A/N: you didn't honestly think they could make it forever on the course they'd set without it, did you?

also can be found on AO3!

--

By the third time Ray made it to the rink, Joel hadn’t forgotten their bet, even though the funds weren’t exactly the spoils up for exchange.

“So, why do you do it?”

Ray had asked the question to break the silence after Joel had leaned against the wall, fumbling with a pack of Marlboros between cold fingers. The younger had finished his laps that evening, and for the first time, Joel had opted to step through the door with him as Kerry locked up behind them. The words weren’t asked in an incriminatory way, nor were they voiced with an apparent agenda, but Joel hadn’t been expecting it – providing, of course, the most eloquent of responses he could muster.

“Huh?”

Ray gestured to the stick of tobacco he was fighting the wind in an attempt to light. “The smoking. Stressed?”

Joel paused, withdrawing the cigarette from between his lips after his lighter finally sparked long enough to light up. He let out a breath, but the vapor that left his lungs at that moment swirled through the air as frost, not smoke. Looking back to Ray, his shoulders rose and fell with a shrug. 

“Same reason people do anything.”

Ray frowned, shaking his head. “That’s not a fair answer.” He lifted an eyebrow as the older man launched himself from the wall, shoes crunching in the errant piles of snow still on the ground with each step he took toward Ray before he stood in front of him, arms crossed and eyes narrowed not to appear menacing, but to examine the kid staring right back at him. He put his cigarette back between his teeth and took a drag, holding Ray’s gaze all the while and letting the smoke pour from his lips.

“Feels good. Same reason people do anything that feels good, how about that.”

Ray’s tongue incidentally darted between lips too impossibly pink not to notice, now that he mentions things that theoretically feel good.

“You’re not worried you’ll drop dead?”

“Live in the moment,” Joel replied with a laugh, blowing a puff of smoke against Ray’s cheeks, meriting a scrunched up nose and a chuckle in response from the shivering Puerto Rican before him. “At least I won’t die in a freak skating accident.”

He was vaguely expecting the broken-record response from Ray that he’d received in all his years before, the inevitable “you really should stop before the cancer takes your last breath”, but to his mild surprise, he was met with the wind on his face and the kid behind a scarf rocking on his heels staying resolutely in place.

And instead, Ray beamed. “Hey, sounds like the old grump is learning The Lifestyle.” He laid two extended fingers over two from the other hand to form a mock hashtag, mouthing a quick ‘yolo’ and offering a lopsided grin, and if Joel hadn’t been preoccupied with rolling his eyes, he might have found it charming.

The cigarette burned to a stub quickly – whether it was from the wind, or the fact that he hadn’t been paying attention, however, he wasn’t quite sure. But one thing he was sure of was the fact that Ray had mentioned that he lived across town, and was attempting to unlock a bike from the bike rack near the doors they’d exited through not long before.

“You rode a fucking bike over here?” Joel blinked, squinting confusedly at Ray, who was in the process of sifting through his keys. “Is this a regular occurrence?!”

Ray frowned, turning to face Joel from where he knelt by the rack. “Yes? The freeway is empty at night, and there’s backroads, it’s really not a big de-“

Joel poked him gently with a foot, shaking his head. “You are an idiot,” he interrupted softly. “You must be exhausted.” He watched Ray shake his head defiantly, and almost laughed – sympathetically, not with any crueler intentions – when he yawned immediately afterward. Something in his chest thrummed like a string when he saw it, though, and he couldn’t help the question that escaped his mind directly following it.

“I can drive you.”

He surprised himself, and he must have surprised Ray too from the way his keys fell from his grip with a mild curse. The younger visibly paused in his movements, though, turning to look up at Joel from where he squatted on the ground. “You mean it? I don’t want to trouble you, though, I’ve gotten home fine before.”

Joel’s shoulders rose and fell. “I don’t mind. In fact, as long as you’re onboard with the idea, I insist, because I’d rather not have you refuse and end up roadkill.”

“You sure I’m safer in your metal deathtrap than mine?”

