Author's Notes: Thanks to Inlovewithnight for the beta!

Story Notes: Backstory for this is "Take it a Little Bit Further", but you don't need to read that one first to read this one.

Al Dente

Ray probably should have known something was wrong when he showed up at Kowalski's apartment and he was in the kitchen.

And not just doing what Kowalski usually did in the kitchen (open fridge, take out beer, close fridge, exeunt), but actually cooking, because there was the definite aroma of something baking in there. That made Ray kind of nervous, because there were only two things Kowalski actually cooked: Mac-and-cheese in a box (by far his most frequent culinary offering), and chili which was actually pretty good even if it was so hot it could permanently damage the roof of your mouth, and the making of which Kowalski had really weird rules about, like "Only if the Hawks are ahead after the second intermission," or "Only if the Cubs are up two runs at the Seventh Inning Stretch and they're at home".

Ray was pretty sure that despite saying, "Hey, Vecchio, there's some mac-n-cheese left on the stove if you want it," Kowalski had never actually cooked him anything on purpose.

Ray took off his coat and scarf, pulling his gloves off and putting them in his pockets. As he went to hang everything up, he saw Kowalski's coat, scarf, and leather gloves tossed haphazardly on the couch. He tried to resist the urge to pick them up and totally failed, gathering them up with his own and hanging everything up in the closet. Kowalski's brain was always moving two steps ahead of whatever he was doing, so he usually bypassed the "hang things up" stage and went right into the "go get a beer" one after work.

"Hey," Ray said, leaning against the door to the kitchen. There was something cooling on the stove that appeared to be covered in bright orange cheese, but it wasn't in a saucepan and the cheese didn't look like powder, so there went option one. The Cubs had ended their disappointing season and the 'Hawks had the night off, so option two was also out.

"You're late," Kowalski said by way of greeting. He was barefoot, wearing low-slung jeans and a dark green t-shirt, his hair all askew. Somehow Kowalski managed to look perpetually nineteen all the time. He also had the musical taste and the sex drive to match, and while the latter was actually one of Ray's favorite things about Kowalski, the music blaring in the background sounded like something teenagers listened to when they were mad at their dads.

"Yeah, sorry. Welsh likes to have meetings as late in the day as possible, to ensure none of us are paying attention and he can yell at us on Monday for not doing whatever it was he was talking about." Ray noticed there was a glass of wine on the counter and he eyed Kowalski suspiciously. "What are you doing?"

Kowalski looked at him as if he were very slow. "Playing baseball. What the fuck does it look like? I made dinner."

"There a reason?"

"Because we have to eat?" Kowalski leaned against the counter, elbows behind him and his body thrust forward, his posture almost obscene. Then again, Ray acknowledged, that could be because Ray pretty much wanted to jump Kowalski all the time. This whole liking guys thing was new, but Kowalski just made it so easy.

"We do this, you know. Eat dinner. We did it last night. Hey, tomorrow, you know what, we'll probably--"

"Kowalski, I'm just a little shocked that dinner didn't come in a delivery box. Unless you're hiding one somewhere?" Ray smiled at him, tried to make the mood a little less antagonistic. With Kowalski, that could sometimes be a chore.

"I had some stuff here. Besides, it's cold out and, okay, fine, I'm outta cash for a tip." Kowalski ran a hand through his hair and gave Ray a winning smile. "Viola," he said, which sounded like viola, waving his hand. "Dinner."

Ray looked at said dinner, which was reposing on the stove in a casserole dish, one of the few pieces of cookware Kowalski owned. He couldn't imagine what it could be if it wasn't chili and Kowalski had fixed it from scratch. Ray narrowed his eyes, thinking. Besides Polish (and Kowalski heating up his mom's pierogies didn't actually count as "cooking"), Kowalski's family were as Midwestern as you could possibly get. "Does that have cream of something soup in it?" he asked, pointing at the dish.

"What?"

"You heard me. Cream soup. You know, like cream of mushroom? Celery? Chicken?"

Kowalski took a drink of his wine. "It's pasta, Mr. Italian," he said, rolling his eyes, like Ray was an idiot for not being able to tell that from across the room.

