Unfinished
by Maya Tawipart four
"It doesn't have to hurt
It doesn't have to sting
It doesn't have to burn
It doesn't have to mean a thing
It doesn't have to break
It doesn't have to fall
It doesn't have to tear you up
If you can take it to the wall"
--Jane Jensen, "Burner"AFTERThe sky was just starting to lighten when Harrison pulled the front door shut behind him with one hand, holding his leather jacket closed with the other. He wasn't wearing much under it, just pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, which was more than he usually wore to bed. But as he was not currently occupying his bed, and a Mountie and an ex-cop currently were, he'd figured it wouldn't hurt to be semi-decent.
He couldn't sleep. Five minutes on the lawn chair and he'd started to regret offering Ray and Fraser the bed. Fraser had given token protest, but when Harrison pointed out that they were both about fifteen years older than him and they had arthritis and everything to worry about, Ray had narrowed his eyes, then clapped a hand over Fraser's mouth and dragged him to the bed without a word.
So of course there was no way Harrison could sleep after seeing that.
He'd shrugged on the jacket and slipped out the door as quietly as he could, and now he stood huddled in the frigid air, watching his breath crystallize and wishing he'd stopped to put on shoes.
Harrison was no stranger to the wrong end of the sunrise. He'd just usually had a lot more fun beforehand.
Everything was still pretty much a blur in his mind. The cops had come, and had looked about ready to arrest everyone in the room, the three of them included. Ray lost his temper twice, and Fraser barely managed to restrain him from taking a swing; he'd been building up to volcanic eruption number three when Fraser, in the falsely cheerful tones of a desperate man, had suggested they call Welsh.
When Welsh answered, Harrison could hear the yelling from the cell phone speaker all the way across the room. It was an hour earlier in Chicago, he thought, but apparently it was still too late for McGruff.
When they hung up, the Boston flatfoots looked suitably chastened, and in the end only held them for another four hours or so for questioning.
Harrison supposed it could have been worse. They could have ended up in the holding cells with Pete and the gang.
He frowned and pulled the jacket tighter around him; it felt weird, almost too big, nothing obvious but enough that he was noticing the sag. He shoved his hands in his pockets, and they emerged holding a matchbook and a pack of Marlboros.
That explained it. He'd grabbed Ray's coat by mistake, reached for black leather instead of brown.
His feet were almost entirely numb now, so Harrison sat down gingerly on the step and rested only his heels on the pavement, rubbing his feet against each other for warmth. He still had the cigarettes in his hand, and after a moment he gave a mental shrug and shook one out of the pack.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd smoked-- high school, probably-- but the movements felt old and familiar: strike the match, inhale, close his eyes...
...hack a lung out.
Harrison doubled over, coughing, the cigarette dangling limply between his fingers. He heard a snort behind him, and the door swung shut. He hadn't heard it open.
Unlaced motorcycle boots clomped over to stand beside him, and then Ray sat down, leaned over, and plucked the cigarette from Harrison's fingers with one hand. With the other, he slapped Harrison on the back.
"Those things'll kill ya, you know," he said, and took a deep drag.
Harrison scowled at him, eyes watering. He was wearing Fraser's leather bomber jacket, and wasn't that just the perfect metaphor for their whole twisted relationship, Harrison wearing Ray's jacket and Ray wearing Fraser's. "When did you start smoking, anyway?"
Ray leaned back against the step, propping his elbows on the concrete. "Junior high," he said around the filter, and closed his eyes. "Quit for Stella, started again for the McKenna gig. Quit for Vecchio, and then started for McKenna the sequel." He paused, then opened his eyes and glanced at Harrison.
"Actually," he said, and took the cigarette out of his mouth and stared at it, "I never wanna see one a these again." He stubbed it out on the step and waved vaguely. "Keep the pack."
"Gee, thanks," Harrison said, eyeing his unwanted cancer sticks.
They were quiet for a few minutes.
"So," Harrison said finally.
"So," Ray agreed. "Nice sunrise."
"Yeah, I'm overcome."
Ray didn't answer, and Harrison looked at him. His head was tipped back, his eyes closed. The winter sunlight highlighted his face with pale gold, sparking brightly off his hair. Even the black eye and the cut lip looked faded, washed out by the dawn.
Harrison swallowed. Then he steeled himself, leaned over, and brushed his lips against Ray's.
Ray's eyes snapped open and he stared at Harrison, but he didn't pull away. And after a second, he brushed back.
The kiss was slow and languorous and unhurried, an early-morning kind of kiss, and by the time his mouth was open and tongues were fully engaged, Harrison was hard and straining at his flannel pajama pants.
It occurred to him, briefly, that they were pretty much in public, sitting there half on the sidewalk, and he really didn't need another indecency charge on his record. One was embarrassing enough.
But it was early morning, and no one was on the street yet anyway, and Ray's full-day growth of stubble was scraping his cheeks, and he was there, Ray was alive and he was there--
And then a hand pushed against his chest, gentle but implacable, and Ray pulled back, breathing hard. Their lips separated with a faint pop.
Harrison licked his lips and stared at the sidewalk, trying to ignore the hand currently burning a hole in his shirt. "Sorry. I shouldn't-- yeah. That was-- that was dumb."
"I should," Ray began, and out of the corner of his eye Harrison saw his throat bob. He finally, mercifully, removed his hand and stood. "Go in. I should go in, so I'll just, I'll do that."
"Sure," Harrison said quickly, still not looking at him. "Yeah. Sure. Go."
Ray hesitated a moment more, and then the boots moved out of his field of vision, and he heard the door open and close again.
Harrison buried his face in his hands and groaned loudly. "Stupid," he told his knees.
They, of course, had nothing constructive to offer.
Ray closed the door and slumped back against it, closing his eyes. His breath came harsh and uneven, and he inhaled deeply and then exhaled, in and out until he thought he had himself under control.
Damn. Damn. That was-- yeah.
Harrison was right. That was dumb.
His dick didn't seem to agree.
Ray took one last deep breath and braced himself, then walked jerkily through the darkened office to the apartment beyond.
Ben was stretched out on one half of the bed, curled on his side with his arms flung across the empty space next to him. Ray stood over him for a few minutes, just watching, and felt his lips curve into a small, stupid smile. When they'd first started sleeping together, Ben had slept stiff as a board, like a corpse all laid out in his coffin, hands folded on his chest and everything. It had freaked Ray the hell out.
Finally he told Ben as much, and the next morning he woke up with 180 pounds of Mountie wrapped around him.
Ben stirred in his sleep and muttered, then stilled. Without opening his eyes, he patted the empty mattress with his left hand.
"Ray," he said, and then frowned and sat up. He looked around. "Ray?"
"Yeah," Ray said, and perched on the edge of the mattress. He gave Ben a light push. "Shove over."
Ben shifted without complaint, and Ray settled his ass more fully on the bed. He kicked his heels against the bedframe and scowled at the carpet.
"Ray," Ben said again, watching him. His voice was thick with sleep. "Are you--"
"I just made out with Harry," Ray said abruptly.
He felt Ben's stare burning into the back of his neck, and hunched his shoulders and picked a piece of lint off his knee.
"Ah," Ben said finally. "I think I may have as well."
Ray blinked and swiveled his head around to stare, his discomfort forgotten. "You think? Like you're not sure?"
"Ray--"
"'Cause that's the kinda thing I think you'd notice, your tongue in another guy's mouth--"
"Ray," Ben said, "Ray, Ray, Ray," and Ray snapped, "Jesus, Fraser, you said you wouldn't do that."
Ben's mouth snapped shut. He blinked at Ray with dark, injured-looking eyes.
