Ich Weiss Nicht
Ray had this thing about dead bodies. He didn't like them.
Fraser hadn't been dead, not really, but it had freaked Ray out a little anyway, seeing him all laid out like that. Not as much as it had freaked everyone else out, obviously, given that Ray knew he was alive. Ray was undercover now as Ray Vecchio, and he was pretty good at it, but apparently Fraser could go undercover as a dead guy and still pull it off.
That was one of the things about Fraser -- anything you could do, he could do better. Fraser was a walking, talking example of how to show you up at every single turn. For all that Ray really liked the guy -- for all that Fraser was his best friend, maybe ever -- it was really hard to deal with him sometimes, because for every time Fraser was being a real guy, smart and funny and letting you in, there was a time when Fraser was lecturing you on the properties of a bouga toad and doing all this supernatural, perfect guy shit. There were times when Ray thought maybe he and Fraser were on the same wavelength -- they were buddies, they were partners, they got each other like nobody else -- and then there were times like today.
A pound of nails on Pluto, Ray thought. Frannie might be a blabbermouth, but she had a point sometimes.
Ray was sniffing his phone as he left the station -- he was pretty sure there was no dead body stink on it, just the same thing as ever -- so he was halfway to the goat before he noticed Fraser walking ahead of him.
"Hey, Fraser, wait up," he called, jogging ahead a couple of steps, and the guy turned around toward him.
It wasn't Fraser. Fraser'd left twenty minutes ago, which Ray knew, and anyway Fraser had been wearing the uniform today, for one thing, and this guy was in a nice suit.
"Uh, sorry," Ray said, raising his hands up. "Thought you were a friend of mine."
The guy blinked at him through his glasses and said something really fast in a language Ray didn't understand.
"Sorry, sorry, I don't speak -- whatever language that was. No habla other stuff. I just took you for somebody else, didn't mean to bother you or anything. Do you, uh, speak English?"
The guy kept his head slightly tilted to the side while Ray spoke, squinting and watching him carefully. When Ray finished, he shook his head and said something else, which Ray was willing to bet was along the lines of "I'm sorry, I don't speak English."
"Yeah, okay, I get that," Ray said, nodding now. "That's fair. Just, uh."
He grinned at the guy, and the guy smiled back at him. It really was a reasonable mistake, thinking he was Fraser -- except for the glasses, they could practically be twins. Only this guy was looser, more relaxed somehow. More like a real guy, especially when he smiled like that and Ray could see the crinkling around the corner of his eyes.
"Listen," Ray said suddenly, "listen, do you want to get a bite to eat?" He gestured vaguely, then mimed picking up a burger and biting into it and swallowing. The guy was still watching him, and at the end he nodded, smiling even wider.
"Great. Great." Ray patted his fist against his chest awkwardly. "I'm Ray. Ray."
The guy mirrored his movement with his own fist. "Josef."
"Josef," Ray repeated. "Hey. Okay, car's this way."
When Ray and Stella were married, Stella had told him once about how you were supposed to feed foreign guests. It either had to do with always feeding them food from where they were from, or never doing that, but Ray really had no idea which.
Hamburgers were sort of German, but French fries weren't, but they were both sort of American, too. Ray figured it evened out. Either way, Josef seemed to be enjoying himself.
It was a little weird, eating dinner with someone when you couldn't understand a word each other was saying. But Ray'd never been that good with words, anyway. He'd had dinners with Stella, and lately Fraser, where it felt like they were talking two different languages. This way was just more honest about it.
Besides, Ray had always been good at body language. He might only have met this guy a half an hour ago, but he could read him fine. You could get plenty from someone's eyes, someone's mouth, their posture and the tone of their voice.
Ray swallowed his last mouthful of burger and pushed his plate away from him. He leaned back against the cushioning of the booth and folded his arms across his chest.
Josef had already finished -- he was telling some kind of story, slowly, with a lot of gestures, that seemed to involve girls and dogs and possibly a turtle. He was giggling, already, in anticipation of the punch line, and when he clapped his hands together all of a sudden and yelled "Boom!", Ray laughed along with him, even though he had clue what the hell was going on.
"Remind me to tell you the one about the Russian identical twins and the ice-hockey team sometime," Ray said.
Josef wiped at his eyes, still giggling, and reached for his glass of water, and Ray watched his mouth while he drank.
Sometimes pushing it ruined stuff. Ray had ruined a lot of stuff that way. Right now, though, right here, he figured he didn't have one damn thing to lose, so when Josef set down his glass, Ray leaned forward and caught his eye and raised an eyebrow.
