Story Notes: Warnings: some psychological dub-con (no violence or restraints), some kidfic. (Not in the same section. Ew.) For the prompt of: "On a consignment of flesh."

After the whole bank thing Stella's parents just love Ray, they let her have him over all the time and don't even glare at him anymore. Stella helps him with his homework, and he helps her with some dance moves, and one day in their rec room he spots Mousetrap at the bottom of a stack of games and pulls it out. And she laughs because she hasn't played that since she was nine or something, but he talks her into it. He always liked that game, it's like an engine the way everything works together when you get it right, and they get really stupidly competitive about Mousetrap, play it over and over and write down who wins how many. Of course the whole time he's desperately trying to figure out when he can kiss her, if he can kiss her. And after a month of this, when he's pulled ten games ahead on the stats, he's giving her shit about it--obviously he is the Mousetrap King. Stella narrows her eyes at him and takes her bubblegum out of her mouth and sticks it right between his eyebrows.

He probably ought to be mad but he cracks up instead, swimming in her strawberry Bubble Yum smell and knowing how stupid he looks and just laughing and laughing, and suddenly Stell's face goes all slack and strange and she leans over and, oh my God, kisses him. Just that tiny little bit of skin against his skin but it's the biggest best thing in the world, because it's everything he thought he had to work so hard for and it turns out she wanted to give it to him the whole time.

***********************************************

Corky's washing and Ray's drying, and the whole time Ray's telling him how it looks like he's maybe got a spot lined up in the Twelfth Precinct as soon as he graduates from the Academy, as long as he can keep his grades up. And he's turning the distance between the sink and the cabinets into a space for a little shuffly dance, because he's in a good mood--he and Stell have been engaged for months now and once he's got a paycheck coming in maybe her parents will let her set a date even though she hasn't graduated yet. So he's drying and talking and putting plates away, spinning in place and throwing in the occasional little bit of a moonwalk, why not, and all of a sudden Corky says "Ray," in this weird fucked-up voice and puts a sudsy hand on his face, what? And then kisses him, what?

Ray steps back, not a dance anymore, just a really fucking confused retreat, but Corky follows him, they bump into the fridge and Corky's still kissing him. And Ray just stands there, because--Jesus, he's known Corky since seventh grade and he had no idea, not one fucking clue, and--what's he gonna say, anyway? What's he gonna do? Stella's hours away and they don't do so great on the phone anyway, and Ray's parents aren't talking to him, and Corky's been the only one around all this time, all the time he was freaking out over his Academy workload, saying, "You can do this, Ray, you can learn this shit, go over it one more time and I'll quiz you on it," and fuck, if he walked out now where would he even live? He's so fucking broke, and not welcome at home, and everybody else he knows from high school is married or still living with their parents or in jail, fuck fuck fuck. In a few weeks he'll have a paycheck, he can get his own place and move off Corky's couch, it'll be fine, this is Corky being temporarily insane anyway, probably he'll be embarrassed about it in the morning and it'll never happen again.

When Corky pulls away Ray tries to decide whether he can go ahead and laugh, make it a joke right now, would that work? But Corky moans and drops to his knees, and Ray stares straight ahead, doesn't look down, looks across the kitchen at the blank white wall and thinks, just a few more weeks.

******************************************

The first few weeks after Stella kicks him out--not in midfight, not in a screaming rage or anything, calmly and gently and sadly, which is how he knows he's fucked--those first few weeks are really bad. He finds a little shithole of a room, the kind you pay for a week at a time and step over winos on the way up the six flights of stairs, and he doesn't do anything but drink beer and watch tv and order pizza and go to work. And half the time he's going to work unshaven and unshowered and hung over and probably smelling kind of bad, which he tries to care about and can't.

One night when the pizza guy knocks at the door Ray's scrabbling through his pockets for the cash, and fighting his way through a hell of a coughing fit, because, oh yeah, that's the other thing he's been doing, is smoking nonstop. And it suddenly occurs to him that if he hacked up a fucking lung and died on the kitchen floor nobody would know, his lieu would probably figure he was just on a binge, nobody checks on him ever. Maybe Tonio's would eventually send the pizza guy--Steven? Stefan--over to see what happened to their best customer.

Ray pulls open the door and pulls Stefan in by his shirt and kisses him. His mind is just gone off somewhere, he ought to be freaking out but all he can hear himself thinking, tinny and far away, is "Jesus, I probably taste awful," but Stefan doesn't seem to mind, Stefan is definitely kissing back. Which kicks Ray's brain into gear again and he stops, says "Fuck! I'm sorry! I--fuck--I don't even know why I did that."