Ray mentally replayed his last comment and winced. He'd called Ben Fraser.
He hadn't done that in a while.
"You started it," he muttered, staring at his knees again.
"I may have at that," Ben allowed, after a moment. "Ray-- this morning, when I arrived, Harrison said something about a kiss. I didn't press him for details, but I believe something may have... happened... between us on the first day."
"Oh," Ray said. He felt like an idiot.
And then he blinked and said, "Wait. You're hot for him too?"
He winced again as he spoke, wanting to take back the too as soon as he said it, but Ben didn't seem to notice. Or else he'd figured it was implied by the whole making-out thing. "Ray," he said, sounding amused. "Have you seen the two of you, side by side? In a mirror, perhaps?"
"Haven't been doing lots of primping lately, Ben."
There was a not-quite-comfortable silence.
"So," Ray said. "Uh. What do we do about this?"
Ben sighed.
"We go back to sleep," he said, flipping back the covers, "and talk about it when we're both in a condition to think straight."
"That pun better not've been on purpose."
"What--" Ben blinked. "Ah. Completely unintentional, I assure you."
"Sleep," Ray said, after a moment.
"Indubitably," Ben agreed.
Ray thought about it.
"Scoot over," he said finally, toeing off his boots and shrugging out of Ben's jacket. "My feet are fucking freezing."
Tru's grave was next to their mother's, on a sunny patch of green in the cemetery. Harrison approached them slowly, holding two ragged bouquets of daisies, one in each hand.
"Yo," he said, feeling awkward. "Um. Here." He knelt and placed the bouquets, one at each gravestone. "Uh, there you go."
He stood.
"Uh," he said again, and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Happy, uh, deathday, I guess. Sorry I didn't come by yesterday." He paused. "Busy. Figured you guys'd understand."
There was, of course, no answer.
"So," Harrison said finally, into the silence. "I did it. You know, I didn't think-- but I did it, and...."
He trailed off, started again. "How did you guys do it? Every week, or whenever, I just-- is it always this hard? I mean, I guess the mob's not always involved, which, way to throw the new guy a curveball, guys."
If they'd had anything to do with it. Which was by no means a given.
They had so little idea of how any of this worked. Davis and Harrison, they were the only ones left, and they were just the survivors with the second-hand stories. Who, really, was running things? How much had his mother known?
How much had his father known?
It was over two years now since they'd found out Richard Davies had been working with Jack Harper the whole time, though he'd never quite figured why. Since then, Harrison had used every resource at his disposal to track down his father, with a truly stunning lack of success.
He'd looked for Jack, too, and hadn't found him either. Until exactly one year and one day ago, when he turned up, shot Tru, and vanished once again.
Harrison knew he'd probably never find them. He also knew he'd never stop looking. Just like he'd never stop drinking, or gambling, or always chasing that perfect poker hand.
The curse of an addictive personality.
"Look, Tru...." He squatted down in front of her tombstone, tracing the engraved letters-- Trudence Davies. Beloved Sister. "Look, I know I'm not-- well, let's just say, I wouldn't be the universe's first choice to save its ass. I'm a fuck-up and an addict and I'll probably never change. But...."
He trailed off again.
"You know," he said, in a low voice, "if you were gonna pass this on to me, you coulda done it a year ago."
The tombstone stood still and silent.
"Yeah." Harrison sighed, rising again. "Don't work that way. I get it."
He hesitated, scratching absently at the back of his head.
"I'm not good at this crap," he muttered. "I don't know what to say. But, uh. Just."
He paused.
"Thanks," he said finally. "You know. If you had anything to do with this. Just... thanks. For thinking I could do it." He felt his lips curve into a faint smile. "And, hey, screw you for that too, because my life just wasn't complicated enough. But mostly thanks.
"And I wish I coulda helped you. Both of you."
A chill wind shook the leafless tree behind him.
"Yeah," Harrison said, and turned away. "That's it."
As he walked back to the car, he thought he saw a familiar figure, short and stocky with tousled dark hair. But when he looked again, Jack Harper was nowhere in sight.
"Seein' things," he muttered, sliding into the driver's seat.
He checked the backseat before he started the car, just to be sure.
Harrison was already gone when Ray and Benton woke up. It was just after noon, and Ray looked like he could happily sleep a few more hours, but Benton pointed out that it was no way to repay their host's hospitality, lolling around in bed all day. Ray had, in turn, pointed out that Harrison was unlikely to care.
So Benton offered to make pancakes, and that got Ray up in a hurry.
He cooked while Ray showered, losing himself in the pleasant mindlessness of the task, letting his thoughts wander amongst various subjects of no consequence. He was deliberately avoiding the big issues; they were there, and he'd have to think about them eventually, but for now he intended to enjoy the reprieve.
When Ray emerged, dressed in his own grimy jeans and one of Harrison's T-shirts stretched tight across his chest, towel-drying his hair, Benton handed him a plate of pancakes without a word.
They sat down at what looked like a card table and ate in companionable quiet. Benton eyed Ray's slowly-drying hair, soft and mussed like a duckling's down, and resisted the urge to reach across the table and pet it.
He waited until Ray shoveled the last syrup-drenched forkful into his mouth, then stood and cleared the plates away, depositing them in the sink before he broke the silence. "We should talk."
Ray grunted into his coffee. Benton took that as an assent.
"My father," he began, sitting down at the card table again, "once told me that man is an inherently polygamous creature. The mating habits of apes, in order to ensure the survival of the species, entail--"
"Ben," Ray interrupted, looking a little green. "Remember those things we don't talk about at breakfast?"
"Certainly, Ray," Benton said. "Corpses, rotting caribou skins, Diefenbaker's digestive problems, your ex-wife's relationship with Ray Vecchio--"
"Yeah, thanks for the recap, Ben." Ray pushed his coffee away, looking resigned. "Let's add monkey mating habits and your father's sex life, and go from there."
Benton stared at him, feeling a little lost. Without analogy, he had no idea how to start this conversation.
Ray sighed. "Look. I stepped out. You did too, but it didn't count. We think. I don't--" He paused, and Benton saw him swallow. "I don't wanna lose you, that's the last thing I want, but, uh, I think it's your call right now."
"God no," Benton said immediately. "I don't, why would I want--"
"I'm just saying, you got the right to be pissed--"
"Ray, what part of we both erred don't you understand?"
"Air--" Ray began, and squinted. "Oh. Got it. Don't stop on my account."
Benton sighed. "Who did or didn't do what is not at issue here. Clearly we both find Harrison attractive, and clearly he's attracted to you as well."
"And you," Ray pointed out.
Benton frowned. "Do you think so?"
"Please. I saw him checking out your ass. Boy's got taste, I'll give him that."
"Of course," Benton mused, "there is one obvious solution," and then he stopped and quailed at the gleam in Ray's eye.
"Ben," Ray said, his wide, mischievous grin giving lie to his faux-scandalized tone. "Have you been reading the Playgirl letter columns again?"
"No!" Benton felt his face heat. "I don't-- I mean, I never--"
"'Dear Playgirl, I never thought this would happen to me--'"
"Ray!" Benton protested.
"'This weekend I had a Mountie sandwich--'"
Lord, his cheeks were burning, but he couldn't resist pointing out the obvious. "You're not a Mountie."
"I could be," Ray said, with another unsettling gleam.
"Ray--"
"Come on, the hat? The hat's got style. I could pull off the hat."
Benton had a sudden flash of Ray during the Volpe case, dressed in red serge and tied to a chair, and found himself painfully hard.
"Yes," he managed to say, through dry lips. "You could."
