Apocalypse Challenge (2) by buzzylittleb

[buzzylittleb.livejournal.com]

Hi! This has been brewing ever since the Amnesty, where it was going to be masturbation/sexual exploration, then I considered it for the Vecchiofest (which I kept reading as vecchiocest, much to my distress), and then, it actually ended up here, because as my lovely wonderful beta torakowalski says,"the world has to end before you can be reborn"

Title Three Times Three Angels Falling Slowly From Grace.
Word Count 4700
Pairings You want "actual", or the ones in the characters' heads?
Actual Pairings F/K, V/m, V/Stella
"Virtual" Pairings lots of Ray/Ray, voyeuristic Ray/Ray, and F/V
Rating Very NC17 (it does have plot, though)
Warnings: kink, s&m, booze and Fraser in the same place (more to the point, booze in Fraser, which I know squicks some people), somebody dies (not, Fraser, Kowalski or Vecchio, or Stella even), heh, I could warn this all day, if you want my happy solution to this challenge, go here
That said, this is not as bad as it sounds (quite), and the lovely torakowalski steered me towards a happyish ending.
Warning It also has a soundtrack, run!

Three Times Three Angels Falling Slowly From Grace

I: Self Love/Self Hate/Self Denial

Self Love

It takes him a while to realise it, but Ray Vecchio is totally hot. Don’t get Ray wrong, pretending to be the guy sucks and will probably continue to suck; everyone still expecting him to wear Armani, the family dinners like chimps’ tea-parties, getting stuck with the sexless statue of a partner. But, there are, uh, compensations.

Yeah, Ray thinks as he leans back on the couch, his fingers cradling his balls. There is one heck of a silver lining in this, and he’s but a poor boy from the Southside, and he’ll take all the silver he can get. Beats working in a meat packing plant. His parents didn’t get it, they thought he didn’t want out, like he had a hole in his head or something, but when he did; out and out, onward and upward and all that jazz; he just didn’t want to get out of his depth. That’s what happened with Stella, come to think of it, he got out of his depth. And Ray can’t swim.

He’s sure Vecchio can swim though, real sure, he’s swimming upstream in his Armani and his silk boxers, like Italian salmon, Ray is sure Vecchio would wear silk under the Armani, and that makes him grow harder if that was possible, yeah, silk, slipping sliding girly but not, that or nothing at all, not girly at all. Vecchio can swim great.

Ray’s not stupid, he’s seen the pictures of the guy, he’s not an oil painting like Fraser, or at least not one of those perfect paintings with guys wearing sheets and still managing to look noble, more like that painting of that British dictator-guy they showed on Discovery once, a warts-and-all painting, and all the better for it, because Vecchio is real.

And Vecchio is not him. That was what sucked at first that he was told not to become Vecchio, not to even try. He’d offered to dye his hair and he still had some Italian left from the Zuko gig, and boy, was that a screw-up, no evidence just a law suit filled against the department for harassment of an, huh, legitimate business man. He could cut it, he’d even wear a suit, even if the Armani would have sucked on him, not sharp enough, making him feel like a kid in a grown-up’s clothes. And they said no. What did they understand? Did they not get that the gig had just got a thousand times harder. He did undercover because he wanted not to be, they were pushing him into whole new areas, yeah he wasn’t Stanley Raymond Kowalski but he wasn’t Vecchio either.

He was kind of stuck in-between like a beast with two heads. And one of those heads was lapping slowly at his balls whispering stuff, like “Ti amo” between strokes at once reverential and dirty. While those Italian fingers would be kneading his ass like pizza dough.

And Vecchio still had the Armani on, and he was as naked as the day he was born. And Vecchio’s hair was like baby hair, all soft and delicate and fragile, and it was tickling at the insides of his legs, as Vecchio took him down deep into his throat, looking up at him with those big green eyes like he had all the candy in the world, he just had to learn to share.

And the hair was tickling and that made thinking hard, and then it made anything except coming hard, and then he was coming harder than he ever had before.

He came hard all over his damp tight fist.

