Third Time Under, a Due South story starring
Constable Benton Fraser, Detective Stan 'Ray' Kowalski, and Victoria
Metcalfe by Sue Castle. Rated NC17 for adult themes and
content. No content infringement intended to Alliance
Benton Fraser had taught himself, while still a boy, not to fantasize.
Dreaming was acceptable, sometimes even necessary, if lucid, guided,
and interpreted correctly. But that other kind of dreaming, the sort
that never came true in the form desired, that twisted in reality until it
was a mocking, painful, dangerous perversion of a secret need, was to
be avoided at all costs. For such dreams were the root
of nightmares, in his experience. And they never, ever ended. Not even
after heartbreak, betrayal, blood and denial.
He was not losing his mind.
He knew what the candles meant.
His past, what on a snowy mountain breathing the frosty breath of death
had seemed a lovely dream, had invaded his present once again. He'd
fallen back into the darkness, and this time … this time he would tell no
one. Let her bring him to the edge of the abyss and push him face forward
into hell all on his own. He would not risk his friends again
by inviting them into his nightmare.
He'd had another dream, almost two years ago. He'd dreamed of
acceptance, and affection, and eventually, arousal. But those dreams had
never been articulated, dying in the light of reality before they could be
voiced. For the object of his affections, silent as
they were, was a Catholic, heterosexual police detective of strong Italian
heritage who lived in the bosom of his family. Who had invited
Now that warmth was transmuted into a different sort of acceptance, as
his point of entry into the circle was far away, under an assumed
name, undertaking a double life for the purpose of doing his duty as a
law enforcement officer.
If the darkness found out about the light, then his nightmares would be
the end of them both.
Detective Kowalski stared moodily at a hole coming through the left knee
of his most comfortable pair of jeans and wondered what the hell he'd done
now that had fucked everything up. He didn't make friends easily, god
knew, but Fraser was unique. Fraser listened to him. Paid attention, and
had smart things to tell him, things that helped. Fraser was weird, but in
a good way.
Fraser liked him.
He'd thought. He was beginning to wonder.
The last week or so the usually totally calm Mountie
had been acting spooked. He didn't exactly jump at shadows, but he came
damned close. He didn't want to hang out, didn't want to grab a pizza and
watch a game -- not even a hockey game. Something was radically wrong with
the Mountie.
For half a second he considered actually asking Thatcher what was
going down at the Consulate. Then he remembered the last time he'd seen
her, pictured her perfectly made up eyes glaring at him like he was some
kind of roach who'd wandered in off the streets by accident and she was
going to squish him, and shuddered. Bad idea.
Then he considered Turnbull, for almost two seconds, before he accepted
that the other Mountie was such a flake Fraser
could be standing sentry duty naked in nothing but the hat and Turnbull
wouldn't notice anything unusual.
The resulting mental image hit him like a fist to the solar plexus.
God, but wouldn't he pay to be the one to rub the sun block on. It took
him a moment to refocus his eyes and get the breath back in his lungs.
Okay. One more ambush by a hot picture of Fraser. Not like this was all
that unusual. In fact, lately, it had become the norm. He was getting used
to the pattern -- think of Fraser, get a hard-on, blow air out through
his nose and glare at whatever happened to be in front of him while
thinking about icebergs, wait for the blood to return to his brain. Maybe
that was the problem. Maybe Fraser had picked up on his idiocy and was
avoiding him so as not to lead him on.
Nah.
Not Fraser. Look up clueless in the dictionary, and there's that face.
That gorgeous face. With those big innocent
who-me blue eyes and that thick hair that he could just see grabbing hold
of as he fucked that perfect mouth.
His head hit the desktop with a loud, hollow thump. Not the way
to lose a woody.
"Ray?"
He held back a moan by sheer force of will.
"Ray? Are you all right?"
Oh, yeah, great, be even better if you'd shuck those tight black duck
thigh pants you got on and spread 'em. Be
totally perfect if you lubed up first. Ray squeezed his eyes tightly shut
and gritted out through clenched teeth, "Fine, Fraser, what's
up?" Oh, god, bad. Very bad, Kowalski, he groaned, but he managed to
keep it silent.
"Nothing that I know of," Fraser responded, on cue, yeah,
totally clueless. The usual weird mix of laughter and being turned on
that hit Kowalski finally put a dent in his pole, and he was able to look
up at his friend from his comfortable pillow of overflowing file folders.
What he saw wilted him completely.
Fraser looked like shit. Well, as close to shit as somebody as gorgeous
as he was could look. Which meant his eyes were threaded with tiny
swollen red veins, and he had smudges under his eyes, and he was holding
his jaw so tight it looked like it was about to crack into a million
pieces. What the fuck? "What the fu--er,
what's wrong, Fraser? You look kinda rough."
Those usually innocent eyes slid immediately away. Oh, yeah,
something wasn't right, all right. Then he noticed the strong hands were
turning the Stetson around and around, long fingers kneading the brim. As
he watched in total disbelief at the havoc Fraser was wreaking on his
normally pristine hat, the hands suddenly stilled, and a tiny sound of
horror came from above him. He looked up, and caught his breath at the
pain in those bloodshot eyes.
"Siddown, Fraser." He reached up,
grasped one red-sleeved forearm firmly, and tugged the Mountie
into his usual seat. "Talk to me." Please. He didn't let go. He
was half afraid if he did, the other man would bolt and he'd never find
out what was going on. Need to jump in the guy's pants aside, Fraser was
one of the few friends he actually had, and he couldn't stand to see him
hurting.
