![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
laughingacademy.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
ds_flashfictionTitle: “Unclean! Unclean!”
Rating: PG
Pairing: Ray V/Stella, Ray K/Fraser if you squint
Word count: 915
Warnings: mild angst, character death (sorta)
Notes: This is a what-if sequel to my “Neck(ing) challenge” story, “Welcome to Canada.” It wound up being the Cliff Notes version of the story I meant to write, but I ran out of time and I wanted to post something for this challenge.
*
While the crucifix-wielding housemaids danced across the room, Ray finished his cappuccino, dropped the paper cup beneath his chair as quietly as possible, and reflected, not for the first time, on the fact that his life was pretty goddamn strange. More good than bad, lately, but nonetheless strange.
If Benny hadn’t died and then pulled a Houdini act in the morgue, then Vecchio Mark Two (A blond Polack? Ray still couldn’t wrap his head around that) wouldn’t have shaken down everyone who’d ever so much as looked sideways at the mountie, including Zuko, thereby forcing the Feds to yank Ray from Vegas earlier than planned. And if Kowalski himself hadn’t gone MIA not long afterward, Ray wouldn’t have had any reason to look up Kowalski’s ex.
And what a tragedy that would have been, he thought, turning to peek at Stella’s profile, faintly limned by the light of the movie screen.
Amazingly, in the years since that first awkward conversation they’d found surrogates for their lost friends and lovers in each other. True, Ray still sometimes got a little choked up when he thought about how some night, while he’d probably been licking Dom Perignon off a showgirl’s silicone tits, Benny had been slowly reaching room temperature on a cot in his goddamn office; and Stella occasionally wondered aloud if her hotheaded first husband had been killed, or gone underground, or been abducted by aliens, or what; but they spent much more of their time talking about the here and now.
Though lately, here and now had given way to maybe there and then. Specifically, maybe Florida next year. On the one hand, relocating to a place like Florida (or Arizona, where Stella’s ex-in-laws, whom she was still on good terms with, lived) seemed like an old-fart move. Ray acknowledged he was no spring chicken, but he wasn’t an old fart yet. On the other hand, Ray could take over his uncle’s bowling alley, so it’s not like he’d be retired, really; and Stella thought she’d enjoy prosecuting Latino drug lords instead of midwestern mobsters.
Especially since the mobsters were getting thin on the ground. The ones who weren’t turning up dead in improbable and spectacular ways were turning themselves in. Vecchio had been in the detectives’ pen the day a white-faced Frank Zuko had marched in, copped to dozens of crimes, and begged to be put in protective custody.
“Why are you doing this?” Vecchio had asked him, incredulous, and Zuko had crossed himself and said, “For the sake of my immortal soul.”
Anyway, he and Stella had decided they needed a break from their weird jobs and even weirder personal lives. Though how exactly they wound up agreeing to see a film starring Canadian ballerinas remained a mystery. Still, Stella was enjoying the dancing, and Ray found himself grinning over the old-time acting style — the cast could have given his relatives lessons on melodrama. Even the murmuring from a couple of rows back couldn’t distract him. But as the doctor warned Harker away from his wife after she’d been bitten, Vecchio’s attention was caught when one of the guys stage-whispered “Ray!” in a scandalized tone.
“But I’m right! Can’t you just hear him moaning that while wiping down Her Majesty’s portrait?” said whisperer number two.
Ray was about to shush them when the first guy began giggling. Ray froze. He knew that laugh. He’d only heard it once but it was unforgettable.
By the time Ray forced himself to turn around, two figures were making their way up the side aisle to the rear exit. “Back in a second,” Ray whispered, and took off after them.
The lobby was empty, but the front door was still slowly swinging shut. Ray burst onto the sidewalk in front of the theater and spun in a circle. There -- two guys, one blond, the other dark-haired, laughing and elbowing each other, and Dark Hair was saying, “Do you know what Turnbull’s first name is?”
“Benny?” Ray didn’t even realize he’d shouted until they turned around, and then he yelped “Kowalski!” as he got a good luck at the other guy.
“Well, shit,” said Kowalski, and then he and Benny took off down the sidewalk and around a corner into an alley. Ray ran after them, but stopped short at the alleyway and listened for a second. Nothing…no, wait. That giggle again…
Ray walked in. It was a dead-end alley. There was no sign of them. There were no Dumpsters or trashcans or boxes to hide them, he would have heard them going up the fire escape, and they hadn’t come past him, so where --
“Ahem.”
“Jesus!” Ray whirled.
“I’m afraid just saying His name doesn’t work,” Benny said, sounding almost apologetic.
Kowalski looked Ray up and down and snorted. “Huh. Dunno what Stella sees in you…”
“Ray…”
“But she’s a big girl and it’s her life, yadda yadda, I got it, Fraser. I just wanted to let him know that if he ever puts her through any of the crap I did, I’m going to rip his throat out, okay? Ex’s prerogative.”
“Benny,” Ray panted. “What the hell?”
“You’re a better detective than you ever gave yourself credit for,” Benny told him. “You’ll figure it out. And now I’m sorry, but Ray and I really must be going.”
And then they were gone.
After the movie ended, Stella found Ray in the lobby, re-reading the poster.
“I think we should move to Florida,” he said.
Afterword: Ray and Stella are watching Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary, a collaboration between the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and Canadian director Guy Maddin. It’s mostly black and white with title cards instead of dialogue, and arguably the most faithful film adaptation of Bram Stoker’s story to date.
