Author's website: http://www.mrks.org/~viridian/

Disclaimer: All things _due South_ belong to Alliance no matter how much I want Ray K to belong to me. Harper and Rommie belong to Gene Roddenberry's estate, Tribune Entertainment Company, and Fireworks. No infringement intended. Suing me would be a waste of time. Besides, I'm poor, and I'd just kick you in the head.

Author's Notes:

Story Notes: SPOILERS: "Burning Down the House."

"Covert"
By Viridian5

When I found Dief at last, I saw him behaving in a very familiar fashion with a young blond man, someone who most emphatically did not fit the profile I'd shared with him. The young man stood up out of his crouch and made shooing motions at Dief, who continued to lick his fingers anyway. "This your dog?" he asked. He had an... attitude that made him seem at once bigger and smaller than he was. In actuality, the top of his head came to my shoulder.

"As much as any creature could belong to another. In any case, he's part wolf," I answered.

"Part wolf? Really?" Yet he sounded more hopeful than disbelieving.

"Yes."

"Cool. But, you know, the donut I used to have definitely belonged to me until he pounced me and ate it." But he complained like Ray often complained, with many sparks but very little actual heat involved. He seemed to find the situation somewhat funny.

But his nasal accent was something New England mixed with tones I couldn't identify at all. The way he seemed to regard the world around him as unfamiliar further marked him as a tourist, although how he could regard even automobile traffic congestion with such pleasure in his eyes, I didn't know.

"I'll reprimand him on his gluttony and lack of manners." Dief whined in response to my assertion. "Please let me reimburse you."

"Nah, I'm good. It's no trouble."

Dief told me that the young man smelled like an electrical outlet, among other things. "That's just silly," I said, although I wondered why Dief had singled him out. If every passerby with a donut attracted Diefenbaker's attention, we'd never arrive anywhere.

"No, really." He looked nervous and started to back up until Dief moved behind him to block his route.

"Are you in trouble?" I asked as I attempted to get close enough to see if I could detect this electrical scent as well. Perhaps he needed help of some kind but was afraid to ask.

"I'm not from around here, but in Chicago a guy can't just have a donut without getting attacked by part wolves and stopped by guys in uniform?"

"I'm a Mountie."

He didn't seem to know what that was at first, then said, "Ah. 'Course you are."

Hemmed in by Diefenbaker, the young man couldn't avoid me as easily, and he did smell of electricity, especially near his neck, which he had covered by a turtleneck and the turned up collar of his leather jacket. Not that the height difference actually let me get near his neck, and I didn't want to crouch down and be obvious.

"Fraser, please tell me that you are not sniffing the necks of strange guys," Ray said as he jogged toward me. Ray knew me too well.

"Hey!" my quarry said as he moved away. "And, what, it's okay if you know a guy?"

"Not really, though Fraser thinks a stranger is a friend you haven't met yet. Nice hair," Ray said to him, one blond practitioner of experimental hair to another.

"Ditto," he answered.

"Don't mind my partner. He's Canadian."

Many times it annoyed me terribly that Ray used my nationality as an explanation for any behavior others might find odd, but the fact that it so often worked stopped me from protesting. However, it didn't quite work for the young man. I could see him not quite understand the reference, then correct himself as he realized that he should have understood it. Curious.

"Could you excuse us for a moment?" Ray asked him, then took me by the arm and led me a bit away.

Dief kept stopping our new friend from fleeing by circling around him in an "accidental" way, so I let Ray take me aside. "Yes, Ray?"

"This guy doesn't fit our profile, so what's up with the interest?"

"I think that he may be involved in some trouble."

"Did he tell you that?"

"No, he's been very close-mouthed, unusual in this country."

"Funny guy."

"I sense that he's usually far more loquacious."

"Loquacious."

"Yes."

"You sense that."

"Absolutely."

"Did you see trouble happening around him?" Ray illustrated with hand gestures.

"Other than Dief availing himself of our new friend's donut, no."

"But you're getting some kind of vibe from him."

"Yes."

"Is he Canadian?"

"By no stretch of the imagination."

