#skree writes

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"Have I ever told you how much I hate you?"

Ray practically heard the grin on the caller's lips before he'd formed his reply, and decided quickly, despite the fingertips that burned hot against his own skin as a decidedly unsatisfactory substitute for Joel's own, that this particular show of desperation was probably best executed without an audience.

Well, an audience that would see how flushed he was getting not even three minutes into the call, anyway. The listener on the other end of the line was evidently indulging as a voluntary captive.

"Tell me and your mattress all about it."

Ray groaned at the voice over the speaker, depositing the phone among the mussed blankets from where it had rested against his cheek as he moved up the bed. 

"You could at least deliver, asshole. How do you even know I'm in bed?"

"I can hear it in your voice. The fabric shifts too, you know. Very subtle."

Dick, Ray hissed between his teeth, moving onto his stomach. He'd agreed on coming into work early, which he'd immediately regretted once the handshake transpired, and Joel had happened to agree to stay late. He'd insisted Ray go on to sleep without waiting up, but when the younger sent a flurry of texts that had likely distracted him from his editing haze, Joel opted for what he was calling a humanitarian approach.

One that no doubt turned to torture once Ray answered the phone with a whine that sent all altruistic intent on Joel's part spiraling into despotism, and Ray wouldn't dare admit that he liked hearing this side of the older man. The side one might easily overlook if they didn't know him as well as Ray did; the side that culminated in a commanding edge to the low, gentle tone he'd been known for.

So here he lay, restless and hard and alone, and he'd be damned if he didn't draw sympathy for his cause from the elder. 

"Tell me you don't want to be here, Joel," he cooed, moving his hips from side to side as he spoke, fingers lingering just within the elastic of his briefs. "You wouldn't have to imagine, you could just be home, here, destressing and experiencing."

"But that would take the fun out of hearing you come undone."

Between the tapping on a keyboard in the background and the hesitance in his tone, he sounded distracted.

Ray sneered. That just wouldn't do.

"Joel," he murmured, dragging the name out on his lips into a moan as he rutted against the mattress beneath him, folding his arms beneath his head and allowing his hips to move on their own, "nothing fits like you do."

The intake of breath on the other end of the line was telling enough. Ray grinned as the tapping fell silent.

"You make this thing called ‘work’ really hard sometimes, kid.”

“That’s kind of the idea,” Ray breathed, words cascading into a sigh as his hips glided forward, moving his cock against the fabric between. His skin was starting to heat up and he could feel it where his fingers had begun to dig into the sheets, on the verge of perspiring but trapping it in for the sake of friction’s expense. “But I didn’t know we were calling your dick work.”

He heard Joel’s laugh from low in his throat, and sucked his lip between his teeth in an earnest attempt to focus on the task at hand.

“Well, well. Your agenda is crystal clear.”

“So tell me about yours,” the younger sighed, dipping his head beneath his arms to suppress another lewd groan as his hips meet the mattress. “Make this empty bed more appealing.”

“Not empty, and you’re making it pretty appealing from the sound of it.”

“Joel.”

“Maybe if I were there, I’d pull you on top of me so you could do what you’re doing with your hips to mine.”

A jolt went through Ray’s nerves as his hand slid from where it clutched the sheets to flatten against the mattress.

“Like that, huh?”

“You know I do. I’d get my fingers slick and get to work filling you up.”

He doesn’t have to call Joel a tease for him to know and bear the title well. Ray’s head fell to the sheets and he braced himself against the mattress, movements of his hips working sharper and harder against it as he lifted his fingers to his lips, taking the digits in his mouth and swirling his tongue around them with ease. He remembered the long nights that had faded too quickly with the rising sun, stretching by with every part of Joel meeting Ray’s lips at least once, and almost always beginning with his fingers, amongst other popular selections that certainly allowed for the proverbial “pass go, collect $200” with which he absolutely lived to indulge himself. Joel didn’t seem to mind, either, capitalizing on his little oral fixation with absolute pleasure. Ray made sure of that.

“And I know you like it when I rub circles,” Joel continued, gentleness apparent in his voice alongside the razor’s edge, “tease you to the point of pleading so by the time I slide in, I can feel you relax around my dick and god, Ray, it’s so fucking good. You’re so fucking good.”

He wasn’t shaking. Nope. He certainly didn’t almost bite his fingers off from a mix of frustration and arousal.

“Relentless, aren’t you?” Ray gasped around his fingers instead, pulling the shimmering digits from his lips and licking a stripe across his palm in substitute for that of the older man.

“Just want to watch you come for me, push you to the edge again and again and hear my name falling from your lips every single time. That sound good to you, baby boy?”

Oh god. One of Joel’s strong suits was what he didn’t leave to the imagination. Ray wasted no time palming his way down his front to finally wrap shaking fingers around his aching erection, relishing the slickness against his skin as he ran a thumb down the side with a groan. With the words in his ears and the thoughts in his head, it was just enough to add an extra spark to the movements of his hips, taking advantage of and creative liberty with the dark room and the warmth of their bed. He felt it so clearly that he ached with arousal, so imagining it was Joel’s hand working between his parted legs with his voice against his ears was simple.

Joel made sure he remembered to voice his contentment, too, refusing to continue until he heard proof of Ray’s enthusiasm.

“How’s it feel? Fingers slick enough for you?”

Under any other circumstances, he might have cursed the day he’d lusted after the man’s smug side. But Ray had no trouble spilling what’s on his mind, holding back only to keep himself from babbling as he murmured against the fabric of the bunched-up sheets, wrist moving in erratic jerks as his eyes drifted shut. “So fucking good, Joel, oh my god—”

“Don’t stop. I want your back to arch up against that mattress like you do against me when I fuck you, want you sensitive and desperate and willing to fucking beg me for it. Like you’d keep yourself hard until I got home and could finish you off myself.”

It’s almost like Joel knew how intoxicatingly thick the haze of lust sat in Ray’s mind, because his legs were shaking and he was so close to hurdling over the edge, but god, he’d do anything he asked for getting him to feel like this. And he was fucking shameless in letting him know.

“Anything you want,” Ray gasped, “fuck, I’ll do anything, just—”

“In fact, my only regret in this lovely dilemma of ours is I can’t be there to lick up every drop you’re about to spend, and keep the momentum rolling for a round two so fast you shake in my hands by the time I’m finished with you. At least, not yet.”

His lips had long since fallen to autopilot, and between murmured words of encouragement from Joel, Ray was writhing in his palms.

“God, Joel—”

“Come for me, Ray, let me hear it,” Joel finally, finally coaxed, and it sounded like the fucking sky had opened up. “Hell, let the entire complex hear it.”

For all the sounds that escaped Ray’s lips prior, every moan and every sigh, he complies with gusto. Joel’s name drips from his tongue like verse as he comes, arching up with teeth grit as he imagines him there watching the thick cum sliding between his fingers and dripping onto his thighs. He rode it out vocally just as he did with his wrist, squeezing just as Joel did because even if he couldn’t be there to watch, Ray wanted to be good for him, especially if good meant partaking in such deliciously filthy things.

And god, the praise during and throughout made good feel even better.

Past the haze that followed, Ray allowed himself the luxury of finally sinking into the mattress as he lay still, smiling as Joel promised he’d be home as soon as he could. He grinned at the shake in the older man’s voice while he licked his hand clean, followed quickly by a reiteration of the sudden dedication to a time-efficient work ethic and something muttered beneath his breath that Ray swore sounded like a backhanded compliment.

also posted to ao3. consider this a thank you to every single one of you beautiful people. 

--

Joel was half-asleep, submerged in a dream into which he’d only dipped his mind for what seemed like a minute when the echo of a familiar, insistent voice pervaded the room. The air was warm, despite a fan that blew softly in the back, and the sheets smelled… unfamiliar.

Once the voice called his name, to his mild discontent of being roused, though, he could only grasp at the tails of sleep like a departing train.

“Joel.”

“Mm?”

“Joel, get up, we have to go.”

“Mm, anything you want, just give me a minute.”

“Joel.”

Joel smiled into his pillow.

“Ray.”

“We have to go.”

“Only things we have to do are die and pay taxes.”

He could hear the exhaustion in Ray’s voice. Or maybe it was exasperation, he couldn’t be sure. Either way, Ray certainly wore it best, he noted with a smirk he knew the other couldn’t see.

“So help me god, if you don’t get out of bed, I’ll leave you here and you can watch the event when it hits public broadcast.”

Joel finally cracked an eye open at that, rolling over onto his back to cast a look at the source of the voice. Ray stood silhouetted against the soft glow of the morning light, streaming through the split in the curtains, with his hands on his hips. Such an image of serene dimness didn’t last long, though, as the moment Ray noticed his movement, he tore the curtains back, revealing the blinding sun reflecting off the sheen of a glittering sea. A scene that Joel would’ve likely appreciated more a little later in the day, at that.

With a groan, he pulled the pillow from beneath his head and promptly smothered himself with it, offering a low noise of discontentment when Ray snorted in reply.

He heard feet shuffle across the floor, and felt the bed dip under the younger’s weight. He wasn’t expecting the ice-cold fingers that slid beneath his shirt and against his ribs, though, and the rumble of laughter in Ray’s chest when he shot back on reflex, groaning his discontent.

“Practice starts in an hour, babe. I promise we’ll sleep better tonight.”

Something stirred in Joel’s memory as wakefulness began to seep into his mind, bringing back images of the flight the day before, of stumbling through the airport terminal in search of the baggage claim and trying to hail a cab armed with only Google Translate, two hours of sleep cumulative from the red-eye, and a snickering boyfriend.

He sighed a heavy sigh of defeat, swinging his legs over the side of the mattress and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Ray was on his feet in a flash, standing before him and tugging at his hand the moment it left the circles beneath the older’s eyes.

“Come on, if we leave now, we can get coffee in you.”

Joel cracked a smile, meeting Ray’s anxious gaze with a tiredly grateful one of his own.

“How do you say ‘thank you’ in Korean?”

--

By the time they’d gotten to the rink, Ray was fidgeting with the zipper pull his coat, and Joel was awake enough to annoy him into calming down. The cab dropped them off at a private entrance, Joel leading the way with Ray close in tow once they made it out, and after pushing past waves of reporters and photographers, they found themselves at a security checkpoint bustling with noise and sound. It was strangely nostalgic for Joel, but when he glanced at Ray, he saw the apprehension in his eyes, flitting from face to sign to absorb everything.

It was inevitable that Burnie, with impeccable timing as always, would barge in on the moment, approaching like an angry bull and equally as stressed.

“Scram, Joel,” he said with an exaggerated scowl upon reaching the two, waving him off before handing Ray a program and a bottle. But Joel simply side-stepped the maneuver, moving behind Ray to read over his shoulder when Burnie turned the other way to speak to one of the coordinators, rapid Korean coming over the stadium’s loudspeakers as Ray gripped his page so tight his knuckles turned white.

“Hey,” he started, catching Ray’s wrist and pulling him back as soon as Burnie was out of arm’s reach. “Hey, look at me.”

Ray’s eyes met his own, and Joel watched him swallow down his nerves when he spoke. He remembered what it felt like, to have your stomach in knots so much that your throat closed up, oxygen no welcome relief, but every breath instead pressing harder on your lungs until they threaten to give out.

“It’s sort of funny,” Ray said finally- maybe sighed, finally, biting at his lip as he pulled a hand through his hair. “This is going to be televised all over the world, right? Like, millions of people are gonna be watching live, and hell, it’s going to be recorded for later, but…” He trailed off, shaking his head with a harsh laugh. “Nah, never mind, it’s... never mind.” He tried to pull his hand free to move away, but Joel laced his fingers with his, pulling him close and letting their foreheads touch.

“Scared?”

Ray swallowed again, closing his eyes.

“Might be.”

Joel thought for a moment, “I, uh, feel like I’d be shooting you in the foot if I suggested picturing the judges in their underwear.”

Ray’s expression split into a grin when he laughed at the words, delighted and sincere, and Joel squeezed his shoulder with a smile.

He looked at Joel with light in his eyes and color in his cheeks.

“Only you, dude.”

Joel put his hands up in mock-defense, snickering. “I know, I know, we’ve got weird-ass circumstances, but seriously, you should’ve learned to expect—”

“No,” Ray continued, hands at the dip of Joel’s spine as he pulled him close, “not that.” He was looking up at him with a gaze that burned like fire, held his own with a grip he’d always maintained with a startling level of tenacity. Joel figured it was cheesy to tell him he took his breath away, and he’d probably save it for when he was drunk, but those eyes made him want to tell Ray he felt like he was caught in a rainstorm because he felt them everywhere, not to mention long after they’d gone.

And even if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t look away.

“Meant that knowing you’re here is sort of what’s keeping me grounded. You keep me focused.” Ray tipped his head to the side, looking up at Joel with a sparkle in his eyes. “Kind of ironic, all things considered.”

And god, it really was.

Joel remembered the long afternoons that turned into evenings and early mornings they’d spent at the rink, the three of them together, Ray on the ice while he and Burnie kept watch. Burnie had begrudgingly asked Joel to copilot their training for the last few months, since they’d decided Ray’s break-out routine for the event had to be equally flashy as it was memorable, and the routine they’d chosen was one Joel had medaled with years before (which was an ego boost for the older that Burnie sorely regretted). They had practiced for months together, ensuring the skater hit every note and nailed every axel, and occasionally frustrated the poor kid to the point of rendering himself immobile, but the result was well worth the effort and occasional screaming match. The two of them had looked to each other and sneered when Ray deemed the two, amongst other choice words, ‘the coaches from hell’.

By the time they’d perfected it, Joel was astonished Ray still let him anywhere near his bed.

Hell, he could only wish he were poetic enough to tell him how impressed he was by the time their work with him was done, at least, in more than a nod and a smile once the music finished. How else would he forsake bias? He’d remembered thinking it at the beginning, the very beginning, when he lay awake next to Ray wondering desperately how he could tell him politely that hey, I think I’m falling in love with you, or at least how to be diplomatic enough so as to not scare the kid away with the notion that he was a total disaster’s object of affection.

And now, perhaps if he really were that poetic, he could tell Ray that he’d steal the spotlight just like he’d stolen his breath all that time ago.

A throat was cleared, and a familiar face appeared to their left, diverting both sets of eyes.

“Practice group is up soon, Ray.”

Burnie was getting impatient, Joel could tell; he was doing that stare-off thing he was so fond of. Apparently in all the years they’d known each other, no one else had the heart to tell him that it made him look like a bird with its chest puffed out.

Ray looked one to the other, crooked, nervous smile crossing his lips before he murmured ‘have to go, I have to go’ into the space left between them. Joel nodded, glancing at Burnie before shifting his gaze back to Ray.

“A2, row—”

“Row F, seat two, I know, fuckhead, you always sit in the same place.” Ray’s grin was sincere, and Joel figured he’d let him win, just this once.

“Alright, alright, I’m leaving.” He pinched Ray’s cheek impishly, dodging the whack the younger sent toward his left shoulder. Before he could protest further, Joel pulled him into a kiss that caught him between breaths, smiling against his lips before he moved back. “Go get ‘em,” he murmured, biting back the grin from the swell in his chest as he pushed him toward the gate.

--

When Joel lifted his eyes from the program to see who had prodded at his knees, he was met with a beaming Jack and Caiti. He lifted his legs from where they sat on the seat in front of him to allow Caiti to pass, lowering them again with an innocent look when Jack tried to get past.

“Come on, save some room, old man.” Jack rolled his eyes as he claimed the seat next to Joel with a good-natured huff, the older man meeting it with with a silent smirk.

“You couldn’t look happier,” Caiti said, nudging Joel as she moved past him in the row of seats. He moved his hands from where his fingers had steepled on his nose, nodding as if he were coming out of a daze.

“It feels weird being here, like, here,” nodding to the folding seats around his own, “but it’s a good weird.” Joel lowered his finger to point at the rink, squinting at the bluish hue cast upon the ice by the lights. “Mostly remnant nerves from that all those years ago, and then his on top of those, by proxy.”

Turning to Joel, she beamed.  “I’m thrilled for you two, both being here and all. Aside from the nerves, you’re both really in your element.” She took the seat to his right, Jack to his left, looking out over the rink with anticipation. Officials flitted about below, and Joel was almost startled at how suddenly thrilled he was to be so far away from the action, for once.

Jack moved in close and lowered his voice as the lights finally dimmed, as if he had a secret to tell.

“Think he’s going to medal?”

Joel’s shoulders rose and fell, but his expression betrayed him.

“Can’t wait to find out.”

He didn’t say a word more, his smile only growing into a grin.

--

Joel babbled through the extent of the opening announcements and all the time between events, but once the lights were lowered for Ray’s routine, he fell uncharacteristically silent, gaze fixed on the ice. Jack told him later he was muttering under his breath, but he was on the edge of his seat from start to finish, brow furrowed stiff, and by the time Ray landed his final axel, his lips had split into a wide, knowing smile.

He was out of the row, flying down the stairs, and headed for the lower level doors by the time the final note had finished echoing across the rink, and Jack made sure to inform Ray later that Joel had technically been the first one on his feet for the thundering standing ovation.

--

“I thought you were staying in your seat?” There was laughter in Ray’s voice, heightened from the anxious nerves and exhilaration from the performance, and Joel was thrilled to see it in his eyes as he bounded up to him after he stepped off the ice.  

