Breaking the Waves

Author's Notes: Many, many thanks to my outstanding betas, SecretlyBronte, JS Cavalcante and Catalksalone. JS offered invaluable technical and thematic insight, and helped me find an ending. SB was there to push me when I needed it, and cheer me on when I needed that even more. Cat gave me Vecchio, and showed me the way to his troubled and complex heart. This story would not have been possible without their incredible support and commitment to telling the best story possible.
This one's for China Shop and Brynnmck, whose moving, funny and sexy portraits of the OT3 continue to inspire me, and for Belmanoir and SD Wolfpup, who helped me see Vecchio in a completely new way. Large pieces of all of you are in this story, although this time I kept the dismemberment to a minimum :-)

Breaking the Waves

Three small figures bobbed in the waves, kicking against the swells and drifting among the whitecaps. Ray shaded his eyes from the hot sun and scanned the water for a breathless moment until the swells receded and the swimmers moved once again into view.

"You're jumpy," Kowalski muttered. He lay flat on his back, basking in the intense heat of the Florida sun. His skin was beaded with sweat, and a few grains of sand had clumped in the moisture low on his belly, dotting his stomach with miniature islands. The white sand looked bleached against Kowalski's tan skin, bright against the red and black tattoo on his shoulder.

"You're sure they're okay out there?"

Kowalski roused himself enough to crack one eye open. He used one hand to shade his face from the beating-down sun.

"It's Fraser, Vecchio," he said, looking out at the water. "Kids'll be fine. He taught me to swim in about five seconds."

"Which is why you're sitting here with me, getting sand in your crack and working on your tan, instead of out there with him."

Kowalski dropped his hand and closed his eyes immediately, lying back down to fold his hands over his chest. "Just thought you'd like some company."

Company. Yeah. Not that Ray had exactly been short of that, lately. The second he'd gotten out of the hospital, Ma and Frannie and the kids had all come down to Florida, threatening to crowd Benny and Kowalski out of the spare bedroom. Ray's little place on the beach had been overrun with all the extra bodies. He hadn't done too well with the noise, and he'd finally convinced his Ma and Frannie to go stay at a nearby hotel. But Kowalski and Benny were proving harder to shake.

"They're good kids," Kowalski muttered. "Frannie did okay."

"With the older ones, at least," Ray said. "Julia and Teresa are delinquents." He was still straining to see the swimmers as they floated in the jewel-bright water, but he sat too far forward and his back spasmed, the movement pulling at the delicate burn tissue that had only recently begun to heal. Ray closed his eyes and breathed slowly through his nose. His nervous system was fucked up, that was all. He needed to remember that. He just needed to give his body some time to recover.

He felt Kowalski's hand on his back, hot from the sun. His touch was warm and gentle through the light lawn shirt Ray wore to cover the scars.

"Bad?"

He swallowed and kept his eyes on the horizon. "It'll pass."

He resisted the urge to shake off Kowalski's touch. Guy'd been practically married to Benny for years. He was used to dealing with broken-down bodies.

Kowalski snorted. "Where's your meds?"

"In the cooler," Ray directed, risking a glance at Kowalski's face.

Kowalski looked like a kid, cheeks and nose pink and just starting to burn, hair bleached from salt water and the constant sun. And those dorky glasses sure didn't belong on an adult. Even his frown belonged on a little kid: petulant, stubborn, it wasn't an expression that belonged on the face of a queer ex-cop and bushman more used to snowfields than sun and surf. But that was Kowalski: he could try on all the tough-guy glares he wanted, but in the end his posturing was about as convincing as a ten year-old kid dressed up in his father's dinner jacket and shiny, wing-tipped shoes.

Ray closed his eyes, shutting out Kowalski and the hot sun. The white-hot pain in his back had become unbearable, and his muscles just seemed to give out all at once. He slumped back into his beach chair, cold and sweaty and shaking.

He heard Kowalski scramble to the cooler, and that squishing sound had to be him knocking over the crumbling remains of the sandcastle that Fraser, Kowalski, and Frannie's five-year-old twins had spent the afternoon constructing. Ray forced his eyes open. Yeah, the highest tower ("Where the Princess sleeps!" Teresa had informed him) had disintegrated into wet chunks of sand under Kowalski's fumbling. And it looked like he was having trouble with the latches on the side of the cooler. They were sticky; Julia had spilled her grape juice on the way down from the house.

Ray had to bite down on his lip hard to keep from screaming at Kowalski to hurry up and get the pills.

A small eternity later, Kowalski finally found the prescription bottle, opened it, and shook two pills into his palm. Ray grabbed them and washed them down with the warm water left in his water bottle. "Thanks," he gasped, and the sound of his own breathing seemed louder than the wind, or the waves, or the cry of the gulls circling overhead.

"Percocet?"

Ray shook his head. "Better. A little more addictive, but when the doc prescribed them he probably wasn't thinking I'd be around long enough to develop a habit."

That made Kowalski grin, and when he smiled he looked even younger. Ray didn't have the energy to make himself look away this time.

"Underestimated you, huh?"

Ray didn't want to smile, didn't want to turn this into one of those things they laughed about together. He didn't know Kowalski well enough for that. They'd only met a handful of times before...before Florida. And it seemed wrong, somehow, to joke with Kowalski about what had happened, when he and Benny couldn't even talk about it.

Still, Kowalski had the kind of smile that demanded a guy keep up his end. So Ray borrowed one of his old pre-Vegas expressions, the patient one he'd worn whenever Frannie and Maria started screeching at each other.

"Yeah, guess he did." Ray tried for a smile, the pain receding enough for him to make it look convincing and not like he actually was a psychopath. "You stepped on the twins' sandcastle," he felt compelled to point out.

Kowalski seemed willing to play along. He chuckled. "Yeah, gonna be hell to pay for that."

Ray smirked. Like hell. The kids loved Kowalski, no matter what the freak did. The kids loved him, Fraser loved him. Ray was pretty sure Stella'd liked him better, too. The new, improved Ray.

He turned back to the sea, looking for the swimmers.

*********

The first time he saw Tommy Falcone, he thought he was hallucinating. Vegas was two years and two thousand miles away: there was no possible way Tommy Falcone could be in a Cuban coffee shop in south Florida, frowning down at the point spread from last night's Gators game and yelling for another cafecito. Ray had watched the neat, thin, sandy-haired man for a long twenty seconds, counting the stripes in his pinstripe suit, trying to decide if he really was losing it. Maybe the paranoia was finally getting the best of him. He kept seeing guys from the bad old Vegas days everywhere: at the dry cleaner's, at the library, at his aunt's retirement home, for God's sake. Old faces everywhere.

But it really was Tommy Falcone, and Tommy was an old friend of the Bookman. Ray'd felt a surge of panic then, and it was enough to get him on his feet and out the door. Somehow he did it without drawing attention to himself. He even remembered to leave a good tip for the waitress.

He was nervous and distracted for the next few days. Stella didn't ask questions--she never asked questions--just kissed him goodbye in the morning, her mouth white and tight, and said, "Give me a call if you need me, okay?"

But Ray didn't call Stella. They had never really had that kind of a marriage.

He did call his old Fed point man. The phone numbers were chiseled into his mind like the lettering on a tombstone, the digits forming different layers for Ray Vecchio and for Armando Langostini. He had a phone number to use when someone in the organization earned themselves a trip out into the desert, and a number to call when he had to order a hit himself. A couple of different ones to use at night when he had new intel, and one for daytime emergencies. It was always a different Fed on the phone, but the agents were pretty good about talking him through the crisis of the moment. A lot like Benny would have done, actually, except Benny would only have said two words: "Come home." The Feds never said anything like that.

It was always, "Get us more."

So Ray figured the bastards owed him something. Peace of mind, if nothing else. He just wanted to sit on the beach and bask in the sun and run his shitty bowling alley and watch his marriage crumble under the weight of all the conversations he and Stella didn't have. But every single number he tried ended with the same tinny recorded message: The number you have called cannot be completed as dialed. Please try again.

He'd smashed two payphones before he realized he was on his own.

Ray didn't see Tommy again for a couple of months. Stella's mouth got tighter, and whiter, and when he came home one day all of her clothes were gone. Ray couldn't even relax about Falcone long enough to feel sad about it.

He heard she went back to Chicago. And privately, he was glad she was out of the way. If something happened, he didn't want it to touch Stella.

There were times during that spring when he thought he'd lose his mind. Sixteen years on the force, two undercover as a Vegas mob boss, and he was sure it would end with him cowering alone in a dark room, pissing himself every time the loose floorboard on the stairs creaked. He'd spent a lot of his childhood like that, and he'd never expected to finish up that way.

But Ray had learned through a lot of years and a lot of experience that people never really got to pick their ending.

Falcone hit during hurricane season. Ray still wasn't sure what Falcone had been waiting for--either it had taken him that long to put Vecchio and Langostini together, or he'd waited just to drive Ray out of his mind. Whatever the reason, Falcone's goons showed up at his beach house three hours after the first hurricane warning of the season. A big tropical storm was set to blow in off the Atlantic, and most of Ray's neighbors had boarded up their houses and evacuated. He hadn't wanted to run, hadn't wanted to risk it. And the deserted neighborhood and boarded-up windows made him feel safer, in a weird way. Everybody had already prepared for the worst, and if a storm was going to hit, this seemed like the best place for it.

He heard Falcone's men breaking in, smashing the place up. Subtle they were not. Hell, maybe they thought he'd left. It's what any sane person would have done.

Ray waited for them in the upstairs bedroom, his .357 trained on the door. When they'd finished trashing his living room and kitchen, he finally heard the floorboard squeak, and he echoed the sound by loading a clip into his sidearm. The clip made a soft click as it slid home.

The first guy never knew what hit him. He appeared in the doorway, a big hulking mass of rented Cuban muscle, and Ray fired. The gun was so loud in the small room, and the flash of it blinded him for a few seconds.

He heard the distinctive sound of a dead body hitting the floor, and footsteps pounding up the stairs. The second guy kicked the door open: it snapped back on the hinges with a loud CRACK! Ray fired again, but his aim was off.

The other three guys took him down in less than a second.

*********

"Looks like the kids've had enough," Kowalski muttered.

Ray dragged his eyes open. The sunlight blinded him like the flare of that long-ago gun muzzle, and he blinked rapidly. He couldn't see the swimmers anymore, and for a second his heart stopped. He should have been watching, should have paid more attention--

"You're sweating again."

Ray wiped a hand over his forehead. He really didn't want to have a panic attack here on the beach. Not here, not where the twins might see.

"It's hot."

"Those pills probably don't help."

Ray acknowledged this with a small nod. He scanned the ocean again and again, but still couldn't find the swimmers.

"They out already?"

Kowalski shifted beside him, his lean, tough body scraping against the sand as he stood. "Yeah. Fraser probably figured it was time to reapply the sunscreen. Been exactly twenty minutes." Kowalski squinted at the small collection of dunes ringing Ray's private beach. "They're just coming up the path now."

Ray listened for a minute, and sure enough, he could hear the high-pitched voices of the twins and the softer rumble of Benny's voice beneath as he talked to the girls.

Kowalski was pointed toward the path like a bird dog. He had a bottle of SPF 40 in one hand, and he held the other up to shade his face, but the rest of his body was directed toward the sound of Fraser's voice. Ray could see every sinew and cord of muscle in his arm. Kowalski had that kind of build--skinny guys didn't have anything to hide behind, and Kowalski's long arms and lean chest were taut with ropy muscle, his legs hairy and scarred and strong-looking. Ray could see the power in Kowalski's body, even when he was just standing and waiting for Fraser and the girls, hip cocked, looking toward the beach. He looked like he'd been cut out of a block of wood: something natural, something stronger, more resilient, than anything that tried to chip away at him.

Kowalski really was a lot like Benny, after all.

Ray waited until the distant voices got a little louder, and then said, "I'm going to go back up to the house, okay?"

Kowalski glanced at him. "You don't want to wait? The girls'll probably want lunch."

Ray swallowed, not looking at Kowalski's tanned chest or the tattoo or the bits of sand clinging low to his flat, smooth belly. "I'm beat. There's sandwiches and more juice in the cooler."

"Yeah, I know," Kowalski said, pointing at him with the bottle of sunscreen. "I watched Fraser pack it all up."

Ray flushed and turned away, shutting his eyes. Yeah, he'd watched Kowalski watch Fraser pack lunch that morning. He'd seen it all.

Early that morning, Ray'd been flipping through the paper on the couch and trying to shift into a position that didn't kill his back when he'd heard footsteps in the hall, and then the sound of someone opening cupboards in the kitchen. He'd glanced up to see what was going on, and there Fraser had been, quietly putting together peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and talking with Kowalski.

Ray had tried not to watch them together--it was a small house, and they deserved their privacy--but something Benny'd said made Kowalski laugh, and they'd stepped closer to each other. Fraser had put his hand lightly on Kowalski's hip, the touch one of long familiarity. And Kowalski pressed up against Fraser, looping his long arms around Fraser's neck. And then Kowalski had brought their mouths together for a messy kiss.

He'd flushed, watching them. He'd tried to look away, tried not to feel like a spy or a pervert. Benny and Kowalski had no idea he was in the living room; it was still early, and they must have figured he was still upstairs in bed. This was a private thing between them, and he had no right to intrude. He'd known about the two of them for nearly a decade, after all, so it wasn't like he didn't know they...did stuff together. But he couldn't help it. Couldn't help watching them.

Benny's eyes had drifted shut and his whole face had relaxed, that tightness in his jaw easing as soon as his lips met Kowalski's. He had looked drunk, or drugged, and Ray would have bet that Fraser was hard enough to pound nails under his swimming trunks. Fraser had dug his fingers into Kowalski's shoulders, pulling their bodies closer together, like Fraser was afraid Kowalski would slip away if he didn't hold him as tight as he could. Ray had never seen Fraser--straitlaced, buttoned-down Constable Benton Fraser--lose himself in another person like that.

And Kowalski. Christ. Kowalski had been wild, savage, thrusting his tongue deep into Benny's mouth, sliding his hips up and down against Benny's, his fingers twining in Benny's dark, thick hair. Kowalski'd moaned a little, the sound sharp and loud in the pre-dawn kitchen, and Ray had started to sweat at the soft sound of Kowalski's arousal.

Was that their version of a good-morning kiss? They'd gone at it all night in the guest room down the hall--Ray had listened to the strange thumps and one strangled moan (Kowalski again, probably--he couldn't seem to shut up)--and here they were only a few hours later, groping each other, making out, maybe even on the verge of fucking each other right in his kitchen.

The insane thing was, if he coughed or cleared his throat or otherwise let them know he was there, he wasn't totally sure they'd be able to stop. He knew Benny. Not like this, of course, since this wild-eyed, aroused Benny was someone he'd never seen before, but he knew how tough it was to get Fraser to stop once his body had committed to a particular course. Back when they'd been partners and Fraser had started to chase down a perp or decided to follow a suspect out a four-story window, it was like something primal had taken over his body. Benny wasn't his own man in those situations: he belonged to the thing that slumbered inside of him. An animal, Ray thought. A wolf that wore dress reds and smiled politely at strangers.

It sure looked like Kowalski brought out the animal in Fraser.