Ray sighed. "Okay. You got a nose for weirdness like nobody else I know, so okay. I'll give this kid a shot. But what do you want us to do about this unknown trouble?"

"Whatever we can, Ray."

Ray rolled his eyes, but smiled. "Of course. What was I thinking?"

We returned to the young man, who eyed us with a sour expression. "Call off your dog, okay?"

"Let us help you."

"If this is what you do to people you think need help, I don't wanna see what you do to everybody else."

I could feel Ray smirking at me but merely answered, "I feel that you need help."

"You're not the first person to say that, but nah. I'm just looking for somebody."

To my annoyance, he seemed to be staring at Ray's groin.

"You and most of the world," Ray said.

"A particular somebody, a knockout brunette. I don't see how you can help me with that. She doesn't have a record. Any record actually."

Oh, he'd noticed Ray's badge clipped to his belt, and that explained his staring. Where had my brain gone?

"Guy doesn't need our help, Fraser."

"You're far from home," I said.

"You have no idea," he answered, smiling a little.

"We know the city."

"She doesn't know the city either. Me being lost might help me find her better."

That almost made sense. Almost.

"Guy doesn't want our help, Fraser," Ray said. "Not that that's ever stopped you before, but how about this once?"

As I turned back to the young man, he put his hands behind his back and a big smile on his face, suddenly becoming exponentially cuter. He seemed to be using his apparent youth and size much as I used my "oblivious Mountie" routine, to deflect and distract.

I could swear that he'd been waving off a person across the street, warning against approaching us. However, it must not have been noticed, because a dark-haired woman approached us, purpose evident in her walk. She grabbed our young friend by the arm and said, "Darling. I'm so glad I found you." Her tone sounded odd, and she had a more alien accent than he did.

"This your girl?" Ray asked, looking strangely annoyed.

Dief told me that she smelled of metal, plastic, and electricity, with only a thin veneer of humanity. Yet our new friend didn't give off any fear scent around her whatsoever. Quite the opposite, in fact. Diefenbaker didn't know what to make of them, and neither did I.

"We already found her. She's with the others," the woman said.

Breathing in a sigh of relief, he answered Ray, "Nah. This is a different knockout brunette. Hey, don't look so sour; you have your own. Thanks for, uh, helping, guys, but I don't need it anymore."

"If you'll excuse us, gentlemen, we have to go." Her smile seemed insincere as she dragged him away and he waved to us as they left.

"Do you have any idea what that was about?" Ray asked.

"None. Why are you upset?"

"I'm not upset."

"Ray."

"He was flirting with you."

Impossible. "Ray, he was flirting with you."

"Is that why you look upset?" Ray suddenly had a wicked light in his eyes. "Don't deny that you got upset, 'cause I could see it, and that's really something for you."

"Hmm." It intrigued me that Ray had been so disturbed over someone flirting with me. At least as much as it had disturbed me to see someone flirting with him, and I still couldn't understand that one.

"I hate when you do that." Yet Ray smiled.

I found it disquieting. "We still have a profile to follow and a man to catch."

"Now you remember. And I'm all about the man catching." His smile deepened.

I pretended that I saw only the surface meaning of his words.

To our displeasure, we were no closer to catching the miscreant at the end of the day. It left us both tired and out of sorts. I took dinner preparation upon myself, seeing as how a frustrated and tired Ray tended to eat junk food straight from the box or bag.

Dief reminded me that Ray loved bacon. Loved it with a passion. Everything was better with bacon.

"Really," I answered. "I suspect that your suggestion has little to do with altruism and everything to do with self-interest. Wagging your tail at me and looking cute won't save you now."

From the living room Ray suddenly said, "Hey, Fraser, you gotta see this. Two knockout brunettes."

I came in just in time to watch an artist's rendering of two women's faces, one of them looking very much like the woman we saw earlier, flash off the television screen. Ray used the remote to flip to another channel until he found the story elsewhere.