Ray gave him a shrewd look. Then he smiled, and his eyes became heated and heavy-lidded.
"Y'know," he said softly, "that's actually not such a bad idea."
Benton stared at him; his mind was, for once, a complete blank. "You want to enlist?"
"Yeah, not so much," Ray said, with a quick crack of his neck. His smile became a smirk. "The other thing, I mean. The Harry thing. Think about it."
Benton continued to stare. Ray's right eye was twitching, the unbruised one. Underneath his bluster, he was nervous.
And then he thought about it-- Ray, and Harrison, who looked so much like Ray, two tousled blond heads locked at the lips, two slender, wiry bodies tangled together, and himself tangled with them-- needy, grasping....
Suddenly the room felt far too small.
"Yeah," Ray said softly, watching him. His eyes were smoldering. "Just think about it."
He opened his mouth, then shut it again. He had no words.
And then, from the front office, came the sound of a key in the lock.
Ray's head snapped around, craning over his shoulder to look for the source of the sound. Then he glanced back at Benton, and his lips curved into a smile at once rueful and devilish.
"So," he said brightly. "You wanna ask him, or should I?"
Benton swallowed.
Harrison smelled breakfast as soon as he walked in the door, and blindly followed his nose into the kitchen, where to his immense surprise and delight he found a stack of pancakes waiting. He picked one up with his fingers and took a huge bite, and that was when he turned and saw Ray and Fraser sitting at the card table, staring at him.
"What?" he asked, through a mouthful of pancake.
Ray's eyes narrowed, and he gave Harrison a long, slow head-to-toe look. "Y'look good," he said. "What's the occasion?"
Harrison swallowed with a mighty effort and glanced down at himself. He was wearing his only suit-- wrinkled and ragged, now, but a definite stab at respectability.
"Nothing," he said after a moment. "Business. Boring." He didn't want to talk about Tru or his mother now. He figured he'd already done enough wallowing for about a month.
He grabbed another pancake and folded it up like a burrito. Two pairs of eyes followed it to his mouth.
"Okay, what?" he demanded again. "I got something in my teeth or what?"
They exchanged an unreadable look, except maybe it wasn't so unreadable to them, because Ray nodded and stood.
"Finish eating," Ray said, in a low voice.
Harrison just stared at him for a moment. Then he leaned over the trash can, opened the lid, and spit out a mouthful of half-chewed pancake.
When he straightened, Ray looked kind of stunned. "That," he said after a moment, "was disgusting."
"Yeah, 'cause I'm usually such a beauty queen. What's the deal?"
Ray glanced back at Fraser again. Then he gave Harrison a slow, knowing smirk.
Harrison took an automatic step back, and felt the edge of the kitchen counter pressing into his back. For just an instant, he had a sudden, bizarre flash of déjà vu.
And then Ray was crowding him against the counter, hands rising to cup the back of his head, and Harrison had just enough time to shoot Fraser a quick, panicked look before he was being kissed, quite thoroughly kissed and he kept his eyes open, because he wouldn't believe this if he didn't see it, and also because Fraser was giving them this intensely hot look and Harrison couldn't tear his eyes away.
He tried grabbing for Ray's shoulders, missed and ended up clutching his T-shirt instead, and-- he glanced down-- holy crap, Ray was wearing his shirt, the faded gray one with Kiss me, I'm shitfaced emblazoned across the front in green, and Fraser was still watching, and damned if he didn't almost come right there.
Instead, he clung doggedly to the front of Ray's shirt, his shirt, and kissed back until his brain caught up with his mouth, and then he managed somehow to wrench his lips away from Ray's and gasp, "Wait, what?"
Ray took a deep breath. "Do you--" he began, and his voice was so quiet, so tentative, so un-Ray-like that Harrison could only gape-- "d'you want this?"
Harrison hesitated, glancing at Fraser again.
"Both of us," Fraser clarified, and sat back in his chair in a languid sprawl.
Which was just. Okay. He'd never seen Fraser sitting like that, even when he was drunk off his ass. Then he'd just kind of... drooped a little. No sprawling, no languid, and holy God the Mountie was pure sex on a stick.
He supposed it was true what they said-- it never rained but it poured. He hadn't had gay sex in over five years, and now he'd sucked off Isaac St. Germain in the men's room at Wally's one day, and was being offered a threesome the next.
"It's not an essay question, Harry," Ray said. "Simple answer, check one, yes or no."
"You're serious," Harrison said weakly.
"As a heart attack," Ray agreed, and Harrison couldn't help it; he reached up and touched the bruised skin around Ray's left eye, and Ray closed his eyes and didn't pull away.
"We match," Harrison said, referring to his own faded shiner.
"Pair a fucking bookends," Ray murmured.
Fraser cleared his throat and stood. "Is that a yes?"
Harrison turned and stared at him. Ray started doing very distracting things to his neck.
"You're serious too," he said, because this was-- it was weird. Stuff like this didn't just happen.
"I am," Fraser said softly.
Hot damn, Harrison thought, and closed his eyes.
And then he opened them again, as a disturbing thought occurred to him, and he squeaked, "Hey, no, wait," as Ray's mouth started to move down over his collarbone. He twisted his hands in Ray's hair and pulled, and Ray glared up at him.
"Now what?"
"This isn't, like, pity sex, is it?" Harrison asked, a little desperately. "I mean, it's not, like, 'good job' sex, or 'here, have a biscuit' sex, or--"
"It's gonna be nonexistent sex in a minute, you don't shut up," Ray growled. The vibrations traveled all the way to Harrison's toes, veering off and making a not-so-quick pit stop at his dick, and his brain immediately shut off.
"Nngh," he said intelligently.
"I assure you," Fraser said, moving closer, "this is something we both want."
Harrison sucked in a surprised breath and opened his mouth to say-- something, anything, something stupid probably, something that'd kill the mood right there and then Ray would stop nipping at his chest through his rumpled dress shirt, and Fraser would go sit back down and he'd be left alone with the pancakes-- so all in all, it was a damn good thing Fraser kissed him right about then.
And. Oh yeah. He remembered that kiss.
Harrison kissed back as hard as he could, and his hands rose, one tangling in each head of hair, and the last coherent thought he had for a while was that he hoped he'd locked the front door.
Ray, who was a fairly neurotic person at heart and really only made a token effort to hide it, at first couldn't help remembering all the things he'd heard about threesomes-- that they never ended well, that it was a damn good way to get ignored by two people at once, and more often than not somebody ended up with an elbow in the face, and one black eye was quite enough, thank you very much.
But Harrison's hand was gripping his hair, and Harrison was squirming under his mouth and making small, needy sounds, and Ben was warm and solid and there beside him, and then Ray thought that getting the only two men he'd ever slept with in bed with him, together, was maybe the best idea he'd ever heard.
And the fact that Ben had suggested it, even jokingly, was kind of blowing his mind.
He felt it when Ben broke the kiss, felt Harrison shudder, and it was like one of those infinite loop things Ben had told him about, with feedback cycling from Ben into Harry and then back to him, and he inhaled sharply against Harry's skin, and felt Ben gasp and lean in closer in response, and it just kept going, and--
"Bed," Harry said, sounding strangled. "Bed, bed, bed--"
Somehow they made it across the room, shedding clothes all the way, and Harrison hit the bed first and fell backwards across it, his dress shirt unbuttoned and stark against his flushed skin. Ben collapsed next, and pulled Ray down with him, and it was like the best wrestling ever, the three of them just squirming against each other for a few minutes, jockeying for position, and then Harrison fell off the bed.
Ray froze. He and Ben glanced at each other, and then they turned as one and peered over the edge of the mattress.
