Ryan slowly made his way through the concourse. His pain medication, which was the one thing that made the flight from Atlanta bearable, was starting to wear off.
His flight had landed long ago and he was sure that most if not all of his fellow passengers had already claimed their baggage and were well on their way out of the airport.
Ryan had stopped to use the rest room after deplaning, and ended up losing his battle with the nausea that had been plaguing him for the past two days. Emptying his stomach of its meager contents. He had not been eating well ever since he had gotten the phone call telling him of Ezra’s shooting. His appetite only worsened after he was injured. The pain from his fractured cheekbone paired with the nausea and headache from the concussion guaranteeing to kill his appetite.
Right now he wasn’t sure the nausea and hangover type headache was due to his injuries or a legacy of the pain medication. He wasn’t sure the cause even mattered. All he knew is the result made him feel like nine miles of bad road and after a glance in the restroom mirror he knew he looked no better. He had donned sunglasses both because the florescent light bothered his injured eye, and because it hid a good portion of the bruising from the injury. Ryan normally eschewed sunglasses even in the middle of the day in Miami. He knew Tim would notice them first. Knew his love would remove them as soon as he was close enough to the older man.
Ryan had hoped at least in a small way that he would find a message awaiting him from his lover, telling Ryan that the CSI had been called into work. As nice as it would be to have his lover meet him at the airport, as much as it would comfort him and make his exit from the airport easier, Ryan was not looking forward to his lover’s questions . And he knew there would be plenty of those.
There had been a message, Speed sounded genuinely happy that Ryan would be home soon. It warmed Ryan’s heart and eased some of his earlier fears about his relationship with the snarky older CSI. Fears that Speed did not care for him as much as Ryan cared for, no loved Speed.
Ryan continued down the concourse reaching the baggage claim area he saw Speed standing in a mostly deserted area. The rest of the passengers long gone. Ryan’s bags lying at his lover’s feet, Speed standing there waiting for him.
Ryan felt a weight shift from his shoulders, just at the sight of his older lover. The sense of relief strong. He saw Speed pick up the bags and walk towards him. His lover dropped the bags and hugged Ryan. This was as close as they could come in a public setting to the type of reunion they really wanted.
“I missed you.” Speed murmured to him before quickly ending their embrace.
Speed pulled back from Ryan and took off the younger man’s glasses wanting to look into the hazel eyes that he loved so much. Ryan tensed, he had anticipated this, and he knew it wasn’t going to be pretty.
“What the hell happened?” Speed said angrily.
Ryan looked awful, left side of his face swollen, to the point the eye was nearly shut. The area colorful with bruises. Speed felt anger building within him. Who dared injure his lover. Ryan was supposed to be safe with his family on this trip. Speed would get to the bottom of what had happened.
Ryan looked at his lover he could tell the other man was upset…. Alright …ok he was royally pissed, but Ryan really didn’t have the reserves to handle an angry Tim Speedle at the moment. He still felt nauseous, slightly dizzy, his head was pounding and his cheek was throbbing. He could use some TLC not shouts. He planned a judicious use of puppy dog eyes and moaning in pain to get his lover to drop the subject at least for now.
Ryan looked at Speed just the smallest hint of the pain and discomfort he was actually feeling showing in his face. The bruising the only color in the pale face.
“Can we talk about this later- at home- please?” he asks quietly, taking his glasses from Speed, squinting until he placed them back on his face.
Speed was ready to argue until he got a good look at his lover. The younger man was obviously in pain. He also looked tired and pale. Speed worried about the injury to Ryan’s eye and fought the urge to call Alexx for advice. He just might do that anyway. The team knew he had a room mate, he just never let them know the true nature of the relationship. They even knew that it was a close friend, he had explained how he was taking in the younger cousin of someone he had known for many years.
Speed sighed and conceded “Alright Ry, it can wait till we get home.” He grabbed the younger man’s carry on in addition to the checked bags and matched his gait to his injured lover. They walked slowly through the terminal. Speed had parked illegally in the leading zone using a Miami-Dade PD parking pass so the walk to the car was short. Ryan was dosing before they had left the airport.
****************************************
Speed lay on his bed ruing his fingers through his sleeping lover’s hair. When they got him they did NOT talk about what had happened to Ryan. As soon as they reached their front door Ryan had bolted for the bathroom and started retching, though he vomited very little. Speed found him on the floor of the bathroom leaning his head on the commode too drained to move. Speed helped the younger man strip and get dressed for bed. He then helped him call in sick to work for the night, making arrangements for a department physician to see him in the morning. Finally medicating him for pain so that Ryan might actually get some rest.
Once Ryan was settled in the bed he refused to let Speed leave. Trying to actually seduce the older man getting very upset when his advances were spurned. Speed finally was able to calm his younger lover by holding him and petting him using nonsensical and soothing words and to lull Ryan into slumber.
Speed continued to poet and murmur to Ryan occasionally kissing the man on his brow or temple drawing comfort in the fact that he was for the most part in one piece.
Speed gently extricated himself from his lover’s embrace. He really needed to know what happened in the short visit that Ryan had with his cousin. Since he wasn’t likely to get any answers from Ryan for a while yet, Speed decided to go to the next best source. He took Ryan’s cell phone and used it to call his cousin Ezra to find out what the hell happened in Atlanta and why Ryan had been used as a punching bag.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Ryan returns to Miami a little more bruised than when he left.