[October 20th] [Cannon/The Wild Wild West-related] Unexpected

[insaneladybug.livejournal.com]

Title: Unexpected
Day/Theme: October 20th - But it is too much to bear
Series: Cannon/The Wild Wild West
Character/Pairing: Ray Norman, Coley Rodman, Jason Everly (OC)
Rating: T/PG-13

And so this bizarre thing continues. With rather shameless hurt/comfort, too.


By Lucky_Ladybug

“Alright, Norman. Get your hands up. Now.”

Ray jumped a mile and spun to stare at the newcomer just entering his office. The man meant business; a gun was pointed right at him. His eyes, cold and hard, said that he would have no qualms whatsoever about pulling the trigger.

And Ray knew the man.

“Jason Everly,” he gasped. “I . . . I never thought I’d be seeing you again.”

“No, I don’t imagine you did.” Jason’s grip was steady. “How long has it been, Norman? Almost eight years? I remember when you included me among your blackmail victims back East. It didn’t surprise me at all when I heard you’d pulled the same stunt here in Los Angeles.”

He took several steps closer to the desk. “I thought you were dead. When I opened the newspaper and read that someone had murdered you in the park, I cheered.”

“I believe you.” Ray stayed where he was, his arms halfway up. “And now that you know my status was reversed, you’ve come to see that I stay dead. Is that it?”

“You ruined my life, Norman.” Jason’s face was twisted in hatred. “All the months you blackmailed me took away everything I had.”

“I don’t blame you for hating me, Jason,” Ray told him. “What I did to you was unforgivable. But if you kill me now, you’ll be throwing away your life. It would be cold-blooded murder!”

“Honestly, Norman? I don’t care.” Jason leaned in, starting to cock the hammer. “If I can kill you, I’ll go to the execution chamber proclaiming it was a good day.”

Ray ducked a split-second before Jason fired. The bullet tore into the leather of his chair and past it to the wall. As Ray tried to tackle the intruder around his legs, Jason roared in anger. He fired again while he fell, clipping Ray’s shoulder.

Now on the floor, they struggled for the gun. Another shot flew upward, at the ceiling. Ray lashed out, punching Jason in the face. Jason rocked back but quickly recovered, returning the punch with one of his own. He kicked Ray in the chest, sending him crashing into one of the full-length cabinets that adorned the office.

In a moment it was all over. Ray was not a fighter, and right now he was dazed. Jason stood over him with the gun, his expression grotesque as he began to pull the trigger.

The new gunshots snapped Ray to attention. He was untouched. But Jason was sinking to the floor, stunned and fatally wounded. And he was half turned around, facing the doorway. His own gun was smoking. He had fired after all, even though it had not hit Ray.

The twin thumps were sickening. Ray got to his feet, kicking the gun away from Jason’s already-dead body. But upon seeing the body of his rescuer in the doorway, the color left his face. He dropped to his knees in disbelieving horror. “Coley?!”

The time-traveling outlaw gasped, blood coming to his lips as his own gun slipped from his fingers. “I . . . I didn’t think he’d actually hit me. It must have been a . . . a lucky shot.”

Ray’s fingers trembled as he unbuttoned Coley’s shirt. “Why?” he cried. “Why did you do that?”

Coley just gave a weak shrug. “I wanted to see if I was still any good with a gun. It seemed like a good plan at the time.”

Ray grabbed the handkerchief out of his pocket, pressing it against the wound in the other man’s chest. The flow of blood was horrifying, fascinating. It just kept coming. The cloth was soon soaked through.

“Can you hold this here?!” he exclaimed. “I have to call for an ambulance. I have to get help. . . .”

“I don’t think . . .” Coley coughed. “They won’t get here in time. It’s . . . too close to my heart.”

“No!” Ray snapped. “No, you’re going to be alright. You . . . you’re going to be.”

He trembled. He was growing dizzy from the pressure of the situation. A man was dying, a man who had stayed here and stuck by him ever since his release from the sanitarium. Coley Rodman had been his only real companion for a long time. He was stuck here, unable to return to his own time period. Now Ray was realizing that he had thought Coley would just keep staying on indefinitely. Certainly he had never imagined this end, not in a thousand years.

“You saved my life,” he whispered.

Coley reached up with a gloved hand, gripping at Ray’s arm. “That’s not . . .” But his eyes flickered with some form of resignation—the last bit of life within them. He smirked, weakly and ironically. “You’re right. Strange, for a man who . . . who took lives more than he . . . saved them. Ray . . .” His eyes went dead. “Sorry.”

Ray stiffened as Coley went limp. “No!” he cried. “No, no. You’re going to be alright. You will! . . .”

He pulled off one of the leather gloves, desperately seeking a pulse. There was nothing. And he could see that Coley’s chest was still.

He had never felt very stable since Portman’s two years of torture. Now he was shattering, completely breaking down. He groped in his pocket for his phone, not even noticing the blood on his fingers. He pulled the device out and dialed 911, still shaking. With his other hand he pressed the cloth against the wound once more.

“Hello?!” he all but yelled in the dispatcher’s ear. “A man’s been shot. Send an ambulance here on the double.” He rattled off the name and address of the golf club without ever letting the girl get a word in. Then he hung up, turning his full attention back to the body.

“Coley? Coley, please.” He checked for a pulse again. Still nothing.

He took a deep breath, trying to collect his thoughts. Everything was so scrambled right now that he could scarcely think. And that wouldn’t help Coley, if anything even could.

He turned Coley’s head to the side. Blood dripped from his mouth, pooling on the floor. Ray pried his jaw open farther. The airway looked clear, once the blood drained.

Ray barely stopped to think about what he did next. He bent over, cupping his mouth over Coley’s. In determination he breathed hard, pushing air into the dead man’s lungs. Once, twice. . . . He stopped and leaned back, watching the borrowed breath generate some form of movement. But it didn’t last. Ray bent down again, repeating the process.

Coley would probably be appalled if he knew. During his time in the modern day he had busied himself with learning all he could, more for his own enlightenment rather than just to appear knowledgeable to the people of this time. He had never been thrilled with the concept of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, saying the thought of it made his skin crawl. But Ray would not let that stand in his way now.

“Come on, Rodman!” he exclaimed in desperation. “Breathe!”

At last he was rewarded. Coley gasped and choked, his eyes fluttering open. For a moment he lay there, staring in confused disbelief, before struggling to speak. “Norman? What . . . what did you do?”

“Nevermind that now,” Ray retorted. “Don’t try to talk; just rest. The ambulance will be here soon.”

“I thought I was dead,” Coley mumbled.

“I refused to think it,” Ray retorted. “That’s why you’re still alive.”

“Norman . . .” Coley was looking at him with an odd mixture of growing repulsion and horror. “You . . . you had your lips on my mouth, didn’t you?!”

“A lot of people have been saved that way,” Ray said. “Like it or not, it’s effective.”

Coley grunted. “You could have just let me die.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Ray replied. “Especially not after you saved my life. Would you have really wanted me not to try everything I possibly could?”

“. . . No,” Coley rasped.

“Good. Then for Heaven’s sake, be quiet and save your strength!” Ray could hear the ambulance siren in the distance now. His heart pounding, he delivered a frantic, silent prayer that Coley would live. Maybe God would not want to grant that to a couple of former criminals, but Ray would hope otherwise.

Heaven help him, he was going to do all that he could to keep his friend with him.