With a smile he’d classify as only mildly condescending, Joel stepped out of Ray’s line of sight to gesture to his car, and decided it really wasn’t good for his ego to see the kid’s eyes get so wide at waist-level. Even over a car, for Christ’s sake.

But through all the history of modern technology, who ever said that people couldn’t be impressed by the nice ones?

Ray’s eyes lit up as quickly as the dashboard when Joel put the key in the ignition, and the older man noticed with a humored snicker. He turned to Ray with his wrist on the wheel, who glanced up from the message he’d been typing.

“So, how far is your place, exactly?”

Ray’s fingers stilled on the keys he’d been tapping, not bothering to fight the smile creeping onto his lips as he decided he really liked the sound of that.

“Depends on how fast you drive.”

Joel grinned with too many teeth to be remotely safe or sane, and something deep in Ray’s gut began to stir when he saw it. He sent off the message, a brief text me in 20 minutes and remind me that he’s in his 40s? sent to Michael, before he slid his phone into his pocket and curled his fingers around the edge of his seat.

--

As it turns out, Joel took Ray’s answer not as a time constraint, but instead, as a challenge. Despite Ray’s half-hearted attempts at protesting, they’d taken off down the freeway pushing 110, and with the windows down and the wind blowing through their hair down a deserted stretch of straight, empty asphalt, he quickly decided between bouts of laughter that Joel was either insane or showing off. Or both.

“So you’re into luxury cars, I take it?” Ray momentarily let out a breath and relinquished his grip on the leather once he’d gotten the words out, but before too long, Joel rounded a bend and his knuckles quickly whitened again. He turned to meet the older man’s laughter with narrowed eyes, gesturing helplessly to the speed limit signs that whizzed by.

“High-performance,” Joel corrected with a sneer. “They use these to race for a reason, why not drive ‘em like they’re made to be driven?”

They tore down the road like they were never going to stop, and god, it was so liberating. He swallowed the less than heavenly thoughts creeping into his mind, bit his tongue and willed his mind to rear back from the blood that had been pooling beneath his belt since they’d started this little dance, but fuck, this kid made it so hard with his pink lips and wide eyes. Oh, yeah, he noted as his eyes flicked over to Ray, who was leaning back in the leather seat and watching the streetlights fly by when he wasn’t sending glances over to Joel himself, he made it really hard.

Ray practically purred his name in half-hearted protest when they went around a curve a little too fast (which Joel admitted, but hey, he’d been at this for years, and if he didn’t trust himself to not endanger another life, he wouldn’t have offered to take the kid home in the first place), almost caught in the wind and almost toobreathy to pick up at first, but dear Jesus in heaven, he was willing to bet that his name would sound even better falling from those lips as a sigh. He glanced over as Ray gripped the door handle tight with his lips stretched into a grin, turning what came dangerously close to a half-lidded glance into an investigative one. His hands tightened on the steering wheel before he knew it, and he quickly shifted his gaze back to the asphalt after he saw the movement catch Ray’s line of sight, instead focusing on the broken lines disappearing faster and faster from his view.

Ray just eyed him from where he sat, though – and yet, here they were in a moving vehicle, and the kid’s eyes were screaming challenge. Like they always had. He was sure he was sitting there formulating the perfect thing to say, hell, he’d tried to play it off like he was scared, but if the way he was perched there biting at his lips so impishly was any indication–

“You’re gonna kill us, you realize. For Christ’s sake, let me live another week.”

Joel loved being right. Ray didn’t sound scared a bit, and he knew Joel knew that. In fact, the younger man sounded utterly charged, and before too long, he was perched on the edge of his seat, shooting snide remarks about Joel’s driving every time he took it upon himself to swerve and send Ray flying against the door with a grin and a burst of laughter.

By the time they’d taken Ray’s exit, Joel had slowed down enough to not attract undue attention from a few errant patrolling officers they passed on the way to his apartment, but that didn’t stop Ray from executing a theatrical sigh once he’d parked and turned the car off.

Joel chuckled as he left the keys dangling from the ignition. “Thank you for flying with us,” he offered with a flourish, mouth curving in the dark. Ray snorted with a shake of his head in reply, sending a distrait glance not quite in Joel’s direction. “Yeah, well, thanks for not encountering any unexpected turbulence. Like other cars. Or landmarks.”