Right now, though, Kowalski was just standing there between Ray and the ocean, squinting at Ray like he was worrying about him or something. Stumbling to his feet, Ray grabbed blindly for his beach towel and sandals. He had to stop drifting off like this, getting lost in memories. It wasn't healthy. It wasn't good.

Kowalski, thank Christ, didn't comment on Ray's shaky hands and labored breathing. Instead, he turned deliberately back to the path winding up from the ocean. Kowalski always seemed to be searching for Benny, like a compass needle swinging north,.

"I'm going for a nap," Ray said.

Kowalski kept his head turned away. "Sure. Fraser and me'll take the kids back to the hotel. We'll..." he glanced back at Ray. "We'll tell Frannie you said hi."

"Thanks," Ray muttered, taking off before Fraser and the twins rounded the last big dune.

It took Ray a while to work his way back up to the house. He didn't do so well on stairs, and there were six of them between the beach and his little house. By the time he got to the bottom he was breathing heavy, and his back had twisted up on itself again.

He sat down on the sun-warm wooden steps, right where they melted into white sand, and put his head in his hands.

Maybe it was the pills. Maybe it was post-traumatic stress disorder, like all the doctors said. But he couldn't get the image of Fraser and Kowalski, kissing, out of his head. He hadn't said or done anything to interrupt them. He'd quietly left the living room, gone upstairs, and taken a cold shower.

He'd been aroused the whole time, but he didn't touch himself, didn't even want to, really. Pills, he'd told himself. He was loopy on painkillers; lonely, depressed and every part of his body ached. It had to be the pills, making him fixate like this, but preventing him from actually dealing with it. If he could just beat off, maybe the images would stop flashing through his mind. Maybe he could go back to normal.

When he finally got his breath back, Ray shuffled up to his front door and unlocked the door. He paused in the entranceway and listened. He didn't expect to hear any of Falcone's goons smashing up his living room again, but going into an empty house still made him a little nervous.

He waited for his heartbeat to settle, and then went to the kitchen for a glass of water. The image of Kowalski and Fraser in here, pressed up against the fridge and rubbing off on each other, filled his head for a second, and he blinked rapidly. He tried to focus on the cool, slightly metallic taste of the water as it soothed his throat and left a pleasant chill all the way down to his belly.

He didn't know where he was headed until he was halfway up the stairs and on his way to the guest bedroom. Their bedroom. He was just going to check and make sure they had enough sheets and towels, Ray told himself. He wasn't snooping. But this thing with Benny and the Polack confused him.

For a long time he'd thought they were just buddies. He'd known Fraser was happy around Kowalski, but he hadn't thought they were fucking, at least not at first. Not even Stella had guessed. Benny had come back to Chicago to be best man at Ray's wedding, and he'd brought Kowalski down with him. They'd all sat out together on the porch at Ray's mother's house after the wedding, and he and Kowalski had drunk beers while Benny sipped his tea. They'd all laughed about old cases and old times.

Ray even liked Kowalski, which was the real kicker. He'd liked his attitude and his dry humor and the way he got all riled up about little shit. It was clear after about five minutes that the guy had the attention span of a gnat, but he was brave and loyal and tough as nails. Just the kind of guy Benny needed as a partner.

They'd had a good time at the wedding. And it had been great catching up with Fraser. After the beer had mellowed Kowalski a little, Ray and Fraser had actually talked that night out on the porch. Not about the past, of course. That was a foreign country now, part of a dialect neither of them wanted to speak. Neither of them wanted to bring up Victoria and Vegas and all the bad shit that they'd been through, together and apart.. Instead, they'd talked about the future: Fraser's plans to rebuild his father's cabin, Kowalski's new job at the rec center in Inuvik, Ray's plans to move to Florida with Stella.

Eight years and another lifetime ago, they'd sat out on his mother's porch on a warm summer evening and talked about how life really could start over again for a trio of middle-aged cops. A second chance, Fraser had said. He'd looked over at Kowalski and they'd smiled at each other, an intimate smile, and Ray finally caught the clue bus. He hadn't been feeling a lingering twinge of jealousy over Fraser having another best friend.

He'd finally realized that Fraser belonged to someone else, now.

And now they were here, in South Florida, sharing his small house and trying to help him knit his life back together.

Ray didn't bother flicking on the overhead light. Florida homes were mostly glass anyway, and the windows let in plenty of light. Fraser and Kowalski's bedroom was small and surprisingly messy. They'd already been here for a while, taking care of the house and Ray's mail and all sorts of stuff while Ray got his strength back and doing physical therapy at the hospital. Bits of clothing, scraps of paper, and a couple of maps of the South Florida coastline were scattered on the floor by the left side of the bed. A half-unpacked suitcase rested on the bureau, and inside there was a jumble of mismatched socks and jockey shorts. No guess as to whom the messy side belonged to.

Benny's side of the room was immaculate. A couple of suit jackets and a familiar dress uniform hung neatly inside the closet. Ray couldn't begin to understand why Benny thought he'd have a chance to wear the red serge in Florida, but it made him oddly happy to see the bright scarlet tunic hanging there. It reminded Ray of better days, like the shape of something he thought he'd lost.

Ray fingered the scratchy red wool, rubbing the sleeve between his fingers for a few moments, relearning the feel and weight of the fabric. The uniform even smelled familiar.

Unlike Kowalski, Fraser had apparently made use of the empty bureau drawers, since his duffle was tucked away under the suits and spare uniform in the closet. Same old Benny. He could probably pack up everything and be on his way in ten seconds flat.

At the thought, Vecchio grimaced and dropped the tunic's sleeve. He wiped his hand off on his pants, and cast around for something else to look at.

He took a deep breath and risked a glance at the bed. He wasn't sure what he expected to see--a pair of handcuffs dangling from the wrought-iron headboard, a whip coiled by the side of the bed, something jarring and kinky, something that would destroy his illusions of what it was Fraser and Kowalski had together.

He'd never really been clear on what it could be like between two guys. He'd figured out the basics, of course, but anything beyond the simple mechanics confused him. What kept gay guys together? They'd never have kids, never even be able to get married. Really married, in a church.

Ray'd thought about Fraser and Kowalski a lot, after his realization that night out on the porch, after his own wedding. If all the normal stuff, like marriage and kids, was out of bounds for them, it had to be sex. Kinky sex, maybe, to make up for the normal stuff they could never have. And Ray expected to see evidence of that part of their life together here, somewhere, stashed away in a drawer or stuck under the bed. Something that would explain how they could stay together in something that didn't, at least to Ray, seem to have much of a future.

But there was nothing: just rumpled sheets and pillows that were stacked and bunched up close together at the head of the bed. Like Benny and Kowalski slept curled really close together, even though the bed was a king.

Ray put a hand on the cool sheets. Stella had bought the guestroom set. They were high-quality Egyptian cotton, a thousand thread-count. An extravagance, but one Ray had grown to appreciate as their marriage sputtered and died. He'd spent a lot of lonely nights in this guest bed.

The sheets smelled faintly of sweat and salt water. Fraser couldn't seem to get enough of the ocean: after two months here, Benny'd spent more time in the water than Ray had in the last two years. And there was some other scent on the sheets: musky, like sweat and two men who spent most of the day on the beach, but somehow different. Earthier.

Sex, he realized. That was the smell of the two of them, together. Benny and Kowalski.

He backed away and stared down at the sheets for a long time, and then smoothed away the imprint of his hand.

One more place to check, one more private part of their lives to upend and dig through in his search for...what? Clues? Evidence? But of what? He had to be looking for more than just an explanation of what kept them together. He almost...he almost wanted to find something really weird. Something that would demonstrate that they were sick. Something he could use to prove to himself that this whole thing between them was wrong.

Something to show him why he shouldn't envy either one of them. Or want them.

Ray deliberately shoved that thought aside, and pulled open the drawer on Benny's side of the room. Not much in there, just a pad of paper and a couple of pencils, and one of Fraser's father's journals. The pencils made a rattling sound as they rolled around inside the nearly empty drawer.

This was crazy. Ray had no business being in here. He wasn't going to find any kinky stuff or dirty magazines. This was Fraser. And maybe he didn't know Kowalski too well, but the guy had been more than decent to him. He shouldn't treat his friends and guests like this.

Ray rubbed at his eyes and stared hard at the bedside table on Kowalski's side. The drawer was slightly open, as though Kowalski had been digging through it in a hurry and hadn't taken the time to close it properly. He wouldn't find anything, Ray told himself. They were queer, yeah, but he knew Fraser. The guy was straight as an arrow. Apart from the gay thing.

And he certainly wasn't going to find anything that could prove to him that what they had together was real.

Ray's feet seemed to move of their own accord. He'd just decided to leave the drawer alone and go back downstairs to wait for everyone when he found himself on the other side of the bed, his hand on the knob of the drawer. Ray closed his eyes and wondered if this was what Eve felt just before she took her first bite of that apple.

He pulled the drawer open and felt his breathing grow ragged. The drawer contained a small travel-sized box of Trojans, and a big bottle of Astroglide. Ray had economy-sized bottles of shampoo that were smaller than that.

And the lube bottle was already half-empty. Christ.

He eased the drawer open a little more. Something rolled around inside, sounding almost like the pencils in Fraser's drawer, but this thing was much heavier. Ray squinted, and then widened his eyes.

A dildo. An honest-to-God dildo, flesh-colored and shaped to look exactly like a cock, complete with a detailed head molded out of silicone. His mind flooded with images of Fraser using this thing on Kowalski, on himself. How did it work? One of them would fuck the other, and keep this thing in their ass the whole time?

Ray could imagine it in full-color detail, Kowalski stretched out and begging under Fraser's hands, Fraser slipping this plastic thing inside Kowalski's body while licking and sucking his cock. Kowalski would twist, writhe, would beg Fraser to keep going, and he'd make those moaning sounds Ray had heard in the kitchen. Or, fuck, maybe Kowalski used it on Fraser. He could imagine how dangerous this thing would be in Kowalski's lean, capable hands as he fucked Fraser with it, holding Fraser down, maybe, or jerking him off as he thrust the dildo in and out of Fraser's body.

Ray was hard. His erection was pressing up insistently against his soft khakis, and he was almost grateful. He could still feel something, despite the drugs and the pain. He was hard from thinking about Fraser and Kowalski together. By imagining it. And it wasn't even a particularly detailed fantasy, either, just a flash of images: hot sweaty skin and deep moans and that huge dildo buried deep in someone's ass. Ray was slightly rocked by the fact that he didn't even care who was getting pounded, Benny or Kowalski. Either way, it made him ache.

He slammed the door shut and paced a bit, hoping the exercise would calm him down a little. When that didn't do much to ease his erection, Ray sat on the bed, determined not to do what his body wanted him to do. Was begging him to do. He couldn't--he had already invaded Fraser and Ray's privacy, and he'd basically set out to prove that they were degenerates or perverts or whatever. He was a sick, sad, homophobic fuck. Damaged goods in all the ways that counted.

What the hell would Benny think if he knew? Benny the saint, Benny with the sad eyes and wise smile who had helped him, long ago, to be a better cop. A better man. Benny, whom he'd abandoned. Benny, whom he'd failed. And Kowalski. The guy had safeguarded his identity, had kept his cover intact, looked after his family. He'd even risked his life to protect Fraser. Stella had never said a word against him, and Ray had realized after eight years' worth of Fraser's stories about their lives together in the north, that Kowalski was, in his own way, a pretty good guy. They were both good men who believed in truth and justice and taking care of other people, no matter what it cost them.

And what was Ray? Just a broken-down, burned-out ex-cop with scars all over his body, a fucked-up head, two failed marriages under his belt, and a pathetic little hard-on for his best friend and his best friend's boyfriend.

He was such a goddamn loser.

Ray clicked off the light and shuffled down the hall to his own lonely bed. He lay down, and immediately curled up into a ball.

His physical therapist had warned him about doing that: he was supposed to lie flat on his back and stretch out as much as possible. But this was the only way he knew to stop the guilt and self-pity churning in his stomach from eating him alive. He'd done this as a kid, too: hiding in dark rooms, listening for a footstep on the staircase, curling up into a ball so that maybe no one would find him.

He'd spent so much of his life trying to protect himself. And maybe that was the difference between him and guys like Fraser and Kowalski. They were strong enough to help other people. Ray couldn't even help himself.

He curled up tighter and sighed. His shoulders began to shake, and no one heard the sounds he made.

*****

He was still in Falcone's basement. It was the smell and the darkness that convinced him--old piss and stale vomit and the sour stench of his own fear. Blood, too. Blood that had soaked into the floor from whomever they'd kept down here before him. And burned flesh. The goon who'd worked him over--cruel bastard, really got off on pain, and in his head Ray had named him "Frankie"--had set the iron down on the floor and left it switched on after he'd finished introducing Ray to the "press" setting. No matter how long he lived (not long, Ray thought, not long) he thought he'd never be able to forget the smell of his own flesh as it cooked slowly on a hot iron.

But the voices drifting upstairs belonged to the TV, not Frankie's men, and he wasn't chained, naked and shivering, to a radiator.

But the fear-stench was real, yeah. That was Ray.

He rolled over onto his back, nausea coiling through his belly as his stiffened muscles started to unclench. The real pain would come later, so sharp and so bright that he wouldn't be able to breathe, to move, to think. The queasy feeling in his gut right now was just preamble.

He rubbed at his eyes and tried to focus, tried to calm his breathing, tried to think. His mouth tasted bitter, like fear, and his throat felt sore and dry from trying not to cry. "Residual trauma," they'd told him at the hospital. At least he hadn't had the dream. If he had, he would've woken up screaming, and whoever was watching TV downstairs would have come running. And Ray really didn't want Kowalski-or, God forbid, Benny--to come charging upstairs and find him trembling from the aftershocks of that dream.

Slowly he eased up into a sitting position, his fucked-up back letting him know it was Not Happy about sleeping curled up in a tight ball. Ray leaned back against the headboard and closed his eyes, trying to get himself together enough to swing his feet off the end of the bed and stand up.

It was funny: the pain in his mind was worse than anything he'd actually feel if he tried to stand. It was the goddamn thought of moving that hurt, and the idea that he'd fall or twist the wrong way and add to the damage that Falcone's goons had caused in that basement. But the pain--or the fear of it--was like anything: he could get past it. If he could survive that dream every night since Benny had pulled him out of Falcone's basement, he could damn well make himself climb out of bed, go downstairs and play host. And the sad thing was, if Fraser and Kowalski weren't around, he wasn't sure he'd have a reason to get up. Maybe ever.

Eyes closed, deep breath, and once those sharp stabs of pain faded and his feet hit carpet, he was okay. Standing, heart pounding, breathing heavy...but okay.

Ray stripped out of his stinking, sweat-soaked shirt and pants and took a long, hot shower in the master bathroom. He stood under the spray until his skin was flushed and pink and his fingertips wrinkled. The heat helped his back start to unclench, and if he waited long enough for the small bathroom to fill with steam, he wouldn't have to risk catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

Dressed in a fresh, long-sleeved linen shirt and a clean pair of khakis, Ray smoothed a hand over what remained of his hair and followed the TV noises downstairs.

The house was dark and deserted, except for the living room. Someone had left a lamp on in there, and Ray could hear the dialogue from some old Hitchcock thriller--Cary Grant asking too many questions, trying to get himself shot.

