“Reflex,” Zane answered. “I actually had my side to it.” He lifted his hand to his mouth as a trickle of blood seeped from the abused skin just under the curve of his chin.

“Eh. Ass, face, same difference,” Ty muttered with a shrug.

Zane’s good hand flashed out and smacked Ty upside the back of the head.

“Ow! What the hell?” Ty cried as he rubbed his head and huffed.

“You’re lucky I repress the Instakill for you,” he muttered.

Zane sniffed and pried at a piece of glass in the heel of his hand. “My lucky streak is about played out.”

“Want a little cheese with that whine, maestro?” Ty drawled.

“Never mind,” Zane replied tightly, not even wanting to think about wine. The pain was worse moving, and he was not looking forward to sitting in the car. “Let’s just get to the hotel. I feel like a pincushion.”

“Look like one, too,” Ty observed dryly as the elevator doors opened.

“After you, Oh Injured One,” Ty invited with a sweeping gesture of his hand.

“Want me to commandeer a van?” he asked with a bit of gleeful anticipation in his voice.

Zane looked at Ty sideways. “Why do you have that ‘I’m up to something ever-so-wrong’ sound in your voice?” he asked suspiciously as they got outside and approached the car.

“I don’t,” Ty answered defensively. “Don’t bleed on the seats,” he added with a huff as he slid into the driver’s seat. “God, I hate driving in the city,” he muttered under his breath.

Closing his eyes as he sat carefully and felt glass chunks dig into the backs of his thighs, Zane’s face went very still as he gritted his teeth. “I’m not wearing the damn seat belt,” he said as he gripped the door handle to keep himself from leaning back.

“You could try not sitting on the parts that got hit,” Ty suggested.

“Just get us out of here.”

“You got it,” Ty grinned as he tore out of the parking place and out of the parking deck in record time. He hit the lights as they got to the street. “I love the flashy blue lights,” he told Zane almost gleefully.

Groaning, Zane braced one hand on the seat behind him. Despite Ty’s reckless driving, they got to the hotel quickly and in one piece without leaving carnage behind, so he didn’t say a single word. By the time they got upstairs, Zane seriously wanted several stiff drinks. Hell. A bottle.

“Strip,” Ty ordered as soon as the door was closed. “And face down on the bed,” he added as he took off his jacket and tossed it onto the back of a chair, then began rolling up his sleeves.

Zane walked over to the corner of the room and carefully shrugged out of the jacket, seeing glass chunks scatter on the carpet as he dropped it.

Instead of trying to pull the holster off, he pulled at the straps to totally unfasten it, and he carefully set it and the gun on the stacks of files covering the small round table. It was followed by the sheaths, but for one knife that he pulled and used to handily slice open his Henley from collar to waist, not willing to try pulling it over his head. The back of the shirt was matted with blood, and he let it drop, too, hissing as the fabric pulled debris fragments loose as he peeled it off.

He unfastened his jeans and shoved them over his hips with another hiss, leaving his legs mostly free of glass. He toed out of his shoes and socks, leaving them under the jeans, and stepped free to the foot of the bed. He crawled onto the mattress in nothing but his boxer briefs and settled on his belly with several winces.

Ty watched him with a furrowed brow, his face unreadable as his eyes followed the bits of bloody clothing to the floor. He snapped open his KA-BAR folding knife with a distinctive metallic clink as he stepped closer to the bed.

Pressing his lips together hard, Zane closed his eyes. It occurred to him that he just might need to be worried, but he made himself dismiss the thought. He wasn’t all that sure he trusted Ty, but he did trust him enough to think he wouldn't maim or kill him, given the chance. Grady had already had those chances.

Ty knelt on the bed beside him, surprisingly gentle as he tried not to jostle Zane too much, and he leaned to his side, putting his head beside Zane’s ear to get a better look at the glass fragments. “Going to have to dig for some of ’em,” he told Zane with that same gleefully anticipatory tone of voice he had used earlier.

