DS Story: W Is For Wolf
May. 31st, 2025 05:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grey853Series: The Due South Alphabet Series
Title: W Is For Wolf
Author: Grey/Grey853
Fandom: Due South
Pairing: Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski
Rating: Explicit
Word Count: 39,932
Tags: male slash, alternate universe-canon divergent, explicit language, explicit suggested sexual content, angst, Christmas
Summary: Dief has a medical problem. Vecchio has a close call. There's a big winter storm. Will Ben and Ray have a great Christmas?
Link:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/66072517
Snippet:
″Have you noticed anything different about Dief lately?″
Ben turned from doing the supper dishes and stared at Ray in surprise. ″What?″
″I said have you noticed him being off a little lately.″
″Off?″ Ben dried his hands on the towel and walked over to his partner. ″In what way?″
″Slower, sleeping more, not really eating as much. He’s got a little come-and-go limp on his right front leg, too.″
Ben frowned and came around to sit next to Ray on the sofa. He kept his eyes on his sleeping friend. ″You’ve noticed these things?″
″I was asking you that.″
″To be honest, I’ve been so busy with work lately I’ve not paid that much attention.″
Ray hated to bring it up, but he’d been noticing changes for a while. At first he’d hoped he was just imagining it, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t, not anymore, not after the whole turning down the doughnut situation. Dief never met a treat he wouldn’t eat. ″It’s been going on for a few weeks. I wanted to brush it off, but today when Cheri had a powdered doughnut, he wasn’t even interested. Only ate about half his kibble, too. I’ve never known Furface to turn down food. You think something’s wrong?″
″He’s not said anything.″
″I know he’s not due for his shots, but maybe I should take him to the vet tomorrow.″
″I suppose it couldn’t hurt.″
Ray noted Ben’s worried expression and put his hand on his arm for comfort. ″I’m sure it’s nothing. Maybe he just needs a tonic or something. He’s getting older.″
″I hope that’s the case, but it could be something serious. I should’ve been paying closer attention.″
″Like you said, you’ve been busy. It’s getting closer to Christmas. Things get hectic for cops this time of year.″
″You’ve been busy, too, Ray.″
″I know. I’ll call the vet first thing tomorrow morning and take him in. I’m sure it’s nothing big. Maybe he ate a bad rabbit or vole or something just as disgusting.″
″Perhaps.″
″Don’t worry about it. I shouldn’t have said anything.″
″No, I’m glad you did.″ Ben got up and stooped beside Dief and petted his head several times. It was their regular signal to go out for their nightly walk. The animal opened its eyes, but instead of getting up, Dief only snuffled softly before closing his eyes again.
His expression darkened and Ben took the time to run his hand slowly over Dief’s back, along his sides, then under his belly and his over neck. His hand stopped right at where the right leg met his chest. ″There’s a lump here.″
Title: W Is For Wolf
Author: Grey/Grey853
Fandom: Due South
Pairing: Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski
Rating: Explicit
Word Count: 39,932
Tags: male slash, alternate universe-canon divergent, explicit language, explicit suggested sexual content, angst, Christmas
Summary: Dief has a medical problem. Vecchio has a close call. There's a big winter storm. Will Ben and Ray have a great Christmas?
Link:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/66072517
Snippet:
″Have you noticed anything different about Dief lately?″
Ben turned from doing the supper dishes and stared at Ray in surprise. ″What?″
″I said have you noticed him being off a little lately.″
″Off?″ Ben dried his hands on the towel and walked over to his partner. ″In what way?″
″Slower, sleeping more, not really eating as much. He’s got a little come-and-go limp on his right front leg, too.″
Ben frowned and came around to sit next to Ray on the sofa. He kept his eyes on his sleeping friend. ″You’ve noticed these things?″
″I was asking you that.″
″To be honest, I’ve been so busy with work lately I’ve not paid that much attention.″
Ray hated to bring it up, but he’d been noticing changes for a while. At first he’d hoped he was just imagining it, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t, not anymore, not after the whole turning down the doughnut situation. Dief never met a treat he wouldn’t eat. ″It’s been going on for a few weeks. I wanted to brush it off, but today when Cheri had a powdered doughnut, he wasn’t even interested. Only ate about half his kibble, too. I’ve never known Furface to turn down food. You think something’s wrong?″
″He’s not said anything.″
″I know he’s not due for his shots, but maybe I should take him to the vet tomorrow.″
″I suppose it couldn’t hurt.″
Ray noted Ben’s worried expression and put his hand on his arm for comfort. ″I’m sure it’s nothing. Maybe he just needs a tonic or something. He’s getting older.″
″I hope that’s the case, but it could be something serious. I should’ve been paying closer attention.″
″Like you said, you’ve been busy. It’s getting closer to Christmas. Things get hectic for cops this time of year.″
″You’ve been busy, too, Ray.″
″I know. I’ll call the vet first thing tomorrow morning and take him in. I’m sure it’s nothing big. Maybe he ate a bad rabbit or vole or something just as disgusting.″
″Perhaps.″
″Don’t worry about it. I shouldn’t have said anything.″
″No, I’m glad you did.″ Ben got up and stooped beside Dief and petted his head several times. It was their regular signal to go out for their nightly walk. The animal opened its eyes, but instead of getting up, Dief only snuffled softly before closing his eyes again.
