Disclaimer: Un-beta'd alas.

Author's Notes: Part 6 of a story I started 6 years ago. I'd say it's about 3/4s done, now.

Story Notes: There is some violence, nasty language and etc in this story as a whole. There is one sexual scene in previous story but this tale is not a romance or a sex story but rather an cop story. Vecchio *and* Kowalski show up here.

"Okay, okay, do we have it all? We're running late," Vecchio bashed elbows with O'Brian. "C'mon, give a guy some room here!" Which earned him a scowl, then O'Brian walked off, leaving Vecchio to play catch-up with his coat hanging off his arms.

"Here's the flight number -" Sandy was saying, still filling in for Frannie while she was on maternity leave. Vecchio ran a hand over his head, Sandy - blonde as her name - was good at the job but half the department still pined after his sister, or at least, her cappachino machine. "And here's the hotel information, just the way you wanted it."

"What's the name?" O'Brian asked as he took the folder, flipping through it with a frown. He had damn good reason to be worried, he was the one getting death threats on his phone - Welsh had moved him to a safe house until the Spanetti case was closed. Somebody thought they were close and that made Vecchio nervous. It made the whole damn department nervous because there weren't a whole lot of ways for somebody to get a cop's home phone except through a leak in the division. Yeah, everyone knew there were crooked cops in the world but no one liked to have their nose rubbed in it, especially not on a mob case.

"Stanley French, Buddy French his brother and their nephew Joshua."

"Oh, that's a great idea," Vecchio complained with a shudder. Now it was almost creepy - two guys pretending to be brothers who were ... anything but. "Benny and Kowalski look just like brothers."

"It's just until we can get the kid's statement and send them home," O'Brian said. "Thanks, Sandy." She gave him a smile and a wink as if she didn't know he was gay. Vecchio let O'Brian page his way through the files as they piled into the Riv and headed to the airport.

"The - uh - Mountie used to be your partner, right?" O'Brian said, nose buried in the file, when they hit the freeway and the traffic.

"A bit longer than two years," Vecchio said. God, he hadn't even seen Benny since ... since the wedding. Vecchio rubbed his palms over the steering wheel. He hadn't seen Kowalski since the Muldoon screw up. He hadn't seen the two of them together, ever. He blew out a sharp sigh; it wouldn't matter. He wouldn't let it. Benny was his best friend and who the hell cared who he slept with? Christ.

"And he worked with this Kowalski too."

"Yeah, he did. Worked with him real good," Vecchio snapped. O'Brian's look was sharp and Vecchio shrugged it off irritably. "He's a good cop. They're both good cops. Not that you can tell from looking at Kowalski. But - he's a good guy."

A gun couldn't make him spit that out in front of Kowalski but Vecchio had seen the files once he was back from Vegas. Kowalski had kept Vecchio's name out of the mud more than once. He'd even cleaned up after some of Vecchio's own messes. Vecchio thought of Stella, he'd tried to clean up after Kowalski - and failed.

"Kowalski moved to Canada?"

"Guess he liked the snow," Vecchio said uncomfortably. He sure as hell wasn't going to talk about Benny's sex life with O'Brian - or anybody.

"He must have."

Thank god, they were almost at the airport.

Vecchio saw the stetson first, then Benny, then Kowalski's scrawny body and sandwiched between them - like a perp - a kid too damn young to end up in this kind of mess.

"Looks skinny enough," was all O'Brian said.

"Yeah - Benny!" Vecchio eeled his way through the crush to throw his arms around Benny's shoulders with O'Brian a step or two behind. It was like hugging a tree, a tree that unbent enough to hug him back, something Benny wouldn't've done when they first met. Vecchio leaned back to look Benny in the face. "Looking good there, Benny, all that freezing nothing is doing you good."

"Thank you, Ray, and you're looking very well too. That's an excellent suit style for you."

Vecchio ran a pleased hand down the Armani. Only six months out of date, he'd gotten a steal down at the warehouse district. "Getting some taste there, finally, Benny - "

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, can we -" Kowalski's whole body jerked like a fish on a line, leaning towards the exit. His grimace towards Vecchio could have been a smile. "Get outta here?

"In some things, anyway," Vecchio said to Benny, with a smile for Kowalski's hostile glare. It wasn't like he'd ever seen anything else pointed in his direction.

"Ray," Benny murmured, to which of them Vecchio couldn't tell.

"Okay," Vecchio swung Benny towards the exit, swinging a hand towards O'Brian. "This is O'Brian, my partner." Everybody nodded and smiled except the kid who watched them all, except when he darted glances around the airport like he expected all the Mafia dons in Chicago to jump him. "That the kid?"

"My nephew," Kowalski said sharply. "I'm his loco padre."

"In loco parentis," Benny said softly.

"Yeah, crazy all right." Kowalski muttered. The kid sneered, not that it made him look any less scared, and turned his shoulder to all of them.

"O-kay," Vecchio said. Looked like one big happy family there. "Get in the car and lets get outta here. You've got a hotel room near the station, assumed names just in case -"

"That seems a little excessive, "Benny, crowded in back with Kowalski and his nephew, said stiffly. O'Brian twisted around to answer him while Vecchio negotiated the tangle of freeway exits.

"No," he said. "There's - some concern about information leaks."

"Damn it!" Kowalski snapped. "You didn't say anything about that, Vecchio."

"'Cause I didn't know, Stanley."

"Yeah? What else don't you know that I should know, huh?"

Vecchio bared his teeth at Kowalski in the rearview mirror. "I don't have time to read you the encyclopedia."

"Ray! Ray!" Benny broke in about when Vecchio could hear Kowalski winding up for an explosion. "Both of you, I have no intention of playing referee while I'm here! Can we please just focus your tempers on the criminals rather than each other?"

"Here's your names, and the key," O'Brian handed over a packet to Fraser, acting deaf and dumb in the face of the snarling in the car. Vecchio smirked when he heard Kowalski groan.

"I wonder who chose the fucking names."

"Look, kid, all we need is you to look at some mug shots, maybe pick a guy from a line-up - if we're lucky," Vecchio drummed cheerfully on the steering wheel. "Give us a statement -"

"And stand up in the box," the kid broke in sullenly.

"Only if we can get to trial," he said. "Otherwise, everybody goes free."

"Ray," Benny chided him.

"Just saying it like it is, Benny," Vecchio shrugged. "You're safest bet is in helping us get these guys behind bars, kid."

"My name is Joshua."