“Go on,” Zane murmured tightly, not moving. It would hurt like hell, but it all had to come out. At least the damage wouldn’t require surgery this time. He would have sighed at Ty’s seeming enjoyment, but it would have required him to move.

Ty didn’t touch him for several moments, just hovered next to him on the bed peering over the wounds quietly. Finally, he moved, the rustle of his clothing and the slight dip in the bed the only indication that he was even still there. A moment later cold steel touched the skin of Zane’s nape. Once, twice, three times in rapid succession, merely brushing over the skin as if Ty were touching the side of the blade to his skin experimentally and then raising it again. The movement was repeated several more times, the only sound a swish of cotton and the tinkle of glass shards being deposited into Ty’s hand after every three or four flicks of the knife.

Zane’s eyes squeezed shut and his fingers curled in the bedspread, but otherwise he didn’t move or make a sound. He was breathing shallowly to keep his back still, and he thought after this a good, angry fit was in order.

Some of the glass felt like pins being removed as Ty scraped, just little pricks.

Other times he felt the knife cut in, and his breathing stilled as he felt the glass pry loose, leaving a tiny gouge behind.

“When I was in the service they had us testing this stuff,” Ty told him in a conversational manner as he saw the muscles in Zane’s back bunch with tension. “It was called Dragon Skin Body Armor. They wanted us to see how far it could go, you know, before it would give in. Put it through the wringer.

And since we were these crazy-ass Recon boys with a bit of a reputation for destroying government property, they figured we’d be perfect to do it. Well, we took that shit everywhere with us. Threw it out of planes, planted landmines under it, tossed grenades at it, ran over it with a Humvee. My buddy and I even set it up on this pole once and launched a ground-to-air missile at it. God, that was funny as hell,” he mused with obvious fondness.

“Only damage we ever did to it was tear the cover fabric,” he told Zane in a tone that could have been respect. “But the Bureau don’t allow it. You tell me why that is, hmm?”

“Because they don’t want us to turn into pansy-asses?”

“Natural selection, maybe,” Ty responded with a snicker. “You ain’t smart enough to run away from the grenade, you get weeded out.”

Zane chuckled and winced. “Fuck, don’t make me laugh,” he practically begged.

“Hold still,” Ty warned with a hand pressed to the back of Zane’s head. He laughed suddenly, nearly snorting as he said, “I’ve had dates like this.”

“Christ. Now, he develops a sense of humor,” Zane complained.

“Please leave some skin intact? I’ll need it to match the other scars back there.”

“I could just connect them all,” Ty responded with a brush of his finger over the mess of thin white scars covered with blood. He didn’t ask what had happened. For someone who had seen combat, wounds from a car bomb or something similar were fairly obvious. What he did want to ask was how Zane would come by such mementos. He refrained, though. Mainly because he didn’t really care all that much.

“I’d look like a spider web,” Zane said, muscles shifting under Ty’s fingertips.

“We’ll just call you Spiderman,” Ty offered with a smirk. “I don’t know enough about him to make jokes,” he added with sincere disappointment.

Zane snorted and the muscles in his back involuntarily clenched and shifted, catching against the knife. Ty jerked the knife back and immediately whapped Zane on the head for moving. “Shit,” he huffed as blood welled where his knife had cut into Zane’s skin. “Asshole. That ain’t my fault.”

“Get back to work,” Zane ordered curtly. “I need to bleed some more before I can have my afternoon bender.”

“Yeah, I’ve definitely had dates like this,” Ty responded with a small smirk.

“"You mean you actually date? You must pick some real winners. I need to meet one of them,” Zane said with obvious snark in his voice.

“Good luck with that,” Ty answered sarcastically.

“Damn,” Zane muttered, setting his chin back on his crossed hands.

Then he shifted uncomfortably. “There’s a chunk below my right shoulder blade.”

“I know,” Ty responded testily. “Stop moving,” he cautioned again as he pressed his hand down on the back of Zane’s head. Zane stilled, but the smile still pulled at the corners of his mouth between grimaces. Ty had to lean closer, bracing his free hand on Zane’s other side as he peered across the plane of Zane’s back. “That might be metal,” he observed in a detached sort of manner. “It’s gonna hurt like a bitch.”

