Notes: Thanks go to Crysothemis, Dawn Pares, and Kat Allison for
down-in-the-trenches beta. This story is the first time Mairead and
Bone have worked together, which is pretty appropriate for the
Millenium, in a kind of lion-and-lamb-sharing-a-sleeping-bag sort of
way.

Pairing: Fraser/Kowalski

Rating: NC-17 for m/m sex, language, and angsty bits.

Comments: Are welcomed at mtriste@hotmail.com and jbonetoo@yahoo.com

Summary: The road to Heaven is paved with bad intentions. And smut.

Unguarded Protectorate

by Mairead Triste & Bone

December 1999

Thud-thump. Thud-thump. Thud-thump.

Ray squeezed his eyes closed against the bright, fluorescent light
of the squadroom, and thought (as he frequently did) that he should
have known better. He had Saturday shift this week -- something that
normally would have been nothing more than a routine pain in the
ass, if it hadn't been for the fact that Friday night's retirement
party for Detective First Class George Stavropoulous had left him
with a First Class hangover.

As a result, pain in the ass didn't even begin to describe it.

Thud-thump. Thud-thump.

Beat of heart, beat of head. Both feeling like they were struggling
along against overwhelming odds, and were thinking seriously about
giving it up as a bad job. His head hurt. His stomach hurt. His
mouth tasted like maybe he'd licked the floor of a holding cell when
he wasn't paying attention.

And of course, this had to be the day when Welsh decided that
Saturday duty wasn't bad enough, but that somebody had to show the
new guy the ropes and hey, Vecchio -- try to explain the paperwork
without mentioning that you never do any yourself, okay? Ray had
agreed out of desperation, a gut-churning need to get away from the
smell of long-ago roast beef and mustard that haunted Welsh's
office.

On top of that it was also Frannie's turn for Saturday shift, which
meant she had to miss her niece's piano recital or some such crap,
which meant she was even more pissy than usual, which meant that she
took it out on everybody by making coffee so bad that even Welsh
wouldn't drink it.

Thud-thump.

So -- the new guy; a transfer from somewhere back east. With the way
his luck was going today he would probably be some New York
smartass, or some rube with a Maine twang that would cut through his
head like--

"Detective Vecchio?"

Ray pried one eye open, wincing. Given the glaring light and no
glasses and his head, pretty much all he caught was an outline. A
really, really big outline.

He cleared his throat. "You're not, like, a bad guy or anything, are
you? Because I gotta tell you -- I'm not in the mood, pal."

The outline came closer and sat down at the chair next to his desk,
clarifying into a broad-shouldered guy with light brown, buzz-cut
hair and chiseled features that didn't quite match the hard gleam in
his eyes. Pale blue eyes. Bright. Ray squinted.

"Charlie Darnell. From Boston PD. I was told to ask for you--"

"Right, right, right, Stavropoulos' replacement." He offered a hand,
and received one of those 'I'm a goddamn cop' handshakes. "Look,
Darnell--"

The man smiled, proving that the brightness of his eyes had nothing
on his teeth. "Call me Charlie."

That was definitely a Boston twang. Slightly better than Maine,
anyway. Ray nodded, then wished he hadn't. "Ray. Just let me get
some stuff together here--"

He would have continued, except that as he spoke Francesca swooped
in as if out of thin air, making him jump. Her hands fluttered
restlessly, tucking her hair firmly behind one ear, playing with her
necklace. The whisk and rustle of leather over nylon seemed suddenly
very loud. "You're him? You're the new guy?" Ray caught that
'what-shall-we-name-the-children' look on her face, and smiled even
though it hurt to do it.

"Uh... yeah..." Those blue eyes had gone wide and uncertain.
Apparently ol' Charlie wasn't quite the hardcase he seemed to be.
Ray sighed and leaned on his fist.

"Charlie Darnell, my sister Francesca. Civilian Aid. Hey, I happen
to know that she made the coffee, if you'd--"

He had to whip his foot out of the way quick to keep it from being
pierced by a spiked pump. "Actually, I was just about to make some
cappuccino, Detective Darnell." Ray wondered absently if he could be
absorbing some kind of weird female hormone just from listening to
her voice. "And then I'd be happy to take you around the station,
show you the ropes--"

"Ropes if you're lucky," he murmured, and pulled the other foot
away fast. "Hey, Frannie, correct me if I'm wrong, here, but didn't
you say something to Welsh about how you were way too busy with case
research to put in any time on... what did you call it? 'Potty
training', or something like that--"

She turned on him fiercely, and for a split second it was like
having a sister -- if he'd ever had one, he would have bet good
money that she would have looked at him like that. Obviously he
hadn't missed much. Frannie smoothed out quick, however, since
apparently it was more important not to scare off the new hunk than
it was to tear Ray a new asshole. "But Ray, you know I'm never too
busy to stand by our boys in blue --" a smooth shift, and she
switched over to Darnell with another prizewinning smile. "I just
love cops. They're like... knights or something. All that...
nobility."

Darnell smiled back at her, and while she melted he caught Ray's eye
with a glance of commiseration. Ray winked, and waved them both off
so he could put his head back down on his files as soon as possible.

He watched Darnell stand, registered Frannie's soft breath of
surprise -- the guy had to be at least six foot six -- and tuned out
the sound of Frannie's voice as she led him away, asking some stupid
question about his gun.

Head down. Finally. Ray sighed. Darnell would do--

"...no, actually," he heard Darnell's voice, cautiously polite, from
far, far away, "I'm not married..."

A bonus all around. Looked like Fraser might actually get a break,
Frannie-wise. Ray closed his eyes.

Okay, so he should have known better. Again. Should have known
pulling that Saturday shift wouldn't get him any favors four days
later. When Welsh offered to let him off the hook on the Bennetti
case (lots of footwork and an evidence search that would start at
the city dump -- not exactly a plum assignment), he should have seen
the bait-and-switch before he jumped.

But he hadn't.

"Since you're not going to be digging up the Bennetti evidence,
Detective, I think it would be best if you got that paperwork
backlog off your desk, don't you agree?"

Suddenly the dump didn't seem like such a bad deal. "Well, you know,
Lieutenant, about that Bennetti thing--"

"And furthermore," Welsh interrupted smoothly, "since we've had a
quiet week around here I think it would be abundantly possible for
you to have said paperwork completed and on my desk by lunchtime
tomorrow -- that's twenty-four hours from now."

"Uh... Lieutenant--"

"Go in peace, Detective. May the force be with you. In triplicate."

Damn.

And so now, when he'd been looking forward to an afternoon of
scheming up interesting things he could leave in Huey and Dewey's
desk while they were out dump-fishing, and looking forward to lunch
with Fraser and Dief to try to figure out which of the three of them
could handle the hottest chili, now he had nothing to look forward
to except...

Fucking paperwork. In triplicate. Ray sighed, bit his pen
vengefully, and got down to it.

There was a noise, a nagging, incessant distraction -- something
like Chinese water torture only it was too far away to care about.
And anyway, he wasn't going to look up until he figured out how to
spell 'interrogation' -- which was just stupid because it wasn't
like he didn't write it enough--

"Ray!"

He whipped his head up. "Fraser. Oh jeez... I forgot to call. Look,
I was gonna call you but then I got into this thing here that I have
to do since I'm not at the dump and I just... hey, I can't make
lunch today, okay? See, the Lieutenant's got this strange idea that
somehow I can get caught up on a six month backlog in less than
twenty four hours, and I don't know what evidence locker he's been
sniffing but--"

"Ray!"

He blinked. Sometimes facing Fraser's uniform was liked getting
smacked in the head with something... well, something really red.
"Yeah, Fraser?"

"You can't go to lunch with me?"

"Boy, nothing gets past you, does it?" He twisted his head abruptly,
and the tension in his neck eased with a satisfying crack.

"And you were too busy to let me know of the change in plans?"

"Not too busy, Fraser; I just forgot. I think it's probably all the
Wite Out I've been breathing."

"I see." Ah. Fraser's disapproval. Life just wouldn't be life
without it. The sad thing was that Dief looked pretty bummed out
too. He shouldn't have bragged up that chili so much.

"Look, Fraser, I'll make it up to you -- day after tomorrow, and we
can--"

"Excuse me." Darnell. Apparently out of nowhere, appearing somehow
right next to his desk. That such a big guy could move that quietly
seemed... weird. Just weird. Ray shook his head. Darnell was
smiling. "You must be the Constable I've heard all the stories
about."

Ray watched Fraser slide from irritation to that apple-polisher look
in the blink of an eye. "Indeed. Constable Benton Fraser, Royal
Canadian Mounted Police. I first came to Chicago on the trail--"

Ray cleared his throat, and craned way back to get a look all the
way up to Darnell's face. "His dad is dead but he caught the bad
guy, and now he's an attached lesion to--"

"Liaison, Ray."

"What I said. Fraser, this is Charlie, George's replacement from
Boston. As far as I know he came here on the trail of a job--"

"I'm sure he did, Ray--"

And then, from Darnell, cutting smoothly across both their voices:
"Would you like to go to lunch with me?"