Harrison waved up at them. He looked resigned. "I knew it wasn't big enough."
"If I may," Ben began, "if we move the mattress to the floor, we can minimize the risk of any more such incidents."
"See," Ray told Harrison, "that's why I keep him around. He's a friggin' genius."
"Nonsense, Ray," Ben said. "I'm merely problem-solving oriented."
The nature of threesomes, Benton knew, was to break down into a pair and an extra. It was a law of nature, a logical precept; any complex combination will, over time, eventually be reduced to its component parts.
He knew, and he would have told Ray as much, if his mental functions hadn't been (however briefly) overshadowed by his hormones.
However, if that happened, it occurred to him that he wouldn't mind that much, as long as he could enjoy the view.
Perhaps he should have been more concerned. Harrison was younger, after all, and admittedly a better match for Ray in temperament, assuming they wouldn't kill each other because of it. But Benton had spent seven years with Ray, five of those years in a close relationship together, and that relationship had been tried by innumerable hardships, including disapproving parents and co-workers, Ray's protracted withdrawal from instant coffee and M&Ms during their quest for the Hand of Franklin, and a fundamental breakdown of communication during a case involving an illegal salvage operation and a ghost ship. While Benton had learned the hard way to avoid developing an excessive sense of security when it came to interpersonal relationships, he knew that in the end, Ray would be there if he wanted him, and vice versa.
So when he found himself gradually withdrawing to the edge of the mattress, on the periphery of the action, so to speak, he welcomed the reprieve and took the opportunity to shamelessly ogle the two remaining participants.
Ray was fully nude, the remainder of his clothes scattered on the floor around the mattress. Harrison was in a similar state of undress, though he still wore his rumpled dress shirt, unbuttoned down the front; Ray had refused to let him remove it. "Y'look good like that," he'd said, when Harrison tried to shrug it off. "Debunked-- debased-- Ben, what's the word?"
"Debauched," Benton suggested, eyeing Harrison's swollen lips and his flushed cheeks, the teeth-reddened skin down the front of his chest.
"Yeah, and I feel like an idiot," Harrison said. But he looked pleased, and he kept the shirt on.
And now Ray had him pinned to the mattress, one hand holding his right wrist above his head, the other reaching down to where their bodies joined at the hips, deftly manipulating Harrison's erection and, on occasion, his own. Harrison twisted beneath him, breathing hard, craning his neck upwards to capture Ray's mouth with his own; but Ray only brushed his lips briefly before pulling back again, and Harrison made a desperate, hungry sound low in his throat. Afternoon sunlight filtered through the grimy curtains, painting their sweaty bodies with a pale orange glow and highlighting their damp, tousled blond hair with streaks of dark gold.
The sound of harsh pants filled the room. Benton realized belatedly that some of the gasps were his.
He leaned back on his elbows, watching the tangled bodies with an avid, heavy-lidded gaze, and reached down between his own legs.
Harrison strained upwards again, but this time his mouth strove for Ray's ear, and he whispered something that caused his cheeks to burn and made Ray jerk and shudder above him. And then Ray took a deep breath and glanced over his shoulder at Benton, which was a small shock because he'd suspected they'd forgotten he was there, and he was surprised to realize that it was a relief; perhaps he had been less sanguine about the idea than he had thought.
Benton forced himself to concentrate on the movement of Ray's lips, to listen to his words.
"I got a better idea," Ray said.
Harrison glanced at him, too, and Benton didn't miss his sudden pallor, or the infinitesimal widening of his eyes.
Benton took a deep breath. His voice, when he spoke, was hoarser than he'd expected. "What idea, Ray?"
Ray gave him Grin #2-- the dangerous shark's grin, the one that struck fear into the hearts of perpetrators and mindless lust into one Benton Fraser.
"Do him," he said simply, and rolled off of Harrison, leaving him sprawled and exposed. "It's my turn to watch."
Harrison's eyes darted back and forth between them, like those of a spectator at a tennis match. He seemed to be having trouble forming words.
"You don't have to," Benton heard himself say, though he was fairly certain that the very idea of Ray watching him take Harrison had shut down the majority of his higher brain functions. He licked his lips, and was aware of two pairs of blue eyes fixating on his mouth. "If you don't want-- that--"
"He does," Ray said, with another wolfish grin. "Don't you, Harry?"
Harrison squirmed under their regard. "What am I, twelve? Are you gonna screw me or gimme a ride in your big car?"
"Was that an invitation?" Benton countered.
Tellingly, Harrison's erection, long and slender and deep red, twitched between his legs. Benton stared at it, at the stark white shirttails against his flushed skin, and realized that it was in fact Ray who was the genius, at least when it came to matters of aesthetics. Ray may not have known much about art, but he knew what he liked.
Harrison swallowed, and his throat bobbed enticingly above his open collar. "What if it was?"
Ray's grin widened. "I got a big car," he purred.
Harrison snorted and rolled his eyes, and Benton took the opportunity to issue a mild protest. "I don't believe the size of your car is under discussion at the moment, Ray."
"You don't got a car, Ben."
"And thus I object to your metaphor."
"So should I get the lube, or just go get a snack?" Harrison sounded irritated.
"Maybe some winter-weight," Ray muttered, then raised his voice. "Sounds like an offer to me."
"Then by all means," Benton said, "let's forego the snack."
"Right," Harrison said, suddenly looking a lot less annoyed and a lot more uncertain. "Sure. Um." He rolled over onto his stomach, and with a quick, unreadable glance over his shoulder, stretched an arm over his head and pulled open the bottom drawer of the dresser by the bed.
When he sat up and handed Benton a condom and a small tube of lubricant, Benton tried again. "Honestly, this isn't necessary," he began. "If you're not comfortable--"
Harrison grabbed the sides of his face and silenced him with a rough, sloppy kiss.
When he pulled back, he was glaring and Benton was gasping for breath. "Shove it," Harrison said distinctly, "and stick it up my ass. Got it?"
Benton gulped.
"Absolutely," he said.
"Damn," Ray said, "you're a real romantic, Harry."
There was no reason to be nervous, and Harrison told himself as much. After all, he'd asked Ray to screw him. It had been five years since he'd had anything up there bigger than a finger, but even all that time hadn't dimmed the memory of one of the best orgasms of his life. If it was Fraser instead of Ray-- well, he was already naked with the guy, he had to trust Fraser at least a little.
It was just, there was still something about Fraser that intimidated him. He had the same kind of look Tru used to get sometimes, of something dark and quiet and dangerous going on somewhere behind his outward mask. Granted, Fraser's mask was politeness while Tru's had been a kind of exaggerated bitchiness, but otherwise the comparison held up, and goddamn did he not need to be thinking about Tru right now.
Fraser scared the shit out of him sometimes, and he couldn't even say why.
But he'd committed, he was doing this, because his mouth was always two steps ahead of his brain and his mouth loved a challenge. So Harrison waited on his hands and knees, with his eyes closed and his head bowed, taking deep, steadying breaths, and at the first slick touch on his ass he somehow managed not to jump off the mattress.
Fraser stopped, so clearly he'd made some reaction. "Are you all right?"
"Hurry up," Harrison growled.
There was a brief pause, and then the probing resumed and he forced himself to relax. The mattress dipped beneath him, and then Ray's long fingers grasped his chin, raising his head none too gently into a kiss.
The kiss itself was soft and leisurely, Ray's tongue flicking only briefly against his own before retreating again, and when he pulled back there were two fingers in Harrison's ass and he was pushing back against Fraser's hand, panting for more.
