Cold Case - 1. Chapter 1

Nico shuddered.

“How come they left you your clothes and took mine off?” he demanded.

“Guess I’m just lucky,” Ryan said. “I may be about to die, but at least I got a nice view while I’m doing it.”

“I’m fuckin freezing. I think I’m getting a cold. An this place smells terrible. I hate the smell of raw meat.”

“You’re worried about that at a time like this? You could be catching a chill, though. We get out of here, I’ll make you some chicken soup.”

“Now you’re Jewish?” Nico rolled his eyes.

“I’ll make you Irish-Italian chicken soup.”

“What the hell is that?”

“Bones of a real chicken for the stock. Not those squares of sticky crap you buy in a box. Potato gnocchi floating on the top. Fresh oregano –”

“Yeah, it sounds wonderful,” Nico interrupted. “But as you pointed out so accurately, we’re about to die – so maybe our priorities should not feature chicken fuckin soup at the top of the list.”

“I thought you might be hungry,” Ryan said, with a smile. “You’re makin me hungry, hangin there like that without even your skivvies on.”

“Is this really the time and place for that kind of thing?” Nico tried, as he had several times before, to stand on tiptoe high enough to lift his hands off the meathook they were chained to. As he had several times before, he failed.

“What better time and place?” Ryan said. “You can’t walk out on me, you can’t hang up the phone on me – I wish I’d thought of hanging you up before now.”

“That’s really not funny,” Nico said. “Why don’t you do something? I’m stuck on this hook, but you’re just handcuffed. You can move about. You could do something about getting us out of here. But no, you’d rather sit there and flirt!”

“So? I have priorities, don’t I?”

“What?” Nico stared at his companion, momentarily at a loss for words. “You – you – you’re a cop! A cop! You should have cop priorities, not horny guy priorities. Doesn’t it occur to you that kidnapping us and shutting us in a meat locker and threatening to kill us is a crime? Several crimes in fact. Aren’t you the least bit professionally concerned about that?”

“Sure,” Ryan replied.

“I feel like screaming,” Nico muttered. “I’m starting to think I didn’t wake up this morning an I’m having a horrible nightmare. All my most horrible fuckin nightmares have you in em.”

“That’s just unkind,” Ryan said. Still smiling, Nico noticed with distaste. He sighed.

“Ryan,” he began.

“Yes, dear?”

“Fuck!” Nico gritted his teeth. Start again, he told himself. “Ryan, how are we going to ever go on a date, if we’re dead?”

“What date? You said you wouldn’t go on a date with me if every other man in the world was a eunuch. You said you wouldn’t go on a date with me if every other man in the world was a woman. You said –”

“I know what I said,” Nico interrupted, hanging onto his temper with both hands. “I’ve changed my mind.”

“A date?”

“Yeah.” Nico fidgeted on his hook, sure that their kidnappers would be back any minute. “Dinner. A movie. Anything you want.”

“Kissing?”

“Uh – I guess. You can kiss me goodnight. After the date.”

“You’re in no position to be setting limits.”

Nico attempted to utter his views on that comment and only succeeded in making a strangled sound like some wild animal caught in a noose.

“Kissing, then.” Ryan stared up at the sides of pork above him, as if lost in happy contemplation of kisses to come. “Maybe some groping as well.”

“Not too much,” Nico said, glaring at him. “It’s a first date.”

“Second.”

“You can’t count what happened at a party six years ago,” Nico said.

“I’d better get us out of here, then,” Ryan said, standing up. “Since you’ve given me something to look forward to.”

“Yeah, you do that,” Nico said. “Think about all that kissing. I might even ask you in for coffee.”

“I’d rather you ask me in for hot sex,” Ryan said as he walked the length of their prison, looking up and around him.

Nico thought of three different replies to that, none of them particularly polite, but decided he’d be better off ignoring it. He was still on the hook, after all.

“Well, we got a big freezer with no windows, we got a locked door and we got meat,” Ryan said. “Oh, and I have a handcuff key in my back pocket.”

“You have a key?” Nico yelled. “Why – what – how stupid are you? Why haven’t you used it?”

“Wanted a date,” Ryan said. “Besides, it’s in my back pocket. I can’t reach it. But you can.”

“Huh? I’m hung up like Christmas dinner, how do you think I’m gonna get into your pockets?”

“First we need to get you off there,” Ryan said, coming over to stand in front of Nico. “Put your legs around me.”

“Is this another trick?” Nico asked. “Like the date thing?”

“Get your mind outta your pants for a minute,” Ryan said. “I mean, supposing you were wearing any.”

“My pants?” Nico said. “My mind?”

“It’s not a sex thing,” Ryan said. “If you climb up me, you can get off the hook.”

“You’re right,” Nico said, then thought about how close he was going to have to get to Ryan. Ryan. The most annoying man in the world. Who would never, ever let him hear the last of it. He sighed again.

“You’re gonna have to do it,” Ryan looked as if he knew exactly what was going through Nico’s mind and was enjoying knowing it.

“I think, when I get off this hook,” Nico said, “I’m going to kill you.”

“You have to get off it first.”

“Come a bit closer.”

“Thought you’d never ask.”

“You’re loving this, aren’t you?”

“Yes, honey.”

“This is so embarrassing,” Nico muttered as he wrapped first one leg and then the other around Ryan. “You’re gonna pay for this – stop smirking at me.”

“I’m not smirking. I’m smiling, lovingly. Oh, yeah, just a little higher!”

“We’re about to be – ” Nico hoisted himself up by the chains he was hanging from, “- murdered by crazy guys... we don’t even know why... and you have a boner?”

“Like I said. Priorities.”

“I wish I was taller.”

“I like you just how you are.”

“Yeah, because I have to climb up over your dick so I can reach.”

“That’s one reason.”

Nico gave a final wriggle of his hips that made Ryan gasp and pushed upwards, disengaging himself from the meathook. He dropped to the floor with a look of annoyance at the smiling cop.

“Turn around,” he said, pulling at the chain that had bound his wrists. It fell to the floor with a loud clank. He shoved his hand into Ryan’s back pocket without giving himself time to think about it and pulled out the key.

“That’s better,” Ryan said when he was free. He took off his shirt and passed it to Nico. “Here. You’re turning blue.”

“Thanks,” Nico said. He put the shirt on and rolled up the sleeves. “You’re big, aren’t you? I could take in lodgers.”

Ryan smiled.

“You’re just tiny,” he said.

“What are we gonna do?” Nico said. “Wait until they come back an jump em?”

“It’s a plan,” Ryan said.

Nico nodded and reclaimed his chain, winding it around his hand. “You could do with something to hit them with.”

“Just what I was thinking myself,” Ryan said.

Nico followed the direction of his gaze.

“Frozen meat?” he said.

“Nice and solid,” Ryan said.

“Yeah, but – ewww!”

“Shh. I hear something.”

“Well don’t just stand there. Grab some meat!”