Boys Gone Bad Challenge: "Stalker", "One Two Three Two One", "Out From Under"

[keerawa.livejournal.com]

Only three? I could easily rec three per character! All right, I'll restrain myself - one look each at the dark side of Fraser, Vecchio, and Kowalski.

Title: Stalker
Author: Rentgirl2
Pairing: Fraser/Kowalski
Rating: R ?
Length: 13,000 words
Why I'm reccing this fic: It's not an AU. There's no amnesia, no blackmail, no black magic. Just a peek at what might be under the golden mask of Constable Benton Fraser. It's completely in character, and with a beautifully unreliable narrator. Can Ray save this Fraser from himself?

Since I was a teenager, sex has been ridiculously easy to obtain. I'm not blind to my own attributes. I know I have inherited the natural good looks of my mother, some of the lightening-quick intellect of my grandparents and the determined doggedness of my nearly departed father. I know I could easily trade in on my appearance. I have in the past.

As a willful and stupid fifteen-year-old, I ruthlessly used a childhood friend. To this day I can see June, her sweet, homely face red and tear-stained.

"But, Ben," her watery voice had momentarily wavered, "I thought you loved me."

I still cringe as I recall my joyful relief that soon after, June had caught the eye of an Inuit boy in the village. Virginity is not held in as high regard among the Inuit as it is in other cultures. I was happily let off the hook.

June should have known better. She'd grown up with me, as had Eric and Mark. They should have all recognized that I was more than physical beauty and good manners. Inside, I seethe with selfishness, violence, arrogance and darkness.

Victoria understood. After all, like calls to like.

Stalker

Title: One Two Three Two One
Author: spuffyduds
Pairing: Vecchio/Stella, Vecchio/Fraser, Fraser/Kowalski/Vecchio
Rating: NC-17
Length: 7,600 words
Why I'm reccing this fic: Vecchio returns from Vegas, but he's not quite right. This story was written for Team Angst, and it nearly broke me.

Those first few days with Stella, Ray was prepared to write it off to having just been shot. He’d gotten to be kind of a collector of near-death experiences, partnering with Benny, and he’d realized that anytime you expected to die and didn’t, the next few days had a glow around them; everyone you met was beautiful and fascinating and perfect. After a couple of awkward incidents he’d learned that it was a bad idea to propose to anybody within a few days of almost dying.

So he kept waiting to wake up one morning and discover that no, Assistant State’s Attorney Kowalski wasn’t actually that pretty or good-smelling or graceful or smart, that she was a perfectly ordinary woman who’d had an aura of "Holy shit, I didn’t die!" making her feel like something more.

But it didn’t happen. She kept being pretty and good-smelling and all that, and Ray was starting to think, hey, this could actually be good. He’d been with a lot of women (a lot of people, but he really wasn’t thinking about that right now) in Vegas, but they were all with him because of who he was--and considering that was who he actually wasn’t, it hadn’t been much of a compliment. And this maybe was.

When he really fell for her, though, was one morning when he halfway woke up and—sometimes, on the edges like that, falling asleep or waking up, he wasn’t quite sure where he was. Or when, or--who. So he came partway awake, enough to register that there was somebody else in the bed, and before he could sort out who he was now he’d barked out an order, just snarled "Coffee." Which, in Vegas, would have resulted in whoever it was leaping out of bed to go fetch him some coffee that fucking second.

But the person in the bed was Stella--right, right, Chicago now, Ray now, right—and Stella gave him an evil eye that would have flattened a priest. And said, "Why, yes, I’d love some, no cream, two sugars, asshole," and Ray laughed and got up and went to make coffee.

One Two Three Two One

Title: Out From Under
Author: brigantine1
Pairing: Fraser/Kowalski
Rating: R ?
Length: 10k words, perhaps?
Why I'm reccing this fic: omphale23 rec'd this story as a due South/ Men with Guns crossover earlier this month. But you don't need to know 'Men with Guns' to appreciate this fic. I haven't! Just know that Ray has lost himself undercover as a guy named Mamet. The story's frightening, and plausible, and will have you on the edge of your seat.

Reickhart apologizes to Fraser that they've so far been unsuccessful in their pursuit of Detective Kowalski. He's only got two men to spare for the search as there are, as one might imagine, other cases Reickhart must contend with.

The alias Ray used during his time in the dangerous bosom of Jason Hendrickson was Alec Tennant, but Reickhart assumes he's dropped that and chosen a new one since Hendrickson was taken into custody.

"Jesus," Reickhart says, "if the Yanks don't want him back, we'll take him!"

Detective Chief Inspector Alan Reickhart is a short, stocky man with thinning hair he's got the good sense to cut short. He perches on the edge of his desk and regards Fraser with a frustrated huff. "We get a word of him, a tease, but before we can get there to pick him up he's melted back into the city like a chameleon into Madagascar. Granted, my officers are new on the job, but they're good lads."

Fraser rubs behind his ear. "Sir, for how long have they been hunting him?"

"Hunting?" Reickhart twitches a smile at the term. "Nearly six weeks. I find I owe your Lieutenant Welsh something of an apology. I've been harboring some fairly uncomplimentary thoughts regarding his apparent lack of concern for one of his own."

"Six? But we didn't know, we had no idea…" Over a month before DEA Agent Grant decided that it might be a good idea to let Ray's commanding officer in Chicago know he was missing in action. Six weeks ago Ray could have, should have been home safe, but after he had given them what they needed to make their case, the DEA agents in charge of him just couldn't be bothered.

Out From Under

It appears I have another theme here - our boys attempting to save each other. Sometimes they can, and sometimes...

Comments

[travels-in-time.livejournal.com]

I can't re-read "One Two Three Two One". I just can't. *hides under bed with rainbow blankie*

[keerawa.livejournal.com]

Oh, God, I KNOW. That ending ... eeeep.

[mikes-grrl.livejournal.com]

With you there. That story DID break me. I have written about 30 sequels to it in my head because NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooo!!!!!

*squeezes in under blankie*

[travels-in-time.livejournal.com]

I've got a sequel in my head too! Because I couldn't just leave it there and walk away. It's traumatizing enough as it is.

But still! *makes room for you, passes the hot chocolate*

[spuffyduds.livejournal.com]

I'm sooooooorrrrrrrryyyyyyyy! In my head it's an AU!!!!!!

And thank you.