Author: Minervacat
Fandom: due South
Pairing: Kowalski/Vecchio
Rating: NC-17
Summary: i'll find another lady and you'll wreck another man

Chicago was just one long series of memories slapping him in the face every time he turned around - Ray spent 8 months in Canada but 37 years in Chicago, and two of those with Fraser to boot, so it was worse than Canada - Chicago was Fraser and Stella both, laughing every time he turned around.

Stell and I went dancing there, Fraser fell through the awning on that grocery store, Dief liked the sweet and sour soup at the Chinese place on the corner.

Ray couldn't go anywhere in the damn city without getting soppy at dusty old memories, which was pathetic on about six levels that he didn't even want to think about.

So he got a new apartment in Lincoln Square (a neighborhood that had never been hip enough for Stella, or rundown enough for Fraser) and started going to the Green Mill on Thursdays after work, for swing night, because there were always more girls than guys and after everything, at least, Ray knew he could still dance.

Plus, who said Stella got the Green Mill? It's not like Vecchio danced, anyway. So. Ray went to the Mill and swung a bunch of pretty girls around, and on the second Thursday, a curvy blonde in sexy heels bought him three shots of whiskey and took him home. She wasn't Stella and she sure wasn't Fraser, but she was warm and friendly and she didn't seem to expect him to call after, so there Ray was.

It wasn't good or comforting or anything but two bodies together, but he had to start making new Chicago memories somewhere, right? Right.

Ray went home with a tall skinny redhead on the fourth Thursday, a petite blonde with six tattoos on the fifth Thursday, and on the sixth Thursday, a tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed stockbroker with narrow hips and a dick. The guy on the sixth Thursday maybe looked a little too much like Fraser, but Ray wasn't projecting or anything. The guy's name was Peter, and he was a great dancer, and he gave the second best blowjob Ray had ever gotten.

Ray went home with Peter on the sixth Thursday. He had lunch with him the next Saturday and dinner the next Monday. On the seventh Thursday, they hadn't made plans to meet at the Mill, but Ray was hoping. He'd been there about an hour, no sign of Peter, but he was spinning a sweet blonde with a real kissable mouth around the dance floor when he looked up and saw Ray Vecchio leaning against the bar. Vecchio's fingers were wrapped around the neck of a beer - an import, Ray's brain sneered - and his tie was hanging out of the pocket of his suit coat, and he was staring straight at Ray.

How the hell did I get here, Ray thought.

Ray's life after Fraser - and, hell, sometimes his life with Fraser, too - was kind of like a bad movie - mood music, people turning up where you least expect them, a damn lot of unexpected thunderstorms - and he wasn't any kind of swooning romantic comedy hero, but maybe if he had been, the night would have gone another way.

Maybe his life would have gone another way.

Instead, the band wrapped up their set and Ray kissed the curvy little blonde he'd been dancing with on the cheek; Vecchio was still staring at him, his eyes boring into the back of Ray's neck. Ray turned and glared, and Vecchio smirked; Ray had seen that expression before, on his own face in the mirror. It was really fucking weird to see it on Vecchio's. And not that he wanted to talk to Vecchio, but he wanted a beer, and goddamn if Vecchio wasn't between him and the beer. Fucking movie moments, junking up Ray's life.

He went and leaned on the bar, knocked his elbow against Vecchio's and shouted down at Tony, "Hey, asshole, gimme an Old Style, why don't you?"

"You still drinking that swill, Stanley?" Vecchio's voice was warm against Ray's ears, and the hairs on the back of Ray's neck stood up. Tony slid the beer down the bar and Ray's hands felt clumsy; he almost tipped the bottle over onto himself.

"I ain't talking to you, Vecchio," Ray said, and took a long pull on his beer. He wasn't looking at Vecchio; just because he'd chosen to stand next to the guy didn't mean Ray wanted to talk to him.

"Let me buy you something better," Vecchio said, and since when had Vecchio ever been the generous type? "Dewar's on the rocks, Tony. Two of them."

"Fuck off, Vecchio, I'm not your girlfriend. Buy your wife a damn drink." Ray jerked his head up from his beer, ‘cause he hadn't thought of that - if Vecchio was here, Stella was here. Just his fucking luck.