There was a beat as they sat there for a minute in the dark, knowing that once the glow of the lights came on above them, it would count for more of an answer than anything less than a ‘so, what do we do now?’ murmured into the uncertain silence. It would’ve been so easy if it were anyone else, Joel thought to himself; hell, the exit stage left, fade to black! would’ve been like riding the tide, and whatever happened when their fingers either laced with Joel’s own or waved goodbye would happen as it would.

As it always had, right?

But this kid wasn’t anyone else. And that made the whole thing so complex and uncertain and easy to overthink.

Not to mention as alluring as the devil himself.

So Joel wasn’t surprised when Ray was the one to finally speak up, looking him in the face when he came back down from his thoughts with eyes very dark and very amused.

“So, how long are we going to do this dance?”

It was a question asked innocently enough, but his eyes were sparkling with the brand of teasing that Joel had come to know as strikingly characteristic of everything Ray and associated otherwise. The kind of teasing that sounded like he really didn’t want it to stop. Especially since dropping the kid off halfway across town after getting eyeful after eyeful, accidental and not-so-accidental contact, and snark that nearly put his own to shame – and then proceeding to stare that in the face like Ray was staring at him, and leave? – was the shittiest excuse in the book to leave him hanging.

And they couldn’t have that.

Joel was the one that closed the space between them without any more hesitation, putting a hand at the back of Ray’s neck to pull him in and pressing his lips against Ray’s own, and the air that left both sets of lungs might have sounded a little more like finally if they hadn’t been caught up in stealing each other’s breaths.

The kiss they shared wasn’t frantic, but savored the slow moments and built on all the tension and the quips they’d been exchanging for weeks, and god, it felt so good. The stroke of Ray’s tongue in his mouth was a welcome departure from all the times it’d been used against him, and before too long, Joel had his fingers threaded in his hair and would’ve been more prone to considering the self-control he was threatening to abandon. They’d thrown caution out the window when they’d traversed the freeway, and at this point, where they kissed each other open-mouthed and absolutely ached with desire, they had no intent on reeling it back in.

He smiled against his lips when Ray gripped him by the collar – which was not at all a surprise, he thought to himself – and pulled him close, right up against the gear shift and very nearly out of his seat, but he savored the noise of surprise (quickly followed by contentment) that reverberated from his throat when he slid a hand around the kid’s narrow sides and pulled him back. His palm traced the curve of Ray’s back all the way down to the jeans hanging low on his waist, wrapping around and squeezing just in time for Ray’s teeth to graze his lower lip teasingly and the groan he received for his efforts was entirely unabashed. Joel’s other hand made its way to cup Ray’s jaw, determined to keep a hold on the creature in his hands that was all teeth and tongue and hot enough to make him wonder if he’d disappear when the fog from the windows cleared.

When they finally broke the kiss to come up for air, Joel caught himself considering the best way to maneuver Ray over the console to land in his lap, but thankfully, Ray offered a more than viable alternative when he breathed “walk me up?” against his lips with a small smile.

Joel ducked out of the driver’s seat faster than he remembered managing such a feat ever before, closing his door with a click and rounding the front of the car to meet Ray on the other side. The Puerto Rican tugged a hand through his wind-tangled hair, a familiar feeling of warmth beginning to pool in his gut as Joel stood in front of him.

“You didn’t have to drive so fast if you wanted to impress me,” he offered archly, crossing his arms to will away the faint flush that lingered his cheeks.

The corner of Joel’s lips quirked up, and he didn’t miss a beat.

“If I thought I needed to impress you, you would have been gripping something other than the edge of your seat.”

And if there was any doubt before whether Ray could keep up, the thrill that flickered through his eyes at that moment was unparalleled.

Ray willed himself for all he was worth not to lower his gaze, and Joel could see the determination in his eyes – quite likely because he probably knew it would look demure, and it was equally likely that Ray, being the argumentative little firebrand that he was, really wasn’t about to go for such apparent vulnerability in front of someone who just recently had their tongue down his throat, Joel thought to himself – but suddenly maintaining his gaze in pools black enough to swallow the sun was looking more and more difficult. 