 “I know, I just… god, you were great, and I wanted to be here.”

Burnie, from behind them, hissed a terse ‘you’re here as a favor, Joel, and I swear to Christ, I’m going to gut you if you don’t shut up’, pointing to the screen hanging above them that flickered with an official’s signal that the points had been tallied for the round.

Joel met the coach’s gaze for a moment, sharing a glance that shifted to a crooked smile before either had the chance to look away.

The younger’s eyes were locked on the screen. 

--

Ray’s hands would’ve clapped to his mouth when they announced the gold medalist for the 2018 Winter Olympics if Joel hadn’t pulled him into a kiss, beating him there.  And somehow, as Joel sent him off to mount the podium amidst flashing cameras and beaming coaches, he realized the greatest spoils were the ones waiting for him when he stepped off the ice.

A/N: thank you so much for sticking with this story, everyone. i hope you enjoy reading the final chapter as much as i enjoyed writing it. <3 check the bottom for further notes if you're so inclined.

also posted to ao3!

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“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you’re going to have to lead. I don’t know a thing about your routine.”

“Yeah?” Ray sent him a smirk, and Joel rolled his eyes in exasperation as he finished lacing up and stood on the ice.

“Consider it power bottoming, you know, as per usual,” he added, words quickly followed by a wolfish grin and a resounding ‘fuck you!’ from Ray.

“Just walk me through it, and tell me when to catch you.” Joel glided over, sliding down on his knee as he took Ray’s hand with a flourish before Ray pulled him back up with one of his own. His breath caught in his throat when he realized he’d never seen Joel skate before, never seen him move with the grace and form of a legend, if the videos he’d seen retroactively had done his technique justice – but here he was, a former Olympic competitor, standing in front of him in a hoodie and jeans without having to put up any more false fronts of ineptitude for all that he had been, all that he was.

But what they had wasn’t built on impressing each other with their skates, or upstaging the competition, or even competing professionally; no, he thought to himself as he ran his thumb over Joel’s knuckles with a smile, he’d want him to consider him the messy-haired, sleepy-eyed dinosaur he’d always been.

His eyes shot to the rafters as the lights dimmed, blue side lights shining down and shimmering off the layer of ice while their breath swirled in the air like vapor. Eyeing the change in setting with a wary eye, Ray’s glance shifted to one of placidity as he met the victorious brightness in Joel’s eyes.

“Mood lighting,” Joel elaborated, a grin at his lips. “Come on, I own the place.”

Ray simply rolled his eyes with a plastic smile of his own. “Well, don’t slip on your ego and break your ass, show-off.”

Joel feigned hurt, putting a hand over his heart and staggering on the ice, but Ray just cackled, taking the remote from his fingers. He slid in close to Joel, close enough to feel his breath ruffling his hair and the heat of his body close enough to mimic touch, and when he pressed play, he brushed his lips against Joel’s neck and followed the airy kiss with a smile.

The music began, the same arrangement he’d danced to all those weeks before, and Joel watched, waiting for Ray to set the pace while the piece built up to the starting note. The younger moved into a position to kick off, turning over his shoulder to send Joel a teasing glance.

“Besides, I thought you were done trying to impress me.”

They took off, and Ray wasn’t really sure what he was supposed to expect, but he certainly wasn’t expecting what happened.

Ray fell into his routine seamlessly and Joel chased after him, quick on his heels and moving with a spectacular and very surprising amount of power. It was a peculiar game of trust between the two of them, as Joel had gotten oh so used to all those years before, no doubt, but Ray picked up the partner dynamic with gusto, and Joel certainly noticed. Ray occasionally issued challenges, calling out to Joel with dares like “I’m gonna dip” in contest, and Joel, not to be bested, would shoot back “bend back further, I’ll catch you, I’m used to your curves,” bursting into a fit of laughter as Ray threw up his hands and huffed.

Joel chased him around the rink for quite some time, spinning him with a fluid movement of his arm or grazing his hips with a gentle brush of the hand and a smile, but Ray very nearly stumbled more than he’d readily admit because of how taken he was with Joel’s technique. He moved with confidence, but didn’t exude arrogance; in fact, he looked like he was at more ease on the rink than he’d ever seen him elsewhere, and it was enlivening, magnificent, alluring. His dynamism was incredible, and he moved with a kind of passion that he’d only seen from a handful of skaters in all his years. And the fact that he moved with him, against him, alongside him made it even better.

Things were relatively aligned with what Ray’s routine had originally dictated, with the occasional brush of a hand or fleeting grip on his side, but when the music began to pick up and Ray pulled his leg into the air for a spin, he felt a sudden presence behind him, a steady grip on his hips and a very distinct warmth behind him that spun with him, against him, around and around to the chromatic sway of the music and only disappearing when Joel touched back down to maintain their balance, he looked back at Joel and couldn’t help breaking into a smile.

After a while, Joel’s fingers slid between Ray’s own when they found themselves tracing circles into the icy strata beneath their blades, entwined and providing further momentum as they spun and spun. Ray led most of their movements, but once Joel caught on, he was happy to keep them moving with the entrancing, fluid motions of his arms, and for all the improvising they did, neither of them took any falls.

Ray finally opted to jump, prodding at Joel between grapevines and offering a repeated “catch me, catch me” like a mantra – or a broken record, Joel probably thought – when he bent his legs for a triple axel. When he sprung into the air, Joel did indeed catch him, and not to miss a perfect opportunity to indulge Joel’s taste for the theatrical, Ray put his arms out in a display of flexibility.

“Easy,” Joel hissed with a wince, compensating for the shift in force with a sharp turn, “I’ll admit my knees aren’t what they used to be.”

But Ray shook his head with a smile, kissing his cheek wetly when he hit the ice again and pulling Joel’s hood over his face. “The one time the great Joel Heyman admits his age handicap. Fancy that.”

He extended a hand to brush against Joel’s jaw, who smiled in turn and went in for Ray’s waist, flipping him over his shoulder and bringing him to rest on his back. Ray watched enrapt as he performed rotation after rotation before Joel finally set him back on the ice carefully as the music peaked, allowing him to end the routine with a cantilever that cascaded into a deep-edged glide that hung low to the ice, landing a flying spin on the crescendo. But the fluidity that he maintained all the while evidently kept Joel captivated, because he hung back to watch the final movements. He wrapped his arms around Ray’s waist from behind as he stuck his finish on the piece’s final note, and smiled into his neck when the younger’s fingers found his own.

“Someone’s definitely feeling better,” Ray managed to pant between breaths, grinning when Joel pressed a kiss to his cheek.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for so long,” he murmured into Ray’s hair, drawing the younger man in close with a tug of his arm. “So fucking long.”

Ray’s smile left a warm trace on his lips as he considered what exactly it was that Joel meant, and though he could’ve asked, he had a pretty good idea since he’d been wanting the same thing all along. Flirtations, physical contact, and verbal sparring matches for better or worse aside, it felt different when they’d been on the ice together, and as they stood together in the cool air, Ray thought to himself, maybe everything had finally fallen into place without need for costumes and debonair smiles.

--

By the time they’d stumbled back into Joel’s office, a line of unlaced ice skates and coats shed trailing their journey from the ice to Joel’s chair behind his desk, Ray had affirmed his agreement with gusto.

Ray sat perched on his lap, while Joel buried his face in the crook of his neck, inhaling deeply. ”I really wish we’d done that earlier,” Ray hummed finally, legs splayed on either side of Joel’s own as the older pulled his hips in close. “You’re a great practice partner.”

“Well, I can take the fall for that much.”

And he’d hardly gotten the words out before Ray was snickering, pinching at his side and smiling his familiar smile into Joel’s hair.

“Hey, speaking of which, I’ve missed your criticism.”

He heard Joel pause, and figured he caught the tone he was going for when he sent back a low reply with a fascinated smile.

“Just my criticism?”

Ray grinned with the catlike flash of teeth that reflected back at him in the enticement glittering in Joel’s eyes, and sure, he certainly could’ve settled for a simple answer, but when he was close enough to Joel to breathe in his scent and feel the heat rolling off his skin – close enough, more importantly, to know when to turn a rhetorical question to his advantage – he opted instead to kiss him. Fiercely.

It was more than a kiss, though, because things between them had never stayed as simply as something that could be quantified in single, standard, easy units. No, this was two bodies pressed together, Ray’s form hauled up against Joel’s own when he pressed the older into the chair, who responded by gripping his hips tight and pulling him in, hands pressing into every curve that his fingers flew over – the kind of kiss shared by two that finally met again after far too long, far too much time apart. Joel had one hand to Ray’s neck in no time, and the other beneath the curve of his ass, pulling him flush against his chest with a groan. It was slow, but god, it was sensual, and it all counted for a time of study and rediscovery and realizing it really had been too long, when friction and movement and desire that lay hot and heavy on the tongue for more reasons than one came together in a test to resolve aching need with the kind of flamboyance only performers knew.

Performers that loved the feel of each other even more than the beam of the spotlight, at that, and that surely spoke volumes.

And fuck, if Ray had wanted to bite back the sounds that poured from his lips before, he had no chance in hell now, because from where he was perched atop Joel’s lap, rutting against him and offering gasps like some sort of serenade, he was in a position to indulge and be indulged in return for his efforts. One that Joel evidently enjoyed profusely, if the increasingly vicious nips at the base of his neck were any evidence.

He’d started rocking a familiar rhythm against Joel’s hips before too long, one that made the blood pool below his waistband and his cock press against the spandex hugging tightly to his waist, and by the time Joel’s fingers finally, finally slid teasingly beneath the hem, Ray bucked his hips up so hard that a groan came from his lips with zero abandon to stop it, and he sounded utterly wrecked. Yeah, he’d definitely missed this, Ray thought with a smile, missed being close enough to swallow his sighs and feel how warm he was, how good his touch felt against his skin. The sprawl of Ray’s legs was relaxed enough for Joel’s wrist to coax his fingers into a grip under the fabric, tugging it out of the way and letting their owner kick them off enough for cool air to hit his skin, and Ray was quick to mirror the movement, fingers curling around the button on Joel’s jeans and pulling the zipper down enough to slide his hand beneath denim. And Joel lit up like he’d been powered on for the first time when his grip fixed around him, surging up into Ray’s palm and tossing his head back like he’d been jolted in the process.

He had Joel’s legs pinned beneath him, and Ray was happy to be lucky enough to watch all of it from above, but his fingers were itching to do something more than sit idly on the skin that burned so hot against his touch and his cock was aching against his stomach, so it was all he could do to writhe in his lap and sigh the most lascivious rendition of Joel’s name right in his ear.

And for all the energy he’d put into holding himself together, Joel let everything go right there in that moment, a spectacularly wanton moan falling from obscenely parted lips before he clutched Ray’s hips by the bone and very nearly hoisted the two of them out of the chair.

His voice shook, the question proposed with desperation still clinging to it shamelessly, and the tone of it alone was enough to make Ray dizzy.

The content, though, was what surprised him.

“Are you sure you want…?” the older breathed, voice shaking with astounding self-control as he shifted where he rest beneath Ray. “After what happened, don’t want to seem like I’m just… wanted to know if you were okay. With this, with.. me.”

The words registered in Ray’s mind clearly enough that somewhere in his subconscious, the familiar nervous tone he’d always remembered on Joel roused him momentarily from his hazy state of mind. And they trickled into his heart effortlessly, warming him to the bone.

So he smiled, lacing his arms in a familiar collar around Joel’s neck. “We’ve got a long time to spend talking amongst ourselves,” he whispered, “but you did ask if I’d show you how much I missed you, so yes, I’m more than okay with it.” He sent his hips forward to gyrate against Joel’s own once more, sighing the remainder of the final few words into his neck, and smiled when the hands at his hips tightened.

Ray loved knowing how to find the light switch, but took pride in knowing how to light up the fuse box.

“Want me to fuck you, Ray?”

And there it was, the characteristic bluntness Ray would never admit he missed every night and day. Joel’s words were ragged with want, sly with intent and all-around dirty, so Ray would’ve died before he refused, especially with how good his name sounded on his lips. “God yes,” he all but keened, though the affirmation came out as more of a cracked sob because of how rapidly it crossed his lips. He rolled his hips on Joel’s own, back and forth as Joel’s fingers wrapped around his hot flesh and smeared the sticky liquid he found there over his skin, and he couldn’t help the shameless whine that hummed from deep in his throat when Joel gave him languid strokes full of purpose.

“How about ‘til you ache?”

He shuddered when he heard the words blown hot against his hair, felt the slight curve of Joel’s smile move against his ear when he tugged on his dick again, determined for an answer.

“Might already be aching,” he breathed, willing steadiness into his quaking voice, “and you wouldn’t keep me waiting any longer, would you?”

Joel chuckled against his skin, kissing his cheek in a moment of tenderness before the cap of the lube clicked behind him and cold fingers pressed at his entrance. Ray flexed around him in a moment of abandoned control, fingers tightening where they rest on Joel’s skin, and the older man met the movement with a hiss.

“God, I missed you,” he murmured, burying his face in Ray’s neck once more when the younger lurched at the contact and rocked forward into it in no time. “Missed everything about you.” He breathed long breaths against Ray’s skin, whispering affections across flesh as he moved against him, and swallowed his gasps with open-mouthed kisses pressed soft to his lips.

And by the time he’d worked two fingers in, reducing the younger to whimpers and jerky tremors between swears, Ray couldn’t wait any longer between jolts of sensation reminding him how strongly he returned that sentiment.

“Fuck, Joel, please,” he gasped, pushing his hips back on Joel’s fingers insistently, “want you so bad, I can’t—I need it, need you, just...” He dug his nails into a set of broad shoulders when Joel removed his fingers, and he could’ve rambled on for another six months about how desperately he craved the stretch, the fullness, the entire thing.

Would’ve, probably, if all his thoughts weren’t being filtered through the pulse throbbing in his dick and making focusing on anything that wasn’t the roll of Joel’s voice (and of course, the wordless vocals that accompanied it) extremely difficult.

Joel made a low noise in the back of his throat when Ray gripped him tight, hands shaking as his fingers slid down his cock. The older man jerked sharply when Ray brought his wrist up with a wicked smile, though, grip gliding across his flesh with ease. He grabbed at the Puerto Rican’s hips, evidently maintaining slight distaste at his lapse in control but hardly complaining at how good his fingers felt, no doubt. Good enough that whatever scolding had risen to his tongue left his lips in a long, low moan.

But he managed to pull Ray up from his lap so the younger stood on his knees in the chair, still clinging tight to Joel’s shoulders for balance, and batted his hand away long enough to pull it around his back. Ray sent him a quick glance for affirmation when his fingers wrapped around Joel’s length again, this time guiding it against his ass as his breath hitched, and he watched Joel the whole time. Watched while he lowered himself onto him, watched his eyes threaten to flicker shut when his head pushed against him, and watched his eyes very nearly roll back in his head when he took him all in one fluid movement. And it took him both every bit of willpower he had not to lose it right then and there.

When he opened his eyes, though, and his gaze met Ray’s own unerringly, a wave of tingling warmth went down Ray’s spine, because for all the time they’d spend in the haze of coital contact and shared body heat, this time was somehow different – or perhaps this was just the first time he’d noticed. Joel looked at him like he was the only one he wanted to see, and for someone who lived for an audience, Ray thought to himself with the flavor of something endearing, he craved Joel’s eyes, craved the feeling he got when saw himself reflected back in those pools of brown so dark that they only lit up when they glowed in the sun.

He ached for the physical attention that stemmed from the hands that held him, too; for the contact they initiated when Joel reached around him to pull him close, and for the shocked and entirely unadulterated gasp that he pulled from the elder’s throat when he brushed Joel’s lips with his and rutted his hips against his own, feeling the familiar stretch and grinning when he felt Joel thrust up to meet him. 

“Oh, fuck, I love the way you bend,” Joel groaned finally, hand sliding between their stomachs to stroke Ray’s dick in time with his rocking against Joel’s pelvic bone. A tremor went through his body as he felt Ray tense around him at the contact, to which Ray smiled and rose up enough to drop himself down on his dick again, and Joel didn’t bother withholding a guttural moan before breathing out “there’s really no one like you”, almost inaudibly, and it felt fantastic.

Joel thrust up again to break the gentle swiveling of Ray’s hips he’d initiated when he set out to fuck himself on his cock, not about to be reduced to a complete mess – earning a heightened gasp from the younger, who tossed his head back and felt everything arch. Joel sped up his strokes as he moved, thrusting deep and hard and reveling in the way Ray moved above him, meeting every movement with one of his own like he had in the routine, and it didn’t take long before Ray was clinging to him desperately and warbling away in his ear encouragement to spend himself.

“Joel, Joel, so close—“ He gasped sharply as he felt release approaching fast, pooling in his spine and threatening to take him immediately at the sight of Joel losing his composure beneath him. It took one, two more thrusts and a string of loving words whispered against his skin before he came in Joel’s grip, his name on his lips as he slicked both their stomachs. Joel pulled him against him tightly not too long after and buried positively fervid moans into his neck (of volumes Ray had never heard on him before, he was more than delighted to note), keeping his grip on the younger’s cock and milking him through the rest of his orgasm until he lay pliant and contentedly hypersensitive in his arms.

