Double-Take Challenge by Lysimache

[lysimache.livejournal.com]

While trying to think of an idea for this challenge, to place a character somewhere you wouldn't expect to see them, I started thinking about whose expectations we're dealing with, and how those expectations get created. Well, conventions, clichés, and the like breed expectations, and that thought bred this piece--in all its silliness. :)

Many thanks to eruthros for the beta help!

1550 words of G to NC-17 gen and F/K.

Five Places They Were Never Supposed to Be

For Elena, because, when I asked her what unexpected place Ray and Fraser
could be, she answered, "The moon," -- and I knew she would.

1. Ray and Fraser at Jabba's Palace

Ray rubbed his head. It hurt, and that was funny, 'cause he couldn't
remember getting clocked recently. Fraser didn't look in any better
shape, either. His eyes were open, but they were a little too wide,
his pupils were a little too, what's the word, distracted, deluded,
dilated, that's it, like he'd had some bad chamomile or something.

And hey, whoa, he must have had some of that stuff too, 'cause that,
standing in front of him, that was--

"Hello! I am C-3PO, Human-Cyborg relations, currently interpreter for
His Corpulence, Jabba the Hutt."

The guy next to him, the pasty-faced alien with the brain-tails,
grumbled something at the golden droid, accompanied by a menacing
gesture.

"And you're supposed to be Bib Fortuna, Jabba's majordomo, right, I
get it." Ray was sure now that it was the tea. Or maybe he was in a
nice coma somewhere, or just dreaming, one of those crazy dreams,
because he was really, certainly, *definitely* not in the middle of
Return of the Jedi. No way.

Play along. Fraser was moaning now, and it looked like he might be
recovering.

Fortuna glowered at him. "Why are you trespassing in Jabba's palace?
Who sent you? If you're Lady Valarian's assassins, well, I would've
thought she could afford better."

Threepio looked alarmed at the possibility that Ray and Fraser had
been sent to kill anyone. "Surely they've just wandered in by mistake."

"That's right," Ray said. "We were looking for, uh, Mos Eisley."

Fortuna appeared unconvinced. With a twitch of his brain-tails, he
snapped out, "Nonsense! Guards! Take these two to the dungeons." He
laughed, not a pleasant sound. "We'll let Jabba figure out what to do
with you; I'm sure the rancor's hungry."

Sadly, Threepio said, "You're doomed."

Ray sighed. The pig-faced guards seized him and the still silent
Fraser and began dragging them away, while Threepio followed. Ray
wasn't sure why the droid was so interested in them, but he decided
not to question it. Why *should* it make sense? "I've got a bad
feeling about all this," he said.

"Really, a bad feeling?" The droid appeared to have perked up. "My
late master -- not that he's dead, you understand, but due to reasons
that--"

"Don't need exploring at this juncture?"

"Exactly. Yes. Due to those reasons, Jabba, and not Master Luke, is
my master now. But Master Luke, he's been training to be a Jedi, and
he might be most interested in your 'bad feeling'. If, of course,
Jabba doesn't feed you to the rancor and you're still alive to meet
Master Luke."

"Of course."

"And I'm afraid the odds of your survival *aren't* very good. Artoo
would undoubtedly know better than I, but I'd calculate them as being
636,000 to 1."

"That bad, huh?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Well, I've never worried too much about odds."

"Are you from Corellia, sir?"

"Nah. Chicago."

Ray watched, amused, while Threepio tried to recall a planet by that
name. "I'm afraid I'm not familiar with that world, despite being
fluent in over six million forms of communication. May I ask you
where it's located?"

"Well, if there's a bright center to the universe, I'm from the planet
that invented deep-dish pizza."

"Ah." The droid didn't seem particularly enlightened.

"It's by Lake Michigan."

"Of course, the Lake they call Michigan!" Threepio brightened in recognition.

"Right, Lake Michigan."

As the cell door shut behind them, and Fraser remained speechless, and
the rancor grumbled in the distance, Ray felt remarkably at home.

2. Sofa of the Muses

I am a lesbian. I do not enjoy sharing my quarters with men at all,
let alone rather large ones who resemble fannish characters, even
fannish characters I'm rather fond of. When they're non-corporeal.

I do not like them on my living-room couch.

"Hi! I'm Ray Kowalski, and you may remember me from such tv shows as
due South, and uh, due South season 4."

I poke him. Yep, the man-smell didn't lie. Solid as a rock. He
twitches a little, but continues on.