That was so unexpected that silence descended for a moment. Ray
blinked and looked at Fraser, who was looking at Darnell.

Who was smiling at Fraser.

"I beg your pardon?" Fraser asked softly. Ray's mouth twitched.
Apparently, Fraser hadn't seen that one coming either.

Darnell seemed to take it in stride, however. He took a step
forward, pretty much the only one left between him and Fraser, and
just kept on smiling. "I heard Ray here tell you that he's busy, and
I was just about to go try a new Greek restaurant I heard about --
would you like to join me?"

All on their own, Ray's hands found his glasses and fumbled them
onto his face. He caught the look, the intensity, the intent in
Darnell's blue eyes, and his stomach seemed to fold in on itself. Oh
God.

Ray knew that look. He'd seen it at least once on the face of every
female in the station, and at least once a day on the face of
Francesca Vecchio. And here it was... on a guy. A big, strapping
cop guy. What the fuck?

"Well, that's very kind of you, Detective," Fraser was practically
lit up, apparently thinking he'd discovered the only polite American
in existence. Ray swallowed, and almost choked on dry air. "I'd be
delighted. Greek, did you say?"

He should say something. He knew he should say something, that to
not say something was going to hook him right back to one of those
'should have known better' moments, but for the life of him he
couldn't figure out what the hell he could say. Not until he got
Fraser alone.

Which looked like it might be a while, if Darnell's grin was
anything to go by. "Yup. Greek. You like Greek?"

Ray's face burned, something that usually only happened when he did
something incredibly stupid in front of Stella.

Fraser, however, was blush-free. Of course he was. "Very much so. Do
you like wolves?"

It was the first time Ray had ever heard Darnell laugh, and he found
that he didn't like it. Not at all. The muscles in his shoulders
tensed to the point of pain.

"Hell, yeah," Darnell agreed enthusiastically, and Ray could only
watch while the guy steered Fraser towards the door with one huge
hand on his shoulder. "Everybody loves wolves. You gotta bark at the
moon, don't you, Constable?"

Fraser looked... even more stupidly trusting than usual, strolling
away like that as if all was right with the world. "I take it that
you're referring to 'wolf music', and indeed, I must say that it's
gratifying to find another aficionado of that particular song." A
familiar, dry Fraser chuckle. "In fact, there was this one time,
when I was bivouacked on the edge of a forest in the Yukon
underneath a full moon near the end of November; when it came to my
attention that my camp had been surrounded by..."

And then they were gone. Ray realized slowly that his mouth was
hanging open, and he shut it with a snap. All the blood in his veins
seemed to be percolating, and there was a terribly confused sense of
not knowing whether to laugh his ass off, or grab his gun and go
rescue Fraser.

Neither option seemed quite like what he wanted. There were probably
a few other options he should consider, but right now his brain was
so full of Greek/wolf/Fraser combinations that he couldn't even
begin to figure out what they were.

In the end, he just closed his eyes for a few moments, then shook
himself all over. He shrugged, and started going through his desk
drawers in search of a fresh bottle of Wite Out. He found some
eventually, and it was a damn good thing he did because it turned
out that he needed it -- suddenly his typing fingers had turned
stupid on him. Probably shouldn't have skipped lunch.

Darnell. Jesus. You could just never tell about some people.

"Ray! I wasn't expecting you."

Ray shifted from foot to foot in the Consulate doorway, hating the
restless, thundery feeling in his limbs but unable to keep himself
still. "Yeah, well, that's me -- expect the unexpected. It's
just..." Abruptly his ear itched, so he scratched it. "I didn't hear
from you today, so..."

That familiar, faint frown-line of confusion bunched up on Fraser's
forehead. "Today? Were you supposed to hear from me? Did I forget
something--"

Ray twisted his shoulders inside his leather jacket. "No, Fraser,
you didn't forget anything, like you would, but I thought that after
what happened yesterday--"

Fraser nodded, and his forehead smoothed out. "Ah. About lunch
yesterday? Consider it forgotten -- water under the culvert--"

"Bridge. Under the bridge, Fraser. And this isn't about that. This
is about... that other thing."

Fraser's head tilted, and for a moment he looked so much like Dief
that Ray wanted to laugh. "Other thing? And what thing would that
be, Ray?"

Naturally. Naturally Fraser couldn't pull his head out long enough
to make this, like, easy on him or anything. Ray shifted to the
other foot before he could stop himself. "The other thing, the other
lunch, the other... look, are you gonna keep me standing out here
all night?"

The door swung wide. "Oh, of course not, Ray. Please come in."

The Consulate always gave him the creeps at night. He followed
Fraser down the hallway, knowing that he was working hard to keep
his steps silent. How in the hell could the guy sleep here?

It was better, at least a little, in Fraser's little hole of an
office. It smelled better, or something. He took a chair, the least
uncomfortable of a really uncomfortable bunch. The desk lamp was
still on, and there were two neat piles of forms centered on the
otherwise uncluttered surface. "Hey -- am I interrupting something,
here? I mean --"

"Not at all. I was just preparing a few materials in advance of...
you see, Inspector Thatcher is... well, the Argentine Ambassador has
been paying us -- I mean her -- a visit, and--"

Ray waved it off. "It's Canadian stuff, I get it. I don't need to
know. Okay."

Fraser stared at him curiously. "Ray, are you all right? You seem
rather agitated--"

"Agitated, agitated, right -- that's good. That's real good, Fraser;
real top-notch observing, there." He rubbed his eyes, and almost had
to pry them open afterwards. He should be home and crashed out right
now, catching up on sleep after yesterday's nineteen-hour shift and
today's sixteen-hour shift, instead of... where he was.

But no. He was here, and he wasn't about to walk out without saying
what needed to be said. He'd put it off long enough. If Fraser
didn't know... well, Fraser couldn't know. And if he did, he didn't
know enough. Which was a problem, or could be. How that had come to
be his problem, he wasn't sure, except that when he'd picked up
Vecchio's baggage, the Mountie'd come as part of the package, and he
guessed that made him responsible, in a strange sort of way.

Whyever, it needed to be done, and so there he was. Doing it.

"The other thing, that other thing I mentioned." It really was hard
to get the words past the tightness in his throat. Surprisingly
hard. "It's about Darnell."

Fraser's head tilted again. "Detective Darnell?"

Ray nodded, and forced himself to meet Fraser's inquiring eyes.
"Yeah. Detective Darnell. The guy who asked you to lunch."

Fraser frowned slightly. "And Detective Darnell is the... other
thing? Forgive me if I seem to be confused by that statement, Ray,
but I--"

Deep breath. Just fucking say it, already. "He's queer, Fraser."

Fraser blinked. "He didn't seem all that unusual to me, Ray--"

Oh man. Why him? Why did crap like this always come down to him?
"Not queer like that, Fraser -- he's queer, okay? He's... he's
gay, he's a fag, he's an ass bandit, he bats for the home
team, he--"

"Ray!"

"What?" His face was so hot, so burning hot...

Fraser squinted at him. "You're telling me that Detective Darnell is
a homosexual."

Another deep breath, and something that had been wound razorwire-
tight in his stomach slowly began to unravel. "Yeah. Whatever.
That's what I'm telling you."

Fraser nodded, looking scarily calm. "And that was the... other
thing?"

A suspicion dawned on him, prickling the back of his neck. "Let me
guess -- you knew that already, right? Something about his smell or
the way he holds his fork or something--"

At least that got him a smile. "No, Ray, I wasn't aware of that fact
about Detective Darnell. As far as I can determine he handles a fork
in a perfectly ordinary way, and he smells just fine--"

"Fraser, I did not need to know that --"

"But what puzzles me is why you felt moved to inform me of this...
aspect of Detective Darnell's lifestyle."

Ray shifted in the chair before his butt went totally numb. "You
don't know why."

"No, I must say that I don't."

Just when he thought the hard part was over. Jesus. "Well, isn't it
obvious? I mean, the guy asked you to lunch, Fraser--"

"Yes he did, Ray; and it was very kind of him to do so, since you
were otherwise occupied. I think, in fact, that you'd enjoy that
restaurant very much--"

"Fraser!"

For a guy who told the truth so damn much, there was nobody to hold
a candle to him when it came to evasion, that was for sure. Ray's
hands twisted in his lap. Hands on hold, temper on hold, check.

"Yes, Ray?"

"You don't get it, do you? I mean, the guy wasn't just asking you to
lunch, he was asking you to lunch, okay?"

Fraser was back to squinting. "Are you saying that Detective Darnell
had motives... other than simply sharing a meal with me?"

"If you mean am I saying Darnell wants to play hide the Canadian
bacon, then yeah, I am."

Fraser looked lost. "Hide the... could you elucidate, Ray?"

It occurred to him in one wild and desperate moment that he could
just pick up the nearest huge hardback book and whack Fraser over
the head with it. It might not help get his point across, but it
would certainly make him feel a hell of a lot better.