Fraser didn't try to get away, simply sat, staring off into the
middle distance, not saying anything. Ray tugged not too gently at the
sleeve to get his attention, then froze in shock
as Fraser rotated his hand, slipped his sleeve from Ray's grasp, and wound
his fingers into Ray's. He tightened his grip automatically, not even
caring what the other cops would think to see him sitting there holding
hands with Big Red. Fuck 'em. Fraser's hand was
cold. And it was trembling. He could no more let go now that he could take
his gun out and shoot himself.
"I …" Fraser stared down at their joined hands. Kowalski let
him sit for a moment, then squeezed slightly.
"What is it, Fraser? C'mon. Whatever it is, it can't be that bad
that you can't tell me."
Apparently those were the wrong words. Before Ray closed his mouth
over them, Fraser tore their hands apart, stuffed his mangled Stetson on
his head, drew himself to attention, and practically saluted. For the
second time in less than a minute, Ray sat there and stared at him with
his mouth hanging open.
"Can't. Sorry. G'bye." Three words, five syllables rammed into
three, and Fraser turned on his heel and practically ran out the door, in
an incredibly fast paced and barely controlled walk. Ray stared after
him, hand still curling into the empty air, mouth still hanging open,
erection still half hard, brain feeling like it had just gone through a whirl
in a Mixmaster.
Oh, yeah. Something was radically wrong with the Mountie.
Time to make like a detective and find out what the fuck
was going on.
For the fourth night in a row, she slipped up the back stairs into
the unused room at the back corner of the consulate. She had waited,
watched, planned for weeks, and the time was perfect for execution. The
woman who ran the place was off in
But Ben was.
She'd seen to that. Dozens of candles, white, scentless, scattered about
a vacant room.
Let him believe, for the barest heartbeat, that he was being haunted.
Let him shiver, let him flinch. And when his mind believed what his eyes
were telling him, then let him come to her. That bastard cop had gotten
in their way once before, but he wouldn't this time. Now, here, it was
her and it was Ben, and no one would ever come between them again.
She would see to that.
Pausing in front of the cheval glass at the foot of the wide bed,
she stared at her reflection. Her long, dark curls framed a thin,
elegant face, large dark eyes, generous mouth.
The simple black skirt and sweater hugged her form, blending in with the
rich cherrywood of the antique bed frame behind
her, giving her hands and face the appearance of floating in the half-dark
of the room. So different from the first time he had held her. All white,
then, snow around them, on the ground, in the air, in her lungs, on his
lashes. Just the rich mahogany of his hair and the clear
water of his blue eyes, anchoring her in a world of white.
Dropping her into a living hell, without a backward
glance.
She had played with him, yes, when they'd met again, leading him a
merry chase, pushing him. Seeing how much he was willing to sacrifice, and
how much he could take, and what he would leave behind. In the end, he
hadn't failed her.
He'd been kept from her.
Not now.
She heard his footsteps on the stair, not hesitating, as they ascended
and headed toward the door. It was only as she heard the slid of wood
across the Persian rug, the tiny squeal of hinges, that
they faltered. He had come to her, expecting her memory in the
candlelight. Not her presence.
"
He said her name in a way no one else had ever managed, anguish
overlaid with calmness, defeat underlying hope.
She smiled at herself in the mirror. No, she hadn't lost him. She never
would. "Hello, Ben."
"You shouldn't be here." Standing so still,
in the doorway, one hand on the knob, as if the door could somehow be a
defense, a wall between them. Head back, shoulders straight, feet
firmly planted on the ground. But there was a fine trembling in his
throat, and it undermined his determined voice.
"I have to be." The simple truth, really.
She'd tried to run, she'd had the means, and the opportunity, but she'd
been drawn back to him. Always would be, she knew that now. It was him, or
no one; with him, or nowhere. She'd been without him, and she'd spent ten
years in hell because of him; she'd tried to punish him and only ended up
hurting herself. It was time to face the truth. They were intertwined in a
way she could never hope to untangle. She turned to face him, and read his
eyes. Fire, and steel, and denial. "You're
here."
He stared at her for a long moment, then
reached toward the telephone on the stand beside the bed. She watched a
muscle twitch along his jaw as he forced himself to pick up the receiver,
dial a number, one finger stabbing viciously at the buttons.
"I need you."
He refused to look at her, staring at the handset, putting it to his ear
as a voice came through. He opened his mouth to speak, and finally
broke, eyes darting up to meet hers. She dropped any pretense she ever
might have had at indifference, and let the want show in her face. The
voice at the end of the line grew louder, demanding an answer. His throat
moved, as he swallowed, but still no sound came out. She reached out to
him, one hand, barely leaning forward, and his eyes closed as she
recreated the last moment he had seen her. Reaching to
him. Calling to him.
He cradled the receiver.
"Please," almost a whisper. She moved closer. One hand raised,
thumb smoothing his eyebrow, as he tried to back away from her. There was
nowhere to go. "Please, you have to leave." Ignoring his words,
responding to his eyes, her own hand raised to cover his, drawing it away
from his brow, toward her mouth. A sound came from him then, part moan, part protest, part acquiescence, bitten off between
clenched teeth. She licked the tips of his fingers.
She remembered that taste.
Eyes still locked with his, she stepped forward, offering her
mouth, offering her body. His other hand raised, curved around her waist,
then clutched the back of her sweater and ripped her away from him.
Unprepared for the sudden move, she found herself tumbling away, onto the
floor at his feet. She couldn't stop the gasp as she hit the edge of the
bedpost, a small whimper of pain at the impact, and he was there before
she landed, cradling her head, one large hand covering the bruised patch
on her hip.