And when the world came back into focus, he gave the photos, he’d, uh, borrowed from the folder locked away in the bowels of the PD a good look over, it wouldn’t be greatness to bring them back with big obvious dollops of forensic evidence over them, would it?

Self Hate

This morning Armando Langoustini was playing golf.

This morning Armando Langoustini was playing golf in the desert, the sun bouncing brilliant off the club.

This morning Armando Langoustini was playing golf in the desert, the sun bouncing brilliant off the club as he brought it down against the head of the guy who had tried to roll him. Nobody rolled the Bookman for money, and nobody had already stopped moving, barely breathing between the sobs, a strange rasping sound in his throat, as the blood bubbled there. The Bookman was playing golf with nobody, and nobody was distinctly under par and about to lose big-time.

And the sun glittered on the shaft of the club as he brought it down once more, in a perfect swing, and was rewarded with a crack and a flash of grey and red flying off on the upswing. It was kind of pretty actually, but Nero was going to have a bitch getting it out of his clothes. Hell, burn them anyway. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t afford it and Armando knew all about police forensics.

Armando Langoustini likes playing golf with old friends.

This night, tonight, Ray Vecchio was kneeling on Armando’s bed.

This night, tonight, Ray Vecchio was kneeling on Armando’s bed, trying to balance as the too-soft mattress shifted beneath him.

This night, tonight, Ray Vecchio was kneeling on Armando’s bed, trying to balance as the too-soft mattress shifted beneath him, he could hear breathing behind him and the sound of leather being unfurled. Thank God for Langoustini’s little mid-life crisis, he thought; thank God for the fact Armando can get whatever he goddamn wants no questions asked in this town; thank God, that he really did mean anything.

The guy was dark haired and tanned; Armando had offered the agency more if they could get him a Canadian with dark hair and ice-blue eyes, and they had; he claimed to be a ski instructor working his way home. He’d tried to give his name, the first time; and Armando said, no, your name is Fraser; and that was the last time he tried to give his name.

Money and power buy you a lot in this town, but they never seem to buy you absolution. So Ray’s making do with penance.

It’s not as if he can go into Church or anything.

They don’t really go in for Churches here, just Wedding Chapels, and you can’t ask Elvis to hear your confession.

And Ray doesn’t want confession, anyway; he wants penance; he wants penance in white hot searing lines across his back; and the not-quite-Fraser, the agency did good on a match now if only he could get him to swear less, is getting ready to oblige, loosening his arm and the whip.

Ray Vecchio hates Armando Langoustini with all his heart, and is sure Benny would too.

Self Denial

He shouldn’t be doing this. He has a satisfying hard work, duty, a calling higher than any other he can conceive; he should want for nothing, and that calling leads him onto the right path, which he should tread rejoicingly, rather than forever looking over his shoulder as he does now.

For what does it achieve to dwell upon the past, and ferment troubles in memories and intangible things that slip through his fingers like water? What slips through his fingers now is not like water; it is hard with his indolence and guilt.

He should not be yearning for what he cannot have, for what would cause pain to those he loves most. It would not do either of them good for him to indulge this urge, slake this thirst, give into this temptation so. Ray does not belong here; the land will steal from him his very vitality and make him cold and hard.

He does not believe in zoos, keeping creatures captive from their own environment, bringing them only strife and confusion. He does not want to make a pet of Ray, and watch his blond hair turn dark and his eyes lose that vital light, nor for him to slow, trapped by the confines of the cage that is his endless horizon.

Ray belongs in Chicago, whatever he might think upon the issue, Benton’s mind is made up. And perhaps in time, his Rays will realise what he already knows for a fact, they belong with each other, they compliment each other, they share the same habitat and their skills and tastes intermesh seamlessly. They should belong only to themselves, just as Diefenbaker belongs only to himself, and should do things only out of choice, not out of misplaced obligation.

Or love.

He knows that love does not conquer all, it does not “vicit” but it “vincit”, it does not conquer but it binds you like a captive and steals away your eyes, your ears, your mind. It binds you in perfidy, turns you against yourself, against nature, against the welfare of your object.