Ray’s fingers were tangled with his own faster than he could register, and he made it up the steps of the apartment complex while mostly retaining his grace, but by the time they’d reached what he could only assume was Ray’s front door, Joel had gripped him by the hips and pressed him against the wall, a knee between his legs, desire thrumming through his veins and pressing hot and hard against him from Ray’s end, too. 

“You can either kiss me goodnight out here, or in there,” Ray said when they parted long enough for him to speak, eyes burning with the implication as he watched Joel’s gaze drop and rake back up his flushed form. It was sudden, and the words he’d left unspoken rang louder in Joel’s ears than even what he’d uttered, but in that moment, between the way Joel’s grip tightened at the wrecked hoarseness in Ray’s voice and the speed in which the words went straight to his dick, he figured the look he returned would tell him all he needed to know.

Ray fished his keys out of his pocked, which was a feat Joel had no intent to simplify, so by the time he’d fended him off and searched for the lock in the dark, they were leaning against the doorframe for support. The lock finally turned with a satisfying click, and he hardly had time to push the door open before dragging Joel through the entryway.

He glanced at his phone to see a reply from Michael before he managed to close it, and shot one back by the time it had clicked shut behind him.

It’s been 25 minutes, but I think it’s safe to say he’s still in his 40s.

too late. he’s in his 40s, drives like a maniac, think he just taught me french, and is currently in my apartment. #yolo

--

They dragged each other up the stairs, ending atop the landing and pressed to each other in a flash. Ray’s arms were linked in a heavy collar around Joel’s neck by the time they made it to the bed, hauling the older man down with him when Joel shoved him onto his own mattress. He landed above him, close enough to feel both sets of lungs expanding, but far enough away for Ray to have to twist his fingers into Joel’s shirt in earnest and demand his attention without saying a word, given a well-placed tug and brush of his fingers. And when Joel’s gaze swam into focus, Ray’s eyes were wide and full of wonder, and Joel vaguely began to consider the fact that he might have a virgin in his palms before he ran a steady hand up the inside of Ray’s thigh almost absentmindedly and received a buck of the hips in reply. So naturally, all other thoughts moved to the wayside as he stood on his knees, wrapped his arms around Ray’s lower back, and moved him so he was sprawled out and panting in his own sheets, arms spread wide and anticipatory at the head of the bed.

Joel moved up the bed between the fabric of the sheets and the increasing strain of his jeans, settling between Ray’s legs when he reached the pillows and pressing open mouthed kisses between the younger’s thighs. He tugged the beltloops that rested against his hipbones into hooked fingers when Ray’s fingers found their way into his hair, tangling encouragingly before tightening when Joel’s tongue flicked out to trace a line up the seam between his legs. He yanked on the sheets and did a piss poor job of stifling the lewdest of groans, but it only urged Joel on, unapologetic smile curving against Ray’s erection as he pressed kiss after heated kiss to the warm flesh beneath the denim.

When he looked up, he was met with shining lips bitten a deep shade of red and hands that were quick to pull him the rest of the way up the bed, and fuck, the way Ray was rutting against him made him want to lock them both in the bedroom forever. He’d made it far enough up to press his body flush against the one beneath him before Ray hooked one, no, both legs around his waist and hummed his content down Joel’s throat, and if Joel was perfectly honest with himself, whatever self-control he’d scraped together that was keeping him from taking this beautiful soul then and there was looking less and less appetizing in the overwhelming presence of the sight laid out before him. So he opted to do instead what his libido had been screaming since he set a foot in the guy’s apartment, and what Ray had been whispering in every touch and satisfied little groan he’d managed.

He wasn’t expecting Ray to grab him by the shoulders and flip him on his back, though, pressing him up against the spokes on the headboard and climbing into his lap like he belonged there, and god, he should’ve fucked this kid ages ago. Every well-placed sigh against his lips was a reminder, every lingering graze of his fingers against fabric that quickly gave way to bare skin, and his cock twitched in agreement.