His expression darkened and Ben took the time to run his hand slowly over Dief’s back, along his sides, then under his belly and his over neck. His hand stopped right at where the right leg met his chest. ″There’s a lump here.″
insert witty title here
May. 29th, 2025 08:46 pmdonutsweeperAs an FYI Pocket (aka/formerly ReadItLater) is being shut down. Apparently you can export your saves up until October 8th but then all user data will be deleted. I haven't used my account in years but when I saw the news I got it in my head I needed to go through the links and see what, if anything, was salvageable. I think I last really looked at it mid-2018 when I started compiling my useful links masterposts but I know I had done a *lot* with it early in my fandom career and had transferred a tons of saved links over when del.ic.ious went under (sighhhhh, remember delicious? That was such a great site.) and the account was from 2007 or 2008 or something so....
Oh my fucking god I have so many links there. Thousands upon thousands. Why I have it in my head I have to go through them all I do not know, but brain says what brain says. Hundreds of links to dead recipe blogs, hundreds more to deleted livejournals, tons of deleted ff.net and ao3 fics, lots of genealogy sites and other random research things that have gone *poof* but still. Hours upon hours spent clicking links so far and so many left to check/decide about.
And of course I am left with the... where to store these links now? There have been rumors swirling about tumblr dying (for years now, but recently they seem more serious) so I had been vaguely trying to get though favorited posts with links there in case it went under so obviously I'm not going to just transfer ReadItLater stuff there. I had moved a bunch of tumblr stuff to discord but there's been some grumblings that *that* isn't terribly long-term stable either so I should probably move stuff off there too but. Ugh and Grrrr.
For now I've been tossing stuff in a locked-to-me dreamwidth post. Eventually I'll have a good dozen or two new links to add to my useful things masterposts and I also did find some recipes to try and some comment-fic fills I might clean up and post so it hasn't been a complete waste of time but still. Not how I've planned to spend all my free time for a week+ with however many hours of it left to go.
I think I mentioned moths getting into some stored linens, well I finished my first rug with the resulting fabric strips:
35.5” by 23” give or take, green/blue plaid flannel sheet rug
I somehow managed to find some tumblr art to rec for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
recthething the last two weeks but I now have nothing stored up and no real thoughts so I'm kind of assuming my long streak of reccing there weekly is about to be over. Sigh. But here's art for Discword, Dracula, Hogan's Heroes, MDZS/The Untamed, SPN, Under the Skin, X-Files:
Discworld
- They did the job they didn’t have to do, and they died doing it (Animatic to Les Mis' Drink With Me)
- a take on how this priceless dialog happened on the old cemetery of Ankh Morpork one glorious 25th of May (really like the subtle emphasis on Vetinari's flower here)
- All The Little Angels Liber Chorum's take on the discworld song, along with sketches from Night Guard
Dracula
- I’ve been reading Dracula for the first time, im about halfway through, here’s my take on it so far: The polycule learns about monster hunting (hilarious comic)
Hogan's Heroes
- The Boys (amazing sketch of all of the allied characters)
MDZS/The Untamed
- Modern mdzs series - Wei Ying (Cute Modern AU version)
- On this Easter I would like to honour my favourite resurrected savour of man. (every so delightfully creepy)
SPN
- The Fallen Angel (gorgeous Cas)
Under the Skin | 猎罪图鉴
- Happy 520 from our favourite police crew (Everyone's so happy! I love it)
- If Shen Yi was portrayed as the real artist he is (this made me laugh, it's just too true)
X-Files
- if they looked at me like that I think I’d disintegrate on the spot (perfect expressions for Mulder and Scully here)
Oh my fucking god I have so many links there. Thousands upon thousands. Why I have it in my head I have to go through them all I do not know, but brain says what brain says. Hundreds of links to dead recipe blogs, hundreds more to deleted livejournals, tons of deleted ff.net and ao3 fics, lots of genealogy sites and other random research things that have gone *poof* but still. Hours upon hours spent clicking links so far and so many left to check/decide about.
And of course I am left with the... where to store these links now? There have been rumors swirling about tumblr dying (for years now, but recently they seem more serious) so I had been vaguely trying to get though favorited posts with links there in case it went under so obviously I'm not going to just transfer ReadItLater stuff there. I had moved a bunch of tumblr stuff to discord but there's been some grumblings that *that* isn't terribly long-term stable either so I should probably move stuff off there too but. Ugh and Grrrr.
