Disclaimer: These characters belong to people who are not me. I just borrow them, bend them into awkward positions and leave them out in the sunlight to go yellow.

Author's Notes: So I was listening to 'Hello Time Bomb' by MGB and trying to figure out what it meant, as I have this obsessive tendency to do, and yes, I know it's about getting laid, but Ray Kowalski dropped into my head and this fic dropped in there with it. Believe me, I was as surprised as you are. No spoilers. Post COTW.

Story Notes: First story in the Lost and Found 'verse (if you don't count the two Prologues. *facepalm*)

SequelTo: No Sure Thing

"Fuck! Kowalski, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

I got Vecchio shoved hard up against a wall, one arm across his chest, one across his throat. I can see myself reflected in his eyes – my face twisted, distorted, wrong. I can't remember how we got here. I shake my head, trying to clear it.

"Kowalski."

Vecchio's voice is strangled from where I'm pressing on his throat. I don't let up. He looks at me, part scared, part pissed and part … Fuck!. Part understanding. I don't want his fucking understanding. I want. I let him go, taking a step back. Vecchio slumps a little against the wall, his hand rubbing at his throat. I smack my fist into his face. He isn't expecting it and he hits the ground hard. I don't care. I don't care about anything except the words in my head.

"C'mon, Vecchio," I say, doing my best 'float like a butterfly' dance. "Get the fuck up and fight like a man."

He lays there in the dirt, in his smart Armani, and I think he's gotta take a swing at me for the fucking dry-cleaning bill at least. But he don't move. Just keeps looking at me. With those eyes. Those big, green, understanding eyes. Fucker.

"Get the fuck up!" I kick him in the ribs. He doubles up, but doesn't stop looking at me.

"Kowalski," he says, like it's the only word he fucking knows. I hate him for using my name all gentle like, like it's some kind of charm, like he's breaking a horse or something. He's supposed to be mad. He's supposed to be kicking my head in. And the words he should be kicking out of my head will not stop.

I crouch down and grab his fancy jacket by the lapels. I shake him until I swear I can hear his teeth rattle. But he just kind of hangs there, all limp. I throw him back down and his head hits the ground with a crack. He screws up his face, but he keeps looking.

"Don't," he says. And his voice is kind of broken. I know broken. I'm all about broken. Fucker won't fight? I'll try something else. If I'm wrong, well, maybe then he'll punch my eyes out through the back of my head. If not? Then maybe I'll get what I want another way. Bada bing bada boom. Win-win for Ray Kowalski.

I bend right down until my mouth is just above his; fuck knows how I manage to avoid his big schnozz in the process. He makes this sound in his throat. And then my mouth is pressing on his, and I'm pushing with my tongue, forcing him to let me in. He's gotta let me in. I feel his hands come up flat against my chest, but he don't shove me away. He opens up and I dive right in, and I'm still pushing, with my lips, with my tongue, like I could push him straight through the floor or something. His hands are clenching and unclenching on my T and he's catching the skin on my chest. It hurts. It's not enough.

I yank my face away from his, wiping the drool with the back of my hand. I look at him. He's still watching me but his eyes aren't green anymore. They're black. Just to check, I let my eyes do a sweep of his body. And yeah, there it is. Fucker's hard. Score one for intuition. Good going, Kowalski. We gotta get out of this alley. Public indecency don't even begin to cover what I want him to do to me. I stand up and hold my hand out to him. He hesitates, opens his mouth.

"Shut the fuck up, Vecchio," I say, making a fist then flicking my fingers out from my palm. The universal come-the-fuck-on gesture. I'm all crawling on the inside. If he don't get up I'm screwed. But he gets up. He gets up and lets me shove him in front of me into the warehouse. Big bust just went down here, but all the boys in blue are gone now and it's just him and me and yards of police tape stopping any other nosey fucker coming within about three miles of the place. No one to hear me scream.

We get inside and I quit shoving. He stumbles to a stop and just stands there, facing away from me. His shoulders dip down and I can see the length of his neck stretching from the collar of his jacket to the fuzz that he calls hair. It curves forward, like it's trying to get away from me. It ain't gonna work if he's like this. He needs to be pissed, not pathetic.

"We gonna do this, Vecchio or should I just go finger your sister?"

That gets him. He whips round, his shoulders go up and I see his fist curling. Fan-fucking-tastic. At last. I grin. But the bastard's got more self-control than I do and he don't land the punch. And in my head I'm screaming the words. How does he not hear them?

"Kowalski," he says again. And it's still too fucking gentle and understanding for my liking but there's something darker in it now, because he wants me. He wants me. Fucking ironic. I think. Never did get what that meant. I close the gap between us, my hand going around the back of Vecchio's neck to pull him towards me. Then my mouth is on his again and he's opening to me and letting me fuck his mouth with my tongue and there are these sounds, I don't know how to describe them – quiet, interrupted, desperate – and I can't tell who they're coming from, him or me. I grind my hips into him and his dick pushes against mine, it feels good. It's not supposed to feel good.