"You don't?" Stefan says, smiling, and puts his hand on Ray's crotch, Jesus, on Ray's serious hard-on, and Ray backs up so fast he falls into the one ratty armchair. Scrambles up and gets all the money out of his pocket, gives Stefan something like a thirty-dollar tip.

"Didn't know I was that great a kisser," Stefan says, and he's smiling but he looks a little sad. Ray says "Sorry, sorry, sorry," for another million years or so, and finally Stefan just says, "Hey, don't worry about it," and shakes his hand, which is weird but kind of reassuring, and leaves.

Ray looks around at the horrible room and the horrible kitchen counter covered with beer bottles and the horrible tower of pizza boxes, the ones on the bottom are probably moldy, and fuck, he's got to get his shit together and get out of here.

***************************************

He's had time to get his shit together and get through the freaking out about the bi thing, before he meets Fraser. So, okay, the occasional guy gets him hot. Fine. Just increases his chances to get lucky, right? He has a couple of friendly more-than-one-night-stands, and they're okay, they're good.

He's trying to figure out exactly what the mixed signals he's getting from Fraser add up or multiply to, and whether it would be worth it maybe fucking up their partnership anyway. And then, with spectacularly rotten timing, he figures out that he's in love with Fraser--at about the same time that he figures out that Fraser, under all that "Heeeeere I come to save the DAAAAAAY!" is the neediest fucking guy on the planet, and what he needs most is Ray.

Maybe he needs Ray that way and maybe he doesn't, but he definitely needs Ray to keep him sane in Chicago, Ray is all he's got in Chicago, Ray is his fucking lifeline. And Ray doesn't make a move, doesn't say a word, because he just keeps thinking about Corky, and he can't stand the idea of Fraser maybe saying yes because he thinks he has to or he'll be alone.

And then they're not in Chicago, they're in Fuckabucketofsnow, and Fraser's loading everything onto their questsled. Fraser's checking things off his list, Fraser's nagging Ray about eating enough while they're out on the ice, Fraser is in charge. Fraser seems thrilled to have Ray there, yeah, but he doesn't--need Ray.

Ray kisses him, very gently, very softly, and Fraser kisses him back so hard they fall into a snowbank.

*********************************************

"Fall. Asleep," Ray says. "Could you maybe fucking sleep? A little bit? Once in a while? Ever?" and Martha picks her head up off his chest and gives him a wobbly stare. She's getting a little better on the neck control, but she still looks drunk most of the time.

They figured it would take ages to adopt and they would get an older kid, and then all of a sudden one of the local families Fraser'd done something big for, years ago--they wouldn't talk about what it was and neither would Fraser, but it must have been hella big because when pregnant teenage granddaughter's boyfriend-supposed-to-be-husband-soon pulled a Houdini, the family suggested they adopt the baby.

Which is great, really cool to have her from day one, even if on day one she was amazingly wrinkly and pissed-off looking--she's shaping up pretty cute now, getting some fat on her. But she eats practically every twenty minutes and she never fucking sleeps. When Fraser's home he does more than his share--he can miss a lot of sleep without getting in the "I have no brain and I hate everybody" state that waking up six times a night puts Ray in.

But when Fraser's out on patrol--Jesus fuck. Ray has no brain and he hates everybody.

"Even you," he says to Marty, and pulls her up his chest some so he can make little lip farts on her bald head.

Marty rolls her head around some and then loses it, plonks her face right down on his and starts sucking on his lower lip and chin. Which feels drooly and strange, but hell, maybe it'll mellow her out enough to sleep for a little while. But Ray needs to stay awake, because if he passes out she might manage to roll off his chest and fall. So he's singing Clash songs in his head, should I stay or should I go, did you stand by me no not at all, London is burning and I...live by the...river, boat, row row row...

He snaps awake in a total freakout panic, because there's nobody sucking on his face and no warm weight on his chest, fuck, he dropped her, he's sitting up gasping and looking wildly around on the floor.

"It's okay, Ray," Fraser says, and Ray flops back onto the couch and tries to get his breathing to even out again.

"She was quite thoroughly asleep," Fraser says. "I managed to get her into the crib without waking her for once. And you were in no danger of dropping her--I practically had to pry your arms off her."

Ray grins at him and tries to decide whether he's gonna pass out again or maybe--he's thinking he might possibly be awake enough that they could sneak in a quick fuck.

"C'mere," he says, waves at Fraser, and Fraser's thinking along the same lines because he doesn't sit down, he stretches out on top of Ray. And he looks--turned on and hot but something else too, his lips are twitching.

"What?" Ray says.

Fraser shakes all over, tucks his head into Ray's neck and giggles for a while, and finally manages, "You have an enormous chin hickey, Ray."

"Oh, that's going to be fun to explain at the post office," Ray says, and Fraser laughs some more and starts undoing buttons.