Fic: Wisely and Slow (due South)
Title: Wisely and Slow
Pairing: Ray/Ray
Rating: NC-17
Summary: The first time it happens is a complete fluke.
Spoilers: Through "Call of the Wild"
Disclaimer: I am but mad north-northwest, and as the wind is southerly, I know characters that are mine from characters that are not mine. These are the latter.
A/N: Written for ds_shakespeare, for the prompt "Wisely and slow-they stumble that run fast" (Romeo and Juliet, II, iii).
Wisely and Slow
The first time it happens is a complete fluke.
Classic story, really: bad day at work, a few drinks afterwards, the Cubs lose and Kowalski decides to console himself by sticking his tongue down Ray's throat in the alley behind the bar. And sure, it's a little surprising, seeing as Kowalski's done nothing but bust Ray's chops since they both ended up back in Chicago, Fraser this and Stella that and wanna hear about my citations and my car can beat up your car (which is really rich considering that Ray's car is now nonexistent, again, thanks to Kowalski), and all in all it's mostly been like working with a particularly sullen teenager who--because Ray's not blind, and it's been a while--can fill out a shoulder holster pretty well. So, yeah. Not really how Ray had expected his night to go, but he's a little drunk and he's got frustration to burn and it feels good, contact, heat, Kowalski's long lean body pressed hard against him and small, hungry sounds gasped out between their mouths.
The kiss goes on a really, really (really) long time, and there might be some groping, Ray's not sure, his nerve endings are all kind of mixed up together, and then Kowalski pulls back and just looks at him, blue eyes wide and a little wary. Then he cricks his neck, puts on that Steve McQueen cool that never quite covers all of him, and mutters a little hoarsely, "'Night, Vecchio."
"'Night, Kowalski," Ray manages, trying not to think about what the brick wall behind him is doing to his good coat.
After Kowalski's disappeared around the corner, Ray breathes out slow and shakes his head. Weird. Not bad-weird, really, just... huh. Yeah. Weird.
But anyway, it's not gonna happen again.
*****
It happens again about a week later. Only this time it's Ray who gets things going, and he's sober and it's daylight and they're pulled off to the side of a deserted road because Kowalski has a shitty sense of direction and their suspect has apparently chosen to purify his devotion to the great goal of drug-running by living in a shack in the middle of nowhere. And Kowalski's sitting there swearing at the map-which Ray's pretty sure is upside down-and there's fresh air coming through the half-open window and there's a bead of sweat running down the side of Kowalski's neck and Ray has to, absolutely has to taste it.
"Deer Ridge Road," Kowalski's saying, "what the fuck kind of a stupid-ass name is Deer Ridge Road, I'll put a frickin' ridge in their frickin'-" and then he chokes a little, gasps and whispers "fuck" as Ray's tongue slides over his skin. And that's really the last coherent thing either of them manages for a while, just a chaotic jumble of moans and panting punctuated by the metallic buzz of zippers, and the next thing Ray knows, he's got come in his shorts and one hand on Kowalski's softening cock and he's light-headed with oxygen deprivation and an orgasm that might've broken several land-speed records.
He looks over at Kowalski, who's got his head tipped back against the headrest, eyes closed, breathing hard. He looks… vulnerable, somehow, cracked open, and Ray has to resist the sudden urge to reach over and run his (other, non-sticky) hand through Kowalski's sweaty hair. But he just waits, because he's not sure what's going on here and he's feeling a little cracked open, himself, and after a minute, Kowalski takes a deep breath and opens his eyes.
"OK," he says, pulling the map out from where it's been crushed between the holes in the steering wheel, straightening it with slightly unsteady fingers. There's a come stain on the corner of it. Kowalski clears his throat. "Deer Ridge Road. OK."
"Right," Ray answers, and carefully turns the map right side up.
*****
It's not until Ray finds himself in an interrogation room at the station in the middle of the night, his cock buried in Kowalski's mouth and the edges of the table behind him digging into his fingers, hoping the video cameras aren't on and realizing he might not be able to stop even if they were, that he starts to think maybe they should talk about this.
The thing is, they've managed to go for almost three weeks since the side-of-the-road incident like nothing's different, arguing over who gets to drive and bickering over where to go for lunch and loudly debating the age-old philosophical question of Superman versus Batman, and also arresting a surprising number of criminals in their spare time from all that, which Ray figures is why Welsh puts up with the constant game of Asshole Tennis going on in his squad room day in and day out. So Ray had kind of been wondering if they were out of the woods and things were just going to keep on like they'd been, bitching at Kowalski during the day and going home and being bitched at by his family at night, the circle of life. Going to sleep alone, and hey, if he jerked off to thoughts of Kowalski-long, slender fingers jacking him, crooked grin stretched around his dick, narrow hips pressing back to meet Ray's thrusts while Ray fucked him harder harder harder-every once in a while, well. That wasn't hurting anybody.