"Let's leave the bacon out of it for now, okay, Fraser? What I mean
is that it wasn't lunch like two-guys-at-lunch, it was lunch like
one-step-closer-to-getting-into-your-longjohns-lunch."

"Ah. I see." Fraser nodded and smiled, and then abruptly frowned.
"No I don't. Why on earth would Detective Darnell want to get into
my longjohns, Ray? For one thing, he's six inches taller than
myself, and furthermore--"

He slammed up to his feet before he even knew he was going to do it.
"For God's sake, Fraser, nobody can be this frigging clueless --
Darnell asked you to lunch because he's hot for you, because he
wants you, wants to screw you, have sex with you, do impure things
with you or however the hell you Canadians put it -- he wants your
ass, Fraser. Is that clear enough for you?"

And wouldn't you know it -- the guy was still calm. "Yes, Ray,
perfectly clear. That's what I thought you were suggesting -- well,
without the profanity, of course. However, when you then raised the
topic of bacon and longjohns I became confused, and thought perhaps
I'd been mistaken."

He sat back down before his knees went out from under him. "I hate
you sometimes, Fraser."

Fraser nodded, still looking calm. "I'm beginning to realize that,
Ray."

And later, sipping a cup of some godawful tea that Fraser had
insisted he take to 'calm his nerves': "So. You get it, then."

Fraser's eyes met his own over the edge of a ceramic mug with
(surprise!) the Canadian flag emblazoned on it. "I do, Ray. I get
it."

Finally. He felt the call of his bed, of his own dark apartment --
something that seemed almost to be pulling at his tired bones.
"Good. So watch your step, and I'll do what I can on my end to keep
Darnell away from you. You'll be fine."

Fraser's forehead was bunching up again. "Keep him away from me? Is
that really necessary, Ray? I mean, if Detective Darnell were ever
to make any sort of... overture, I'm perfectly capable of telling
him--"

No bed. No rest. Not yet. God. "See? You don't get it, Fraser. It's
not like... no, it's not that I think I have to defend your honor or
anything like that, it's just... well, people talk. You know."

"Hm."

"Don't start 'hm'ing me, Fraser. Look, the guy is obviously out of
the closet--"

Fraser's eyes cut over to the closed door at the side of his room.
"Closet?"

"Like, you know, he's open about it, he doesn't care who knows about
his... queerness, or whatever. So, if you hang around with him,
buddy up to him, then people are going to talk. Now do you get it?"

"I believe so, Ray, but I'm curious -- did Detective Darnell tell
you that he was no longer inside his 'closet'?"

Ray made himself take another sip of tea. It tasted like... roots,
or something. Probably was, but he shouldn't think about that right
now. "He didn't have to, Fraser. He propositioned you right in front
of me. That is not the act of a guy in the closet."

Fraser had that distant, private look that he got whenever he'd
figured something out, but didn't feel like sharing it with the rest
of the world. Ray hated that look. "Right you are. Well, I believe
I understand everything now, Ray."

Those words were so welcome that all the lingering irritation seemed
to wash away on a wave of exhaustion. "Thank you, God." He yawned,
and felt a pop that went all the way down his spine. "I gotta go.
I'm out on my feet, here--"

"Would you like me to call you a cab?"

"No, no, I just need to get my car pointed in the right direction
and I'll get home fine. I just need sleep."

"Very well. I'll see you off, then."

He caught Fraser's formal wave in his rear-view mirror, and returned
it without thought. Still calm -- the big idiot still looked calm.
Go figure.

For a case with this much leg-work already done, it just didn't add
up. He had one dead guy, four people with opportunity, three
different people with motive, and two others who didn't seem to
relate to the case at all except that they had means and they were
nearby and the whole thing smelled like one of those old tuna fish
sandwiches out of the lunchroom. Not good.

It was an itch, a tease -- something he should be seeing but wasn't,
something he should be doing but hadn't. He was too close to it. Too
close to see. And of course, having Welsh breathe down his neck
about how the dead guy was an influential businessman and there were
people out there who wanted answers, dammit, didn't help things
much.

Help. He needed help.

And so after working late he went to Fraser, because if there was
one thing he could count on Fraser for it was to see things
differently, to get snagged by some detail that everybody else had
passed right over. Too bad he didn't have any lickable evidence to
bring with him.

He went to Fraser, but Fraser wasn't there. Of course.

Fraser was AWOL. Had been for a couple of weeks now. There, but
somehow... not there. It wasn't all him. Ray'd been burning the
midnight oil some himself, off doing stuff when Fraser came to the
station, missing him by a few minutes, as he'd find out when he
asked Frannie if she'd seen him. They'd pass sometimes, in the hall,
and talk about the cases in shorthand over their shoulders as they
brushed by each other.

That wasn't so strange. Not really. But usually they'd find
themselves in the car going somewhere, or getting something to eat,
or something. Some concentrated time they could talk about stuff,
get on the same page. He didn't know how much he'd counted on that
until wham he didn't have it anymore.

Benton Fraser, Missing in Action.

It didn't help that Welsh was riding his ass hard, like whatever
grace period he'd gotten in the Vecchio transition had expired and
now he was just another cop to harass. Days were passing under his
feet without him noticing much more than the fact that the take-out
cartons in his trashcan were piling up, and he always seemed to be
out of clean shirts.

It was fucking depressing.

The Consulate was locked up tight and shadowed in darkness, and even
after he let himself in with his credit card and made his slow way
down the black and silent hall to Fraser's room there was nothing,
nobody there, nobody at all which seemed just too weird all of a
sudden -- the Twilight Zone, Canadian style. He made sure to lock up
when he left.

He meant to go home after that, to sit down and spread out all the
files and go over everything again and really look because he was
sure the answer was there, somewhere. He meant to go home but
somehow it didn't work out that way -- somehow, after he locked the
Consulate door and turned towards his car he just kept walking,
letting the case and Fraser and all of the details fill his mind.

He knew the facts. He knew Fraser. It seemed like those two things
should be easy to combine -- as if the space that Fraser occupied in
his mind could be slipped on like another pair of glasses, tinting
the world with Fraservision.

And yeah, okay, that was kinda scary, but there was no point in
dwelling on it.

He considered one possibility after another -- about the case, about
Fraser, about his current inability to really get a grip on either
one. When he came back to himself and looked up he found that he'd
walked about ten blocks from the Consulate, and was currently
standing in the middle of a bunch of freaks and hookers and dust-
heads; everybody everywhere looking to score, with one thing or
another. The street was alive. The people around him seemed somehow
to be more real than he was himself. He was one of them. He wasn't.
He was.

And all that strangeness was too much for one tired and underpaid
detective to face, so he slipped into the nearest bar and blinked
until the outside neon had faded from his eyes. He bellied up. He
ordered a beer. He felt eyes on the back of his neck and turned, and
then he jerked upright almost fast enough to knock him off his stool
because those were known eyes, Fraser's eyes -- Fraser was here,
as if he'd collected himself from the stock of Ray's thoughts and
just taken shape, somehow.

Fraser at a table in the corner. Fraser in this... dive.

Ray blinked again and his vision widened, and when it registered
that Fraser was seated at one of the crappy, tilting tables across
from Darnell, he drew in a deep and involuntary breath, sawdust
and beer and a faint hint of piss sucked right down deep and all the
way to the bottom of his lungs. Fraser and Darnell.

Fraser and Darnell.

He had no time to deal with it before Fraser was coming right for
him, looking surprised and pleased and a little too flushed to be
comfortable in that flannel shirt and leather jacket -- radiating
color and heat, and Ray drew in on himself without noticing, not
wanting to be touched. Thought Fraser might just burn him, if he
touched him now.

"Ray!" Fraser seemed to read him (as he usually did), and didn't
touch him. There was that, at least.

"Fraser."

"I can't even begin to imagine how you found me. Perhaps your
tracking skills are--"

"I wasn't looking for you, Fraser. I just wanted a beer."

Fraser nodded. "Serendipity, then. Would you like to join us? The
corner is relatively quiet, more conducive to conversation--"

Too much. Too much. His face was hot, again, but it wasn't
embarrassment. Not at all. "What the hell do you think you're
doing?"

"Ray?"

His lips were numb. His hands were numb. "I thought you were going
to stay away from Darnell."

Fraser seemed to be considering that. "Well, you see, Ray, it was my
understanding that your objection to Detective Darnell was in
relation to people talking about my interactions with him. In light
of that, he suggested this place, which he said was an unlikely
locale for either off-duty police officers or Consulate employees --
although, given the fact that you're here, perhaps it might be
necessary to reconsider--"

"You're here with Darnell."

Fraser blinked, glanced at the corner table, and then turned back to
him. "And Diefenbaker. But surely that's a rather simple deduction,
Ray, given that--"

"Darnell is gay." Was he going to lose it, here? Was he? The
uncertainty in and of itself was maybe the scariest thing about it.

"You mentioned that before, Ray. I'm aware of that."