"Oh, I'm sorry. It's just all the cheddar cheese on top. Obstructed my view."

Kowalski's mouth twitched. "Jesus, Vecchio, you're being awfully ungrateful for a guy who came home to a home-cooked meal." Kowalski pressed up against him suddenly, smiling, backing Ray up against the far wall of the kitchen. Ray, disoriented from both Kowalski's closeness and what he'd just said about home, became even more disoriented when Kowalski started kissing him, all hot mouth and eager hands, somehow managing to hold onto his wineglass and shove his tongue in Ray's mouth at the same time.

"Hi," Kowalski said, shoved up hard against him, when he eventually pulled back.

"Hi," Ray said back, voice sounding only a little stupid, stealing Kowalski's glass of wine with deft fingers. "So what'd you make me for dinner?"

Kowalski moved away, banging around the kitchen in a way that made Ray choke back a laugh. Kowalski seemed to forget he lived there, he kept opening cupboards and closing them again when he couldn't find what he wanted, as if things had moved mysteriously overnight. "I made some pasta. Told you that."

"What kind of pasta?" Ray sipped the wine, and then winced immediately. It tasted faintly like vinegar.

"Huh?" Kowalski looked up from where he was getting plates out of the cupboard, momentarily confused, as if there was only one kind of pasta. "Oh. It's got, um, noodles, some ground beef, some cheese, and some sauce."

"You--huh." Ray looked down at his wine and suddenly realized what had happened. "You remember a few days ago? Tuesday, I think it was. I came over after work."

"Tuesday. Yeah. I blew you on the couch. I remember." Kowalski put two plates down hard enough that Ray was suddenly worried they were going to break--they were nice plates, stoneware (Ray had never seen them before, he'd not even known Kowalski had plates that weren't paper) and each one was already chipped on the side.

"And do you remember what I brought with me?"

"Vecchio, there's a reason I don't watch Jeopardy. Enough with the fucking quiz show already."

Ray put his glass of wine down and went over to the stove. Kowalski had shoved a spoon in the corner of the dish, so Ray turned it expertly and saw, sure enough, penne pasta reposing beneath more cheddar cheese than was necessary and some kind of brightly orange sauce. "I brought groceries over and asked if I could leave them here."

Kowalski shrugged again. "Yeah, I remember. So?"

"Well," Ray said, trying not to laugh. "The penne you covered with cheddar cheese was for penne all'arrabbiata. And the ground beef you put in it was for pasta e fagioli. I don't know where you got the cheese, though. And I have no idea what the sauce is--"

"Some Ragu I had in my cabinet," Kowalski supplied helpfully.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph." Ray put his hand on his heart and pretended to wince. Well, only half-pretended. He'd intended those ingredients go to good Italian meals, and Kowalski had made him the Midwestern equivalent of a Hungry Man dinner. "And the wine, I meant that to be a marinade," Ray said, raising his glass. "That's why it's terrible."

Kowalski looked a little relieved at that, as if he hadn't actually liked it, which was probably why there was only one glass and he hadn't protested when Ray had stolen it away. Kowalski was usually a lot more covetous of his alcohol. "Don't worry. I got some beer. We can have that." He took the glass of wine out of Ray's hand and set it aside, then said in a low voice, "So what you're telling me is that I'm a ruiner because I made dinner from the stuff you bought for yourself?"

"Well, I was going to--" Ray stopped and looked down, because he'd left the groceries at Kowalski's on purpose so he could make them dinner all sneaky-like, in a way that looked more like Oh, how convenient I left these here,, and less I planned this ahead of time but I didn't want to freak you out by leaving stuff at your house. Because Ray wasn't sure really what was going on with them, not entirely, if it was just sex or what, but Kowalski had used the word home and Ray had a hanger for his coat in Kowalski's closet that had just appeared one night, and Ray had left dinner stuff there on purpose because he wanted to make something for Kowalski that didn't come in a cardboard box.

"You were gonna what?" Kowalski asked him, hands on Ray's hips, his fingers brushing back and forth against the leather of his belt and Jesus Kowalski had nice hands, Ray knew that for a fact and his long fingers were stroking against the leather, real light, back and forth, and--

"Make you dinner," Ray said offhandedly, because right then he was just looking at Kowalski's fingers and thinking about them going lower, and talking wasn't important, who cared about talking, who cared about admitting--

Damn.