But tonight, they'd both stayed late to finish a report and now here they are, Ray biting his bottom lip just short of drawing blood so he won't yell and bring the night watch running as he shudders and jerks and comes in Kowalski's mouth.
While Kowalski swallows and wipes his mouth and Ray clings to the table for dear life just to keep upright, the thought drifts into his head that his jerkoff fantasies had definitely been lacking in creativity when it came to the things Kowalski could do with his tongue.
"Kowalski," he manages eventually, when he can form words again. "What the hell is going on here?"
Kowalski hesitates, then shrugs. He has his khakis unbuttoned and a wet spot that indicates he's taken care of himself at some point, which Ray feels oddly disappointed about, and glad for Kowalski's sake that they both keep a change of clothes at the precinct. Driving around for a few hours with a cold sticky mess in his shorts isn't an experience Ray's eager to repeat, and he's sure Kowalski isn't, either.
"Dunno," Kowalski says, licking his lips. "What is goin' on here? Besides the obvious conduct unbecoming of officers who are supposed to be working on reports and stuff, and not getting off in interrogation rooms." His mouth curves up on one side, wet and distracting.
But one of the really special things about being raised Catholic is that guilt is never more than a what would the Blessed Mother think away, and while Ray had long ago resigned himself to shrugging and hoping the Blessed Mother was OK with him fucking other guys from time to time, the "conduct unbecoming" part tweaks his conscience. Ray knows that Welsh pulled some serious strings to get him his old job back, and he isn't really sure if he should be repaying that trust by getting into… whatever-this-is with his partner. Before Vegas, maybe, but Ray has scars now, things that had ultimately freaked Stella out more than they'd turned her on, and Ray doesn't know if he can justify dragging another Kowalski down into all that with him.
"Here's the thing, Kowalski-" he starts, but before he can get any further than that, Kowalski's whole face changes, shutters down. He grins, but it's a sharp grin, a mean one, the kind that shoves Ray back into a space of hot dry sun and cool buttermilk. He can feel the ice creeping in his chest.
"Don't make a thing outta this, OK, Vecchio?" Kowalski says, zipping up and getting a little stiffly to his feet. He holds his arms wide, a cocky tilt to his head. "Just two guys who haven't gotten any in a while scratching an itch. No big deal. Right?"
"Kowalski-" Ray says again, not even sure how that sentence is going to end, but Kowalski's already slamming the door shut behind him.
*****
"Raaaaay! Doooooor!" Frannie practically shrieks from the kitchen, obviously too busy cooing over the phone to the latest poor schlub to catch her eye to do anything as mundane as walk twenty feet to answer the front door. Ray sighs, puts down the sports section-he's the man of the house, dammit, he should get half an hour to read the box scores at night-and by the time he gets there, the doorbell's ringing again.
"Yeah, yeah, hold your-" he's grumbling as he yanks the door open, and then something clenches in his chest when he sees Kowalski standing on the other side, wilting flowers clutched in one hand and an expression on his face that could be anywhere from fuck you to fuck me.
"Oh," Ray says.
"Yeah," Kowalski says. Then, gesturing vaguely at the doorbell, "Sorry. I know it gets kinda loud in here, I didn't-"
"Yeah." Ray can't seem to stop looking at him, which is weird, because they've seen each other every day all week, but they've pretty much been communicating through an elaborate web of monosyllables and curse words at the tops of their lungs while every case on their desks goes unsolved, and so this, Kowalski standing on his doorstep, with flowers… it's kind of an adjustment.
"Look," Kowalski says after a minute, brandishing the flowers, "your Ma invited me, last-minute deal, and I didn't feel right saying no, but if this is gonna be weird…"
"No." Ray blinks a couple of times, shakes himself mentally. "No. C'mon in."
He steps back to let Kowalski inside, where he's immediately swarmed by Ray's Ma-who pinches Kowalski's arm and tells him how skinny he's looking, pops an olive in his mouth on the spot and rhapsodizes over the crappy wilted flowers like they're made of solid gold-and three of Ray's nieces, one of whom keeps tugging on Kowalski's hand and begging "Uncle Ray" to show her how to throw a slider.
Ray just watches from a safe distance, not sure whether to be pissed off or glad there's fresh meat to distract the masses.
He's a little worried at how things are going to go, but actually, he ends up talking to Kowalski less than he has to at work; the new house is a tiny bit smaller than the old one, and the family's just gotten bigger, so it's not exactly calculus that there's a sea of Vecchios to keep them separated if they want to be. There's one moment where Ray catches a clear and desperate help me kind of signal from Kowalski while Tony's got him trapped in a corner talking about something that requires a lot of Tony pounding his fist into his hand, and Ray catches himself grinning and shrugging back before he can think about it, but other than that, it's basically the usual chaos until they sit down at the table and Ma insists that their guest should have the place of honor, at Ray's right.