Vecchio jammed a hand into Ray's face, a thin white stripe on his wedding finger, surrounded by a dark tan. "No wife, Stanley, you're the best I can do."

"Stell wised up and left your ass?" Ray said. Tony pushed the Scotch onto the bar in front of them; not that Ray was easy when it came to booze, but, well, he mostly was.

Vecchio dropped his empty bottle on the bar and took a sip of the Scotch. He rolled a shoulder lazily, and said, "Running a bowling alley wasn't exactly to her taste. Neither was being married to a cop, though, huh?"

"So you need something?" Ray said. "Or did you just accidentally stumble in the door here, because I know you don't dance."

"I just heard you were back in town," Vecchio said. "And I thought I'd stop by and say hello. You know, we got something in common now."

"What, Stella's too good for both of us?" Ray said, under his breath.

"No, asshole, we both walked out on Benny," Vecchio said. Then he stopped and huffed a breath out and almost smiled at Ray, who had paused with his drink halfway to his mouth. Not that he was particularly interested in what Vecchio had to say, but the guy was always a surprise, plus Ray was trying really hard not to punch Vecchio in the face for that crack about Fraser. "And, yeah, I guess, the Stella thing, too."

"Damn right," Ray said, and he let the comment about Fraser slide past, because okay, maybe he had run out on Fraser, but at least he'd told Fraser he was going. Vecchio hadn't even done that, and when Ray had left - well, when Ray had left, he didn't want to talk about it, but Fraser deserved it.

The scotch burned on the way down Ray's throat, tossing it back in one gulp, and just before it burned up into his brain, he thought, Fuck Fraser. He'd had a lot of thoughts about Fraser since he came back from the Northwest Goddamned Territories, and they had been sad thoughts, and happy thoughts, and Jesus-I-fucked-that-up-but-good-again thoughts, but there hadn't been an angry thought until tonight.

Standing next to Vecchio, who probably had closets full of angry thoughts about Fraser - three Rivs Fraser had cost the guy - and who was wearing a little smile like maybe he knew everything in the world there was to know, Ray had a lot of goddamned angry thoughts about Fraser.

"So what're you doing these days?" Ray said, because he didn't really know what else to say, that wasn't "Can I buy you a drink?" He might be going to do this, but he wasn't going to do it like that, like Vecchio was some kind of girl.

Vecchio lifted an eyebrow at him; it looked like an expression he might have learned from Fraser, that polite incredu-whatever, but it looked amused on Vecchio's face, whereas it only ever looked like an accusation on Fraser's. And hey, look, another angry Fraser thought, Ray thought stupidly, because now his brain was on this track and it wasn't going to go off those rails without a lot of booze or a lot of fucking. Ray's brain was hard to derail these days, like a record stuck in a groove, hissing and spitting the same ten seconds over and over again.

He was going to go with the booze, he thought, and waved a hand in Tony's direction again. "Dewar's, and make them doubles," Ray said. Vecchio still hadn't answered him. Tony slapped them down, liquid slopping onto the bar, and Ray downed his in one long gulp. He felt loose, like he could dance for hours, and Vecchio was still looking at him with that stupid crooked smile on his face. Ray briefly considered squashing the impulse, but the scotch got the better of him and snapped, "What're you looking at, Vecchio?"

Vecchio smirked and wrapped his hand around the glass on the bar in front of him, not moving, just considering Ray like Ray was a race horse or a woman or a good cigar. "Trying to figure out what Stella saw in you," Vecchio said. It sounded hollow to Ray's ears, and probably to Vecchio's, too; that was a look that said, "Trying to figure out what Fraser saw in you," and maybe, "Trying to figure out why the hell you bailed on him, because it sure wasn't due to the pressure of several dozen federal agents; I've got an excuse, what's yours?"

"Shut up and drink," Ray said. "Stell saw plenty in me. I was going somewhere." Vecchio snorted and sipped at his drink. Half the reason Ray stayed in Canada as long as he did - because look, he loved Fraser, but the fact of the matter was, Ray did not love Canada and much as he tried, loving Fraser was not enough to keep him up there, freezing his nuts off for eight months a year - was because Fraser got a letter that said the whole Florida-bowling-alley thing had not exactly worked out for the brand new Vecchios and they were back in Chicago.

Only he'd come back and Stella hadn't been at the 27th, or the 19th, where he transferred, and Ray had almost been starting to think that Fraser'd lied to him, except that Ray couldn't figure out why. And then, of course, it was Vecchio who crossed his fucking path, not Stella, and Ray was still trying to figure that one out.

Maybe the answer was at the bottom of a whiskey bottle. He drained his glass and Vecchio cocked an eyebrow at him again. Or maybe the answer wasn't.

"You weren't going anywhere, Stanley," Vecchio said. "You're still not going anywhere."

"Like you're doing so hot yourself," Ray shot back.

Vecchio shrugged. He looked down at his glass, and over at Ray's empty one, and tossed the rest of the drink back. "Want to get out of here?"

They ended up in the grimy bar underneath Ray's apartment; nothing on tap, only Old Style in the cooler, and Vecchio actually sneered out loud at the dusty bottle of Jim Beam leaning against the mirrored wall. "Shut up and drink your beer, Vecchio," Ray said, and thumped on the TV at the end of the bar until the Cubs game out in San Diego rattled to grainy, scratchy life.

"How the hell'd you end up a Cubs fan, Stanley?" Vecchio said. "I mean, I read your file, Pilsen, right? The White Sox not good enough for you?"

Ray waved a dismissive hand in Vecchio's direction; he was a Cubs fan because he was a Cubs fan, that was all there was to it, and you could get WGN in every motel in every state in the U.S., but not in Canada, and he'd missed it. The Cubs were losing, and the whiskey was starting to burn back up Ray's throat, tingling out into his fingers and his toes. He wasn't just feeling loose, he was feeling drunk.

He slapped a five on the bar and bought a pack of Camel Lights. The bartender slid him a pack of matches and Vecchio glared at him. "You gotta do that here?" he asked.

"Yeah," Ray said. "I do." Vecchio huffed across the lip of his beer, a petulant puff of air that whistled low across the bottle beck, and Ray lit his cigarette and stared at Vecchio's mouth, his fingers loosely wrapped around the neck of the bottle. The smoke curled above their heads in the streaks of light from bare bulbs, and Ray could have asked himself, how the hell did I get here, drunk with Vecchio in a bar in Chicago?

But he was drunk and asking himself how about Vecchio wasn't any different than asking himself when, about things starting to fall apart with Stella, or why, about things falling apart with Fraser. Pointless from start to finish; Ray was here and that was that, and if Vecchio wanted to be here, too, well, America was a free country and all that shit.

They made some small talk - Stella was back at a private firm, Fraser had gotten a promotion just before Ray left and maybe another one since, if he'd caught the guy who was killing all those Arctic rabbits - and Vecchio bitched about the beer. Ray smoked most of the pack and the Cubs lost in 14 innings.

They closed down the bar and stood on the street in front of it. Vecchio pulled the collar of his overcoat up around his ears; it was only September, but it was Chicago, and it was starting to get chilly at night. Sometimes Ray fell asleep with the windows open and woke up shivering like he never had in Canada, because here there was no Fraser-shaped furnace in bed with him to keep him above freezing.

He wasn't thinking about that, no, Ray was definitely not thinking about Fraser at all. Close that book and shove it in a box marked over. Instead, he concentrated on standing up without falling over and on watching Vecchio, hands shoved into his coat pockets, streetlight haloing around his head. Vecchio was looking out at the street, like cabs came down Ray's piddly little side street in Lincoln Square at 2 AM on a Thursday, and the orange streetlight glow was silhouetting Vecchio's profile.

For almost a minute, the city noises faded out of Ray's focus and he could almost see what Stella saw in this guy.

"You want to come up for a nightcap?" Ray said. His life was fucking upside-down cake anyway, might as well keep drinking with Vecchio.

"Stanley," Vecchio said, still looking out at the street. "Stanley, are you hitting on me?"

"Depends," Ray said. "You saying yes?"

"Just because Benny can't hold his liquor doesn't mean everybody can't," Vecchio said, but he took a step closer to Ray and the door to the stairs to Ray's apartment.

"Shut the fuck up, Vecchio," Ray said, but he was already sliding the key into the lock and Vecchio was right behind him. Ray could smell his cologne over the reek of cigarettes and beer and old bars, something spicy and rich and utterly alien, and he thought, this can go two ways.

By the time they were standing in Ray's living room, awkwardly drunk and quiet with glasses of Ray's good gin in their hands, Ray wasn't even sure which way he wanted it to go.

"So," Ray said. Then he ran out of things to say, and ended up staring at Vecchio and thinking about Vecchio and Stella in bed together, which, he tried to tell his brain, was really very much a no-go zone, thanks for asking.

"Christ, Kowalski," Vecchio said, and set his drink down on the coffee table. He shrugged out of his coat and tossed it over the back of the chair Ray usually tossed his coats over; he sank down onto Ray's couch with a grace that Ray himself could never manage. Usually Ray whacked his knees on the coffee table, or spilled his beer all over himself, and inevitably missed half an inning of the game while he was cleaning up the mess or bent over in pain.

Vecchio, Ray had never noticed before, moved like some kind of damned overgrown cat, all smooth planes and easy charm, and Ray was probably wrong about him not dancing - maybe he didn't dance as good as Ray did, but he could probably dance.

"You going to sit down?" Vecchio said. "Or you going to stand around all night and pass out in a pool of your own puke later on?"

Ray shook his head, trying to clear out all the cobwebs - Stella cobwebs, Fraser cobwebs, fucking Chicago cobwebs - but it just made him feel drunker, so he flopped onto the couch next to Vecchio and managed it without maiming himself or pouring gin all over his shirt. "Shut up," he said. "Do not tell me what to do in my own apartment, Vecchio, or I swear to God, I'll ..."

"You'll what?" Ray could hear the laugh in his voice. "Call the cops? You are the cops, Stanley." Ray didn't have an answer for that, so instead he leaned over and kissed the smirk off Vecchio's face.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

In the back of Ray's mind, the part that isn't thinking about the fact that damn, Vecchio could really kiss, and damn, Vecchio was kissing him back was playing back a memory reel of all the good ideas (at the time) Ray had ever had. Stella had a starring role, and the Northwest Areas, and Benton Fraser, RCMP. All his good ideas got him all fucked up, even more fucked up than he was before, and he pulled his mouth away from Vecchio's, hands still fisted in Vecchio's (now) crumpled dress shirt.

"Wait," Ray said. "Wait, wait, what the fuck are you doing, Vecchio?"

Vecchio said, "You kissed me, Kowalski," like that was any kind of answer.

Ray said as much. "That is not the point, Vecchio, the point is, what the hell are we doing here?"

"I thought I was going to get laid," Vecchio said. He still had a hand wrapped around the back of Ray's neck, holding Ray in place, balanced over Vecchio on the couch. "How long has it been since you got laid, Stanley?"

"Five days," Ray snapped, and tried to pull away from Vecchio. He was drunker than he felt, though, because he overbalanced and tipped towards Vecchio. Ray stabilized with his face three inches from Vecchio's, and his hand between Vecchio's thighs on the couch.

"Well, I haven't gotten laid since Stella divorced me," Vecchio said. "We going to do this, or what?" He was staring at Ray, who was frozen in place.

"Yeah," Ray said. "Okay?"

Vecchio shoved at him, not moving his hand from Ray's neck, until Ray tilted backwards and crawled to standing; Vecchio followed him up and slid his fingers into one of the belt loops on Ray's jeans. His hand was warm where it pressed against Ray's hip, and Vecchio kissed like he knew what he wanted and he was going to take it. Ray pressed back against him, one hand still twisted in Vecchio's shirt, and walked Vecchio backwards towards the bedroom.

Ray unbuttoned Vecchio's shirt as they walked; when they got to the bedroom, it was hanging loosely around Vecchio's shoulders. Vecchio ran a hand up underneath Ray's t-shirt, stroking up against Ray's spine. "Come on, come on," Ray said against Vecchio's mouth, shoving him backwards until Vecchio's legs hit the bed and he sat down hard. Ray stripped his own t-shirt off and sank to the floor between Vecchio's knees.

Vecchio was leaning back on his elbows, shirt hanging off his shoulders. "Stella never mentioned this about you," Vecchio said as Ray thumbed the button on his pants open. Vecchio's voice was even, but Ray could feel the tension in Vecchio's thighs where they bumped up against his shoulders.

"You want to get blown or you want to get punched, Vecchio, make up your mind," Ray said. It was an empty threat; he unzipped Vecchio's pants and Vecchio choked out a laugh that cut off abruptly when Ray slid Vecchio's cock out of his boxers and wrapped his mouth around it.

Ray thought about how he'd felt the first couple of months after Stella left him, wrapped a hand around the base of Vecchio's dick and really went to town. Vecchio thrust up into his mouth with shallow, needy jerks, and one hand came off the bed to fist in Ray's hair. He panted, choking out, "God, Stanley, just - " before his fingers tightened on Ray's skull and he came.

Ray swallowed, and ran his tongue along the underside of Vecchio's cock, just to get the shudder and the half-hearted swat at his head. He sat back on his heels, still crouched between Vecchio's legs, and looked up at Vecchio, who was collapsed backwards on the bed, pants undone and shirt wide upon.

"Are you waiting for a fucking invitation, Stanley?" Vecchio asked, lifting his head up and staring down his chest at Ray. "Come here."

Ray went; Vecchio leaned up, one hand reaching out for Ray's hip and the other for Ray's hair, pulling him down against Vecchio. Vecchio was stronger than he looked; he rolled them over, shoved at Ray until Ray slid backwards up the bed, and Vecchio followed. Ray leaned against the headboard and Vecchio squirmed in between his legs, pushy, hands everywhere, until his mouth came down on Ray's and his hands curled into Ray's hair, one thumb stroking along Ray's jaw.

Vecchio kissed pushy, too, all teeth and tongue, and Ray smoothed his hands down over Vecchio's ass and pulled him in close. As Vecchio twisted his hands in Ray's hair and settled against Ray's chest, Ray shoved, because he was fucking pushy, too, and stripped Vecchio's shirt off, rolled Vecchio over onto his back. Ray ran a thumb along the line of Vecchio's hip bone, and had a disconcerting moment of okay, what the fuck?, because there is no way that Vecchio should be this calm about all of this.

And, you know, maybe there's a straight line between leaving a mountie in North Butt Fuck, Canada, and Fraser's ex-partner half-naked and panting in Ray's bed in Chicago, but it's not the way that Ray got here. Ray's route was a lot more circle-like, and a lot less logical.

Vecchio pressed his fingers into the soft spot at the base of Ray's skull, a little harder than was strictly necessary if you asked Ray, and he said, "Stanley, are you going to fuck me, or are you going to just fucking lie there and think of Canada? Because you're going to have to give me a little more recovery time if it's the second one."

"Shut up, Vecchio," Ray said, and Vecchio laughed and stroked his thumb over the spot he'd just been digging his fingernails into and pulled Ray down into a kiss. They broke apart to finish stripping, and when Ray rolled off Vecchio to find the lube stashed somewhere in his bedside table - sure, Ray'd gotten laid lately, but he hadn't brought any of those girls (or that guy) here; the last time Ray'd gotten laid in this apartment with someone other than his own right hand was never - anyway, Ray was naked and rooting around in the too-cluttered drawer, and Vecchio ran a hand down the middle of Ray's back, tracing every bump of spine and every scar of too many years of police work with his fingertips, real gentle.

And Vecchio did it in a way that pretty much said that this wasn't just a couple of guys fucking, but Ray had already known that, and no matter what Vecchio did - well, if Vecchio wasn't going to talk about Stella and Fraser and how entirely fucked up and logical it was that they were here together like this, Ray wasn't either.

So he rolled back over, and Vecchio kissed him while Ray slicked up his hand and slid a finger into Vecchio's ass. Vecchio bit down on Ray's shoulder and tensed underneath when Ray added a second finger, twisting carefully and stroking up to press against Vecchio's prostate. "Hey," Ray said, because Vecchio was panting in a strained kind of way against Ray's ear, and Ray wasn't the kind of guy who forced himself on anybody.

But he had three fingers in Vecchio's ass at that point, so it was kind of a moot point, plus Vecchio said, "Get the fuck on with it, Kowalski" and bit the edge of Ray's ear hard enough to hurt, so Ray eased his fingers out and rolled a condom down his dick and slicked himself up. Vecchio turned over, up on his hands and knees, and Ray ran a hand down Vecchio's back before he dug his fingers into Vecchio's hip and pushed, slow and careful.

Ray took a minute when he was all the way in, balls deep in Vecchio's ass, trying to find some control deep down somewhere inside his soon-to-be-really-damn-useless brain; he draped himself across Vecchio's back, forehead pressed against the back of Vecchio's neck, and just stayed there, not moving, for a couple of seconds. "Hey," Vecchio said, and his voice rumbled through his skin and into Ray's. "You gonna fuck me or what, Stanley?"

Ray pulled himself up from his admittedly very comfortable position on Vecchio's back, and grabbed Vecchio's hips, easing out slow as he could manage before he shoved back it, slow as he could manage. Vecchio groaned, and Ray slid a hand around and cupped his dick, half-hard again, and stroked in again, angling for that sweet spot. Ray knew he hit when Vecchio choked out, "Oh my God, Kowalski," and his cock jumped in Ray's hand. Ray tugged on Vecchio's dick in the same rhythm he was fucking Vecchio's ass, and Vecchio was all the way hard and writhing underneath Ray in about two minutes flat.

"Christ, Kowalski," Vecchio said, when Ray ran his thumb over the head of Vecchio's dick and thrust hard into his ass. "You fuck better than your ex-wife."

Ray was somewhere in that hazy place between being drunk-drunk and being lust-drunk, plus he was fucking Vecchio, who used to be married to Stella, and that might have been a compliment and it might have been a challenge, but he was damned if he knew which.

So he tightened his hold on Vecchio's hips and thrust harder, trying to find a rhythm in the way Vecchio twisted and shoved back underneath him, because Ray didn't know shit about anything anymore, but he was pretty sure that Vecchio could dance.

And if he could dance, then he could fuck, and Ray was getting a first hand lesson that Vecchio could fuck.

Ray lost track of time for a minute, in Vecchio's back curved below him, in Vecchio's ass, shoving back at every thrust Ray shoved forward, and when Ray came, it was such a surprise that he had to hold on to Vecchio's hips to keep from passing out.

Somehow they managed to end up under Ray's tangle of blankets instead of on top of them; Ray didn't remember how. Ray remembered rolling onto his side and Vecchio tossing an arm across his hip; Ray remembered Vecchio pressing a warm and sleepy kiss against the back of his neck.

When he woke up the next morning - panicking, late for work, except right, day off, always a day off on Fridays because he worked the Saturday shift - the shadows in his bedroom had already moved from morning to afternoon; the clock said it was 2:15, but since all of Ray's clocks said totally different times, there was a good chance that the alarm clock was totally, totally wrong.

Ray stumbled out of bed and pulled on his boxers - still crumpled in a puddle of jeans and shirts and socks on the floor - and managed to make it out to the living room after only running into the doorframe once. Vecchio's coat was still tossed over the back of Ray's chair; Vecchio himself was sitting, shirtless, at Ray's kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee, Ray's newspaper spread out in front of him.

Vecchio looked up when Ray crashed into the kitchen and propped himself up on the doorframe. "Morning, Stanley," he said. "Want to take me dancing tonight?"

Ray blinked at him, and Vecchio smiled, a private, chocolate-tasting sort of smile, the kind of smile that Ray was pretty sure not a lot of people got to see. Not that Ray was a sap or anything, he didn't have time for romance anymore, plus where had romance ever gotten him? But the thing was, he and Vecchio, they weren't the same at all and they kind of were, too, and Ray thought, standing hungover in his kitchen with Vecchio at his table, it was hard to hate a guy when you'd been him.

So Ray said, "God, shut the fuck up, Vecchio" before he tripped his way over to the coffee maker and inhaled his first cup standing up, one hand planted on the counter for balance. He drank his second cup at the table after hijacking the sports section away from Vecchio.

He poured himself a third cup, but it went cold on his bedside table, because there were plenty of better things to do with his ex-wife's ex-husband in his bed. The Cubs lost again in the afternoon. The El rattled Ray's windows every time it passed. Same old Chicago, Ray thought, but Vecchio fell asleep on the other end of the couch in the middle of the 7th inning, and it wasn't really the same at all.

author's notes: vi did beta duty, because she rocks. all remaining mistakes are mine. title and summary from the old 97s, "salome". written for the Ray K/Old 97s challenge.