Ray blinked at the screen, and then glanced over at the couch. The light from the TV flickered bright-dark-bright over Kowalski, who was sprawled out on his back, his legs propped up against the arm of the couch, the remote balanced on his chest. Kowalski was sound asleep, but he wasn't snoring or drooling or anything: he just looked peaceful. Ray half-wanted to shake him awake and ask how he did it. How Kowalski could sleep so peacefully while Cary Grant talked about murder and betrayal on the screen was beyond Ray's understanding.

Ray grabbed a blanket from the back of the couch and arranged it gently over Kowalski. It was a little chilly in the house, since Ray kept the A/C turned up for Fraser, and Kowalski was only wearing a thin pair of knit boxer shorts. His chest was all goose-pimply and--yeah--cool to the touch. Smooth, too, and Ray could feel the cords of muscle and the hard bone in Kowalski's shoulder. It almost felt like--

Christ. Was he petting Kowalski, now? Ray jerked his hand away, holding his breath until he was sure that Kowalski wasn't going to wake up and bust him in the jaw.

The guy was a guest, he reminded himself, and not a piece of meat. And he didn't really want to touch Kowalski. Or at least...at least he didn't think he did.

Or maybe he didn't trust himself to stop at touching.

Ray closed his eyes, and thought about how the fear of pain was worse than the pain itself.

It had been worse, much worse, when Frankie-the-Goon had flicked on that iron and set it on the floor so Ray could watch it heat up. If he would just face his fears, at least a little, he could begin to control his reactions, get some power back. It doesn't have to scare you, he thought. Just reach out, and get it over with. Stop hiding.

He brushed his fingers lightly over Kowalski's chest. Kowalski's skin was a little rough where his body hair came in, those sparse, wiry patches over his pecs different from Ray's. Nice skin, Ray thought, and shivered when he encountered the faint white-ridged scar of a bullet wound high on Kowalski's chest.

"Frase, stop. Tickles."

Kowalski's whisper was sleepy, drugged. His face hadn't changed, and his body was still loose and relaxed, but Ray snatched his hand back. Christ, if he'd woken Kowalski...

He moved away so quickly he stumbled back against the coffee table. When he recovered his balance, he edged further away from the sofa, praying that Kowalski would think it'd just been a weird dream.

He got out of there. The bang! of the screen door closing behind him was loud in the still, silent night.

Ray headed for the beach, deliberately ignoring the voice in his head that suggested he should have loaded up on the drugs before even thinking about walking anywhere. But he needed to be near water. The ocean helped him think. It was the size of it, really. It made him feel small, his problems and anxieties shrinking down to a tiny dot on the edge of oblivion. That's how thinking about God made him feel--so big, and he was small. So small.

The sand was still warm from the heat of the day, and when Ray reached the water's edge, he dropped down and dug his bare feet into the sand, trying to ignore his protesting muscles, trying to pretend he wasn't really going crazy. Just a dot on the map, he thought. Small small small.

The sound of splashing cut through his pathetic attempt at losing himself. There was someone out there, and Ray held his breath until the flash of white limbs and the smooth, regular sound of an experienced swimmer's powerful strokes clued him in.

Benny. Benny was out there, swimming in that too-big ocean. His pale body cut cleanly through the dark water, and he looked like a broken-off piece of the moon, white and glowing in the black sea.

Maybe he knew Ray was watching from the beach. With Fraser's super-senses, it'd be a fair bet, but he didn't move toward the shore. Ray watched as Fraser struck out for deeper waters, cutting through the waves like he'd been born in the ocean. Watching him, Ray could believe that Fraser would never stop, never tire. He could just go on and on forever, go on being a part of that big thing that made Ray feel small. So small.

An image swam before him, Fraser's face covered in bloodspatter, a .9 mm held steady in a hand that did not shake.

Ray closed his eyes, breathing through the panic, trying to think of Fraser giggling about dogsleds at the border, or reciting interesting and unusual moose facts as they paddled through the sewers of Chicago. Even picturing a limp, fucked-out Fraser sprawled in the midst of rumpled sheets, his big hands twining in Kowalski's hair...even that was better than seeing the blood on Fraser's face. And the look in his eyes, the look that had pulled up a chair and settled right into Ray's head: the look Fraser had worn when he found Ray in that basement in North Miami and calmly blew Frankie-the-Goon's head off.

Clouds were coming in off the sea. Ray couldn't find the moon anymore, or the stars. Fraser was lost in the deep, dark ocean.

The TV was off when he finally went back to the house, and the couch was deserted. Kowalski was up and puttering around the kitchen. Eleven-thirty at night, and Kowalski was making coffee. No wonder the guy couldn't sit still.

Ray opened his mouth to say something about it, but he lost his train of thought when Kowalski glanced up at him, his eyes sharp and evaluative behind those ridiculous thick-framed glasses.

"You see Fraser out there?" Kowalski asked. He was gathering up coffee mugs, and sugar. Ray watched the bones and muscles in his back move and contract as he opened various cupboards and drawers. There really was no fat on the guy whatsoever.

"I think you're violating state health codes there, Kowalski," Ray muttered, looking away deliberately from the bare golden skin of Kowalski's back. "Put a shirt on when you're in the kitchen, okay?"

He'd expected Kowalski to tense up and get angry or defensive. He knew the guy had a short fuse: Stella had told him a couple of stories about her "touchy" ex-husband. She'd even tried to convince Ray that living with a time-bomb was exciting. But Ray had been around enough hair-trigger Italians to know that a quick temper got old, fast.

His dad had had a real short fuse. So had Tommy Falcone. So had Armando Langostini.

But Kowalski surprised him. Instead of getting mad, he turned around and gave Ray a long, slow look. Then he slouched back against the kitchen counter, leaning on his elbows. Ray couldn't take his eyes off Kowalski's smooth, muscled stomach, or the sparse, barely visible trail of hair that arrowed down Kowalski's belly and vanished under the waistband of his boxers. Those obscene boxers: anybody could see he filled out the Y-front like a prizewinning...

"What are you worried about, Vecchio? Think I'm contagious?" Kowalski asked, his tone all lazy suggestion. And Jesus, that smile. Slow, and feral. That was a fuck-me smile.

There was no air in the room. None. Ray couldn't breathe, and Kowalski slouched there like an offering laid out to the gods of Boystown didn't help. Ray swayed on the bar stool, gasping in air desperately until he felt the solid warmth of Kowalski's hand on his shoulder, steadying him.

"Fuck, I'm sorry," Kowalski was muttering. "I don't know what I was--"

Ray swallowed and shook his head. "I just got dizzy. Happens. I'm okay." But Kowalski didn't move his hand. He waited until Ray's breathing evened out. Kowalski had just been fucking around, using some of that loose-hipped hustler's charm to throw Ray off his game a little, maybe cheer him up. It was a joke. Ray knew that. He'd freaked out over nothing.

Some undercover operative he'd turned out to be. He didn't know what was up and what was down, anymore.

Ray opened his eyes to find Kowalski watching him intently, all of that earlier ease and teasing sensuality gone now, eclipsed by concern.

"I'm fine," Vecchio repeated, angry now. Most guys would've cleaned Kowalski's clock for flirting like that. What the hell did Kowalski want from him?

"Hey," Kowalski said, shifting back on the couch so he wasn't leaning over Ray. "I'm sorry. That wasn't cool. It was a dumb joke, and I'm sorry." He looked so young and sincere in those glasses, and Kowalski's chest was pale and boney like some skinny kid's.

He licked his lips and frowned. "It was me and my fucked-up body, like I said. My back hurts, and I got dizzy. It's--" he stumbled over saying it, "it's fine. A joke. I get it."

Kowalski grinned, looking relieved. Not like a stupid kid would look relieved, though. Like he was honestly sorry to have upset Ray, and he wanted to make it right. "Okay," Kowalski said, jerking his chin in a funny half-nod. "I'll get your coffee."

Ray settled back on the couch, twisting around to find a better position for his back. In an eerie replay of that morning, he heard Kowalski mutter a question, and half-expected to hear Fraser's soft, deep-voiced reply.

"Vecchio?"

"What?"

"You take sugar?"

Ray blinked. He'd been trying to stay off the caffeine--he had enough trouble sleeping as it was--but coffee sounded pretty good right now. Nice of Kowalski to offer. "Uh, yeah. Just a little. No cream, though."

He heard the rattle of cups and the soft "plink!" of metal against cheap porcelain as Kowalski doctored the coffee.

"You got any chocolate candy? I ran out of my own stash."

What the hell? "Candy?"

"Yeah, y'know, M&Ms, Smarties..."

"What the hell is a Smartie?"

"Never mind." Kowalski came back into the living room carrying two mugs and the sugar bowl. He set it all down on the coffee table and proceeded to dump spoon after spoon of sugar into one of the mugs. It made Ray's teeth hurt just watching him.

"You never answered my question," Kowalski said, measuring out one more precise scoop. He leveled it off carefully and squinted at the little mound of sugar before nodding to himself and stirring it into his cup. Ray wondered why he even bothered to measure. Why didn't he just pour the whole damn jar into his cup?

"What question?"

"Did you see Fraser out there?"

Bloodspatter and blowback. The sharp tang of gunpowder. Frankie-the-Goon with a precise little hole between his eyes and a gap the size of Texas in the back of his head, and all of it reflected back in Fraser's calm blue eyes.

"Nah, I think he was swimming pretty far out. Didn't see him." He covered the lie with a quick swallow of his coffee. He didn't feel like going thirty rounds with Kowalski tonight on why he and Fraser weren't exactly speaking.

Kowalski nodded, like that had explained something to him. "Your coffee okay?"

Ray took a sip. Just sweet enough to taste without covering the rich flavor of the Jamaica Blue Mountain blend. Perfect.

"It's okay. Yours?"

Kowalski took an experimental sip and made a face. "Could be a little sweeter."

They sat there quietly, listening to the gentle lapping of the waves that filtered in from outside. Kowalski was fidgety, but he did seem to know when to shut up, and that was one point in his favor. At least he wasn't trying to tell a bunch of dumb Inuit stories.

"He doesn't sleep," Kowalski said softly, so low and quiet that Ray almost didn't hear him at first. "Not since he tracked you down. He takes off after..." Kowalski stammered and blushed a bit. "He leaves once he thinks I'm asleep. Stays out all night, sometimes. Just swims, or walks on the beach. Comes in before dawn and pretends he's been in bed the whole time. Won't talk about it, won't let me ask questions. I don't--" Kowalski sighed. It was a long, beat-up, broken-down sigh that mirrored the way Ray had felt every second since he spotted Tommy Falcone in that Cuban coffee shop all those months ago.

Kowalski's world was falling apart, and he didn't even know how to hold it together, much less fix it so that everything would go back to the way things were before. And it was all Ray's fault. Bad as he felt about what Fraser had done--had been forced to do--at least Fraser had been in it. Kowalski was just an innocent bystander. Like Stella, with her sad, tight silences and soft frown and empty closet. Collateral damage.

"Has he...has he said anything about it? Anything at all?" Ray asked, staring at Kowalski's distorted reflection in the blank TV screen, if only so he wouldn't have to look at his own.

Kowalski drummed his fingers on the arm of the couch and stared down at his mug. "You know Fraser. Talking's not really his style, at least when it comes to the stuff that matters."

Whose style is it?, Ray wanted to ask. Sometimes it seemed like they were all trapped in silence, all waiting for the creak on the stair.

He sighed and leaned back, rolling his head against the back of the couch. His neck hurt. His back hurt. Everything hurt.

When he opened his eyes, Kowalski was staring at him, his blue eyes thoughtful and a little sarcastic. A bit like Dief's eyes, actually, which kind of creeped Ray out. Why hadn't he ever noticed how much like the wolf Kowalski was?

"What?" he snapped, tiredly. Kowalski had the grace to look embarrassed for a second, and then his expression hardened. Stubborn, yeah. Ray recognized that look, too.

"Your back."

"What about it?"

Kowalski tucked his leg up under himself, his movement making the couch dip. "I could--"

Oh, Christ. Ray rubbed at his eyes. That nap he'd taken hadn't done much for the low-grade exhaustion he'd lived with ever since he'd gotten home from the hospital. Nothing much seemed to help. "What the hell kind of game are you playing, Stanley?" He tried to put as much venom into it as he could. Ray had spent years cultivating a hard-guy voice, and it'd kept him alive in Vegas, but the question sounded weak even to his own ears. He just sounded tired, and scared.

"No game," Kowalski murmured, easing over closer to him on the couch. "You're hurting. And I'm pretty good at neckrubs."

Ray kept his eyes on Kowalski's hands. It seemed safer than looking at his face, much safer than looking at his body, but the longer he looked at Kowalski's lean, long-fingered hands, the harder it became to say no. At this point, he wasn't sure he could even remember how to say the word.

Kowalski kept talking in a soft, coaxing voice. "Just--let me help. I want to help you, Vecchio."

Ray finally lifted his head to look at Kowalski's face, and he could see that, yeah, the guy meant it. Kowalski might have been a jittery bastard, all rough edges and tough-guy posturing (when he wasn't slouched and spread out in fuck-me invitation) but he wasn't a liar.

Ray had known enough of those to spot the difference.

Kowalski was sincere. He wanted to help Ray. He wanted to make Ray feel good. Fine. Ray'd give it a shot. It's not like he'd lose control of himself the second Kowalski put his hands on him, after all. Ray was an adult. He'd been married, and divorced, twice. He'd survived Vegas, a mob hit, a week-long torture session with guys who could snap Kowalski like a toothpick, and he'd even suffered months of painful physical therapy and Fraser not being able to meet his eyes.

Ray could handle a massage from Kowalski, no problem.

Even from Kowalski in nothing but his thin little boxers.

"My shirt stays on," he said.

*********

Kowalski set him up on the floor in front of the couch. Ray'd balked at that, absolutely certain that once he'd gotten down on that floor there was no way he'd be able to get up, but Kowalski had talked him into it.

"You'll be okay," he said. "We'll relax your back muscles, work 'em for a while, and you'll feel a thousand times better."

Ray had his doubts, but he was willing to indulge the guy. Besides which, this was the best offer he'd had in a long time.

Gingerly, Ray eased himself down onto the floor and waited with his eyes closed until he felt Kowalski slip onto the couch behind him. He touched Ray's shoulders, and Ray jerked.

"Shhhh. Vecchio, you gotta chill, okay? Just...relax. Count perps in your head or something. Try not to be so tense."

He put his hands on Ray's shoulders again, and this time Ray didn't flinch from Kowalski's touch. He held still and let out a long, slow breath.

"Good, that's good," Kowalski said, his voice low and soothing. He shifted around a little on the couch behind Ray--Ray could hear his bare legs brush against the heavy couch fabric--and suddenly his long legs were on either side of Ray's body, and Kowalski was easing Ray back to lean into the "v" of his lap.

Ray tensed again. His back was flush against Kowalski's package. That bulge? That was Kowalski's dick. God.

And that shouldn't make him--but it did. He felt something, a twinge deep in his belly, at the thought of Kowalski's dick pressed up against his back.

Kowalski rapped his knuckles on the top of Ray's head. "I said, 'Relax'."

"I'm trying!" Ray shot back, feeling more than a little pissed off. Kowalski didn't honestly expect him to sit like this, all pressed up nice and cozy against him, did he? Wasn't that a little...queer?

"Um, yeah," Kowalski said, and Ray blinked. Had he actually said part of that out loud?