They waited until their breathing evened out to speak, hanging pleasantly in the warmth of the afterglow and smiling at the way their chests rose and fell together after a few initial, staggered gasps to catch their breath. Joel let his fingers drag idly up and down Ray’s sides, languidly tracing the dips and curves of his ribs and moving to count the ridges on his spine, and Ray was more than happy to let him shower him in the gentlest of kisses for the better part of what had to be an hour, perhaps even more. He’d missed the entirely rapt gaze, and he’d missed the lips, but more than anything, he’d missed the feel of his touch and the warmth of his smile. It may have been reckless to call it all his own, but the more they eyed each other, the more of the shared company Ray found himself craving once more.

In fact, the only time Joel glanced away was when he heard rapid footsteps through the corridor outside, escalating until there was a figure outside his door. It swung open before Joel had time to react, revealing a very angry Burnie with a stack of papers wielded threateningly in his hand as he flew into the room.

“Alright, Joel,” he growled, stepping into the office with a long stride and brandishing the stack, “we need to talk if you’re not looking to get prosecuted, I’m—”

He came to a screeching halt, however, once he got an eyeful of the sight before him. Ray was still spread across Joel’s legs, whose hands were at rest on either side of the roosted man’s hips, and the clothes strewn about the room certainly weren’t helping. Ray looked horrified, glancing quickly from one to the other; from Burnie, who was sporting a bewildered expression and looking white as a sheet in fantastic contrast to Joel’s calm and relatively collected demeanor strung up with a lazy smile.

In fact, to his mild surprise, Joel was the one that finally broke the silence, and Ray wanted to melt into the carpet when the older man looked right at Burnie, despite being half-clothed and in a more than compromising position, and fired off in characteristic form.

“Doesn’t anyone knock anymore?”

Burnie was gaping, too surprised and confused to do much but open and close his mouth for a good thirty seconds while Joel snickered. But when he managed to string together some coherency, he had the full attention of both the men in question.

“What the fuck is going on?” He faltered briefly, allowing enough time for Joel’s fingers to reach behind his chair and swipe a hoodie to wrap around Ray’s waist. Burnie looked at the two of them, lingering on Joel for a minute before putting a hand to his temple with a sigh. “Fuck, talk about the Ghost of Christmas Past. Did I do something to deserve this? Because whatever it was, god, do I regret so, so hard.” He chewed on his lip, combing his brain for words as his brow knit.

“Better question,” Joel interjected, mildly annoyed tone beginning to seep into his voice, “why the hell are you in my office?”

There was venom in Burnie’s voice, but most of its bite was negated by how comically shocked he looked. “I was going to ask why you,” pointing a lone, shaky finger at Joel, who looked back as calmly as he could muster, “abstained from scoring Ray’s program.” He ran a hand through his hair, bringing it to rest on his jaw with a long, traumatized sigh. “Apparently my question answered itself.”

“You’re his coach?” Joel blinked once, twice, taking time to taste the words in his mouth. “That explains a lot.”

Ray finally raised his hand to chime in, offering a very confused “um, so you two know each other?” as the men paused, turning to look at him, then each other.

“Yeah,” Burnie grit out exasperatedly as Joel sent tired eyes toward the ceiling, “we know each other. We skated the same circuit, competed together when we were younger.”

“Hated each other,” Joel added with a burst of laughter. “Mostly him hating me, though.”

And Ray made a noise of agreement before ruffling the older’s hair. “Seems to be a trend.”

Burnie was looking very green at this point, and Ray couldn’t help lapsing into a fit of giggles, too. “Yeah, okay, I think I’m gonna go. I’d rather avoid repeating breakfast.” He slipped back to the entryway carefully, turning when he reached the doorframe and assuming a menacing demeanor once more.

“Be responsible,” he hissed, pointing the threatening finger from before at Joel, who was positively dripping in his habitually smug mien, before turning to Ray and offering up his best attempt at not letting his gaze linger too long. “We’ll be in touch, we’ve got practice to start up,” he sighed, allowing sincerity to tug at his lips for a moment before ducking out the door a little quicker than he came in.

“Should’ve told him I’ve been scoring your program night after night,” Joel said with a snicker as his eyes followed Burnie out the door, bursting into a fit of laughter when Ray playfully whacked his shoulder. When the door swung shut, the combined laughter of the two left remaining lasted for a good while. Their hysterics finally subsided once Ray wrapped his arms around Joel’s neck and rested his head on the older man’s shoulder, contented sigh escaping past his lips.

“Tired?” Joel asked softly, fingers trailing up his side and rubbing familiar circles into his back. The younger nodded, breathing an agreement into his skin and reveling in how relaxed Joel felt. It was a refreshing departure from recent events, and it felt fantastic.

Just like how relaxed he himself felt, come to think of it. The kind of relaxed that felt like he was floating in the ocean beneath a cloudless sky.

“I owe you dinner, after all. How does home cooking sound?”

Turning back to Joel, Ray lifted a brow in confusion, sending a thumb toward a double-digit morning indicator on the nearby clock. “Dinner is half a day away, but I could go for a nap.”

Joel smiled his knowing, crooked grin, the one Ray was growing fonder of with every new instance.

“Well, I figured I’d wake you up to it tonight, if you were interested.”

Of course, Ray agreed with no veiled enthusiasm.

And as he looked at Joel – a pastime in which he frequently indulged during the drive, on the way up his steps, and by the time they were ensnared in Joel’s sheets – he thought about how their eyes were drooping and their thoughts were filled with helium from the dark that had quickly bloomed to dawn, which was now mid-day and about as sure as the sun was to hang in the same place; thoughts about how much he’d missed Joel’s bed, less for the insinuation of the bedroom, but rather, for the tangle of limbs and the shared breaths instead. How he’d missed Joel’s intensity, his ability to light up the mundane, his tendency to make Ray breathe deep instead of hard.

The fact that the laces of their skates were tangled together by the door was just icing on the fucking cake, and it was absolutely, positively perfect. The perfect ending of all the characteristics of someone so right that he’d have to start frantically flipping through grammar books to find the words to tell him appropriately. Performances, no, narrations of the heart were the scariest to begin, after all.

For now, though, it could wait.

So as he lay there, he couldn’t help but smile into Joel’s skin at the way he still felt so vulnerable, so dwarfed in the presence of this creature amounting to far more than skin and bones who lay next to him. His breaths synced up with his own, and even after Ray had realized who he was, he came to find that the reason had nothing to do with the rink. And that realization in itself was enough to make his heart swell like none other.

Funny that the thing they enjoyed as much as each other’s company was what had brought them together in the first place, wasn’t it?

He pressed his nose against the sensitive skin of the older man’s neck as he shifted closer, prodding at his side to which Joel answered with a sleepy ‘mm?’ hummed in confusion.

At that moment, things were as they were – exactly what Ray wanted, and could’ve ever asked for – and to his intrigue, Joel of all people was starting to convince Ray that something even more satisfying than perfection might exist, and it was close enough for him to touch.

An arm snaked around Ray, pulling him close enough to rest his forehead against Joel’s own. He could make out his features in the dark of the room, curtains pulled closed to keep out the light of the day, and the air blowing softly around them to highlight the sounds of their breaths was warm. He was mature enough to know when to speak, but realistic enough to know himself, knew he’d try to put effort into remembering every detail.

Smitten enough to know the only detail that mattered was his company.

As if on cue, Joel took in a breath and let it out in a soft statement that, in its brevity, washed over Ray like wind and summer rain.

“Love you, Ray.”

He opened his mouth to reply, to his credit, only to have the curve to his lips place him into stunned silence. He’d always figured it would hit him when he wasn’t ready, coming at him out of the dark and leaving him gasping for air, but instead, as he realized his smile had split into a grin, it was the kiss after the curtain fell alongside a bouquet of flowers that it always had been.

And as the man beside him finally cracked an eye open, sleepy smile betraying his attempt at feigning slumber, Ray knew all that was left after taking the jump was the comfort in knowing where he’d fall.

--

--

A/N: so in case there's any confusion about whether or not i feel remorse, just know that i do. life's been in full swing over the past two months and i never intended to neglect this story, but i'm hoping what's in store will persuade you all to forgive me? maybe? possibly?

this story is cross-posted to AO3, and as always, thank you for reading. your support really is what keeps me going.

--

Ray was half convinced he’d developed a dependency when he found himself replying to the e-mail thread with the rink’s director the night he’d gotten back, only to return to the rink two days after. Something in his head had told him it’d helped, but he must have also convinced himself that the best way to sure of it was to keep returning.

When he got to the rink that night, though, he had to admit he was feeling better. More social, maybe.

He found Kerry pretty quickly once he’d gathered his bearings after he’d arrived, flagging him down before he’d caught his breath from the cold air outside, and waving a few separate times to catch his attention before he gave up with a huff and marched toward the younger man, yanking one of his earbuds out and looking at him expectantly.

“Dude, what the hell?” Kerry snapped, eyes softening when he saw Ray. “Oh, it’s just you. Jesus, and I was doing really well in avoiding premature cardiac arrest.”

Ray offered a brief but apologetic smile, but otherwise ignored the remark. “Is whoever is in charge here? I wanted to thank them— him? Her? Thank them for letting me come after hours,” he supplied, anxiety clear as day in his voice. Jesus, he really was turning into a junkie if being off the ice this long did this to his social skills, he thought to himself with a startled series of blinks. Or lack thereof. But he simply bit his lip and shrugged innocently back at him instead of voicing the thought.

Kerry gave him a funny look, but he sent a thumb toward a door on the side of offices before he continued on with his keys, locking the metal grate that came down over the rental counter and disappearing around a corner. Ray called a ‘thank you!’ back in his direction, receiving a half-assed wave in response, to which he rolled his eyes before making his way toward the door. Finding it unlocked, he opened it to reveal a small, carpeted hallway that led into a small reception area. There was a desk in the front of the room, a placard upon it that read Barbara Dunkelman, and behind it stood a cute blonde sorting files into a briefcase. Presumably the Barbara in question, he figured.

She flipped through a manila folder with short, lacquered fingernails, pausing to glance up when Ray moved into the open space and coughed politely.

“Oh! You must be the one that emailed,” she said with a smile, sliding the last folder into the bag and closing it with a soft click. “Rink working for you?”

Ray swallowed the odd feeling in his throat. “Yeah,” he affirmed with what he hoped didn’t look like a grimace. “Yeah, I, uh, didn’t realize anyone else was here until Kerry mentioned it.” He could’ve winced at how goddamn offensive that probably sounded, but he elected to make light of the awkward moment rather than exacerbate it. “And I wanted to thank you for letting me trespass on your property,” he added quickly, laughing before nervously running a hand along his jawline. Fucking smooth-talker over here.

She nodded, smiling warmly before pulling the bag’s strap over her shoulder. “Hey, you’re welcome, but I’m not the one that you were in touch with.” Moving out from behind the desk, she pointed at a door garnished with an important-looking plaque further down the hall, illuminated only by the light that poured out around the edges. She collected the rest of her things, offering one last glance at Ray. “In any case, I’m headed out, so the rink’s yours for the night. But from the looks of it, the light’s on, if you want to introduce yourself.”

His eyes fell on the door with interest, barely remembering to send a quick ‘thank you!’ in her direction before his curiosity got the better of him. Deciding quickly to make his parents proud with a showcase of manners, he headed for the door, strange feeling that tugged at his stomach remaining unyielding.

He made his way down the hall, knocking twice to announce himself before pushing the door open from where it rest cracked. Slipping through the entryway, he poked his head into the office, fingers curling around the doorhandle as he allowed it to close once more.

“Hi,” he started awkwardly, glancing around the corner and into the room, “just wanted to say thanks again for letting me use your--”

Ray stopped dead in his tracks when Joel raised his eyes from the screen of a laptop perched on the edge of the desk.

Oh, shit.

It all hit him at once, practically as fast as the door clicked shut behind him; the sudden understanding when he saw that familiar mess of hair and the dark, drooping eyes that went straight through him and the weight of that same realization, but most of all, he was hit with the fact that he should’ve known. Should’ve known it was him, should’ve known life had a tendency to play jokes like this whose punch lines were painfully, painfully ironic and tended to not leave people laughing.

And if this was a joke, he wasn’t about to top it off with a surly punchline, because it took exactly one look at Joel to see the mess behind the exterior. He hadn’t been getting enough sleep, Ray was sure of it, judging by the rings beginning to show beneath his eyes and the half-filled coffee cup that had probably gone cold a while ago. Something about that was satisfying in a sick sort of way, he supposed, but all he could think was how he was sure he himself didn’t look much better.

But here they were; Joel, who was sitting before him – rigid as a board and deathly still behind that desk, one he evidently owned like the rest of the place, judging by the name card that read Director Heyman – and Ray, who stood there like an idiot that hadn’t finished his goddamn sentence, trying desperately to swim up for air.

“—ice.” He let out his breath and ran a hand through his hair, because he was standing there looking ridiculous in what had to have been six layers and still felt like he was just as exposed as he’d been in the stadium under glaring lights and camera lenses. But for all the eyes he could’ve given a shit about, he still squirmed under the same pair.

Then again, Joel almost looked more worried than Ray did that the younger had wound up standing in this very office, staring at the older man like he was some sort of exhibit, most likely.

Fuck.

“You own the rink,” Ray breathed finally, punctuating the conclusion with a defeated sigh. He had that strange, familiar feeling in his gut, like he’d known it all along – like he should’ve, no doubt – but had never really paid enough attention to the details of the forest aside from his favorite tree to figure it out, to piece it together. His cheeks were probably burning and he might as well have turned on his heel and strutted right back out the door, but as always, Joel’s presence had a way of keeping him in his place. It hit him like the beam of a searchlight, sharp and attentive.

“Why’d you think I was always here?” Joel’s voice was soft when he spoke, not accusatory in the slightest, but he was chewing on his lip as if he’d said something wrong.

“To be fair, you didn’t know why I was always here, either.”

No honor among assholes, Ray noted with a flip of his stomach, as Joel visibly winced at the comment.

Ray knew he could run from it if he wanted; he could step out the door, bike to his side of town, and never come back like they didn’t owe each other a thing. He could go on with his career, with his life, with his friends and family and his stupid little dead-end job at a retail chain. He could shower in his own apartment, pull a towel from his own rack and run it through his hair in front of his own mirror, and he wouldn’t have anyone behind him to wrap their arms around him and tell him everything would be alright. He could look himself in his own eyes with empty hands and an emptier heart and lie to himself, repeat over and over that he’d be alright with only his own two legs to hold him up, because running was routine. Simple.

But he was tired of running.

Especially when the person he always ran to was the one in front of him.

“I didn’t think, um,” Joel coughed out finally, breaking the silence. “I wasn’t, uh, expecting to see you.”

Ray frowned. “Door wasn’t locked, and apparently you knew I was here. What were you expecting?”

Joel stayed quiet, casting his gaze in a low circuit around the room. His silence was uncertain and maybe a little bit strained, but it wasn’t unwelcoming, and Ray was beginning to get the feeling that the blanket of hesitation that hung over the room so thickly was trying to tell them something.

So he gathered every ounce of courage that clung to his nerves and his bones – the courage that got him to the center of the rink, but for some reason, made him shake to the core where he stood.

“Apparently, we have a habit of running into each other in unexpected places,” he started, moving to the middle of the room and facing the desk from the opposite side, hands crossed beneath his arms in earnest, “so maybe we should take a cue from the universe and talk.”

Joel nodded wordlessly, bringing his eyes to Ray’s own in a momentary glance for affirmation.

“And I want to go first,” Ray added, receiving another nod in reply when he raised an eyebrow. He shifted on his feet, not exactly having a speech prepared, but he figured it would do them both good to finally speak his mind with no holds barred. As terrifying as that was.

Joel’s eyes were on his again, he noticed, watching. Waiting.

Fuck, when did his hands get so clammy?

Ray pressed his lips together, taking a deep breath through his nose.

“I don’t blame you for what happened on the ice, you know, in Boston. If I know you at all, I know you’re probably blaming yourself for that, so just know that I don’t.” And that was true, he thought to himself bitterly, however much the retribution he never mustered up might have wished it weren’t. “Not really sure I blame you for what happened afterward, either, actually. I can only imagine what it might have looked like for you, but whatever that was, I was just as surprised to see you.”

He could see the confusion in Joel’s face, quickly giving way to the beginnings of protest, but he certainly wasn’t finished. Putting a hand up before Joel got any words out, his gaze turned to steel, and shit, if he was going to make him bare teeth, he’d show fangs. Maybe he was bitter.

“Don’t worry,” Ray interrupted before he found an opening to speak, tone raising in warning, “oh, don’t worry, here’s what I do blame you for.” He moved in long strides until he stood directly in front of Joel’s desk, temper flaring after days of keeping it beaten down and submerged in enough mindless activity to substitute for a sedative. After all, he said he’d let it all out.

“My sleep schedule’s gone to complete shit, Joel.” Words spoken with about as much spice as sincerity, and topped off with a burning glare to keep him quiet. “My practice schedule is on a serious setback now that I’m back because I can hardly look at the rink, and I’ve sat around for a week,” he spat, slamming a hand carried by ire onto the desk in front of him, “a week, Joel, thinking about how I lost a chance at what I so desperately wanted, and after everything, you thought that was to medal?”

“Ray, I’m—”

A slap rang out through the room before Joel could register the movement in front of him, his own words interrupted by a mild look of surprise when he was met with a surprising amount of power Ray administered from his palm straight to his cheek.