He doesn’t want to hurt Ray. He didn’t want to hurt Ray. And he didn’t want to hurt Victoria. But he still does.

He should not be doing this, holding himself thus, holding himself thus and thinking of Ray as his hand quickens with desperation. He has done this already today, in the dog-shed in secret silence, before Ray awoke in his bed embraced only by furs as it should be, before he set Ray on the aeroplane bound south also as it should be.

He should be hard and cold, just as the land is hard and cold; it should not be so difficult; he was once and can be again; and again his sole love will be this hard and cold land of terrible beauty.

II: Losing Self/Self Enlightenment/Finding Self

Losing Self

Fraser wonders when this all seemed to make sense, he thinks it was when he inadvertently inhaled the scent upon the photographs he helped Ray steal from their secure hiding place in the bowels of the police department. He had been able to steal this new strange Ray’s permanent record, invaded his privacy so, surely this would make things even, quits, as the new Ray would say, moving to that invisible beat like a woman in an unburning flame trapped in an endless loop of celluloid? He wanted to please, please this new Ray so as to please himself (he’d told himself that it would help keep both Rays safe but he knew the lie even if they did not), but ended up only bringing himself torment, and tormented pleasure. When they stole them, for it was stealing, they smelled of paper and must, developer and red light; and now, now they smell of passion and salt and bitterness, but not so bitter as the choking in his heart. He can feel his heart stutter, just as his shameful lust begins dreaming new dreams, of Ray and Ray entwined like snakes, an apple for his downfall. Not as bitter as that, as the stuttering refusal and denial in his mind, and the bitter poison that Ray might prefer somebody he’d never met to him.

And never as bitter as the liquor burning into his throat, burning down into his heart, which should be burning this all away. And wonders when this all made sense, to sit down, night after night with the brothers Karamazov, Joe and Pete the fish, and not say anything, just slip into the edges of this despairing camaraderie. It might be something for what ails him; it was for Ray, back when he was still mourning for Stella.

He still turns in his reports; his work is more than sufficient; he deserves warmth when he comes in from the field, whatever Diefenbaker says, whatever his father would say. Sometimes he wishes his father was not gone so, that he might just explain, but he does not think that he would understand. Even as, when he looks in the mirror to shave, he begins to see his father; so long ago, after mother was no longer there, after mother died, after mother was murdered. And he sees the same light, or absence of light, in his eyes.

And his hand has stopped slipping lower and lower as he thinks of Ray, and Ray, and sometimes even Victoria; he just ignores the way it starts shaking as it reaches for the bottle.

Self Enlightenment

Ray Vecchio had been considering taking up golf.

Ray Vecchio had been considering taking up golf, it was what he needed, fresh air and a healthy outlet.

Ray Vecchio had been considering taking up golf, it was what he needed, fresh air and a healthy outlet, and damn Langoustini to hell, because he wasn’t even going to think about it. He was going to wear dapper little shoes with spikes on, and have class, and work on that swing. Because there was only so much being swung at that he could take anymore.

No, he wanted more, more hiss and crack, joyful pain blooming across his back like exquisite flowers, blood red flowers, matching those growing in front of his blind-folded eyes, luminously dark in the velvet darkness.

He wanted pain, and got serenity, or so he thought.

One of the cuts across his back had opened when he’d been chasing a perp; it didn’t hurt, just a sudden warmth across his back; and Kowalski, coming up behind, those smoker’s lungs of his doing him no good, while he’d got all that good muscle tone from Fraser, no from Tee Jay, the potty mouthed possibly ski-instructor, who only resembled the Fraser in his head. The Fraser, who hates, which he never does; you could split his head open, and he would love you for it, he would forgive you for it. He’d have been so much better at this shit, better than him, better than Armando, who’d lost his temper after Tee Jay had refused to hold him down and fuck him.

And Tee Jay had ended up in the desert, but unlike Moses, he’d never be getting out.