Ray's half-expecting Kowalski to try to get out of it, but he just says "Thanks, Ma" with a gleam in his eye that makes Ray fumble getting into his chair.
So, OK, so they sit next to each other, fine, it's still a dull roar of mixed English and Italian and Ray is doing a perfectly acceptable job of ignoring the tension that Kowalski's radiating like a damn spring. But then, right in the middle of Ray relating a severely watered-down version of their latest bust (over a week ago, before the interrogation room, because the only thing they've busted since then was when Kowalski took out a temper tantrum on an unlucky box of pencils) to his nephew Anthony, Kowalski chooses that precise moment to reach over and put his hand on Ray's knee under the table.
Ray jumps a mile, his knee hitting the solid oak hard enough to rattle all the dishes. Kowalski whips his hand away in time to keep it from getting crushed, so Ray's kneecap takes the full impact, which is unjust on a cosmic level.
"Geez, Ray," Frannie says from halfway down the table. "That case happened days ago. Little jumpy, aren't you?" She's got kind of a funny, light-bulb look on her face, but Ray's too busy deliberately turning his attention to Kowalski to spend too much time wondering what's going on in Frannie's head.
He's aiming for the Bookman stare, but his knee is throbbing enough that he can't quite get the full effect. Still, it's not like he's completely lost it. "You need something, Stanley?" he asks coolly, and Kowalski just grins. The kind of grin that had made Ray notice the shoulder holster in the first place.
"Nope, just fine, Vecchio, thanks for askin'."
Ray glares, then pointedly turns back to Anthony, at which point Kowalski promptly knocks his wine glass into Ray's lap.
"Oh, geez, I got all thumbs today, sorry, partner," Kowalski says, blinking those blue eyes while Ray mops at the wine and grits his teeth and tries not to say anything that's gonna make his Ma slap him in front of the kids.
"I'm just gonna go put this in the wash," he manages finally, and shoves back from the table, catching Kowalski's arm long enough to hiss, "You owe me a new pair of slacks, asshole" before heading up to his room to change.
He's somehow less surprised than he feels like he should be when he's been up there all of about thirty seconds before Kowalski comes barreling into the room, shoves him up against the wall, and attacks Ray's mouth with his.
"Door," Ray mumbles around his tongue, because privacy is more or less nonexistent in his house even under the best of circumstances, but Kowalski just growls,
"Fuck it," and tightens his hold on Ray's shirt, and for once, Ray really can't argue with that. He pulls Kowalski closer, moaning into his mouth, wanting more, harder, faster; it's been maybe the longest week of his life since Vegas, and he's hungry, sliding his hands under Kowalski's shirt-untucked; and there's another first, Ray being grateful for what passes for Kowalski's fashion sense-to get to skin.
"Stupid," Kowalski's muttering, wet and messy against Ray's jawline, his hands hot on Ray's chest, his back, his hips. "So fucking stupid, Vecchio, and I'm not gonna let you… not gonna pretend this isn't…"
It takes a few seconds, but when the words finally sink in through the haze of lust, Ray's heart thumps hard and he kind of stops breathing.
"Wait," he says, shoving Kowalski back a little, trying to force air into his lungs. Only it's all full of Kowalski, cheap soap and sweet sweat and hair gel, and that's really not helping. "We can't just-we have to-"
"Hafta what?" Kowalski shoots back. "Talk? 'Cause I don't know about you, Vecchio, but I did not feel so good about our last little chat, and so I figure maybe we do better with less talking and more, you know. This." And he lunges forward again, catching Ray's bottom lip between his teeth. And Ray's gonna stop him, he honestly is, because they do need to talk about this, figure it out, just as soon as Kowalski stops pressing his hips against Ray's, each thrust like a firecracker at the base of Ray's spine. He's absolutely-oh God-going to-oh holy fuck-he's gonna-
"Ray," Frannie says, knocking perfunctorily on the doorframe, "Ma wants to know what the-oh."
Ray freezes, and for a brief, wild instant tries to convince himself that he can come up with a totally reasonable police-work explanation as to why Kowalski's mouth is on Ray's neck and Ray's hands are on Kowalski's ass.
Then he dares a glance over and catches a glimpse of Frannie's face, bright red before she turns her back. "Oh. Geez. Sorry. I didn't-" she stutters, and then stumbles out of the room.
Ray sighs, letting his head rest against Kowalski's for a second.
Yeah. This one's gonna be a little tough to explain.
Kowalski kisses his neck once, then straightens up, his face almost as red as Frannie's had been. Ray can feel his own ears burning. "Do you think I should-" Kowalski starts, and Ray shakes his head.
"Nah, I got it." He smoothes Kowalski's shirt, at least till it's only as wrinkled as it was when Kowalski got there. "Just… go back to the table, OK? I'll talk to her."