Ray took a deep breath. Cracked his knuckles. Two ways to go here:
Reasonable or whup-ass. In this neighborhood, whup-ass would
probably charge up every freakazoid in a nine block radius, and
there was the Darnell thing to consider; he'd probably just love to
bring his six-foot-six down and squash some Kowalski...

"Thought we talked about this. It's not smart, Fraser, it's not a
smart thing to do, hanging out with him."

Fraser shifted from one foot to the other, which usually made him
look like he'd settled down, but not this time. This time he just
looked off balance.

"I... enjoy his company," he finally said.

Christ. What did that mean? And did he really want to know? No.
No, he really didn't want to know. What would a guy like Fraser see
in a guy like... unless he... Oh, man, talk about things he did
not want to know.

Maybe that wasn't it. Maybe Fraser was just... hanging out. 'Cuz Ray
was busy all the time. Maybe he just wanted somebody who'd go at the
drop of a Stetson, somebody who wouldn't blow off his stories.

Maybe Fraser was just... lonely.

Ray shook himself. Okay, okay. That was the one he'd go with. Made
sense, he could wrap his brain around that. Wasn't like Fraser had a
ton of people in his life, and most of them were even weirder than
he was. He for sure knew how that felt, being lonely. He missed
Stella. A lot. Like getting his right arm chopped off, was how that
felt sometimes.

He sniffed. "Look, Fraser," he said, leaning over so he didn't have
to say it too loud. "I've been out of it, snowed under. Sorry I
haven't been around as much."

Fraser just blinked at him.

Okay, if at first you don't succeed, repeat yourself.

"I been just plowed with work, Welsh is like... he's turned into
this slavedriver, all of a sudden. I'm... sorry."

Damn if Fraser didn't take that exact moment to look over his
shoulder, smile at Darnell.

Smiled at the fucker. There he sat, in that crappy place,
apologizing to him, when Fraser was the one... he was the one...

"Ray, your duty comes first, I understand that," Fraser said.

No, he didn't understand. He didn't get it at all.

"What're you doing, Fraser?"

"I told you, Charlie thought this might be a good--"

"There is nothing good about this, Fraser."

Stalemate. Two guys at a bar, not looking, not talking. Close enough
that Ray could feel the heat coming off him, could hear his leather
jacket squeak when he shifted again, shifting farther away.

"Perhaps if you got to know him a little better," Fraser said.

Ray smiled. It felt like a smile, but usually Fraser didn't back up
a step when he smiled at him.

"Uh, no, that's okay," he said.

"Ray," Fraser said, then stopped. Then started again. "I'm not...
there's nothing... improper about my friendship with Charlie."

Friendship.

Friendship?

Didn't look like friendship from here. Not in a place like this, off
in a corner, quiet, the kind of place people went to...

"Doesn't matter what it is, Fraser. Matters what it looks like."

"What does it look like?"

Nobody was that dense. Fraser had to be trying to piss him off.
Trying to push him away. In his own evasive, round-the-corner way,
Fraser was telling him to mind his own business. Which probably
meant Fraser had some business of his own he was minding.

Which maybe, just possibly, awww Christ, probably meant...

The beer he'd drunk soured in his stomach. He pushed himself up,
closer to, then away from Fraser, clenching his teeth against what
he wanted to say, but wouldn't, couldn't. Not without risking...
what? What was he risking?

He pictured day after day of paperwork, Huey and Dewey, Welsh over
his shoulder, with no Fraser to break up the day, no wolf mooching
out of his snack drawer. Yeah, that was worth keeping his mouth shut
for. What else could he say? He'd said it all already. Dumb lug
didn't want to hear it. Or heard it and didn't care.

That much was pretty damn clear. Fraser didn't care.

His legs were numb when he stood, his fingers numb when he fished in
his pockets for a few bills to throw on the bar, and when he walked
he felt like he was stumbling, but he knew he wasn't.

But inside, everything inside -- that wasn't numb.

That wasn't numb at all.

Just how lonely would a guy have to be to do... that?

That jaw-dropping night in the piss place turned out to be an
example of a good day between them. They turned sour, like the
milk in his fridge when he didn't pay attention. They still
partnered up, still talked about cases, clues, hunches and evidence,
but everything felt tilted, off. Felt like they were speaking two
different languages, more than it usually did; like they could talk
police work fine, but the minute it turned even halfway personal,
Fraser clammed right up.

Didn't seem to matter what Ray tried; nothing helped. Even solving
the Bennetti case hadn't done the trick. A whole month they'd spent
on that damn case, once it got past the climbing in dumpsters stage,
and they'd done it. Nailed the sucker.

He'd spent the past two hours crawling through the paperwork, hyped
up enough from the bust not to even mind doing it, almost hyped
enough not to notice that it wasn't his desk Fraser was hanging
around while he did it.

A flash of red caught his eye as he finished the last line of the
last page. He closed the folder with a thump of satisfaction and
squinted up at Fraser. "Pizza or Chinese?" Taking it for granted,
assuming that things would go the way he needed them to -- a trick
to keep the desperation out of his voice. Learned, but maybe too
late to do him any good.

At least he'd managed to make Fraser look uncomfortable. "Well, you
see, Ray, I'm afraid... that is, as much as I appreciate the
invitation, I've already made plans for the evening--"

He felt a frown tugging at the corners of his mouth, and he let it
stay there. "We just wrapped a case, Fraser."

"I'm aware of that, Ray."

"And after we wrap a case, we go out for dinner -- it's...
tradition. If we don't do it we might be messing with our streak,
right?" Everything in him was cool and calm. Fraser would hear this,
would respond to it. He'd have to. But no. Fraser was shaking his
head, his face tight with that puckered-up-lemon look that he got
when he was about to disappoint somebody. So either he didn't know
Fraser as well as he thought he did, or Fraser just... really didn't
want to be around him. Or just really wanted to be around someone
else more.

If he'd been hungry before, he wasn't anymore, not when he heard
that tone in Fraser's voice, that one that wasn't as apologetic as
Ray wanted it to be, that one that was pretty damn determined: "I'm
sorry, Ray. Perhaps another time."

There was more to be said, he knew that. Maybe he didn't know Fraser
as well as he thought he did, but he knew enough to keep the
pressure on, to take away one option at a time until Fraser had to
talk to him. Tell him the truth.

Problem was, he thought he already knew what Fraser had to say, and
he didn't want to hear it. He couldn't hang himself out to dry like
that, couldn't put the both of them through it.

So, when Fraser nodded at him and gave him that fake smile, and
walked away from his desk calling for Dief, he said nothing. He just
swallowed.

Tasting something bitter.

He hated kidnappings.

Especially kid kidnappings.

Give him a good old murder, bad blood, drug deal gone wrong -- at
least everything was known, and the worst had already happened, and
all he had to make sure of was that the right person went away for
it. There wasn't this minute-to-minute pressure, there weren't any
panicked, question-question-crying-question relatives to deal with,
there wasn't this dark, terrible, relentless kind of hope that kept
everybody jittering and jiving on the edge until the deal went down
and you got (more often than not) a point-blank failure on your
hands, shunting you right back to good old murder territory.

And some sad, broken little body that he couldn't, just couldn't
look at.

So there he was at his desk, the third day in a row of twenty-two
hour shifts, still waiting for something to break while his vision
went grainy and unreal, a picture of a smiling little girl with
brown braids holding a brown mutt squeezed tight in his left hand,
pulling his eyes back to it every few seconds even though he really,
really didn't want to look at it anymore.

Ray closed his eyes -- just for a moment, just to let the case roll
through him one more time, fact after fact that should piece
together if he could only fit it all in, track down that one thread,
any one thing that he might have missed...

"Ray!"

He jerked up in his chair, ready in a split second to say no, he
wasn't sleeping, no way was he sleeping--

But it wasn't just Fraser. Fraser had gone to get him a sandwich and
had been gone a long time, but here he was again with no sandwich in
sight, nothing but his hat in his hands and Darnell smiling from
over his shoulder.

Both of them smiling. Ray's jaw ached.

"Charlie and I were talking about the case on the way to the
lunchroom. When he interviewed Mr. Collins, there was a receipt for
a harbor berth on his desk, and when he mentioned that, I remembered
the traces of diesel fuel that were found at the abduction site--"

This was... awfully tough to follow in his current state; Fraser
going ninety miles a minute with his eyes lit up like a pinball
game. Ray blinked and waved one hand, the one with the picture in
it, and that bright, smiling face caught his eye, and then he
understood.

"She's on a boat." Certainty there, something he felt all the way
down to the pit of his stomach.

"She's on a boat." Echoing him, confirming him. In stereo. From both
Fraser and Darnell.

"Let's go." Extra ammo, spare handcuffs, one arm in his jacket, and
then he headed as fast as he could for the door, totally wide-awake
now, totally focused on the job.

At least for now.

And for once, for once there was a happy ending all around -- a
terrified but unhurt little girl returned to her parents, a clean
bust that was pretty much locked down tight for any jury that wasn't
completely blind, and no shots fired on either side. Less paperwork.

A happy ending for everybody. Except the kidnappers. Right.

"Ray?"

