Cut and Run 3 - Fish and Chips

eyes.
    “You damn well better have been!” Ty blurted indignantly.
    “I was,” Zane said fervently, taking Ty’s hand up again. “I couldn’t do anything.”
    Ty exhaled sharply and stood. “Let’s not linger over it, Garrett,” he said with forced nonchalance. No matter what he said to Zane just now, he knew he’d be dreaming about falling tonight. Discussing it in detail might help ease Zane’s mind, but it wouldn’t do Ty a damn bit of good.
    Zane’s hand tightened to keep Ty from moving away. “You scared me. You didn’t cut your own rope, but how could you literally be hanging by your fingertips and still be joking?”
    Ty looked down at him in surprise and gave an insulted huff. “Cut my own rope?” he repeated.
    “Ty. Please,” Zane said, his voice carrying a hint of that dismay. He shook his head a little as he tried to hold Ty’s gaze.
    Ty tilted his head and petted Zane’s hand. “One thing I’ve learned is, if you’re too focused on the falling and how horribly it’s going to hurt, you don’t see what’s around you. You might miss the very thing you can hang onto, something that could stop the fall altogether. So if you stay calm….” He shrugged. It wasn’t a lesson he’d necessarily learned while literally hanging in the air, but it served for many of life’s difficulties. Including literally hanging in the air.
    Zane still didn’t look happy. “Not one man in a thousand could have done what you did today. I couldn’t have.”
    Ty didn’t disagree. He’d had extensive training in order to do exactly what he’d done today. Not to mention a healthy dose of pure dumb luck. Zane knew that, and Ty didn’t understand why he was so upset. He was silent, frowning in confusion as he watched the play of emotions over Zane’s face. But none of them stayed in place long enough for Ty to really interpret them.
    “I told you what I think about free fall,” Zane finally said. “And staying calm isn’t enough. You up there joking? You weren’t doing it for yourself, were you?” It wasn’t so much a question as a conclusion.
    “Well, you know how amusing I find myself.”
    “Yeah, right. You were about to fall thirty feet, and you were more worried about me than you were about yourself.” Zane stood and reached to place a hand on each side of Ty’s face, holding him still. “Are you okay? I couldn’t do anything but stand and watch before, but I could do something to help now.”
    “Yeah, you can,” Ty murmured somberly, his eyes darting back and forth as he looked over Zane’s sincere face. “You can get me some Tylenol. And ice. And a drink. And possibly a nice gentle massage, ’cause I’m not going to be able to move my arms in an hour.”
    Zane leaned to kiss him, just a soft press of the lips, probably to halt Ty’s litany of demands. “You can have anything you want, baby.”
    Ty almost gave in to the gentle sentiment, but he closed his eyes and shook his head obstinately. “Quit it!” he demanded, barely keeping himself from stomping his foot in a petulant fit. He wanted Zane back to being his normal indignant self, not this weird quixotic version of his lover and partner. “Snap out of it and… I don’t know… yell at me for almost dying or something!”
    “All right, all right,” Zane said, smiling a little and straightening his shoulders, giving himself a slight shake. “Next time you do something like that, I’m going to smack the hell out of you, okay?” He stole one more kiss and sighed, then padded over to the phone. In the next moment, he was talking to the butler service. “What do you want to drink?” he directed at Ty, his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone.
    “A lot,” Ty answered grimly.
    Zane ordered a six-pack of Guinness and large pitcher of iced tea, a shot of their best whiskey, a bucket of ice, some cold sandwiches and chips, and a cookie platter in quick succession before hanging up.
    “Cookies?” Ty asked with a smile he didn’t try to restrain.
    “Comfort food. You get beer; I get cookies,” Zane explained as he kicked off his cross trainers and walked back over to the bed.
    Ty watched him move, seriously considering tackling him and relieving some stress in a more favorable manner than a shower or cookies. But he decided against such a tack, considering how distressed Zane seemed and how important the morning’s events might be to the grand scheme of things. “So,” he said quietly. “Do we think someone