![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Title: Alex's Good Thought
Series: Ray
Rating: PG-PG13
Word Count: 897
Summary: On a rooftop, in the snow, Ray and Alex come to a decision.
Notes: Written second in the Ray series. Introduces a fourth character.
Once, they got snowed in. Ray Galilei and Annette Wilde and Alex Livanov, and Annette had brought along Mark, just Mark, who, though almost inhumanly beautiful, wasn't his own person so much as an extension of Annette. His blue eyes were bright, his skin smooth and clear, and his hair would almost certainly have felt like silk under Ray's fingers. Mark also smiled, pretty much all the time, showing his teeth when he did it, and it creeped Ray out until he got used to it.
They stood on the roof of Ray's house, all four of them, in their winter coats and hats and scarves and Alex had no gloves so he kept trying to shove his hands into Ray's pocket. When Ray finally recognized this for the juvenile flirtation that it was – they had known each other for a little over a month, at this point – he just gave Alex a look and Alex sulked, but he stopped trying to put things where they didn't belong, which was good enough for Ray. They set up Ray's snow cannon and killed time shooting trees and betting on distance while Annette stood by smirking, her arms tight around Mark's waist. They were the same height to the quarter inch so when she pressed up against him from behind she could rest her head on his shoulder and when Mark pressed back he could kiss her cheek without straining. Annette had also neglected to bring gloves (and she lived in fucking Canada, what the fuck was that all about?) so when her hands landed on his belly, Mark overlayed them with his own, warm in thick black mittens.
Alex, still a heat leach when he's resigned himself to hands of ice, got in far too close to Ray to say, “She found him in Taiwan. Says he was on the run, from the mob like, and she saved him from certain death.”
Ray did not doubt this. And yet. . .
“Taiwan?” he asked.
“Or Tibet.” Alex's shrug somehow landed him pressed into Ray's side. “She was a little vague on the details.”
It turned out that Annette had dumped her Master's program midway through to travel the world and she'd picked up strays along the way. Mark was just her favorite. Strange world.
“So, where'd she find you?” Ray asked, much later, as they sat on the roof's edge, icy earth beneath them, frozen sky above.
Annette and Mark had turned in once they'd exhausted the subject of the snow cannon. (They all agreed that it would be better utilized in the city. It was one of those things. Mark wanted to shoot out the windows of some law firm in Brooklyn, while Alex favored targeting pedestrians. Annette just told him, “You let me aim,” her voice suddenly steeped in the South, and Ray found himself quaking in his boots.) It sat cold and proud in the moonlight while Ray asked his question. He passed a bottle to soften his intrusion, though Alex didn't seem to care.
“Around,” Alex said. “I was just here and there, ya know? Mostly here. In the city, like. And she asked me what I was doing with that duck tape and I didn't know her from nobody and then all of a sudden her and Mark were sleeping on my floor.” His voice arched into a half-hearted imitation of Annette, but he couldn’t get her gravel quite right and he pronounced the tape like the animal that quacked.
“Annette's got ideas about duct tape,” Ray agreed and Alex just looked at him, real deep and speculative, until, all of a sudden, he had another idea in his head. Alex was like that; he had a mind like a steel trap, like it couldn't hold more than one thing at a time, and never bothered with anything too small. The name of the governor was small; rightfully obscure supercars from the seventies weren’t.
“We could go to Wall Street with it,” he said.
“Where would we set up?” Ray asked.
“We'd find a place. Or how about – ” He stopped. It wasn't a pause – more like his thought train had run up against an immovable object and found itself to be an imminently stoppable force. Ray hoped that nobody got hurt.
“Trafalgar Square,” Alex said.
Ray considered.
“You know that's in London,” he said.
“I know that's in London.” Alex turned to Ray with a strange, earnest look on his face, like this was a thought, this was his thought, and it was a good one, and he just needed Ray's approval, first. “We could go to London,” he said, “and take the cannon with us.”
“They'd never let us through customs,” Ray said.
Alex gave another of his space-invading shrugs. “Then we can build another when we get there. They're not hard to make.”
And again Ray considered. It was a thought. And it might be a good one. London. Trafalgar Square. A snow cannon. And Alex.
“We'll need to get you some gloves,” he said.
“We can do that.”
Ray thought about it. He looked at the moon, then at the city lights in the distance, and he watched the newest snow fall. His hat was getting wet. He didn't object when he felt Alex's icy cold hand steal once again into his pocket.
“Yeah,” Ray said. “We can do that.”