He didn't want to hurt her, she knew that, knew he would protect her.
That's what he did, who he was. And now she knew he couldn't do as he
had done before, either, couldn't do his damnable duty, couldn't turn away
from her. Before he could unwrap his fingers from
her hair she slid against him, mouth seeking his throat, nipping at the
soft skin.
Oh, yes, she certainly remembered his taste. His
warmth, his strength. His resistance.
"No," as his hands slipped under her sweater, spanning her
back. "Please," as she delved beneath the fastenings on his red
serge coat, remembering the satin of his skin, the pucker of a nipple
through soft thin cotton. "Can't," as her skirt slipped back,
baring her thighs, and her hand dipped, lowering his zipper.
"Don't," as she caught him, held him, kneaded him, bared him. "God," as he shuddered against her,
within her, hands tearing at the twisted silk of her skirt, the ripped
edge of her panties.
She rolled, clamping against him, tightening around him, hands
working, mouth working, body moving over his continuously. He was still
hard, and she was still needy, as the remnants of their clothing were
shoved away and she straddled him. His hands came up to cup her breasts,
knowing her sensitivities, playing her as she rode him. Head thrown back,
she took them both as far as she could, then lowered her face to his and
took his mouth as he was taking her body. She felt it then, finally,
gathering throughout her muscles, along her spine out to her fingertips,
tightening her thighs and calves, curling her toes. As she convulsed
around him, he thrust hard, twice, three times, burying his face in her
neck, moaning in her ear.
"Please, god, no, please, oh, god, Ray!"
Shuddering into stillness, she held him. He shivered, arms
tightening around her for a moment before drawing back. Inhaling the
sharpness of his sweat, licking once more along his throat, she closed her
mind to what she had heard and opened her eyes to him, allowing him to see
the satiation, the satisfaction. Banking down the rage.
The trepidation in his expression faded to relief, and she knew that he
thought his betrayal unheard.
It was better that way. He wouldn't expect it until it was done, then.
He was hers, after all. She was simply protecting what was hers. Or
she would. As soon as possible.
The relief was giving way to something akin to shock, disbelief at his own actions. Time for a strategic withdrawal; she
didn't want him thinking too much, saying too much, before she was ready. Before she had taken his other options from him completely,
before he knew, as she did, that he was hers.
She leaned forward for one light kiss, then
shifted her pelvis, watching as his eyes shut at the sensation of slipping
from her. One more light kiss, then the edges of
the sweater were pulled down, the skirt was smoothed, one hand trailed
lightly down the mixture of their juices on his penis, and she was gone.
She felt his eyes on her back all the way out the door. He made no attempt
to follow.
At the base of the stairs, she finished tearing off her ripped panties
and stuffed them in her pocket. She could smell him on them. She smiled
into the darkness and slid into the shadows. Tomorrow, when she was
finished, he would come with her. She wouldn't be left on her own again.
She'd had enough of hell.
Kowalski wasn't quite sure why he'd parked outside the Consulate.
It wasn't like much was gonna happen. Fraser'd gone down the front steps, met Deifenbacher, walked to the park, stared at a tree for a
couple of hours while Deif had romped around
scaring passing terriers, then walked back to the Consulate. Now … well,
now, nothing. Nobody in or out. Turnbull was all
tucked up in the basement, and other than one lit room at the rear side in
what was probably the attic there wasn't a fucking thing going on. He'd been
on more boring stakeouts, but usually Fraser was there to bug him, so he
stayed awake. Or fell asleep, usually leaning against Fraser. It was weird
being on stakeout without the Canuck, and even weirder when the Canuck was
the one being watched.
Two hours into the dullest stakeout on record, the curtain in the
attic room moved. Ray sat up, staring through his binoculars at the
small window, somewhat startled to see Fraser, leaning against the
window, staring down at a squatty row of candles that were burning down to
nubs on the sill. Had to be a fire hazard. He was
half tempted to trot up the stairs and ask the Mountie
what the hell he was doing with a bunch of candles in a room that, last
he'd looked, still had electricity, or what, hadn't the Canadian government
paid the utility bill? But the look on that pale face, not to mention the
embarrassment of having to explain what he was doing camped out on the
street in front of the Consulate, stopped him.
Fraser looked sick. Well, maybe not sick, more like he'd just gone
ten rounds with the heavyweight champ and lost. Defeated,
kinda. Lost, a little.
Not like his Fraser. Nothing fazed Fraser. Except, now, it looked like
something had. Big time. Sitting in the quiet, cold
car, Ray stared up at Fraser, staring down at the candle. From somewhere
on a lower floor, he heard a loud, wavering sound, and shivered, pulling
his jacket closer around his ears. What the fuck was going on? First
Fraser acts like he's got ants in his shorts, then he looks like he's lost
his last friend but won't talk to anybody about it, and now Deif's making like, well, a wolf, and howling at the
moon.
Ray glared at the window. Whole fucking world was going nuts, and he
was the nutsest one in it.
The curtain fell, and he watched the shadow outline of Fraser's head
bend. One by one, the tiny flames went out. He sat and watched the dark
window until dawn. Deif howled the whole
goddamned night. Something was seriously out of whack.
No one noticed bag ladies. Especially in a busy precinct bustling
with petty thieves, prostitutes, panhandlers, complainants filling out
crime reports, parents looking for runaways, gang members parading colors
and protesting that of course that wasn't their knife, never seen the frickin' thing, and what you mean it cut somebody? Musta been wearin' purple.