There had been a break-in early this morning in a local corporate laboratory. Security cameras hadn't recorded anything out of the ordinary, yet a few eyewitnesses had seen two women brawling. One witness claimed that the woman Ray and I had seen had thrown the other one through a wall. The company refused to say if anything had been stolen and seemed to be blaming extremist animal rights activists and extremist Right to Life activists due to company usage of animals for testing and their research with fetal material.

Ray sat down. "If somebody had the expertise to fox the video cameras like that, there might be something taken that nobody noticed yet. Or maybe the company noticed the theft but isn't saying to the media. We gotta tell Welsh that we saw one of them."

I sat beside him. "Dief said that the woman didn't smell human." Dief barked in assent.

"Oh, good, I'm gonna be there when you tell Welsh that one of the suspects is an alien or a robot."

Actually, that could explain what Diefenbaker had smelled. I never would have suspected such a thing, so I gave thanks for Ray's tastes in leisure time reading. "That may be how she was able to throw another woman through a wall."

"Some guys don't ever have to think about their partners telling their boss that their deaf wolf thinks the suspect is an alien robot."

"I'm sure their lives are the poorer for it. To be more exact, Diefenbaker revealed that her scent approximated something akin to what might be an alien robot's scent. Would you rather I said nothing?"

"Nah. It might lead to something, and you're probably the only guy on the planet who could give up that little tidbit of information with a straight face. We can report the guy as a possible accomplice too." Ray shook his head, then swiveled on the couch and set his bare feet in my lap. "So. You got ticked off when that guy was flirting with me."

I replied, "You were 'ticked off' when you thought he was flirting with me."

Ray grinned. "Mmm-hmm."

Then I saw a possible interpretation. "Oh."

Ray flexed his toes. "Mmm-hmm."

Oh. Well....

"Oh my God! I killed him! Fraser, speak to me, boy!

How did I go from having Ray's feet in my lap to having Ray in my lap, shaking me playfully by the shoulders, no less? "Ray!" With my serge off, I felt his hands on me very acutely.

Ray broke out into laughter. "Just that you were gone."

"I'm glad that my turmoil is so entertaining." Yet he looked so appealing when he laughed.

"Don't get mad at me. I was just worrying about you. You know, I thought that maybe you'd swooned or something. I hear that people used to do that a lot once upon a time."

"That was not a swoon."

"Seeing as how people don't swoon in this modern age of ours, I didn't have clue one how to get you out of it. I don't have smelling salts or anything."

"That was not a swoon."

"Second guess was that you blew a circuit."

"Now I'm an alien robot?"

"Some people would figure that that explains a lot, but, nah, I didn't think that. Though you are an alien of the Canadian variety."

"That's... true. I don't understand how you can deal with this so easily."

"Uh, I had more time to get to used to the idea? Fraser, I've been into you for months. Not literally, though that would be fun and I'm all for trying it out."

It took me a moment to decipher his innuendo. "I don't think it's possible to do that for months."

"Not literally into you 24-7 for months. Physical impossibility there. But we could try, right? And we are still dancing around the main point, which is that I was attracted to you from the moment I first saw you, and fell in love about the time you first invited me to eat out with you. It would have happened while you were patting me down for Great Garbo's bomb if I hadn't wanted to strangle you at that moment. So, I made the big confession first. What do you have to say?"

I might have gone into shock again if I hadn't been certain that Ray would resume shaking me. "I'm overwhelmed."

"Good overwhelmed or 'get out of my lap and never talk to me again, you maniac' overwhelmed?"

"You are so damned happy."

Ray looked even more pleased. "I'm jazzed. Happy day, secret's out, you dig me though you're not sure if you should yet."

"I do. I-- Ray, we're partners. This is momentous. We could be jeopardizing a wonderful friendship by taking this further."

"Or we could make it even better."

"You're happy?"

Ray put his head on my shoulder in overdone despair. "No, I'm depressed and suicidal. I am happy. Or I was until you went all hinky on me."

It felt good to have him in my lap and against my chest, so good that I was already aroused. "We've spent a great deal of time together."

He gave me a bemused look but played along. As usual. "That's for sure. We see each other about six days a week, at least part of the day each day. More, usually."