Their shirts were the last to join the mess of clothes littering the floor and the bed, somewhat ironically, and aside from the mess of bruises Ray had no doubt acquired from his antics on the ice, Joel was floored by how pale his skin was. Or maybe how he swore his own eyes were going to roll back in his head if he didn’t get his mouth on every inch of it immediately.

“Kid, you’re way too fucking dainty for your own good, know that?” he murmured, running a curious hand over the bruises gently enough to merit a breath Ray sucked through his teeth. “Don’t call me kid, and definitely don’t call me dainty,” he grit out in reply, “unless you plan on marking me up.”

And to that, Joel opted for a simple reply, pressing his lips to the curve of his collarbone with a graze of teeth and grinning wide as Ray tossed his head back, a groan escaping from deep in his throat.

It didn’t take long before the quiet sighs and broken pleas for more started making Joel’s head spin, and between his own erection – which was getting increasingly difficult to keep to the wayside for sake of passion and drawing those beautiful noises from the creature perched on top of him – and the other pressed hard against his waist, dripping against Ray’s belly, he opted to break the kisses in favor of something a little more satisfying.

“Do you have… ?” He hardly got the fragmented question out before Ray leaned to the side and had a foil packet between his teeth, followed quickly by rubber between his fingers, rolling down the length of Joel’s cock and dear Jesus, alright, so he’s positively not a virgin.

He watched Ray swing a leg back over his waist and nearly clawed the mattress open when the younger ground his hips down on Joel’s, erections brushing against each other while Ray rocked against him. He held Joel down with an extended arm latched to his forearm while his other hand slid around his back and disappeared from sight, and judging by the no less than heavenly sigh that Ray let out, Joel could only guess where it went. The tell-tale bottle of lube that dropped to the floor soon after was just icing on the cake.

“You’re a fucking tease,” he breathed, craning his neck to get an eyeful as Ray worked himself open. “At least let me help.”

“Nope,” Ray taunted with a wide grin and a tsk behind a waved finger, “this is for laughing when I hit the ice.”

Joel looked entirely aghast, eyes widened in disbelief. “You’re joking. You’d keep me from--?” His hips jerked up in defiance, but Ray held him back down, squeezing his sides between his thighs while he received a low groan as a reward. The look on his face quickly flickered to something a little less controlled as his breathing picked up, rocking against Joel’s pelvic bone with intention maddeningly apparent. Joel leaned back in exasperation, flexing his wrist in Ray’s grip and reaching for the younger’s waist with his free hand (to no avail, as Ray moved out of his reach with a teasing chuckle), meeting the younger’s eyes with a sharp glance clouded in lust when his makeshift bond didn’t budge.

He pressed his lips together in frustration for a moment. “You just live for an audience, don’t you?” Joel eyed him carefully, not even bothering to hide the sneer on his lips as the hand behind Ray’s back slowed.

And the smile that broke out across Ray’s face shortly after was certainly telling.

“Just watch, like you’re so good at doing already,” he sighed between staggered breaths and a faint quirk to his lips that Joel knew his imagination hadn’t simply conjured up. “You’ll get your chance to touch soon enough.”

Another unexpected lurch of Joel’s hips produced a beautifully lewd cry from Ray’s throat, though, so he made the executive decision that keeping his hands off was proving a little too taxing for his tastes, and playing nice just wasn’t his style.

Plus, the noise that Ray made when Joel pulled him down and rolled on top of him was nothing short of glorious.

“Couldn’t wait that long, huh?” Ray giggled against Joel’s shoulder as he shifted above him, laughter quickly turning to a whine as the older man slid a finger into him. “You say that like you weren’t putting on a show,” he said with a roll of his eyes, slipping a second in without wasting any time and all but consuming the gasp he was met with.

When he finally slid his fingers out, he wondered momentarily how begging would sound snaking past Ray’s lips, but Joel was well aware he’d send them both into a frenzy if he waited any longer. So he coaxed Ray’s legs open wide, whispering filthy things against Ray’s neck and kissing skin that was hot enough to feel an inch away in time to the shudders wracking the body beneath him. “God, I could lose myself in you,” Joel murmured, gripping the backs of Ray’s knees and pressing his thumbs into the sides almost tenderly. “Fuck, Ray, want to fill you up so goddamn bad.”