In the midst of the suits and the uniforms and the computers and the
protests and the rattle of a cop shop at full boil, Victoria Metcalfe
crept in, slender form swathed in several layers of pungent cloth, hair
dusty and bound in an overflowing headscarf. Muffler around her chin,
scarf over her brow, just another disheveled, dirty piece of human flotsam
floating through on the wave of humanity around her. No one noticed, as
she dithered, as she wandered, as she finally settled in a far corner, out
of sight, out of mind.
In perfect line of sight and hearing of Ray Vecchio's desk. At
least according to the name plate on the desk top. After an hour,
she was beginning to wonder. She hadn't seen Vecchio
anywhere, just a scruffy, graceful greyhound of a man with big eyes and a
sideways smirk, wearing a tight tee shirt and tighter jeans and spiky
blond hair. She catalogued his appearance absently, wondering who he was
and when Vecchio was going to show up and
reclaim his desk.
After all, she couldn't kill someone she couldn't find.
The blond bent over to gather some scattered papers, and she
nodded approvingly. Well shaped, great legs, better arms, interesting
profile. Amazing hind end, a little skinny compared to her tastes, which
ran toward a bit more bulk, but not bad, not bad at all. She'd not kick
him out of her bed, if it wasn't already well warmed by … before she could
finish the thought, a black cop in a suit tossed
a folder in front of the blond and laughed.
"There ya go, Ray, as good as it gets. Maybe you and big Red can
make something out of nothing."
The blond snarled at him in a friendly way, and began to leaf through
the file.
No. That was simply impossible.
She realized her jaw was hanging open slightly and closed it with
an inaudible snap. Several moments later, the door to the office opened,
and the blond came slouching back out, heading back to the desk and
rooting through the files scattered there. Picking one up, he bent over
the desk and began reading through it.
She stared around the bullpen, recognizing several faces from the
shoot-out at the platform, up to and including the black man who had given
the file to the blond and called him Ray. She dredged up the scene of the
men gathered around Ben's sprawled form, etched like acid into her memory.
Yes, the middle aged man had been there as well.
So, they were pretending that this man was Vecchio.
But Vecchio was nowhere to be found. For the
first time since Ben had called the bastard's name as he climaxed in her,
she began to relax. Vecchio was gone. She didn't
care how, or why, it just was, and if the other cops were pretending this
man was Vecchio, then he wasn't coming back any time
soon. She wouldn't have to kill him after all. Perhaps someone else
already had. A smile stretched her lips behind the edge of the muffler.
It froze as a familiar figure entered the room, deftly dodged the
milling crowd, and headed directly for the side of Ray Vecchio's
desk. The blond looked up from the file, saw his visitor, and smiled. The
frozen smile began to disappear as she recognized the light in that
angular face. It mutated into a snarl as she recognized the light that
greeted it in her own Ben's features.
Not possible. This was simply not possible. Shaking the buzzing out
of her ears, she forced herself to concentrate on what they were saying to
one another. She tried her hardest to ignore all the things they
weren't saying with their voices, but were shouting with their
expressions. Insecurity, want, frustration on the
blond; hunger, muted by sadness and denial, on her Ben.
"C'mon, Fraser, this is me. You know you can tell me. Whatever it
is, just tellin' somebody's gotta
help."
"There is nothing wrong, Ray. Really.
Thank you for your concern. I do, however, need to speak with Leftenant Welsh. There has been … an unexpected
visitor whose appearance I must report."
Flat, stoic, dutiful. Determined. The son of a
bitch. He was going to do it after all. He was going to turn her
in. And he was in love, or at the very least lust, and knowing her Ben he
had no doubt convinced himself it was love. With a
stranger wearing Ray Vecchio's name.
The buzzing began again, drowning out the rest of the conversation,
pulling her into herself. She barely registered the movement as the two
men rose from their chairs and headed toward the office in the corner. Her
eyes were unfocused, a field of red that was Ben's shoulders gradually growing until
it washed out everything else around her, enveloped her mind and
her heart, buried her under a rush of blood. When the pressure behind her
eyes abated enough for her to be able to see again, she pushed herself off
the bench, moving like the ancient woman she pretended to be, and made her
way out to the street. Staring at the rush of cars, seeing only the red haze
and hearing only words of duty and betrayal, she walked slowly away from
the station.
She had things to do. A place to find, a person to
follow, a gun to buy. One last chance. One final attempt. She would get out of hell, or she
and Ben would both die with her final attempt.
Kowalski didn't quite know what he'd expected, but a return of the
Wicked Witch of the North hadn't been it. No fuckin'
wonder Deif'd been howling at the moon. Had he
known what was going down he'd have grabbed his gun and … then again,
maybe not.
"- waiting for me in the upper room of the Consulate. I attempted
to … I made an attempt to …"
Fraser was stumbling over his words, and a quick glance at the
Lieutenant confirmed what Ray expected. They were both staring at the Canadian
like he'd lost his mind, with their mouths hanging open. When Fraser
finally, abruptly, stopped, face flushed a painful red, he wondered if he
should say something. Anything. Like, I know what
you were doing last night, and calling the cops wasn't it. Or, ya know, Deif thinks you're nuts, and I read the case files,
and I gotta admit he's on the right track. Or,
maybe, why the hell didn't you shoot her instead of fucking her? But he
couldn't say any of those things. Couldn't turn the
knife any deeper than Fraser was turning it himself. Before he
could figure out a tactful way of admitting that he'd been spying on his
friend, Fraser found his tongue again. Which was a damned good thing,
'cause Ray didn't have a frickin' idea what he
would, or should, have said.