Kowalski looks at him, that weird, on-the-verge-of-something expression on his face again, but eventually just says, "OK," and leaves Ray to take a few deep breaths and change his slacks and generally attempt to look like he didn't just almost get laid against his bedroom wall.
Frannie's waiting for him in the downstairs hallway.
"Hey," Ray says, knowing he's blushing again. "Frannie, I… it's not what you think."
She raises an eyebrow. "Oh, yeah?"
"OK," and Ray huffs out a laugh, because what else can he do? "Maybe it is what you think, but it's not like we're… it's not like we've…" He holds both hands out at his sides, helplessly. "I don't even know what this is, OK?"
"You don't know what this is?" she repeats, eyebrows climbing even higher.
Jesus. How the hell did he get into this conversation? "No, I just… it's complicated, OK? He's my partner. We fight all the time. Hell, half the time I want to punch him in the face, and most of the other half, he wants to punch me. It's… it's complicated," he finishes lamely.
"Complicated." Still with the eyebrows, practically in a different ZIP code now.
"Will you stop repeating everything I say?" he bursts out, exasperated. Frannie rolls her eyes and stalks the few steps until they're nose to nose.
"Look," she says, with the exact same expression on her face that their Ma always gets when she's laying down the law for the kids. "You're my brother, and I love you, so I'm gonna say this once, and then I'm never gonna think about it again, because, well, you're my brother, and Kowalski's sorta my brother, and I don't need to think about either of your sex lives." Ray sputters a little, feeling his ears burning even hotter, but Frannie just holds up a finger. "Basta. I'm talking to you." And geez, she's his little sister and he could snap her like a twig, but there's something in her tone…
Ray bastas.
Frannie nods, gives him a self-satisfied smile, then pokes the finger into his chest. "OK. Here's the deal. You're single. Kowalski's single. You're both cops. You're both good Chicago boys. You both got waaaay too much testosterone for your own good. You're good at taking care of people, and Lord knows Kowalski needs looking after-I've seen crime scenes cleaner than that guy's apartment." She shudders, and Ray would laugh but he's too busy gaping. Then she cups a gentle hand around his cheek. "And you're lonely, Ray, and Kowalski, he-he'll stick, y'know? And neither of you is getting any younger, and geez, Kowalski was you for a year-even if he really, really wasn't-and Ma loves him, and I love him when I don't want to strangle him, and I don't know if you're waiting for a big neon sign to fall out of the sky or what, but it's not like the bread crusts are all that hard to follow, here." She grabs his chin between her thumb and forefinger. "Don't be stupid about this, Ray. Don't overthink it. Just… just jump, OK? For once in your life. Just jump."
And she shakes her head, slaps him lightly on the cheek, then turns and sails off down the hallway.
After she's gone, Ray spends some time staring stupidly into the knickknacks on the wall across from him, but when it becomes obvious that his Ma's Hummel collection isn't going to be piping up with any answers as to what the hell he's supposed to do now, he sighs and heads back toward the dining room.
By the time he gets there, they're digging in to cannolis, and there's been some fairly serious musical chairs going on in his absence. Ray's niece Andrina has pulled up close to Kowalski, and she's got a baseball clutched in her hand, her brow furrowed as she tries to find the right grip.
"You're gettin' it," Kowalski's telling her. "The secret to this kinda thing is-"
And just like that, something snaps inside Ray's chest; his feet are moving before he realizes it. "The secret," he interrupts, coming up behind them, "is not to think too hard." Andrina and Kowalski both turn to look up at him, and he can't quite face Kowalski yet, not and say this at the same time, so he runs a hand over Andrina's thick dark hair. "You spend your whole life talking about things, bellezza, sometimes you miss them actually happening."
She stares up at him for a few seconds, then wrinkles her nose, all pre-adolescent scorn. "It's just a slider, Uncle Ray."
"Oh, a smart mouth, huh?" he teases, tugging at her hair. "Kowalski's a bad influence." She giggles, and he jerks his head toward the door. "Get outta here. Go play in the street or something."
That's enough to get a full-blown laugh before she bounces up out of her chair and across the room to puzzle out the new pitch with her sister.
When Ray looks back at Kowalski, he's grinning again. "Subtle," he says.
Ray raises an eyebrow at him and shrugs. "Gotta tailor the message to your audience, Kowalski. And you, unfortunately, just aren't that bright."
"Fuck you," Kowalski murmurs, his eyes going warm, his voice quiet enough to keep them both out of trouble and hoarse enough to get them into it.
"Later," Ray answers, just as low, letting his hand brush across the back of Kowalski's neck. Kowalski shivers, and the look on his face makes Ray seriously consider upgrading the "later" to "only as long as it takes me to find the lube." But he still lives in an insane asylum and one of the inmates walking in on them is enough for one dinner, so he forces himself to smile and walk away, his body still vibrating with the memory of Kowalski's mouth on him, eager hands, hot skin.