A third finger slipped in, accompanied by a slow, tight burn and a breathtaking sensation of fullness, and Ray made a faint, strangled sound. "God, that's hot," he said, in a low voice that seemed to stroke every inch of Harrison's skin. "Ben, Harry, Jesus."
"He can't," Harrison gasped, "he can't help you now," and then with one last stretch the fingers were gone, leaving him empty and gaping, and the now turned into a long, heartfelt groan.
"Smartass," Ray whispered against the side of his throat, and then he bit down and started to suck.
Harrison was only vaguely aware of the sound of crinkling foil behind him, of Fraser shifting on the mattress; every nerve in his body was focused on the sharp point of pain-pleasure in his neck, the blood beneath his skin sizzling between Ray's teeth. He knew it would leave a mark, and the thought made his dick surge. He wondered dimly if he owned any turtlenecks, then realized he was self-employed and he wasn't trying to impress anyone anymore, and then he just closed his eyes again and enjoyed the sensations.
The blunt pressure against his ass shocked him back to awareness, but it was a familiar, almost welcoming pressure, like shifting the Mustang into fifth gear on a long empty stretch of highway; just an instant of resistance before the gearshift slipped home, and then power, vibrating through his body like the best sex in the world. Except this was sex, and it hurt more than he'd expected the second time would, but it had been five years after all.
Fraser slid in slowly, inch by excruciating fucking inch, and for a moment there was just the pain-- Fraser was thicker than he remembered Ray being, or maybe his memory had just been clouded by orgasm; but thinking of that reminded him of how unbelievably good it could be, and he pushed back and forced out through gritted teeth, "While I'm young, Fraser."
"Ray," Fraser hissed, and then he dug his fingers into Harrison's hips and slammed home.
For a second he couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't even think. If he thought he'd been full before, now he was bursting at the fucking seams, and he wasn't sure his body could take it.
His mouth had opened in an instinctive O, and Ray seemed to take it as an invitation. The kiss was harder this time, a rough, thrusting counterpoint to the dizzying pressure in his ass, and he felt himself melt into it, overwhelmed by Ray's furious need.
Then Fraser pulled out partway, and thrust in again at a slightly different angle, and. There. That was the spot.
Harrison shuddered and dug his fingers into the mattress; he wanted to grab onto Ray, feel slick skin and tensed muscles under his hands, but he needed them beneath him for balance. But it wasn't enough, it wasn't fair, and when Ray pulled back again, he heard himself whimper, and winced inwardly at the raw hunger of the sound.
Ray glanced over his head at Fraser, and made some gesture Harrison had no hope of interpreting, even if he'd had enough blood left in his brain for critical thinking. But Fraser seemed to get it, if Ray's quick, pleased grin was any indication. It wasn't like his earlier grins, the sharp and kind of unnerving ones; this smile was brilliant and oddly sweet, free of the wry edge that made him look so cynical and world-weary, and in Harrison's opinion it didn't last nearly long enough.
Then he was too distracted to have any opinions at all, because Fraser's arms were wrapping around his chest and pulling him backwards, and the whole world just kind of tilted around him. Fraser's dick shifted inside him, rubbing against that magic spot again and wrenching a hoarse yell from his throat, and he'd thought Fraser was balls-deep before but now Harrison was sitting on his fucking lap, speared open like a pig on a spit, and there was nowhere to go but down.
He had just enough air left in his lungs to breathe, "Holy shit."
Ray crouched down in front of him. His eyes were dark. "How you doin'?" he asked quietly.
Harrison stared at him, uncomprehending. "I. Huh?"
Ray's lips quirked. "Good?"
"Ray," Fraser said again, while Harrison was still moving his lips soundlessly, trying to find words. He sounded choked, and Harrison shuddered and gave up on the whole speaking thing. His dick ached in the cool air, and he grasped it, intending to provide some much-needed friction.
"Nuh-uh," Ray said, pushing his hand away. "That's mine."
Somehow Harrison found his voice. "Actually," he managed to say, "I'm pretty sure it's-- ngah-- mine."
"Try the not-talking thing again," Ray advised, closing his fingers around Harrison's hard-on. "That worked for you."
He leaned over Harrison's shoulder, and Fraser shifted beneath Harrison and tilted forward to meet him, and the movement sent bright lights arcing behind Harrison's eyelids.
Fraser started moving his hips.
He fucked Harrison as he kissed Ray, deep, thorough strokes that vaporized Harrison's brain cells with each impact. Ray pumped his dick in time with each thrust, and before long Harrison felt his balls draw up, tasted the faint metallic prick in the back of his throat that told him he was close.
Harrison fisted his hands in Ray's short hair, feeling like if he didn't hold onto something he'd just fly apart, a thousand little Harrison pieces and each one being fucked and stroked within an inch of his life. He clutched at the blond spikes like they were a lifeline and stared blindly at the wall, thinking: Holy crap, this is my life.
Then orgasm hit, and he wasn't thinking about much of anything.
As soon as Ben carefully pulled out, Harrison collapsed against Ray, his eyelids already sliding closed. "That was good," he mumbled into Ray's collarbone. "'Sgood. I'm gonna lie down now."
Ray caught him and lowered him face-down to the mattress, trying not to laugh. "You do that, Harry."
"That's the plan," Harrison said. His head was turned to the side, and he was watching Ray with heavy-lidded eyes.
Looking at him, Ray felt a sudden rush of absurd affection. He was proud of the kid. Harrison had clawed his way up in the world, despite having just lost his sister, and then when life threw him another curveball he'd managed to pull that off too.
And yet, lying there rumpled and half-asleep, he still looked ridiculously young.
He glanced over his shoulder. Ben was in the bathroom, probably looking for a trash can. Then he leaned over Harrison, resting a hand on his shoulder, and lowered his lips to Harrison's ear.
"Thanks," he murmured.
When he pulled back, Harrison blinked up at him sleepily. "What for?"
"I'm not dead," Ray said. "I kind of like it. So thanks."
"Oh, right," Harrison said, and yawned. "Well, it was a personal favor. 'Cause I like you."
Ray reached for Harrison's left arm and turned it around, palm-up. His sleeve had been pushed back to his elbow, and Ray traced a light finger over the tattoo etched there.
"Likewise," he said softly.
Harrison's glanced away, downward, and then he frowned. "You're still," he began, and stopped.
Ray looked down too. He was still hard, though he'd flagged a bit. "Don't worry about it," he told Harrison. "I got it covered."
Ben emerged from the bathroom, and Ray rose to his feet and crossed the room. Ben's eyes darkened as he saw him, and he stopped in his tracks, waiting.
Ray pushed Ben back against the wall and leaned forward, bracing himself against his forearm. Ben's mouth was swollen and flushed, and Ray ran a thumb lightly over his lower lip before kissing him again.
Behind him, Harrison gave an appreciative grunt.
Ray closed his eyes and forgot about everything that wasn't Ben, here, now, under his hands and his lips, wasn't sweaty, come-streaked skin hot against his hard-on; and before he knew it he was humping Ben's hip and grabbing at his hair, breathless and dizzy with the urgency of it.
Ben hummed against his mouth, a low, wordless vibration of pleasure, and his hands came up behind Ray's head and gripped the sides of his skull. He twisted, and Ray was in no condition to offer resistance. A second later, he was the one with his back against the wall, and with one last, lingering kiss, Ben slid slowly down his body to his knees.
"Oh yeah," Ray gasped, "yeah that's good. Oh shit--"
He looked down just as Ben swallowed, taking him all the way down his throat, and then Ben glanced up at him, his eyes dark and hungry and burning.
