the skin just above her ears.
And it’s ironic, she knows it is, the bullet lodged in her shoulder. Shouldn’t she need two more? For karma to really punctuate her point? Beth almost says it as she feels her body being slid back against the concrete floor, feels Rio’s hand slide out from under her head, feels it meet the cold wall instead, and she knows he’s propped her somewhere. Knows it again as he undoes the top few buttons of her blouse and pries it as gently as he can away from her shoulder.
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.
It was supposed to be a routine drop with an old associate of his. Supposed to be quick, get-in-get-out. A sportsbag full of funny money left in an empty hotel suite, while Rio met with the guy in the bar, only the hotel suite hadn’t been empty, and the guy hadn’t been in the bar to meet him.
She gasps as he presses something to her shoulder, the pain at the pressure shooting through her shoulder, and she frantically blinks back tears as Rio shushes her softly, shifting in his crouch over her. It’s enough for a wave of nausea to roll through her head, lurch her stomach, bile to knock at the backs of her teeth, and she rocks her head sideways, ignores the pain as she vomits all over the concrete floor.
Above her, there’s another gunshot, and right, she thinks, spitting out the last of her lunch (Rio’s hands are in her hair now, pulling it back off her face, out of the line of fire). It’s not over. She’d managed to smash a bottle, managed to shove the jagged end into the guy’s side, take him by surprise. She’d managed to get around him, stumble out of the hotel suite, get in the elevator.
It hadn’t taken Rio long to find her.
She wonders if it ever would.
But Mick was still up there, Bullet and Cisco too, and the guy had his own guys who had their own guys, like somebody somewhere had some gangbanger photocopier, and could just print them out over and over and over and - -
Beth hiccups, and Rio grunts, his hand going under her good shoulder, dragging her sideways, away from the puddle of her vomit.
Is this what it had been like for him, she wonders, blinking hazily up at him, and maybe that was the wrong choice, because he’s staring at her. His eyes big and dark, his eyelashes too long and his mouth hanging open, and he looks mad, which isn’t fair. It’s not her fault
“All your plans suck,” she tells him, and Rio blinks at her, like she’s pulled him from his own thoughts too, and it takes him a moment to collect himself, but when he does, he pops one of his eyebrows, tilts his chin down in that way that’s sort of patronizing and sort of amused and sort of all about amusing her, and something in her tightens.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yup,” she says, and god, the next time she blinks, it’s harder to open her eyes again. “They don’t work.”
“Don’t work when you involved,” he replies easily, putting a little more pressure on her wound. There’s another shot, then a thud, of someone hitting the floor above them, and Rio jerks his head up, staring and Beth looks at his chest, and she thinks - - she thinks:
Shoulder.
Lung.
Spleen.
“Are you going to leave me?” she asks, the words finding her tongue before she can stop them, and Rio jerks his head down to look at her again, and she can’t explain it. The look on his face.
The look on hers.
But she remembers leaving him on the floor of his loft, Turner crouched over him, like Rio’s crouched over her now. Remembers her hands shaking, remembers falling on her ass on the staircase because she couldn’t get her legs to work, remembers the sound of the bullets hitting him – the only sound she could hear over the blood rushing in her ears.
And Rio’s just staring at her still, his eyes darting sideways to his hand on her shoulder, and his weight shifts there, lighter, like he wants to pull away, then pushes harder again, almost punishing, and Beth closes her eyes at the swell of pain at her shoulder, in her chest, yawning in her gut.
“Please don’t go,” she mumbles again, and Rio huffs above her, and when she opens her eyes this time, he’s shaking his head. He waits until she looks at him properly before he talks.
“You think I’m gonna let anyone else take you out?” he asks her. “After all the shit you put me through? Nah, mama, that ain’t happenin’.”
And it’s so sudden, the bubble of laughter in her throat, because how the hell did she get here? But before she can stop herself, her hand jerks up, covers his at her shoulder, cups the back of his hand, her fingers clammy, small at his knuckles, and she sees his eyes dart down to them, sees him wet his lips, rock his jaw a little, shift his weight from where he’s crouched over her, and she thinks maybe she could do this. Maybe she can.
“Next time I’ll stay too,” she tells him, breathless, and he blinks up at her again, gaze tearing away from their hands at her bleeding shoulder, a grin cracking over his face, like he can’t quite stop it.
He stares, blinks a little slowly, arches one of his thick eyebrows.
“Oh, there gonna be a next time?”
And, well.
Beth smiles, knocks her head a little against the wall behind her, fumbles her free hand sideways to steady herself, narrowly avoiding the puddle of vomit.
“Isn’t there always with us?”