And the younger’s discontent was more than apparent when he glanced at him once more, from the line in his brow to the vexation that burned in his eyes.

“And you stood me up for that date, by the way.”

The room was silent, save for the whir of the air conditioning unit above as the two looked at each other while Joel rubbed at his jaw, blinking. When he finally spoke, his voice made it apparent that Ray had made his point clear.

“I deserved that,” he said finally, and his exhaustion came through his voice like glass in his throat.

Ray didn’t miss a beat, though, eyebrow lifting and leaving sympathy where it lay.

“Yeah, you absolutely did.”

Joel sat up, moving his fingers through his hair to reveal a faint pink tinge to his cheek. “You’ve got every right to be mad.” He looked at Ray, not with offense or apprehension, but with something that looked suspiciously like remorse.

“Actually, I’m not,” the younger sighed, letting his arms fall to his sides. “Haven’t had time to be mad at you, been so pissed at myself.”

Joel licked his lips. “Don’t.. don’t do that to yourself, not anymore. It’s not your fault.”

Ray looked surprised. “You seemed to think it was that day. What changed?” He tapped his foot when Joel didn’t respond, watching the gears in his mind start to spin what might have resembled an excuse. “Mince your words, by the way, and I’m leaving.”

Joel grew quiet, eyes lowered in thought, but Ray could tell by the nature of their silence that the break in conversation wasn’t for lack of trying; no, it was filled with fear and fragmented composure just barely held together by a few remnant threads, and the look in Joel’s eyes said everything.

“I’m… what I said to you that day, that was…” His eyebrows furrowed, searching for the right words that picked the perfect time to evade him, and his frustration was apparent in the way he’d pulled his leg to cross over the other and put a hand over his mouth with a sigh. He’d started fidgeting under his gaze, Ray noted, and his own expression softened when he saw Joel struggling with his own mind. It honestly did break his heart to see him like this, the way his thoughts were visibly racing at a mile a minute, certainly too quickly to pull them from the airwaves into coherency that iterated something that remotely resembled what he was feeling, all across the face of the man he was in lo-

Ray cut himself off there out of a week’s worth of walls built in caution, knowing that it was a dangerous road to go down. Knowing all the things that tended to follow in the wake of such an admission, all the blinking lights and noise and sound that screamed at him like the terror, the danger, the thrill of skating the platform edge.

But even after everything that had happened, that admission was beginning to look like the clearest thing in the book.

“I’m an idiot, Ray,” Joel sighed finally. “And a total dick, and that doesn’t begin to cut it.” The obstinacy in his voice startled Ray, but held him in his place, willing him to listen. Pleading with him to listen, really, in the way apologies began from mouths that rarely wove them.

So he did.

“I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately, and god, stop me if I ramble on too much, by the way, because I do tend to do that,” Joel added quickly, glancing at Ray cautiously before getting the green light of a nod to continue on.

And for better or worse, it seemed that Joel had given things a lot of thought.

“You show everyone what loving something, loving this,” he continued, gesturing to the ice through the window behind him, “is supposed to look like, Ray. It’s like I met you, and everything just fucking lit up, and when it all came together, I got so scared that I would lose you to what made me lose myself.”

His gaze fell to the floor momentarily, shooting back up to Ray’s own after a moment of contemplation. “I’m a perpetual web of stress that just wraps tighter and tighter, and hell, I'm probably an absolute train wreck waiting to happen at this point, but I think I realized that you are what's constantly keeping me in awe— keeping me from giving in to becoming more my age, really. God, you make me look at life like I haven’t in a startlingly long time.”

Ray had fallen silent, but he knew Joel could tell he was genuinely listening. So with a cautious breath, he continued.

“I went through life looking for perfection where I knew I’d never fucking achieve it, setting standards higher and higher until I knew I was bound to fall on my face no matter what, and achieving anything became a drug. And it’s so fucking toxic, it stays in your skin for so long, and god, it ferments in your brain until it turns you into,” he stopped to take a breath with a humorless laugh, “well, something you don’t want to be.”

Ray mulled that one over for a moment, allowing his gaze to drift off. He wasn’t sure if Joel was done from the pause he’d executed, but between his inner debate between talking or keeping quiet, Joel spoke up once more, after a moment of visible hesitation.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m the guy that snuffs out his issues with cigarette smoke and booze from which I have to wrench myself come Monday morning,” he said with a self-deprecating smile. “The guy who spent most of his life chasing after dreams he wasn’t even really sure about, and hell, at the end of the day, none of those medals mean a thing. Not a goddamn thing, especially not in the face of something that does.”

If Ray were a vindictive person, he probably would’ve appreciated the way Joel fell to pieces under his eyes. But when he heard those words, the only thing Ray felt was compassion flooding in like rainwater in a storm drain, along with a startling amount of clemency.

“I’m a mess, Ray.” His lips pressed together into a tight smile as he shook his head. “You deserve better than to go running head-first into messes, or at least should’ve gotten a warning.”

He smiled softly when Joel let out a breath, one that was perhaps meant to sound determined but came out bearing some semblance of affliction.

“Running isn’t really my style,” Ray offered, mouth quirking up at the corners. “Apparently, falling is.”

Joel looked at him for a long time, searching for something in his eyes, his stance, whatever it was Joel looked at. And when he spoke again, his voice had softened.

“You’re still here.”

Ray nailed him with an unimpressed look, lifting an eyebrow.

“That allowed, old man?”

Somehow, it felt like it always had, and the relief that washed over the both of them in that moment was nearly palpable.

“Is that, are you…?”

Ray grinned. “Your apologies are fucking long-winded, but yeah, I think I’ll accept it.”

The look in Joel’s eyes was filled with gratitude, and he couldn’t help the genuine smile that crossed his face when he met his eyes again. There was a beat before either spoke, caught up in the comfort of the silence, but after a minute, Joel was the one that spoke up.

“Where do we go from here?”

Ray thought for a moment.

“Maybe we should start from the beginning.”

He cleared his throat and straightened his back, moving around the desk to stand at Joel’s side, leaning against the laminate. “I’m Ray Narvaez, Jr., professional figureskater, competitor in the national delegation of the ISU this year, and maybe someday, representative athlete of the US Olympic Team.” Bumping the older man’s hand gently with one of his own, he smiled softly when Joel looked back up at him from where he sat. “Your turn.”

The older man sat up, resting his jaw on his knuckles as he sent him the traces of a smile in return.

“Joel Heyman, former professional figureskater, member of the United States Figure Skating Association, and competitive official.” He slid his hands to the bridge of his nose, lacing his fingers in one another and looking at Ray over the crossed joints. If he hated the silence like it looked like he did, he must’ve been even less satisfied with the fact that the words were leaving his lips at such a strange time, after they’d already known everything there was to know about each other but that. The important stuff.

Ray almost laughed at how ridiculous they were. Joel was still eyeing him carefully, like a kid waiting to be punished, and here he was, sitting in silence like a goddamn idiot when he wanted nothing more than to talk to him for the rest of, well, ever.

He figured he’d start with a question. Well, one out of maybe eight million that would answer all the things he hadn’t learned about Joel yet, he supposed.

“Why’d you stop?”

Joel thought for a minute, tasting his answer on his tongue before speaking it.

“I think I wanted something more dangerous, as stupid as that sounds. Maybe not more of a challenge, but something that wasn’t… a skill to be perfected. Something that had to be worked at, like, chipped away at to turn a mess into something better.” His hands dropped from his face to pick up a pen absentmindedly, fidgeting with the clip as he continued. “Wanted to stop looking back at the past, start looking toward a future.”

His eyes shifted up to Ray’s own, holding his gaze as he took a breath. A long, nervous breath.

“One with you, if you’d let me.”

He looked caught in the headlights, like there was more he wanted to say but had no idea how to phrase it between the sentiment in the air and his own reservations, but it hit Ray right in the chest, and he didn’t try to stop the smile from gracing his lips. Because it warmed him to the bone.

“I know I talk too much, and hardly any of it ever makes much sense, but god, say jump and I’ll jump, Ray, I just—”

But he didn’t let Joel finish, cutting him off mid-sentence as he pulled him into a bruising kiss, hands moving from his shirt to his shoulders as Joel settled for smiling against his mouth instead. An arm found its way around Ray’s back as Joel pulled them together, kissing with a kind of dire desperation that banished nostalgia for the warm embrace of metamorphosing back to the present moment, and god, it felt so good.

For the sake of Joel’s thought reaching completion, he pulled back, chuckling as Joel’s head fell forward to follow his lips. His hand came back up to Ray’s cheek, and he breathed his words into the space between them softly, but with contentment.

“—really want to be to you what you are to me.”

Something in Ray’s chest lurched when he heard that, and his skin heated up faster than he realized. His eyes moved from the older’s face down to his lips, because really, when one hears something they never realized how ardently they’d waited for, what can they do?

English, don’t fail me now. Come on. Say something. Anything.

If there’s leftover lo mein in my fridge, I want you to be the one I got it with the night before, not the one you ask to heat some up and take it with you on your way out in the morning.

Does this mean I have an excuse to get jealous when people flirt with you? Fuck it, gonna do that one anyway.

Your clothes smell awesome, and I’m totally down with stealing a ton of them, but you’re not allowed to expect them back.

He bit his lip.

I love the idea of being in love with you?

And he’d evidently bitten back a smile he didn’t catch until it had taken over his entire expression.

“Sounds fun,” he whispered, and Joel’s eyes were brighter than he’d ever remembered. “And apology accepted, judge.”

“Not a judge anymore,” Joel breathed against his lips, corner tugging up into a lopsided curve. “Called in a favor from a friend. Mailed in my resignation from the Committee yesterday.”

For everything he’d planned for this conversation, which he openly admitted wasn’t really much to begin with, those words left Ray floored.

He searched Joel’s eyes for any sign that he was bluffing, opening his mouth in stunned disbelief when he found none. “You didn’t have to,” he managed finally, voice not so much weakened as it was awed.

“I know.” His voice dropped to a breath across Ray’s skin, a whisper in the otherwise silent room. The hand Joel had in Ray’s hair moved to his jaw, his thumb running idly across the younger’s cheek. “I didn’t do it to get away from you, I did it because I wanted to be with you.”

Ray wasted no time in putting a hand to the back of Joel’s neck and pulled forward gently, allowing his forehead to press against his own before inhaling his breath and kissing him like it really had been so long, like he had no intent of stopping. The older made a noise in his throat that sounded like relief, taking Ray into his arms as they both all but breathed their ruin, hard press of each other’s fingers a welcome change from the former absence. The taste of him rang of warmth, the kind that pulled the breath straight from your lungs and sent ghostly sensation through your entire body, the kind that required two hands for balance and eyes closed tight to keep the world out.

They stayed like that for quite some time after their lips had parted, pressed together in the familiarity of each other’s arms and sharing breaths before Joel spoke up once more.

“It’s late, and I think you came for a reason other than me…” He pointed out the window when Ray raised a brow in intrigue, rocking on his feet as the cogs in Ray’s mind turned.

And he paused, offering a noncommittal shrug after Joel nudged him in search of an answer.

“What, you want me to?”

Joel smiled. That would be a yes.

“Going to have to ask a little nicer than that,” Ray murmured with a grin of his own.

Joel sighed a heavy, over-the-top sigh. “Alright, princess, I’ll rephrase. Would you skate for me?” he asked, with a tilt of his head and a few bats of his lashes.

“Well, the stakes are a little bit higher since you’ve taken off your mask, Mr. Heyman.”

Joel grimaced at the formality, and Ray chuckled, taking his hand and giving it an endearing squeeze. “What do you want to see?”

“The piece you did.”

Ray thought for a moment, sending a glance out the window at the ice glowing under the fluorescents before turning to Joel with a gleam in his eyes.

“Yeah, but you’ve got to skate with me.”

He sighed, one that matched the sigh he breathed when Ray asked him the first time, but the grin tugging at the corners of his mouth betrayed him this time. He turned quickly, though, heading for his desk and suppressing a snicker all the while, to Ray’s mild confusion.

“What, you got something to say?” he called, laughing as Joel sent him a look from across the room.

He heard a snort, and furrowed his brows. Typical Joel.

Oh, god, he was calling him typical, he realized, as color threatened to begin filling his cheeks. After all that had happened between them, all the moments of tension and heartwarmingly de facto loyalty, of the fast and the faster and the entirely out of left field, and especially of all the morning-afters that lasted long enough that they both began to believe they never wanted the nights to be shared if they couldn’t keep it alongside the days they shared, too.

And if he was supposed to be scared of what that meant, he was surprised that he wasn’t.

“You’re an idiot. A cute idiot, but an idiot.”

Ray blinked, thoughts interrupted. “So, was that a ‘yes, I most certainly will, my darling’, or?”

“The piece you did,” Joel continued, leaning over the desk to rifle through a stack of papers on the laminate before retrieving a cable, “is already a couples’ piece. Have you ever seen The Nutcracker?” He gestured for Ray’s phone when he passed him once more, pointing to his laptop to indicate he could stream the music over the speakers.

But Ray crossed his arms, offering up his phone with a haughty toss of his head. “Have you ever played Bioshock? Come on, Sander Cohen? Seriously?” Joel didn’t bother holding back a snort of laughter as he snapped the cable into place, while Ray’s eyes widened in disbelief.

Oh, he was serious.

“Well, it’s in the game, you dick, the routine is original and I don’t need your retired input,” he huffed, eyebrows furrowing as he felt his ears begin to flush. Thank god his hood was up.

But Joel stepped in close with a wide stride, dropping the phone on his desk to take a hold of Ray’s chin in an apparent effort to inspect his soul through his pupils.

“I must be imagining things. Did you just call me old?”

Between the surprise and the familiarity that went through his skin like a wave, it took a second to string the words to the action and register what exactly had happened, not to mention what he’d said and how he’d said it, plus the stupid gleam resurfacing in Joel’s eyes that made him feel like he’d been submerged in a chemical wash that tingled all over. But when it did register, the subtlest of grins spread across Ray’s face.

“The broadcasters did that for me, ‘veteran’, I just make it sound better.”

And Joel must have really been an endearing son of a bitch, because he smiled back as sweet as he had the day they’d met – read, about as sweet as Splenda, and just as synthetic – but this time, with something that looked suspiciously like relief.

“Well, in that case, jailbait,” he grit out, latching onto Ray’s wrist and hauling him out of his office, “I’d be happy to teach you a few things.” 

--

A/N: once upon a time, amari posted something during a particularly busy time in the life of skree. this is the story of why you shouldn't go about doing that and expecting nothing to come of it. revenge for a birthday present? how cruel.

good luck, darling. ♥ happy birthday, hope it was all you'd imagined.

(also posted to ao3!)

--

One of the things Ray was quick to learn about his job is that when you make a promise – those caught on film, in particular – no one lets you forget it. After all, when your job is to entertain not only the Internet and its masses, but also the idiots you spend time entertaining with, promises are rarely forgotten. Especially the ones that doom you into circumstances that are either potentially lethal, hysterically funny to everyone but you, or involve women’s clothing.

The days that the Achievement Hunter office witnessed Ray make bets under high emotional stakes usually involved all of the above. Thankfully, such circumstances were rare.

Unfortunately, when they happened, they involved gratuitous swearing and circumstances Ray rarely expected to have to carry through with.

Of course, Ray had strategically forgotten about the bet in question. Michael and Gavin, on the other hand, were a different story.

In the heat of the moment, and quite likely influenced by a particularly irritating brand of Gavin’s antics alongside a lack of sleep that night from a late-running stream, Ray had sworn he’d strut around in a Lollipop Chainsaw cheerleading uniform if he saw one more ‘wasted!” on his screen before murdering the offending Achievement Hunter during their GTA runthrough one morning. He hadn’t expected to actually lose the bet, but he really hadn’t expected a visit from Michael and Gavin one wickedly orchestrated afternoon, months and months later.

The afternoon of the officewarming party Burnie had decided to throw after, at long last, the arrival and formal move-in of the cast and crew at Stage 5.

Ray cursed himself for not seeing the looks Michael and Gavin had inevitably exchanged during that Monday morning meeting, and swore unabashedly at the two of them the entire way to the office that evening after they’d locked him in his apartment and refused to let him come until he was suited up like the cheerleader he was born to be, clad in red and black and white complemented nicely with exasperation deeper than the Marianas Trench. He prided himself on keeping his promises, but maintaining this was a potent breed of heinous.

And most of all, he cursed whoever came up with the idea to make it a fucking costume party.

So here they were. Ray stood at the front door of the office, exhausted from the scuffle in his apartment and again in the parking lot, flanked by a beaming Team Nice Dynamite as they waited for someone to unlock the door. Lindsay was the one to appear in the doorway to let them in, beaming when she saw Ray in all his cheerleading glory. She fist-bumped him, moving aside to let he and his escorts (dressed as Daisy and Princess Peach, though their only evidence was in wigs and tiaras – no dresses, Ray noted with a scowl) inside.

Part of the deal was that Ray would take it in stride, after all.

Gavin’s grip on his forearm was as strong as steel, and he swore he heard Michael giggling as they pushed him through the door.

So with a tight smile, he obliged them.

The responses from inside didn’t come as much of a surprise. What started as a few catcalls from Barbara and Meg led to what felt like half the company turning in their chairs or leaning to see from where they stood to see what the commotion was about – and Ray took the laughter and thunderous applause with a grin. 