"What?" Oh, he had to get some sleep soon -- the sun was going down
behind him in a wash of pinkish light, and between that and the red
suit Fraser looked like he was glowing, like someone had built
themselves a neon Mountie and installed it down in the middle of the
funky wood shacks of the harbor. Crazy.

"I know you haven't eaten." Fraser sounded slightly apologetic,
which was stupid -- like he was going to blame Fraser for forgetting
his sandwich when he'd solved the damn case? The reminder, however,
made his stomach growl as the case started to slip away and his life
started to slip back; he hadn't eaten, no, not since... well, not
for a long time.

"No." The word felt heavy with exhaustion as it dropped from his
lips, and everything seemed suddenly very clear, what he had to do -
- thank Fraser, and go with him to find at least five pounds of food
and eat it, and then sleep for a week. Simple. He could do that.
That would be good.

"Charlie says there's a good Italian restaurant nearby. Would you
like to join us?"

And he was so far, far out of it that nothing was happening right,
like it was time for him to blow up now and fill Fraser in on
exactly who his partner was, make it really clear and spell it all
out so that there wouldn't be any question about it, so that there
wouldn't be any mistakes. His hands twitched, curling up, grabbing
for something but he didn't know what. His stomach growled again, so
empty, so very empty...

"I'm not hungry," was what he said. Just that. Fraser looked at him,
studied him, concerned and serious. When Fraser took a step towards
him something tightened in all of his muscles, and he was so tired,
but not tired enough to do something stupid, so he turned around and
headed for his car.

Where his traitor hands could wrap around nothing more threatening
than a steering wheel, which he clung to all the way home, holding
on, holding on, holding on tight.

It occurred to him as he was driving home that he should have
learned by now that desperation was about the worst enemy he could
have. After all, he'd had lots of chances to pick up on that. To
figure it out. To take it on, somehow, to take it inside him and
make it a learned thing, right up there with keep your head low when
the heat's on and don't back down when the other guy is running
scared. A survival skill. Something automatic that he did when there
was a threat to be dealt with.

He should have known better, is what it came down to.

He should have known better, after all these weeks of Fraser being
there and not there, with him but withdrawn. And there was really
nothing to say so he'd just kept waiting for Fraser to get over it,
knowing that he was too quiet himself, knowing, and not having a
single frigging clue what to do about it.

Well, he could've talked about it, he supposed, or maybe screamed or
something; punched something -- but every time he'd thought he was
working up to it he backed down, backed into himself, into more
silence.

So much silence.

He knew that he was getting desperate, that somewhere inside things
were breaking down and wearing out -- damage, we got damage here,
with too much quiet outside and too much noise inside. Too much.

Which now called for too much beer, since the numbing he'd gotten
that other night had worked so good -- if a little was good, a lot
had to be better -- so instead of subjecting himself to Fraser and
Darnell and food that he'd probably puke up later anyway, he had an
endless evening of slow poison that he kept to his apartment, since
he didn't know what kind of hell he might trip himself into if he
went out.

Way too much beer. He sat and scratched his neck in an
unsuccessful attempt to ease his dry throat, and drank, and craved
cigarettes. About a thousand of them, one right after the other.
Something hard and harsh -- and that's what led him to the bottle of
hard stuff he kept in the back of the cupboard for extreme
emergencies, and that's when everything started slipping down and
away in some out-of-control funhouse mirror ripple. He couldn't,
couldn't open his eyes. He couldn't look. He could get the glass to
his mouth without looking. That was enough.

A black, lost place, then, and then the next thing was a door --
familiar, and there was something about it that was awful and
exciting at the same time. The moment that the door opened and he
caught a glimpse of Stella's face it crashed into him, everything
terrible and threatening and the true distance between how he lived
and what he needed, and horribly, horribly he said some of that,
bleated it out while he sagged against Stella's doorjamb. Said some,
he didn't know how much. The word 'please' was in there somewhere,
he was dead sure of that-- more than once, even. For a moment he
thought about punching himself, just to see if it would stop his
mouth.

But he didn't, and whatever it was that he said, it was either too
much or not enough. Or just too late. Probably too late. Stella was
late -- getting ready to go out, smooth and lotioned and made up in
a pretty peach camisole and robe that he remembered, remembered how
the silk of it was nothing compared to her skin, remembered how it
slid-slithered off her, when the time was right. And yes, he
understood that she didn't have time for this, that she was running
late. She always was. But... she was always worth waiting for. He
remembered that, too.

He could only hope that the prick of an attorney that she was
gearing up for felt that way. That he knew what he was getting a
shot at.

And now, on the other end of another one of those weird,
kaleidoscope blacknesses, there was a card in his shaking hand and
the sound of his own breath much too loud in his ears -- did he run?
Was he running, now -- to or from? No way to tell.

He must have been clumsy with the card. Either that, or he'd been
out here a lot longer than he thought, because all of a sudden the
Consulate door gave way and he was falling forward, pitching forward
for one dizzy second before Fraser caught him, scooped him neatly
inside.

For lack of any better idea, he held on. "Fraserrrr..." Fraser must
have been sleeping -- even through his clogged-up sinuses he could
smell that, something warm and concentrated and subtle that told him
that Fraser had just dragged himself out of bed to come prop up his
drunk, sorry ass. That made his eyes sting, a last bit of awfulness
just to make the experience complete.

"Oh, dear." Ray could feel the vibration of the words through the
chest pressed against his own. It tingled. "Ray, you're cold."

He couldn't argue with that, because the lingering warmth of the
alcohol had been iced out of him long ago, and now his teeth were
chattering and he was shivering and he realized that he'd left his
apartment without a jacket and oh God what the fuck had he said to
Stella?

"Stella," he croaked, and winced at the alcoholic longing in his own
voice.

"Um... no. It's me, Ray." Fraser seemed to be trying to push him
away by the shoulders, and Ray had a sneaking suspicion that Fraser
wanted to look at his face so he held tighter, buried his face
against a red thermal cotton-covered arm.

"I know it's you -- I know you're Fraser, Fraser. I mean I went to
Stella, I talked to Stella, I told her..." Oh, and he was going to
be saying it all over again, if he wasn't careful. The room was
spinning, but Fraser was still holding him up and it was very dark,
or maybe he just had his eyes closed, but at least it was dark for
him, so that seemed to make it okay.

And Fraser seemed to be dealing with all of this pretty well,
considering, so Ray took a deep breath and continued. "Where've you
been? You're never there anymore."

Fraser shifted him slightly, steadying him against his shoulder.
"Ray, I've been at the station every day --"

"Not the work, me."

The muscles under his hands might have stiffened up a bit at that,
but he couldn't be completely sure he'd felt it. "I'm... sorry,
Ray."

Just the fact that there was no argument, no pissing around about
the literal meaning of each and every word seemed like a miracle,
like some huge obstacle had just evaporated out of his way like
magic. "Yeah. Me too, I guess."

Saying the words lifted some unsuspected weight off him, and he was
light now but not so dizzy, not much of anything really except
closed-eyed and comfortable in Fraser's arms. He heard himself make
some kind of weird rumbling noise, but at least he wasn't blurting
out a bunch of nonsense about how much he sucked, so that was okay.

His stomach growled. Should probably have eaten something, he
thought distantly. Maybe gone to sleep instead of wandering around
the city looking for lost people. Lost. Like the little girl. Well,
they'd found her. Who was lost? He didn't even know anymore. He'd
thought Stella, and Fraser for sure, but they weren't the ones
sweating out whisky, or saying crazy stuff that shouldn't ever come
off the tip of a tongue. Maybe he was the only one lost. Maybe it
was just him.

"Am I lost?" Well, fuck. If he wasn't before, he seemed to be doing
his level best to get himself there. Lost and stupid and crazy
fucking drunk, fastened onto a Mountie in the foyer of the Canadian
Consulate -- This Is Your Life, Ray Kowalski...

Vecchio.

This Is Not Your Life.

"Ray," Fraser began-- but he didn't get to hear about whether or not
Fraser thought he was lost because all of a sudden everything closed
down around him at once, like some kind of disaster that he'd been
fending off only now he couldn't fight anymore, because it was too
heavy to carry. His hands curled into fists, clenched tight into
soft cotton, feeling the solid heft of Fraser's chest underneath;
strength and stability that he needed and needed so fucking badly,
and it had been denied to him--

"Fraser--" Fraser. Fraser was at the end of it, at the beginning,
and at every single point along the way. Even when he wasn't there.

Not there. Unbelievable, the pain of that, the coldness. Cold to his
bones, but Fraser was hot, and suddenly he had to know if Fraser
would give him that heat when he needed it, he had to know, and
the only way to find out was to just reach out and take it.

Fraser's cheeks were warm enough to burn his icy hands. He hissed
and moved in closer, willing to burn, burning already from a spark
of his own deep inside -- the fury of knowing what he'd driven
himself to; that he couldn't bear the thought of Fraser keeping
himself to himself anymore, of Fraser keeping his mouth to
himself...

... Or even worse, the thought that he might be keeping himself for
someone else...

