Who: Peter and Ray What: Dinner and an Inquisition? When: 2/25 (backdated like woah, sorry) Where: Their apartment Warnings: Does Passive Agressive-ness count?
Ever since Peter had come home, Ray felt himself withdrawing from everything and everyone. He was still having trouble sleeping, and Isobel seemed to have her own things to deal with. His conversations with Eli always left Ray feeling inadequate, and that just piled on to everything else that was troubling him. He hadn’t said much of anything to Peter these past few days, doing his best to steer clear of the other man. He went in to work early or stayed late, just to make sure he saw as little of Peter as possible. It was obvious to both of them that Peter’s absence had done a number on Ray.
Unfortunately, this was the first Friday after Peter came home, and Ray’s boss firmly kicked him out, sending him home at exactly 5pm. He took his time gathering his things and chose to walk back to their apartment, just to eat away at the time. It hadn’t done much good because when he walked in, there Peter was, already home and clearly not working. Ray was silent as he slipped off his shoes on the mat by the door and hung up his jacket in the closet. He padded past Peter without a glance and walked into his bedroom, closing the door behind him softly. Ray had been avoiding him. Peter wasn’t stupid, and Ray certainly wasn’t making any attempt to hide it. And though Peter would never admit it to anyone but himself it hurt. They’d been something resembling close before Peter had left, and not for the first time Peter kicked himself for ever agreeing to take on the client. Peter was stubborn though, and that was something Ray should remember well enough. He wasn’t going to just let this go on any longer. He knew he’d screwed up, and maybe some other time he would let Ray just simmer. Wait till he was ready to talk. But he couldn’t do that, not when he knew something was wrong. Not when Peter knew that whether he’d admit it or not Ray needed him right now.
And so that meant he had to make Ray talk to him. His first instinct was to fall back on his training as an FBI agent, he’d always been a good interrogator after all. He quickly dismissed that idea though. The last way to fix this was by reminding Ray that he’d used to track him down for a living, trying to throw his ass in jail. Which meant falling back on the things he’d learned long before he’d joined the bureau.
Sighing (not that he had expected anything more) Peter knocked on Ray’s door “I’m making steak,” he told Ray, speaking just loud enough that he knew Ray would hear him through the door. “potatoes too. Figured you probably haven’t had anything home cooked in awhile and we both know frozen dinners are shit.” He’d also made a spinach souffle, and had some chocolate lava cakes waiting in the wings. He’d pull out the big guns if he had too but hopefully steak could at least get his foot in the door. Ray had just been sitting there on his bed when he heard the knock on his door, and then Peter’s voice. It was calm, and not at all angry. Ray knew that voice, but only because he had done a bit of research on Peter while he was getting chased. It meant he was trying to extend an olive branch of sorts, and it sounded delicious. Peter had been right about the frozen dinners, and no one could make steak and potatoes like Peter could. Ray didn’t say anything in reply, but a few minutes later, he opened his door and walked into the kitchen.
Without a word, he sat down at the table, eyes focused on the table in front of him as he waited for Peter to serve dinner and sit down with him. As much as he thought he didn’t want to talk about what was bothering him, Ray knew he’d feel better if he talked about it. Peter was the closest thing Ray had to family in his entire life; it wasn’t fair to keep ignoring him. They needed to work through this. A smile flickered briefly over his face when Ray entered the kitchen, but only for a moment. He knew he still had a long way to go to get Ray talking to him again. He’d be making up for this for awhile he knew, but he didn’t find that it bothered him too much. “So a girlfriend huh? When’d that happen?” Peter’s tone was casual, most of his attention seemingly focused on cooking and putting the finishing touches on dinner. It didn’t take much attention though, steak was standard fare for Peter. The souffle was the most difficult part of the whole meal and that was already taken care of, kept hot in the oven. At any rate it let Peter focus his attention on Ray without Ray making him think as much. Didn’t want to frighten him off after all.
Peter figured that with everything that seemed to be happening around here while he was gone (he was never going on another business trip, his boss could go to hell if she tried to make him) Isobel was probably the safest place to start. If this worked he’d be able to get to talk about everything with the gun sooner or later. And hadn’t that been jarring to find out; that Ray had, had to shoot a gun. Peter knew how Ray felt about guns and how much it must have killed him to have to use one. Ray was quiet for a few minutes, debating on how to answer Peter’s question. A smile ghosted over his face as he glanced up to look at Peter, even though the other man had his back to him. “She’s sweet. We met a couple days before Christmas, actually. We ah...had a bottle of wine, and then a couple days later we went Christmas caroling. I dressed up as a reindeer actually,” he explained with a light chuckle. “Things just sort of...progressed from there. I got her a cruise to Alaska for Christmas. A little spontaneous maybe, but she actually took me with her after the whole...thing...that happened,” he replied, voice trailing off at the reference to the Reavers.
