Story Notes: Written in February 2008. F/K/V triofic (not yet a pairing option offered by the archive uploading interface when this story was posted).

Vecchio

This sounds crazy, what with Fraser being Fraser and all--gorgeous and way, way dirtier than you would think in bed, and saving Ray's life almost as often as he endangers it, and all the saintly stuff he does like teaching whittling to Frannie's oldest's Girl Scout troop, for God's sake. But really, the thing Vecchio loves most about Fraser is the shoeshines.

He does it every Sunday now, works his way through all his and Ray's dress shoes. Has a little wooden kit that he made by hand to keep the polish in and the rags, which are mostly Kowalski's old tees ripped up. He sits there and polishes and whistles and seems like he's having a grand old time, and every Monday morning Ray puts on a pair of perfect gleaming shoes to go to work and feels--taken care of. Which, considering that his marriages were both brief and kind of angry, and that he started trying to be the man of the house when he was still the seventh-grader of the house, is not a feeling he's gotten much of.

The other thing about it, though, is that every time he puts on shiny shoes now, he thinks about the first time Fraser did it. They were getting ready to go out on the town, just the two of them--Kowalski was in a beer-and-couch mood--and Ray spent a lot of time in front of the bathroom mirror getting his tie just right, and then when he went to get shoes on they'd disappeared from his closet. He found Fraser in the living room buffing away at them and said, "Uh, thanks, those look...great," because this was--thoughtful but kind of strange, and then Fraser looked him up and down and over, not even trying to hide how much he liked the view, and said, "Well, they need to, Ray, to match the rest of you."

And the idea that Fraser--Fraser!--thinks of Ray as some kind of arm candy--yeah, that's nice.

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The best thing about Kowalski would have to be that he's always, always up for it. Always. Fraser's no slouch, but sometimes he's worn out from managing the Consulate (which Ray gets, because he gets tired when he has to talk to Turnbull for five minutes) or he's watching curling, or he's a little pissy because neither Ray can ever remember to recycle beer bottles instead of throwing them in the trash.

But Kowalski? Doesn't matter. He can be in the middle of eating, or reading the sports section or bitching about Dewey, but all it takes is one kiss and he's all Ray's--drops whatever he's doing, shuts up, focuses everything on Ray.

Even being dead tired doesn't seem to make a difference. He's come in from cases more than one night almost staggering, and Ray would put an arm around him, really just trying to help him make it to the bed, and bam, Kowalski's tongue was in his mouth, which was not what Ray meant but--okay.

Ray's fucked him when he was three-quarters, five-sixths, seven-eighths asleep. And once even when he was so out of it that after he said "Yeah, go for it," he kept dozing off and snapping back awake under Ray, which Ray would have taken personally and stopped--except that every time his eyelids fluttered open he smiled up at Ray slow and sweet and said "Mmmmm," before he closed his eyes again.

And it doesn't matter if he's completely pissed off at work, or at Fraser, or at the world. Or even at Ray. Which Ray figured out once when Kowalski was in his face about--some detail of a case they were working together. Yelling and doing that two-fingered jab at Ray in the middle of their living room, and Fraser looked over his newspaper at them, smiled and retreated to the bedroom. And Ray--just wondering, just curious--gave it a shot; grabbed Kowalski by the back of the neck and kissed him hard, nibbled at his goofy little ears.

Kowalski kissed back just as hard, then hit his knees, had Ray unzipped and in his mouth before Ray even had a chance to back up and find a wall for stability, so Ray spent the whole blow job trying not to fall over.

And when Kowalski finished, he tucked Ray in and zipped him, wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, stood up. Jabbed those two fingers right back in Ray's face and said "And another thing--" and won whatever the hell the argument was, because then Ray couldn't stop laughing.

Kowalski

Ray's favorite thing about Vecchio is that Vecchio is kind of an asshole. Seriously, it's a relief sometimes. They'll be running down a perp with Fraser and Fraser will do some kind of superhero move that no matter how many times Ray sees shit like that, he wants to check for jetpacks in the Mountie boots. And if it was just him and Fraser, once they'd caught the guy Ray would say, "Hey, you can stop defying gravity any time now," and Fraser would flush and say something about conditioning and extra lung capacity and of course Ray is far superior to him in many areas, because Fraser does not get, cannot ever seem to get that showing a guy up and then being gracious to him does. Not. Help.

But with Vecchio there--Fraser will leapfrog a building or tunnel through a dumpster or something and collar the perp, and of course he'll look--like Fraser, shiny and pretty and beaming while he explains to the guy the Tragic Misguidedness of his Wicked, Wicked Ways. And Ray will look at Vecchio and Vecchio will look at Ray, and Vecchio will say, "You know, at least my clothes are decent enough to start with that they look different after dumpster-diving," and Ray will say "Yeah, well, at least I've got hair to get rancid cottage cheese in," and then it's fine.

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Ray's favorite thing about Fraser is that Fraser finally, finally, Jesus-God-it-took-long-enough, trusts him. And Ray's still a little stunned by it, every time; when he yells "go left" on a chase and Fraser does, when he says "No, you do not have 'a little cough,' you have bronchitis, you moron, go to the doctor," and Fraser does.

