Written for the DS Flashfiction "Dirty" challenge. Thanks to Brookline Girl for the beta.
Ray's first time. No, not that one.
Not that one either.
HALO
By Cherry Ice
The night is hot, and Chicago's singing with its broken voice. Drone of mosquitoes, backfiring tailpipes, rise and fall of distant sirens and barking dogs, the caterwauling of three million voices. There's an outdoor concert in the park, and not even five blocks of cinderblock shoeboxes muffles it completely.
Ray's sitting on the front step and watching the traffic on the street -- the kids with the top down and their hair trailing, the families in their station wagons, children's sticky faces pressed to the window or dropped to the side as they sleep. The concrete beneath him has long since released the last of the heat of the day, and it's cold through his jeans. Everything smells like exhaust and rubber and grass that doesn't know when it's been beat.
It's been a long, hot day, and an even longer night. He's twenty-four, and he's thinking about kids who think they're adults and the fact that the stains on the knees of his jeans probably won't come out. He's thinking about the fact that dead junkies have mothers too, that his shirt is sticking to him like another skin, and that Stella's hair smells like strawberries.
He's tumbling his wedding ring back and forth between his hands, gold bright in the light from the window and the headlights from passing cars. He's been carrying it in the front pocket of his jeans all night at work, so it's the same temperature as his skin and it feels like he's pouring water between his fingers. There's a cool breeze then, coming in from the northeast, and Ray like to think that he can still smell the lakes.
He slips the ring on and gets up, feeling a creak in his bones and resisting the impulse to brush of his knees again. It's cooler inside, because Stella's got the windows propped open and both the fans going. She's sitting at the kitchen table in short shorts and a tank top, hair pulled up off her neck and falling out in wisps. The textbook propped up in front of her is big enough that he has renewed respect for the table.
He stands at the entrance to the kitchen, leaning against the doorway for a minute or two or an hour, watching her chew the end of the her pen.
"You know," she says finally, without looking up. "Stalking is against the law."
"Maybe you should call the cops then," he says, dropping a hand to her shoulder and squeezing.
"Mmhm," she mumbles, mind already back on fifteenth century tithing laws or case studies about ducks. There's a streak of ink on her cheek, and Ray feels something twist in his throat. He kisses the nape of her neck, quickly, and her skin is hot against his lips.
"Ray?" she asks, as he pulls away.
"You want anything?" he asks. The fridge wobbles a bit as he pulls the door open, and he puts it on the list of things he needs to fix.
"I'm fine," she says, and the only noise is the steady whir of the fans and the clinking of bottles in the fridge as he roots around. The cold air feels good on his sweat-slick skin and he lets his head hang. His jaw hurts.
"Ray?" Stella asks again, and he hears her textbook flip closed. "Are you..."
"Rough day at work," he says, staring at his hands where they grip the fridge. His knuckles are white and there's dirt beneath his nails. "Just. Rough day at work, is all."
"You want to talk about it?" she asks. Arms crossed, she's leaning against the counter now, just in his peripheral vision.
"Can't, Stell. Undercover. You know how it is."
He can feel her purse her lips. Doesn't have to see at her to know the look on her face. Bullshit, is what he expects her to say.
He's got a response forming in his mind (one step removed, mind filtering through an extra turn before it exits his mouth) when he realizes -- that's not him, that's not him and not Stella, that's the guy he's been posing as and the way Stella would see *him,* but this, this is *Ray.*
It leaves him shaken.
(This is him, or at least it's supposed to be. His captain said, once -- Ray, you're better at being someone else than anyone I've ever known who didn't have a good reason to leave themselves behind. You just watch that you don't get too good at it.)
There's a hand on his arm, and Stella's looking at him. "Are you okay?" she asks.
Ray, Ray has never lied to Stella. Not even when he probably should have, like when they were seventeen, and she asked if he'd ever, and he said that he had, kind of; or when she finally, two months later, asked who it had been with and it would have been so easy to let her think that Terry was short for Theresa.
"Ray, are you --"
And it's worked, for some reason it's always worked, but sooner or later, Stella's going to figure out that that's not the guy she needs, and that's just a hop, skip and a jump from not being the guy she wants, either. He just...
This isn't the guy she needs.
The cool air is drying the sweat from his skin, but there's dirt on his knees and beneath his fingernails, and he's thinking about what it takes to be someone else. He's thinking about how humid it was this evening, that the brick of the alley wall was cool beneath his hands, and that the entire time, he already knew that he'd have to throw out the jeans, because there are some stains that just won't come out.
Ray is a good undercover operative because he has always been able to do what he has had to do.
Stella's touching his arm, lightly. "Are you okay?" she asks, quietly, and maybe the wind has shifted because through the open windows he hears music.
("Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on bra, la-la how the life goes on," the Beatles are singing. "Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on bra, la-la how the life goes on.")
"You're going to be an amazing lawyer some day, Stell," he says. "And I'm going to be able to say I knew you way back when." Ray has never lied to Stella, but there are books on the table and bar exams coming up fast. "I'm okay," he says. "Really. I'm fine."
She doesn't look like she believes him, so he wraps her up in a hug and starts poking at all the places he knows she's ticklish.
"Let me go!" she laughs eventually, and pushes him away. "I'm sorry, but I have to study, and you have to shower. You really do." When he blows her a kiss she just shakes her head.
He's laughing on his way down the hall, so it takes him three tries at locking the bathroom door before he realizes his hands are shaking.
"I'm okay," he says, resting his forehead against the door.
"I'm fine," he says, but there are stains on the knees of his jeans, and the good just won't come out.
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