He wasn't really surprised when Josef hesitated just a second before nodding firmly, or when Josef's foot slid up his calf under the table, either. Body language had always been a fact that Ray was particularly sensitive to.
They walked a little closer to each other, back to the GTO. Ray kept his hands in his jacket pocket and let his shoulder and arm brush against the guy every once in a while; he was pretty sure Josef was doing the same thing, too, and each little touch sent a little spark up through Ray's nerves, till by the time they reached the car he was almost jittering with it.
It had gotten dark while they were eating, and he wasn't parked near any streetlights -- Ray glanced to his left and right; no one around in either direction. Good. Josef was standing by the passenger door, waiting for Ray to unlock it for him; he looked up, surprised, when Ray grabbed his arm and pushed him back against the car, leaning up against him.
"Just making sure we're on the same page," Ray whispered, and tilted his head down to kiss him.
Josef's mouth opened up eagerly beneath his, and one of his hands came up to the back of Ray's head and the other came down to grip at Ray's hip through his jeans. Josef's hands were hot, strong and tight, and he kissed wet and messy and eager, and Ray was getting hot already, right here in public, in the middle of the city where anyone could see.
He dragged himself away with an effort. "Same page. Good. Great," he managed.
Josef grinned at him, moving his hand forward till his thumb brushed against Ray's lower lip. "Ja," he said.
In the car, all Ray's nerves hit him at once. What the hell was he doing? Where was he even going? He glanced out at Josef out of the corner of his eyes as he pulled onto the road, and for a second he could have been Fraser again. Except Fraser and Ray hadn't ever kissed like that and Ray was willing to bet good money they weren't ever going to. Fraser didn't do that. This wasn't Fraser. None of this had anything to do with Fraser.
Josef turned his head away to the window, and Ray stared at the line of his neck and wanted to lick it. He jerked himself away, eyes back ahead of him, trying to ignore how much he suddenly wanted to reach over, just do exactly what he wanted to do for once, take out the guy's cock, jerk him off right here, maybe even suck him--
Jesus. This was Ray's car. This was his car, that he drove every single day, that Fraser rode in with him. If he did that -- he wouldn't ever be able to drive here without thinking about it, and that would suck, and what if -- jeez, what if Fraser could smell it tomorrow? Just thinking that sent this big black ball of shame spiraling in Ray's belly, and he took a couple of deep breaths and tried to tell himself to quit freaking out.
Josef's hand was on his knee. Ray glanced over to him again; he was looking concerned.
"Sorry," said Ray. "Just, uh, freaking a little bit. I'm okay."
Josef squeezed his leg and said very slowly and clearly, "Mein Hotel?"
"Great," Ray repeated. "Perfect."
Josef squirmed for a moment beside him before coming up with a card from one of his pockets and presenting it to Ray with a flourish. Ray took it and glanced down at it. He knew the place, a little, nice but not too nice, not too far away at all.
Close. Good. Josef's hand was still on his leg, and Ray was pretty sure his deep breaths were working.
Between following him inside and smiling at each other in the elevator and walking behind him down the big long hall, by the time they got to Josef's room Ray was feeling kind of awkward.
Not awkward enough to forget why he wanted to do this, though. Especially not once Josef was making out with him in the middle of the room and had his hands down Ray's pants.
Ray had had sex with guys before. There were a couple guys he fooled around with back during high school and college, when he and Stella weren't together -- this one guy in particular, Tim, and him had been really tight, doing practically everything you could do, before Tim got weird and transferred to a school in Ohio and Ray got back with Stella and got married and joined the academy. And three days after Ray signed his divorce papers, he'd ended up at a dinky bar, flirting with some scuzzbag and jerking him off in the bathroom.
That part wasn't new. Ray'd made it with guys before; he knew what to do. And he liked Josef, he seemed like a good guy, and he was hot and a good kisser and -- jeez, he had a great body, the kind that made Ray feel kind of scrawny and underfed.
So none of that was the weird part. There was a weird part, though -- Ray could feel it, even if he couldn't put his finger on it. Whatever, Ray could shrug it off. He could concentrate on the important stuff here: the hot naked guy in bed with him.
Josef was holding himself carefully above Ray while they kissed, and Ray wrapped his arms around the guy's shoulders and rubbed his dick up against the thigh he had between Ray's legs. God, it'd been a while since Ray had gotten laid, and it felt like even longer.