"I failed to report her presence. Physical intimacy ensued. She
left. She said she would return to the Consulate this evening. I have
no knowledge of her current whereabouts. I was derelict in my duty."
All in one breath. If he hadn't been so freaked
out, he would have applauded. As it was, he looked at Lieutenant Welsh,
Welsh looked back at him, Fraser stared at the wall, and nobody said
anything. It was the longest thirty seconds of his life, before Welsh
finally cleared his throat and spit something out.
"Well, Constable, if she, uhm, says she's
gonna be at your place-" Ray winced, Welsh
hesitated, Fraser stood like a lump of marble and Welsh caught himself,
moving on. "-we'll just have to make sure we're there first. What
time did she, er, approach you?"
"Strictly speaking, sir, I approached her-"
"What time, Constable?" A true Welsh bark. Ray found himself
standing at attention and all he was doing was listening. His teeth were
glued together from sheer nerves.
"
Welsh was already rising, staring at the clock.
It was almost five. "We'll have a team in place, then, to take her.
You searched the building?" At Fraser's nod of agreement, Welsh
continued. "She's off the premises, then, and will have to get in
somehow. We'll surround the building, catch her
on the way in." As he headed for the door, Fraser automatically fell
into step behind him. Kowalski reached out and caught his sleeve.
"Uh, Fraser," at his voice, both men stopped and turned, one
of Fraser's brows arching a question. "You, uh, don't need to be there,
does he, sir? I think maybe it might be a good idea if he isn't there,
you know, so she can't do something stupid like plant herself on the front
step and ask for sanctuary and have Fraser have to tell her no, you
know?" A memory flashed through his mind of himself, doing exactly
that, and Fraser's ensuing efforts to prove him innocent of a murder for
which he'd been set up. Darkened eyes met his, perfect understanding and
more than a little appreciation for keeping him from having to make that
choice warring with the strong sense of duty bred into the Mountie. Before Fraser could protest that he was
perfectly capable of taking care of the matter, Welsh answered.
"Yeah, Ray, I think you're right on this one." Ray watched
Fraser turn to the Lieutenant, start to protest, then
stop at one upraised, beefy hand. "No, Constable. You're sitting
this one out. Last time we tried to take this hellcat down you ended up
with a bullet in you, nearly dead, and I had paperwork up to my eyeballs
explaining away what coulda easily become
an international incident. You stay with Vecchio,
here."
Fraser's shoulders tensed, and his head bowed. Ray gritted his teeth
at the need to insert the other cop's name in here, especially when
dragging up the shooting. Just pile the shit on one bucketful after
another, he thought grimly, but he kept his jaw locked. Fraser nodded, a
tiny movement that didn't raise his head at all, and Welsh clapped him
briefly on the shoulder before turning and heading out of the office. Ray
stared at his friend for what felt like forever before venturing his own
small shoulder pat.
"C'mon, Fraser. Let 'em handle it. You
hungry?" Not waiting for the denial he could read in the other
man's face, he kept babbling, herding Fraser out in front of him the whole
time. "'Course you're not, not right now, but I'll bet you haven't
been eating and you're gonna be. So let's go to
my place, watch a little something on the tube, maybe throw a tape in the
VCR, get some pizza or piroshkis
or somethin' later on, you know, when you do
feel hungry."
It was a stretch, but he managed to get Fraser clear out of the
station, into his car, back to his apartment, planted on the couch with a
glass of milk in one hand and a plate of his landlady's oatmeal cookies in
the other, without once bringing up the bitch who
was at the root of the mess. Of course, by then, his voice was dead, but
hey, that's what friends were for, to be a little white noise when the
world was screaming in a buddy's ear. At least that's what Ray told
himself. He wasn't willing to admit, even in the privacy of his own thoughts, that he was half afraid of what Fraser would
say if he ever managed to get any words out.
The consulate was a beautiful building. It was a beautiful day.
The shrubbery around the grounds made for beautiful coverage. Turnbull was
a beautiful example of utter oblivion standing serenely on the stately
steps. The trap was a beautiful set-up, everyone in place, no sign of a
rumble, no unexpected hitches, nobody's watch alarm or beeper going off
from behind a bush, no nosy dogs looking for a fire hydrant and finding a
pants leg. Everything was just beautiful.
Except for the fact that the beauty they were all waiting for was
nowhere in sight.
Welsh squinted into the greenery, spat out another damned bug before it
got wedged in his teeth, and mentally pinpointed his men. Eleven plainclothesmen, deployed in such a way that there was
no path except from the sky that wasn't covered by at least two.
Huey and Dewey at point, Markus and Heath to the west, Sanders and Dukakis
to the south, Li and Andress to the east, Neill
and Byrnes to the north, and himself directly across from the back
entrance Big Red had been sure she'd used the previous night. A gnat
couldn't fart within a hundred yards of the Consulate without somebody
hearing it.
Only problem was, the gnats were the only things moving.
For the eightieth time in the last hour, at least, he glanced down at
his watch.
The minute hand ticked over, and he grimaced. Glaring back at
the frustratingly quiet doorway, he chewed and spat another bug. Hell of a
way to spend a summer evening.
The cookies were undoubtedly excellent. The milk was chilled, and
as decent as any American milk could be, while being distressingly thin
by Canadian standards. The Chicago Bulls were beating an expansion team
into flinders on the court, so it was obviously a satisfactory ballgame.
Unfortunately, the food tasted like sawdust, the game utterly failed
to keep his attention, and his head was beginning to ache with all
the conflicting thoughts flying about in it.