This time, he's pretty sure it's going to be happening again.
END
Pairing: Ray/Ray
Rating: NC-17
Summary: The first time it happens is a complete fluke.
Spoilers: Through "Call of the Wild"
Disclaimer: I am but mad north-northwest, and as the wind is southerly, I know characters that are mine from characters that are not mine. These are the latter.
A/N: Written for ds_shakespeare, for the prompt "Wisely and slow-they stumble that run fast" (Romeo and Juliet, II, iii).
Wisely and Slow
The first time it happens is a complete fluke.
Classic story, really: bad day at work, a few drinks afterwards, the Cubs lose and Kowalski decides to console himself by sticking his tongue down Ray's throat in the alley behind the bar. And sure, it's a little surprising, seeing as Kowalski's done nothing but bust Ray's chops since they both ended up back in Chicago, Fraser this and Stella that and wanna hear about my citations and my car can beat up your car (which is really rich considering that Ray's car is now nonexistent, again, thanks to Kowalski), and all in all it's mostly been like working with a particularly sullen teenager who--because Ray's not blind, and it's been a while--can fill out a shoulder holster pretty well. So, yeah. Not really how Ray had expected his night to go, but he's a little drunk and he's got frustration to burn and it feels good, contact, heat, Kowalski's long lean body pressed hard against him and small, hungry sounds gasped out between their mouths.
The kiss goes on a really, really (really) long time, and there might be some groping, Ray's not sure, his nerve endings are all kind of mixed up together, and then Kowalski pulls back and just looks at him, blue eyes wide and a little wary. Then he cricks his neck, puts on that Steve McQueen cool that never quite covers all of him, and mutters a little hoarsely, "'Night, Vecchio."
"'Night, Kowalski," Ray manages, trying not to think about what the brick wall behind him is doing to his good coat.
After Kowalski's disappeared around the corner, Ray breathes out slow and shakes his head. Weird. Not bad-weird, really, just... huh. Yeah. Weird.
But anyway, it's not gonna happen again.
*****
It happens again about a week later. Only this time it's Ray who gets things going, and he's sober and it's daylight and they're pulled off to the side of a deserted road because Kowalski has a shitty sense of direction and their suspect has apparently chosen to purify his devotion to the great goal of drug-running by living in a shack in the middle of nowhere. And Kowalski's sitting there swearing at the map-which Ray's pretty sure is upside down-and there's fresh air coming through the half-open window and there's a bead of sweat running down the side of Kowalski's neck and Ray has to, absolutely has to taste it.
"Deer Ridge Road," Kowalski's saying, "what the fuck kind of a stupid-ass name is Deer Ridge Road, I'll put a frickin' ridge in their frickin'-" and then he chokes a little, gasps and whispers "fuck" as Ray's tongue slides over his skin. And that's really the last coherent thing either of them manages for a while, just a chaotic jumble of moans and panting punctuated by the metallic buzz of zippers, and the next thing Ray knows, he's got come in his shorts and one hand on Kowalski's softening cock and he's light-headed with oxygen deprivation and an orgasm that might've broken several land-speed records.
He looks over at Kowalski, who's got his head tipped back against the headrest, eyes closed, breathing hard. He looks… vulnerable, somehow, cracked open, and Ray has to resist the sudden urge to reach over and run his (other, non-sticky) hand through Kowalski's sweaty hair. But he just waits, because he's not sure what's going on here and he's feeling a little cracked open, himself, and after a minute, Kowalski takes a deep breath and opens his eyes.
"OK," he says, pulling the map out from where it's been crushed between the holes in the steering wheel, straightening it with slightly unsteady fingers. There's a come stain on the corner of it. Kowalski clears his throat. "Deer Ridge Road. OK."
"Right," Ray answers, and carefully turns the map right side up.
*****
It's not until Ray finds himself in an interrogation room at the station in the middle of the night, his cock buried in Kowalski's mouth and the edges of the table behind him digging into his fingers, hoping the video cameras aren't on and realizing he might not be able to stop even if they were, that he starts to think maybe they should talk about this.
The thing is, they've managed to go for almost three weeks since the side-of-the-road incident like nothing's different, arguing over who gets to drive and bickering over where to go for lunch and loudly debating the age-old philosophical question of Superman versus Batman, and also arresting a surprising number of criminals in their spare time from all that, which Ray figures is why Welsh puts up with the constant game of Asshole Tennis going on in his squad room day in and day out. So Ray had kind of been wondering if they were out of the woods and things were just going to keep on like they'd been, bitching at Kowalski during the day and going home and being bitched at by his family at night, the circle of life. Going to sleep alone, and hey, if he jerked off to thoughts of Kowalski-long, slender fingers jacking him, crooked grin stretched around his dick, narrow hips pressing back to meet Ray's thrusts while Ray fucked him harder harder harder-every once in a while, well. That wasn't hurting anybody.