His partner. Fraser was his partner. His.

Hot, soft lips. Open to him. Open, with a miraculous jolt that shut
out everything except the terrible, pounding sweetness of his heart
in his mouth, everything except the unspoken mournful noise that
flamed from his throat and then was burnt out, doused by the tip of
Fraser's tongue. Tears sprang to his eyes, escaped, like everything
else he desperately needed to keep, now slipping away from him. He
shivered, disconnected and trembling. Wondered how a kiss -- was it
a kiss? this groping of his mouth to Fraser's? -- could make him
feel like he'd pierced a vital organ, like he was bleeding.

And he expected, somehow, that Fraser would put a stop to this.
Fraser would have to. Fraser wouldn't let him, any more than Fraser
would let him die gut-shot in some dirty back alley -- a soothing
thought, that Fraser would stop this, that Fraser wouldn't let him
die alone--

Except Fraser didn't stop it. Fraser let him do this, held him up,
opened to him in a way that reached right down inside and made a
mess of everything. Fraser let him, kissed him, tasted him, and slid
their tongues together with a deep sigh that knew nothing about the
fact that this was killing him, that he was killing them, that he
had done something to bring them to the end of things, to the truth
of things, here.

"Ray," Fraser said against his newly wet, newly warm lips. Such a
dark and unexpected word, spoken like that. Like pain. Fraser,
saying 'pain' in a language he wasn't supposed to understand.

He pulled back without conscious thought. He almost just kept going,
right over backwards and onto the glaringly clean floor of the foyer
-- would have, if Fraser hadn't caught him by one arm.

In the wordless, harsh-breathing dimness that followed, Fraser's
eyes looked unusually deep -- dangerously vulnerable hollows that he
would have liked to trace just lightly with the tip of one finger,
if he could have trusted his own hands not to betray him.

"It's all right." Strange, to hear Fraser's calm voice telling such
a stupendous lie.

"It's not." His own voice didn't sound strong enough, nowhere near
as strong as he needed it to be, but maybe he sounded upset enough
to make up for it. He hoped.

And he thought that Fraser would probably argue with him about it,
but Fraser didn't. Warm, gentle hands propelled him, and before he
knew it he was sitting on one of the padded chairs at the front
desk, and Fraser was staring at him, an intense, serious look that
he could only take for a second or two before he had to look
somewhere else. Anywhere else. He swallowed.

Fraser cleared his throat. "I'll call you a cab."

He looked up in time to see Fraser fade into the shadows and dimness
of the hallway, and maybe he could have said something, maybe he
should have said something, but really it was pretty clear that
he'd be better off if he just kept his mouth shut.

That seemed like the first good idea he'd had in a long, long time,
so he decided to go with it.

And he did. He kept his mouth shut when Fraser returned, when Fraser
told him that the cab would be there soon, while Fraser waited with
him. He even managed to keep it shut when Fraser walked him to the
cab and said good-night to him-- calmly, as if everything was
okay, as if Fraser really believed that. He could have said... but
he didn't.

Ray sat, twisted queasily in the back seat of the cab, and stared at
Fraser until darkness and distance left him nothing more to look at.

Remember the Alamo? All those hearts buried at Wounded Knee?
Pickett's Charge? None of them got to be household names by winning.
In every war, somebody lost. Somebody won, too, and that made it
into the history books more often, but every once in a while, the
losers got a page for themselves.

Ray had raised the white flag after... well, what the hell had
happened? Fortunately, the exact details were a little hazy, blurred
by too much booze, too little sleep, too little food. He didn't
suppose they were blurry for Fraser, but every time his mind
wandered down that road, he yanked it back, hard. Couldn't think
about Fraser, what he might say if Ray ever managed to have a minute
alone with him ever again in his whole life.

Hadn't happened yet. They were going on four days now, would be four
days exactly sometime around midnight, near as he could tell. Four
days ago, he'd found out just how lonely a guy'd have to be to do...
that. Well, something like that anyway. He'd probably have done
that, too, if Fraser hadn't stopped him, propped him up, called
him a cab.

Fucking hell.

Nothing like finding out what your limits were. Or that you didn't
have any.

("Hi, I'm Ray. No last names, please, it's too fucking confusing. I
just flushed my partnership down the john. It's been four days since
my last... ")

He'd blown it. Blown it big time. Blown it to Kingdom Come and
beyond, probably. And Fraser, what was up with him? Fraser hadn't
exactly helped snuff out the fuse. Ray vaguely understood his own
crappy reasons, but what was Fraser's excuse? Rigor mortis? Cat got
his tongue?

The whole thing -- half-remembered, half-suppressed -- felt like
something that had happened to somebody else. Some other desperate,
unhappy person with no sense whatsoever. No survival skills.

Some other loser.

So he did the only sensible thing. The only thing he could do when
something was that badly blown, when the stakes were high and the
walls were down and really, the option of moving to someplace like
Madison and starting over -- without the Mountie, without the crap -
- was starting to sound like a damn good idea, well, the only thing
left to do was follow one of those old adages, one of those history
book things:

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Which was how he found himself on day five at an Italian restaurant,
sitting across the booth from Fraser. And Darnell.

Because the only thing worse than remembering what he'd done to
Fraser was wondering what Darnell was doing to him.

Wondering. Picturing. Imagining. The whole thing was driving him
nuts. He was there, his insides still scabbed over from the shock of
Fraser's mouth on his own -- was it really as hot as he remembered?
as wet? -- and it was all he could do not to lean across the table,
see if Darnell had his hand on Fraser's thigh.

It took most of the meal for him to get himself to eat more than a
bite of this, a taste of that. Across from him, Fraser and Darnell
ate like the big meaty guys they were, tossing back lasagne and
garlic bread like they had hollow legs to fill.

Maybe it was the food, the first real solid meal he'd had in a long,
long time. Maybe it was the relief of spending more than five
minutes in Fraser's company. Whatever, some things started to come
into focus. Like the fact that Darnell and Fraser were two peas in a
pod. They talked about the same weird things, laughed at the same
stupid stuff. Ray had never seen Fraser laugh so much, and he hated
that Darnell could make him do that, make him laugh so hard he
turned red and wiped tears out of his eyes with the corner of his
napkin. Oh yeah, it was all pretty clear from here.

That wasn't the worst of it, though. No, the worst of it was the
fact that, damn his East Coast ass, Darnell seemed like an okay guy.
Funny, smart, and if you didn't know he was queer as a three-dollar
bill, well, you'd never know it to look at him, hear him.

Except...

He did know. And so he could see. Little things, mostly. The way
Darnell licked at his own lip to tell Fraser he'd missed some sauce,
staring at Fraser's mouth the same way he'd stared at his plate when
it was brought to the table. The way he'd slid in the booth beside
Fraser automatically, when everybody knew the guys who were partners
should have been seat-sharing, and the other guy should've been
across the way.

Darnell he could read like a book.

So maybe Fraser was right. Maybe there wasn't anything... hell, what
Victorian word had he used? Improper, right. Maybe there wasn't
anything improper going on. Yet. Wasn't because Darnell was funny
and smart and not interested. Oh, no. Darnell was interested; he was
just biding his time, that was all. Darnell was plenty interested.
Every time Fraser laughed or even smiled at one of his damn jokes,
Darnell's eyes went wide with appreciation, sucking it up --
something Ray saw only through the narrowest squint he could manage.

They split the bill, like always, and Ray and Darnell hit the can
while Fraser paid.

Okay, it was weird to whip it out in front of the guy. Ray hadn't
ever really been bladder shy, but he found himself sheltering his
dick with his hand while he used the urinal, found himself staring
steadfastly ahead, so Darnell wouldn't think... wouldn't wonder...
Well, he just wasn't going there.

But since it was the first chance they'd had to talk alone, ever, he
figured he'd better use it. Use it or lose it, wasn't that the way
it went?

So he shook himself off, tucked himself back in his jeans, and went
to the row of sinks. He waited for Darnell to join him, then caught
his eye in the mirror.

"I know what you're doing," he said. Something deep inside his
stomach turned over, and he didn't think it was the half a piece of
lasagne.

Darnell raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"You think I was born yesterday? I know what you're doing," he
repeated.

He watched as Darnell deliberately soaped his hands, rinsed, then
wiped them dry on a paper towel. Ray shook his own hands twice, then
rubbed them on his pants.

Darnell didn't say anything, just walked around Ray to the door and
opened it, gesturing Ray to go ahead of him. As Ray passed him, he
said, "Wish I knew what you were doing."

Heat crawled up Ray's neck, spread to his face. He allowed himself
half a glimpse at the grin on Darnell's face and muttered, "Yeah,
me, too."

The problem was, there was no way in hell to prepare for this kind
of thing. No amount of gearing up, setting his jaw, or daydreaming
about worst-case scenarios was really worth a fart in a high wind
when it came to dealing with... this kind of stuff. The kind of
stuff he hated. The kind of stuff that made him feel like maybe it
might be a good idea to whap his head against a wall for an hour or
two so that he'd have something else to think about besides... this
kind of stuff.