Josef broke off the kiss, thrusting against Ray's hip with a sharp breath, and Ray clutched his sweaty skin a little harder. "Mmm, good, yeah," he said, before he remembered the no-English thing. He tried to remember if he knew any German -- it was pretty much "Guten tag" and "Mach schnell!" and neither of those seemed of much use at the moment.
Josef said something too, but Ray didn't know what -- it was probably an explanation for what the hell he was doing, rolling off of the bed, but as it was, Ray just had to bang his head back against the pillow and wait for Josef to turn around again, looking pleased.
Condoms. Right. That -- that was important. He was having sex with someone he just met, someone he didn't even know. Of course they needed condoms.
Josef kneeled back on the bed, moving to straddle Ray's thighs. He ripped the condom packet open and rolled it down Ray's cock, and then started to jerk Ray off with slow, steady strokes. Ray stared up, holding his breath -- Josef was looking down at his own hand on Ray's cock, eyes half-shut and his mouth parted, and after a second he licked his lips, and then Ray figured out the weird part.
Oh, Christ.
Ray was an idiot. Ray was king of the idiots, because jeez, how had he missed this?
His mouth was dry and he wanted to close his eyes, but he couldn't, he just had to keep staring. Mussed hair, blue eyes, pale skin and strong muscles, broad hands, the hot hard dick -- it wasn't Fraser. It wasn't Fraser. He wasn't fucking Fraser, he was never going to fuck Fraser, this wasn't Fraser and Ray knew that, that wasn't why he was here, it wasn't.
But now it was there, it was stuck in his brain, and he couldn't help thinking about it. Was that what Fraser would do? Is that what Fraser would look like? What would -- how would -- would he--
Ray groaned, thrusting up faster into Josef's fist, and Josef made a humming noise and soothed Ray's side with his free hand. He licked his lips again, and then caught Ray's eye and did it again as he squeezed Ray's cock. It took a second before Ray got that he was asking if it was okay, but as soon he did he moaned again and nodded his head.
Josef scooted down the bed to get comfortable and Ray closed his eyes. It was okay, this didn't mean anything, it was just some fun. Ray did lots of stupid things, all the time, so this one more wouldn't matter. It wouldn't change anything.
Josef swallowed his cock and Ray opened his eyes and saw the top of Fraser's head as Josef sucked him down and he yelled Fraser's name and came in one glorious rush.
He felt like an asshole after, but he figured the guy probably couldn't tell the difference between 'Fraser' and any of the random English Ray had been spouting at him all night. Still, though, Ray felt bad. He pushed Josef onto his back and kissed him for a long time, until the guy was just as eager and excited as Ray had been before.
There was a part of Ray that really wanted, more than anything else, for the guy to fuck him, part of him that wanted to lay on his back on the edge of the bed and stare up at Josef's face while he let the guy give it to him, part of him that wanted to just take it, be fucked into oblivion. Ray was pretty sure that was the part of him responsible for every one of the millions of stupid things he'd done in his life.
Ray was pretty sure if he let the guy fuck him, he'd be sorry. Even if he didn't end up getting some bizarre European VD. Ray was pretty sure Josef wasn't the guy he wanted to do it to him.
Ray wasn't sure at all what the hell it said about him that he wanted his partner to do him up the ass. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.
He kissed Josef a little more, then grabbed another of the condoms. Josef was just about ready to come -- it shouldn't take too long. Ray closed his eyes and tried to concentrate just on this, nothing else, just giving head. He didn't think about Fraser, about whether Fraser would make breathy noises like that, what Fraser's cock would look like, what it would taste like, what it would take to make Fraser come just like that--
Ray didn't think about any of that.
Josef let Ray use the shower in his room, and Ray scribbled down his cell number for him, in case he was ever in Chicago again. He started to write "Ray Vecchio" down -- it was second nature now -- but he felt weird about it, all of a sudden, so he just left "Ray" instead. Josef wrote down his own address for Ray, too, and Ray shoved it deep in his jacket pocket as he left.
Ray drove back to his apartment, still feeling weird. It'd been a good day -- it'd been a hell of a lot better than most of his days, lately, that was for sure. They'd put the bad guys away, he had gotten laid, and he even had his phone back. Three good things right there. Ray should be thrilled, not all ... confused. All something.
Ray picked up his phone and sniffed it again. Still no dead scent, thank the lord. Not even a weird funeral parlor smell.
Actually, Ray thought, it smelled a little like Fraser.