Are these the ropes? These ones here?
Ok. My first journal entry. I guess we'll see how this goes.
*grins shyly and offers an un-beta'd, amateurish dS fic*
which I would love to hide behind an lj cut, but can't seem to make it work... these ropes are tricky...
"There he is." Ray pushed himself off the wall, and crossed the street, Fraser following close on his heels.
"I really don't think this is appropriate," he was saying, for the five hundredth time that day.
"I could give a damn about appropriate," muttered Ray. Kids were milling around in the school yard and spilling out of the gate onto the street, their chattering and shouting echoing up to the skies. Their energy seemed to radiate off them in a cloud. Ray could still remember the way Friday felt when he was sixteen; long-forgotten hormonal channels opened up a little in sympathy, and Ray was bouncing on his toes as he wove through the kids, wishing vaguely that he still had those head-kicker boots he'd finally had to ditch a few years ago.
"Ray, this really boils down to a matter of trust, excuse me, pardon me, I beg your parden, excuse me," said Fraser, as teenagers bounced off him at all angles.
"Trust?!" yelped Ray, rounding on him. "I don't care if the kid's parents are Ghandi and Mother fuckin' Theresa, he's sixteen years old! I know how sixteen-year-old guys operate, ok, and they can't be trusted. I know, I used to be one."
"Well, so did I, Ray, and I never --"
"Your freakish adolescence is not the issue here, Fraser. He is not you. He is him, just like I was him back in the day, and I remember exactly what I was like, so I know what he's like, and I'm gonna break his scrawny neck."
"Ray, I should clarify, I was not referring to the boy. I was referring to our daughter. She is a supremely sensible and capable young woman, who can be trusted to make the correct decisions."
"Yes, she can. Now shut up while I kick this kid in the head."
Ray finished ploughing through the after-school mosh pit, and reached the gate, where a tall and, Fraser had to admit, fairly scrawny boy was lounging with a couple of friends.
"Nick Findlay?" Ray was using his best "this cop is sixty seconds away from snapping" voice. Fraser found it almost nostalgic to hear him talking like that again. His policing manner had definitely mellowed over the years. Not that he couldn't still play bad cop with the best of them, as was evident now.
"Uh, yeah?" The kid looked immediately nervous, even more so than would be usual for a boy approached by two unknown men at the school gate. He looked at both of them, and Fraser could see him drawing conclusions. Ah. Fraser would bet good money, if it wasn't illegal to do so, that Lucy had warned the boy that this might happen.
"I'm Captain Kowalski, Lucy's dad. And that," Ray jerked a thumb over his shoulder at Fraser, "is Sergeant Fraser, her other dad."
The boy, to his credit, didn't flinch. His friends, on the other hand, scrambled away like rats from a sinking ship.
"It's good -- " the kid's voice cracked a little, and he cleared his throat, "It's good to meet you, sir. And you, sir." Fraser gave him a polite nod of the head.
"It's not good for us to meet you, Nick," said Ray. "I am not happy to meet you."
"Um. No, sir?"
"No. And you shouldn't be happy to meet me. Do you know why?"
The boy gulped. He knew.
"I'll make this real simple." Ray leaned in. "Touch her and die." His blue eyes were hard and cold. The kid drew in a breath, his own eyes flicking wide. He threw a desperate glance towards Lucy's other dad.
"I shouldn't worry too much, son," said Fraser bluffly, reaching around Ray to clap the boy on the shoulder. "I'm sure you can understand Lucy's father's ambivalence about this, but I assure you, this aggressive posturing is almost entirely exaggerated for effect." He brushed the thumb of his other hand over his eyebrow in a thoughtful way, adding, "The threats to kick you in the head and break your neck, and the assertions that, as policemen, we know the best way to do that and to ensure that they never find your body, well -- of course, as officers of the law not only would we never engage in such activity, but we would never even raise the possibility. That would be intimidation." He flashed the boy a blank smile. His hand was still resting heavily on the boy's skinny shoulder. "And it's all academic anyway, because I'm sure you have every intention of behaving strictly as a gentleman, both this afternoon and in all of your interactions with our daughter. Isn't that right, Nicholas?"
"Yes, sir," said the kid, in a strangled voice.
"That's what I thought. So, you see, Ray, there was no need for all of this." He opened his arms, as if to embrace the warm early-summer day, the now empty schoolyard, the whole concept of Nick taking their daughter out for ice cream. "Nick understands his position clearly and would never dream of betraying our trust."
Ray pointed two fingers at his own eyes, then flicked them at Nick so he was almost poking the boy's eyes out, in what Fraser had learnt was the I'm watching you gesture. Only then, reluctantly, did Ray allow Fraser to draw him away.
"It was a pleasure to meet you at last, Nicholas," Fraser was saying. "Enjoy the rest of your day. We'll be seeing you."
They made their way back to the Goat, leaving the boy recovering his breath at the school gate.
"I don't remember saying that bit about them never finding his body," said Ray as he started the engine, and a smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. Fraser raised his eyebrows.
"Oh, didn't you? Ah well, I'm sure the young man understood the basic drift of my point."
"Yeah, I think he got it." They rode in silence for a while. "So..." said Ray eventually. "You wanna scope out the ice cream parlour?"
"Absolutely not, Ray. That would be both intrusive and unnecessary."
"Oh."
"And besides, they're not scheduled to meet there until six o'clock. Unless we were planning either to stage an impromptu stakeout or, indeed, to return home and then follow our daughter to her rendezvous, taking stock of the ice cream parlour and its surrounds would be completely pointless."
"Sure."
"Ray, this isn't our turning."
"Isn't it? I always get confused in this neighbourhood."
"I think you'll find the most efficient route home is to continue for another block, then turn onto Pendleton."
"Ok. Hey, look at that."
"Pure coincidence, Ray."