Unlike Vecchio, who is so getting out; because Kowalski doesn’t need this, Ma sure as fuck don’t need this, doesn’t need Vecchio dragged into an emergency room by his over-concerned partner, he’d never thought he meet somebody even more over-solicitous as Benny but he had; where it would transpire that it was not the perp, the malfeasant, the mark that did it; but one of the talented young men of Madame Vespa’s in Boystown.

So he has to get out, get out and get more, get more or go cold turkey. And the turkey has it. He just has to get away, get away to somewhere nobody would ever look for him.

Finding Self

Canada.

Fucking Canada.

Fucking Buttfuck Canada.

Vecchio had bought a ticket for Florida on his credit card, thinking like everyone was a moron, and his hundred million cousins were still looking under rocks for him out there, and were going to cause a massive shortage on after-sun afterwards.

Stanley Raymond Kowalski is no moron, he’s kinda pissed that Vecchio thought so. And yeah, he knows Madame Vespa’s Psychic Consultancy ain’t kosher. Known for oh-so-long. Known for oh-oh-oh-do-that-again-long. Knows what Madame Vespa pushes is better than cheesecake, better that the things you can do with potato chips, better than crack. Just don’t ask how he knows, because a gentleman never reveals a lady’s secrets.

And that goes for Vecchio too, he just looks better the part than Ray Kowalski, bad boy bad ass bad cop extraordinaire. Difference being Ray never stays still long, just keeps moving, new addictions, new sensations; he’d found a dozen things better than crack, and Vecchio was the one he wanted to hang onto.

And heh, he knew his stuff, ‘cause he’d just beat Vecchio here. Borrowing those dogs at Fort McWhatsit was greatness, no; it was genius, because he’d got to the bottom of the hill just before that wannabe-taxi disgorged a very cold Vecchio into the slush.

And now they were fighting, because Vecchio didn’t find it greatness.

And then a dark figure was looking over them.

It took him a minute to recognise the wild man of the woods. Fuck, Ben, what have you been doing to yourself?

III: The Absence of Self/The Reality of Self/Angels Falling Slowly To Heaven

The Absence of Self

He sees Benny rush towards him and envelop him in one of those huge Mountie-man hugs, all the better, truer for being so rarely given; he holds Vecchio close and whispers into his ear.

He sees Benny rush towards him and envelop him in one of those huge Mountie-man hugs, all the better, truer for being so rarely given; he holds Vecchio close and whispers into his ear. He whispers dark and dangerous things and how he, the new Ray, wouldn’t be able to cope with them, would not know how to fight them.

He sees Benny rush towards him and envelop him in one of those huge Mountie-man hugs, all the better, truer for being so rarely given; he holds Vecchio close and whispers into his ear. He whispers dark and dangerous things and how he, the new Ray, wouldn’t be able to cope with them, would not know how to fight them. He whispers dark and dangerous and dirty things into Ray’s ear, and tells him how he is going to do them, how Ray deserves them to be done to him.

He sees Benny.

He sees Benny then.

He sees Benny cry out, scream, plead with the voice of an angel turned all rough and hoarse. He sees Benny scream as Kowalski pours his whiskey out of the cabin window, an amber stream burning into the snow.

Armando is laughing.

Armando is laughing so hard as Benny falls hard upon the pavement of reality, as the bones of his soul crack. And he’s laughing at Ray watching, helpless.

Armando isn’t laughing, not at all, because Armando’s buried in some unmarked grave far away from Vegas. And he isn’t laughing at Ray watching, helpless, appalled, reviled.

And he isn’t laughing as Ray runs out, into the snow, having fallen back into reality and found it not to his pleasing.

Benny isn’t the only one lying there on that pavement, bleeding, bleeding everything good about himself out onto the bare concrete, making stains that will never get out. Ray is lying there too, clutching his side, though the wound’s in his head, clutching on tight as his world explodes.

And it isn’t Gardino there in the flames, it’s Benny, screaming out with the reaching out hand. And the Rivera’s still burning, crackling, he can hear the sound that means the tank’s going to blow anytime now.