"Yeah, what?"

"Yeah, it's queer. I'm queer, Vecchio. I thought you'd figured that out. The part where me and Fraser are fucking is sort of a big clue."

Ray squeezed his eyes shut against the slideshow those particular words brought to mind. He'd fantasized enough about the things Benny and Kowalski did together without Kowalski making him think about it, too.

"I know you're queer," Ray snorted, dropping his head forward as Kowalski began to dig his fingers into the sore places in his shoulders. "Doesn't mean that I'm--"

"Right," Kowalski cut him off, almost like he didn't want Ray to finish his sentence. "This feel okay?"

It felt amazing, actually. Kowalski had good hands: strong, confident, but sensitive too, like he knew exactly when to use pressure, and when to back off. Even Ray's physical therapist back at the hospital hadn't gotten it right like this straight out of the gate.

"It's good," Ray allowed, relaxing a little. "Where'd you learn how to do this?"

Ray's hands didn't still, didn't stop, but there was a weird little stutter of hesitation in his voice. "Stella, actually. She'd get real tense studying back in law school. Only thing I could do for her that really helped." Kowalsk paused. "Well, the only thing I could do for her that didn't require getting naked."

Ray chuckled. Not that he'd had any illusions about Stella and Kowalski. Stella'd said a couple of times that Kowalski had been pretty generous in bed. And as a generous guy himself, Ray could respect that. Kowalski'd been good to Stella. He'd been good for her. And Ray still wasn't sure how he felt about that.

One thing was for certain. "You and me got too much in common, Kowalski," Ray said.

"Seems like it." Kowalski dug into a knot of tension high on his shoulder. Ray was surprised to find that there was no anger or resentment in Kowalski's voice, or in his hands. It was pretty clear that Kowalski didn't love Stella any more. Probably hadn't for years.

"You do this for Fraser?"

Ray wasn't completely sure why he'd asked. Stupidity, maybe. But then Kowalski didn't seem to mind talking about the people they had in common, so he didn't think there was any harm in bringing up their mutual Canadian.

Kowalski kneaded at a spot under his shoulder blade with the knife-edge of his hand. "This'd be easier without the shirt, y'know?" he grunted.

Kowalski's hands were warm through his shirt, and for a couple of seconds Ray regretted his refusal to take it off. But the thought of Kowalski touching his bare skin, seeing the scars...he couldn't--

No way. No way would he be able to sit here with Kowalski's hands all over his bare skin. Even the illusion of a barrier provided by Ray's thin linen shirt served as some kind of a protection. If he took it off, if he let Kowalski see...he'd be a lost man.

"Shirt stays on," he said, hoping he sounded decisive rather than panicked. "Now, answer the question. You do this for Fraser?"

Kowalski's next dig at the spot was savage; he pressed hard with his thumb and Ray let out a long, low moan.

"Yeah," Kowalski said. "Yeah, I do this for Fraser. I'd do anything for him."

Just like the wolf, Ray thought. Totally devoted.

They didn't talk much after that. As Kowalski worked his back, Ray started to feel his muscles begin to unclench. His breathing slowed and deepened, and he started to feel good. Safe. A lot of the things he'd thought he'd left behind in that basement in North Miami.

"Shhh," Kowalski murmured from behind him. "Just relax."

And it was almost--not quite, but almost--like Kowalski's voice held some kind of magic. At his softly-worded "relax" Ray slumped back, Kowalski's hands on him, Kowalski's strong legs pressed close to his sides. He was practically cradled in Kowalski's lap.

And that bulge he'd felt earlier was getting more pronounced by the second. Kowalski was hard. Kowalski was hard from touching him. And Ray wasn't freaking out. He wasn't leaping to his feet (or staggering to his feet, anyway) and he wasn't yelling and screaming or having some kind of queer panic attack. He just felt...relaxed. And warm. And safe. Not exactly the way he'd expected to feel, but not bad, either.

He sighed, and let himself relax a little further. Kowalski was kneading his shoulders now, not trying to hide how hard he was, but not seeming too interested in doing anything about it. His hands still felt good, and Ray allowed his eyes to drift closed, to imagine Kowalski's hands slipping off his shoulders and spreading down across his chest, finding his fly, popping the button and undoing his zipper--

Ray was shocked at the soft little moan that escaped his lips at the thought. His whole body felt heavy and strangely fluid, and since he hadn't had a pill in hours he knew it wasn't chemically-induced. Desire. It was desire for Kowalski, for something that felt good. If he could just have a little bit of feeling good, maybe he could live with all the bad stuff.

He tipped his head back slowly, carefully, making sure not to jar his muscles. He looked at Kowalski's face--weird from this angle, Kowalski blinking upside down at him--and licked his lips, trying to figure out what to say.

I want you sounded wrong. He wasn't even sure if it was true. Maybe I want to be you, because Kowalski was whole and intact, and he had Fraser to love him. And because Kowalski had never done anything truly unforgivable. Not like Ray.

"Vecchio?" Kowalski asked, and he looked a little worried.

Ray closed his eyes. It doesn't have to scare you. The fear of pain is worse than the pain itself. He licked his lips again, and reached for Kowalski.

He was prepared for the sharp flare of pain in his shoulder, and so he was able to control it. Kowalski's massage had helped loosen the muscle a little, and the still-healing burn hurt like a bitch but Ray could deal with it, if only for a few seconds. He tugged Kowalski's head down, and Kowalski's lips met his--awkward, messy, and upside-down--but Ray felt an electric surge of need, anyway. Kowalski's mouth was soft and warm, and while he was clearly surprised, he didn't attempt to pull away. Kowalski tasted sweet, too, from all that sugar, and Ray tentatively licked at Kowalski's lower lip, seeking more of that strange, unexpected sweetness.

Of course, that was exactly when Fraser came in from his night swim.

The screen door thumped against its frame, and Ray jumped like a gun had gone off. Kowalski put a hand on his shoulder to still him, but Ray shook him off immediately. He knew how it looked (because that's how it was, his brain insisted) and he knew what Fraser had to be thinking.

But Fraser was just standing there, dripping on Ray's kitchen floor. He was wearing a loose pair of swim trunks with a subdued hibiscus print, and he'd slung a towel around his neck. The damp terrycloth partially obscured his chest, but the rest of Fraser was big and clean-limbed and yet looked so fucking vulnerable in the harsh light of the kitchen. He'd never been able to figure out how Fraser managed to look invincible and defenseless at the same time.

"Ray," Fraser said, his voice perfectly neutral, and Ray wasn't sure which one of them he meant.

"Benny," Ray said quickly, trying to stand. He had to say something, to do something. His heart was pumping fast in a panicked rhythm that made him feel like he'd run a marathon. No way could he be responsible for permanently screwing up Fraser's relationship. He'd already cost the guy enough.

"Hey, Fraser." Kowalski sounded totally cool, totally in control. Like his lover--boyfriend, partner, whatever--hadn't just caught him with his hands all over another guy. "You want some tea?"

Fraser blinked at Kowalski. His mouth opened and closed a couple of times, like he needed a few practice tries before he could get his voice to work. Finally he just seemed to give up, and rubbed his thumb over his eyebrow.

"Tea would be lovely," he said to the floor. Kowalski shimmied out from behind Ray and crossed the living room until he stood right next to Fraser, who was still looking at the floor, the window, his own hands--anywhere but at Kowalski. Or at Ray.

"Hey," Kowalski murmured, and caught Fraser's chin firmly in one hand. He forced Fraser's head up until he was looking Kowalski square in the face. "Do not do that, Fraser. Don't be like that."

Ray's heart broke open at the expression in Benny's eyes. He looked hurt. Exhausted. Confused. A thousand emotions played across that beautiful face, most of them ones Ray had never seen before. And he'd known Benny at his worst, at absolute rock-fucking-bottom. He'd never seen Fraser look so devastated. Not even right after the shooting, when the doctors told him that the bullet wasn't coming out, and that they weren't sure if Benny would ever be able to walk again.

That cold-eyed stranger from the basement in North Miami was a thousand times better than this Fraser, who had pain written all over his face.

"Ben," Kowalski said, and Fraser finally looked him. Somehow, miraculously, Kowalski sounded calm. "He needs this. Ray needs us. Look at him."

But Fraser couldn't. That much was clear. He avoided Ray; his eyes just skimmed over him like he wasn't even in the room. And for a moment of blinding, white-hot rage, Ray wished that Fraser would once--just once, goddamn it--stand up for himself. He wanted Fraser to get angry with him. He wanted Fraser to haul back and take a swing at his face, and he wanted to feel Fraser's punch connect, feel his bones crunch under the power of Fraser's blow. And he wanted Fraser to keep pounding on him, to beat him until his face was hamburger and blood gushed from his mouth and nose.

He deserved it.

He deserved it for liking the way Kowalski's hands had felt on his body, and for grabbing Kowalski and kissing him like that. For what he'd made Fraser do in that basement. For all the things he'd taken from Fraser, and for all the shit he'd given him in return.

Since the day Benton Fraser had walked into that holding cell and called out to him, Ray had done nothing but hurt him.

"Ray," Fraser said, and his voice was shaking. It was pretty clear he meant Kowalski, and Ray shuddered at the raw scrape of his voice. It sounded like Benny's throat had been hollowed out with broken glass. But Kowalski didn't even blink.

"He needs us. He needs you. You gonna let a friend down, Fraser? That who you are, now?"

Ray couldn't watch this. He could not. It was like watching Kowalski kick a dog. Benny'd been through enough. Aside from what Benny'd just walked in on, he'd killed a guy for Ray, and it was clearly tearing him up inside. Even Kowalski had seen it. He doesn't sleep, Kowalski had said. And that was because of Ray.

He'd made Fraser cross a line that Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP, was never meant to cross.

Benny'd told him a story years ago, after the thing with Frank Zuko when Frankie's goons had pounded the living shit out of Fraser and nearly killed him. They'd both been terrified for weeks afterward. Ray'd settled things with Frankie, at least for the shoemaker he and Benny were trying to protect, but he and Fraser weren't safe. Ray'd tried to convince Fraser to carry a gun then. Even if Zuko wasn't interested in revenge, some nutjob would eventually want Fraser dead, and Fraser had to be able to protect himself. So Ray'd bought him a nice .38 revolver, just like Fraser's old service weapon. It was a heavy, solid, old-fashioned gun, the kind of gun that'd never let you down. A bit like Fraser himself.

But Fraser had shaken his head and smiled softly, and said he didn't want to carry. And he'd told Ray a story:

"Sam Steele patrolled the Yukon and the Northwest Territories for nearly twenty years, and in all that time he never even drew his gun, much less fired it. That was a point of pride for him."

Benny'd been so quiet and open and honest as he said it, but even then he wouldn't look at the gun in Ray's hand. It was a weird thing for a cop: Ray knew Fraser was okay with guns; he was a better marksman than Ray by a long shot, and Ray was pretty good on the range to begin with. But Ray couldn't understand why Fraser refused to have a gun with him, and this thing with Sam Steele sounded a lot like an Inuit story: a way of explaining something without really explaining anything at all.

Eventually Ray let the matter drop. Zuko didn't come after him--not then, anyway--and Ray figured that Fraser had enough smarts and more than enough sheer fucking dumb luck to be like the Steele guy, and never need to fire a weapon.

And when Ray left and went to Vegas, and found out how it felt to take a life, even when you were in the right, even when you had no other choice, even when you did it to save your own fucking life--he thought Benny was a really, really smart guy.

"Fraser," Ray said, just to break that terrible tableau of Fraser and Kowalski locked into a confrontation that might cost them whatever it was they had together. Ray didn't want that. He wouldn't take this from Fraser, too.

"Benny," he said again, "I'm so sorry. I never meant to--"

But Kowalski whirled around, eyes blazing. He looked like one of the old Roman gods, or an ice-spirit from one of Benny's stories. His eyes--so warm and dark a second ago--were now points of blue flame. Ray could feel the heat of that cold fire from across the room. He was suddenly terrified of Kowalski, and the kind of feeling a guy like that was capable of. Like he could do anything, or he'd kill himself trying. Just like the wolf, who'd chase a suspect until his heart exploded.

What a terrible will Kowalski had.

"Shut it, Vecchio," Kowalski snapped. "We got one shot. Only one path through these woods, yeah? One chance to come out of this all in one piece. We do it together."

Ray's eyes widened. What the hell was Kowalski talking about? Ray didn't have a handle on any of this, hadn't had one since that first second when he watched Fraser and Kowalski kiss each other in his kitchen. The world was in danger of spinning too fast, flying apart, breaking into a million pieces. What did Kowalski mean?

"Ray."

Something in Benny's voice made Ray suspect that he, at least, understood what Kowalski meant. The way Fraser said Kowalski's name, soft, like a curse and a prayer at once, made Ray feel a little dizzy.

Whatever Kowalski'd meant, it was clear that Fraser didn't think it was a bad idea, just a confusing one.

"Ray," Fraser said again, eyes still fixed on Kowalski. "You don't mean--"

"Yeah," Kowalski said quickly, ducking his head. The ice-god was gone, now: it was just Kowalski again, skinny guy with the golden skin and weird hair and bad glasses and prickly attitude. No hint of the near-suicidal determination lurking just below the surface. "We talked about this."

Fraser looked furious all of a sudden. No ice-god there: Fraser was blazing in his anger, his face flushed and red, his body shaking with rage. "In a hypothetical sense, Ray. We spoke about it hypothetically."

What the hell is "it"? Ray wondered, only half-interested in the answer. He couldn't take his eyes off Fraser, so warm in his anger, to ask the question.

Instead of being stunned or awed by Fraser's beautiful rage, Kowalski just looked calm and sort of amused. "Yeah, but we talked. We both know we're interested." Kowalski flashed a cocky grin at Fraser, who was still beet red and now looked like he might be on the verge of apoplexy. His whole chest was flushed with anger, the soft rosy-pink of his gorgeous skin shading into dusky red. Ray could make out the faint twitch of a muscle in Fraser's bare pec: it jumped in time with his heart. Ray figured it was just a matter of time until Fraser hauled off and socked Kowalski in the jaw.

Instead, Fraser (whom Ray had never seen angry, let alone ready to pop a friend in the face) took one step toward Kowalski and grabbed him by the arms, dragging him close for a brutal, punishing kiss.

Ray's jaw dropped. He watched Fraser grind his mouth against Kowalski's. They were both hard--Ray could see that, Kowalski's thin boxers and Fraser's swim trunks not being the most discreet of barriers. And Jesus, that kiss--it went on and on, Fraser's tongue thrusting in and out of Kowalski's mouth like he was trying to show him something, prove something to him. His grip on Kowalski's arms looked almost bruising, but Kowalski's low moan of pleasure demonstrated pretty clearly that he wasn't in any pain. Or if he was, he liked it.

Ray was hard. By this point he wasn't exactly shocked by the discovery. He hadn't let himself jerk off earlier in their room, and Magic Fingers Kowalski had only amped him up further. And this wasn't like the kitchen this morning: he wasn't just sneaking a peek. They wanted, him here. Or, at least, Fraser and Kowalski were too involved in what they were doing to each other to care if Ray watched them.

The thought sent him into freefall. He felt light and heavy at the same time: he could watch Fraser dive into Kowalski's mouth, watch them grind and rub against each other, watch as they brought each other off. He was going to get to watch Fraser's face as he came. And Kowalski, too.