"Jesus Christmas," Ray said, and tightened his fingers in Ben's hair.
He had to look away, had to or he'd lose it right there-- so he glanced up, meeting Harrison's eyes instead, and shit, that wasn't much better. Harrison was still lying on the mattress, curled up on his side now, and his eyes glittered appreciatively as he watched. A small, satisfied smile curved his lips, and he ran an absent hand through the come drying on his stomach.
"Gah," Ray said. He couldn't stop the sudden jerk of his hips, but Ben took it in stride, pulling back briefly and then drawing him back in.
It seemed safest to close his eyes, so Ray did, letting his head fall back against the wall with a thump. Ben gripped his hips with strong, sure hands, hard enough to bruise, and started sucking in earnest.
"Love you," Ray whispered into the darkness, just before he came.
Harrison was drifting on the edge of sleep, close enough to reach out and touch, when Ray's drowsy voice jerked him back to consciousness.
"What's HTD?"
It took him a minute to put the question in context. Then he sighed and rolled over, reluctantly opening his eyes.
Ray lay on his side, watching Harrison with pale, hooded eyes. Behind him, Fraser slept soundlessly, his head pillowed against Ray's shoulder.
"You're the cop," Harrison said. "Figure it out."
"Not anymore," Ray said, but his eyes came into focus as he thought about it. "The H and D I got. But--"
He stopped.
"Yeah," Harrison said, into the silence. He closed his eyes again. "It was a year ago yesterday."
"Holy crap," Ray said, after a pause. "Shitty day for it."
Harrison shrugged, or tried to anyway; the whole lying-down thing made it kind of half-assed. "That's how it was for her too. Anniversary of our mother's death, suddenly Tru's got superpowers."
"Well thank fuck for symmetry, then."
"She left me everything she had," Harrison said after a moment. He didn't open his eyes; it was easier to talk that way. And he realized, to his surprise, that he did want to talk about it. "I'd just finished my third year working at Fatman's. Detective agency," he added, for clarification. "Three years of regular investigative work in Massachusetts, and then you can get a P.I. license. I'd been talking about opening my own place, more bullshit than anything really, like where was I gonna get the money for that, and then--" He broke off and pressed his lips together, not sure what else would come out if he kept going.
Ray got it. "Then, a year ago."
"Yesterday," Harrison agreed. "What she left, and everything I had, it was just enough." He hesitated. "Not like I was gonna do anything else with it, except maybe lose it all at the track."
"Harrison and Tru Davies."
He felt his lips twist in a smile, was surprised to realize it was mostly genuine. "Think of her like the silent partner."
It hurt less now, to think about it. It was weird, but this whole thing, Tru's gift-- his gift, now. Like she wasn't really dead, if he had that part of her.
He wondered if she'd felt the same way about Mom. If he would too.
He sighed and opened his eyes, glancing at his alarm clock. "Jesus, it ain't even dark yet and we're half-asleep. This is pathetic."
"Understandable," Ray said, "given the extremely athletic sex."
Harrison shifted slightly, feeling the soreness and residual burn, and couldn't stop the silly, sated grin that spread over his face. "Yeah, that was fun."
"Go to sleep," came Fraser's muffled voice from somewhere around Ray's armpit, and Harrison jerked guiltily; he hadn't realized they'd woken him up. Then Fraser added, "You have your date tomorrow, don't you?" and suddenly Harrison felt a lot less guilty.
Ray's expression sharpened, and he gave Harrison a shrewd look. "Date?"
Harrison reached over him and smacked the first part of Fraser that he found, which turned out to be his bicep. "Thanks a lot, you fuck."
"Isaac, isn't it?" Fraser continued, unperturbed. "What is the event, anyway?"
"Party," Harrison mumbled, burying his face in the mattress. "No big."
"You got a date." Ray sounded gleeful.
Harrison covered his head with his hands. "Shut up, I'm sleepy."
"He offered the pleasure of his company, in exchange for a favor," Fraser told Ray. "Though I suspect the gesture wasn't an entirely selfless one. Was it, Harrison?"
Harrison peeked through his fingers. Fraser was watching him, his chin resting on Ray's bicep, just above his tattoo. Ray glanced back and forth between them, looking far too amused.
"You guys suck," Harrison said. "I'm not talking to you anymore."
"Our little boy's all grown up," Ray said, with an evil smirk.
He scowled at them. "You could be a little more sympathetic. I did bargain my virtue in exchange for your life."
Ray snorted. "Virtue?"
"That would be more convincing," Fraser agreed, "if you didn't look so-- Ray, what's the phrase?"
"Fucked out," Ray supplied.
"There is a perfectly good lawn chair over there," Harrison said. "In case you were wondering."
Ray considered this.
"Nah," he said with another smirk. "I like it here."
"You suck," Harrison said again, and dragged the comforter off the carpet and over his head.
There was a moment of silence.
"That's very true," Fraser said. "We do."
"Damn skippy," Ray said.
"I'm ignoring you now," Harrison said.
He expected to feel different afterwards. Different how, he wasn't sure, but he'd just had incredibly hot sex with two incredibly hot men, and that was supposed to mean something. Or so he thought. He wasn't sure what a guy was supposed to do in this situation. Write a letter to Penthouse, maybe.
But when Harrison woke up, to find the apartment dark and quiet and Fraser wrapped around him like a kid clutching a teddy bear, all he really felt was sated and kind of sore. Also, his arm was asleep.
He extricated himself carefully from Fraser's grasp and then sat up, looking around in the dark. Ray's absence didn't worry him; he heard the familiar sound of cards being shuffled, and sure enough, there was Ray at the card table, his jeans unbuttoned and hanging loosely on his hips.
Harrison yawned and stretched, shaking some life back into his arm, and-- yep, there were the pins and needles. He gritted his teeth and stood, careful not to disturb Fraser.
Ray looked up as he approached. "Hey," he said quietly.
He yawned again, wrapping an abandoned blanket around his waist, and sat down. "What's up?"
Ray glanced at the cards in his hand as though he had forgotten they were there. "Dunno. Solitaire, I guess."
"Hand 'em over," Harrison said, and shuffled and cut the deck expertly when Ray complied.
Ray's eyes slid past him to the mattress, and Fraser's still-sleeping form. His lips twitched. "Wish I'd had a camera, the two of you all wrapped up like that."
"Small favors," Harrison muttered. He dealt Ray two cards.
"He never used to cuddle," Ray continued. He slumped back in his chair, and something in his eyes looked dark and distant, like he wasn't really there. "Used to sleep like a fucking corpse. I think he's forgotten how."
Harrison took two cards for himself. Seven and a three. Shit. He kept his gaze fixed on the cards and cleared his throat. "Uh, so you, you're okay with this?"
"Huh?" Ray's eyes lost their unfocused look. Now he just looked puzzled.
"Us," Harrison said, feeling awkward. "I mean, that. I mean, you guys and... me." He coughed again. "No, ah, territorial issues or anything?"
"Harry," Ray said, sounding amused. "It was my idea."
He felt himself flush, and was chagrined; after everything he'd done in the past couple days, he would have thought he'd forgotten how. "Oh," he said finally, uncertain how to react.
"Well," Ray said. "Ben's too. Sort of." He leaned forward and picked up his cards, then nodded. "I'm good."
"Shit," Harrison said. He drew another card, a five. "Shit."
"C'mon, Harry, where's your game face?"
"Same place as my pants," Harrison said, without looking up. His next card was a ten, and he threw the hand down on the table with a grunt. "You win."
"I do," Ray said, with an odd, quiet intensity that made Harrison look up.
And then he got it.
