fic: Rasher
Apr. 18th, 2009 05:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
r_vecchioTitle: Swimming With the Polar Bears
Fandom: Rasher
Rating: PG
Length: 2600 approx
Notes: Based on this conversation.
“Funny. Uh, poignant...” Ray lifted a shoulder in a half shrug, faux smile stretched across his face as he tried to remember how the New York Times had described it since he had no positive words of his own. Asher had been expecting him to gush, after all. And he wasn't about to admit to him he'd just wasted thirty of his own dollars just to make a point about freaks and Off-Broadway. “You know, everything global warming should be!”
“Sooo you hated it.”
“Loathed every second.” Huh. So apparently he was. “D'you know, there wasn't one polar bear on stage?”
“Color me shocked.”
“Not one single one. All they did was shove a tape in the VCR and project some crappy National Geographic video. I mean, if I'd wanted to see that I woulda waited 'til it came free with the magazine. Or tuned in next time some nature show was on the box. I went to see the polar bears swimming, that's what it's called,” Ray insisted to a passive-faced Asher, hands up to gesticulate half his argument for him, “Swimming With the Polar Bears. I probably would've seen more bear action had I gone to Pinkalicious instead.”
Really, Ray was making Asher's freak point loud and clear.
“So stick to Broadway next time,” the vampire concluded, stepping off the kerb to jaywalk the life out of the street. “It's clearly your niche.”
Traffic caught Ray, leaving him stranded on the opposite side of the road, lifting his arms and calling out, “I only went to see the polar bears!” A sigh and he stood, waiting to be told to walk.
It blew. The entire trip blew. Except for Mamma Mia, obviously. He was in New York. Asher was in New York. And yet the only time Ray had had free to himself had been spent in a cramped seat watching some pretentious story about the devastating personal results of the greenhouse effect. So not only was he sore when he came out, miserable, out of pocket and ultimately doomed by lack of recycling, he'd also just lost the only potential time he had to go see Asher, maybe finally, finally, spend some time with him. Even if it was only a couple of hours. And the fact he was going home the next day just sucked as much as Ray would have done had the stars been in his favor.
Looked like all that dooming had begun early.
When Ray eventually caught up (because he ran for no-one unless he was getting paid to) Asher was finishing a phone call and slipping the cell back into his pocket.
“Want me to start pranking you now?” Ray smirked, with a glance down at Asher's crotch that apparently didn't faze him at all. “Or is here a little too public for you?”
Asher gave him a look, doing up a button on his blazer with one hand. “Suggesting phonesex when we're less than a foot apart. Genius.”
Ray's eyes bugged. “It's definitely too public for the other kind!” He glanced around them in case anyone could tell what they were talking about. If Dief could read lips, some humans had to be able to as well.
“Shame.”
Ray missed that. When he was satisfied with their privacy, he looked back and found Asher had gone on without him. Again.
“Where're we going?” He huffed, annoyed, and checked himself, knowing it was potentially humiliating to be so presumptuous. “Where're you going?” He corrected himself, hesitating before following. Gas works signs forced him closer to a wino sat in a doorway than he was comfortable with as he approached the truck and the flashing amber lights obstructing the sidewalk. The light ahead gave Asher's pale skin a richer, healthier glow and Ray stared, mesmerised, until a disgusted wrinkle of the nose broke the spell and Asher was backing away faster than Ray had avoided the homeless guy.
“Somewhere less public,” Asher answered, though his voice was strained like he was trying not to inhale.
And ordinarily, a reply like that would make Ray sit up and take notice but he was too busy looking back and forth between the gas works and Asher, wild eyes like dishes, before he covered his mouth with both hands and ran blindly, muffling cries about leaking gas and explosions.
Nobody paid him any attention, other than to give him strange looks.
With no imminent BOOM and a vampire walking along pretending not to know him, Ray kept one hand to his nose and waved the other frantically at him. “You were all eww! Heightened senses! Gas!” Ray was a detective, after all.
“Bum,” Asher corrected, passing him by without stopping.
“Wh...” Ray was catching his breath, finally letting go of his nose and casting a glance back down the street. “Bum?!”
“Accommodationally-challenged citizen?”
Another look at the vagrant knocking back a bottle, looking like he hadn't washed in a month, and Ray sighed again, traipsing after Asher with his shoulders sloped. “I hate my life.”
***
“...don't think this is the way back to the hotel,” Ray insisted for the fifth or sixth time, nose pressed up to the darkened window, eyes squinted to see outside.
The inside of one of Asher's cars was indeed somewhere less public but wasn't exactly what Ray had had in mind. Though – he wiggled on the seat for the fifth or sixth time too, testing out its firmness – it certainly wouldn't be uncomfortable here...