And Ray just runs headlong, clutching his side, terrified, as the flames claim Benny and the ruins of his life.

The Reality of Self

Ray doesn’t even look at the trail of puffed up snow that Vecchio is leaving in his wake, as he runs and falls, and runs and falls, and he will be a sure case for frostbite once he gets into town. Yeah, but, then Vecchio likes pain; Ray knows that; but it remains to be seen, or not, whether Vecchio still likes pain when it’s for real.

Ray hopes not.

But he’s not here to help Vecchio. He thought he was, but he’s not.

He thought they were buddies, partners, friends; but there was nothing with the sharing. Vecchio is still a great cop, just about, but he turns off at the end of the day. No drinks with the duck boys, no tea party with Welsh, trying to introduce the weird concept of sobriety amongst those who protect and serve the fair city of Chicago, but, on reflection, doing it to exorcise his own ghosts.

That’s what Vecchio needs, an exorcist to get the ghost of Armando out of his head, or whoever else he’s been blaming all the time.

Blaming rather than acknowledging. Splitting himself in two so he can look in the mirror.

Vecchio doesn’t need somebody to hold his hand and tell him it’s okay.

Or at least, Ray doesn’t think so. He just needs a dose of reality.

He needs to find himself in the mess, in the ruins of what was once his life, and he needs to take himself by the hand and lead himself out into the light.

Vecchio isn’t really the problem.

Ray wonders why he can hear distant singing. It takes him a moment to recognise the voice; it’s not in a recording studio, or a concert hall, it’s just on its own; and he wonders if that voice still sounds the same or whether it’s been made hoarse with whiskey and rye.

It’s like that “game” his dance teacher used to do, the one where two groups had to sing different songs at once. It was meant to improve their lungs and their rhythm. This isn’t it, this is discord, and Fraser’s never had a Chevy and Ray doesn’t even know what the fuck a levy is.

So he zones that out, and listens to the voice of the angel.

Holy fuck, why did he never pick up how much feeling there is in this?

How do you explain to somebody that they’re not a fallen angel, that they might actually be for long in this world, that it’s so very wrong to think that you don’t deserve anybody, that nobody could ever want you? How do you even understand what their world is like?

The wise man said, that every journey begins with a single step. Ray knows that, he’s watched too many kung-fu movies.

And so, he just reaches out his hand and touches so very gently, the face of an angel who never really fell very far at all.

Angels Falling Slowly To Heaven

To say he doesn’t understand this is an understatement; it’s bafflement, it’s confusion, it’s a chaos that he could lose himself in if he’s not careful. He doesn’t understand why Ray ran, perhaps he was ashamed of how far his friend had fallen, perhaps he’d realised what Fraser already knew, that he is a poor excuse for a human being, flawed at the heart, with everything radiating from broken and twisted.

He knows he does not fit the picture-patterns he was given so very long ago. He is neither as just or dedicated as his father, nor as fair and loving as his mother, he lacks the faith which should be his. He hasn’t been to Kirk for years, he knows there’s something wrong there, that he neither understands nor believes.

He’s learnt everything wrong, but in some small way he can please. He has his duty, he is quite good at it. Surely, that should be enough?

He doesn’t understand the hand still glove-warm stroking his wind chapped cheek, or the look within his friend’s eye. Why has he not gone to help Ray?

He doesn’t understand this at all.

He doesn’t understand.

And then another hand cups his face, a finger brushes against his cheek and takes away the tears. He doesn’t understand the tears, he didn’t know he was crying, another failure of control.

A failure of the control he needs to continue, to be as he should, to perform his duty.

To be as those he admires.

But who really does he admire? Not his mother, long gone, a remote phantasm of half-remembered songs and a brief delirious visitation. That and a brief sharpness of the breaking of bone and flesh at terrible speed and the slow fall to earth, and he can still hear wailing and he knows it is his own. Not his father, who sacrificed himself to duty and had no more than a shack full of broken memories to show for it, who refused to talk to his true friend for so many years, and then let his false friend steal his life away. And what is his grandmother’s Kirk if he does not believe, for her it could move mountains and send her far across the sea; but what makes him do that? He’s done it, crossed seas and travelled mountains until they seem broken ruins, and why?