Rating: PG
Pairing: Ray V/Stella, Ray K/Fraser if you squint
Word count: 915
Warnings: mild angst, character death (sorta)
Notes: This is a what-if sequel to my “Neck(ing) challenge” story, “Welcome to Canada.” It wound up being the Cliff Notes version of the story I meant to write, but I ran out of time and I wanted to post something for this challenge.
*
While the crucifix-wielding housemaids danced across the room, Ray finished his cappuccino, dropped the paper cup beneath his chair as quietly as possible, and reflected, not for the first time, on the fact that his life was pretty goddamn strange. More good than bad, lately, but nonetheless strange.
If Benny hadn’t died and then pulled a Houdini act in the morgue, then Vecchio Mark Two (A blond Polack? Ray still couldn’t wrap his head around that) wouldn’t have shaken down everyone who’d ever so much as looked sideways at the mountie, including Zuko, thereby forcing the Feds to yank Ray from Vegas earlier than planned. And if Kowalski himself hadn’t gone MIA not long afterward, Ray wouldn’t have had any reason to look up Kowalski’s ex.
And what a tragedy that would have been, he thought, turning to peek at Stella’s profile, faintly limned by the light of the movie screen.
Amazingly, in the years since that first awkward conversation they’d found surrogates for their lost friends and lovers in each other. True, Ray still sometimes got a little choked up when he thought about how some night, while he’d probably been licking Dom Perignon off a showgirl’s silicone tits, Benny had been slowly reaching room temperature on a cot in his goddamn office; and Stella occasionally wondered aloud if her hotheaded first husband had been killed, or gone underground, or been abducted by aliens, or what; but they spent much more of their time talking about the here and now.
Though lately, here and now had given way to maybe there and then. Specifically, maybe Florida next year. On the one hand, relocating to a place like Florida (or Arizona, where Stella’s ex-in-laws, whom she was still on good terms with, lived) seemed like an old-fart move. Ray acknowledged he was no spring chicken, but he wasn’t an old fart yet. On the other hand, Ray could take over his uncle’s bowling alley, so it’s not like he’d be retired, really; and Stella thought she’d enjoy prosecuting Latino drug lords instead of midwestern mobsters.
Especially since the mobsters were getting thin on the ground. The ones who weren’t turning up dead in improbable and spectacular ways were turning themselves in. Vecchio had been in the detectives’ pen the day a white-faced Frank Zuko had marched in, copped to dozens of crimes, and begged to be put in protective custody.
“Why are you doing this?” Vecchio had asked him, incredulous, and Zuko had crossed himself and said, “For the sake of my immortal soul.”
Anyway, he and Stella had decided they needed a break from their weird jobs and even weirder personal lives. Though how exactly they wound up agreeing to see a film starring Canadian ballerinas remained a mystery. Still, Stella was enjoying the dancing, and Ray found himself grinning over the old-time acting style — the cast could have given his relatives lessons on melodrama. Even the murmuring from a couple of rows back couldn’t distract him. But as the doctor warned Harker away from his wife after she’d been bitten, Vecchio’s attention was caught when one of the guys stage-whispered “Ray!” in a scandalized tone.
“But I’m right! Can’t you just hear him moaning that while wiping down Her Majesty’s portrait?” said whisperer number two.
Ray was about to shush them when the first guy began giggling. Ray froze. He knew that laugh. He’d only heard it once but it was unforgettable.
By the time Ray forced himself to turn around, two figures were making their way up the side aisle to the rear exit. “Back in a second,” Ray whispered, and took off after them.
The lobby was empty, but the front door was still slowly swinging shut. Ray burst onto the sidewalk in front of the theater and spun in a circle. There -- two guys, one blond, the other dark-haired, laughing and elbowing each other, and Dark Hair was saying, “Do you know what Turnbull’s first name is?”
“Benny?” Ray didn’t even realize he’d shouted until they turned around, and then he yelped “Kowalski!” as he got a good luck at the other guy.
“Well, shit,” said Kowalski, and then he and Benny took off down the sidewalk and around a corner into an alley. Ray ran after them, but stopped short at the alleyway and listened for a second. Nothing…no, wait. That giggle again…
Ray walked in. It was a dead-end alley. There was no sign of them. There were no Dumpsters or trashcans or boxes to hide them, he would have heard them going up the fire escape, and they hadn’t come past him, so where --
“Ahem.”
“Jesus!” Ray whirled.
“I’m afraid just saying His name doesn’t work,” Benny said, sounding almost apologetic.
Kowalski looked Ray up and down and snorted. “Huh. Dunno what Stella sees in you…”
“Ray…”
“But she’s a big girl and it’s her life, yadda yadda, I got it, Fraser. I just wanted to let him know that if he ever puts her through any of the crap I did, I’m going to rip his throat out, okay? Ex’s prerogative.”
“Benny,” Ray panted. “What the hell?”
“You’re a better detective than you ever gave yourself credit for,” Benny told him. “You’ll figure it out. And now I’m sorry, but Ray and I really must be going.”
And then they were gone.
After the movie ended, Stella found Ray in the lobby, re-reading the poster.
“I think we should move to Florida,” he said.
Afterword: Ray and Stella are watching Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary, a collaboration between the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and Canadian director Guy Maddin. It’s mostly black and white with title cards instead of dialogue, and arguably the most faithful film adaptation of Bram Stoker’s story to date.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 01:53 pm (UTC)Slightly confused ... are Ben and Ray angels or vampires or slayers ... or nothing at all like that and I'm just stupid?
no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 04:03 pm (UTC)In this story, Ben and Ray are vampires who are nevertheless still on the side of the angels, though their methods are rather more extreme than when they were alive (i.e., eating the bad guys they can't persuade to turn themselves in).
no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 08:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-22 12:02 am (UTC)