Fraser realized that something was different in his surroundings,
and forced his focus away from his confusion long enough to pinpoint
the change. Ah. Ray had finally stopped talking. He was well aware that
his friend was unaccountably nervous, but couldn't think of a logical
reason why it should be so. Giving up on making sense of either the game
or his thoughts, he turned to his partner.
"Are you all right, Ray?"
Kowalski started, nearly jumped from his seat. That was odd. Fraser
hadn't realized he'd been so intent on the game.
Or perhaps not.
There was something in the way Ray was carefully not looking at him.
"Me? All right? Sure! I mean, why not? I'm
not the one with the psycho on his tail." Kowalski's voice choked off
suddenly, and he made a small pained noise, as if he had bitten his
tongue. Fraser cocked his head to one side and studied the other man
intently. Long, thin hands waved through the air as if trying to erase his
words. Fraser broke into the strangled, choppy apology.
"You appear to be uneasy. Why?" After all, as he'd so bluntly
put it, before catching himself, he wasn't the target of a
convicted murderess with anything from vengeance to sex on her mind.
Ray took a deep breath, threw one extremely quick glance at Fraser,
and stared hard at the screen. "I was at the Consulate last
night."
The words were so soft Fraser wasn't certain for a moment that he'd
actually heard them. When he realized he had, he sat upright, staring in
disbelief at Kowalski. "Why?" It came out more harshly than he
intended, but he didn't mitigate it with any explanation. Why had the
detective taken it into his head to follow him?
"Somethin' wasn't right. Somethin' was bothering you. Had to see
if I could help. Couldn't get you to talk.
Figured I'd try 'n' figure it out and … and … give you a hand or somethin'." The staccato sentences rapped at him,
sharp taps, each word biting at the wall of numbness
he'd managed to build around himself. This, he had not expected. He hadn't
known Ray cared enough to seek him out that way.
"Of course I do!" Fraser found himself staring into Ray's
upset eyes, mobile mouth pulled into a deep frown. He hadn't realized he'd
spoken aloud. Swallowing, he tried to force some semblance of order on
his tumbled thoughts.
"Why?" was all he could find to ask.
Ray shrugged irritably. "You're my friend." Another
quick glance sideways through his lashes, another one-shouldered shrug.
"I care what happens to ya."
The wall broke. Knowing he would berate himself for this later, knowing
it was undoubtedly not what Kowalski had intended, Fraser found himself
speaking. Words fell out, and he didn't have a solitary idea how to stop
them. "I care about you, too, Ray. You're my friend. I don't have
many friends. I don't make them easily, can't seem to find a way to keep
them when I do. I appreciate you trying to help, trying to make me feel
better." He was leaning forward now, one hand resting on the cushion
between their thighs. He could feel the warmth of Ray's body through the
thin denim, so close to his fingertips.
"Not your fault, Fraser."
"How can it not be?" Oh, yes, he was well into the flow now.
He couldn't seem to make his tongue lay still now that it had remembered
how to move. "I never know what I should say, never know what I
should do, can never find a way to tell someone that I care about them
until it's too late. I tried not to go with
"I'm not Vecchio! Goddamnit,
I may have his name and his life and his badge and his fucking desk, but
I'm not taking his leftovers!"
That wasn't quite what he'd been expecting. Looking past the
surface disgust to the pain in Ray's face, Fraser took a deep breath. It
felt as if he'd been kicked in the stomach. Perhaps he hadn't been
completely out of his mind to say it, after all. "I don't expect you
to be Ray Vecchio, Ray. I don't want you
to be. I want you to be yourself. It's you, Ray Kowalski, who I need. I
know you, Ray. I know who you are. I know exactly who you are, and I love
you." He shook his head, not knowing how to explain it any more
clearly. "I'm not good at loving anyone, Ray. I've not had it happen
that many times, and the first two times were … nightmares. But it's
there, and I'm scared, because I have this feeling that I'm going to make another
mistake, drive you away, and that will be the end of it." He clenched
his fingers in the tensed muscles under his hand, holding on for dear
life. "I'm going down for the third time, here, and if I go down
alone, this time, I'll drown."
Ray was looking at him as if he really had lost his wits. But the
disgust had disappeared, at least, and along with the pain, there was the
slightest hint of hope. "You're weird, you know." Fraser nodded.
"I'm a lot of things, but lovable isn't one of them." He shook his
head, disagreeing, but unable to say anything more. The well had run dry,
and his mind was going numb. "You're crazy, saying you love me."
"I do." A promise, and a statement of
fact. The promise didn't completely sway Kowalski, but the clear belief
seemed to catch his attention. After all, a Mountie
didn't go back on his word And Fraser was very
serious indeed. He brought his free hand around, barely brushing it
against Ray's jaw. Ray didn't retreat, as he'd half expected, but leaned
slightly into the touch. Moving slowly, waiting for him to shy away,
Fraser leaned all the way in and touched his mouth lightly to the soft
skin below Ray's ear.
Ray froze.
Fraser froze in response. Then he heard it. The click
of a safety being flicked off a handgun.
He pulled back even more slowly than he had leant in, gradually turning
to face their unexpected visitor.
"You have a choice, Ben." Her voice was calm,
no hint of strain, but there was an edge of madness to it. He remained
silent, waiting to hear what she would have to say, waiting for an
opening, willing Ray to keep his mouth closed. "You can walk out of
here with me. You'll leave him, and he will live. Or you can stay with
him. And I will kill both of you."
She would do it, he knew. She'd killed lovers before. His mind
spun furiously, trying to find a way to get them out of the situation
alive and take her into custody without further jeopardizing his partner.
