Notes: Written for ds_snippets.
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Ray fell in love with Kowalski in between burgers and dessert at the diner.
Ok, no. He didn't. But that was when he realized it.
Kowalski was sprawled out across from him, legs up on the bench, watching the waitress cutting a piece of pie for him at the counter. Ray had his fingers curled around a steaming mug of coffee, trying to warm them up in between stealing some of Kowalski's leftover fries.
They were arguing about the girl who had taken Frannie's spot while she was on maternity leave. In fact, they'd been arguing for the past half hour, about various things.
Oh, who was he kidding? They'd been arguing for the past six months.
Arguing and fucking, sometimes arguing and then fucking, sometimes arguing while fucking, and sometimes falling asleep next to each other and probably arguing in their dreams.
They were good at both those things, and even better at doing them together.
Kowalski had been a wreck when he got back from Canada, and Welsh had given Ray the unenviable task of whipping him back into shape. "Look around this place," Welsh had said. "You two jokesters are the best cops I've got left around here. God help me."
It had taken a while. The physical stuff was easy�getting him a haircut, some clothes that hadn't been hauled around the great white wherever for months at a time. The rest of it had been tougher, and had ended with them at each other's throats more often than not.
Ray could work with that.
The fucking came naturally, just an extension of the fighting, Kowalski ending up sucking Ray's cock instead of punching him in the face. It was a tradeoff that worked for both of them, and eventually the fighting was secondary, irrelevant. It was just what they did. It didn't necessarily mean that they didn't get along, or that they even really disagreed with each other. It was how they communicated, through angry words and touch. Their own language.
"What?" Kowalski finally asked when Ray had been sitting there looking at him for just a little too long. "What's your problem?"
"Nothing, Kowalski," he said. "Eat your pie. It's nothing."
But they both knew it wasn't.