This Fraser kind of stuff. This haven't-talked-about-dick, but-
here-we-are-stuck-in-the-car-together-on-stakeout, so-what-the-fuck-
do-I-do-now kind of stuff. There was no way around it -- Darnell
had pulled the first shift, and he himself had second shift, and it
seemed a purely sure fact that it was a better idea to suffer
through eight uncomfortable, Fraser-filled hours in the unmarked
than it would have been to have spent the previous eight hours
wondering what kind of shenanigans Darnell could wheedle Fraser
into.

If he hadn't called dibs on Fraser, Darnell would have. And Darnell,
of course, drove a van. A big, black, 'ain't-I-macho' van. So there
was no way around it, no choice at all, really, when he thought
about it. Like he'd been thinking about it. All day.

Ray shifted in the driver's seat for the third time in ten minutes.
"Fraser, can you maybe stop that before I have to beat your head
against the dashboard?"

He felt Fraser's eyes on him, but never looked away from the closed
warehouse door at the end of the alley where they were parked. At
least he had something he was supposed to be staring at. "Stop what,
Ray?"

"Stop that whatever the hell it is you're doing that's making that
clicking noise."

There was a pause, and for the first time he wondered if there
really could be an end to Fraser's patience. "I was simply examining
my cuticles, Ray."

Probably not. "That's great, Fraser -- God knows I don't want you to
have to bust up a smuggling ring with your cuticles looking less
than prime -- but since Welsh said something to me about a stakeout
and didn't mention anything about setting up a friggin' manicure
shop--"

"Enough, Ray." Oooh, that was almost testy. "I understand your
objections. I'll stop."

"Way to be a crime-fightin' machine, Fraser."

From the corner of his eye he saw Fraser's lips press together,
wondered if maybe he should angle for one more jab. But then it
occurred to him that they were still working through the second hour
of an eight-hour shift, and maybe he should save something back for
when he really needed it, like in case Fraser decided to try to talk
to him about... any of that stuff he didn't want to talk about.

An hour later, he was almost ready to hope that Fraser would try
to talk to him -- after he'd snapped at Fraser for drumming his
fingers on his hat, pulling at stray threads on his uniform, and
breathing too loudly, now it was a lot like sitting in the car with
a corpse -- somebody's stuffed and mounted Mountie, which was kinda
funny unless you had to be there, listening to the silence and
checking out of the corner of your eye to make sure that Fraser's
chest was still moving.

For his own part, he couldn't seem to keep still -- it seemed like
every few minutes he developed another weird itch somewhere, or one
of his legs would go numb and then he'd shift and have to sit
through the pins-and-needles without saying anything -- and for some
weird reason he remembered his fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Crater,
calling him 'ants-in-his-pants Kowalski' in front of the whole class
and how much he'd hated that, and how much he just couldn't help it,
just like he couldn't help it now.

"Fraser." He didn't know he meant to say anything, but there was
pressure inside him that just seemed to want to let itself out in
all kinds of bizarre ways.

"Yes, Ray."

Spur-of-the-moment quick, and he had to say something or else look
like a total idiot--

"Your wolf is licking his balls in my backseat again."

Lame, Kowalski, very lame. Way to go. Way to avoid looking like an
idiot--

"Ray." That was testy. That was beyond testy. All of a sudden his
heart sped up -- apparently there were limits to Fraser's patience,
and it looked like he'd just found them. "What is wrong with you?"

"Me?" He faced Fraser squarely, and let the warehouse door fend for
itself for now. "What's wrong with me? That's... that's really
rich, Fraser; that's a real prizewinner--"

"Yes, you, Ray; I'm asking what's wrong with you. If you didn't
want me to accompany you, it would have been very simple to--"

"To what?" Their voices in the closed car seemed painfully loud
after the long silence, but he couldn't help it. "To hand you over
to Darnell so he could paw all over you in that 'if-the-van's-a-
rockin'-don't-come-knockin' ride he's got?"

Oh, that was much more than he'd meant to say, that hadn't been what
he'd meant to say at all, but it felt like there was steam coming
out of his ears, here, and there must have been a part of him that
wanted to do this, that wanted to send everything to hell...

The sun had gone down about an hour before, but there was still
enough light to see the traces of red in Fraser's cheeks. Every
other sign of anger had vanished, however, and now Fraser just
looked... curious. Like he was trying to figure something out. It
made Ray's stomach flutter like crazy, and it took all his willpower
not to press his hands there to make it stop.

"Ray, you sound... jealous." Fraser didn't sound testy anymore.

That was okay -- he himself was plenty testy enough for both of
them.

"Are you out of your mind?" He shifted sideways, facing Fraser, with
his shoulders hard against the car door, something firm at his back,
something solid that he could count on, and crooked one leg up on
the seat. The move twisted him all up, but even that just seemed
like how things should be, everything twisted, nothing comfortable.
"I'm trying to help you out, trying to keep you from eight hours of
having some musclebound guy practice his body cavity search
techniques on you, and you think I'm jealous? That's nuts,
Fraser."

Fraser blinked at him slowly, then nodded. "You are jealous."

He blinked back. "I am not."

Fraser, the bastard, actually smiled a little. "Oh, I believe you
are, Ray."

He felt filled, brimming right up to the top with the kind of anger
that could get out of hand if he wasn't careful, if he didn't watch
his mouth. He should stop. Just stop now, and shut up, and shut
Fraser up double-quick if he said another goddamn word. Pop him one,
that'd shut him up, or he could... no, no, he couldn't even think
it. He should just stop. Now. A friendly piece of advice there from
whoever was running the internal pressure-cooker... but the dark,
tight feeling deep in his gut told him that it was already too late,
much too late.

"Yeah? Well, you got your beliefs and I got mine, but here's some
late-breaking news for you: there's no Santa Claus, Elvis is really
dead, and I am not jealous of friggin' Charlie Darnell."

Fraser was still staring at him like he was the most fascinating
thing since the wrong kind of mud at a crime scene. Ray dug his
fingers in hard -- one hand into the leather back of the seat, the
other hand into his denim-covered knee, braced and sure and certain
that he could deal with this, that he wasn't about to do anything
stupid. More stupid.

"Perhaps not," Fraser said abruptly, and then it was almost like
freefall, like pushing against something harder and harder and
harder that suddenly gave, spinning out weightless and wondering
what to do with all that excess energy until Fraser continued:
"Perhaps you're simply afraid."

Ray's stomach clenched painfully with one final, jarring cramp, and
his throat slammed shut so quickly that he had to swallow to avoid
choking. He slouched low against the door, tense and trapped in his
body again -- freefall over, kiddies, everybody out. He wondered for
a moment how he managed to get himself into messes like this -- how
he could start out knowing exactly where he didn't want to go, and
then go there anyway like someone had given him a frigging map. Like
he had some kind of homing instinct for disaster.

"Like hell," he managed, but it was hard to talk past the tightness
in his throat, hard to find words that didn't have to stay locked in
the grim, pounding space between his temples.

And the only thing that could be worse than Fraser looking curious
was Fraser looking understanding, like he had a grip on the whole
picture and wasn't assigning blame anywhere. The way he was looking
now. "There's no need to be ashamed of feeling fear, Ray; it's a
perfectly natural response to--"

"I'm really hating you right now, Fraser," he felt himself moving
and panicked but he just couldn't stop it -- he was uncoiling,
coming out of his crouch like a snake who just caught sight of a
tasty leg. "This is one of those times when I just really, really
hate you."

Words weren't enough; it wasn't enough to spit it out and get it
over with. Saying it wasn't enough, so he reached out and got a
handful of Fraser's short, thick hair, sinking his fingers in and
pulling while he leaned forward himself so he could meet Fraser
halfway and show him what was what, prove that he wasn't afraid,
prove that he must hate Fraser because he certainly didn't have
Fraser's best interests at heart, or else he wouldn't be doing...
this.

He licked his way into Fraser's mouth like he owned the place, and
Fraser's hair tugged at his fingers -- he thought maybe Fraser was
trying to pull away, and he was about to go for a better grip, but
no. Fraser was just tilting, Fraser was going for a deeper, closer
angle; Fraser was letting him, just like he let him before, and
God that burned his ass so bad because Fraser shouldn't, shouldn't
be doing this, neither of them should, they should not be sitting
here on stakeout with their tongues tangled together like a couple
of kids fucked up on beer and hormones.

No beer, not this time. He didn't even have that pathetic excuse. No
beer, but plenty of hormones because the deeper he got into Fraser's
wet mouth the more he wanted to just stay there, the more he lost
control of his body until he was practically squirming on the seat,
his hips and his hard-on pushing up into nothing but air.

From far away, he heard Fraser pull in a deep, deep breath through
his nose. Some instinct told him that it wasn't because Fraser was
half-stifled with his tongue but because Fraser was smelling it on
him, smelling the truth coming out of his pores like sweat. And he
thought that might be enough, that maybe he'd proved his point, so
finally he let go, let Fraser have his hair back and his air back
and his smooth, warm mouth back and then he crammed himself against
the door again and tried to pretend that he wasn't shaking.