"Listen," he began, and paused, uncertain how to begin. "Listen, the whole dying thing... it happened to me too. Hell, it happened to Fraser. I just, if you wanna talk--"
"Not really," Ray said, not quite under his breath.
Harrison snorted. "Or maybe we could just start a club. Make up a secret handshake and everything."
There was another silence, and then Ray said abruptly, "So this frienda yours."
He frowned as he started to shuffle again. "Who?"
"The guy," Ray said, waving a hand vaguely. "Your friend, whatsisname, Isaac."
Harrison froze. Then, very deliberately, he cut the deck and shuffled once more.
"Look," Ray said, leaning forward, "no teasing, no jokes. What's the deal?"
He could have played dumb. He didn't.
He sighed. "I needed a favor, is all. There's this party or something tomorrow night--" he glanced at the clock-- "well, tonight now, he just wants some company. That's it."
He didn't mention the blowjob in the men's room at Wally's. He wasn't quite sure how he felt about that yet.
"It's not, like, a straight-up trade," he added. "I mean. It's not like that."
And it wasn't, really. Isaac took what he could get, but he wouldn't hold Harrison to anything.
He didn't think.
Ray, unfortunately, wasn't done. "If you don't wanna do it--"
"That's the thing," Harrison said, and swallowed. His mouth felt dry. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a drink. "I, uh. I kinda do."
Ray sat back, his eyes narrowing.
"I think," Harrison added.
Ray didn't say anything.
He folded his arms on the table and leaned forward, burying his face in the crooks of his elbows, still gripping the deck of cards in one hand. "I don't know," he mumbled into the tabletop. "I'm a fucking-- I'm a mess. I dunno."
There was a pause, and then he felt a light touch on the back of his head and nearly jumped out of his skin. But it was just Ray, smoothing his hair, and after a moment he relaxed again, closing his eyes.
He turned his head to the side, freeing his mouth, careful not to dislodge Ray's hand; it was oddly pleasant, being petted like this. "Thing is," he said, without opening his eyes, "since the first time... when we... I haven't. Since then. With a guy, I mean. Till today."
Yesterday, a voice in his head reminded him. He ignored it.
"Well," Ray said after a moment, "I couldn't tell. I'da thought you were a pro."
"Thank you so much."
"Any time," Ray said. He sounded like he was smirking.
"I just...." He sighed, without opening his eyes. "I don't think I can do it, you know? Deal with the baggage and all."
"Sounds like there's a lotta things you thought you couldn't do," Ray said quietly. "You've been wrong so far."
He didn't answer.
"Look," Ray said, "you wanna date this guy? Move in, shack up, make it legal?"
"Hell no," Harrison said, with a small shudder. Sure, he liked Isaac, but Isaac St. Germain was not exactly relationship material. He tried to ignore that same little voice when it reminded him that maybe he wasn't either. At least he was legit now, sort of. Isaac was a career criminal-- maybe not big time, but definitely connected, and definitely not the kind of guy you brought home to Mom.
Except his mother was dead, and his father... was irrelevant.
Ray's hand withdrew, and he tried not to make a disappointed sound. "So just go with it. Try it out, see where it goes. It don't gotta be a big thing, Harry."
"Jesus," Harrison said, into the ensuing silence. "I never used to, like, think about shit like this. What happened to me?"
It was Ray's turn to snort. "You grew up, kid. Happens to the best of us."
"Yeah, but why'd it have to happen to me?"
"Happens to the worst of us too."
Harrison looked up with narrowed eyes. Ray was grinning.
He sat up with a sigh and dealt Ray two more cards. "Come on, funny man, let's make this interesting."
Ray's grin became a smirk. "Well, I'd suggest strip blackjack, but...."
"Not that far to go," Harrison finished. "That's okay, I'll just take your money."
"Big talk."
Harrison wiggled his eyebrows and grinned back.
"Oh, hey," Ray said, as Harrison eyed the two tens in his hand as dispassionately as he could. "I called Welsh, filled him in."
Harrison glanced up. "Yeah?"
"He says they're gonna take down that bastard Krohn with extreme fucking prejudice. He also said you did, and I quote, 'not bad for a crook.'" He frowned at the cards in his hand. "Hit me."
"You tell him I'm not a crook anymore?" Harrison asked.
"Yeah, hey, now do it with the fingers."
Harrison blinked. "Was that a come-on?"
"You know, the fingers? V for victory? Fuck me," Ray added, looking dismayed, when Harrison gave him a blank stare. "You don't know Nixon?"
Harrison grinned again and slouched back in his chair, trying not to wince at the movement. "What, like, personally?"
Ray gave him a narrow look. Harrison attempted to look innocent. He suspected it was a lost cause.
"Shut up and hit me, you little twerp," Ray said.
Harrison took about fifty bucks from Ray, which was depressing. He didn't tell Ben. He didn't think he'd approve.
He left the office at some obscenely early hour, buoyed along by two Styrofoam cups of instant coffee-- one in each hand-- and by the time he left the main BPD precinct at One Schroeder Plaza, much, much later, he was starting to wish he hadn't been so quick to quit smoking again.
Ben was cooking something when he walked in. Harrison was nowhere in sight. "That took a while," Ben commented, glancing up from the stove.
Ray tossed his jacket on the back of a chair and slumped down in it with a sigh. "The head Fed from my old task force flew in this morning. Spent the whole damn day debriefing."
"Debriefing, huh?" came Harrison's voice from behind him. "Sounds like we missed a good time."
Ray glanced over his shoulder as Harrison emerged from the bathroom, wearing ratty jeans and a striped button-down shirt. He grinned. "You're wearing that?"
"Very funny," Harrison said, "and also, shut up." He brushed past Ben in the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, grabbing a beer.
Ray saw Ben hesitate, glancing at him. Harrison pointed at Ben without looking up and said, "Also, don't even start." Then he popped the cap and drained the bottle in five huge gulps.
"Ben," Ray said, "get the camera. I wanna record this, this momentous event."
"I hate you both," Harrison said, banging the empty bottle on the counter and storming out. The front door slammed behind him.
"He's tense," Ray said after a moment.
"Yes." Ben sounded unhappy. After a few seconds, he laid the wooden spoon carefully on a folded paper towel, then came to stand behind Ray and started kneading his shoulders.
Ray closed his eyes and let his head fall back, making appreciative noises.
"I telephoned the airline," Ben murmured. "If your business here is concluded, we can return home tomorrow morning."
Home. It was like a punch in the gut, but kind of in a good way.
"Yeah," Ray said, and immediately felt about fifty pounds lighter. "Yeah, let's blow this pop stand."
Ben's hands tightened briefly on his shoulders, and then with a light pat, he returned to the stove.
Ray just sat and watched, and it still sort of amazed him, the way he could spend so much time sitting and just looking at Ben. After Stella, he'd felt like he couldn't sit still for anything. He had to keep moving, keep talking, just keep going, and now suddenly, every once in a while, it felt good to just stop. Somewhere along the line, it had ceased to hurt.
They passed a few minutes in silence, Ray watching Ben's hands as they moved busily above the skillet, and then Ben dropped the spoon again and stilled his hands, bracing them against the counter as he lowered his head.
In a low voice, he said, "We should be able to do more for him."
Ray frowned. "Ben--"
"He saved your life. He saved my life. We should--"
He broke off, and Ray just stared at him, because he couldn't think of anything to say. Ben was right, and he knew it, and he didn't know what to do about it.
"He wouldn't listen," Ray said finally. "You know that."
Ben's hands curled into fists. "He did once. His sister, she convinced him, he went to meetings--"
"Ben," Ray said quietly, "he wouldn't listen to us."