Better men than Raymond Vecchio had surrendered for the promise of less.

He couldn't do this standing. His back wouldn't take it, and the couch was just a few inches away. He sank down into it gratefully, his eyes fixed on Fraser and Kowalski locked in their punishing dance.

God, Fraser was rough. Ray hadn't expected that. He'd always thought of Benny as a gentle guy, but he'd sure set up a brutal pace with Kowalski. Those desperate kisses hadn't let up; if anything, Kowalski's enthusiasm seemed to frustrate Fraser, and he was almost growling as he pushed Kowalski back and slammed him up against the kitchen counter.

The second his lower back connected with the hard shelf, Kowalski grinned and bit at Fraser's lip.

"Yeah," he breathed hoarsely into Fraser's mouth. "Like that."

Fraser grunted something unintelligible in response, and Ray closed his eyes at the animal noises they were making. Watching this, listening to this--Fraser and Kowalski, both shirtless and sweating and devouring each other in his quiet, lonely little house--was going to kill him.

"Ray," Fraser said in a voice that went straight to Ray's dick. Ray's breath stuttered a little until he was sure Fraser meant Kowalski. "Take off your boxers."

That wasn't a request. Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP, the nice sap in the red jumpsuit, friend to orphans and cute kittens, made requests. This guy, this hot-eyed, angry stranger with the broad red chest and the brutal kisses and the tight grip, this guy felt things so deeply it showed in his whole body, in everything he did. This guy was someone Ray didn't know.

But unlike that cold-eyed gunslinger from the North Miami basement, he was someone Ray wanted to know.

Kowalski pulled back enough to work his shorts down and off his hips and step out of them. Ray caught a fleeting glimpse of a huge, heavy dick and hairy balls before Fraser stepped closer, obscuring his view. Kowalski--brilliant bastard that he was---snagged Fraser's swim trunks and stripped them off him in a flash, too, and Ray had to close his eyes briefly at the sight of Fraser's smooth, creamy, perfect-looking ass shifting and flexing as he pumped his hips. Jesus God. Ray wanted to touch Fraser. He wanted to stand behind and watch Fraser and Kowalski move together, their cocks gliding side by side, and he wanted to feel Fraser's ass brush his cock as he watched. He wanted to touch them both, and kiss them, and watch them sigh in pleasure and moan his name. Ray wanted to be inside them, inside of that world they'd built with their trust and their tenderness and their raw, consuming need for each other.

This was love, he thought as he watched them. He'd just never been able to recognize it before. The nasty things he'd heard in locker rooms and at church and in the bullpen of the 2-7 had it all wrong. This was love...and he liked it. He liked watching this, liked watching Kowalski and Fraser together. It made him ache. He knew what that made him, and he didn't...he didn't care.

It felt like someone had unlatched the cage door that he'd closed over his heart years ago. Something within him took flight at the realization: he felt light as air, suffused with joy. It didn't matter.

He wasn't afraid. Not anymore.

Kowalski's head fell back to knock against the upper cabinet, and Fraser squeezed his eyes shut. They both let out an animal kind of yelp, half shock, half pleasure, and they were sagging against each other, holding each other up. This was love.

He whispered it to them, knowing Fraser and Kowalski wouldn't be able to hear him, but needing to say it anyway.

This was love.

*****

"Fraser, I might be wrong, but I think Vecchio's into it."

Kowalski's whisper was faint; Ray could have kept dozing and written it off as a dream, but the chilly air on his face, and Fraser's low grunt in response, made his eyes fly open. He sat up too fast, and his back wrenched painfully in protest. How long had he slept, slumped awkwardly in the soft folds of the couch, his hand locked around his cock? Twenty minutes? He hadn't been to just drift off to sleep like that in years.

He heard the soft muffle of movement, and Kowalski whispered something to Fraser. They were speaking too quietly for Ray to hear exactly what they were saying, but he thought he heard his name. When he finally opened his eyes, Fraser was standing and helping Kowalski to his feet. They'd both pulled their shorts back on, but Ray hadn't exactly planned to avert his eyes if they hadn't.

It hadn't been awkward like this in his fantasies.

Kowalski crossed his arms and looked Ray over quickly, and Ray didn't exactly appreciate his wry grin of amusement. Kowalski was way too cocky for a guy covered in spunk and dressed only in a worn, damp pair of boxer-briefs.

"Got something to say to me, Stanley?"

Kowalski's grin only widened. He didn't even react to the Stanley crack. Apparently orgasms put him in a good mood.

"I got nothing to say to you, Vecchio. But Fraser does."

Ray finally allowed himself a quick look at Fraser, who was sticking pretty close to the shadows behind Kowalski. Despite the distance and the dark, Ray'd bet even money that Benny was blushing.

But Fraser didn't seem to have anything to say to Ray. They'd barely said two words to each other since Fraser and Kowalski had come to Miami on the trail of Ray's kidnappers. Fraser'd visited Ray in the hospital after the Miami-Dade police had cleared him for the shooting, apparently, but Ray'd been totally out of it for a while. Frannie'd told him that Fraser had mostly sat at his bedside and watched baseball, anyway.

As the silence continued to stretch, a deep, dark pit opened inside Ray. Fraser could hump his boyfriend and come in front of Ray, but he couldn't say anything to him. He just kept his eyes fixed on the floor like he could tunnel his way to China if he stared at it hard enough.

"Well, this is fun," Kowalski said, "but I gotta take a shower." He turned and placed his hand on Fraser's shoulder. "Can you help Vecchio get upstairs? He needs his pain meds." Kowalski moved his palm in little circling motions over Fraser's bare skin, and Fraser's eyes fluttered shut. His nostrils flared as his breathing deepened, and Ray almost smiled. It felt a little better to know that he wasn't the only one affected by Kowalski's magic fingers.

Kowalski leaned in to whisper something in Fraser's ear, and when he pulled back, Fraser's expression had eased a little. He still didn't look happy, but at least he looked a little less freaked out. Fraser met Kowalski's eyes and nodded gravely.

Ray was getting a little sick of being left out of their private little treehouse.

Just before Kowalski padded off to the shower, he let his hand drop to pat Ray on the back, and that eased the tightness in Ray's chest a little. This was weird, yes, but it helped that Kowalski seemed to think it was so...normal.

And then he and Fraser were alone together.

Fraser was still wearing his grimly determined look. He crossed the room and came to a stop in front of Ray, who was still sprawled out on the sofa. Fraser extended his hands and Ray's gaze flicked up to his face. For the first time in months, Fraser met his eyes.

"Can I help?"

"Yeah," Ray said, his voice shaking. "Yeah, you can, Benny."

***

***

It was slow going up the stairs. Ray'd slung an arm around Fraser's neck and Fraser had a tight hold around his waist, but Ray's back had started to seize up a little and now it was rebelling against the climb. He really should sell this place. Too many stairs.

"Are you in pain?" Fraser asked softly. They were so close together that his question was more of a courtesy, anyway. Fraser could hear his labored breathing and could probably even feel his rapid pulse. The sweat beading on his brow was probably a good tip-off, too.

"S'not bad," Ray assured him, and really, it wasn't. As soon as he took his meds and got some sleep--real sleep, not short naps punctuated by nightmares--he'd be okay. "Thanks for the help."

Fraser nodded. They'd reached the top of the stairs and Fraser paused, giving Ray some time to catch his breath. His body felt warm and solid pressed up against Ray's, and he caught a whiff of saltwater, sweat, sex, and that weird windy-fresh smell he'd always associated with Fraser. He'd imprinted on that smell within a couple of hours of knowing the guy. Now it was all mixed up in his head with musk and sex and the things they'd let each other see downstairs. And Kowalski, despite being a meddling bastard, was right about one thing:

"We should talk, Benny."

Fraser nodded again. The muscles in his neck had gone tense under Ray's arm, and Ray frowned. It was almost like Fraser was afraid to be alone with him.

"Let's make you comfortable first," Fraser muttered, and started to maneuver them down the hallway. Ray resisted.

"My bedroom's that way."

"Yes," Fraser said, "but you'll sleep in the guest room tonight. With us."

Ray's eyes widened, and he ignored the warm little jolt in his belly at the thought of curling up next to Fraser and Kowalski in the big guest-room bed.

"That Kowalski's idea?"

"Yes," Fraser said quickly. "He was insistent on the point."

"Y'know, Benny, your boyfriend is a pretty pushy guy."

He could practically hear the smile in Fraser's voice. "You have no idea, Ray."

They were okay after that. Fraser got him sitting down in the guest bed propped up against a mound of pillows, and then brought him his pain meds: two white ones, a big yellow one to help him sleep, and a big glass of water to wash it all down with.

Ray drank the whole thing as he watched Fraser buzz around the guest bedroom, tidying away Kowalski's clothes and finding a clean pair of shorts for himself. Fraser stripped out of his wet swim trunks unceremoniously, and didn't even turn away from Ray as he toweled himself off. Ray sat back in the soft, plump comfort of the pillows and watched Fraser run the towel over his hips, legs, and finally his genitals. Fraser was surprisingly unselfconscious about it, and the buttoned-up guy Ray had known in Chicago--the guy who blushed at naked mannequins and didn't even seem to know words like "peepshow" existed--had nothing in common with this new Fraser. Was it all Kowalski's influence? Or was Fraser really okay with Ray seeing him like this?

He pulled on a pair of familiar snow-white boxers (and maybe Ray should have given some thought to why, exactly, he'd bothered to memorize what kind of underwear Fraser wore) before kneeling onto the bed next to Ray. He was close but not really in Ray's space; the bed was so big they could've sat next to each other and barely brushed shoulders.

"So, Benny," Ray said, slowly, "what the hell are we doing, here?"

Fraser rubbed his eyebrow again, and Ray sighed. He could practically hear the wheels turning in that big Canadian noodle. Any second now Fraser'd start telling an Inuit story. If Ray wanted any kind of a real answer, he'd have to head Fraser off at the snowy pass.

"What happened downstairs?" he asked, softly. "Did you just...lose control? Forget I was there? Or was that your way of marking your territory? You fuck Kowalski in front of me so that I know to stay away?"

"Ray!" Fraser exclaimed, and yeah, there was the shy, reserved guy Ray remembered from those years in Chicago. Fraser was blushing, now, a rosy-pink blush that started in his cheeks and expanded all over his chest and down. Funny--when Fraser was mad it went the other way, chest first and then up to his face.

"I--I certainly wasn't 'marking my territory.' Ray and I don't own one another." He sounded a little insulted by the idea, which made Ray smile. Fraser had said the same about Dief, once.

"But you belong together."

Fraser looked at him speculatively. He frowned, and it was only now, in the soft glow of the bedside lamp, that Ray could see the way time had marked him. Fraser wasn't a young guy anymore. There were new lines on his face, and the small scar on his right cheek--one of many ugly little souvenirs from his time in Chicago--had pitted his skin slightly. The picture he'd carried around in his head of Fraser for so many years wasn't marked like that. It made him feel a little sad.

"I like to think we do," Fraser said, and his voice was warm. "Ray--Ray says that we're a pack. I think it's his attempt to put our relationship into terms he knows I'll understand."

"Smart."

"Perhaps," Fraser allowed, looking down at the rumpled sheets. "But a pack requires more than two."

Ray's breath hitched, and he exhaled slowly through his nose. "You guys had Dief, for a long time."

Fraser bent his head, and blinked. "That's not quite what I mean." He cleared his throat, his awkward cough covering over that old loss.

"Ray, when you...when Stella called and said you'd gone missing, I was--well, Ray describes it as 'off my rocker.'" Fraser's smile didn't reach his eyes. "I was terribly distraught. The thought of losing you was--" His voice cracked, and Ray closed his eyes. Before he had a chance to reconsider, he reached over and grabbed Fraser's hand, lacing their fingers together and holding on tight. Fraser squeezed his hand right back.

"We dropped everything and took the very first flight south. The local police had no idea what had happened to you, and the FBI seemed profoundly uninterested in your fate."

Ray closed his eyes. Fuckers. Not that he'd expected anything different. He'd done terrible things in Vegas to make a case against some of the most powerful mobsters in the country. He'd known the risks. And the Fibbies didn't exactly take the long view of things. They'd gotten what they wanted out of him, after all, and when he'd stopped being useful they probably hadn't hesitated to dump him.

"But you found me," Ray said. They were dancing at the edge of it now. Blood on Fraser's face, that look in his eyes--

"Yes. And I was almost too late. They'd tortured you, Ray! And if I'd only found you sooner...I don't know how you can possibly forgive me."

"What?" Ray dropped Fraser's hand. "What do you mean? You saved my life. You killed a guy to do it!"

"Yes, Ray," Fraser said, like he was talking to a particularly slow child. "But they'd already hurt you so badly."

"Wait." Ray held up his hand, ignoring the way the movement pulled at the tender skin of the burns. "There's no way you could possibly blame yourself for that. Benny, you saved my life! And it cost you."

Suddenly it hit him. What they'd been avoiding all these months, the guilt that'd been in Benny's eyes every second the whole time he'd been in Florida. It wasn't guilt for taking a life. Benny didn't hate him because Ray'd forced him to cross that line--Fraser was nothing if not practical, and he'd always done whatever he'd had to do to protect the people he cared about. He wasn't feeling guilty about the killing at all.

He thought he'd let Ray down.

"God, Benny," Ray breathed, his heart battering his ribs. "You can't think--"

"I should have found you sooner," Fraser said. His grip on Ray's hand was like iron. "It was my fault you took the undercover assignment in the first place. If I hadn't pushed you away, made you feel so uncomfortable--"

"Benny, wait. What the hell are you talking about?"

Fraser blinked at him. "I'm talking about the reason why you went to Las Vegas in the first place, Ray."

Ray opened his mouth, but Fraser was on some kind of roll now. And he'd thought Kowalski was scary when he was determined about something.

"You knew that I--" Fraser stuttered, and forced himself to continue. "You knew that I was attracted to you. That last night, before I left for the Territories..."

Ray closed his eyes. He knew--or at least, he thought he knew--what Fraser was talking about. He'd gone over to Fraser's place on Racine to say goodbye. Fraser was headed off to the great Northern wilderness for a month of mandatory R&R. Doctor's orders, since he'd recently gotten over his fourth concussion and a serious bout of amnesia. The doc said a break would do Fraser good. Of course, a "break" in Fraser's mind meant chasing suspects all over the Northwest Territories for six weeks, but Ray had been happy for the guy. He hadn't taken any time off since they'd gone on that trip up north together and crashed the plane. Concussion #3, and, Ray suspected, maybe Fraser's first pass at amnesia.

The night before Fraser was supposed to leave, Ray had brought a pizza over to Fraser's place, and Fraser had let Ray into his weirdly empty apartment. Everything except Fraser's twin bed had been packed up for the trip, and it hit Ray for the first time that Fraser was always ready to skip out at a moment's notice. He'd lived in Chicago for nearly two years and everything he owned could fit in a trunk and a duffle bag. There was nothing tying him to Chicago except his crappy job at the Consulate and his partnership with Ray. And really, that wasn't anything at all.

