due South/Ray Vecchio/Ray Kowalski

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Pairing:	Ray Vecchio/Ray Kowalski
Alternative name(s):	RayV/RayK, RayRay, Vecchio/Kowalski, V/K
Gender category:
Fandom:	due South
Canonical?:
Prevalence:
Archives:	DSA due Slash
Other:
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Ray/Ray is the only pairing in due South with its own motto: I swing both Rays.

RayV/RayK fic started to appear in 1999, as if one of the Rays said 'let's stop fighting over which of us gets Fraser, and just grab each other.' (Interestingly, this was the original written end of the show--Fraser alone in the Northwest Territories and both Rays back in Chicago, Vecchio at his old posting and Kowalski at the 32nd Precinct--although it wasn't until 2008 that this original ending was known to the fandom.) Ray/Ray stories were first seen as oddities, or even as traitorous ^[1], but a moment's thought shows that there's some there there: They're both relatively isolated at work; they both have strong ethnic family ties; they both fell in love with Stella. The Rays obviously have a few things in common.

Of course their greatest similarity (in fanfiction) is the way they both fell hard for Fraser (whether that's written platonically or romantically). Ray/Ray stories tend to have Fraser as a third character whether he's physically there in the story or not. Often one (or both) of the Rays is convinced that the other Ray would rather have Fraser, and it's not uncommon for one of them to have just broken up with Fraser as the story starts. But the (small) fandom is not a one-trick pony; there are Ray/Ray stories of happy sap, and others of miserable grudgefucks. Beginning in 2003, there was a spate of stories that speculated a shared history for the two Rays in which they knew one another as teenagers in high school -- A. Kite wrote several of these "teen Rays" stories, as did a few other writers at the time. More recently, the fandom has relaxed a little, and some of the more generic story tropes (bodyswap, high school AUs, etc.) have started to show up.

1 Fic Masterlist
2 Fanon
3 Notable Fanworks
4 References

Fic Masterlist

Lexa_C maintains a masterlist of Ray/Ray stories.

Fanon

It's not unusual for these boys to punch each other a little. They spend most of their time in RayK's apartment. They're usually both back working at the precinct -- either they're partners, or they're kept as far apart as possible. Stories tend to start as if the only thing that's happened since the end of the show was RayV getting divorced and moving back to Chicago, and RayK leaving the Arctic and moving back to Chicago.