The reactions were definitely interesting on an individual level. Griffon, who was sitting closest to the door, turned and volunteered a chainsaw which sent a look of panic across Geoff’s face. Meg looked on with pride, beaming at the handiwork whose creation she’d evidently been a part of, Gavin informed him on the way over. Miles and Barbara shrieked from several dozen feet away.

And there, leaning heavily against the doorframe, dressed in a suit with his characteristic slouch, was Joel.

For whatever reason, despite the fact they’d never really had a heart-to-heart, much less exchanged reasons to offer glances of greeting or solidarity or whatever this was, Ray met Joel’s eyes when he saw them land on him; eyes that lifted with surprise from the face of whoever he’d been talking to, which was to be expected, of course, given the – a pause for the right word – circumstances of his shot at semi-serious crossdressing. Ray interrupted his consideration of mentioned circumstances by dropping his hand to his side, fidgeting with the edge of his skirt.

But Joel’s eyes were quick to follow. In fact, they went straight down his form, lingering briefly on the hem he’d gripped between his fingers.

And realization hit Ray as hard as the white-hot sensation pooling quickly in his groin, because being under that gaze went straight to his dick. Joel picked that moment to meet his glance once more, and Ray cursed himself a thousand times over for how hard he swallowed. He must have looked pretty caught in the headlights, because he could’ve sworn he watched Joel’s lips quirk in faint amusement.

Well, this wasn’t good.

Ray had to keep himself from verbally thanking Gavin when he pulled him off to the side to show Meg the fruit of her efforts. It would’ve been awkwardly obvious if he’d stayed much longer, because as Joel had no doubt discovered, the damn skirt didn’t leave much to the imagination.

Suddenly, though, it was no longer a damper on his pride.

He put his energy into flitting about from conversation to conversation for a good portion of the evening, tending to gravitate toward wherever the laughter boomed the loudest. But as the night went on, it became painfully clear to Ray that he was hovering in what was undeniably Joel’s vicinity as much as he could manage without direct interaction.

He’d never considered himself to be hungry for attention until he moved his hips a little more while he walked. He figured it was his fascination with the older man that carried him around like he was performing, flashing about like he had something to achieve from all of it. But if he was going to play, he played to win.

And he cursed out loud when he realized, with his eyes on the black and red and white that sat against the flesh of his reflection when he excused himself to the bathroom that night, that his eyes evidently weren’t the only thing of Joel’s that he wanted on him. He’d expected the draft in the building to be his top-priority concern, but the outfit had a peculiar sense of power to it. It commanded attention, sure, but the more Ray noticed a certain person’s gaze – and corrected glances, once Ray turned to catch him – the more he wanted to use it to his advantage.

Funny how circumstances have a way of spinning themselves into something that presents opportunity at the drop of a hat, he thought to himself as the door swung shut behind him. Take it or leave it, right?

The remnants of the Rooster Teeth group had gathered together in one of the larger spaces, semi-furnished with a few decks of cards and several bottles of booze. Ray opted to watch from the sidelines, and Joel hung around the other edge of the room, watching the group with some amount of interest from where he stood alongside a few others. At some point, however, the interest began to wane, as Ray looked up from the action to see Joel slip around the corner to the kitchen.

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that Ray left the group not five minutes later.

When he reached the kitchen and rounded the corner, Joel had a bottle in his hand and a cup in the other, glancing up when Ray appeared in the doorway. He could see him a little better under the low-hanging lights, raising an eyebrow when his eyes landed on the gaunt theatrical makeup beneath his eyes, giving him an artificial pallor that practically glowed beneath the fluorescents.

“So, who are you supposed to be dressed as?” Ray asked, entering the room and crossing his arms. “A vampire seems a little… mass-produced for you.”

“Does it really?” Joel laughed at that, turning around and leaving the cup where it sat on the countertop. He fished a tie from his suit jacket, revealing black satin complete with a jagged red arrow angrily pointing toward the floor. “Dow Jones Industrial Average. You were close.” He frowned as he drew hinged false fangs from his pocket, eyeing the exaggerated canines before slipping them back in his coat. “Actually, one could argue you’re absolutely right.”

Ray could’ve rolled his eyes back in his skull at how painfully suiting the choice was. Typical, typical Joel Heyman. He might as well have called himself his own Twitter feed. “Social commentary,” he said with a chuckle of his own. “Why am I not surprised you went all-out?”

Joel grinned. “Technically, this is economic commentary. The make-up was Kara’s idea.” 

“You look good,” Ray blurted out shortly after, very nearly kicking himself for saying it out loud once it had left his lips. He’d be lying to himself if he said Joel didn’t look good, he rationalized, and fuck, if looking at him up close didn’t give him an excellent view of how good ‘good’ was.

“Thanks. You’re right, it’s not your average nightcrawler.” He turned back to the counter, retrieving his cup with a smile of gratitude sent toward the younger man. “I think yours takes the cake by popular vote, though. If nothing else, it’s certainly daring.”

The tiniest hesitation before the last word was the catalyst for the smile that lay in waiting to blossom into a grin across Ray’s face. Jackpot.

“I’d pretend to be surprised that you noticed if I hadn’t watched it happen.”

Whatever the older man had been planning to say left him in a quick exhalation, and if Ray didn’t know any better, he’d say he watched him falter. Joel pressed his lips together, smiling like a jewel thief.

“Alright, alright, you got me. Could you blame a guy?” He set his cup down from where it had been hovering in his hand, not moving very far from where it had started. Instead, he crossed his arms, sending Ray a mildly guilty look after tugging a hand through his hair and indulging a momentary glance at the pale skin of his waist. He knew he’d been caught, but it wasn’t clear yet whether or not he cared.

“Especially since what started as admiring from afar became increasingly not-so-far over the course of the evening.”

Oh.

So he’d noticed, too. Ray felt his ears flush, but he tried – hoped, if this were honesty hour – to play it off like he’d intended to.

But then again, Joel was honest, so he could at least try to match it.

“I’m flattered you think I have an agenda,” Ray offered finally with a wolfish grin, “but I was mostly in it to brag I’d caught your eye.”

“Mostly?” Joel lifted an eyebrow, intrigued. “Didn’t think it would give you such high thrills for,” a pause to look at his watch and shoot a glance back at Ray knowingly, “going on two hours.”

Ray opened his mouth to say something that probably would’ve come out as a shitty excuse, but quickly decided against it when he caught the beginning of a sneer on Joel’s lips.

“So here’s the problem with being in your twenties,” Joel began, pushing himself off the counter and crossing the kitchen toward Ray. “You take so much time trying to cowherd something into happening that when the something turns and looks you straight in the face, you freeze.” He stopped a step and a half away from Ray, who had backed himself against the kitchen island in the process, and simply smiled. “It’s cute. The lack of subtlety, that is.”

Ray decided in the breath he took for solidarity within that moment that he’d table his apparent issues with needing to prove himself for later. For now, he opted to close the gap between them, pull Joel forward, and, before he could do any more hesitating, pressed his lips to Joel’s own with bruising fervor. He smiled around the intake of breath the older man took, and hung on for dear life.

As it turned out (and as Ray quickly learned), kissing Joel was nothing like kissing anyone he’d ever been with. He’d mostly locked lips with soft, feminine smiles before, lips that tasted like sugar and whispered affection and ended with shared breaths and laughter and... commitment. Naturally, given who it was that was kissing him back this didn’t have any of it, but Jesus, was it alluring all on its own.

Joel was taller than him, naturally, and didn’t have to grip him tight to keep him close. He smelled of cologne and faintly of theatre makeup, tasted of something definitively masculine – decidedly not alcohol, Ray was thrilled to discover, despite whatever he’d poured into his cup – and he couldn’t tell if the way he kissed was experienced or overconfident, but the tongue that slid against his lower lip knew what it was doing. Joel leaned into it almost immediately, pushing Ray back gently against the counter before the younger broke the kiss with a smile.

“Something about a lack of subtlety,” Ray parroted, straightening his skirt for effect. “I like to think it works for me.”

Joel’s eyes followed the movement of his fingers, tilting his head slightly to get a better view. “I’ll give you a pass because you look so good in that skirt. God damn, kid.”

Ray stuck an accusatory finger in his chest. “I’m 24. Get on my level, cradle robber.”

Joel snorted before pulling him in to kiss him again, but once voices began to echo down the hall toward where they stood, Ray hauled him through the nearest door and into a dark hall toward the offices instead.

Though Joel was the one walking him backward past locked office doors, Ray towed him through the carpeted hallway, letting the older man guide them. He’d occasionally pepper his jaw with kisses, stopping to pull Joel close with a fistful of fabric or being pulled close himself by a hand on the exposed skin of his lower back, and he was mildly surprised Joel had any coherent sense of direction. But nevertheless, when Ray grabbed him by his tie and slid a hand against his waistline, the older picked a destination.

He took them both through a door on the right, and it took Ray a good minute to realize where they’d ended up. He’d purposely tried to avoid it until now, actually and by the looks of things as his eyes adjusted to the dark to reveal a handful of chairs and the company logo high on the ceiling, he’d avoided the new podcast set in the new office well enough to not even realize it was so close by.

Being in the room had always made Ray feel like he was under a microscope, and maybe even a little intimidated, even when the cameras weren’t rolling; hell, with all the glittering lenses and burning lights pointed at you, with viewers at home getting close-ups of every angle (not to mention every time you fucked up), it was hard to feel anything but small. Literally, microscopic. So when he’d found himself in front of all those cameras, or any great number of eyes, he’d done his best to do something particularly distracting to take his mind off the unease. Most of the time, his humor cut it.

But when it didn’t, he had to resort to doing something extreme (and, in hindsight, usually pretty fucking ridiculous), like wearing neon green spandex in front of several thousand people, or evidently wearing a cheerleading uniform in front of the entire damn company.

Then again, he mused, as Joel’s hand brushed against his thigh teasingly where fabric ended and skin began, maybe those promises had their silver linings.

It was the set of hands on his hips that brought him back, though, guiding him as he walked backward from where the set’s carpet began over to the middle of the dark set. Joel’s hands were warm on his skin, strong where they rested against his hipbones; they didn’t grip him tight, and though his fingers weren’t unsure, they sat in waiting. The unexpected gentleman, Ray mused to himself, before he pulled them both onto the couch with a grin.

 Feeling all of Joel was admittedly just like Ray expected, but at the same nothing at all like what he’d imagined – he was all sharp lines and solid flesh and warm beyond belief, intoxicatingly enthusiastic. He held him down on the couch like he was experiencing something he’d never seen before, and he wanted to lose himself in it, in him, kissing him until he got used to all the flavors of the outside world. It didn’t take long before he was left with a taste on his lips that had to be Joel, only Joel and before he knew it, he was moaning that name against the lips of its owner, rocking his hips against the older man’s and shivering all over.

It felt good to take it slow instead of leapfrogging over the foreplay, and Joel turned out to be one of the most terrifyingly patient people Ray had ever found himself with. But with his arms laced around Ray’s bare waist and fingers splayed across his ribs, kisses relaxed to the point of being endearingly lazy while he lay still as a board, he decided he could definitely get used to it. He let Joel suck dark marks into his neck, nip red ones into the flesh atop his collarbone, and if there had been time to lose track of, they spent it in good company.

“I could get used to this,” Joel breathed finally, lifting his head to glance at Ray who sat straddling his waist. He moved his hands to his sides, shifting beneath him until his cock was in line with Ray’s own. “God, are you an eyeful.”

The younger feigned an offended gasp. “Is that all I’m good for? Just a set of legs?”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Joel coaxed with a smirk. “You’ve got a nice ass, too.”

Ray figured he looked convincingly unimpressed when he shifted his hips and sent Joel tumbling to the floor, and he would’ve landed hard on his back and hopefully learned his lesson if he hadn’t grabbed Ray’s wrist and taken him with him.

But Joel didn’t look a bit fazed by the impact when his shoulders hit the floor with a thump; no, in fact, he looked absolutely elated, breathy laughter making its way into Ray’s mouth as fingers snaked their way up into the younger’s hair. His hips arched with the movement, lifting the two of them off the floor, and the gasp that rolled off Ray’s lips when Joel’s tongue swiped at his own didn’t go unnoticed a bit.

“You okay down there, old school?” the younger managed to pant when they broke the kiss, glancing at him cautiously to make sure he didn’t exact revenge. And on cue, Joel’s lips quirked at the corner as his free hand languorously slid down Ray’s side, making sure to move slowly enough to watch Ray’s eyes flutter at the touch when he murmured a brief ‘just peachy’ against his skin. A smile stretched across his lips as Ray’s hips rocked forward just enough to offer the older an idea of what he wanted, eyes opening beneath thick lashes to reveal pupils blown wide in the dark.

He probably didn’t need to, his point was painfully clear beneath his skirt and pressed against Joel’s own erection from where he sat perched on his waist, but for good measure, he rutted against Joel’s cock again and watched him the whole time. Watched his breath catch and his eyes meet his own, watched Joel think to himself “yeah, I’ll take that dare” while taking one last lingering look at the fabric already riding up Ray’s hips, revealing a glimpse of the briefs underneath.    

He’d hardly blinked before Joel’s hands were sliding around his hips, maneuvering Ray off his waist with impressive force so that the younger landed flat on the floor beneath him, spread out on his stomach while his head spun from the movement. He didn’t stop himself from groaning when his forearms smacked against the solid floor beneath the carpet, lifting himself up at his knees to raise himself off the–

Oh, fuck.

He didn’t catch the whimper that bubbled up in his throat in time when his ass connected with a very warm set of hips that hovered just above him. Joel’s erection slid against the cleft of his ass through the fabric of the damn skirt, and god, if Ray’s resolve were any weaker, he risked coming on the spot at the gorgeous noise Joel made low in his throat at the contact. He’d admit he capitulated in absolutes given certain circumstances, but the enthusiasm under the gaze of a certain Joel Heyman was not one he expected to get him so eager that he nearly surprised even himself.

But Ray imagined he probably boasted a pretty hilarious juxtaposition in that moment, sprawled on the floor wide-eyed and panting, with his ass half-clad in a cheerleading costume that would make any other company in the world raise an eyebrow. The bookish glasses that had somehow remained on his nose, despite a few smudges and a displacement or two, the flush across his cheeks that the darkness kissed away with chiaroscuro, and how desperately he wanted his co-worker to fuck him into the floor, a burning desire that cascaded from a single shared look at the beginning of the night – it all fit together in a bizarre set of opposites that felt so good he could almost see himself getting used to them.

“Fuck me, Joel, please,” Ray groaned, frantic for contact as he moved beneath him against the carpet. Joel’s hand slid up his hip and flipped the skirt’s fabric out of the way, pausing in his efforts and taking in a quick breath. “Not here,” he whispered through clenched teeth, “but for the record, oh my god, do I want to.” He ran two fingers beneath the waistband of Ray’s briefs, pulling it up by the elastic only to let it snap back down against his skin.

“Can’t defile the precious podcast set, right?” Ray ground his ass back up against Joel’s hips, smiling as the older man’s right hand hit the floor beside his shoulder. “You sure you have your priorities in order?”

“Are you sure you want this?” Joel asked from where he lingered above Ray’s neck, running a hand down his side. “Because if not, you can say so, I won’t—”

“I wanted it a few hours ago, Joel. C’mon,” Ray goaded, gyrating his hips against Joel’s own behind him, “how often do you hear about someone that wants to get fucked by the stock market?”

He grinned when he heard a snort of laughter from above him, muttering something about how I’ll ignore that because that fucking skirt has been calling my name since you waltzed through the fucking door before shifting above him, the noise of a zipper hitting Ray’s ears alongside a rustle of fabric. His hand moved from where it sat at his hips to slide beneath Ray’s waist, fingers brushing feather-light against his erection and drawing a throaty moan from the younger’s lips as they wrapped around him, palming warm flesh through the fabric and offering a few languid strokes that had Ray’s back arching up into his own. Joel’s lips were at the nape of his neck in no time, sending surges of sensation straight down his spine before Ray heard the smile in his voice when he spoke again.

“I’m not going to fuck you in the office,” Joel murmured against Ray’s skin, moving so his torso was pressed flush against Ray’s back, the younger sprawled out on the floor at the foot of the couch. “But since you seem so enthusiastic, I don’t plan on wasting an opportunity to enjoy ourselves.”

“You were the one staring,” Ray fired back, need growing increasingly evident in his breathlessness as he pressed back against Joel’s hips, ass up and chest flat against the floor. He moved his hips back and forth against Joel’s dick, biting his lip as Joel drew in a quick breath above him, resistance fraying like a rope.

“And you wore the skirt. I don’t think you’re in any position to mouth off, by the way.” His hands gripped at Ray’s hipbones, and the younger barely stifled a gasp as Joel’s hips glided against Ray’s own, the solid curve of his cock rubbing against his ass in one diabolically slow movement. “Better start moving, sweetheart,” he purred, drinking up the way Ray whimpered at the contact and lifted his ass to meet it. “I want to see you fuck the floor.”

And Ray complied so quick he could’ve given himself whiplash.

He rutted against the carpet the moment his brain kicked into gear, processing the words the man above him had breathed against his neck, and his cock immediately thanked him for the friction. Ray couldn’t have stopped the grateful moan that fell from his lips if he’d tried on the first jerk of his hips, fingers pressing into the carpet as he buried his face in his forearms, biting down another heightened groan as he thrust forward again. He nearly lost it, though, when Joel met his movement with a surge forward of his own, erection pressed hard against his ass through the fabric of Ray’s underwear.