“Lovely,” Zane said drolly, curling his fingers into the bedspread and laying his forehead against his wrists. “Glad I’ve had my tetanus shot.”

“I know you can’t drink, but what about some painkillers?” Ty offered.

Zane pressed his lips together. “I don’t take them,” he said quietly.

“Okay,” Ty said with a nod. “So ... want a stick to bite?” he offered.

“Is it gonna be that bad?”

“I don’t know,” Ty answered honestly. He shook his head and finally just gripped the piece of jagged plastic-covered metal and yanked it.

The pain was so sudden and sharp that Zane didn’t even get to inhale before it streaked through him. His neck and back went rigid and his face went white, and by the time he gasped a breath in he was unable to do anything but just lie there, trembling. After several heartbeats he spoke, voice low, clipped and heartfelt. “Fuck.”

“Yeah, it’s gonna hurt,” Ty murmured as he put his hand on the back of Zane’s head again and rested it there. “That’s all,” he said with a little pat of his hand.

The muscles in Zane’s back slowly started to flex as he cautiously moved to check for what he could feel. “Thanks,” he said quietly, as he started to push himself up.

“Why don’t you just stay down?” Ty suggested seriously.

Zane turned his chin to look at Ty, studying his face and not seeing any sign of teasing or disgust. He sighed, letting his shoulders slump and his mask crack. The pain and exhaustion showed more fully upon his face as he lowered himself back down onto the bed, still moving very cautiously and stiffly. What a bitch of a day, and it was only half over. He shifted his eyes to Ty, but he didn’t have anything else to say to the man. He didn’t want to insult or tease right now, and that was about the extent of their relationship, besides having the same employer.

Ty nodded in satisfaction and hefted himself up from the bed. “I’m going to clean some of that off, okay? Got to go get some things from my room; I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll be here,” Zane murmured, not droll at all. His patience, his energy, and his pain threshold were all tapped. If he’d let himself joke about it, it might help, but he didn’t want to let go of what little reserve and dignity he had left.

“Don’t move,” Ty ordered yet again as he headed for the door. He left the room with the latch pulled so he could get back in, and he jogged down to his room and moved as quickly as he could to gather his small medical kit, not even bothering with the lights. After a brief glance around the dark room he realized that something felt off. The curtains were drawn and there was barely any light for him to see. The stench of Zane’s blood on his hands and shirt was beginning to hit him; he hadn’t stopped to wash it off. The hair on the back of his neck began to rise, and he gathered his bags and left the room as quickly as possible, promising himself he’d come back to investigate when he hadn’t left his partner helpless and injured in an unlocked room.

When he got back to Zane’s room, his pulse was a little higher than he would have liked. Zane hadn’t moved. He still sprawled on the bed on his belly, cheek pillowed on one hand, the other curled in the bedspread as he breathed carefully. His eyes opened and looked right at the door when Ty entered, and then he relaxed again.

“How ya doin’?” Ty asked in a slightly tense voice. He wondered if it was something legitimate hat had caused his alarm or if he had just been on the edge for too long and was finally losing his grip. Finally he decided that he was just tense. And not willing to leave Zane alone in this state.

Zane tried to shift slightly, but stopped abruptly with a wince. “Fine,”

he answered quietly, staring at the wall as he tried to pull together enough strength to get up and get in the shower as soon as Ty was done cleaning him up. “Once you’re done, I’ll hop in the shower so we can get back to it,” he said. He figured Ty would be chomping at the bit soon, if he wasn’t already, and Zane really, really didn’t want to give the man another reason to razz him.

“I’d say you’ve earned the day off,” Ty replied as he came closer.

“Day off?” Zane echoed in surprise, craning his head to look at Ty and flinching as his neck pinched.

“Someone tried to maim you today, Zane,” Ty responded evenly.