"I need you to write a story for me."

I poke him again. I've already ascertained that he's real, or I'm
hallucinating, or both, but hey, isn't torturing our beloved
characters what we writers are *supposed* to do?

He bounces up and down with excitement.

"Come on, come on, the story." I glare at him, but he doesn't seem
inclined to move his frame from off my couch. My dog Pallas has
settled in his lap, traitor that she is, and it seems as though he
intends to go on sitting there indefinitely unless I give in.

It's a little creepy, yes.

Right then. The story.

Once upon a time, a Chicago flatfoot with experimental hair met a
Canadian Mountie, and they set off together on an Adventure....

3. The Case of the Missing Hat

Ray seems a little more frantic than the situation really warrants.

"You know, sometimes the remote turns up in the fridge, you laugh a
little, you forget about it. This isn't the same thing! This is the
*hat*, Fraser. *The* hat!"

"I'm sure it'll turn up, Ray."

"The *hat*, Fraser."

"Well, yes. I know it's the hat, and not, say, my boots, that has
gone missing."

"The *hat*!"

"I'm sure if we just think about it logically, between the two of us,
we'll be able to recollect where we last saw it, and from that, deduce
what its current location might be."

"*The* hat!"

Oh, dear. "For instance, did I have it on when you picked me up from
work last night?"

"Uh... yeah."

"That's progress, then. And did I still have it when we came inside?"

"I think so, yeah."

"So there. The hat must be in the apartment. That narrows it down
considerably."

"But we've already looked everywhere." Frustrated, Ray goes back to
rifling through the pile of coats from the closet he'd earlier dumped
on the floor, as though the hat might have suddenly appeared amidst
them.

"Let me retrace my steps further, then. After we got home, we watched
a baseball game on television."

"Right. Sox vs. Yankees. You still had your hat on -- I hit it
with my hand a couple of times reaching behind you."

"And then after the game, we retired to bed, and ah..."

"Yeah, we ah." Ray chuckles. "And hey, I remember now, you had the
hat on, and so then I took it off, and put it--"

He dashes from the room, and returns but a moment later, a triumphant
smile lighting his dear face.

"The window! It was open! And, you know how there's that big nail
outside it, on the wall?"

"You hung my hat up on the outside wall of the building while we were
having relations?" I feel a bit bewildered at this revelation.

"You didn't want me to just throw it on the floor, did you?" He sets
it on top of my head. "It's your *hat*."

4. Ars Artis Gratia

"Well, you have to admit, Ray, it's a good likeness."

He looks up, and, almost immediately, looks back down again, eyes
fixed on the floor.

"Nuh uh, Fraser, I don't gotta admit *anything*."

The other visitors to the Art Institute flowed on around them,
oblivious to Ray's discomfort with one of the statues in the
"Contemporary Local Artists" exhibit.

And how Fraser could just keep looking at it, like there was nothing
queer about it... "And I don't even wanna know how you'd know it's a
good likeness, okay?"

Fraser rubbed that irritating eyebrow of his. "Now, Ray, don't be
silly. Of course I have no basis of judging the statue's accuracy in
regard to, well, his private attributes."

Like there was anything else to look at, with a big, naked statue like
that?

"I simply meant that the artist has done a very good job of capturing
the Lieutenant's habitual expression."

5. Anywhere But Here

You nibble a little on the smooth flesh of his hip. His scent is
strong, and clean, as though he were just out rolling in an arctic
snow bank or a bed of pine needles.

His strong hands run along your back, stroking you with nails that are
never dirty. His finger finds your entrance, and you gasp, pressing
back against him.

You want this so much. You can't remember a time when all you wanted
wasn't to feel him inside you, filling you.

Cool and slick, he slides in, and you feel, not quite pain, but
stretched, and you wish you could stay like this forever. He begins
to move, slowly at first, and you're both moaning, overwhelmed by
sensation.

"Harder," you whisper, and he complies, pushing into you with more
strength.

In the distance, you hear a rumbling sound, low, angry. "What was
that?" you ask him. You'd almost rather just ignore the sound, but it
seems to be getting closer.

"That?" His voice is right by your ear, and his breath tickles your
neck. "Don't mind that. It's just a lunar rover."

Gasping, you look up at the panoply of stars bright above you, as one
by one, they fall down out of the blackness to center in your belly,
burning, as the ground spins faster and faster through the airless
expanse into the exploding universe.