Would it hurt so much to reach out?

Because he didn’t really come half across the ice for Muldoon, he did it for the green ship to his red ship. He didn’t go looking for the reaching out hand because of the fame, the glory, but because his friend asked him to.

Friendship has strangely become the entire summation of his world.

So would it hurt so much to reach out, to touch?

And his hand reaches out, and he hesitates, like Eve reaching for the apple.

And his hand reaches out, not like a wizened dead thing reaching out for an impossible dream, caught in the amber of reality, caught in the ice of geography, caught in the snares of mortality.

And his hand traverses the space of universes only to find that skin feels like his skin, a little different, perhaps, but still the same, still like the skin he knows.

It’s such a gentle touch, and he never expected to see the sunlight in Ray’s smile.

It dazzles him. It’s like a sort of brief heaven. And everything that was him dissolves into the light.

Coda: Self Enlightenment

Ray looks at himself in the mirror, and smoothes down the legs of his trousers, leaning forward, hoping that no kid to try play leapfrog on his ass; not bad, not what he would have chosen once, but not bad at all. New haircut, new suit, and a new face looking at himself in the mirror. Or rather looking at all the light rays that bounce of him, his new haircut, his new suit, and hit the mirror and return back to him.

He looks at himself in the mirror and sees nobody that he knew before.

He saw how far Benny fell because of him. He’d left him alone without thinking of the consequences; he’d left ma alone without thinking of the consequences, and now she won’t stop talking about the nuevo Raymondo and how he always helped wash after supper; he’d left Frannie alone without thinking of the consequences, and now found he had a police cadet on maternity leave. So, he was getting a lot of experience with baby-showers and obstetrics; he was going to get dishwasher’s hands if he didn’t keep up with the handcream; and he was finally taking a lantern and exploring the dark places for himself.

For himself. Of himself. Because he no longer had Benny to do it for him, or Benny to excuse him, or Benny to hold him in some strange state of grace.

Some strange state of grace, like a saint out of a picture book. Crying out in ecstasy, but the real pain was not his, only of his own making.

And he steps back from the mirror, resolved to acceptance of his flaws and not to hide away in the darkness, but to hide the darkness away, trap it, and guard over it. He wondered if that was how Benny felt, after Ray’s bullet almost ripped through his spine, after he’d fallen hard to the earth of reality, but Benny had tried to pull it alone and couldn’t.

Ray could pull it alone, and he can, and he is, pulling as far as he can.

And he steps back, straight into a dame with a pile of boxes; he should only be able to see her tastefully highlighted hair over the top of them, but he sees more, because they’ve fallen to her feet, and he picks them up, eyes to the ground. He’d learnt that little trick in a tide of pain, only here it isn’t a game, here it is real.

And as he looks into her eyes, he knows so is she, and he smiles, and offers to carry them to her car.

And she smiles and it is stellar, like stars, and it is as if he might be looking upon another fallen angel, or at least a sorely harassed one, and what better than to protect her from the pain of the world?

Comments

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

Oh man.

*gapes*

Wow. Seriously. Damn.

Particularly:

The guy was dark haired and tanned; Armando had offered the agency more if they could get him a Canadian with dark hair and ice-blue eyes, and they had; he claimed to be a ski instructor working his way home. He’d tried to give his name, the first time; and Armando said, no, your name is Fraser; and that was the last time he tried to give his name.

*flails*

*no pun intended*

[buzzylittleb.livejournal.com]

*flails*

*no pun intended*

Why? Don't you love me enough? ;-)

Thank you kindly for the review, ma'am

[take-no-ko.livejournal.com]

Woah, man...that's one ambitious piece of writing. Really, really nicely done, very clever (maybe too clever for me, I didn't get all of it first time round!) and full of beautiful imagery. Lovely.