For now I've been tossing stuff in a locked-to-me dreamwidth post. Eventually I'll have a good dozen or two new links to add to my useful things masterposts and I also did find some recipes to try and some comment-fic fills I might clean up and post so it hasn't been a complete waste of time but still. Not how I've planned to spend all my free time for a week+ with however many hours of it left to go.
I think I mentioned moths getting into some stored linens, well I finished my first rug with the resulting fabric strips:
35.5” by 23” give or take, green/blue plaid flannel sheet rug
I somehow managed to find some tumblr art to rec for
recthething the last two weeks but I now have nothing stored up and no real thoughts so I'm kind of assuming my long streak of reccing there weekly is about to be over. Sigh. But here's art for Discword, Dracula, Hogan's Heroes, MDZS/The Untamed, SPN, Under the Skin, X-Files: Discworld
- They did the job they didn’t have to do, and they died doing it (Animatic to Les Mis' Drink With Me)
- a take on how this priceless dialog happened on the old cemetery of Ankh Morpork one glorious 25th of May (really like the subtle emphasis on Vetinari's flower here)
- All The Little Angels Liber Chorum's take on the discworld song, along with sketches from Night Guard
Dracula
- I’ve been reading Dracula for the first time, im about halfway through, here’s my take on it so far: The polycule learns about monster hunting (hilarious comic)
Hogan's Heroes
- The Boys (amazing sketch of all of the allied characters)
MDZS/The Untamed
- Modern mdzs series - Wei Ying (Cute Modern AU version)
- On this Easter I would like to honour my favourite resurrected savour of man. (every so delightfully creepy)
SPN
- The Fallen Angel (gorgeous Cas)
Under the Skin | 猎罪图鉴
- Happy 520 from our favourite police crew (Everyone's so happy! I love it)
- If Shen Yi was portrayed as the real artist he is (this made me laugh, it's just too true)
X-Files
- if they looked at me like that I think I’d disintegrate on the spot (perfect expressions for Mulder and Scully here)
Unfortunate Timing
May. 28th, 2025 10:55 amstarwatcherSo, most of you know that I visit Cindy most afternoons. (She doesn't always feel well enough for a visit.) Somewhere in the past couple of years, we switched from watching Lucifer and me reading fanfic, to me reading novels.
Cindy prefers romantic suspense, or action-adventure-romance. Other genres are okay, if there's at least a little M/F love interest. Sometimes, of course, there's more than a little.
Now, picture this: Cindy's lying in bed. I'm reading aloud, with my voice a little louder than normal, because Cindy's hearing is decreased. Her husband Carl may be shopping, or at the shooting range, but is usually doing housework or woodwork. Occasionally he comes into the bedroom for something he needs, or to tell Cindy something.
So, he's barefoot, walking down a carpeted hall; we don't know he's coming until he appears in the doorway. And, far too often, he appears -- and has heard as he approaches the doorway -- just as I'm reading a slightly (or more than slightly) salacious line.
Yesterday, it was, "Locating a skull had been difficult, Amelia reflected, but finding a codpiece had been considerably more of a challenge." He literally appeared at the doorway just as I said, "codpiece."
*facepalm*
We all had a good laugh; Cindy and Carl aren't at all stuffy, and Carl likes to tease about things like that. (He said, "Yeah, it would be!") But still, I'd rather he walked in a couple of sentences earlier, when I was reading, "It showed another extremely handsome young man dressed in the ancient Italian style."
Good grief! Who knew reading aloud could be dangerous?
(The book is Second Sight by Amanda Quick, aka Jayne Ann Krentz. Set in the late 1890's, a woman photographer is making a series of art photographs of "Men of Shakespeare." The skull was for Hamlet, the codpiece for Romeo. That's not the point of the book, but the mystery centers around photography, so her work is discussed.)
Cozy Mystery sale
May. 28th, 2025 10:10 amstarwatcherhttps://fairfieldpublishing.com/cozy-mystery-sale-may-2025/
For 99 cents, a selection of Cozy mysteries, and some series. As far as I can tell, the sale ends Saturday at midnight, USA mountain time, Greenwich -7. (There's a countdown clock on my page. I have no idea if that's adjusted for different time-zones, or the same for everyone.) Happy reading.
Pangolin and Puttering
May. 18th, 2025 07:09 pmdonutsweeperDaughter's favorite animal is the pangolin and she moved last week so I hunted down a pattern and made her one for a housewarming present
It's based off the lemon-pangolin pattern here but I made a bunch of changes (and actually took notes!) so if anyone wants to try their hand at it, let me know, I can write up my version.
