Notes: I love "discovery" stories. There have been some pretty wonderful ones featuring the Ice Queen, but I also wondered about how a certain someone else might react. Mucho thanks to Gezebel for beta extrodinaire. Feedback would pretty much rule. Send it along to: rowan_fairchild@yahoo.com
Disclaimers: Alliance owns 'em, blah blah blah. But really, if they didn't want us to do this kind of thing, they shouldn't have made 'em so damned foxy.
Pairing: F/K
Rating: PG-13 for "adult situations". And if you don't like the idea of boys having fun with other boys— well, aside from the fact that I think you're loony-- you might want to take a pass on this one.

 

The Delivery
by Rowan F.

     Stella Kowalski stood outside her ex-husband's apartment waiting impatiently for him to answer the door. She'd gone to see Ray at work that afternoon, to make sure he was studying up on the Hughes racketeering case she needed him to testify on in court starting Tuesday, only to find out from Lieutenant Welsh that Ray had the day off. Passing by his cluttered desk on her way out of the station, Stella's sharp eyes had spotted the Hughes file still sitting there, so she'd decided to do herself the favor of dropping it by his apartment on her way home for the evening. It might not be the nicest thing to do, but he certainly wouldn't complain that she was coming by to visit him— even if it was just to drop off a case file. After all, it wasn't like Ray had much of a social life these days, and this way he'd have no excuse for being unprepared when she needed him in court.
      What was taking him so long? She knew he was home, she could hear the sounds of one of his favorite John Coltrane albums seeping out into the corridor. She readjusted the strap of her briefcase on her shoulder with a sigh of exasperation, and knocked at the door again.
      "Just a minute," Stella could hear Ray mumbling as the door opened part-way. He stepped distractedly into the doorway, leaning against the jamb. His dark blond head was bent down, looking intently at his wallet which he flipped open to search for bills.
      Stella's irritation evaporated into a smile as she realized Ray had been waiting for a food delivery and was assuming she was the pizza man. She was about to inform him of his mistake when something about his appearance made her pause. He looked good tonight. Not that that was odd. Ray was a good looking man, but right at the moment he looked really, really good —easy, relaxed, like he'd been dancing to that smoky jazz. Maybe even like he'd just rolled out of bed. At that thought, Stella felt a rush of sudden warmth through her body and a flood of wetness over her tongue. She swallowed the moisture down, shaking her head with amused, aroused, resignation. He's still got it.
      Oh no, she should most definitely not be even entertaining the idea of sleeping with her ex-husband! For God's sake, she was happily dating someone else at the moment— a wealthy, powerful attorney who was far more suitable for her than Ray had ever been, could ever have been. But then, as her traitorous brain pointed out, he didn't make her mouth water just from looking at him, and the sight of Ray like this, right now, most definitely did. Stella swallowed again. This is not what you came here for, she reminded herself, even as she let her eyes drift down slowly over Ray's lean body. And it wouldn't be fair to take advantage of the fact that the poor guy was still so not over her... but... Oh hell, they'd done it a couple of times before... maybe...
      Her eyes took him in hungrily. Ray was wearing just grey athletic shorts and a navy blue sweatshirt that looked hastily pulled on, and a couple of sizes too big, with a white crest emblazoned on the chest... an RCMP crest. Fraser's sweatshirt. Well, no big surprise there, she thought with a smile. Ray never had been much for doing the laundry. Now he was stealing clothes from the Mountie.
      That observation cleared her head a bit, and she opened her mouth to speak, informing him of her presence. But before any sound had the chance to escape her lips, Stella heard footsteps in the room behind Ray. Damn. In the sobering instant it took to register the fact that he wasn't alone— and that whatever wild fantasies had just flashed through her brain were not going to be played out that night— a hand appeared at the back of Ray's neck, fingers stroking through the dark blond spikes of his hair. Ray's eyes, still focused down on his wallet, closed instantly at the touch. He leaned his head back into the hand, face suffused with a sweet, warm pleasure Stella recognized instantly. And that look was not on Ray's face for her. It was for the owner of that hand. And that hand was... oh God. Stella couldn't get her mouth to close. That hand was not female. Even as she struggled to absorb that fact, Stella watched, amazed, as an arm snaked around Ray's waist from behind. A bare, muscled, most definitely masculine arm that tugged at him playfully, impatiently, trying to drag him back inside the apartment.
      "God, Ben, at least give me a chance to pay for the pizza," Ray laughed softly, his voice familiarly husky. "You're such an animal." He shook his head, smiling, then opened his eyes.
      "Stella!"