"I hadn't guessed it was that much."

"Time doesn't drag with you."

"Thank you kindly. We've had several dinner dates as well."

"Yeah. Gone out to the movies too."

Could he be following my train of thought? I could easily believe it of Ray.

"I believe that our courtship may have progressed far enough that we can go to a new stage of it."

Ray kissed me, softly at first, putting more passion into it as I opened my mouth to receive him. He seemed to be following my train of thought beautifully. When our mouths parted, Ray asked, "This mean we get to sleep together without the, what, bundling board between us?"

I felt so hungry, starving for him. "Yes." I pressed his mouth, his body, to mine, holding him close as if he might disappear given a moment's leeway.

He made an incoherent sound that vibrated across my lips, and I felt his erection press against my stomach. I smelled Ray, arousal, aftershave, sweat, iron, and leather, all familiar after-work Ray scents. Yes, even his arousal smelled familiar to me in that way.

What a fool I could be. I could read trouble from a complete stranger, yet miss desire from a man I should know better than any other. I could have had Ray in my lap kissing me, giving me stubble burn, pulling my suspenders down, preparing to do whatever obscene things his fertile mind could dream of, ages ago if I'd only paid attention.

It seemed unfair to Ray for me to simply sit and bask in his attentions. In any case, I had several points of interest I wanted to experience on his body, although many of them would have to wait for later, given how close I already felt to climax. Later. What a wondrous word that could be, under the right circumstances.

"Mmmm. Clothes. Off," Ray murmured. "Stop looking at me like that. I'm supposed to be able to write sonnets while you're doing these things to me?"

"It would be nice."

"Hey, all this grunting, groaning, and gasping is for you. I am a poet of incoherent noise. I just don't wanna mess your uniform up."

I pushed Ray off me and down into the couch so I could strip the remnants of my uniform away. Watching him watch me with such hot eyes made it difficult to concentrate or to remove my pants, my hands having become fumble-fingered with lust. Finally I was bare, and Ray took our erections in his hands, sliding them together as he stroked, slick skin to slick skin.

"Ray, I'm close," I gasped.

"I know. God, you feel so good."

That gasped confession and the drag of his thumb over the head of my penis sent me over into orgasm. Ray surging against me in his own release only made it better. Feeling loose and freed, I licked his stomach clean, savoring our mingled flavors and the way he shivered against my tongue. Then I took a good look at him and laughed.

Ray snorted. "You're a cruel man, Benton Fraser."

In our haste and my concentrated effort to remove my uniform, we'd neglected to strip Ray as well. His shirt had been rucked up to just below his armpits, his pants and underwear down to his knees. "You look as if you've been despoiled."

"Dignity's overrated. Especially when you already have a half-wolf watching you get off and making ready with the critique."

It appeared that Dief had been watching us from a nearby chair. "Diefenbaker, if you do have any criticisms, kindly keep them to yourself. I'm not interested," I said. He whined. "No, I'm not."

"I'd like to hear it."

"Don't encourage him, Ray."

"He's not the one I'm out to encourage." Ray stretched in a shameless and stimulating way, then hobbled off the couch and pulled off his clothing, arching his back to remove his shirt and bending over deeper than I thought he really had to in the process. Naked, he gave me a smug look and said, "Dinner's gonna be in the bedroom tonight." At Dief's excited bark, Ray answered, "That was a metaphor. Not real dinner. You coming, Fraser?"

"Hopefully in the near future."

Ray beamed. "Yeah, I definitely got me a knockout brunette of my own."

********************THE END***********************

More Viridian5 stories can be found in The Green Room version 2.0 at http://www.mrks.org/~viridian/

No-frames but no-frills access available at http://www.mrks.org/~viridian/Viridian_side.htm

Fandoms represented: due South, Hard Core Logo, Twitch City, Andromeda, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, Angel, X-Files, Once a Thief, Two Guys and a Girl (was Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place), X-Men, Smallville, Doctor Who, Fight Club, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

End Covert by Viridian5: Viridian5@aol.com

Author and story notes above.