Series: Ray
Rating: PG-PG13
Word Count: 897
Summary: On a rooftop, in the snow, Ray and Alex come to a decision.
Notes: Written second in the Ray series. Introduces a fourth character.
Once, they got snowed in. Ray Galilei and Annette Wilde and Alex Livanov, and Annette had brought along Mark, just Mark, who, though almost inhumanly beautiful, wasn't his own person so much as an extension of Annette. His blue eyes were bright, his skin smooth and clear, and his hair would almost certainly have felt like silk under Ray's fingers. Mark also smiled, pretty much all the time, showing his teeth when he did it, and it creeped Ray out until he got used to it.
They stood on the roof of Ray's house, all four of them, in their winter coats and hats and scarves and Alex had no gloves so he kept trying to shove his hands into Ray's pocket. When Ray finally recognized this for the juvenile flirtation that it was – they had known each other for a little over a month, at this point – he just gave Alex a look and Alex sulked, but he stopped trying to put things where they didn't belong, which was good enough for Ray. They set up Ray's snow cannon and killed time shooting trees and betting on distance while Annette stood by smirking, her arms tight around Mark's waist. They were the same height to the quarter inch so when she pressed up against him from behind she could rest her head on his shoulder and when Mark pressed back he could kiss her cheek without straining. Annette had also neglected to bring gloves (and she lived in fucking Canada, what the fuck was that all about?) so when her hands landed on his belly, Mark overlayed them with his own, warm in thick black mittens.
Alex, still a heat leach when he's resigned himself to hands of ice, got in far too close to Ray to say, “She found him in Taiwan. Says he was on the run, from the mob like, and she saved him from certain death.”
Ray did not doubt this. And yet. . .
“Taiwan?” he asked.
“Or Tibet.” Alex's shrug somehow landed him pressed into Ray's side. “She was a little vague on the details.”
It turned out that Annette had dumped her Master's program midway through to travel the world and she'd picked up strays along the way. Mark was just her favorite. Strange world.
“So, where'd she find you?” Ray asked, much later, as they sat on the roof's edge, icy earth beneath them, frozen sky above.
Annette and Mark had turned in once they'd exhausted the subject of the snow cannon. (They all agreed that it would be better utilized in the city. It was one of those things. Mark wanted to shoot out the windows of some law firm in Brooklyn, while Alex favored targeting pedestrians. Annette just told him, “You let me aim,” her voice suddenly steeped in the South, and Ray found himself quaking in his boots.) It sat cold and proud in the moonlight while Ray asked his question. He passed a bottle to soften his intrusion, though Alex didn't seem to care.
“Around,” Alex said. “I was just here and there, ya know? Mostly here. In the city, like. And she asked me what I was doing with that duck tape and I didn't know her from nobody and then all of a sudden her and Mark were sleeping on my floor.” His voice arched into a half-hearted imitation of Annette, but he couldn’t get her gravel quite right and he pronounced the tape like the animal that quacked.
“Annette's got ideas about duct tape,” Ray agreed and Alex just looked at him, real deep and speculative, until, all of a sudden, he had another idea in his head. Alex was like that; he had a mind like a steel trap, like it couldn't hold more than one thing at a time, and never bothered with anything too small. The name of the governor was small; rightfully obscure supercars from the seventies weren’t.
“We could go to Wall Street with it,” he said.
“Where would we set up?” Ray asked.
“We'd find a place. Or how about – ” He stopped. It wasn't a pause – more like his thought train had run up against an immovable object and found itself to be an imminently stoppable force. Ray hoped that nobody got hurt.
“Trafalgar Square,” Alex said.
Ray considered.
“You know that's in London,” he said.
“I know that's in London.” Alex turned to Ray with a strange, earnest look on his face, like this was a thought, this was his thought, and it was a good one, and he just needed Ray's approval, first. “We could go to London,” he said, “and take the cannon with us.”
“They'd never let us through customs,” Ray said.
Alex gave another of his space-invading shrugs. “Then we can build another when we get there. They're not hard to make.”
And again Ray considered. It was a thought. And it might be a good one. London. Trafalgar Square. A snow cannon. And Alex.
“We'll need to get you some gloves,” he said.
“We can do that.”
Ray thought about it. He looked at the moon, then at the city lights in the distance, and he watched the newest snow fall. His hat was getting wet. He didn't object when he felt Alex's icy cold hand steal once again into his pocket.
“Yeah,” Ray said. “We can do that.”
Tags: