Title: Phone Calls and Pizza
Fandom: due South
Length: 1450
Rating: PG
Content notes: consent issues
Characters: Fraser, RayK
Author note: third in the series beginning with Discord and Strife and continued in Dance Steps and Explosions. Fill for the Wish bingo square.
Summary: Fraser’s only been away from his desk for ten minutes, but there’s a note from Turnbull that wasn’t there before. Detective Vecchio telephoned. He asks you to call him at your earliest convenience.




Fraser’s only been away from his desk for ten minutes, but there’s a note from Turnbull that wasn’t there before. Detective Vecchio telephoned. He asks you to call him at your earliest convenience.

Seeing the name written down makes Fraser feel as if he’s stepped on a missing stair. Of course it’s not Ray Vecchio who called, but Ray Kowalski. He’s mostly used to it by now, but he’s tired and it catches him off guard.

He should be with Ray Kowalski now, should have been with him all day. Instead he’s stuck here, working on the finishing touches to this evening’s reception for visiting dignitaries at the Consulate. This would be frustrating enough in normal circumstances: rearranging seating plans and helping Turnbull fold dinner napkins is a very poor use of Fraser’s skills, and certainly not what he imagined life would be like when he joined the RCMP. It’s worse today, when he’d particularly wanted, needed to see Ray Kowalski. To see how things were between them after the quarrel yesterday and the phone call Fraser had made last night.

Ray had sounded friendlier by the end of that conversation, and Fraser had felt reassured, but afterwards the uncertainty had returned to torment him. Now he stares at Turnbull’s note and his stomach lurches. There hasn’t been time all day to call Ray and explain his absence.

At your earliest convenience. It’s probably a case. He hopes it’s a case.

He forces himself to breathe deeply, feels the click between his shoulder blades. Picks up the receiver and telephones the 27th Precinct.

“Vecchio,” Ray snaps.

Fraser prepares to apologise. “Ray, I – ”

“Hey, Fraser!” Ray says, sounding markedly more cheerful. “You still stuck at the Consulate? Turnbull said the Ice Queen’s throwing a party.”

“A reception,” Fraser manages, but he can’t say any more. The misery he’s been pushing down all day makes his throat tight.

“Aw, that sucks. You and Dief want to get pizza later?”

“Oh,” Fraser says stupidly, and then, with an effort, “I don’t know what time I’ll be able to get away.”

“So come over to my place when you’re done, we can order in. OK?”

“Thank you kindly, Ray.”

“Is that a thank you kindly, yes or a thank you kindly but no thanks?”

“Yes!” Fraser says. He didn’t mean to sound so vehement. Best to make light of it: “Diefenbaker would never forgive me if I said no to pizza two nights in a row.”

Diefenbaker is not amused by this, and makes his displeasure clear, but he has only himself to blame.

“OK, it’s a date,” says Ray. “Ha ha. I mean, see you later.”

“See you later, Ray.”

Fraser doesn’t know how he gets through the rest of his duties without breaking the glassware or setting fire to the table decorations. His mind is not on his work at all. He rebukes himself for overreacting to what was clearly just an accidental turn of phrase.

It’s not a date.

He changes out of his uniform and into faded blue jeans and a soft blue shirt.

It’s not a date.

Fraser glares at himself in the bathroom mirror and puts down his razor unused.

“It’s not a date, Diefenbaker.”

Diefenbaker expresses his scepticism with characteristic frankness, returning to the point several times on the way to Ray’s apartment.

“Yes, well, if I want your advice on matters of the heart I’ll ask for it,” Fraser says as they approach Ray’s building. “You’re lucky that Ray specifically invited you, or I’d send you back to the Consulate.”

Ray greets him so warmly that he wonders if maybe Diefenbaker was right after all, which makes it temporarily hard to breathe. For a giddy moment Fraser thinks he’s about to get hugged again, the way Ray hugged him the day they met. But it doesn’t happen.

“Good to see you, buddy.” Ray’s smile lights up the room. “Want a beer?”

“No, thank you kindly, Ray,” Fraser says hastily. That would be disastrous. It’s hard enough to keep his unruly emotions in check as it is.

“Glass of milk? Or, no, tea? I know you like tea.”

“Tea would be lovely,” Fraser says, touched by Ray’s eagerness to please him.

It’s not a date, but it does seem as if Ray is as keen as Fraser is to repair things between them.

“Great,” says Ray. “Greatness. Pizza’s on its way. Turnbull called to say you’d left, so I guessed you’d be here around now.”

The pizza arrives right on time, just as Fraser’s sitting down with his mug of tea. It’s remarkably good pizza, even with pineapple on it. Diefenbaker eats more than his fair share, because Ray keeps sneaking him pieces when he thinks Fraser’s not looking. Fraser can’t find it in his heart to scold either of them; it’s so good to be here with Ray, eating pizza on the sofa in front of the television, Ray telling him what Welsh said about the Barnardine arrest and what Frannie said to the lawyer, and catcalling the procedural errors on the television’s detective show. Ray is on at least his second beer by now, and leaning heavily against Fraser. His proximity makes it rather difficult to breathe, but Fraser doesn’t want to move away.

Half way through recounting the best news of the day, Huey and Dewey’s arrest of a troupe of clowns, including Huey getting hit with a custard pie and Dewey being run over by a clown car, Ray falls asleep.

He’s solid and warm, so warm, pressed up against Fraser’s side, his head lolling on Fraser’s shoulder. Ray smells of pizza sauce and beer and pineapple and that stuff he puts on his hair. He makes a small contented sound and snuggles closer, grasping at the fabric of Fraser’s shirt.

Fraser breathes hard, fighting the urge to put his arm around Ray. He’d be more comfortable that way – Ray is heavier asleep than awake – but that’s not a good enough reason. Given the way he feels about Ray, given all the things he wants and can’t have, it would be taking advantage, and Fraser is not going to do that. He ought to wake Ray up so he can go to bed properly and Fraser can go back to the Consulate. But Ray is obviously tired, so maybe he should let him sleep for a while.

He loses track of how long they stay there. After a while Fraser’s arm goes numb, but he still doesn’t move.

Diefenbaker makes an entirely inappropriate suggestion about how to wake Ray up. That sort of thing only works in fairytales, and it’s not OK even there. Fraser doesn’t have the energy for arguing with a wolf about consent issues, but the stern look he gives Diefenbaker speaks volumes.

Ray mumbles something sleepy and affectionate into Fraser’s shoulder. He’s probably dreaming of Stella.

Time to go.

“Ray,” Fraser says. “Ray. Ray. Ray.”

“Wha’?” Ray stirs and blinks. “Hey, Frz.”

“I should go,” Fraser says. Every word feels like pushing a boulder uphill.

“Mm,” Ray says, shutting his eyes again.

“Ray. Ray. It’s getting late.”

“Mmm.” Ray pulls at Fraser’s shirt and burrows into his shoulder.

Oh, this is intolerable. “Ray, wake up!”

“’M not asleep,” Ray says, blearily indignant.

“I have to go back to the Consulate,” Fraser says, in desperation.

Ray makes a noise of protest, which would be flattering if he was properly awake.

“I have to,” Fraser says again. It sounds hopelessly unconvincing.

“Stay,” Ray says. “Want you to, Fraser.”

The shock of it nearly doubles Fraser up. This can’t be happening. Ray can’t possibly mean it, not like that.

But Ray slides his arms around him and nuzzles at Fraser’s neck. Warm breath, and the scrape of stubble. A hot damp press of lips against Fraser’s skin.

Fraser moans; he can’t help it. He’s so starved for this that every cell in his body clamours for more.

“Ray,” he says, helpless.

He doesn’t know why Ray’s doing this, when only last night he was so unhappy about Stella that he lashed out at Fraser.

He tries again. “Ray, are you – ”

“Nuh-uh,” Ray says, tugging Fraser’s shirt free of his jeans. “No talking.”

Fraser knows he should insist: this could wreck things between them once and for all. But he’s breathless and dizzy, shaking with a need so fierce he thinks he might die of it. All his doubts and his good intentions go up like kindling at the touch of Ray’s hands on his bare skin, Ray’s mouth on his mouth. The blood pounds in his ears, and there are no words left in the world but yes and Ray and yes.