ds_flashfiction | Weaponry Challenge, by tigs

Title: Gunslinger
Author: tigs
Characters: RayK & RayV (Gen)
Disclaimer: So not mine.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: "So let me get this straight," Vecchio said. "Today—today of all days, in the middle of a shootout—you decided it would be a good time to start channeling your inner-mountie?" [Post-CotW]

Author's Notes: Many thanks to

visionshadows for the beta!

After, as Ray was staring at his empty fingers—where, only moments before, there had been a gun—as he was listening to the perp scream obscenities ("Fuck! You broke my mother fucking hand, you fuck!") off to his left, all he could think was: Well, okay then.

And also: Damn it, Fraser.

Because Chicago cops, see, they didn't throw their guns at perps in an attempt to—to disarm their assailants. Not even when they had an empty clip and thus, for as long as it took them to reload, the gun was just a useless hunk of metal.

Not even when they were trying to distract said perp from shooting their partner who had to have been down to his last bullet or two, too.

They just didn't do that.

That just was not the way it was done.

And Ray knew that.

Which was why he was staring at his hands, barely watching as their backup—who'd arrived at the other end of the alley in just the nick of time, in the moment just before Ray had thrown his weapon away—led the punk, the foulmouthed little shit, to one of the waiting squad cars.

("Fuck you!" the guy shouted, at Gomez, or maybe it was supposed to be directed at Ray. "Fuck you, you fucker!")

Because seriously, Ray thought, staring down at his hand. One minute, the gun had been there, wrapped tightly in his grip, and the next it had been hurtling through the air like a lethal boomerang and who in their right mind thought that that was an intelligent way to use a gun? No one, that's who.

Well, no one, that is, except for—

"So let me get this straight," Vecchio said, suddenly there, leaning against the car beside him, looking faintly amused. "You've been back from your Great Northern Adventure for three months now, and today—today of all days, in the middle of a shootout—you decided it would be a good time to start channeling your inner-mountie? Maybe next time you could give a guy some warning so he can get into the appropriate mindset for dealing with mounties and all associated weirdness, you know?"

Vecchio was laughing, but Ray was still looking down at his hand, flexing his fingers, curling them tightly and then letting them go loose again.

"I just—" he started, but then he stopped, because Vecchio didn't seem to be mad—wasn't yelling at him anyway—so why was he having such a problem with this? Aside from the fact that it had been a completely stupid thing to do, of course. Because guns were not boomerangs and should never be used as such, and he knew that, and still he'd gone and thrown it. Just slung it through the air, like it was a normal thing to do.

So yeah, okay, he had a right to be wanting to kick himself in the head.

"'You just—?'" Vecchio prompted when Ray didn't continue, and now he seemed to realize that Ray wasn't laughing, that he wasn't amused. His smile faded and then he was frowning at Ray, so Ray turned so that he could lean back against the car, too.

"I just," he started again.

He'd emptied his clip into the corner of that dumpster the punk'd been stowing away behind, but when he'd ducked down behind the car to reload, right, he'd seen the kid start towards the doorway where Vecchio was hiding, and— And he'd known he wouldn't be able to reload before the kid reached Vecchio, or before Vecchio ran out of bullets so he'd just—

"I—" he said.

"You reacted," Vecchio said.

"—pulled a Fraser," Ray finished. "Used my gun as a boomerang. Did something completely stupid."

He paused, waiting for Vecchio to either agree or disagree, but when the other man did neither he sighed, continued: "Apparently you can only work with him for so long before he starts rubbing off on you. In ways that displace 12 years of training on the force."

"And I think we both passed that point long ago," Vecchio said quietly. For him, anyway.

"Yeah," Ray said. "It's just like—it's like he's in the back of my head now, and we're out here, doing this, getting into impossible situations and I find myself asking, 'what would Fraser do?' Which is completely insane, of course."

"Well, yeah," Vecchio said. "Except for the fact that he's still alive. And we're still alive. So, you know, you could do worse."

Ray opened his mouth, then closed it again, then said, "I could, at that, I guess."

There was silence for a moment then, broken by the sound of Gomez's car starting up, of the perp's obscenities now muffled by the car door. Then they were driving away and when Ray turned to watch them go, he saw another officer taking a picture of his gun, lying fifteen feet away, in the middle of the alley.

He saw Vecchio looking, too, smirking, and then sure enough, Vecchio spoke.

"That was still a completely stupid thing to do, though. Seriously, Kowalski. You threw your gun at him."

And that sounded more like the sort of response Ray would have expected from Vecchio in the first place, but there was a teasing edge to it now, too. And a matching sort of smile on Vecchio's face when he turned back towards Ray.

Which was why Ray found himself almost-grinning, too, as he said, "Well, it worked, didn't it?"

To which Vecchio responded, "Yeah, but I think if you're going to be making a habit of this sort of thing, I'm going to have to buy you that boomerang you were talking about. Or possibly nunchucks."

And Ray didn't see any other way to respond to that than to flip Vecchio off and say, "Yeah, well, fuck you very much. See if I ever save your life again."

At which point Vecchio laughed, really-truly, and slapped Ray on the shoulder, and as they both pushed away from the car and started walking back towards the crime scene, Ray realized he was feeling almost normal again.

End.

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From:

grey853.livejournal.com

I can handle gen RayV/RayK. Cool job, perfect title.

From:

Weaponry Challenge, by tigs

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