Before he could think of anything to say, the phone rang. The shrill
noise startled all three of them, but the barrel of the gun never wavered.
He closed his eyes, thankful at least that it hadn't made her finger jerk
on the trigger.
"Don't be a moron, lady," Ray
suddenly blurted. Fraser stared at him, pushing down hard with his body,
shushing him as discreetly as possible. Ray was having none of it.
"You got a whole station full of cops on your ass. They all know
you're in the area. You're not going anywhere. Drop the gun and back
off!"
A bullet buried itself in the back of the sofa a scant inch from Ray's
left ear. A second bullet shattered the body of the telephone, quieting
the ringing. In the aftermath of the small explosion, the apartment was
very quiet. Fraser could feel every muscle in his body tense, and time
began to slow. He knew, as surely as he knew the beat of his own heart,
that she would never leave Ray alive. And Fraser would never allow her to
hurt him. The best chance, the only chance, would be to overpower and
disarm her. Hoping to distract her, he turned, keeping himself in front
of Ray as much as possible.
"Please,
"And you, Ben?" So much need in that voice. So like a little
girl. Her eyes were shining. She wasn't crying, and she wouldn't, but if
she could, at that point she would have been.
"I can't go with you. You know that. You wouldn't want me to, not
really. If you love me at all, you wouldn't want what I would be if I
could leave with you."
"Fucking word games!" Ray tried to shoulder past Fraser on the couch, but he blocked the
smaller man, not letting
"Ray! Be quiet!" "Shut up, you son of a bitch."
Their words tumbled over one another, and Fraser fell silent as she
continued, her voice low and venomous. "What do you know? Nothing. You know nothing. He's mine. He was willing to
give up everything -- everything -- even that bastard Vecchio for me. You're nothing but a poor substitute for
the real thing. He'll leave you, too. He belongs to me."
"No." One quiet word, cutting through her
angry tirade, silencing her. Behind him, Ray had frozen at her
words, and Fraser found himself speaking once again with no filter between
his heart and his tongue. "No, Victoria. Ray isn't a substitute for
anyone. I won't leave him. I can't. You were an obsession-" and how
freeing it was to admit that, to her, to himself.
"-He's real. There's a difference between loving someone and wanting
to own someone. You don't need me, and you certainly don't love me. Just as I don't love you."
She stared at him in disbelief, lips drawing back over her teeth in
a snarl. "Are you trying to say you're in love with … this?"
The barrel of the gun wagged slightly above and to the left of
Fraser's shoulder, and he said, softly, clearly, "Yes," as he
took advantage of the momentary distraction and threw himself at her.
Behind him he could hear Ray cursing under his breath and scrabbling for
his weapon, but he was occupied with wrestling
The side of her forearm slammed into his throat, and he choked, gasping
for breath. He could feel her move, knew she was sighting over his
shoulder, using him as a body shield while she shot his partner. He
moaned, lurched desperately against her in a last ditch attempt to spoil
her aim. There was an explosion, not as loud as he expected, and her body
jerked in his arms. Abruptly, she was deadweight. He froze, staring at the
woman who had been fighting him so fiercely a moment before. Her eyes were
open, but the light was dying in them, and he was aware of something wet
and viscous slipping over his fingers.
He sagged with her to the floor, only then realizing that her head
was canted oddly, her hair pressed down, no, there was a hole there, part
of her skull was gone, and the fluid on his hands … he forced his eyes
from his hand to the doorway. Lieutenant Welsh stood there, backed by
several bodies crowded out in the hall. Behind him, he felt warmth. A hand
came over his, around his back, where it held her waist under the fall of
her hair. Fingers tightened around his. His stomach lurched, and he stared
at Welsh's pale face, peripherally aware of another hand reaching around
to gently close her eyes. Welsh's mouth was moving, and he could feel air
by his neck, knew Ray must be saying something, but he couldn't hear a
word. All he felt were the fingers, around his, and the warmth along his
back, anchoring him.
Welsh finally came forward into the room, and there was movement as
the detectives poured in behind him. Huey pulled a cell phone from his
jacket and dialed, speaking urgently in it, as Li and Byrnes reached
forward to take
"Welsh to all units. Leave your positions -- the stake-out is off. Repeat, the stake-out is
off." Digging his cell phone out of his coat pocket and flipping it open,
he punched the first speed button. Francesca picked up on the second ring.
Breaking through her canned spiel, he barked, "Connect me to
Kowalski."
"Is there an emergency? What's going on, Lieutenant? Is Ray okay?
Is Fraser okay??" He could hear her fingers tapping on keys in the
background, so he bit down his instinctive urge to tell her to shut up and get
on it, and settled for a simple, "Yes." That would cover everything.
To his mild surprise, it actually worked, and the next noise he heard in his
ear was the ringing of the call going through.
And ringing. And ringing. No answer, then a sudden disconnection and dead
air. Not even a dial tone.
Not good. With a muttered "Shit!" he clamped the phone shut
and shoved it in his pocket. He was already swinging into his car as he went
back to the walkie talkie and started issuing orders.
Less than ten minutes later, lights going but sirens silent, they squealed to a
halt in front of Kowalski's apartment building. Not waiting for his men to
catch up, Welsh took the stairs on the fly, damning too many deli lunches for
the pain in his side as he ran up the last flight.
From the hall he could hear screaming, two voices, one male, one female,
and the sounds of a struggle in progress. "Police!