Fraser was shaking. Ray really couldn't blame him -- must be scary
as hell, almost getting eaten alive by your partner. Fraser was
shaking and wide-eyed and looked a hell of a lot less certain about
the world, which was just fine and dandy. Which was, in fact, just
about--

"It's all right, it's okay," Fraser said softly, and right away the
bottom dropped out of his stomach, because he'd practically
excavated Fraser's tonsils and here Fraser was telling him that it
was okay, like what he'd just done was... okay. Telling him? Or
himself? Did it matter?

"It's not." God, hadn't they been through this before? Different
chorus, same song, but none of it was okay. He knew that, knew it
in an all-the-way down, rock-bottom sure kind of way, but apparently
Fraser didn't. And that meant that they weren't done yet. His breath
caught and he held himself still, because if he let himself move he
was going to curl up around the hot throb of want that was his dick
under the influence of thinking about not being done with Fraser
yet.

Ray took a breath, and forced himself to stretch out instead, reach
out. His hand moved all on its own and got involved with Fraser's
hair again, but this time he stayed where he was and brought Fraser
to him, pulling back until he was caught between the cold weight of
the door and the hot weight of Fraser.

"Not okay," he whispered against Fraser's still-moist lips, and he
didn't think Fraser heard him at all until the sound of soft
breathing was cut across with the loud, purring sound his zipper
made as he yanked it down, and then he gasped in relief and Fraser
gasped in something else and Fraser still didn't pull away,
still didn't get it.

Fierce fumbling through his briefs and then he had himself in hand
and had to moan, and he couldn't give up Fraser's lips so that's
where he moaned into and Fraser shivered, sighing back at him, just
a sound, nothing that sounded like 'stop', so he just licked a wet
trail along Fraser's bottom lip, and whispered: "Suck me. Slow."

Movement, something silent but it seemed to have some weird kind of
harmony anyway -- the way Fraser's head went down while his own
tilted back, point and counterpoint, and he felt everything, throat,
chest, and hard, aching cock, stretch out and reach up and get deep
into it, deep into Fraser, and it turned out that he didn't need
that hand on the back of Fraser's head for anything at all, because
Fraser had it covered.

He kept his other hand fisted tight around the base of his dick, and
when he felt Fraser's soft lips slide over his fingers there he
jerked and grunted and stiffened up so he wouldn't just shove
himself deeper and make it happen -- not yet, not quite yet, he had
to stop, Fraser had to stop, Fraser should stop this, Fraser...
Fraser...

"Fraser..." He meant to say 'stop'. He did. He'd had enough. Enough
of this wet, deep, tight; enough of the soft curve of Fraser's neck
sweet under his hand; enough of moaning like his heart was breaking
while Fraser moved on him, teaching him a new meaning for the word
'slow'.

"God --" he was talking to the roof, felt like he could talk to the
roof all night. Maybe even get past this one-word crap and really
open up about it, tell the roof about how it wasn't supposed to be
this way, and how he never knew what the hell he was doing anymore,
how he was trying not to scream right now with how good it was and
about how he was so... fucking... sorry...

"Sorry --" One too many times; one too many strokes where Fraser
went way down and did that weird swallowing thing that pulled
somewhere deep in him every time it happened, and he wanted to tell
the roof there was no way this was Fraser's first time, no way you
could learn to do that on the job. On the job. Awww, fuck, roof,
yeah, he was getting a job all right. Didn't know a job like this
was out there with his name on it. Didn't know, didn't know, Christ,
he'd had no idea.

One last hot-sweet-wet glide into Fraser's mouth and then he did
scream -- strangled and choked off and stifled against the back of
his own hand, yes, but still -- it was a yell, a racket. Bad enough.
Bad enough to let him know that he'd never had a more shameful
moment in his life than right now; thrashing all over the place and
hanging onto Fraser's head and bucking up and in and coming like
nobody'd ever touched him in his whole miserable life. Until now.
Until...

"Fraser." At least it wasn't a scream. All he could see was black
and all he could feel was a hot pulse of pleasure through his whole
body, but the screaming part seemed to be over and the good after
hey-maybe-it-is-okay crazy euphoria part took over. Thank God.

He heard Fraser sigh, felt Fraser shaking. When he could stand it he
tugged Fraser's head up from his lap, up from something unimaginable
that his mind seemed to be trying to both memorize and erase. Part
of him knew that it was time for the guilt and regret to set in now,
time to let this terrible thing that he'd done slide into the past,
and start paying for it--

But he wasn't done. He pulled Fraser straight from his lap to his
mouth, straight into another kiss -- a whole different thing than
what had gone on before, because he still couldn't stop himself but
now he wasn't angry anymore, now he was just burning with deep,
grateful pleasure. And that wasn't right, that wasn't what this was
supposed to be about, not at all. But the wrongness of it didn't
matter, he already had their mouths sealed together and was going
for it, gentle and blissed out and fiercely glad in a way he knew
he'd cringe over later.

And for the first time Fraser did more than just let him -- Fraser
answered his gladness with gladness, and spoke that to him just as
surely as if he'd used words to do it. He felt Fraser wanting, and
he didn't, couldn't understand it, but right now it just was what it
was -- it was Fraser needing something that he could give. Before he
knew it his hand was tight on a hard, hot length under scratchy
fabric, and he told Fraser to come, he said it out loud but muffled
around Fraser's tongue in his mouth, and Fraser stiffened and
groaned just like that, like that was all he'd been waiting for,
like that was all he'd needed. Which was a fucking mindblower.

"Fuck." Straight into the stratosphere. There was no way to follow
where he'd come from to where he was, no way on heaven or earth to
explain how he'd managed to get here. He'd been angry, he knew that
much. Angry at himself and angry at Fraser -- Fraser, who alternated
between normal, predictable Fraser and this Fraser, this melting-
into-him, panting-and-flushed Fraser... Who turned from one to the
other faster than he could keep up.

"Yeah," Fraser breathed in his ear, enough of a shock to send him
bolt upright in his seat. That was just too much. He pulled back.
Pulled away. Fastened his clothes just as quick as he could,
fighting off a sudden wave of panic until he was all zipped up
again.

Ray faced forward, wincing when he realized that he'd have to turn
on the defroster because they'd steamed the car up good. That was no
way to spot... what? Who were they out here for again?

He heard Fraser shifting around, and out of the corner of his eye he
caught that clean, white handkerchief that Fraser always had on him,
prepared for anything, and part of him wondered how Fraser could
have possibly been prepared for this...

--Smuggling. Smugglers. They were on the lookout for evidence of
suspicious activities. At that warehouse. Where he was looking now.
Ray ignored the foggy view and found the defroster by feel, staring
at the warehouse door for all he was worth while Fraser poked that
clean white handkerchief down his uniform pants, swabbed around a
little, then folded it up and put it in his pocket, like he always
did that, came in his pants on a stakeout.

Fraser didn't say much. Okay, he didn't say anything. Which was kind
of amazing, considering they had to sit there for another six hours
in a car that smelled like come, in a car with windows that never
did completely defrost, like they figured why bother when who knew
when one of occupants would pounce on the other one again.

Six hours in a car with steamed-up windows, ping-ponging between
disbelief and giddiness and the occasional flare of gut-clenching
temper. At least he was. He had no idea how Fraser felt. Fraser'd
managed to pull himself together pretty good, surprise surprise --
which told him more about Fraser than he'd ever wanted to know --
but Ray still felt like he'd had most of his common sense and his
entire self-image sucked out through his dick.

And he wasn't at all sure he'd proved his point.

Hell, he couldn't even remember what the point was.

Desk duty had its advantages. If he bent far enough over a folder,
and kept a pen in his hand, nobody bugged him. Pretty neat trick,
huh. Even Frannie left him alone.

Two weeks since the stakeout. The makeout. The blow... out. Two
weeks of doing his level best to pretend nothing had happened, that
he hadn't done as bad (or worse) by Fraser as Darnell would've done,
if Ray'd let him have his way. At least Darnell probably wouldn't
have... in the front seat... on duty...

Jesus, what had he done?

The fact of it, the hugeness of it came over him for a moment, and
he shivered. Unreal. It had felt unreal right afterwards and it
still felt that way now, and when it didn't he found himself wishing
it did -- because it was too real, too reach-right-down-in-there
real for him to deal with. All it ever did was make him cringe; all
it ever did was put him on edge and make him feel turned on and sick
to his stomach and hungry all at once.

Made him want to hide somewhere.

Made him want to find Fraser, pronto, and... what? What the hell
could he do, anyway, except make things worse?

He'd had his chance to set things right, and instead he'd steered
them wrong. Even worse, worse than doing it, worse than making
Fraser do it, was the certainty, down in a dark, empty place he
didn't want to see, that he'd do it again. That he'd do more than
that, if Fraser'd let him. That he wanted more, when less would have
been the smart move.

Somehow, in trying to kill the loneliness, Ray had just managed to
feed it, until it grew and spread and threatened to