The wheels stopped spinning and almost immediately afterwards the door was being opened and Ray was practically falling out of the car. He stumbled upright, scratching the back of his head as he turned on the spot, questioning gaze landing on Asher.
He jerked his head up, signaling over Ray's own.
Ray's gaze followed.
Bronx Zoo.
“The zoo? You brought me to the zoo?” Ray swiveled around again but had to come full circle since Asher was now standing beside him. “That's real funny, Asher. I'm an animal so I must stay at the zoo, right? That's nice, pal. I come all this way and what do I get? Insulted.” His complaints didn't let up, even when Asher moved away to speak to a man in a set of overalls and the gates started to be unlocked. “...bad enough. Well, you're wrong. Let me tell you something, the only reason I'd belong in a zoo is because I'm an animal in bed. Oh yeah, that's right, Asher. Don't make me unleash the beast.”
“Save the beast for the polar bears, I'm sure they'd love that. Come on.”
Even the driver put a hand on Ray's elbow and started leading him away from the car.
“Hey, hey, get-- are you a vamp? Let me see your eyes, show me your eyes.”
The guy bared his fangs instead.
“Okay, I'm going.”
The gates were shut behind them, Asher, Ray and overall guy.
“You come back to the lodge when you're done and I'll let you out.”
And then there were two.
“When you're done? What is it you're doing that's gonna be done?”
Asher wondered over to a giant map of the park. “When we're done.”
Asher's voluntary use of the plural pronoun shouldn't really have been unsettling but paired with the fact this was quite obviously the 'less public' place he had mentioned and considering what their (Ray's) choice of topic had been at the time, it was fairly disturbing.
“In a zoo?! Oh boy, Asher. I always figured you to have some weird kinks but this is off the radar big time.”
“Says Detective Condoms, first name Used.”
“I do not-- is this place shut?” Ray asked, suddenly realising there was literally no-one else around now. Except for...were those monkeys?
“I'm sorry, I meant Mister Condoms, first name Used.”
A full 360 degree turn and yep, Ray's hunch was right. It was closed. “How did you...?”
At a crossroads with a lifesize plastic giraffe and zebra in the middle of it, each pointing in a different direction, Asher chose neither and lead Ray down a darker route, away from the animal noises. Did flamingos and lions and gorillas have no concept of sleep?
The further they walked, the more time Ray had to really think about this. After-hours, in a zoo, with Asher. It beat baby-sitting Maria's kids but it was still a little strange to think Asher must have actually organised this. No-one can just drive up to a zoo and open sesame on cue...
As they passed a sign for sea lion feeding at 2pm and walrus presentations, Ray let out a laugh. “What'd you do, threaten to kill someone if they didn't let us in when it's dark?”
Asher rubbed at his jaw, giving Ray a sideways glance. “Yes.”
Ray studied the arrow pointing towards the Arctic Fox and Grizzly Bear before answering as democratically as he could. “...cool.”
“If you say so.”
And then there it was. A giant pane of glass stretching on and on and on. Artificial daylight poured out, the den cast in perpetual daytime, just like the Arctic. Snow. More than Ray had ever cared to see again given his track record with it. A large, deep pool offset.
They approached without a word, Ray finding himself mesmerised once again. It was like a window into another world.
“Wow.”
There was no other word for it.
“You just can't swim with them,” Asher told him, quieter than usual.
Ray was about to ask who 'they' were when the snow suddenly moved and grew arms and legs, and Ray was jumping high like he belonged with the kangaroos.
He heard Asher's smirk but couldn't tear his eyes away from the polar bear, even when it opened its mouth wide and flashed sharp teeth. It was so white, so terrifying, so silent and yet so... Ray took a step closer to the glass. So... And lost his steadfast gaze to Asher's reflection. Beautiful.
All three seemed comfortable with the silence that settled. Minutes went by before Ray spoke.
“I think he beats you.” He pointed to a Fun Facts plaque. “A polar bear can smell a seal from twenty miles away.”
Asher looked at him, skin so pale in the light it was almost translucent, and suddenly Ray felt exactly like one of those seals, caught, only much, much closer.
A splash stole Asher's eyes away, Ray's a second later, freeing him. He added elegant to the list but still let out a noise of disappointment at the polar bear's impromptu bath, as he watched it slipped beneath the water.
Asher bent his head, lifting an arm to point through the glass. “Over there.”
“I don't...” Ray narrowed his eyes, trying to following Asher's finger. The vampire moved closer.
“By the rock over there.”
“I don't see anything.”
“The giant white bear by the rock!”
“Oh, the giant white bear on the giant white patch of snow? Not all of us have freakishly good eyesight like you, you know!”
Asher's mouth pressed into a line and he dropped his arm, hands sliding into his pockets.
