You Just Have to Leap by Alex51324 (R)

[pinkpapyrus.livejournal.com]

Fandom: DUE SOUTH
Pairing: Fraser/Kowalski
Length: 167k
Author on LJ: alex51324
Author Website: Alex51324 on due South Fiction Archive
Why this must be read:

Fraser put a hand on his gun and pushed the barrel down. "You don't have an unlimited supply of ammunition, Ray."

"I've got enough," he said, but instead of firing, he looked over at Fraser, who was writing something, quickly but neatly, with a pencil stub he'd found somewhere. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Writing a note of apology to the person whose office we've just ransacked."

"Fraser. There are armed men on the other side of that door. Armed men who want to kill us. Is writing an 'I'm sorry' note really what you want to be doing right now?"

Fraser's pencil paused. He moistened his lip. "Ah." He cleared his throat. "Ray. As usual, your grasp of the essentials is--" His hand found the back of Ray's head, and suddenly, suddenly, they were kissing, and it was clumsy and sloppy and hot, with guns blasting to one side of them and Judge Bowen talking about bunnies on the other.

Ray broke away. "Fraser! I didn't mean--" Fraser went absolutely still, and just white, and the only way Ray could think of to make that look go away was to kiss him again, quick. "Okay. But--you know. Bad guys."

You gotta love a first kiss in the midst of gunfire.

You also gotta love that Fraser actually thought that was what Ray was suggesting he should do.

And you gotta love the way Ray reassures Fraser that, while it wasn't what he was suggesting, kissing is greatness.

(And Ray calling criminals "bad guys" will never not be adorable.)

This fic is the first of Alex51324's that I ever read, and the moment after I finished, I went back to the beginning to reread it. What's especially impressive to me is that her excellent writing seems effortless. Everything - from character to pacing to dialogue to plot - is spot-on and remarkably well-balanced.

I've never liked the premise of Ray Kowalski as an idiot, so I usually prefer to read stories where at least some of the time he's just playing dumb. But this fic took an approach I hadn't seen before: one in which Ray underestimates his own intelligence, so Fraser sets out to prove that Ray's smarter than he lets himself believe. It's already an intriguing premise, and Alex51324 runs with it and makes it superb.

It's an all-around fantastic story in the hands of a truly great writer.


You Just Have to Leap