[buzzylittleb.livejournal.com]

Thank you, *stares at nearly naked callum for way too long*

[mousewrites.livejournal.com]

THis has got me all twisted up and drowning. I need to reread it a few times. I love the repetition, the slow build and twist and I'm babbling and I'll just shut up.

but oh MAN.

[buzzylittleb.livejournal.com]

*throws you a rope to save you from drowning*

Unless, of course, you want a Mountie with whom todo buddy-breathing

[shrewreader.livejournal.com]

I adore this. Particularly the TJ bit.




And TJ Burke so TOTALLY had it coming. -VERY- true to the film. And I LOVE the irony about mock mob-guy Ray V having TJ done in when TJ went and fucking SAVED Dexter's ass just to lose him to the avalanche.




*thinks*

And now I have me going on wtf would happen if by some chance TJ -didn't- die out there and got picked up by, oh, say, that Vice cop from DaVI. Or... well. They _DO_ have that building boom going out there in Vegas, don't they? Lots of jobs for carpenters...

Oh, fuck. Another 6 degrees fic. *whimper*

[buzzylittleb.livejournal.com]

*holds your hand throught the throes of plot-bunny-fever*

I'm glad you liked it, though. :-)

[danceswchopstck.livejournal.com]

...I don't think I got it all, but what I got is good.
*applauds*

[buzzylittleb.livejournal.com]

*looks like a bashful canadian and blushes*

[cloudiecat.livejournal.com]

Wow, very intense and dark. I found RayV's journey more disturbing than Fraser's because he seemed to have crossed a more irrevocable line as Armando, although Ben also became lost to himself. I love how RayK saw that Fraser was the one who he needed to be with at the end and the hope/faith he had that Vecchio would be able to pull through without him - which the final paragraph seems to confirm thankfully - that is Stella isn't it?

I did laugh when I read this line
it wouldn’t be greatness to bring them back with big obvious dollops of forensic evidence over them, would it?
but for the rest of the story I was worrying about the guys.

And this was so touching and beautiful
It’s such a gentle touch, and he never expected to see the sunlight in Ray’s smile.

So glad things begin to look brighter for the boys by the end.
Wonderful piece of writing.

[buzzylittleb.livejournal.com]

Ray is a lot more disturbing.

Fraser's journey is about his pre-existent characteristics (self denial etc) slowly getting pushed to extremes and this causing him pain. The tragedy being that he really doesn't understand what's happening.

RayV's journey shows how far and how bad he can get once he starts making moral compramises to get what he wants (take down the mafia, sex, fraser) and his tragedy is that he really should understand.

And yes, that is Stella. God alone knows what is in those damn boxes.

Thank you kindly. *smiles*

[http://users.livejournal.com/_unhurt_/]

i keep reading just this far and zoning out:

And Vecchio’s hair was like baby hair, all soft and delicate and fragile, and it was tickling at the insides of his legs, as Vecchio took him down deep into his throat, looking up at him with those big green eyes like he had all the candy in the world, he just had to learn to share.

ooooh. with a bit of mmmm.

(thinning hair like ray's is so nice to stroke. and would feel so, so, so good on inner thighs. um. so good. phew.)

[buzzylittleb.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry I'm so late with the thanks. I realised that the only guy with thinning hair who I get to pet is my father, and then got faintly disturbed.

I'm very glad you enjoyed that.

[exeterlinden.livejournal.com]

I don't think I got it all, but I liked it. The idea of RayK's fascination with the man he's supposed to be, Armando playing "golf" in the desert, RayV seeking penance in Las Vegas. All good.

[buzzylittleb.livejournal.com]

Thank You Kindly. *grin*

[petronelle.livejournal.com]

RayV's parts broke my heart into tiny pieces and never put it back together again. Beautiful and awful, all at once.

[buzzylittleb.livejournal.com]

Beautiful and awful, all at once.

I think I will take that as a compliment ;-)

[bghost.livejournal.com]

Just discovered this. Yowzer. Painfully well written. I hope you have these archived! There should be paeons in the fandom to this.