Weather here has been nuts, it went from a highs of 94 to 48 in only a few days. I loathed the heat and high humidity but that kind of temperature change is nuts and hard on the body as well. Santini isn't thrilled with the weather change either but that's because he's of the belief windows should always be open just in case he wants to properly stalk the bunnies or squirrels (does he ever get off his pile of blankets on the couch to do so? No, of course not. Does that matter? No, of course not. He is cat. His opinion is all that should matter)
Moths got into the chest we were keeping some random linens and clothes in so had to toss the chest and then decide what to do with all the now not wearable/donatable sheets and shirts and whatnot so, of course, it's all going to be rugs. I spent most of the week prepping it about half of it -cutting in strips and then rolling the strips into balls/disks depending for easier use later (after washing, of course)- but then decided to start a blanket instead of a rug. Maybe I'll switch off between a skein of blanket, do a rug, another skein, more rug, etc.
And, last but not least, two weeks ofrecthething tumblr recs (DCU, MDZS/The Untamed, Sherlock Holmes-ACD, ST:DS9, Star Wars, SPN, X-Files)
DCU
- Every tender shrimp needs a soft space to recuperate, amiright? (very tender Bruce/Clark moment)
MDZS/The Untamed
- mdzs fandom, long time no see! it’s been almost five years since i last drew wei wuxian, so please accept my offering now (wonderfully eerie Yiling Patriarch era WWX)
- Nie Mingjue and Baxi-huahua The Unrelenting (absolutely love this idea of how Baxia would be in a swords->dogs modern AU)
- Wangxian lightbox (very neat)
Sherlock Holmes - ACD
- Holmes and Watson overlooking the moors (lovely yet eerie Hound of Baskervilles moment)
ST:DS9
- Quark Study (Quark and tribbles, love it!)
Star Wars
- happy star wars day!!! may the 4th be with you!!! (adorable grogu doodle)
- Skywalker Twins comic (hilarious Leia being better with the force than Luke comic)
Supernatural
- Destiel (I think I like the alt background under the cut better but this is a wonderful scene from a hunt either way)
X-Files
- Mulder and Scully in the rain (lovely painting of these two)
(I'm honestly surprised I managed to find stuff to rec these past two weeks. I keep thinking that I'm going to break my approximately 4yr long weekly reccing streak but have managed to squeak in a few. I doubt I'll keep it up, but oh well, it was a fun challenge while I managed it)
It's based off the lemon-pangolin pattern here but I made a bunch of changes (and actually took notes!) so if anyone wants to try their hand at it, let me know, I can write up my version.
Weather here has been nuts, it went from a highs of 94 to 48 in only a few days. I loathed the heat and high humidity but that kind of temperature change is nuts and hard on the body as well. Santini isn't thrilled with the weather change either but that's because he's of the belief windows should always be open just in case he wants to properly stalk the bunnies or squirrels (does he ever get off his pile of blankets on the couch to do so? No, of course not. Does that matter? No, of course not. He is cat. His opinion is all that should matter)
Moths got into the chest we were keeping some random linens and clothes in so had to toss the chest and then decide what to do with all the now not wearable/donatable sheets and shirts and whatnot so, of course, it's all going to be rugs. I spent most of the week prepping it about half of it -cutting in strips and then rolling the strips into balls/disks depending for easier use later (after washing, of course)- but then decided to start a blanket instead of a rug. Maybe I'll switch off between a skein of blanket, do a rug, another skein, more rug, etc.
And, last but not least, two weeks of
recthething tumblr recs (DCU, MDZS/The Untamed, Sherlock Holmes-ACD, ST:DS9, Star Wars, SPN, X-Files) DCU
- Every tender shrimp needs a soft space to recuperate, amiright? (very tender Bruce/Clark moment)
MDZS/The Untamed
- mdzs fandom, long time no see! it’s been almost five years since i last drew wei wuxian, so please accept my offering now (wonderfully eerie Yiling Patriarch era WWX)
- Nie Mingjue and Baxi-huahua The Unrelenting (absolutely love this idea of how Baxia would be in a swords->dogs modern AU)
- Wangxian lightbox (very neat)
Sherlock Holmes - ACD
- Holmes and Watson overlooking the moors (lovely yet eerie Hound of Baskervilles moment)
ST:DS9
- Quark Study (Quark and tribbles, love it!)
Star Wars
- happy star wars day!!! may the 4th be with you!!! (adorable grogu doodle)
- Skywalker Twins comic (hilarious Leia being better with the force than Luke comic)
Supernatural
- Destiel (I think I like the alt background under the cut better but this is a wonderful scene from a hunt either way)
X-Files
- Mulder and Scully in the rain (lovely painting of these two)
(I'm honestly surprised I managed to find stuff to rec these past two weeks. I keep thinking that I'm going to break my approximately 4yr long weekly reccing streak but have managed to squeak in a few. I doubt I'll keep it up, but oh well, it was a fun challenge while I managed it)