Best of all is in bed, though. When Vecchio's sitting up against the headboard, pulling Fraser back against him, arms tight around Fraser's chest and arms, nuzzling at Fraser's neck; and Ray starts playing, running fingertips softly over his stomach and legs. Fraser gasps and says "Too much it's too much stop," and Ray gets what he means--not too much teasing, he's had plenty more than this from just Ray and loved it--he means "too much attention, too much focus, too much good stuff pointed at me," and he gets Fraser's chin in his hand, hard, looks him in the eyes, says, "No, it's not. It is not," and Fraser breathes, keeps looking Ray in the eyes, says "Yes, Ray, okay, Ray, yes."

Fraser

The quality he cherishes most in Ray Kowalski is his implacability. Before Ray, Fraser would have associated that word with forces that had a certain languorous grandeur: encroaching glaciers, the wearing down of mountains by water and time--processes vaster than empires and more slow. But Ray--Ray has frenetic implacability. Once decided upon a course, Ray sets off on it and doesn't deviate, doesn't pause to contemplate the possibility of failure; assails his objective with all his considerable energy.

Fraser finds this extremely entertaining to watch when it's pointed at other people. Aunt Bettina, for instance; Ray Vecchio's aunt by marriage, who sat and glared sourly and avoided speaking to the three of them at every Vecchio holiday meal for a solid year.

And then Ray Kowalski took charming her on as a project. He learned her children's and their children's names, inquired after their jobs and health and soccer teams; asked if she was ready for more pie, more coffee, and could he get it for her?

And she glared. And when they left the house Ray would be almost hopping with frustration as they got to the car, shadowboxing and hissing extremely inappropriate terms of address for her. "Geez, forget it," Ray Vecchio would say, "She's not worth the effort, she never liked me anyway," but Ray would thump the top of the car, say, "She'll crack, she'll crack."

Finally at an Easter dinner, one of the small cousins took over the piano, began to play a halting waltz; Ray stood up, walked to Bettina's chair and held out a hand to her. Fraser was stunned when she took it, and she and Ray did a slow turn around the dining room; with the crowded space and the unfamiliar partner and the wobbly piano-playing it was nothing like the dancing Fraser knew Ray was capable of, but it wasn't bad. And when he sat her gently back down, she patted his arm and said, "You know, young man, I always liked that sparkly fellow, what's his name. Liberace. Even though. You know."

"Uh. Thanks," Ray said, and they went on with coffee and dessert, and Bettina actually asked Ray Vecchio if he needed her to pass the creamer.

Out by the car afterwards Ray did a little soft-shoe, raised his arms and said, "The winnah and still champion!" and Ray Vecchio said, "Thanks. Freak," and Fraser grinned at them both and took advantage of their distraction to grab the driver's seat for once.

That implacability, however, is a bit more frightening when directed at Fraser himself; for instance, when Ray decided that he wanted to hear more out of Fraser during sex.

"Ray, really, it should be perfectly obvious that I'm enjoying myself," Fraser said, and indeed he was limp and sweaty and sated.

"I wanna hear you say fuck, Fraser."

"Fuck, Fraser," Fraser said, and couldn't quite suppress a giggle.

"Har de HA," and then Ray was unstoppable, desatiating--was that a word?--Fraser with dizzying speed, fingers and lips and tongue, tease and suck and bite, until he made Fraser, forced him to say what Fraser wanted so badly to say, which was fuck me, Ray, and he did.

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His most-loved facet of Ray Vecchio is that Ray is a crowd. Fraser had always thought of himself as just--Fraser; a discrete being, moving alone through the world of his own volition and impetus. Contributing to the common welfare of course, helping other travelers, asking for help in rare moments of need, making the occasional brief emotional alliance; but largely his own captain, his own crew for that matter, and most of the time that was fine.

He'd read warily the passage in his father's journals where Bob noted that "When you marry a woman, you marry her whole damn family--unless you have the foresight to move her out into the middle of nowhere." The family part sounded--a bit nerve-wracking.

The family part, as it turned out, was an understatement. Because his father had made it sound as if his beloved was detachable from her family, could be considered separately; as if the family were...accessories.

Ray's family was Ray. Ray was innumerable nieces and nephews with unmissable dance recitals; Ray was second cousin's teenage kids who needed a talking-to to stay on the straight and narrow; Ray was a great-uncle in one nursing home who babbled endlessly about Eliot Ness, and a great-aunt in another who, every time they visited, was unshakably convinced that Fraser was a giant rabbit. And it was impossible to imagine him without them, or them without him; Ray was the farthest thing from an island, Ray was a constellation.

It was frustrating, sometimes; the constant need to buy a gift for a birthday or a retirement party or a first communion, the occasional romantic evening thwarted by a frantic phone call from someone with an exploding toilet or a daughter picked up for DWI. But more often--when Great-Aunt Lucrezia beamed at Fraser and offered him a wizened carrot; when Fraser sat on a tortuously uncomfortable folding chair between both Rays and watched little Randolph make it through a quite complicated hip-hop routine--then he looked at Ray Vecchio's face and knew that a large portion of Ray, of his heart, was out of Ray's control, was carried around and tended by other people. And Fraser was beginning to realize that that was--not safe, never safe, but--worth it.