Jack's House of Buggery

Quartetto (146039 words) by Sixthlight
Chapters: 11/11
Fandom: due South
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski/Stella Kowalski/Ray Vecchio, Stella Kowalski/Ray Vecchio, Benton Fraser/Ray Vecchio, Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski, Ray Kowalski/Stella Kowalski, Benton Fraser & Stella Kowalski, Ray Kowalski & Ray Vecchio
Characters: Stella Kowalski (due South), Ray Vecchio, Benton Fraser, Ray Kowalski
Additional Tags: Polyamory, Slow Burn, Trauma Recovery, Queer Themes, Feminist Themes, Bisexuality, Female Protagonist, Second Chances, Post-Canon, Roman fleuve, Foursome - F/M/M/M
Summary:

So, men. Maybe Stella was over that.

*

This story digs deep into the situation implied in the phrase, "I swing both Rays," in that Stella always has, and so does Fraser. Eventually, after some lovely family tension and gloriously due South coincidences, they find their way to a dynamic sort of domestic peace, in defiance of all the canon's fear of limerence.

This was very, very good for my heart, with its rampant bisexuality and careful, thoughtful exploration of how these characters -- some of whom have solid reasons at the outset not to like each other very much -- find attraction, and joy, and above all banter. The banter is fucking golden. I love Fraser's voice, and this reflects it; I love RayK when he's flustered, and there is plenty to fluster him here; I love Vecchio when he is sharp and sweet and sardonic, and oh my heart.

And. Possibly most importantly, Stella. I have never spent much time thinking about her, but how I adore her in this piece: incisive, driven, sure of herself even when things are going completely bananas all around her, because women are the real straight men in due South, except when they're Frannie. (Who is also great here, don't get me wrong.) Stella's family works very well in their role in the narrative, both as foils of what her parents will tolerate (Francis!) and as what they thought Stella should be (ah, Jean, heartbreaking to get everything right). Stella with her view of reality that isn't quite the parareality of due South -- she may talk to Dief, but she doesn't entirely believe he understands her, nor that he talks back, despite the convictions of the people around her. She lives on a different wavelength than Fraser, and even RayV, as the quintessential Woman Who Got Away, but it is deeply satisfying that here, she doesn't get away, and instead, she gets everything she ever wanted.

Every single bowling reference made me make the :D face. Thank you, sixthlight, for saving Stella and Vecchio from the bad, bad canon, and instead delivering them to this much better situation.

I have started a repository for PDFs for Poem in My Pocket Day that I will share starting on March 15th. If you have any PDFs of poems formatted to be printed and you would like to share them -- especially if it's your poetry -- then hit me up at petralemaitre at gmail dot com.