But tonight, they'd both stayed late to finish a report and now here they are, Ray biting his bottom lip just short of drawing blood so he won't yell and bring the night watch running as he shudders and jerks and comes in Kowalski's mouth.
While Kowalski swallows and wipes his mouth and Ray clings to the table for dear life just to keep upright, the thought drifts into his head that his jerkoff fantasies had definitely been lacking in creativity when it came to the things Kowalski could do with his tongue.
"Kowalski," he manages eventually, when he can form words again. "What the hell is going on here?"
Kowalski hesitates, then shrugs. He has his khakis unbuttoned and a wet spot that indicates he's taken care of himself at some point, which Ray feels oddly disappointed about, and glad for Kowalski's sake that they both keep a change of clothes at the precinct. Driving around for a few hours with a cold sticky mess in his shorts isn't an experience Ray's eager to repeat, and he's sure Kowalski isn't, either.
"Dunno," Kowalski says, licking his lips. "What is goin' on here? Besides the obvious conduct unbecoming of officers who are supposed to be working on reports and stuff, and not getting off in interrogation rooms." His mouth curves up on one side, wet and distracting.
But one of the really special things about being raised Catholic is that guilt is never more than a what would the Blessed Mother think away, and while Ray had long ago resigned himself to shrugging and hoping the Blessed Mother was OK with him fucking other guys from time to time, the "conduct unbecoming" part tweaks his conscience. Ray knows that Welsh pulled some serious strings to get him his old job back, and he isn't really sure if he should be repaying that trust by getting into… whatever-this-is with his partner. Before Vegas, maybe, but Ray has scars now, things that had ultimately freaked Stella out more than they'd turned her on, and Ray doesn't know if he can justify dragging another Kowalski down into all that with him.
"Here's the thing, Kowalski-" he starts, but before he can get any further than that, Kowalski's whole face changes, shutters down. He grins, but it's a sharp grin, a mean one, the kind that shoves Ray back into a space of hot dry sun and cool buttermilk. He can feel the ice creeping in his chest.
"Don't make a thing outta this, OK, Vecchio?" Kowalski says, zipping up and getting a little stiffly to his feet. He holds his arms wide, a cocky tilt to his head. "Just two guys who haven't gotten any in a while scratching an itch. No big deal. Right?"
"Kowalski-" Ray says again, not even sure how that sentence is going to end, but Kowalski's already slamming the door shut behind him.
*****
"Raaaaay! Doooooor!" Frannie practically shrieks from the kitchen, obviously too busy cooing over the phone to the latest poor schlub to catch her eye to do anything as mundane as walk twenty feet to answer the front door. Ray sighs, puts down the sports section-he's the man of the house, dammit, he should get half an hour to read the box scores at night-and by the time he gets there, the doorbell's ringing again.
"Yeah, yeah, hold your-" he's grumbling as he yanks the door open, and then something clenches in his chest when he sees Kowalski standing on the other side, wilting flowers clutched in one hand and an expression on his face that could be anywhere from fuck you to fuck me.
"Oh," Ray says.
"Yeah," Kowalski says. Then, gesturing vaguely at the doorbell, "Sorry. I know it gets kinda loud in here, I didn't-"
"Yeah." Ray can't seem to stop looking at him, which is weird, because they've seen each other every day all week, but they've pretty much been communicating through an elaborate web of monosyllables and curse words at the tops of their lungs while every case on their desks goes unsolved, and so this, Kowalski standing on his doorstep, with flowers… it's kind of an adjustment.
"Look," Kowalski says after a minute, brandishing the flowers, "your Ma invited me, last-minute deal, and I didn't feel right saying no, but if this is gonna be weird…"
"No." Ray blinks a couple of times, shakes himself mentally. "No. C'mon in."
He steps back to let Kowalski inside, where he's immediately swarmed by Ray's Ma-who pinches Kowalski's arm and tells him how skinny he's looking, pops an olive in his mouth on the spot and rhapsodizes over the crappy wilted flowers like they're made of solid gold-and three of Ray's nieces, one of whom keeps tugging on Kowalski's hand and begging "Uncle Ray" to show her how to throw a slider.
Ray just watches from a safe distance, not sure whether to be pissed off or glad there's fresh meat to distract the masses.
He's a little worried at how things are going to go, but actually, he ends up talking to Kowalski less than he has to at work; the new house is a tiny bit smaller than the old one, and the family's just gotten bigger, so it's not exactly calculus that there's a sea of Vecchios to keep them separated if they want to be. There's one moment where Ray catches a clear and desperate help me kind of signal from Kowalski while Tony's got him trapped in a corner talking about something that requires a lot of Tony pounding his fist into his hand, and Ray catches himself grinning and shrugging back before he can think about it, but other than that, it's basically the usual chaos until they sit down at the table and Ma insists that their guest should have the place of honor, at Ray's right.