He looked up at met Kowalski's amused eyes and said, "I didn't know you did Slutty Cop, Stanley," and Kowalski snorted and leaned in to kiss him again, his mouth hard and tasting like bad wine.

"You can make me dinner next time." Kowalski said against his mouth, fingers curled in the leather of his belt as Kowalski tugged him closer. "Your penne a la Arabia--"

"All'arrabbiata," Ray said, smiling, his hands on Kowalski's narrow waist.

"--yeah, that, and the pasta-y Fazoli--"

"Pasta e fagioli," Ray corrected, but he was laughing, and then Kowalski said,

"I love it when you speak Italian to me, Vecchio," and Ray kissed Kowalski again, and it was a long time before they actually got around to having dinner.

Afterwards, Ray cleaned up because that was only fair, and Kowalski sat on the counter and watched him, drinking a beer. Ray had his shirt-sleeves rolled up and was hand-washing the dishes, because he didn't trust Kowalski to actually run his dishwasher in a timely fashion. "These are nice plates, Kowalski."

"You think I was gonna serve you dinner on paper plates?" Kowalski grinned at him, all teeth, and when Ray raised a brow at him said, "Yeah, okay, I would have, but I ran out."

Ray grinned. "That, or those kinds with Batman on them that keep your food separated, like they make for kids."

"They have ones with Batman on them?" Kowalski asked, sounding interested, and Ray laughed even though he had a sneaking suspicion Kowalski wasn't actually joking. "Those were Stella's," Kowalski said in reference to the dishes, and something in his voice made Ray look sharply at him.

"Stella only bought two of something? Doesn't sound like her," Ray said casually, because Stella was a subject they didn't talk much about for whatever reason but it was true. Stella liked things to come in complete sets, like sheets with matching pillowcases, or husbands-named-Ray, maybe.

"What? No, we had a whole set, bowls and stuff, too. We'd had these old dishes we got for our wedding for forever, so she went and bought new ones the first time she got promoted and then we broke the other ones to celebrate. Dunno, we were kind of drunk when we decided that was a good idea." Kowalski shrugged and took another long drink of his beer. "Which was dumb, 'cause then we split up and she took the nice ones, so. I could've had the old ones if we'd kept them around, but instead, I only got two and had to go buy some bowls."

Ray looked down at the dish in his hand, and then up towards the open cabinet where Kowalski's other small contingent of dishware lived. Indeed, the bowls didn't match the stoneware plates at all, they were plain blue, serviceable but hardly stylish. "So she just left you two plates?"

"Nah." Kowalski hopped off the counter. "She didn't want those two because they were chipped. I think I dropped them or something, I don't remember. She took all the other stuff that matched. She said she didn't want those if they were broken. She was gonna throw them away but I kept them because I needed some plates. This is a fascinating conversation, Vecchio, you want to know about the hand towels in my bathroom?"

"You have some?" Ray asked, (mostly) joking. Ray watched as Kowalski prowled around the kitchen with his usual restless grace, watched him try and dry the dishes and then give up halfway and decide to clean the counters instead. Ray thought about Stella, so perfect and shiny and together, and then he thought about Kowalski and chipped dishes and things that didn't match, and how it was cold outside and warm in Kowalski's kitchen.

She said she didn't want them if they were broken.

Ray handed Kowalski the second plate to dry. "I think the chip gives them character," he said, which was kind of lame, sure, but Kowalski gave him that grin of his that was slow and warm and said,

"Yeah, me too," and then got Ray another beer out of the fridge without even having to ask if he wanted one.

And that night, Ray stayed over for the first time and didn't just go home like usual, and he thought he'd have trouble sleeping because he'd been in Kowalski's bed before, sure, but not to sleep. And sometimes Ray had trouble sleeping, not just in strange beds but anywhere after Vegas, but even though Kowalski stole all the covers and didn't shut up even in his sleep, and he kicked way too much to even be reasonable, Ray found he slept just fine.