RayEmma Oneshots

Confidence

RayEmma Week 2022–Day 3: Loss

Shadows danced on the soil and trees, the fire flitting and crackling in front of them. It was quite chilly out, but the flames helped to keep the two of them warm—the old geezer wasn't sitting with them near the fire, instead doing whatever crazy things he does in his free time in the back end of their cave.

It was their second night on the trip to A08-63, to find whatever hidden knowledge Minerva had left behind for any escapees. Ray and Emma were completely worn out already—thirsty, hungry, exhausted. They'd found a nice cave, where they were currently staying for the night. Mister, as Emma decided to call him (Ray would've preferred Bastard or Old Man but Emma didn't want to irk their guide), was off in the back of the cave as mentioned—it was a long, narrow cave, being larger than it seemed from Ray's position at the mouth. He and Emma, who was currently asleep on his shoulder, were taking turns keeping watch.

Ray glanced up at the sliver of sky visible from his position, to see where the moon was. It was probably... shortly after midnight? He couldn't tell exactly—he was still getting the hang of telling time without a clock. Still, there was probably only about an hour left of his watch time. He wished he could stay watch for longer, so Emma could get more sleep, but he was also looking forward to just shutting off his tired and paranoid brain for a few hours.

"SHIT." A yell came from the back of the cave, along with a clattering noise. Ray whipped his head to the old man, then back out the cave—this was probably another one of the geezer's attempts at luring in demons to kill them, wasn't it—but nothing happened. Ray relaxed a bit, and turned to Emma. She shifted slightly, but luckily she still seemed asleep.

...Or so he thought, until Emma yawned and lifted her head off his shoulder to look at his face. "Is it my turn for watch?" She sleepily asked.

Ray sighed. "No, the old man was just being loud and difficult again. You still have about an hour, go back to sleep."

"Oh, okay," Emma plopped her head on Ray's shoulder, and the two of them went back into silence.

...

"...I can't sleep."

Ray huffed. "Try harder."

"That's not how it works," Emma pouted—he couldn't see her face but she sounded pouty.

Frowning, Ray asked, "Well why can't you sleep?"

Emma remained uncharacteristically silent, until she said in a soft voice, "I'm scared."

"Well, that's nothing new, we've both been terrified since the first day of this hell trip," Ray mumbled, but started to feel uneasy. Emma never lost her smile or her determination, he couldn't recall a time that she'd plainly voiced her worries like this.

"It's not just from the trip, it's been since we escaped..."

Ray stayed silent, waiting for her to elaborate.

"Everyone's looking to me to know what to do, but I don't really know what I'm doing," Emma started, hugging her knees, "it's just a lotta pressure. Nothing too bad."

Ray sighed, and wrapped an arm around her, pulling her closer. "Idiot. You told me not to keep things to myself anymore, but you're doing the same thing."

"I know, I know!" Emma replied indignantly. "But also... before we left, Mister said something that's been stuck in my head ever since. That a single decision, this decision to go on this journey, could ruin everything. And I... I dunno, it's just... I'm scared this is the wrong choice. What if we're walking into a death trap, and I die, or you die! What then?"

For a second, the only thing that could be heard was the snapping of the slowly-dying fire. Ray unattached from Emma for a second to feed a few more sticks into the flames, then sat back down and wrapped his arms around her in a full hug. "Those are all valid concerns," he said into her hair, "many of which I share myself. But we're too far into this already, so we just gotta stick with the plan."

Emma had seemed surprised by the sudden hug—from Ray, of all people—but now she relaxed into his hold and put her arms around him as well. "It's just hard to keep my confidence with everything that's happening right now," she mumbled.

"Well then, if you've lost your confidence, then I'll just be confident for you."

Emma let out a sleepy giggle at this. "The thought of a confident, optimistic Ray is funny."

"I never said anything about being optimistic," Ray scoffed.

Emma continued giggling, until Ray moved an arm to pat her on the head. "There's still a good forty or so minutes left of my watch, get some sleep."

"Hehe all right," Emma laughed quietly—she really does get loopy when she's half asleep, Ray noted—and leaned back on his shoulder.

When he thought she finally fell asleep, Ray gave Emma a kiss on the forehead. "Sweet dreams," he whispered awkwardly, and turned his head back to the entrance of the cave, staring out at the stars.