“God, you look so good like this, making sounds like this,” Joel breathed against his neck, nipping at the skin he found beneath Ray’s jaw to draw a gasp that proved his point, kissing further up his neck with each thrust forward against his skin. Ray lifted his chin to allow him better access as Joel’s grip flexed on his wrists, rocking desperately against the press of the floor while he felt Joel’s cock grind against his ass, faster and faster with each enthusiastic breath that left Ray’s lips. Beyond the pleasure clouding his mind from the movements of his hips, he handed himself over to the surprisingly coherent strings of encouragement that Joel murmured in his ear, telling him how beautiful he curved and arched beneath him, against him; how he could listen to the sighs and groans and just how bad he wanted this, wanted him, from Ray’s lips forever. How gorgeous his name sounded – tasted – on his lips.

And Ray had tried his best to stay quiet, save for moans that escaped more frequent than simply on occasion when Joel’s hips pressed him tight and close to the floor, but once the older man shuddered and groaned his name into his shoulder, long and low – the kind of sound that sounded like splintering resolve and desire seeping past grit teeth, hot enough on his skin to leave haze in his mind – he lost it into momentary oblivion, chanting Joel’s name with each jerk forward until he came so hard his head spun with a groan of absolute bliss. Joel’s fingers flew from his wrists to his hips, rolling his hips against him in a few last, quick thrusts, following him over the edge with a heightened cry muffled against Ray’s skin.

It took a minute for Ray to register the kisses Joel pressed gently to his shoulders before the warmth behind him left, returning shortly thereafter and bearing a towel he used to clean them both off. When he knelt to wipe at the carpet, however, muttering something about Gus and stains, Ray caught his chin and kissed his cheek, surprising them both with the tenderness.

Joel glanced at his watch with a start. “Party’s probably dying down, it’s 2 o’clock in the morning. Want me to take you home?”

Ray thought for a moment, hoisting himself up and fixing his skirt with a twist of a smile.

“Feel like spending the night?”

--

The following Monday, Joel got to his office door with Ray leaning on his shoulder, both still blinking away sleep blearily while Joel reached for his keys. Before he could retrieve them, however, Ray nudged him and pointed to a sticky note stuck to the closed door.

Hope you don’t mind being the “random example” for our discussion in the meeting this morning of not fucking with the podcast set, Joel and Ray!

Joel smirked, to Ray’s chagrin, and pointed to a second that featured different handwriting.

A/N: i wanted to take a quick break from the figureskating!AU and get this off my chest, since the weather has been getting warmer and this idea has been nagging at my brain for a few days.

many thanks to amari for getting this ball rolling with the ice cream theft idea. hope you liked the way i totally debauched it, snookums.

hope you all enjoy it!

also posted to AO3.

--

Though he’d never admit it, one of Joel’s favorite things to do to Ray on rare, opportune occasions was to piss him off. He never did it maliciously, nor legitimately strived to cause anger in the younger, as Ray’s trust was something he valued more than anything on the earth and he couldn’t bear the thought of causing harm to a soul full of such incredible sunshine, don’t get him wrong – but whenever he noticed an opportunity tucked away to get under the Puerto Rican’s skin innocently enough, just enough to provoke him into pushing his temper past the levels of mere vexation, he pounced.

Joel generally kept his profound talent of making people fly off the handle to a minimum at first, testing the waters to make sure Ray kept his carefree spirit close and didn’t stay angry for long, as he knew that annoyance usually devolved quickly into legitimate anger if approached incorrectly. All things considered, Ray had a refreshingly lackadaisical outlook on life, and was the perfect counterbalance to Joel’s propensity for impatience, overwhelming nerves, and disquietude, and he loved that about Ray. But the more time he spent with him around the office, and even later once the two of them began seeing each other intimately, he found ways to tease him that opened up a thousand new ways to thrill the younger while taking his own thrills in it, too. And after he cleared it with Ray after unintentionally pissing him off the first time, Ray had agreed to endure it as long as Joel took responsibility for relieving whatever stress he’d caused.

All this being said, Joel’s discovery of Ray’s unnatural attachment to ice cream was entirely an accident.

Whenever he came to visit Ray’s house after they’d started dating, he made a game of raiding Ray’s fridge when he hadn’t been looking – mostly because he skipped lunch during the weeks after the beginning of the year to catch up on work, and to ensure he didn’t have any responsibilities after 5 to spend time at home once he’d started going home with Ray. The easiest things to steal tended to be things easily consumed in a short period of time, with minimal culinary interference – namely avoiding toasters, microwaves, and stovetops, and preferably with discreet packaging to easily dispose of any evidence – and once summertime rolled around, Joel silently thanked him every time he found ice cream. It was no secret that Ray had a sweet tooth that rivaled that of an eight-year-old, but Joel had never really considered the affinity to be addiction-caliber. They went out for ice cream from time to time, and his enthusiasm for it was endearing, but enthusiasm was it. Or so he’d originally thought.

In any case, Ray’s latest kick was apparently Klondike bars, as Joel noted early one week, and he had a fantastic run with the frozen treats to beat the Austin heat.

A fantastic run while it lasted, that is.

Ray had informed him at the beginning of all this that his fridge was open to Joel, since he knew the older man didn’t tend to keep food around his house in bulk, but he hadn’t said a word about the freezer, perhaps for the main reason of not expecting it to be a problem. He also hadn’t expected Joel to go through an entire six-pack in less a week.

Needless to say, when he walked in on the final day and caught the freezer door open with Joel’s denim-clad ass poking menacingly from around the edge, he was more than a little annoyed.

“Joel Heyman, you can sign your written confession to stealing my fucking food on the back of the receipt for replacement groceries,” Ray snarled, barreling in through the kitchen and gripping Joel by the back of his t-shirt. Bewildered, Joel resurfaced from the freezer, confused expression not managing to distract from the silvery foil atop the confection he’d swiped.

“What are you talking about?” he tried, holding in his laughter as he raised his arm high above Ray’s head, ice cream out of reach. “You said I could.”

“I never said you could go through entire boxes, you brute,” Ray snapped, jumping to reach the bar but faltering, unable to reach him at full height. He gripped his shirt instead, breathing swears into Joel’s skin as his eyes remained fixed to the bar.

Joel looked deep in thought, and extremely amused. “I never realized you were so defensive of your ice cream, Ray,” he mused aloud, moving his arm effortlessly behind his back as Ray practically growled, swiping at his arm viciously. “Look, I’ll give it back, I didn’t realize you were so hot for dairy products.” He held it out as a peace offering, trying his best to bullshit a sweetly remorseful expression. “I’ll make it up to you next time I go out to the—”

“No.” Ray’s tone was dangerously soft as he abruptly cut the older man off. “No, I’ll tell you what you can do to make it up to me, and you’re going to do it right now.” He plucked the bar out of Joel’s hand, tossing it back in the freezer before turning around and nailing Joel, who looked on with a face full of honest surprise, with a fiercely pointed stare.

“I’ve had a long week,” Ray began with venom in his voice, kicking off his shoes where he stood and moving to undo his belt, “so I’m going to get on the bed, and I don’t plan on getting up until every bit of tension in my body is gone. You’re going to join me, and when you do, you’d better fucking exalt me.” He turned on his heel quickly, letting the freezer door swing shut behind him.

Joel watched him walk the length of the hall, and when Ray disappeared through the bedroom door, he almost felt guilty. He smiled as he saw a shirt fly across the room not long after, though, hitting the top of his dresser with a sharp whack. “And if you’re coming, don’t keep me waiting on account of bingo night, either, old man,” Ray called from the bedroom, and Joel almost made a point to look offended until he watched a pair of boxers whiz past the doorway, too.

But all offense was forsaken as he went down the hall a moment later, pulling his shirt off his shoulders before he reached the doorway. And as Joel entered the room, he slowed to a stop as he steadied himself against the doorway to take in the sight. Ray had stripped down, as to be expected, but he’d evidently done it with impressive speed – and there he lay, spread out on his own bed entirely naked like a feast for the taking.

“Go ahead, Joel,” Ray hissed with a bite in his voice, “worship me.” He raised his hips off the mattress from where he lay to stretch out against the sheets, moving his back in an arc like he knew riled Joel up so thoroughly, and succeeding with panache, as Joel noted with a quick breath through his nose. Ray let his arms fall to either side of him, landing against the pillows as he sent a glance in the older man’s direction, equal parts as alluring as it was mocking.

“And don’t bother touching if you’re gonna make me wait.”

Joel knew Ray was good at what he did, hell, he was quite likely the best there was, because when Ray drew his lower lip between his teeth and let his breath out in the faintest of groans – and if the way all the heat in his body spiraled straight to his groin so fast that he felt it leaving the rest of his body, fast enough to very nearly leave him dizzy – he wanted nothing more than to lock them both in the bedroom for three days and ravish him until they both couldn’t move.

But today, thanks to Ray’s mouthing off (admittedly, the assertiveness was a huge turn-on) and his own insatiable urge to rile the man up, he had a better idea. A wonderful, brilliant, nefarious, vile idea that would get him in a lot of trouble if not executed correctly, in fact.

But Joel prided himself on implementing good ideas with even better flair.

Ray had a pleased, wicked curve to his lips when Joel made it over to the bed, watching the older man unfasten his belt before his jeans dropped to the floor, boxers following shortly after before he climbed up on the mattress and moved atop the smaller form with ease. He gently pushed Ray’s shoulder blades into the mattress with a smile, settling his knees to either side of Ray’s hips as he stretched for a drawer in the nightstand. He pulled it open with some amount of effort, holding down one of Ray’s arms currently attempting to flip on his back while retrieving two silk ties from the drawer, dropping one on the bed to their left while sliding the other between his fingers. The way Ray’s eyes fixed to the ties in interest when they surfaced from the nightstand didn’t go unnoticed, either, and didn’t fade when Joel wrapped his fingers around one of Ray’s hands with a curve to his lips.

Holding two fingers to Ray’s wrist, Joel kissed his cheek, snickering when he received a defiant huff in reply. He wound the tie around the joint, silk covering the skin just below his palm and offering a pleasant contrast against his skin, before coaxing Ray into extending his arm just enough to loop the other end of the tie around the spoke on his bedpost. After completing a similar maneuver on the other wrist, Joel sat back to admire his work.

“You’d better make this good if you want to make it up to me,” Ray seethed, “and I’m not quite sure you’re that good.” He pulled at the ties experimentally, testing the knots Joel had made and rolling his eyes when they held up splendidly.

So Joel looked Ray over, inspecting his bonds carefully to ensure he’d stay put before hoisting himself off the bed. He disappeared through the door for a moment before returning quicker than he’d left, making his way down the hallway with a skip in his step.

And when he made it through the doorway, Ray’s stomach dropped.

Joel raised an eyebrow in challenge before brandishing familiar silver foil and a quirk of his lips whose innocence radiated absolute malice.

“Who said anything about making it up to you?”

Ray swallowed thickly as Joel pulled the incriminating ice cream bar from its packaging, making his way over to the bed. He watched as he climbed onto the mattress, observing with an attentiveness he immediately regretted as the elder’s tongue briefly along the side of his hand to catch a drop of chocolate that had started to melt. And Joel must have noticed, as he didn’t waste any time placing a hand on each of Ray’s knees, spreading them wide as he settled on the blankets beneath them, but not before depositing the unwrapped dessert atop Ray’s stomach.

The look on Ray’s face in that moment was caught somewhere between pissed off, extremely aroused, and utterly terrified, and if Joel was any less than angelic for enjoying each of the above equally, well, he was more than happy to confess to such a sweet kind of sin.

“So here’s what we’re going to do,” Joel started, popping one of his chocolate-covered fingers in his own mouth and withdrawing it just as fast with a satisfied smirk. “I’m going to eat every bit of your precious Klondike bar off of you, and you’re going to watch me do it.”

Ray looked dumbfounded.

“You wouldn’t.”

Joel grinned wolfishly. “But I would, and I’m going to enjoy it so very much.”

Not to be bested, Ray took in a deep, annoyed, practically pained breath for fortitude. Joel had to give him credit for his resilience, especially since the chocolate shell around the ice cream was beginning to melt from the warmth of his skin.

“And if I close my eyes? Spoils things, doesn’t it, you dick?”

“Oh, you’ll still know,” Joel breathed, licking a stripe up Ray’s inner thigh for effect and drinking up the yelp he pulled from the younger in the process. “Even if you don’t see it, you’ll feel it.” He nipped lightly at the soft flesh beneath his lips before lifting himself to his elbows, moving so his tongue hovered directly over the bar. A tremor went through Ray’s body where his warm breath crossed his skin as if in reply, and Joel couldn’t help but grinning at the sight.

“And honestly,” he continued, voice dangerously low and hot enough on his flesh to draw a nearly audible whimper from Ray’s throat in anticipation, “you’re lucky I didn’t stick a cherry in your mouth, because you really do look good enough to eat.”

He pressed his tongue to the center of the bar’s shell, and Ray let out a sharp breath when the chocolate snapped beneath the pressure, ice cream that had already started to melt beginning to ooze from within the cracks. The cream slid in trails across Ray’s waist, trickling quickly down his sides and making its way to his thighs when he bucked his hips from the cold sensation. Their eyes met for a moment, Ray’s full of anticipation while Joel watched every movement intently – hungrily, Ray noted, which was probably even more alluring than it was ironic – but he couldn’t help the gasp that escaped his lips when the older pressed his tongue to his skin, dragging it up to catch a stray drop that slid dangerously close to his groin.

“You are going to wreck my sheets,” Ray whined between breaths, poking at Joel’s side insistently with a foot before Joel gripped him by the knee and held each of his legs down. “Chocolate stains, you know.”

“You might enjoy this just yet, if you let yourself, you know,” he breathed across Ray’s skin in reply, watching as the cool liquid spread out across his waist in all directions. The chocolate was already starting to melt from the heat as well, in fact, rolling down the sides of the bar in round beads that kissed Ray’s skin eagerly as they dripped out of sight. Joel watched as long as he could take it, eyes locked on the way Ray’s breath picked up beneath his gaze and the flush that assaulted his cheeks when his dick began to twitch in interest. There was a thin sheen across Ray’s skin already, complimented nicely by the sweet, milky trails left by the ice cream that coated his stomach, making its way across his skin and between the peaks of his hipbones in no time.

And by the time Joel lowered his head to press his open mouth against his pelvic bone, raising it after the most fleeting brush of contact to reveal lips smeared with chocolate and ice cream, Ray was practically trembling beneath his gaze.

“What’s the matter?” he asked innocently, running his thumbs along the angles of Ray’s hips as he watched his eyes nearly roll back in his head. “I thought you loved these.”

“You are a sadist,” Ray grit out, teeth locked together as if he was trying to restrain himself for something. As if the ties on his wrists hadn’t already done it for him, that is. “A sadist and an absolute tease.”

“Me?”

Joel made a monumental show of his incredulity with a severe frown before he hiked Ray’s legs off the bed, collecting them in his arms as he maneuvered himself between the younger’s inner thighs. Ray hissed at the shift, half of the frozen square separating from the other in the process and dripping down between the juncture of his legs, to Joel’s amusement.

He was convinced the way Ray arched his back with a groan following that maneuver was just to tempt him even more, and as he watched his chest rise and fall, felt his heart rate pick up beneath him, he figured he’d be driven wild before he finished dragging his tongue across every inch of beautiful skin beneath him. But that was decidedly something he could live with, Joel concluded with a final wet kiss to his navel as he wrapped his fingers around the base of Ray’s erection, which was leaking with precum from the tip and coated on one side from sugary liquid that had trickled down past his hips.

“Consider it payback for all the cones you’ve blown,” he began, pressing the flat of his tongue to the length of Ray’s cock and sliding it upward, causing the younger to cry out from the combination of hot skin against the lingering cold on Joel’s tongue. “For all the bedroom eyes you’ve sent me over ice cream in the past” – another agonizingly slow lick, to which Ray swore like a sailor, followed by another stroke of Joel’s tongue and another, swirling around the tip of his dick before moving bottom to top, disappearing between his warm lips before reemerging with a wet pop – “but most of all, for keeping me from doing this earlier.”

“Joel, I swear to Christ,” Ray groaned, frenzy beginning to seep into his voice, “if you don’t quit with the goddamn teasing in the next ten seconds, I’m going to change the fucking locks on the doors.” His wrists jerked against their bonds, but they didn’t budging an inch. Joel simply smiled and continued kissing up his waist wetly, unfazed.

“I’ll climb in through the window, then,” he murmured casually, moving a hand to Ray’s hip and sucking a mark into the skin beneath his lips. “What else are you gonna do to me?”

“I’ll kill you in your fucking sleep,” the younger snarled, trying to move his leg helplessly but ending up jerking his hips when Joel’s tongue stroked teasingly against his chocolate-covered flesh once more, tracing invisible lines up his skin and sending jolts of heat straight to his groin. God, he ached, but Joel knew how to make torture so sweet that he was left shuddering and panting in no time beneath a tongue and a sugary set of lips.

Naturally, he could’ve given in right then and there, but Ray wasn’t the type to just let things go. Especially when his pride was on the line – a fact he must have forgotten temporarily, Joel noted with a grin, considering he was tied to his headboard and reduced to swears and groans over an ice cream bar. Or under, perhaps.