Ray met his gaze when he pulled himself up and placed all his weight on his palms, the younger’s eyes glazed with want and everything else positively dripping in a sheen of lust, and it was enough to draw thirty kinds of swears from Joel’s tongue had he been able to say anything when Ray arched off the mattress and showed him just how well he could bend.

Joel’s fingers fanned out over pale skin as he held Ray’s legs up over his head, pressing his calves to the mattress in one smooth, fluid movement and following with wonder the way Ray’s muscles gracefully complied. “You’re some kind of flexible, kid,” Joel breathed, lining up with Ray’s entrance as a broken moan escaped from the younger’s lips before he grates out a quick “if you call me a kid one more time I will kick you out of this bed, so just shut up and fuck me”, rocking forward so Joel’s dick rubbed against him just enough to cause sweet, delirium-inducing friction that he wanted to remember forever, and at this point, Joel decided he was beyond thrilled to comply. So he hiked him up against his hips, pushed his knees back one last time, and slid in.

A sibilant curse escapes from between Joel’s parted lips as Ray offers a breathy ‘oh, fuck’ of his own, fingers finding their way to the back above him and clutching tight as Joel pressed forward, burying himself to the hilt. Fingers that soon clutched for purchase when he drew back and thrust in again, nails that dug into Joel’s back when he breathed an airy “how’s that?” across the younger’s lips and drew out a low, visceral moan in reply. “Ah, god- shit, you’re so good,” Ray managed, meeting his next thrust halfway and crying out when Joel finally, finally wrapped his fingers around Ray’s cock and pulled in time to his thrusts.

“Fuck, Ray,” Joel breathed, tightening his grip before picking up the pace. He could tell Ray was dangling on a hinge, expression twisted in pleasure while he crowed out obscenities between frantic, fragmented speech that heightened with every surge forward that Joel offered, and when he slowed down to a teasing pace simply to see what he’d extract from the younger man, he was met with the loveliest “fuck, oh god, Joel, don’t you dare fucking stop--” that certainly swayed him to indulge.

Ray’s fingers fell to the bed, clutching at the sheets before moving to wrap around the spokes on his headboard, half to stabilize and the other to have something to hang onto without raking Joel’s back half to hell, and Joel might not have noticed if his head hadn’t tossed back and exposed his beautiful throat in the process. When his hand moved from Ray’s leg to fall against the mattress, pressing his chest to the one beneath him and latching his teeth to Ray’s neck, the tang of salt-slicked skin and almost sweat hitting his tongue immediately, he received a moan so desperate and utterly wrecked that it nearly drove him to the edge right then and there.

And by the time he did, he managed to gasp out his name through bitten-back groans he’d stopped trying to stifle the minute he heard Ray cry out his own. He felt Ray tense beneath him, slicking his chest and Joel’s hand when he comes with a shuddering gasp, and Joel fucked into him a few more times to ride out the sweet release before the exhaustion hit.

When he slowed to a stop, Ray sighed beneath him, tugging him down beside him with a tired smile. Before either of them said anything, though, Ray surprised them both by pressing a chaste kiss to his lips, both of them dazed and depleted and perhaps breathing a little too hard to be sharing one, but there was something about the gesture that left them both smiling into it. By the time they parted and Joel had stripped the condom off, Ray had murmured something about him spending the night if he wanted, and between the sleep tugging at his eyelids and the all-consuming warmth of his bed, Joel could have kissed him again.

The next morning, Ray rolled over and had his face buried in the scent of his pillow for a good ten minutes before he sat bolt upright in bed and remembered, in his dazed transition to wakefulness, that he didn’t wear cologne. Memories of the night before came flooding back like the light through his blinds, and when he turned over, his eyes fell to the pillow beside him, where a lone piece of paper lay with ten digits and a note.

“Investigation still incomplete – need further data collection. Might be less likely to put money on that assumption after first trial, though.