      Ray's body straightened and stiffened, his eyes widening in stunned surprise. Constable Fraser's... no... Ben's beautifully tousled dark head came slowly into view over Ray's shoulder. His arm remained wrapped strongly around Ray's midsection, but his hand reached up now to splay possessively across Ray's chest. She couldn't read the expression on Fraser's face, shadowed as it was in the partially open doorway, but his body language radiated an unmistakable warning: Ray was his. Stella took an involuntary step back, irrationally half-afraid that there was some guilty trace of what she had just been thinking about seducing Ray still on her face. Christ, had she ever really considered Fraser too unthreatening to be a cop?
      "What're you doin' here, Stell?" Ray asked quietly. He sounded as casual as could be expected, given the circumstances.
      "Files... for the Hughes case," Stella finally managed to stutter out, sliding her briefcase off her shoulder.
      "It's my day off." His voice was still quiet, but he wasn't even trying to hide his annoyance.
      "I know." The embarrassment that had been held at bay by shock came flooding over Stella now. "I... I should have called first."
      "Yeah, you should have," Ray sighed, exhaling heavily. He brought his hand up to cover Fraser's, and gave it a quick squeeze. "S'okay, Ben, this'll just take a minute. Come on in, Stell."
      Stella stared at the floor as she followed them into the foyer. "I'm sorry, Ray, I hadn't realized..." She didn't even know how to finish the sentence. Obviously, she hadn't realized a lot of things, the least of which was the fact that Ray was certainly not sitting around on his day off with nothing better to do than pine over her. He had moved on all right, and she wasn't sure which was more shocking— that Ray was sleeping with a man, or that the man he was sleeping with was Fraser.
      Her curiosity getting the better of her, Stella looked over at Fraser, who had padded silently into the living room to turn off the stereo. He was shirtless and barefoot, wearing only a pair of navy blue sweatpants that matched the shirt Ray had on now. Stella was so used to seeing him in uniform: impeccably groomed, arrow straight, an absolute poster boy for the RCMP. And sure, he was handsome, almost ridiculously so, but Stella had prided herself on possessing a level of sophistication about her tastes in men that had allowed her to find his relentlessly upstanding goodness to be kind of bland. But Fraser looked anything but bland now. The stiff formality of the uniformed Mountie she knew from the 27th's station house was gone, and the bashful awkwardness she would have expected from him at being discovered in such an intimate circumstance had failed to materialize. Instead, Fraser seemed utterly at home here in Ray's apartment. And standing there in the living room, bare chested, with a lock of his glossy dark hair curling defiantly over his forehead, he was quite possibly the most decadently beautiful thing Stella had ever seen. And this was Ray's lover.
      He's still got it, all right.
      "Earth to Stella," Ray interrupted her thoughts, waving his hand in front of her eyes. "Wanna put your peepers back in your head there, Stell?" She thought she detected a hint of amusement in Ray's voice, and when she looked over at him, there was a definite smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Just 'cause my boyfriend is so much cuter than yours, that's no reason for rudeness. Are you gonna give me those papers, or what? Me and Ben were kinda in the middle of something here."
      Stella blinked, and looked from Ray, who was grinning widely, to Fraser, who was now staring down at his feet and starting to blush. When the full ramification of Ray's words sank in, Stella felt her face heat furiously. "Oh! Of... of course." Stella wiped her suddenly clammy hands on her suit jacket and fumbled to open the briefcase. She searched frantically to find the Hughes file, wanting nothing more desperately than to get out of Ray's apartment as quickly as possible.
      "Here, it... oh!"
      Something cold and wet pressed against Stella's hand and she jumped in surprise, nearly dropping both the file and the briefcase to the floor. Fraser's wolf sat at her feet, eyeing her curiously. Stella couldn't help imagining (was she imagining?) a whiff of disapproval in those lupine eyes.
      "Dief's just bummed you're not the pizza guy," Ray said, as though he could read her thoughts.
      So Ray was translating for the wolf now, too? Being found unwelcome by the deaf, and apparently judgmental, wolf was the last straw. Stella had to get out of there, and immediately wasn't soon enough. She gave the Hughes file over to Ray, being careful not to touch his hand lest the wolf— or it's owner— take offense, and she backed her way hastily towards the door.
      "Well, I guess I'll, uh, see you at the courthouse on Tuesday." She continued to back up until she was safely back out in the hallway.
      "Yep. Goodnight, Stell."
      "Good... um, goodnight, Ray." She glanced up, unsure as to how to acknowledge Fraser. It seemed ridiculous to call him 'Constable Fraser' at the moment, but in spite of the unexpectedly intimate glimpse she'd just gotten into the man's personal life, she really had no right to call him 'Ben', either. Instead, she settled on an apologetic nod, which he returned, as politely as ever.
      Stella turned to go, feeling dazed as her mind struggled to wrap itself around this astonishing new view of her husband... ex-husband. She heard the door close behind her, the lock sliding into place. And before she had even taken two steps down the corridor, the sounds of John Coltrane once again filled the night.

—FIN—

© 2000 Rowan F.