“I’ll make you sleep on the couch for a month,” Ray continued, hissing his words through a snarl – Joel snorted at that, which only riled him up even more – “I’ll lock the fucking door when I shower, I’ll leave you hanging before work, I’ll—oh, shit—” He fell short when his words muddled together in a low moan that went straight through his teeth, Joel’s hands squeezing him tight as he sucked the chocolate from just beneath his hips. 

“Why’d you stop threatening?” Joel asked softly, smile widening when Ray jerked against the ties again. He moved the pad of his tongue up Ray’s abdomen, dragging a stripe through where the ice cream had swirled together with chocolate pooled atop muscle and skin, and earning himself an impressive chain of swears that fell fast from Ray’s lips. “You sound so good when you’re desperate.”

He drew his tongue up Ray’s happy trail in broad strokes when he didn’t receive a response to that, beginning with one and continuing with more and more as Ray’s noises of obstinacy made way to moans pulled from deep in his throat, shaking beneath Joel’s tongue and hypersensitive to the teasing brush of his fingers. And before he knew it, the ministrations had stopped; instead, he opened his eyes, one and the other, to see Joel with ice cream coating his flushed lips from where he leaned over his torso, which had been licked entirely clean of all remnants of chocolate or vanilla.

“See?” Joel swiped the last of the melted ice cream from where it had pooled neighboring one of Ray’s hipbones, bringing two fingers to Ray’s lips. “Sharing is caring.”

“God, I fucking hate you,” Ray breathed, lapping at his fingers before lifting his neck and taking them completely in his mouth, putting his lips all the way around them and whimpering with contentment like he’d never tasted a Klondike bar in his life. “But I love you,” Joel crooned, watching the way his fingers slid so easily against Ray’s velvety tongue, pressing deeper into the wet heat while the younger’s jaw moved right alongside them. “And I love how good you taste.”

Maybe it was just an oral fixation on the younger’s part, Joel considered briefly as he withdrew his fingers from lips slick with sugar and cream and spit, watching as Ray’s eyes fluttered open beneath dark lashes and locked with his the whole way out. A fixation he could decidedly live with if it looked so good in those big, beautiful eyes, and one he’d have to indulge more frequently when Ray didn’t look like such a delicious mess spread out beneath him. His cock was dark with arousal, pressed insistently against his stomach and glistening from his work before, and his hair stuck to his forehead from sweat, and Jesus Christ, Joel thought to himself, he could indulge in the sight laid out before him forever.

“Why’d you stop?” Ray whispered mockingly, eyes flashing in challenge, and Joel thanked every lucky star whose name he knew for the fact that he’d fallen in love with a guy who had more energy than he knew what to do with. Joel gripped his knees before hoisting them up high, licking a stripe from his tailbone all the way up to rim him with a great deal of enthusiasm – so much, in fact, that Joel almost regrets tying his wrists to his bedposts because he knew they’d be clawing the mattress half to hell right about now with the way Ray’s nerves were ramping up into overdrive.

But as he let his legs back down, Ray collapsing against the mattress as Joel pressed a final, gentle kiss against his thigh, Joel finally relented and slid the ties holding Ray’s wrists from the bedposts. He wasn’t an idiot, though; he knew Ray would be quick to act on the newfound mobility, so he gripped the Puerto Rican’s wrists tight and gently flipped him onto his stomach instead. He slid a still-slick finger against the younger’s ass and took in a sharp breath when Ray flexed from beneath him, a pleased groan reverberating from his lips into the mattress in which he’d buried his face, but Joel quickly decided he wouldn’t be able to manage much longer if he continued to be barraged with such satisfying mewls from beneath his hands.

The aim of all his work, Joel knew, was never to prolong Ray’s anger, nor to tease him into endless frustration, no matter how fun it might have proved – no, he thought to himself as he worked Ray open, peppering his neck and shoulder with kisses and telling him how good he looked beneath him, how perfect he felt and tasted and was, the point was always for him, to please him, to make him a fucking livewire beneath his hands and tongue and lips. To make sure he moved him all the right directions, touched all the right places, and appreciated how beautiful Ray made loving in every deliciously physical manner just as much as it – as he gripped Joel’s heart and mind. And god, to watch Ray come apart from his own work was the biggest source of pleasure for Joel, his satisfaction the highest priority as long as he could bring Ray to the edge and watch the entire thing.

Joel gyrated his hips slowly, cock brushing against the cleft of Ray’s ass as he pulled his fingers from within him and breathed his praises down his spine, waiting to give him what he wanted the moment the words fell from his lips. And Ray didn’t waste any time, imploring him with a voice raw and hoarse to fuck him, fuck him into the mattress with no holds barred, to give him everything he had alongside the stars in the night sky and all the love in his heart, and fuck, if Joel wasn’t elated to give it all to him.

And when he finally slid home, burying himself to the hilt and cupping Ray’s jaw from above him when the younger’s back arched, he pressed his face into his neck when a sigh escaped Ray’s lips. “Move,” he pleaded, voice muffled by the sheets beneath him as he moved his hips back insistently against Joel’s own. “Fuck me, Joel, god, I need—” he started with impressive effort, rutting his hips against the mattress in an effort to get friction against his aching erection, but with the sudden slide forward Joel executed, it was like all the breath was knocked from his lungs.

It was characteristic of Joel to let the mood decide his pacing, and Ray couldn’t deny for a second that he was fantastic at it – when circumstances called for relentless, he certainly delivered, leaving Ray marked up half to hell and gasping for air, but in times like this, times where Joel wanted to be equal parts loving and tender while delivering toe-curling orgasms that he could only previously dream of receiving, times where Joel wanted the entire experience to be as sensual and unhurried as the words that left his lips and dripped across Ray’s skin like honey, they each felt everything. Joel’s thrusts were just fast enough to make Ray cry out in pleasure upon meeting each one, filling him completely before moving back, teasing as always, sending Ray moving in a rhythm that had his cock pressed against the mattress at just the right angle to send him toward the edge quicker than he’d expected.

Joel’s voice graced his ears low and breathy, murmuring loving words of encouragement into his hair while he worked a hand beneath their bodies, pushing him toward release faster and faster until Ray’s heightened moans blended together into a cry of shameless pleasure, spilling into the sheets with a shudder. It only took a few more thrusts for Joel to follow suit, taken to the brink by the sounds of Ray’s release paired with the shivers that wracked his body after he’d finished, and he came with his face buried in Ray’s neck and his name on his lips.

He rolled to the side after a minute of regaining his bearings, head spinning with the aftershock of orgasm as Ray moved in close, pressing himself flush against Joel’s chest as he littered his skin with fleeting, thankful kisses. The older lay still, hand carding through Ray’s hair as he caught his breath.

When he finally opened his eyes, Joel slung a tired arm around Ray’s waist as he kissed him quickly, smiling against his lips. He moved back to nail Ray with a puppyish look in his eyes, pouting apologetically.

“I’ll get you more Klondike bars, I promise,” he said before Ray could speak, running a hand down his boyfriend’s side before pressing their foreheads together. “Are we even now?”

Ray smiled sweetly back at him before he bunched up his knees and shoved Joel off the mattress with an impressive amount of force, rolling over and sighing contentedly as he buried himself in the mussed sheets.

“Yeah, we’re even.”

A/N: marlboro golds are stupidly expensive in texas. we're not sure why.

also, as it stands, i've almost reached 100k words posted on archive of our own, which means i've written just as much for this fandom in my year of activity- thanks so much for everyone's kind words and incredibly generous amounts of support, i can't tell you how much it means! <3

also found on AO3!

--

It was a dark day when Ray found himself taking advice from resident hothead. Then again, Michael had balance in his love life from Lindsay, companion resident hothead (or maybe just redhead, he mused), which was more than Ray could boast at the moment. But he wasn’t bitter about that or anything, he’d think to himself sourly; no, not at all.

He finally decided to consider Michael’s recommendation about two minutes after he left, though he’d never admit it to him. Knowing himself well enough to recognize he’d put it off forever if he waited another day, he decided to scroll through pages and pages of rink information before finally finding an admin email address for the rink. The rink, he thought bitterly, because he proved inescapably to be a sentimental fuck, and he would rather go somewhere that historically relieved stress than risk running into Burnie and ramping it up again tenfold. He’d successfully ignored about a dozen phone calls, and he was honestly surprised he hadn’t come home to a battering ram through his front door.

But to even more surprise, he received a reply to his email the morning after he’d sent his request, and was positively thrilled (and half mind-blown, because he hadn’t really been expecting it at one hundred percent) to receive an affirmation. The rink’s director agreed to leave the doors unlocked until Ray got there, mentioning having a kid from the back office – Kerry, Ray inferred with a smile – hanging around only long enough to lock them behind Ray and head out to let him use the arena. He felt like a weight was lifted from his shoulders when the subject line had popped up in his inbox, so the email he sent back in gratitude thanked them at least four separate times.

By the time he’d reached the rink on the day he’d requested and locked his bike in the bike rack, he had a strange feeling of exhilaration burning in his chest – nervousness, even, which reminded him of the day he’d started up at the place. It was strange going back to something so pure, a hobby-turned-lifestyle that had been such a constant for so long; actually, it was a little surreal, given the fact that he was back to the little old rink in Texas he’d ventured to as an escape and left with one beyond his wildest dreams.

He glanced at the sign above the doors with a pang of something flavored like nostalgia before he went in, and bit his tongue in silent reprimand for allowing himself the sentiment. It was impossible to look at the parking lot without thinking of the inevitable, though, even harder to let his fingers curl around the door handle and pull it open to the familiar draft that blew through his hair, and once the door closed behind him and he could see the light blue of the ice glittering beneath the lights, something in his chest had constricted. But he took a deep breath for solidarity, making his way in like he always had and keeping his chin held high.

He probably looked a little ridiculous in all his precautionary layering, just in case he ran into someone he didn’t want to see – since he hadn’t mentioned avoiding anyone in his email, he figured there was a chance he’d see an all-too-familiar face in the otherwise empty stands, so his solution consisted of two hoodies, a hat, and skating trousers to replace his typical jeans. He might have been a bit of a fashion catastrophe, he noted with a grimace before leaving home, but at least he’d fall relatively under the radar. And he was happy to live with that, because he hadn’t gotten far enough to know what he’d even do if he ran into the last person he wanted to see.

Once he made it onto the ice, though, he was hit with a strange wave of something he couldn’t quite place – relief, perhaps, the feeling of his nerves blowing through his entire system like cold air into a set of doors separating out from in, but something was different this time. Naturally, he supposed, given the fact that the room was entirely silent. He’d like to think he preferred it that way, but he had to shake the idea from his mind once it crossed the forefront of conscious thought and lingered longer than he’d liked to indulge. Ray’s eyes roamed over the rink before him, moving to the empty stands and landing inevitably in a familiar place by the exit that made his heart lurch. A set of chairs he’d honestly never seen this late, but one he’d never witnessed unoccupied.

He was quick to put in his headphones after he’d sent his gaze back to his skates, though, remembering Michael’s words and refusing to linger too long on what he was here to remedy. They always said confronting your fears head-on was the best step in assuaging them, that the process of moving on began with a singular first step, and progress was certainly progress – but with every step he took, every glide and movement over the ice that had him falling into familiar spirals in no time, he couldn’t be sure if he was here to forget or to remember. So he decided to hand himself over to his music like days gone by – long gone by if he’d really stopped to consider it – in hopes of thoroughly exhausting himself from thinking too hard anymore. At least he could say he tried.

But by the time his playlist ended, after the final note had left his eardrums and he stood in the rink with his hands on his knees, breaths heavy and heart heavier, he knew it would take a lot more practice to find the answer he was looking for. He crouched low enough to allow his legs to give out below him, sliding across the ice on his back with outstretched arms once he let himself fall.

As he sent his eyes toward the ceiling, running a hand through his hair and letting the air escape his lungs, he tried to ignore the prickling sense of déjà vu that the lights on the ice sent through his chest. He tried to concentrate on the sleep he’d lost over the mess he’d found himself tangled in, the heartache and the overwhelming silence of the rink that hit his ears when he pulled his headphones off, but most of all, he tried to convince himself he didn’t want what he had, what had perhaps passed. What had happened on the very ice on which he lay – stretched out, vulnerable, tired. Alone.

He clambered to his feet finally, deciding he’d conclude whether or not the practice had helped in the morning. It felt good to skate again, no doubt, felt better to skate with no one watching, but something was clinging to his heart when he left the rink that he couldn’t shake even after getting home. Something that made his effort feel empty, incomplete; like he'd been expecting something else, if he was brutally honest with himself. And for all he knew, maybe he had been expecting something else. After all, there's a fine gradient joining hopes and expectations, and in a profession that left Ray bruised and beaten, he knew it better than most.

Maybe he wasn't ready to say he might have been hoping for something in particular. Hoping to see someone in particular. 

He decided he'd take it in stride.

But whatever it was that kept drawing him back time and time again, whatever did the ensuring that he continued on this strange and uncertain trajectory he’d set himself on, whether it was the company or the sport that pulled on his heart and besought him to stay – well, he didn’t need Michael to tell him he’d have to discover that one on his own.

--

Was one cigarette ever enough time to remember all the ‘you’s and ‘me’s with all the ‘and’s in between, the staggered breaths that took the place of words, the addendums and take-aways, the long nights that stretched by in close proximity and closer whispers of hunger and desire that ended after the sun came up?

Joel frowned and lit up anyway, willing the thought away in a heavy sigh that swirled with smoke and words unspoken. He asked himself too many fucking questions.

He decided long ago he’d ran out of faith in anything long before he’d ever run out of smokes, and as long as an escape was worth $5.50 a pack at the service station – the one that stayed open late enough for him to slip out at two in the morning when he opened an empty pack – he was happy to press his lips to his golds and have that deadly kiss mean more than anything, especially the nameless face sleeping soundly in the bed he’d left for his salvation.

Breathe in, hold, breathe out.

Until he met Ray. Ray, who didn’t bother cutting his cigarettes all in half when he had the chance to swipe them from where they sat on his nightstand or in his pockets and do it; no, he never even wanted to, even though Joel very likely deserved it. Ray, who could’ve yanked the damn things straight from his lips and extinguished them between his fingers, hell, could have simply asked like everyone had before, but he didn’t. Not because he didn’t care, he’d seen that in his eyes, but because he understood. Maybe not what it was like to be addicted, but what it was like to let himself take flight.

For all the time he’d spent interacting with countless faces in which he might have seen something more than just a smile, the one thing Joel could say without hesitation that he truly fell in love with in all his youth was the ice. He’d practiced day and night because it was where he loved to be more than anything, a gleaming constant in his life that was always there when he wanted it to be, when he needed it to be. It was the persistent force that picked him up when he fell, somewhat ironically, and at the end of the day, there was nowhere else he’d ever wanted to be. By the time he’d hit 30, he knew that of all the presences in his life, he’d really given figureskating his everything, which was more than he could say for many of the nights of a warmer nature he’d had.

All were realizations that hit him when he stood on the Olympic podium for the last time, holding his head high and his outstretched hand toward the crowd, but despite all the ringing applause in that moment and the congratulatory alcohol he knew was waiting for him beyond the door, all he could think was how he’d wake up the next day and though he could take off his skates, his costume, and even his pride, he could never take off his skin. Skin that made him who he was, skin with blood running beneath it that moved for something he had never been sure of; he was no robot, he didn’t come pre-programmed to do one thing and one thing alone, and the realization of all this as a well-seasoned professional athlete was completely earth-shattering.

So when he’d decided to end his career at a high point, having competed in countless national and international invitationals, including a handful of Winter Olympic Games, it would’ve been generous to say he’d floundered.

He’d avoided the rink as long as he could, and hell, he really did find comfort in the stands once he’d started sitting behind the partitions instead of falling on his ass again and again when he worked up the nerve to practice. And it might have even hurt more sitting still than being in the spotlight, at first. But he knew somewhere in his heart and mind that the ice wasn’t his life, and he was old enough to know that he was a person beyond his acrobatics, beyond all the performances and the applause that didn’t do a damn thing for him beyond the ego boost and the ever-revered medals that sat where he could occasionally glance up and indulge himself in the memories collecting dust.

The popular favorite question was why he left. Why he wanted to leave, even, since ‘you were so good when you ended it all, and hell, the fans love you, why go?’ and since he still viewed his career so fondly, as everyone did – and the easy answer was that he left before his legs could give out. An answer that made his publicists breathe easy, an answer that didn’t offend anyone, and didn’t weigh too heavily on his aching heart.

An answer that was unavoidably missing as much as it sounded like it was.

But it finally hit Joel like a freight train when he’d laid awake all night, hours before his publicist planned to release his statement, gears in his mind still spinning as fast as ever, because he realized that for all his years delighting in it, he didn't want the spotlight, not like that. Not from the ones that he was keeping all his effort from to please the masses. The ones he wanted to spend more than just a fortnight alongside. And no matter how much he could lie his ass off on live television to his heart’s content about it, it didn’t change a damn thing.

It took Joel longer than he wanted to admit that he wanted to find himself past all the glory and the competition. The day he discovered that he was living a life so ravenous for success that he'd pushed everything and everyone else that left him feeling so wronged and empty aside was the day he convinced himself that his midlife crisis had started in his twenties. He ached to learn how to take comfort and pleasure in the smaller things, to appreciate the sun and rain, to indulge latent interest in the stock market and stupid console games, but in all his time spent relearning how the world worked outside the rink, he could never bring himself to open up enough to let someone remind him how others worked.