They'd sat down at Fraser's tiny kitchen table and ate cold delivery pizza off the tin plates from Fraser's mess kit. Ray hadn't been able to stop looking around Fraser's empty apartment while a sick, hollow feeling swirled around in his stomach. He hadn't been able to think of much to say, but Fraser had kept up a happy patter of conversation, telling Ray all about his vacation spot in the middle of the wilderness. Tent camping and pit toilets didn't exactly sound appealing, but all Ray had heard was the happiness in Fraser's voice. He'd never--not once in two years--ever seen Fraser look so fucking happy about anything.

Fraser was leaving, Ray had realized then. Oh, he might come back from vacation, but only for a while, and only because Ray was his friend. The countdown had started. And it seemed like a terrible thing to do to a friend, to make him sweat it out in a smelly urban hellhole like Chicago when all Fraser really wanted were wide open spaces and room to breathe.

Ray's appetite had disappeared after that, and as he listened to Fraser go on about the beauty of the Franklin Mountains in June, Ray couldn't escape the knowledge that he was the one holding the keys to Fraser's cage. He loved Fraser. Maybe even needed him. Fraser loved him, too, he knew that. But Fraser needed his Northern wilderness like he needed to breathe. So the question was whether Ray could love him enough to let him go.

They'd finished dinner, and Fraser finally seemed to have run out of vacation highlights to talk about. After Dief had scarfed down the rest of the large pie from Dominick's and Ray had helped Fraser wash up--Christ, the guy owned exactly two metal plates, two forks, one glass, one coffee mug and a knife: no wonder he was itching to leave--Ray turned to say goodbye.

He'd folded up Fraser in a tight, warm hug, mainly so he could hide his face in Benny's shoulder. Fraser had touched the back of his neck gently.

"Ray?"

"It's nothing," he'd said, and Fraser had relaxed a little.

"I wish you could come with me," Fraser whispered against his ear, and Ray flinched. Yeah, but that wasn't the point, was it? Fraser wanted to go, and Ray was the one holding him back.

"Next time, Benny," Ray'd said, clapping him on the back. He'd let go then, forcing his arms to release Fraser, but Fraser had held on for a heartbeat longer. There'd been a funny look on his face, one Ray didn't recognize. Almost like Benny wanted to kiss him. But that didn't make any sense, because Fraser wasn't gay, and neither was Ray.

The moment stretched and snapped like a weak rubber band, and Ray finally twisted out of Fraser's grasp.

He'd left the apartment quickly, unable to stand another second of Fraser's company. He was keeping Fraser here, keeping him from finally--finally--going home. And instead of resenting him, Fraser'd just said, in that rough, deep voice of his, that he wanted Ray with him. The guy was too good for his own good. Ray'd tried to tell him that, over and over through the years they'd known each other. Why couldn't Benton Fraser learn to be just a little bit selfish?

And when the Feds had come to him just three days later and asked him to move to Last Vegas and pretend to be a mobster (monster), Ray had finally realized it was up to him to be selfish for Benny.

Six years later and a thousand miles from Chicago, Ray said, quietly, "You stayed." His voice was pitched low in the dim, private warmth of the bedroom. "I went, and you stayed."

Fraser looked down at their joined hands. "Yes."

"Why? Why in God's name didn't you just go home, Fraser?"

"Because I was in love with you." There was a defiant light in Fraser's eyes. As if he expected Ray to fight him on it. "And Chicago was as close to you as I could get."

Ray closed his eyes. He felt like crying. All this time? Benny'd been in love with him for all those years?

"What about Kowalski?"

Fraser brought his head up at that, and he squinted at the far wall. "Ray was--Ray is exactly what I need. I wanted you, but I need him."

Wanted. Past tense. Ray let his hand slide away from the warmth of Fraser's. "Okay, so...you're with him now. You're pack. You love him."

Fraser's answer was simple, inevitable. "Yes. Very much so."

"So what are we doing here?" Ray waved at them, at the bed, at the charged atmosphere. "You feeling nostalgic? Or just sorry for the poor cripple?"

He felt Fraser's wince. "That's not how I think of you. Nor does Ray. We want--we want to help. We'd like to--"

We, we, we. Ray hated that word, hated Fraser's casual use of it. He firmly ignored the tiny voice inside him that insisted a man who'd always been as isolated and lonely as Benton Fraser would have taken a long time to start to think of himself as part of a "we." Even when he'd been partnered with Ray, Fraser had always been a lone wolf.

"That's great, Benny," Ray said, trying for anger when all he felt was exhaustion. "But I'm not your charity project. Or Kowalski's. And I think it's time I went back to my own bed."

He'd just started the long, slow process of getting to his feet when Kowalski's voice, gently chiding, stopped him.

"Jesus, Fraser, I give you one job to do..."

Ray glared up at Kowalski. He was leaning against the doorframe, a towel wrapped low around his hips. He hadn't dried himself off very well: moisture still darkened his sparse chest hair and made the hollow of his collarbone glisten. The water drying there caught and reflected the light as he breathed. His hair was still wet, too; it lay damp against his forehead. He looked...sexy. And damn sure of himself.

For a second Ray understood exactly why Kowalski, and Kowalski alone, seemed to have the power to infuriate the previously unflappable Benton Fraser and make Fraser want to fuck him through the wall.

Kowalski pushed himself away from the door and crossed over to Ray's side of the bed, coming to stand so close he was almost bracketed by Ray's legs. The position was deliberate: he was blocking Ray's line of exit. Ray knew he could push past Kowalski if he wanted to--he might be a cripple but he still knew a couple of good moves--but it hardly seemed worth the effort. Ray'd always thought of himself as a stubborn guy, but he had nothing on either Kowalski or the Mountie.

"You guys talk?" Kowalski asked, keeping his eyes locked on Ray's face even though he'd addressed the question to Fraser.

"Yes. Somewhat."

"'Somewhat.'" Kowalski rolled his eyes. "Fraser, this is why you need me. If I left it up to you, you'd talk Vecchio to death before either of you got your rocks off, and you'd still never get to the point."

Ray was starting to reconsider his decision to surrender. Kowalski really was a pain in the ass.

"We were making some progress, Ray." Fraser sounded flat-out irritated. Huh. Ray hadn't really heard him use that tone much before, either. Only with Kowalski. Was that how Fraser sounded when he loved you? He let you see all of himself, even the ugly parts?

"Vecchio's ready to bust my jaw if it'll get him out of this room. That your idea of progress, Frase?"

Ray couldn't take this. He couldn't sit around and listen to Fraser and Kowalski bicker like a married couple. The one thing he did not need right now was more evidence that he was just a third wheel.

He was preparing to stagger to his feet when Kowalski planted a firm hand against his shoulder. It rocked him backward and he didn't--quite--lose his balance, but Kowalski's message was clear: he wanted Ray to stay put.

"Vecchio, I want to apologize for Fraser's inability to act like a normal human guy for more than twenty seconds. He's pretty messed up over what happened to you and it's hard for him to explain what he's going through."

From behind him, Fraser drew a quick breath in protest, but Kowalski waved him off. "He can't talk about it with me. And I'm real worried for him." His voice had softened a little on that last part, and Ray shook his head. Just like the wolf. Totally devoted.

Kowalski registered Ray's little head-shake of denial, and frowned at him. "In case you haven't noticed, Vecchio, you're pretty bad off yourself. You got hurt, mentally and physically, and you've got a lot of healing to do before you'll be a hundred percent again. I see you two together and the answer seems pretty obvious."

Ray hardened his jaw. "You think us screwing each other will fix this?"

"I think it'll be a good start." Kowalski's grin was slow, feral, little more than a baring of teeth. "You want to. Fraser sure as hell wants to. In fact, I think he needs that more than he needs to apologize to you for whatever it is he thinks he did wrong: abandoning you, or letting you down, or forcing you to go to Vegas. He needs to show you how sorry he is, and he needs you to forgive him."

Fraser put a hand on Ray's shoulder, bracing himself as he worked his way up to his knees and moved across the bed.

"Ray," he said, his voice hoarse, and Kowalski blinked away the suspicious wetness in his eyes.

"Yeah, Fraser, I know. I know you pretty good, remember?" The conviction in Kowalski's voice startled Ray, as did the fierce tenderness in Fraser's grip as he reached for Kowalski's hand. He didn't slip past Ray to gather Kowalski into his arms; he just circled his fingers around Kowalski's wrist in a loose imitation of that ridiculous ball-bead bracelet Kowalski sometimes wore, and held on.

Ray squeezed his eyes shut, giving them a few seconds of privacy. Had anyone ever known him half as well as Kowalski knew Fraser? Angie hadn't, and neither had Stella. Irene, maybe, had come close. That night in the middle of junior year when Pop had broken his nose and Irene had hidden him in her bedroom, helped him clean up, wrapped herself warm around him. She'd held him all night long. That night, she'd known him. He'd told her how afraid he was, how bad he wanted to run, how next time Pop went after him or Ma or Maria or Frannie he wouldn't just take the blow--he'd return it, and he knew he wouldn't be able to stop until he'd beaten his own father to death.

Yeah, Irene had known him. She'd known him better at fifteen than anyone else'd known him the whole rest of his life. And she'd loved him. She'd never stopped.

He felt Fraser's weight shift on the bed, and opened his eyes. That spark between Fraser and Kowalski had gone back to a slow smolder, and Ray figured it was only a matter of time until they caught fire off each other again. And that was how it was between Fraser and Kowalski, he figured: ready to combust at any second. That scene from downstairs, that passion he'd thought was so rare? That was just part of the regular show. And now he was caught in the middle of this thing, these twin points of fire.

It seemed Ray was doomed to burn, one way or the other.

"How's this supposed to work?" he asked, and Benny and Kowalski both turned to look at him. "You--what? You give Fraser permission to sleep with me?"

Kowalski looked a little surprised by that question. He folded his arms over his bare, glistening chest and tilted his head like a dog listening for a sound that people couldn't hear. "I don't know about permission," he said, sounding uncertain for the first time. "Fraser and me don't work like that."

We don't own each other. Ray knew that.

"But I guess I thought I'd be there, too," Kowalski finished, and sucked in a deep breath. "Uh, if that's okay with you." His posture had deflated a little. The cocky attitude from earlier had slipped, almost imperceptibly, into defensiveness. Instead of the steady confidence of a predator, Kowalski now projected uncertainty. His arms were wrapped tightly around his thin torso and he wasn't looking at Ray anymore, or even at Fraser.

What a weird guy. Kowalski was rock-solid in what he felt for Fraser, and what Fraser felt for him, but he was didn't have a clue if Ray would want him? How could he not know?

"It's..." Ray paused, trying to make sure the words came out properly. "It's fine with me. You guys are a package deal. I get that."

Kowalski and Fraser shared a capital-L Look.

"It's not that, Ray," Fraser said gently. "I think Ray tried to explain it earlier. There is one way through this, and we walk the path together. All of us."

Ray checked Kowalski's face. Kowalski nodded and gave Fraser a quick, approving smile before turning his eyes back to Ray.

Something bubbled to the forefront of Ray's mind. This all sounded too neat and tidy. Too good to be true, which usually meant that it was. How had Kowalski put it?

I'd do anything for him.

Ray was on his feet in a flash, and for once his muscles cooperated. He gripped Kowalski by the throat, his fingers digging into Kowalski's bare skin so tightly that he could hear the bones in his own hand squeak.

"I said I wasn't going to be anyone's charity case, Stanley. I'm not your hair shirt, and you're not going to fuck me just because you want to make sure Fraser gets what he wants."

He felt Fraser move behind him, and Kowalski gave a minute shake of his head. Fraser backed off, fractionally, and Kowalski reached up and squeezed Ray's wrists. He wasn't trying to break Ray's grip, just signaling that he had something to say.

"That's not why--" he gasped.

"Then why?" Ray said, and he was almost shocked at the viciousness in his own tone. He sounded like the Bookman, and the thought made him shudder. He loosened his grip, and Kowalski sucked in a couple lungfuls of air.

"It's like I said. We're a team, now." His voice was hoarse, and Ray resisted the urge to apologize for holding him in a death grip.

And then Kowalski flexed and twisted. One second, Ray was in complete control, his hands wrapped around Kowalski's throat, and the next second, Kowalski had flipped around and shoved Ray back against the wall, pinning him there with his weight. Ray hissed as pain flared through his back, but Kowalski's arm was pressing too tight against his throat for Ray to do much more than grit his teeth. When Kowalski spoke, his voice washed over Ray, soft and deadly.

"It's like you said, too, Vecchio." Kowalski increased the pressure on his throat, slightly, and the world went a little fuzzy and grey around the edges. "We got too much in common."

Suddenly the pressure was gone and Ray could breathe again. His heart was pounding and the sensation of air rushing through his lungs again made him feel dizzy. He leaned back against the wall and breathed harshly, trying to still his racing heart.

Kowalski was one hell of a negotiator.

"Ray?"

Fraser's voice broke through the fog and Ray opened his eyes. Fraser was close, so close, his face clouded over with concern. He felt Fraser's shaking fingers press against his cheek.

"I'm okay, Benny." Ray glanced at Kowalski, who'd recovered more quickly but still looked a little shaken. "You got a good grip, Stanley," he coughed.

Kowalski laughed. It was a little forced, but he didn't look so dangerous anymore, which Ray figured had to mean some kind of progress. They were both breathing hard after their little tussle, and Ray had to fumble his way back along the bed before he could sink down next to Fraser.

He hated being weak like this, hated not knowing what his muscles were going to do or when he'd slip into a panic attack. But he didn't feel ashamed of his weakness around Benny and Kowalski. He'd seen Fraser go through two brutal rounds of PT, first for the stab wound in his thigh, the second when Ray almost paralyzed him, and he knew that Fraser would understand. Kowalski had been a real soft touch with him, too: cooking big meals, making sure he got his pain meds, chasing off Frannie and Ma when they got to be too much for him. So Kowalski was okay, too. He knew that.

It didn't change the fact that he was terrified. He realized by now he'd wanted this, maybe for a long time, but that didn't change the fact that he was out of his depth.

"I've never--" he tried, and swallowed hard. "I've never been with a guy."

"No kidding." Kowalski rolled his eyes "Look, just...relax. We want to make you feel good, right? So let us do that. Frase?"

Ray turned to see what, exactly, Kowalski was instructing Fraser to do. Benny was still kneeling up on the bed, and he was close to Ray. So close. And still so close to naked. He put one big hand gently on Ray's shoulders, his eyes locked on Ray's face, and he leaned forward.

If not for Fraser's hand on his shoulder, Ray would have jerked back at the shockingly warm, wet press of Fraser's mouth on his. Fraser's eyes were soft and gentle--so gentle, just like Ray'd always thought he'd be--at least, before he'd seen Fraser go after Kowalski like he did in the kitchen. He let himself relax into Benny's kiss.

It felt great. Better than great. Fraser was only touching him with his mouth and that one hand on his shoulder, his thumb rubbing smooth circles into Ray's skin through his shirt, but it felt like Fraser was touching him everywhere, and it all felt good. Ray sighed, and let his mouth fall open slightly.

That must have been some kind of signal, or something, because Fraser pressed a little closer and suddenly his thick, hot, wet tongue was sliding inside Ray's mouth. Ray gasped, a little shocked, but Benny was persistent. His tongue stroked along Ray's, teasing, caressing. Ray felt the bed dip a little as Fraser inched forward, and suddenly Fraser's arms were around Ray and he was pressed tight to Fraser, chest to chest, groin to groin. It felt...weird, to be held like this by another man. Scary. Wonderful. Fraser was so big and hard and warm, and there was so much of him. Ray slipped his arms around Fraser, cupping his smooth, broad shoulders, and Fraser moaned in approval and licked deeper into Ray's mouth. Ray closed his eyes, and opened himself up to it.