Ray's half-expecting Kowalski to try to get out of it, but he just says "Thanks, Ma" with a gleam in his eye that makes Ray fumble getting into his chair.
So, OK, so they sit next to each other, fine, it's still a dull roar of mixed English and Italian and Ray is doing a perfectly acceptable job of ignoring the tension that Kowalski's radiating like a damn spring. But then, right in the middle of Ray relating a severely watered-down version of their latest bust (over a week ago, before the interrogation room, because the only thing they've busted since then was when Kowalski took out a temper tantrum on an unlucky box of pencils) to his nephew Anthony, Kowalski chooses that precise moment to reach over and put his hand on Ray's knee under the table.
Ray jumps a mile, his knee hitting the solid oak hard enough to rattle all the dishes. Kowalski whips his hand away in time to keep it from getting crushed, so Ray's kneecap takes the full impact, which is unjust on a cosmic level.
"Geez, Ray," Frannie says from halfway down the table. "That case happened days ago. Little jumpy, aren't you?" She's got kind of a funny, light-bulb look on her face, but Ray's too busy deliberately turning his attention to Kowalski to spend too much time wondering what's going on in Frannie's head.
He's aiming for the Bookman stare, but his knee is throbbing enough that he can't quite get the full effect. Still, it's not like he's completely lost it. "You need something, Stanley?" he asks coolly, and Kowalski just grins. The kind of grin that had made Ray notice the shoulder holster in the first place.
"Nope, just fine, Vecchio, thanks for askin'."
Ray glares, then pointedly turns back to Anthony, at which point Kowalski promptly knocks his wine glass into Ray's lap.
"Oh, geez, I got all thumbs today, sorry, partner," Kowalski says, blinking those blue eyes while Ray mops at the wine and grits his teeth and tries not to say anything that's gonna make his Ma slap him in front of the kids.
"I'm just gonna go put this in the wash," he manages finally, and shoves back from the table, catching Kowalski's arm long enough to hiss, "You owe me a new pair of slacks, asshole" before heading up to his room to change.
He's somehow less surprised than he feels like he should be when he's been up there all of about thirty seconds before Kowalski comes barreling into the room, shoves him up against the wall, and attacks Ray's mouth with his.
"Door," Ray mumbles around his tongue, because privacy is more or less nonexistent in his house even under the best of circumstances, but Kowalski just growls,
"Fuck it," and tightens his hold on Ray's shirt, and for once, Ray really can't argue with that. He pulls Kowalski closer, moaning into his mouth, wanting more, harder, faster; it's been maybe the longest week of his life since Vegas, and he's hungry, sliding his hands under Kowalski's shirt-untucked; and there's another first, Ray being grateful for what passes for Kowalski's fashion sense-to get to skin.
"Stupid," Kowalski's muttering, wet and messy against Ray's jawline, his hands hot on Ray's chest, his back, his hips. "So fucking stupid, Vecchio, and I'm not gonna let you… not gonna pretend this isn't…"
It takes a few seconds, but when the words finally sink in through the haze of lust, Ray's heart thumps hard and he kind of stops breathing.
"Wait," he says, shoving Kowalski back a little, trying to force air into his lungs. Only it's all full of Kowalski, cheap soap and sweet sweat and hair gel, and that's really not helping. "We can't just-we have to-"
"Hafta what?" Kowalski shoots back. "Talk? 'Cause I don't know about you, Vecchio, but I did not feel so good about our last little chat, and so I figure maybe we do better with less talking and more, you know. This." And he lunges forward again, catching Ray's bottom lip between his teeth. And Ray's gonna stop him, he honestly is, because they do need to talk about this, figure it out, just as soon as Kowalski stops pressing his hips against Ray's, each thrust like a firecracker at the base of Ray's spine. He's absolutely-oh God-going to-oh holy fuck-he's gonna-
"Ray," Frannie says, knocking perfunctorily on the doorframe, "Ma wants to know what the-oh."
Ray freezes, and for a brief, wild instant tries to convince himself that he can come up with a totally reasonable police-work explanation as to why Kowalski's mouth is on Ray's neck and Ray's hands are on Kowalski's ass.
Then he dares a glance over and catches a glimpse of Frannie's face, bright red before she turns her back. "Oh. Geez. Sorry. I didn't-" she stutters, and then stumbles out of the room.
Ray sighs, letting his head rest against Kowalski's for a second.
Yeah. This one's gonna be a little tough to explain.
Kowalski kisses his neck once, then straightens up, his face almost as red as Frannie's had been. Ray can feel his own ears burning. "Do you think I should-" Kowalski starts, and Ray shakes his head.
"Nah, I got it." He smoothes Kowalski's shirt, at least till it's only as wrinkled as it was when Kowalski got there. "Just… go back to the table, OK? I'll talk to her."