To let them remind him how he worked.

But just like that realization all those years ago, he was beginning to hear the wail of the approaching locomotive.

And now that Joel was sitting – no, leaning over his balcony, gazing blankly into the dark of night and smoking with a kind of restlessness he hadn’t had since he first picked the habit up, he wondered when it changed. Wondered what it was about this kid, wondered when things changed from ‘I don't want to remember your name when the sun comes up and I drive you home, but I don't want it to matter, either’ to late nights that got later and later by their number alone, the kind that held skies littered with stars that he’d perhaps better notice if he hadn’t been so enrapt with something – someone – even better, nights that quickly metamorphosed to early mornings watching the sunrise and wishing it would disappear back beneath the horizon like they might beneath the sheets. Nights he wanted to keep forever.

And he was beginning to realize, even after he'd pulled his phone out and dialed, he was fucked. Had been for a while, actually, and he was beginning to think he was the last one to realize it.

One cigarette certainly wasn’t enough, as it turned out – not even half, and certainly not how long it took Jack to answer his goddamn phone.

(Incidentally, he’d known that the cigarettes were empty salvation the entire damn time, but they helped marginally with something he’d refused to call ‘guilt’.)

The tone of the other line stopped ringing, and a voice answered on the other line, but before he could get out a ‘hello’, Joel interrupted him.

“I need to talk to you.”

A breath held mid-greeting blew back out against the speaker on Jack’s end.

“What’d you do?”

Yeah, Joel thought to himself, definitely deserved it.

also posted to AO3!

--

Maybe it was the lingering effects of the booze, or perhaps simply the fact that Joel Heyman turned into a stormcloud when bad turned worse, but the only thing that came to Jack’s mind when Joel slid into his passenger seat and closed the door with a little too much force was that he was dealing with a very hung-over, very foreboding bout of stormy weather.

He left the key hanging in the ignition unturned when he glanced at his friend, gaze patient and starkly contrasted against Joel’s empty, lined stare through the windshield. He had agreed to pick him up from the airport when he left., since Joel had an apparent moral opposition to leaving his car (“it’s a fucking M3, Jack, I’m not paying to have the detailing redone because some teenage fuck needs parking practice”) parked in the airport lot, but he’d sensed something was wrong when he met him in the baggage claim and was met with radio silence. Radio silence that had gone on for the better part of an hour.

“Late night?” Jack offered when Joel didn’t show any signs of speaking up, whose unexpectedness was rewarded with a blank stare in his direction and a shift. And dear lord, he noted upon seeing the dark eyes that only hung onto his own for a minute, he looked fucking exhausted.

“Kinda,” he muttered finally.

“This isn’t about that kid, is it?” Jack asked, honest amusement making its way into his voice before he was cut off by a stare and a cleared throat.

Oh, god, it really was about the kid.

“I found out this weekend that he skates,” Joel started, pulling a folded page from his back pocket. He unfolded it carefully, voice was tinged with something that shook with augury as his expression darkened, adding a curt ‘very well, in fact’ as he held them out for Jack to see.

Jack took the stapled papers in hand confusedly, eyes following Joel’s finger as he pointed to the name under fourth place.

“This is him? You’re sure it’s not just—” He fell short when he looked up, sudden understanding pervading his confusion to offer clarity. “Oh. Oh, god. Is this the category you judged?”

“Bingo,” Joel hissed, “don’t look now, but I got played for a fucking sleaze.” He took the paper back effortlessly as Jack’s grip fell open. “Believe it or not.”

Jack frowned. “But how would he have even known you were judging? Did you tell him?”

“No, I didn’t.” Joel folded his arms and sent his gaze straight through the windshield once more, humorless laugh pervading the silence and falling sharp like a minor chord.

“Weren’t you over there, like, Wednesday night? As in the night before you left?”

A stiff nod.

Jack blinked. “What did you two discuss after the fact? Like, where did you both think the other was headed?” He looked on confusedly as Joel’s expression changed to mild shock, sending a bewildered look back. “Know what, spare me the details,” he said quickly, putting up a hand while Joel’s eyebrows were still raised.

He shook it off before he spoke, but when he did, he couldn’t help but notice how final Joel’s expression seemed. “Look, man, not only are you the first person I’ve opted to discuss this with, but you will also be the last,” Joel affirmed, and Jack almost didn’t catch the strain clinging to his voice like a leech. “After this conversation, I’m done with it.”

Summarily dismissed, just like that. But Jack knew him better than that, knew he’d spent so long not caring about anything or anyone that he rejected it when it swept him up, and made a huge deal about it. Like the performer he was born to be, of course.

“Joel, for someone who claims he can’t stand emotions, you and I both know you fell hard.”

“And then I got used,” Joel said calmly, beginning to look more falsely apathetic – an expected departure from how incensed he looked earlier, because he really was the king of denial – by the minute. “Which, by the way, was something I didn’t expect to happen after I graduated from college.”

But Jack blew a breath out from his nose as he rolled to a stop, cursing the line of red lights as far as they could see on the freeway before them, before turning to Joel.

“Did you consider he didn’t make the connection when he learned your name?”

“What do you mean?”

Jack huffed, because he’d really been avoiding asking the zinger that was ‘what if the name, your name, meant nothing to him?’, but he opted to proceed on a more diplomatic route.

“Like, you were on the circuit when he was an infant. He’s a kid, things are different,” he tried, hoping to god it clarified the thought with minimal damage. He sent a stare down the freeway that had been moved to a standstill by rush hour traffic and tried to ignore the increasingly overwhelming elephant in the car, but he had a bad feeling Joel would push it, and that would push him.

And on cue, Joel stared him like he’d informed him that the week had nine days. Jack just sighed before elaborating, because he had a knot in his stomach about where this conversation was headed. For his stupid-enough-to-almost-call-it-charming friend’s sake.

“Yeah, it’s awkward you were the one judging him, but did he ever even admit that’s what he was after?”

Joel scoffed. “Of course he wouldn’t.”

Jack sent him a very annoyed look, only half intended for the traffic hold-up.

“Okay, so what if he just had no idea who you were?”

“I don’t think he’s that stupid,” the older man replied drily, leaning back in his seat.

”Christ, Joel, you just don’t get it. Not at all.” Jack ran a hand across his forehead, because he could already feel Joel’s bull-headed tendency to tune him out expanding rapidly. But between the traffic and the man beside him, his patience was wearing thin, because as long as he’d known Joel, he’d been this way- flighty and stuck in his own head for too long, which left him disillusioned and angry and a boatload of other adjectives of a similar variety. Stuck in his head for far too long, actually, now that he thought about it.

“What is there to not get, Jack?” Joel’s voice was raised and the inflection he added to the end of the question held signature brashness, but at that point, the fact that Joel very likely knew the answer but was too self-centered to even consider its truth persuaded Jack to quit playing the sympathy card.

“This! All of this!” He slammed a hand down on the steering wheel, turning to the older man with a sharp glance. “People aren’t going to remember you forever, Joel! The world keeps turning after you’re gone, when the hell are you gonna get off your massive fucking ego and realize that?”

They sat in silence for a minute after he’d spoken, and it was a looming silence Jack resented every second of. He knew he’d hurt Joel by the way his breath caught before he managed to reply, narrow gaze darkening in his periphery, but he wouldn’t have said it if he didn’t think it was something he needed to hear.

Jack waited until the traffic eased up before he turned to Joel again, gaze softer, and was pinned with an icy stare in return. But it was expectant, like he waiting for something. Hopefully that something wasn’t the opportunity to cook Jack alive.

So he lowered his eyes contemplatively, wondering if he was really this bad at getting his points across before speaking up again.

“I’m not saying he’s not to blame, Joel, but I think you’ve got some owning up to do here, too.”

“It’s not in my MO to apologize for what isn’t my fault,” Joel growled, and hell, he didn’t care what it must have sounded like because it was true. It fucking sucked because he didn’t apologize when he should’ve, either.

He took responsibility for the little things, the stupid shit that didn’t really matter like ‘oh, sorry I let the door swing shut,’ or ‘sorry, I didn’t quite catch that, say again?’, but when it came down to staring all his faults in the face and opening himself up to fire from below by uttering those words, he was a strong advocate of silence. Things like empty gratitude and apologies that proved meaningless from sheer amount of overuse didn’t sit well with Joel at all, especially given the fact that the usual culprit (read: unlucky fucking bastard) that they were expected to be directed to – relationships, the situations he pointedly avoided placing himself in, and was rather successful with, he might have added – was a person that theoretically deserved better.

And for all the work he did to make sure he exuded self-confidence to the general public, even to the point of looking like an arrogant prick, he knew the relationships certainly deserved better than him. Especially the ones that really meant something. The few, and in this case, the very recent.

So no, empty apologies didn’t exactly factor into their arrangement, but more than anything, as Joel had convinced himself long ago, he just wasn’t supposed to fucking care.

He didn’t ask for much, but he did demand that of himself, and fuck, if Jack wasn’t reminding him that he had the capacity to fucking care.

They didn’t speak the rest of the drive to Joel’s apartment, and by the time they arrived, Joel was still pissed off and too resoundingly sober to want to say another word.

“Plans?” Jack asked simply when Joel opened the door and gestured to the back of his car to get the trunk popped. He was met with a sigh before the door swung shut, and the mess of hair resurfaced through the passenger window as he rolled the glass down. “Watch the stars through lots of smoke. Buy groceries. Marathon something stupid. All plans otherwise to be determined.”

Jack frowned. “You’re acting like a teenager, Joel.”

He felt the car move as Joel opened the trunk, rolling his eyes as he heard the older man call back “don’t diss my taste in evening entertainment, asshole,” complimented by a one-finger salute in the rearview mirror.

“Give it some thought, at least,” he offered after a moment, when Joel came back around the side and leaned in once more. “Easier to move on that way.”

He caught a glimpse of Joel’s eyes when he looked back at him, but they were too dark to tell if it was a street lamp or ambivalence he was seeing reflected back from them.

“Thanks for the ride,” Joel said with a tight smile, giving Jack a small wave as he turned and started up the concrete walkway.

--

“He was in the 1992 Olympics, holy shit! How the hell did this slip your mind?”

Ray paused in his search of his fridge, eyes wandering over the contents uninterestedly. His eyes scanned the contents but refused to register anything, so he straightened his stance and scratched his neck as he did his best to dial Michael out in favor of something less mentally intrusive. Or at least something less confrontational.

“It just.. did?”

Michael waved the hardly-excuse away and squinted at his iPhone screen in awe. “Ray, he’s the Kalashnikov of figureskating, and frankly, I’m shocked you haven’t at least seen him on YouTube.”

The younger frowned, rifling past plastic containers and scrunching his nose up at a take-out box in the back from heaven knows when.

“I was never good at remembering to do my homework. Get off my ass, mom.”

“I wonder if your coach knows him. Was he on the circuit from ‘an early age to well into the nineties and early 2000s, faring multiple international and national tournaments, and boasting a record of—”

“Are you on fucking Wikipedia?”

“Dude,” Michael began with a sigh, clapping his hand on Ray’s shoulder as he slid his phone back into his pocket. “All I’m saying is that for someone so into skating, you’re stupid as a sack of shit.”

At least people haven’t been mincing their words lately, Ray thought with a grumble as he shrugged his hand off in mild annoyance. Michael had insisted after a brisk string of texts that Ray call him the minute he woke up, since the Puerto Rican had booked a red-eye flight back from Boston and won the argument for the time being to be left alone. The time Ray spent on the plane was mostly spent in limbo between wakefulness and falling unconscious to the lull of the engine, actually, since he’d spent the rest of his trip following the return to his room totally wired. Neither of them had exactly counted on that part.

However, when Ray didn’t get back to him until one in the afternoon (and Michael didn’t consider the AIM notification of his presence online – not a message, especially not of the SMS variety – a signal that offered any doubt about him being awake and at home), Michael had raced over and pounded on Ray’s door until he threatened to break it down.

“If you came to insult me, don’t bother, I’ve done enough of that already,” Ray muttered, handing him a can of Coke from the fridge. ESPN was blaring loudly from the TV while the remote was across the room, and Ray’s glasses were sitting on an antiquated shelf, unmoved from before and quite likely not unintentionally left in their place, Michael thought to himself. From the looks of it, he was trying to drown himself in his own apartment.

He let them sit in silence while Ray worked away at the guards he’d pried from his skates, occasionally commenting on the ticker speeding across the bottom of the screen, but only receiving brief hums of acknowledgement in reply.

The redhead looked concerned when he returned his gaze to his friend. “Do you like him more than your skates?” he asked finally, his voice cautious and soft. “I know Burnie was probably making you hate it all, considering how hard he worked you, but…”

“No,” Ray interrupted with a clipped tone. “I didn’t.” He’d glanced up from his hard guards from where he sat perched on his counter, and met his friend’s worried look with a steadfast one of his own.

And to that, Michael frowned, struggling with a response. “He called you a slut and you totally crumpled, Ray,” he tried, “it’s safe to say you care. Also okay to call yesterday a really shitty day.”

 “Things happen,” Ray replied simply, not looking up.

“Ray,” Michael sighed, taking a seat on one of the bar stools perched below the island, “you can lie to yourself all you want, but don’t fucking lie to me. Just don’t.” He pulled the guards from Ray’s fingers when they stilled, nudging his leg insistently. Ray looked up at him, eyes softer, but he dropped his glance back to the tile on his kitchen floor after a minute of maintained contact.

“He didn’t believe me,” he said finally. “Yeah, I care that I didn’t place as high as I wanted, don’t get me wrong, but… he just looked at me with this look, and it went straight through me. And I tried to walk it off, tried to sleep it off, but I can’t get it out of my—”

“Why do you care?”

Ray blinked at the unexpected interruption, train of thought coming to a screeching halt as he considered it.

“I don’t, I…”

“Don’t start with that bullshit, Ray, you do. And let me answer that for you, you care because you guys had something.”

The choice of ‘had’ in that recount hit Ray with a pang that reverberated through his chest, but he frowned and did his best to ignore it.

“A series of good sex and bad decisions,” he corrected instead, with a stretch and a brief simper. “And I happened to be pulled along for the ride.”

Michael chewed at his lip.

“Good sex, huh?”

“Fantastic.”

A snicker came from Michael’s direction, but Ray opted to ignore that, too.

“So, what made it into a series, the sex or the bad decisions?” he asked, air quotes adorning ‘bad decisions’ after a moment of silence. Ray took a breath, knowing what Michael was getting at. “I’m not letting you make me think I’m in the middle of a fucking Disney movie, Michael.”

The sigh he received in reply was monumental. Ray raised his can to him, and Michael flipped him off. “Don’t tell me you’re only in it for the dick. You’re in a veritable goddamn relationship with this dude, even if relationship means sex and apparently not talking about each other’s feelings.” He smacked Ray in the leg when he noticed him staring out the window, bringing him back to the real world with a yelp. “Friends with benefits still means friends,” he muttered on a final note, folding his arms once again as he leaned back on the stool.

The Puerto Rican shrugged noncommittally in reply. “I mean, it’s a pretty sociopathic continuum. The feelings may have gotten in the way, but they can always be dealt with. The dick was necessary.”

Michael rolled his eyes behind his can. “Right. The only thing keeping you from jumping from fuck buddies to being in a relationship is some sort of totally repulsive character trait that you can’t seem to find in this guy.”

Ray crossed his arms right back and realized how infantile his pout looked only after the fact.

“Being accused of playing dirty seemed pretty repulsive.”

A sentiment that was met with a sigh and a flat stare, naturally. Yes, he’d let the point whiz right past his ear, but he figured he’d settle for letting Michael reprimand him for it.

“Ray, he’s hurt. And neither of you were honest.” Michael placed his can on the counter with a frown, crossing his arms on the table’s surface. “You want a stick to ride, invest in a dildo, but there’s a person attached to the one you’re riding that breathes and feels and thinks, and right now, I think he’s doing a whole lot of feeling. Like you.”

There was a sustained silence that hung in the air before Ray spoke up again, and this time, his voice shook.

“What the fuck do you want me to do?”

Michael’s reply was simple and to the point, as per normal.

“Do what you always do when you’re stressed.”

“What, the rink?” Ray laughed, overdramatic and sarcastic until he realized who he resembled and cut it off immediately. “Got a little too much faith in me if you think I could stomach that, Michael Jones.” He shifted, tucking his legs up beneath himself so he sat cross-legged on the counter, chin resting in his hands. “Besides, I don’t think it would h-”

“Ray,” Michael growled, cutting him off, “you’re keeping yourself from what you love, you stupid fuck.”

The younger maintained a mildly taken aback expression from the interruption, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask his friend as to what exactly he was referring. Deep breath in, deep breath out.

He’d start with the rink, he decided hesitantly.

“I don’t want to see Burnie at mine, and I sure as hell don’t want to see… well, you know.” He scratched his head in defeat, glancing up at the redhead. “I could let things blow over, at least. Or just move away. Several states away.”

Michael’s eyes might as well have rolled to the back of his head.

“Go to the rink at night, moron.”

Then there was silence, save for the protest Ray had readied on his tongue that fell flat. It didn’t take much for Michael to get Ray to tell him he was right, and Ray despised how much the guy reveled in it.