They kissed for a long, long time, until Ray's brain was mush and his whole body felt warm and kind of floaty, like he was anchored only by Fraser's mouth. All the pain he'd felt, and the guilt and the shame of wanting this--of wanting Fraser--faded away, until there was only Fraser's hand and his mouth and the way he held Ray like he would never, ever let him go.

He felt the bed dip again, but this time it wasn't Fraser adjusting his position to bring their bodies closer together. It was Kowalski, settling into place just behind him. Ray heard rustling and Kowalski moving the pillows around, and then Kowalski's hands were drifting up Ray's back to where Fraser's arms were wrapped around him.

"You want to take this off, Vecchio?" Kowalski asked softly, touching his shirt, and Ray shut his eyes and broke away from Benny's hot, swollen mouth.

"Not a chance," he said, breathing hard. Fraser released one hand, bringing it up to cup his face.

"Ray?"

"I'm okay," he told Benny, looking him in the eyes. It was true. He really was okay. Okay with this, with kissing Fraser, with Kowalski watching them and touching his back.

He just didn't want to take his shirt off.

"What about these?" Kowalski's hands drifted lower to brush against Ray's khakis. "Can these come off?"

Ray leaned his head against Fraser's shoulder, and let Fraser's warm, sweet breath drift over his face.

"Yeah," he said. "Those can come off."

Ray stood, bracing himself against Fraser's shoulder as he unzipped and pushed his pants off. Kowalski was leaning back against the headboard, watching, a hot look in his eyes. The towel he'd wrapped around his hips had tented, and Ray glanced at Fraser. His boxers were looking a little snug, too, and Ray could just make out the outline of Fraser's penis, dark and heavy against the thin white cotton.

"You want to keep those on, too?" Kowalski pointed at Ray's silk briefs, and Ray flushed a little. He wasn't hard yet. Hadn't even thought about it, really, not when it had felt so good just to kiss Fraser.

"Takes me awhile," he said, unable to look at either Kowalski or Fraser. He stared hard at the floor. "With the medication, I mean. I might not be able to--"

"Hey, that's okay," Kowalski said quickly, just as Fraser slung his arm across Ray's chest and pulled Ray back against him.

"It's fine," Fraser murmured against his ear, stroking Ray's side, his chest. Fraser's hands lingered, tracing Ray's body slowly like he wanted to memorize him. "Whatever you need, Ray."

"I need you," Ray said, his voice a little too rough. "Both of you," he amended, looking at Kowalski, golden in the dim bedroom light. "I want this."

"You got it," Kowalski said, his voice also a little too rough. Fraser kissed Ray's neck and gave him a little push. Ray watched as Fraser stripped off his boxers.

Beautiful man. But then that was Benny, gorgeous inside and out. Ray wished it was brighter in the room so he could see every part of Fraser clearly: the smooth, solid bulk of him, his muscles and his joints, that soft, tender look in his eyes that made Ray's heart ache and his dick twitch.

It felt damn good to be alive all of a sudden.

"C'mere, Vecchio," Kowalski said, tugging a little at the back of Ray's shirt. "We're just getting started."

Ray sat back down on the bed and Kowalski's arms came around him, pulling him back for a kiss. He definitely tasted different than Benny. Saltier. More musky. And that lingering sweetness from earlier was still there, present on his lips, his tongue. Ray liked it. He liked Kowalski, too, liked the lean, resilient strength of him, liked the way it felt to be the focal point of all of Kowalski's jittery energy. He was a good kisser: demanding, forceful in a playful way. Teasing. Good.

Ray tipped his head back so he could meet Kowalski's mouth evenly, and he shivered as Kowalski moved his hand down to his chest, his palm making smooth circles over Ray's collarbones before slipping lower to caress his nipple through his shirt. And that felt--God, that was a lot better than "good." Ray'd never been real sensitive there, but his left nipple seemed to have developed a lot of extra nerve endings all of a sudden. Maybe it was making up for the right, which was now just a lumpy mass of scar tissue.

Deliberately forcing the reminder away, Ray moaned into Kowalski's mouth and Kowalski pulled back to murmur, "Yeah, that's good. Let it out. I want to hear you."

Fraser had been watching them--had to have been, given the way his hands were shaking now--and he eased up onto the bed just as Kowalski sank back against the nest of pillows padding the headboard. He tugged Ray down after him until Ray was resting against Kowalski's chest, his head lolling on Kowalski's shoulder.

Kowalski was still playing with his nipple, and he licked and sucked at Ray's earlobe, giving Ray a playful little nip every so often to keep it interesting. "You want Fraser to suck you?" Kowalski whispered in his ear, his breath cooling Ray's earlobe where he'd licked it. "He wants to suck you. He wants you to come in his mouth, he wants you to fuck him. Fraser's up for it. Look at him, Vecchio. You got any idea how bad he wants you?"

Ray forced himself to open his eyes. Kowalski's bedroom talk, murmured so close in his ear, was making it hard to focus on what Fraser was doing. Not that he really minded the distraction, but Christ, he wanted to listen to Kowalski and watch Fraser, and it was hard to do both at once.

Benny, nude and beautiful, was crouched at the end of the bed. He seemed to sense Ray's eyes on him, and looked up deliberately, licking his lips.

Ray was hard now, no question. Kowalski's fingers were working their magic, sending spikes of sensation from his left nipple to his dick. He met Fraser's eyes, and nodded. Fraser nodded back and slipped his thumbs under the waistband of Ray's boxers.

Kowalski helped him lift his hips enough for Fraser to work his boxers down and off. Ray knew he must look ridiculous in his soft linen shirt, with his long bare legs sticking out from underneath, but he wasn't ready to deal with the scars yet. He'd kept them hidden for so long, and this felt so good, the three of them, that he didn't want to distract anyone. Besides, Fraser looked really, really happy. His eyes were locked on Ray's cock like it was an oasis in the desert: he looked hungry for it, and Ray shivered at the raw need and desire in Fraser's eyes. No way could he take off the shirt now, and watch guilt and anguish crowd out the pleasure on Fraser's face.

Kowalski kept talking, kept running his hands up and down over Ray's shirt, pausing now and then to tongue his ear a little. Ray wasn't sure if Kowalski was trying to distract him, but he wasn't scared of this anymore. He wanted them. He wanted to be here.

He needed to be here.

Fraser rubbed his thigh, his big palm rasping against Ray's hairy leg, and slowly--too slowly, was Benny trying to kill him?--he finally wrapped his hand around Ray's cock. With a moan, Ray dropped his head back against Kowalski's shoulder.

"Christ, Benny--"

It had been too long since he'd had anyone else's hands on him. And Fraser--Fraser loved him. It was there, in his eyes, in the way Fraser touched him so tenderly. And Kowalski...okay, maybe Kowalski didn't love him, but he had to feel something to be holding Ray like this, his long legs stretched out on either side, kissing and sucking at his neck, his dick pressed up hard against Ray's back.

Pack, Ray thought. We're a pack. We. Didn't matter how long it lasted. He'd already figured out, in Vegas, and here in Florida: the only time was now.

Fraser's grip on him tightened, and Ray gasped as he felt Fraser's tongue flick over the head of his penis. Ray jerked up, once, and Fraser understood right away. He licked up the length of Ray's dick, and Ray whimpered a little, turning to hide his face in Kowalski's shoulder.

"Shhhh," Kowalski whispered, rubbing Ray's head. "We got you." Ray only half-heard him: everything in his body was tuned to the sensation of Fraser's mouth as he slowly, so slowly, took Ray in.

Ray had gotten a lot of blowjobs in his life: Irene, Angie, various women he'd dated after Angie, hookers Armando had fucked in Vegas, Stella...it all added up. And most of those had left him feeling empty. He'd have to go all the way back to 1973 and the lush warmth of Irene Zuko's mouth to remember when someone's touch had felt this necessary. Like it was a gift from a person who loved him, instead of an obligation, or a Band-Aid plastered over the gaping wound of a marriage gone sour.

Fraser was smooth, practiced, confident. He knew what he was doing, seemed to know what Ray liked even before Ray himself realized that he liked it. But Fraser's ease with this, with him, was only part of what Ray felt, only one small piece of the puzzle he was just now starting to put together. He couldn't fight the deep feeling of contentment that settled over him as Fraser sucked and licked him, that hot mouth and wet, strong tongue slicking over his penis, exploring his balls. Kowalski kept kissing him like he was checking up on Ray, and Ray kissed back, not only because he liked the kissing, but also to reassure Kowalski that he was right--all of this had been a good idea.

Ray was safe. He was home.

Orgasm rushed up on him, catching him off guard. He barely had time to whisper a warning to Fraser before he began to come. Fraser, beautiful freak that he was, didn't pull away, but instead put his mouth over Ray and swallowed it all down, licking at him greedily as the last tremors died away.

Kowalski held him through it, rubbing Ray's chest through his shirt as Ray shook and shivered and finally sank bonelessly into his arms. He was breathing like he'd just run a marathon or, more realistically these days, climbed a flight of stairs. How long had it been since he'd come like that? How long since he'd even been able to keep an erection long enough to come?

"God, Benny, you're amazing," he groaned, throwing his arm over his eyes. He felt Kowalski chuckle.

"Yeah, he's pretty proud of himself," he heard Kowalski say. "Don't go feeding his ego, Vecchio."

Ray lay gasping in Kowalski's arms for a few minutes until the bed shifted again, and when he opened his eyes, Fraser was sitting on his left, his hand on Kowalski's bare shoulder.

"You guys want to--"

"Nah," Kowalski said, but he tightened his arms around Ray a little and stroked his shirt as he said it. "Love to, but I ain't twenty years old no more. I'll take a rain check. I need some sleep. Frase?"

"Sleep sounds like a fine idea, Ray," Fraser said, but he was looking down at Ray's chest, frowning. It was pretty clear he didn't like the shirt.

He met Ray's eyes. "Would you like to change into something more comfortable?"

The challenge was written all over Fraser's face, and Ray considered the question. He could feel Kowalski's body tensing behind his; it was only a matter of time before Kowalski would want to weigh in on this, too. Ray sighed. Stubborn bastards. They'd never, ever stop pushing.

Ray clutched at his shirt tightly until he realized what he was doing and forced himself to relax. Benny and Kowalski knew about his injuries. They'd been first on the scene, had watched over him until the paramedics showed. They'd both been with him at the hospital on and off during the early treatments for the burns, and they knew about the PT and the skin grafts. They knew most of his right side was a roadmap of deep, ugly scars. And maybe they hadn't seen it since he'd healed up, but Ray figured...well, they'd opened themselves up to him. Bodies, beds, hearts. He was in it now, here, with Benny and Kowalski. So he'd let them see.

"Turn off that lamp," Ray said, shrugging at the light on Kowalski's side. Kowalski untangled one arm and stretched across the bed to plunge half the room into semi-darkness. The lamp on Fraser's side was still casting enough light so that they could see the worst of it, but if it was a little dark, maybe he wouldn't have to look at the expressions of pity and disgust on their faces. In case that was how they reacted.

"Give me a hand," Ray said to Kowalski, and eased himself up into a sitting position. Kowalski helped him unbutton his shirt, reaching around so that it seemed like Ray had an extra pair of arms for a second. Fraser helped out, too, gently nudging Ray's nerveless fingers out of the way so that he and Kowalski could get the shirt open with as little fumbling as possible.

Ray kept his eyes averted from the sliver of bare chest that peeked through the opening of his shirt. He'd never been much to look at before: thin, bony, all long, gawky limbs and thick, dark body hair--but the angry red burn scars mottling his chest now made him look like something out of a monster movie. The scars and skin grafts had knitted together in freakish patterns, and his chest looked lumpy, misshapen. His olive skin looked like a lampshade that had melted against a bare bulb.

Ray felt fingertips brush against his chest, just below his collarbone. Benny. Benny was feeling the burns, and Ray looked away from the sight of Fraser's blunt, capable fingers as they mapped the ruin of his chest.

Something soft and wet pressed against his back, and Ray shivered. That was Kowalski's mouth. He was kissing him, kissing those ugly burns on his back and shoulder.

Ray felt like crying.

"Ray." Fraser's voice was hoarse. He sounded like he was fighting tears, too. "Ray."

He fumbled for some part of Benny that he could touch, and his hand met Fraser's soft, thick hair. Fraser surprised Ray by grabbing his hand and kissing his palm, closing his eyes, Ray figured, so he wouldn't actually start crying.

"It's not so bad, Vecchio," Kowalski murmured, punctuating the statement with a gentle kiss. "You could have shown us this."

"It's ugly," Ray said thickly. "It's ugly, and you're both so beautiful--"

Kowalski snorted. "So, what, your brilliant plan was to sleep with your shirt on the rest of your life?"

He couldn't help it: he laughed. He huffed out a long, ragged chuckle, and felt Benny's hand splaying out across his chest and Kowalski's lips on his shoulder again.

"I don't know what I'm going to do," Ray whispered finally, after the urge to laugh had passed. "I don't know."

Kowalski slid out from behind him, and Fraser coaxed Ray to lie back on the soft, familiar sheets. They made a little sandwich out of him, Kowalski on one side, Fraser on the other, and Ray yawned. He felt surrounded by warmth, the good kind of warmth. The kind that didn't burn.

"You'll figure it out, Ray," Fraser whispered, his voice a rumble against Ray's chest.

"Yeah, Vecchio," Kowalski said; it sounded like his voice was coming down a long, dark tunnel. "You'll figure it all out in the morning."

***

He woke to warmth, and the sound of running water.

The room was too bright--they'd forgotten to draw the curtains last night--and Ray shut his eyes, listening to the soft drumming of the shower and the sound of Fraser snoring beside him.

Fraser held him loosely in his arms, snugged up close against his back. Ray shifted a little experimentally, and Fraser muttered something and drew him closer, his arms tightening around Ray's chest.

It was strange to wake up like this, slowly, peacefully, rather than being jerked awake by nightmares. Even stranger--strange, but good--to wake wrapped up in Benny's arms. They were both naked under the sheets, and Ray could feel Fraser's early-morning hard-on swelling against his hip.

"Hey, Benny, you awake?"

He knew the instant Fraser snapped to consciousness. Fraser let go of Ray, and Ray only had a second to feel the loss of Fraser's warmth and connection before Fraser rolled away and turned so Ray could lie flat on his back.

The bright Florida sunshine streaming through the window illuminated Fraser's face, and Ray was struck dumb by his beauty. Ray reached up to stroke his cheek softly, reverently. But all he could say was, "You sleep okay?"

Fraser turned his head a little to brush his lips across Ray's palm.

"Mmm, yes. And you?"

"Yeah," Ray said, lying back down on the pillow. It hurt his neck a little to look up at Benny like that. "I feel good."

Fraser's smile gave the brilliancy of the sunlight some serious competition. "I'm glad."

He put his hand on Ray's shoulder, and he made little soothing circles with his thumb.

Ray relaxed into his touch, and Fraser began to stroke his torso, his hand drifting down to his stomach. Jesus, that felt good.