He cleared his throat after a moment and then said, “So uh...how’s dinner coming?” It was a rough transition, but Ray hoped Peter wouldn’t make too big a deal out of it. “Should be done in a few minutes.” He wouldn’t push Ray to talk. He was lucky it hadn’t been harder to get him talking at all with how he’d been avoiding Peter. Now wasn’t the time to push, now was the time to coax. Looked like his interrogation skills were helping after all. “You want to set the table?” Peter asked it absentmindedly. With so much of his attention focused on getting Ray to open up he’d unconsciously fallen back on old habits, the routine he and his mom had, had back when he was growing up. Setting the table was always his job as a kid, and once he was older and started taking over dinner some nights his mom had. They hadn’t been much, but they’d been a family, and a happy one at that. But Ray couldn’t know any of that, and even Peter didn’t realize what he was doing or what it meant.
“She sounds nice. Like to meet her sometime, you know without her thinking I’m a burglar.” There was a dry humour to the last comment. Peter hadn’t found it particularly amusing at the time of course, but looking back on it the next day there was a kind of irony to it. That he’d be stealing from Ray. Ray let out a quiet sigh of relief when Peter didn’t push him any further. It was hard enough just thinking about that night. With all the talk of the Bat on the newspapers, Ray had felt a somewhat obligated to speak up, but had decided against it merely because he didn’t want to call attention to himself. He would settle for being a quiet supporter of the vigilante roaming the streets of Seattle.
At Peter’s question, Ray nodded and got up from the table. He got the plates from their cabinet, placing them on the table, before getting the forks, knives, and napkins and putting them on the table in their respective places. The glasses came last, and he set them on the table before walking over to the fridge and looking over what there was to drink. “What do you want? We’ve got...water, diet coke, beer, and milk it looks like,” he asked. “Beer.” he said as he turned off the heat and moved the steaks onto the platter he had set out. Peter wouldn’t admit it but even when he was cooking at home presentation was important to him. He didn’t want his food to just taste good, he wanted it to look good as well. It was the perfectionist in him. Peter didn’t want to push but he was afraid if he didn’t at least give Ray an opening he’d never open up. “How was the cruise?” Asking about what actually happened those few days might be out of the question, but maybe poking around it wouldn’t hurt.
Satisfied with his presentation Peter carefully took the souffle out of the oven. It might have been called a spinach souffle but Peter’d always thought the amount of cheese one of these things required deserved some more name credit. It was an impressive spread if he did say so himself, besides the steak (nice and rare) he’d made his garlic, twice baked mashed potatoes (the secret ingredient was just a hint of cheddar), the souffle, and a horseradish sauce for the meat, on the side of course. He’d even managed to swing by a bakery and grab some fresh bread to go with the meal. “Make sure to save room for desert.” Peter commented with a grin. So maybe Peter liked feeding people, especially family type people who currently weren’t very pleased with him. Ray nodded to the fridge and grabbed two beers for them, twisting off the caps easily enough. He brought them over to the table and sat down just as Peter brought over the food. “Everything looks delicious,” he commented, eyes lighting up at the sight of the twice baked mashed potatoes. His favorite.
“The cruise was actually a lot of fun. Her cousin, Eli, checked me out before we went. He’s really protective of her because of the stuff she went through when she was younger. She...was kidnapped from birth and her real mom found her and rescued her?” his tone was slightly uncertain just because he was fuzzy on all the details himself. “Anyway, he just wanted to make sure I was alright I guess. Thankfully he doesn’t have access to my file from the other side,” Ray added with a bit of a chuckle. Peter had tried to make Ray’s favorites, it only seemed right for their first real dinner together since he’d been back. “Can’t say I blame him then. I’d be protective too.” And he really would be. It was probably lucky he’d never had a younger sister or any younger female relatives. He would have been hell for their social lives. “Wonder what he would have done if he did.” Peter mused aloud with a chuckle. For a moment everything felt normal, and it was almost like the past few months had never happened and Ray didn’t probably hate him.
“You’re not that person anymore, anyway.” there was total sincerity in Peter’s words. Making sure that Ray didn’t screw up his chance at fresh start was why he’d come through the portal in the first place, but he wouldn’t have done it if hadn’t believed Ray could. People didn’t often get second chances, especially not people who actually deserved them. But Ray did and he had, and Peter was damn proud of him for turning his life around. Ray shrugged. “Hopefully, Eli will never find out. I can’t say I’m looking forward to that conversation,” he replied, thankfully able to see the humorous side of everything. He had been able to lighten up after crossing the portal, considering he hadn’t had to worry about the cops or the Feds chasing him. He finally mustered up the courage to look at Peter at the other man’s words. A bit sheepishly, he began cutting into his steak.
