ds_slash | Revelations (Fic number three of ? in this storyline)

Title: Revelations
Author:

audaxfemina
Rating: Language. Liberal use of the F word. :)
Pairing: Fraser/RayK
Word Count: 2682 (Not long enough, damnit)
Summary: It's the morning after the night before. Ray's hungover, Fraser's emotionally constipated, Dief's whiny, and the Stetson is abused.
Previous parts are here and here.

A/N: Completely unbetaed, the result of several rewrites, may have inconsistencies. Let me know if something's amiss? Other than that, see the end for more. :)

Ray Kowalski had always been a man in motion, from the moment Fraser first laid eyes on him. The sheer stillness of the detective now was disturbing to say the least. And yet the blond slept onward, completely oblivious to his houseguests, and the cares that had so plagued them both the night before.

The revelations of the night before had left Fraser largely unable to sleep, though he continued to check on his partner as the last vestiges of the night succumbed to glowing sunrise.

Yes, Ray Vecchio was back, and likely to take his position back at the 27th. It was true the effusive Italian had little time to readjust, and would likely be given a leave of absence as well as a commendation, but for the time being, it was supposed to be as though Ray Vecchio had never left.

And of all the charades he’d been expected to carry on, imagining that he’d never worked with anyone besides one Raymond Vecchio was perhaps the hardest.

Much as Fraser had hated to admit it, even to himself, Ray Kowalski’s hunches had once again proven to be true. He’d had to leave, and this simple return as good as destroyed their working partnership for the time being. The blond had reacted as he always had, leaving before he could be driven away. But living such an insular life was a very painful way to live. Of course, many would argue indeed that one Benton Fraser was ill equipped to judge.

Ray’s bed creaked, and it became the first sign of non-lupine life in the bedroom. The rustle of heavy blankets could be heard, and bare feet landed on the floor, shuffling slowly. Apparently, the aroma of coffee brewing did what little else seemed capable of doing.

Ray was awake, and now that he was, Fraser had absolutely no idea how to attempt to heal whatever rift had formed between them in the past twenty-four hours. He strained the grounds from the bitter brew, setting it on the kitchen counter beside Ray’s bag of Smarties. This was going to be one of the more interesting morning in Benton Fraser’s life, he thought, carefully tucking Ray’s handcuff key in his pocket before sojourning into the bedroom.

***

Someone had beaten him with a stick. That had to be the only explanation. His head was throbbing and it felt like someone’d shoved an old gym sock in his mouth.

Sunlight streamed through the window, and as Ray opened his eyes, he groaned, trying to turn over.

His right hand wouldn’t move. Well, it did. It just didn’t move far, and it made a hell of a lot of noise that made like an ice pick in Ray’s temple.

Gazing up, he caught the flash of silver around his wrist and nearly growled. He was hungover, home, in his bed, and handcuffed to it. And the last thing he remembered was Fraser. Vecchio and Fraser.

With little warning, the bed dipped under about 60 pounds of weight, and Ray had an enthusiastic warm tongue bathing his face from jaw to temple.

Ray sputtered, trying vainly with his left hand to push the overzealous lupine away from him, to no avail. Dief was determined, like Ray had been hiding a donut down his shirt. Which would be sticky, but Ray figured he would have at least remembered that.

He finally ended up burying his face in the nearest available pillow, with his right arm trapped beneath him. “FRASER!” he shouted, knowing no amount of protestation would make Dief leave him alone. Besides, what would the one be doing without the other in his apartment?

Soft footsteps approached the bed, and the weight was quickly removed, banishing the wolf with a few stern words in Inuit-whatever. It had a name. Ray just didn’t like thinking at the moment.

Thinking equaled pain. Pain bad.

“I’m sorry, Ray, I didn’t expect –”

Ray dragged his likely haggard face up out of the bed linens. “Fraser, I’ve got wolf spit in my ear, a headache the size of Chicago, I’ve got to go so bad my molars are swimming, I think I licked a shag carpet, and you cuffed me. Again. You see a problem with this picture?” he asked, voice deadly soft but still filled with promises of pain.

Fraser tugged gently at his collar, staying well out of Ray’s reach. “Well, the headache and requirement to urinate are quite understandable given the circumstances, as is the dry mouth…”

“Fraser, if you don’t shut up and let me loose, I will kick you in the head, I swear to God.”

“Ray, I really feel we need to discuss…”

“I haven’t pissed the bed in well over thirty years. Discuss later. Key now,” Ray nearly snarled, his tone brooking no argument.

Fraser sighed, leaning closer, and unlocked the cuff from Ray’s right wrist, rather quickly backing off from Ray, who was off the bed and into the bathroom like the hounds of hell were chasing after him. The door slammed shut, which was a bad idea, but at long last, Ray stood before the toilet, and life was better.