For a moment, Ben didn't seem to have heard. Then he took a deep breath, nodded sharply, and once again reached for the spoon.
"Don't you look spiffy," Isaac said, as Harrison approached.
"I dress to impress," he agreed, tugging at his leather jacket.
He was nervous, and he thought it must have shown, but if so Isaac didn't comment. And looking at Isaac didn't help, because he was wearing a long-sleeved black shirt and black jeans underneath his long wool coat, and they were just tight enough to give Harrison a damn good idea of the body underneath.
Isaac leaned against the wall of the apartment building and hit one of the intercom buttons, and in the ensuing silence, Harrison had to ask. "This isn't, like, a kinky sex party or anything, is it?"
"You hoping I'll say yes or no?" Isaac's grin was not reassuring in the least.
"I'm hoping," Harrison said dryly, "you'll give me enough warning so I'll have time to run for the hills."
"Relax," Isaac said, his grin widening. "This ain't gonna be anywhere near that interesting. Just a bunch of really boring people with really boring friends."
The door buzzer sounded.
Harrison opened the door and gestured inside. "In that case, after you."
"Such a gentleman," Isaac said mockingly. His hip brushed against Harrison's as he passed.
Harrison swallowed, licked his lips, and followed.
The party was, as advertised, boring as hell, but at least there were a couple joints making the rounds. Harrison had expected-- well, he didn't know what exactly, but he'd kind of figured it would involve whips and chains in some way.
It was kind of a disappointment, and mostly a relief. Sure, Harrison was always up for a new experience, at least where sex was involved, but as Isaac handed him the butt-end of a joint and he pinched it between his fingers and tried to inhale without burning his lips, it occurred to him that this was... well, nicer. They were high and giggly, and everyone in the room was a moron, and they whispered snide comments back and forth and snickered behind their hands and no one even noticed.
And then, as Harrison held in the pungent smoke and inhaled an oxygen chaser to force it deeper into his lungs, Isaac leaned over and brushed Harrison's ear with his lips as he whispered, "No one's using the can. I checked."
Harrison coughed, the harsh smoke stinging his sinuses, and didn't stop coughing for about two minutes.
Isaac pounded him on the back and handed him a glass of water. He was grinning like a Cheshire cat.
"Dude," said one of the other guys, a sleepy-looking pseudo-hippie with white-boy dreads. "Careful, that's some serious shit."
Harrison drank deeply, and gestured with his other hand, the one holding the roach. "Somebody take this," he said hoarsely, once his lungs had stopped rebelling. "Please, get it away."
The hippie eagerly complied.
"Sorry," Isaac said, sounding smug. "Boy doesn't know his limits."
"You don't know your limits," Harrison said under his breath, and heard himself giggle.
"Never did," Isaac agreed placidly. He rose, pulling Harrison to his feet as well, and Harrison stood swaying for a moment, his head spinning. He grabbed Isaac's shoulder to steady himself. "We're goin' for a smoke."
"That's so bad for you," a blue-haired girl said sternly. Pot smoke trickled from her nostrils.
Harrison started to giggle again.
"Be cool, bitch," Isaac muttered. He was still grinning, and his shoulders were starting to shake.
"Right," Harrison said between giggles. "We're gonna. Gonna go smoke. Right." He half-pushed, half-pulled Isaac into the hallway.
The bathroom was at the end of the hallway, just before the balcony, where a few people were already clustered together with cigarettes. Harrison admired Isaac's ingenuity even as they stumbled into the bathroom and Isaac slammed it shut, fumbling with the lock.
Harrison sat down heavily on the toilet. Then he stood, lowered the seat, and sat down again.
"So," Isaac said, leaning back against the door. If his grin got any wider it would swallow his face.
"So," Harrison repeated, and swallowed again.
Isaac pushed himself off the door and stalked towards him, looking predatory. Harrison leaned back and felt his legs spread open, felt his eyelids lower as he watched through his eyelashes. The lingering soreness in his ass felt surprisingly good. He was half-hard, pressing uncomfortably against the zipper of his jeans, and realized with some shock that he hadn't been laid three days in a row for about six or seven years now, not since Lindsay dumped his ass.
He could get used to this.
Isaac straddled his legs and slowly lowered himself onto Harrison's lap, rubbing deliberately against him. Harrison hissed between his teeth. He reached up and grabbed the back of Isaac's head, feeling the thick black hair between his fingers, and then they were kissing hungrily, sloppily, and he could definitely get used to this.
Isaac moaned into his mouth, and Harrison closed his eyes and writhed beneath him. He could feel Isaac's hard-on, pressing into his lower abdomen, and his own dick jerked in response.
He was high, so fucking high, drugs and sex and touch, everything swirling around him until he felt like drowning in it, like he could just let go and fall in and it would be so fucking good. From the living room came the faint strains of music, a staccato beat of guitar and a fierce woman's voice singing shameless, just call me shameless, and yes, yes he was, and he was loving it.
This is my skeleton, this is the skin it's in, and Harrison pulled back with a groan, shoving and making incoherent sounds. Isaac got it, Isaac shifted backwards enough to reach his zipper and finally he was free, free and straining, and then Isaac was too and it was like electricity, it was like jumper cables, it was right and everything just fell into place.
Just please don't name this, the woman sang, please don't explain this, and he couldn't have even if he wanted to, because it was Isaac, Izzy, Izzy who he'd already been on his knees for, Izzy who he didn't even think about until Fraser came into town, and suddenly he was remembering, he was seeing, and that was all it took. Say I couldn't slow it down, let alone stop it, and he couldn't-- it just happened, like a force of nature, like he'd opened the floodgates and now the whole fucking river was crashing through him, dragging him down, sweeping him away; and he'd forgotten everything else too, like sex was good, and pot was good, but sex and pot together were awesome.
He bit down on Isaac's shoulder when he came, through the soft clingy fabric to the hard flesh beneath, and felt Isaac's answering shudder and a sticky warmth spreading against his stomach.
"Jesus," Harrison breathed against Isaac's neck, when he could talk again. "Jesus, Izzy, that was. Jesus."
"Harry," Isaac was whispering into his hair, hot gusts of air that made his scalp shiver. "Harry, you-- you, you're so--"
"Hey!" The sudden, sharp voice was accompanied by a loud pounding on the door. "Dude! I gotta piss!"
Harrison froze. Then he snickered.
Isaac started to shake against him. "Oh God," he choked out between gasps, "I was gonna-- I was trying to be polite--"
Harrison lost it, and a moment later Isaac did too.
They slid off the toilet to the floor, clutching each other and laughing helplessly, their dicks still hanging out of their jeans, and even the indignant yells from the other side of the door only made them laugh harder.
Shameless, Harrison thought, and felt a wide, silly grin spread over his face, before he dragged Isaac down for another kiss.
He could live with that.
In the street outside, a dark figure stood huddled under a broken streetlight, watching the light in the third-floor window. His cell phone rang, and he waited a few rings before answering.
This was not a conversation he was looking forward to.
"Yeah," he said finally, and listened for a few seconds. "Yeah, I followed him. Looks like he's at a friend's."
He paused.
"You're sure about this?" he asked again, even though he knew what the answer would be. He was right.
He sighed. "Yeah, I'll get right on that. You keep looking. Call me as soon as you find something."
He listened a few seconds more. A faint smile curved his lips.
"Screw you too, Richard," he said, and snapped the phone shut.
Jack Harper shoved his hands in his pockets and started off down the street.
"Round three," he muttered, and tried to ignore the sinking feeling of dread in his stomach.
After a moment, he began to whistle.
FIN
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