Ray considered apologising but then he caught sight of the second bear and let out a quiet “Oh” instead. It was sleeping. “At least that one knows what time it is.”
***
“Living off its blubber, a polar bear can go for months without eating. Woah. Oh man, listen to this. They can swim for more than forty miles in the chilly Arctic waters. That's impressive. Don't you think that's impressive?”
Asher stood off to the side, hands still hidden, watching the bear as it swam under the water, showing off up close to the glass, knowing it had an audience.
“Not to a polar bear.”
“You think it has to go back up to the surface to take a breath in that time?”
“Only if it wants to live.”
Fur waved, undulating in the water, the bear moving so gracefully, effortlessly. Ray stopped reading the facts and took in the sight instead. This more than made up for the show earlier. He wondered if Asher knew that.
“He's really something.” He wasn't talking about the bear but he only had the courage to look up at Asher after a long moment had passed. “Thank you for arranging this.”
“It was called Swimming with the Polar Bears,” Asher shrugged, brushing it off, “even I would've felt cheated.” The difference was though, that he would have found out what the show was about before buying a ticket but he wasn't in the mood for bickering tonight so he kept that quiet.
“Still.”
And then it had clicked, and Ray had nearly missed it, but suddenly it started happening, Asher's hands out of his pockets and on Ray's back because Ray had made the move, quiet literally. Pressing against the glass, Ray kissed him, not really sure where his own hands were but not caring either because his mouth was doing just fine. Finally. Asher kissed him back right when Ray realised he had his fists around hundreds of dollars worth of designer suit, holding tight to the lapels like he actually had any say in where Asher stayed. Like maybe Asher was the caught seal instead and Ray hadn't fed for months.
A hand climbed to Asher's neck and Ray nudged him back, head tilting the other way for more. He only opened his eyes for a brief second to make sure this was real but when he did, he came face to almost face with a giant black eye surrounded by fur and let out an unmanly cry of fright, jumping back. As if his heart hadn't been thumping hard enough already.
“It's watching!” He panted for his breath.
Asher held his arms right where they had been around Ray but dropped them instantly, head thunking back against the glass.
“They both are,” Ray insisted, watching the two bears glide through the water, mocking him. Oh, they got to have their fun...
“You never begin to amaze me, Vecchio.”
Ray was furrowing his brow at the bears, only catching the end of Asher's words. “Hey, thanks.”
Asher pushed away from the glass, pockets refilled, and started heading back to the lodge. “That wasn't a compliment.”
Ray stayed for a few more moments, even trying to point menacingly at the bears. “Bet a seal never comes up to you and does that.”
Them told, he turned his back, sucking in a breath and flicking his gaze up to catch a glimpse of Asher before he disappeared around a bend. His tongue peeked out and swiped at his lower lip as he blinked out into the darkness and faded into it himself.
The polar bears danced around each other for a long time after, playing back and forth, nudging here and there but always backing away, retreating in the end. Maybe Ray would come back one day to see if things had changed.
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no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 04:22 am (UTC)Also, this is weirdly romantic and has really awesome tension, mmmm.
As they passed a sign for sea lion feeding at 2pm and walrus presentations, Ray let out a laugh. “What'd you do, threaten to kill someone if they didn't let us in when it's dark?”
Asher rubbed at his jaw, giving Ray a sideways glance. “Yes.”
GAAAAAAAH.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 04:37 am (UTC)Hee, credit to that has to go to Nikki, she's the one who said the zoo would open for them or someone dies! So I stuck in threatening et voila.
Glad you enjoyed it! And share appreciation for the HOT \o/
no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 04:56 am (UTC)also, AWWW, they were watching the kiiiiiss! XD Ray is such a dork. and also, YAY for kissing! also also, plenty of hilarity as usual, especially this --
“I don't...” Ray narrowed his eyes, trying to following Asher's finger. The vampire moved closer.
“By the rock over there.”
“I don't see anything.”
“The giant white bear by the rock!”
“Oh, the giant white bear on the giant white patch of snow? Not all of us have freakishly good eyesight like you, you know!”
because I am easy.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 05:09 am (UTC)Not aww! SCARY! BIG AND SCARY! And nosey!
Heee! That wasn't even planned, that just came out in about 40 seconds of frantic typing XD I like switches of tone with these guys \o/
Sooo glad you liked!
no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 05:13 am (UTC)the tone switches are what makes Rasher Rasher. ;D or something.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 06:30 am (UTC)And yay gas! Aw, Ray, you big, hilarious goober. ILU.
I'd totally be watching, too, if I were the polar bear >_>
I think my insides have been reduced to mush, but I'mma read again now! \o/
no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 11:01 am (UTC)I told you that polar bear was gay...!
:D