And just what the hell was up with Fraser, anyways? Where did he get the idea to play Mountie and Perp this morning? And Dief.

The number of things wrong with the pair of them could fill an encyclopedia, Ray decided, nearly stumbling to the sink as he tugged off the t-shirt from the previous day. And he was thinking in words of more than one syllable.

Ray opened the medicine cabinet, fumbling with the cap on the aspirin bottle. At least when it was open, he didn’t have to *know* how terrible he looked. He’d intimidated Super-Mountie himself. Intimidated, but not escaped, he thought, tossing back four aspirin with a swig of water from the sink.

Said Mountie was likely waiting outside the door, looking completely apologetic. Ray walked to the door, massaging his temples, and opened it, only to shriek in an unmanly fashion.

“Coffee, Ray?” Fraser asked, having been looming outside the door, mug and candies in hand.

“Fraser, what in the HELL is with you this morning?” Ray finally all but exploded. “Why are you here?”

Guileless. That was the word Ray was searching for. Fraser was completely unapologetic and had a guileless expression on his face, like he had absolutely no doubt he was in the right here.

“We did not yet finish our conversation when you… fell asleep last night.”

Ray might not have learned French, Chinese, Russian and Inuit-ish… but he could speak Mountie. Ray didn’t ‘fall asleep’. Ray passed out, and had to be put to bed.

He sighed, taking the bag of candy from Fraser’s left hand. “So you decided to stick around so we could move on to bondage?”

As brilliant a scarlet as his normal uniform, Fraser cleared his throat before he dutifully ignored the question in favor of addressing a previous one. “You possess a rather aggravating predisposition for evading discussions of a personal nature, Ray.”

Ray took the mug next, quaffing the scorching liquid, after popping a few chocolates in his mouth first. “Fraser, all you had to do was *ask*, you freak.”

That didn’t get the normal reaction, and Ray knew that even though he was hungover, and therefore had a right to be irritable, this was Fraser. Fraser was more than his partner. He had been since that first hug.

Fraser’d always been different. Anyone else, he could have and usually did trample all over their feelings when they pissed him off. But it wasn’t buddies. It was like groping a nun, kicking a puppy and telling Turnbull there was no Tooth Fairy. It was just wrong.

“The facts changed while I was passed out, Fraser? Am I *not* a Kowalski again?” he asked, not meeting the intense blue gaze as clear as a Canadian sky. And when did he start talking in similes?

“No, Ray, they haven’t. All the same. Could we go sit in the living room and talk?” Fraser asked, glancing around the room like the slightly ajar underwear drawer was about to launch an ambush.

God bless him, the Mountie actually looked freaked at the idea of being with a half-naked man in said man’s bedroom. Ray gestured at Fraser to lead the way, and trudged along behind him, pausing only to pull on a cleaner shirt. And to think, Ray figured he was done with ‘talks’ when Stella’d left him.

***

Ray sprawled on the nearest chair, defiantly gazing at Fraser like there was an interrogation being conducted, and Ray was once more the one in handcuffs. “So. Talk. And try to leave out the five syllable words. I’m a little stupid in the mornings.”

“I want to fix things between us, Ray. I want you to trust me again, enough to understand that I do not mean to hurt you,” Ben offered, purposely choosing more simplistic words, even though they both knew full well that Ray had understood every syllable he’d said before. After a year, the farce wore thin.

“Ain’t nothing to fix, Frase.”

“I beg to differ. Obviously there is something wrong, or you might actually look me in the eye,” he argued, bending down a bit, as though to make his point. “Ray, you *are * my friend, perhaps the best one I ever had. In a *year*, you were closer to me than I ever was with Ray Vecchio.”

The incredulous look on Ray Kowalski’s face only served to annoy him further.

“Ray, I would never lie about something so important. Surely you must believe that.”

Ray bowed his head, rubbing the back of his neck as he looked at the floor. “I know, Fraser. I know you don’t lie.” Apparently he viewed that as something of a problem, from the things he wasn’t saying. “S’just…”

“It doesn’t help to know that there are things that neither of us can change,” Fraser continued. “You were right, of course, when you said that I could never hope to go undercover with you. I have never been any good at subterfuge, and you know as well as I do how seriously I take my duty.”

“I know, Frase,” Ray repeated, setting his coffee cup down.

“I want to know what’s bothering you, and I want you to know, Ray, that I have no intention of putting an end to our… friendship, whatever else may occur.”

“You have got to be kidding me when you say that you and I got along better than you and Vecchio!” the detective argued, hitting his forehead with his hand, then wincing at the effect. “Fraser, we got along like a…” Ray finally seemed to settle on a suitable metaphor. “Like a moose in a canoe!”

That was certainly confusing enough, and Fraser was relatively certain it was evident in his expression. Still, he ventured the question. “What?”