“This is delicious,” he complimented after taking a bite. Ray fell back into silence as he ate, unsure of what was left to say. Other than the topic he was hoping to avoid, there wasn’t much else to say. Pleased that the food had turned out well Peter cracked a quick smile. “Don’t see how he could, ‘less someone else who’d been on your case crosses over. Even if it happens I’d have a little talk with them first.” Peter had been the lead, and sometimes only, investigator on Ray’s case. Raising his brow he added “And its got to be worth something that the Fed who caught you is willing to vouch for you.” Unsure of what else to say without directly confronting the issue Peter fell silent as well. The silence that feel between them was unusual to say the least, and the fact that they were avoiding a particular topic was blatantly obvious to both of them. Ray continued to eat, devouring his twice baked mashed potatoes easily. He had certainly missed Peter’s cooking, even if he had begun to doubt the kind of relationship they shared. It was a good ten minutes before Ray gathered the courage to say, “How was the wedding you were planning? It was a wedding, right?” Work was a pretty safe topic, Ray thought, and there wasn’t much to say on the topic of another investigator from Ray’s case showing up. Those chances were slim to none at best. Snorting he began. “Yeah, it was wedding. Client was completely out there. Wanted it all natural, as little tech involved as possible.” After taking a quick bit he continued. “We were stuck in the mountains, no cell service or web access. Barely know how I managed to get it all together in time.” It had certainly been one of the more frustrating events he’d arranged, but it was over now and he was glad for it. “The client was happy though, mostly, which means my boss should be happy for awhile at least.” He knew they were veering away from what they really needed to talk about but he was content just to catch up with Ray for now. Ray nodded appropriately as Peter recounted his latest ‘mission’ as he sometime teasingly called the events he was assigned. He didn’t comment on the boss however, because he didn’t really know the woman. She was mostly just an ‘other’ to Ray, and part of him blamed her for forcing Peter to take the most recent client. He was mostly pissed off at Peter though, for being away. For not being there for him when he needed Peter the most. He sat in silence then, stewing in his frustration and anger. Peter realized he’d said the wrong thing just a bit too late. As much as he didn’t want to force Ray to talk about this if he didn’t want to Peter wasn’t going to let him just stew. “I would have come back if I’d known Ray. I should have known. I took for granted everything might not be okay, cause in the back of my mind I could still get a sense for you. My power was telling me you were here and you were alive and it kept me from worrying too much. I can’t tell you how sorry I am for making that mistake.” Peter hoped his comments wouldn’t send Ray running back to his room, and he wondered if the chocolate lava cakes would be enough to get him back out again if he did. Still they needed to talk about this or they’d never be able to get around this, and more importantly Ray wouldn’t deal with whatever it was exactly that had happened to him. Ray shrugged in response to Peter’s commentary. It did only a little to ease his feelings of abandonment. He wondered, and not for the first time, if Peter realized that his ability was strictly one way. Not only did he have to deal with the zombiepocolypse and worrying about Isobel, but he also had to worry about Peter. He had to worry about how localized the situation was, and if Peter could get the necessary help Ray had been able to access if he needed it. Was one goddamn wedding really that important? Ray didn’t think so. He finished up the last few bites of his meal and dropped his utensils on his plate. He quickly wiped his mouth and dropped the napkin on the plate as well before standing. “Thanks for dinner,” he said quietly, before walking back into his room. ’Well that went went well’ Peter thought to himself sarcastically. He’d known of course that getting Ray to open up and fix things between them would take a hell of a lot more than one dinner, but he’d been hoping he wouldn’t fuck things up further. Which was exactly what he might have just done. Deciding that it would be best to call for a strategic retreat at this point he stood up from the table with a sigh, and began to take away the plates. As he cleaned up Peter remembered the desert he’d made. Once the dishes were done and the left over food was away Peter placed one of the cakes on a small plate, with just a dollop of whipped cream.
He hesitated for just a moment before knocking on Ray’s door. “If you’ve still got room . . .” Peter trailed off with a sigh, leaving the plate just outside the door. Hopefully Ray would find it while it was still hot, and not stumble across it the next morning. Returning to his own room for the night Peter set his alarm, for his usual six am, too conditioned from ten years in the FBI to wake up any later. By the time Ray woke up the next morning Peter would be gone, off to the gym before work, but he would find on the table a brown paper bag with a steak sandwich, and another chocolate cake inside. A note written in Peter’s by now familiar scrawl lay next to the bag, simply telling Ray to have a good day at work and he hoped he enjoyed the lunch.