I pull back so's the only contact we've got is at the mouth and I stick my hand in his pants, grabbing his dick like it's a stick shift. I give it a tug. He must like it because his tongue is fighting mine and his hips buck forward, looking for contact. I step backwards out of reach, giving his dick another tug and he follows. We play follow my fucking leader until I'm backed up against a set of metal shelves. They're digging into my back and his fingers are digging into my shoulders and there's nowhere left to run.

"Fuck me, Vecchio," I say. He freezes. Tongue in my mouth, hand in my hair, dick in my hand. Freezes.

"Fuck me, Vecchio." I don't know how else to do this. I don't know how else to do this. I don't know how else to make it stop.

"Fuck me, Vecchio. Fuck me. Now."

He swallows hard. I see his Adam's apple bob up and down. Is he scared or turned on? His tongue comes out to lick his lips. Turned on. It's a start. But there's something coming. And it don't look like it's gonna be either of us.

"Kowalski." Fuck, there he goes with the name thing again. "There's … stuff. We need stuff."

I shake my head like I'm Dief just out of the water.

"No. No stuff. I don't want stuff. Just do me, Vecchio. Do me now." And my hand is pulling at his dick and the other one yanks his off my shoulder and sticks it on my ass. Does he need a fucking map? My mouth is back on his and I'm desperate now and I don't care if he knows it. I can hear mumbling and it's getting louder. Push and push and push till it hurts. Push and push till it hurts. And when Vecchio hauls himself away from me and holds me at arms' length and is staring as if I'm an alien landed from Mars, that's when I realise it's me. It's me. And I can't stop saying it, I can't stop.

Then I'm crushed against Vecchio and he has his arms tight around me and I'm yelling into his shoulder and he's leaning his cheek against my hair and there's a stream of words I don't understand coming out of his mouth and his voice is low and soothing and I'm running out of words because there's this pain see, and it's rising up and rising up and pouring out of me and I'm crying, sobbing like a fucking baby and my arms come up and I'm hanging on to Vecchio for everything I got. He is everything I got. Ain't that a kicker?

I'm getting myself under control when he says "I know, Kowalski. I know." And that just about slays me and my legs go out from under me. We end up slumped on the floor and somehow I'm leaning over so my head is on his chest and he's patting my hair, kind of awkward like, but it's the first time anyone has touched me like that since. Since. And my eyes are starting to leak again, fucking unreliable bastards.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry," he says. And he sounds like he may even mean it. Not that he's got anything to be sorry for, it's all. Him.

"It's never going to stop," I say.

Give him credit, he don't lie.

"No," he says. "No it won't. But one day you'll wake up and it won't matter so much anymore."

I can't see that, can't see it at all, but I can see he believes it and I want to believe him. Because many more days like this one and I'm going to wind up dead.

"He called you?" I ask.

"Yeah. You?"

"Yeah."

"He didn't invite you, did he?"

I laugh, but it isn't funny.

"No. No he didn't. Can't say that I hadn't thought of flying up there and doing a Dustin Hoffman. But even I'm not that pathetic."

"Don't kid yourself, Kowalski." He tugs on my ear and this time when I smile, I mean it. And there's this tiny piece of me that feels almost calm. And I want to feel calm. I hate feeling like a fucking time bomb. Like a reverse time bomb. Like I don't want to blow up and destroy the world – I want the world to blow up and destroy me.

My brain must not be working quite right because it does this nifty logic dance where it says that if I want to be calm and Vecchio makes me calm then I must want Vecchio. And I twist my head and squint up at him and his eyes are soft and shiny and hey, looks like his are unreliable bastards too. That's one thing we got in common, I think. And then he licks his thumb and swipes it over my forehead.

"Dirt," he says by way of explanation. And then it's not just my brain that's doing the weird little logic shuffle, my dick's in on the action too. I do my best to audition for a contortionist, twisting my body round until I'm facing Vecchio, clinging on to him for support like a baby monkey. I lift up my face towards him, doing everything short of batting my fucking eyelashes. He smiles.

"I'm not gonna kiss you, Kowalski," he says.

I'm not ashamed to admit it. I pout. My dick pouts too.

"Why not?"

He huffs this little laugh. I don't think he thinks it's funny.

"Because I'm not your rebound guy, Kowalski. I'm not your consolation prize." He pushes me gently till I'm sitting up. On my own. He stands up and brushes off his pants.

"Because maybe one day you'll wake up and it won't matter so much. Maybe it'll matter more that we were supposed to see the Cubs but Welsh has got me working overtime and I can't go. And maybe you'll be waiting for me outside the precinct when I punch out. Maybe." He smiles this tight little smile and shakes his head. "But I'll be your friend, Stanley Raymond Kowalski. I'll be your friend."

I don't know what to say. I'm not sure there is anything to say. He holds his hand out towards me, palm up, fingers spread. The universal I-got-you gesture.

"Come on," he says. I reach out. Clasp his hand. I come the fuck on.