“Have you ever seen a moose in a canoe?” the Chicagoan asked pointedly.

“Well, not *in*, per se, but yes, Ray. You see, I failed to notice that the canoe in question had been marked with the scent of a female in heat…” Ben began, trailing off at the flush rising from his collar.

It was beyond unfortunate that Ray had been taking a drink of his coffee, which now coated a rather disgruntled half-wolf as well as Ben himself.

A few coughs followed, before Ray spoke his mind. “Fraser, that is…”

“Disgusting? Hilarious?”

“You mean to tell me you saw a moose trying to make it with a canoe.” He paused, suddenly bursting into what could only be called giggles. “You weren’t *in* the canoe?”

Ben had to clear his throat before replying, in as deadpan a tone as he could muster. “Yes, Ray, I was.”

Apparently overcome with the mental image of such a scene, Ray gave into the impulsive laughter that was such a part of his persona… and it was absolutely clear to Fraser in that moment that he loved seeing Ray Kowalski happy.

His face lit up when he grinned, his eyes shone more brightly when he was amused… and when he laughed, really laughed, Ray Kowalski laughed with all of his being. And that epiphany had been on the edge of his consciousness for far too long.

***

Ray wiped the tears from his eyes and looked over at Fraser, trying to rein in the last vestiges of chuckles. “So forget the caribou stories, it’s the moose stories you have that are the really deep ones, right?”

Fraser just smiled that enigmatic smile he usually did. “If you mean deep in the ‘deeply disturbing’ sense, then yes.”

Ray lay back against the back of the chair, looking over towards the window of his living room. Stakeouts weren’t gonna be the same. He wasn’t going to drive a car through a crate of rubber ducks, into a lake. That kind of stuff didn’t happen without the fog of insanity that enveloped Fraser completely. “Frase, I… I’ve had too many guessing games in my life. What do you want from me?”

Fraser shifted his weight, kind of like he did when he’d had a major underpinning of his life slip. “You told me last night that no one knew Ray Kowalski except those who had seen you in private, and even then, I could… I could see where you were trying to join the two. I want you to give me the chance, to learn to know where your borders are… where the lines are more clear…”

“Fraser, am I a man or a map?” Ray drawled, suddenly losing the train of thought.

The Mountie gave that little chuckle/snort thing he gave, and looked down at his hands before looking up. “I think you’re both, Ray. And I want to get to know you better. The real Ray, the things you were hiding when you were pretending to be Ray Vecchio, your expressions, your energy. I want you to be who you are, nothing more, nothing less. I want to bicker with you about whether or not curling is a sport, and the way I dance that resembles a block of wood, and whether or not you’ve fed Diefenbaker pastries.”

A not so subtle whine came from the floor behind the couch.

They both grinned.

Ben rubbed his thumb across his eyebrow. “I hope that’s enough of an answer for now, because at the moment, I’m… completely unable to describe the remainder of my feelings.”

“I have that effect on people,” Ray replied, a smirk growing on his face as he watched Fraser for a few seconds. “So what, you want to call out for pizza, watch housekeeping on ice… The kinda stuff we always do?”

Ah, unspoken Mountie! Another language Ray could interpret. ‘I’m not telling you the whole thing, Ray, because I’m not sure how you’ll take it.’ “Yes.”

Ray merely arched an eyebrow and waited. When no further answer was forthcoming, he shook his head. “No, Fraser. That’s not what you want. So why don’t you give me the real answer?”

Diefenbaker whuffled, apparently trying to put in his two cents’ worth.

If possible, Fraser stiffened further. 'Course that probably meant either Dief had gas, or had just told Fraser he was an idiot.

Canadian standoff. Only one way to play it.

“Right.” He reached forward, grabbing the Stetson from Fraser’s grasp, plopping it on his own head. “Fine. This time? I’m the Mountie, you’re the perp. Now spill, before I break out the cuffs and maintain the right to kick you in the head.”

A long pause sat between them, and as Ray moved forward to do just that, it happened.

“I love you, Ray,” Fraser blurted, blue eyes going impossibly wide as though he’d just realized he’d spoken aloud.

“Good answer, Frase.”

The Sacred Stetson hit the floor, as Ray pressed Fraser back into the couch. Mere inches from Fraser’s face, he smiled once more. “That’s a *great* fucking answer.”

And a great fucking start.

***

So, now they've got things out in the open, the cluebus has been boarded. Roll end credits ... You're still here?

You don't think this means happily ever after, do you? For great smut, I must write great angst. *runs off to work on sequel to this one now* :) This one's gonna be big, and it's gonna take me a while, but you'll like it, just as soon as the NC-17 muse comes back fully. She's in Chicago, I'll pick her up when I hit the Windy City July 4th. :) I promise!