Ray took a deep breath. "Think Kowalski'd mind if we--? While he's in the shower?"

Fraser chuckled and shook his head, hiding his smile in Ray's shoulder before he moved to kiss him.

"No, I don't think he'd mind at all."

Fraser kissed him then, sweetly, soundly. His lips were gentle, undemanding, and Ray felt the heat of Fraser's body seep into him. He'd been so cold for so long, feeling lost and lonely and guilty about...God, everything. He'd never expected to have this kind of gift. Never looked for it, really.

He groaned and slid his tongue into Fraser's mouth, reaching up to cup the back of Fraser's head and slide his fingers into that soft, thick hair. Benny surged against him, rubbing a little against Ray's hip. Finally, Fraser wrapped his hand around Ray's dick. That was good. That was so good. Benny knew how to hold him just right, knew how to stroke him, slow and intense, how to make each and every movement of his hand count.

Ray gasped, and Fraser, pausing to drop a soft, wet kiss on Ray's jaw, slid down his body and took Ray into his mouth. He'd done this last night--Ray knew Fraser had blown him just last night--but it still felt brand-new, like Fraser was learning him all over again. Benny was still confident, graceful, knew just what to do with his hands and lips, but he moved so carefully, too, and with such intense focus, that Ray almost forgot to breathe.

Fraser's mouth was hot, and large. He could take all of Ray to the root. He could take all of Ray, absorb him in that big, strong body, wrap him up in warmth and kindness. It made Ray's eyes burn and his throat ache, and his body shook with the pleasure of it, of Fraser, of being left naked and open to someone who loved him.

And when Fraser lifted his head and did--something, with his finger, and reached down to gently cup Ray's balls, Ray knew that he would let Fraser do anything. See every part of himself. He could trust Fraser with anything. With his body. With his life. Ray used to know that, didn't he? Time to show Fraser he still trusted him with all of it. He let his legs fall open. Fraser's hand stilled.

"Ray, I--"

"Yeah, Benny, I know." He tried to think of a way to explain what he wanted. There was still so much about this, about being with a guy, that he didn't understand yet. He had to rely on his gut, trust that his body knew what he wanted, and what he could handle. "Just--if you think I'll like it, we could try it, maybe. Just a little. What do you think?"

Fraser's expression was serious. So serious, in fact, that Ray had to reach out and squeeze his hand just to make sure the guy hadn't stopped breathing.

The gesture had its intended effect. Fraser shook his head a little, lost the deathly-serious look and said, "I'd like to show you how good it can be, Ray. Perhaps not now, but someday."

Ray smiled, and brought Fraser's hand up, placing it over his heart.

"Yeah. Someday." He spread his legs, liking the feel of Fraser's body against his. "But for now, maybe...try with your finger?"

Fraser searched his face again, and Ray made sure all of the conviction and desire he felt was there for Fraser to see. Finally, Fraser nodded and stroked Ray's dick again, making him shudder. Ray let go of Fraser's other hand, and Fraser slid back down, stroking one finger back, slowly, until Ray could feel the hot tip of his finger press there. On that place where Ray had never been touched. And...yeah. Not bad. His eyes closed. "Yeah, Benny. It's good."

Fraser bent his head and Ray was right back there, lost in pleasure so intense it could have been pain. Fraser's mouth on him, Fraser's finger in him...it was all so good. Too good. He'd never felt anything like it. And when Fraser pressed his finger in a little more (it didn't hurt, not exactly) and sucked Ray down a little deeper in that big, hot mouth, Ray couldn't fight the bucking of his hips, or the strangled little sigh that escaped his lips. God, he had never, ever imagined--

"Holy fuck."

The bed dipped, and Ray opened his eyes. Kowalski was kneeling there beside him, watching as Fraser sucked him off. Kowalski's eyes were wide, his pupils dilated, and Ray could see that he'd either lost his towel at some point or hadn't bothered with one in the first place. Kowalski's hair was wet and sticking up in every direction; he was nude and already sporting a pretty impressive erection of his own. Ray could already see a little bead of pre-come welling at the tip of Kowalski's dick. The guy wasn't just hard, he was turned on. All from watching Ray and Fraser--

From seeing--

Fuck.

Ray pushed at Fraser's shoulders, hard. Fraser pulled away instantly, and Ray tried not to wince as Fraser's finger slipped out of his body.

"Ray, what's wrong?" Fraser's face was flushed and he looked worried. Saliva shone on his lips, and a faint sheen of sweat covered his rosy-pink skin. Ray could see it all so clearly in the light.

The light. It was so damn bright in here, all that intense Florida sun chasing away all of the shadows, leaving him nowhere to hide. The light gleamed on Fraser's ridiculously soft-looking skin and solid muscles. It sketched the rougher lines of Kowalski's wiry form differently, but he still looked good, even in the bright light. They both looked handsome and strong, and next to them Ray was--

Well. The light showed every single one of his scars, all the ugly burns and half-healed cuts in bright, unforgiving detail. What the two of them had only glimpsed in darkness last night was now exposed to the light.

He wanted to cover himself up and hide his ugliness away. It seemed obscene, contrasted with Fraser's beauty and Kowalski's rough appeal, dark and mottled against the white bed sheets.

Ray closed his eyes, trying to shut it all out. Last night, he'd been able to stand it only because it'd been dark, and because he had to repay the gift they'd given him. But now this felt wrong. He couldn't ask Fraser and Kowalski for this.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Kowalski asked, resting his hand gently on the mass of scar tissue layering Ray's shoulder. Ray tried to shrug off the touch, but Kowalski was persistent. "Why'd you stop? That was hot."

"Hot?" Ray snorted. "How could you think that was hot? I'm--" He gestured down at himself helplessly. "And you and Fraser are--" he paused, unsure of what he wanted to say. Whole? Complete? Unmarked? Something about the way Benny and Kowalski handled themselves, maybe, good and perfect in a way he could never be.

"It's hot because it is, Vecchio," Kowalski said quietly. His face, so clear and bright in the sunlight, held a calm conviction that Ray had never seen in Kowalski before.

"But the scars--"

Kowalski snorted. "I got news for you, Raimondo. You were never going to win Miss Florida to begin with." His warm tone took some of the bite out of his words, and Ray couldn't help but smile. Just a little.

"So you got hurt," Kowalski said. "You'll heal."

"Ray," Fraser said, his voice hoarse. Ray turned to meet Fraser's eyes. "These are the marks given to us." Ray watched, wide-eyed, as Fraser reached and stroked his gentle, blunt fingers over the scar on Kowalski's chest. Ray had felt it in the living room last night: in the bright sun it was just a little white pucker of scar tissue. Not ugly at all.

"But I--"

"Hey," Kowalski said, putting his hand over Fraser's. He reached out to cup Ray's cheek, and the three of them were suddenly connected, each of them touching, all of them together.

"Frase, turn over, okay?"

Fraser met Kowalski's eyes, and they exchanged some kind of wordless conversation. Before Ray could ask what they meant by it, Fraser rolled over onto his stomach, his head buried in his folded arms.

Kowalski winked at Ray--cocky bastard--and slid over until he was kneeling behind Fraser. He bent to leave stinging wet kisses on Fraser's shoulder, and Ray tried to say...something. It didn't exactly take a Fibbie to figure out what Kowalski was doing, not with that big hard dick of his and Fraser lying like that on his belly, his hips tilted up toward Kowalski in a crystal-clear invitation.

"Please, Ray," Fraser was whispering, like he was asking for something really good.

Ray swallowed. His throat felt desert-dry, and he wasn't sure he could watch this, watch Kowalski fuck Fraser in front of him. It was so bright in here, and he hadn't been gay for even 24 hours yet. Fingers were one thing, and he wasn't sure if he could--

But Kowalski didn't reach for the lube nestled in the drawer of the little bedside table. And Fraser didn't arch his back or shift up to spread himself open for Kowalski. Instead, Kowalski continued licking and kissing down Fraser's back, worshipping Fraser's smooth, rosy skin, nibbling at his shoulder blades, dipping his tongue into the slight groove of Fraser's spine. And Fraser moaned and arched up into Kowalski's touch, shaking a little at each brush of Kowalski's tongue.

Until, finally, Kowalski reached The Scar.

That was how Ray had always thought of it. The Scar, capitalized. He'd left that ugly, unforgiving mark on Fraser's body, permanently wounded the best friend he'd ever had. He'd only seen the scar a couple of times in the hospital, afterward. It'd been red then, raw and so ugly in contrast to the smooth, pale perfection of the rest of Benny's body. Now it was still red but faded a little, new layers of tissue, thick and tough, layering over the old hurt.

He watched as Kowalski closed his mouth over Benny's scar. Kowalski looked almost prayerful, like he didn't see the ugliness of the old wound. His mouth was moving slowly over the scar; he kept pausing to drop soft little kisses right at the center of the mark, right where the bullet still rested beneath the layers of tissue. It was almost...almost like Kowalski loved that scar. Which made no sense. That bullet wound was a mark of pain. Betrayal. Loss. There was no reason to be so goddamn reverent about it.

Ray couldn't watch this anymore. He looked away, and found that Fraser was watching him.

"Ray," Fraser said, simply, and Ray blinked rapidly. He wiped a hand over his face.

"Benny, Benny, I'm so sorry. I'm so--"

"Don't," Fraser said quietly. "You have nothing to be sorry for. Nothing. It's just an old scar, Ray. It has as much or as little meaning as we give it. And should we choose to give it a new meaning..."

Fraser's eyes drifted closed, and he sighed in pleasure, pushing back into Kowalski's mouth. As Ray watched, Kowalski lapped at the scar. He ran his tongue over the pink wound in the center, shiny-soft under Kowalski's tender mouth.

Ray's hands were shaking, but he couldn't resist reaching up to touch Fraser's back. Kowalski opened his eyes and saw Ray's hand there, resting just inches from his face.

"Okay," Kowalski breathed, and slid further down toward the end of the bed. Ray watched, rapt with fascination, as Kowalski coaxed Fraser's legs apart and put his mouth--whoa--there.

Fraser huffed out a soft, strangled sob, and Ray closed his eyes. He found the rough, raised ridges of the scar, and covered the wound with his hand.

Fraser was bucking wildly, shoving back against Kowalski's mouth, forward into the sheets, and Ray could feel the flex and twist of the muscles in Fraser's back as he moved. Kowalski's eyes were closed; he was lost to what he was doing to Fraser. He held Fraser spread open with his hands, and Ray watched the flicker of his tongue, the intense expression of concentration on Kowalski's face. They were at the center of a hurricane, the three of them, connected by limbs and lips, hands and scars and the raw wounds of time. Ray felt rocked by it, by what he had tumbled into, been welcomed into. Become a part of.

The scar was no longer his lonely burden. Kowalski was there to bear it with him. The memory of those agonizing moments on that train platform back in Chicago could be wiped out now, scarred over with this. With love.

A new memory. A better meaning, like Benny'd said.

He closed his eyes, and shifted closer until he felt the hot press of Benny's body all along his side. Slowly Fraser's thrusts and panting breaths grew less intense, and Kowalski pulled away, petting Fraser a little in apology. He rose up on his knees, giving Ray a clear look at his lean body and huge erection. Wow. Ray blinked, and licked his lips.

"Vecchio, grab the lube, okay?"

Ray glanced at Fraser, who was still lying facedown in the mattress, dark head buried in his hands. He was panting softly, the sound loud in the small room.

"I, uh--"

Kowalski kneed a little closer and put his hand on Ray's shoulder.

"I know this might be too much for a guy who's never, y'know. You don't gotta watch."

Ray covered Kowalski's hand with his own. He waited until Kowalski met his eyes, and he willed both of them to hear the sincerity in his voice. "You...you love each other. I can stand to see that, for Chrissakes."

Kowalski smiled at him, and Ray reached out to stroke Fraser's back. "Hey, Benny? Can I watch this?" He took a deep breath. "You don't mind, right?"

Fraser leaned up on his elbows, his face happy and serious at the same time. "Of course not." He grabbed for Ray's hand and kissed his knuckles, brushing his mouth over the old scars Ray'd gotten in his fight with Frank Zuko years ago.

"It would be my pleasure, Ray," Fraser said.

****

EPILOGUE

After they'd showered and had some breakfast, Ray suggested they head out to the beach.

"After all," he said, "we should make the most of it while we've got it, y'know?"

He knew he wasn't going to keep the place in Florida. Ma and Frannie had been making noises about him coming back to Chicago, and Ray knew Fraser's leave was almost up. Benny and Kowalski'd stay another couple of weeks, maybe, and then Ray would put the house on the market. He could go back home.

"It always felt temporary anyway," Ray said to Fraser as Kowalski worked in the kitchen, packing up a cooler with bottled water and snacks. "Even when Stella was around, Florida never really felt real, y'know?"

Fraser nodded quickly. He understood all about temporary, Ray thought.

"Will you be happy in Chicago, Ray?"

Ray sighed, and smiled. "Yeah, I think so. I've got some things to work out, y'know? And home is a good place for that. But I'll come up to Mooseville sometime soon and visit you guys."

There was something--some offer, some declaration--that Fraser was clearly dying to make, only he didn't seem to know how to say it. He kept wrinkling his forehead and scratching at his eyebrow, and Ray smiled.

"Hey, Benny," he said softly. "It's okay. I--I'm good. It'll be good to go home, finally. And maybe some day, when I'm..." he paused. "When I'm better, the three of us can figure it all out."

Fraser put his hand on Ray's shoulder, stopping the awkward flow of words. "That would be wonderful, Ray. We'll be waiting."

Ray glanced at the kitchen; they could hear Kowalski puttering around in there.

"You sure you can speak for him?"

Fraser shrugged and gave him a goofy little smile. "He'd tell you the same. We're a pack, Ray and I."

That made the last of Ray's lingering uncertainties sink away. He ruffled Fraser's hair.

"Good to know, Benny. Good to know."

They set up a little ways down in the beach, in a secluded area sheltered by dunes. Ray and Stella'd used a huge chunk of their savings to secure themselves a private beach, and Ray had never been more grateful for the extra space, or the privacy.

As Benny and Kowalski stripped, he felt irrationally protective of them both. He was grateful for the chance to see the two of them like this, bare and beautiful and his for just a little while longer.

Kowalski's body gleamed in the bright sun, and for the first time Ray noticed how craggy Kowalski's face was, how dorky he looked in those terrible flip-up sunglasses. Even that gunshot wound high on his chest stood out a little more clearly in the light reflected off the water.

Fraser's scar was hard to miss, of course. It looked like a shattered window after somebody had tossed a rock through it: a big hole in the middle, and a spiderweb of surgery scars around that. But as he watched Benny and Kowalski wade out into the surf, he realized that the scars didn't matter.

And Ray was damn sick of tragedy. It was high time he figured out some new meanings.

He dropped his shirt in the sand and followed them out into the water, naked with them, catching his breath when the ocean caught at him and lifted him up off his feet. He closed his eyes and drifted onto his back. Just float, he thought. Just float.

Kowalski splashed him playfully, sending a cooling spray of water jetting over Ray's face, and he heard the soft rumble of Fraser's laughter before the wind carried the sound away.

The three of them bobbed there in the ocean, small against the vastness that held them.

They swam for the horizon, together.

the end

End Breaking the Waves by Nos4a2no9

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The Due South Fiction Archive Entry

Breaking the Waves