Kowalski looks at him, that weird, on-the-verge-of-something expression on his face again, but eventually just says, "OK," and leaves Ray to take a few deep breaths and change his slacks and generally attempt to look like he didn't just almost get laid against his bedroom wall.
Frannie's waiting for him in the downstairs hallway.
"Hey," Ray says, knowing he's blushing again. "Frannie, I… it's not what you think."
She raises an eyebrow. "Oh, yeah?"
"OK," and Ray huffs out a laugh, because what else can he do? "Maybe it is what you think, but it's not like we're… it's not like we've…" He holds both hands out at his sides, helplessly. "I don't even know what this is, OK?"
"You don't know what this is?" she repeats, eyebrows climbing even higher.
Jesus. How the hell did he get into this conversation? "No, I just… it's complicated, OK? He's my partner. We fight all the time. Hell, half the time I want to punch him in the face, and most of the other half, he wants to punch me. It's… it's complicated," he finishes lamely.
"Complicated." Still with the eyebrows, practically in a different ZIP code now.
"Will you stop repeating everything I say?" he bursts out, exasperated. Frannie rolls her eyes and stalks the few steps until they're nose to nose.
"Look," she says, with the exact same expression on her face that their Ma always gets when she's laying down the law for the kids. "You're my brother, and I love you, so I'm gonna say this once, and then I'm never gonna think about it again, because, well, you're my brother, and Kowalski's sorta my brother, and I don't need to think about either of your sex lives." Ray sputters a little, feeling his ears burning even hotter, but Frannie just holds up a finger. "Basta. I'm talking to you." And geez, she's his little sister and he could snap her like a twig, but there's something in her tone…
Ray bastas.
Frannie nods, gives him a self-satisfied smile, then pokes the finger into his chest. "OK. Here's the deal. You're single. Kowalski's single. You're both cops. You're both good Chicago boys. You both got waaaay too much testosterone for your own good. You're good at taking care of people, and Lord knows Kowalski needs looking after-I've seen crime scenes cleaner than that guy's apartment." She shudders, and Ray would laugh but he's too busy gaping. Then she cups a gentle hand around his cheek. "And you're lonely, Ray, and Kowalski, he-he'll stick, y'know? And neither of you is getting any younger, and geez, Kowalski was you for a year-even if he really, really wasn't-and Ma loves him, and I love him when I don't want to strangle him, and I don't know if you're waiting for a big neon sign to fall out of the sky or what, but it's not like the bread crusts are all that hard to follow, here." She grabs his chin between her thumb and forefinger. "Don't be stupid about this, Ray. Don't overthink it. Just… just jump, OK? For once in your life. Just jump."
And she shakes her head, slaps him lightly on the cheek, then turns and sails off down the hallway.
After she's gone, Ray spends some time staring stupidly into the knickknacks on the wall across from him, but when it becomes obvious that his Ma's Hummel collection isn't going to be piping up with any answers as to what the hell he's supposed to do now, he sighs and heads back toward the dining room.
By the time he gets there, they're digging in to cannolis, and there's been some fairly serious musical chairs going on in his absence. Ray's niece Andrina has pulled up close to Kowalski, and she's got a baseball clutched in her hand, her brow furrowed as she tries to find the right grip.
"You're gettin' it," Kowalski's telling her. "The secret to this kinda thing is-"
And just like that, something snaps inside Ray's chest; his feet are moving before he realizes it. "The secret," he interrupts, coming up behind them, "is not to think too hard." Andrina and Kowalski both turn to look up at him, and he can't quite face Kowalski yet, not and say this at the same time, so he runs a hand over Andrina's thick dark hair. "You spend your whole life talking about things, bellezza, sometimes you miss them actually happening."
She stares up at him for a few seconds, then wrinkles her nose, all pre-adolescent scorn. "It's just a slider, Uncle Ray."
"Oh, a smart mouth, huh?" he teases, tugging at her hair. "Kowalski's a bad influence." She giggles, and he jerks his head toward the door. "Get outta here. Go play in the street or something."
That's enough to get a full-blown laugh before she bounces up out of her chair and across the room to puzzle out the new pitch with her sister.
When Ray looks back at Kowalski, he's grinning again. "Subtle," he says.
Ray raises an eyebrow at him and shrugs. "Gotta tailor the message to your audience, Kowalski. And you, unfortunately, just aren't that bright."
"Fuck you," Kowalski murmurs, his eyes going warm, his voice quiet enough to keep them both out of trouble and hoarse enough to get them into it.
"Later," Ray answers, just as low, letting his hand brush across the back of Kowalski's neck. Kowalski shivers, and the look on his face makes Ray seriously consider upgrading the "later" to "only as long as it takes me to find the lube." But he still lives in an insane asylum and one of the inmates walking in on them is enough for one dinner, so he forces himself to smile and walk away, his body still vibrating with the memory of Kowalski's mouth on him, eager hands, hot skin.
This time, he's pretty sure it's going to be happening again.
END