Open up!" bellowed out in the same instant his foot impacted the door
frame, perfect aim, just to the side and above the lock, snapping it like balsa
wood. It flew open to show a scene from a nightmare. A slender woman with long,
dark hair twisted in Constable Fraser's grip, both their hands fighting for a
pistol in her right hand. Her left clawed at Fraser's face, and she was
twisting like a wildcat, biting, clawing and kneeing, screaming obscenities and
telling everyone who would listen that her Ben was never going to leave her.
Kowalski was screaming back, dancing from side to side, trying to get a clear
shot around Fraser's bulk, unable to sight her with all the movement.
Then she got lucky, and cracked Fraser a hard
one across the windpipe, nearly taking him down. He grabbed at his throat with
one hand, gagging, and she jerked her hand away from him, using his shoulder as
a balance, aiming right at Kowalski. Welsh didn't remember yelling a warning,
although, later, Tom assured him he had, and the incident board did clear him.
All he could see was that hand, pulling the trigger, and Kowalski, unable to
shoot without taking out the Mountie. Welsh's hand
came up, his gun aimed for the middle of her back. He thought a quick prayer
that the bullet would stay in the bitch, wouldn't go right through and take out
the Constable, then he squeezed the trigger.
He fired. Fraser stumbled. The woman went sideways, not a lot, just a
little, and the bullet that should have caught her in the heart took off the
side of her head.
"Sonuvabitch." It hadn't been what he'd aimed at. But he'd take it.
He forced himself to walk forward, and saw Kowalski move as he did. His
detective took charge, quietly herding Fraser away from the corpse, tugging on
him, then two of his men came around him and helped
shift the dead weight. He reached for his phone, again, and hit a different
speed button. He couldn't help thinking, as he stared at the remains splattered
across the carpet, that it had been a hell of a night,
and it was going to get worse before it got better.
It didn't take long for the ME to get to the scene, and there was the
standard procedure to cover, pictures and statements. Through it all, he kept a
close eye on Fraser and Kowalski. Big Red was holding Kowalski's hand, like a
little lost kid, with a man's grip that wasn't letting go. Stepping carefully
around a technician, he stopped by Ray's side.
"He okay?" So many questions, in a couple short words. He knew, of course, that
the answer was no. Hell, the guy had just had his ex-lover's head blown off
while she was in his arms, and he still had the blood and brain matter splashed
over his coat to prove it. He was white as a ghost, shaking like a leaf, and
holding on to Kowalski like he was never going to let go. But he had to ask,
and he accepted Kowalski's nod as the answer meant, not given. No, he wasn't
all right, and he wouldn't be all right for awhile, but he'd get past it, eventually,
and it would be as all right as it ever got.
"Report on my desk tomorrow," he added, more to have something
to say than because Ray needed any reminders. Kowalski nodded, then put his
other arm around Fraser's shoulders and hugged him tightly to his side. Welsh
nodded. He knew the feeling.
Then he turned and walked out the door.
There was more here than what he had seen. More than what he would read
in the report, more even than the painfully honest Constable would ever tell.
But he didn't need to hear it. He knew it. And eventually, when everything
settled down and they got their heads back together, maybe, if they were lucky,
they'd talk it out, and they'd know it too. Vecchio
would never know what he had missed. From where Welsh was
sitting, it was better that way.
Bad day in bedrock, Ray grumbled to himself, then
fished out the white-out one more time. One of these days he'd remember to
check the damned report before he printed it out. Not today. His brain felt
like fried squid.
Slowly wending his way into the Lieutenant's office, he dropped the
report into the inbox and stared at his boss. Welsh looked up from the folder
in front of him, and grimaced up at the detective.
"You look like shit, Vecchio. Go
home."
Ray didn't argue. He just nodded, turned on his heel, snagged his coat
on the way out the door and headed for the Consulate. He and Fraser had to talk.
Fraser didn't seem to agree.
He was very busy with a box and a half of what looked like forms in
quadruplicate, sorting them this way and that into neat little piles that were
precisely placed at right angles to the edge of the desk exactly a quarter inch,
or whatever the hell the metric equivalent was, from one another. Ray shook his
head. He knew denial when he saw it.
"C'mon, Fraser. Time to get back on the horse."
Fraser gave him a perfect 'I haven't the faintest idea what you're
talking about' look. Kowalski jerked his chin to the side, pointing toward the
door.
"Back to my place." Fraser froze, eyes widening, face paling. "You have to, ya know.
Otherwise it's never going to go away."
"Let it rest, Ray." The normally calm voice was very strained.
He hated seeing the pinched look on that face, but Ray bit his tongue against
the urge to give in. This was important. For once, he and Fraser were actually
on the same wavelength, and he had a strong feeling if they didn't get it
thrashed out now, it never would be. Neither one of them was very good at
talking, not when it came to something important. And it didn't get any more
important than this.
"Can't do that, Fraser. Ya see, you're not alone in this." Blue
eyes swung up from the desk top and latched onto his. He nodded, never breaking
eye contact. "Goes both ways, buddy. And we gotta talk about it."
"Not here," agreed Fraser.
"No. My place." He watched the long
throat tense, then swallow, knowing by the bruising
left from the bitch's cross check that it must've hurt. He softened his voice,
allowing a little pleading to creep in. "Please."
Fraser gave the precise piles of paperwork one last glance, reached for
his jacket and his hat, and followed Ray out of the room.
It was a short, silent drive to Kowalski's apartment. When he unlocked
the door and led the way in, Fraser froze at the threshold for a second,
staring at the carpet. The clean-up crew had done a decent job, and Ray'd spent the rest of the night scrubbing at it, after
putting Fraser to bed in the back room. There wasn't any stain left, not that could be seen against the dark fiber of the carpet,
and Fraser eventually edged into the room. Ray stood back, not pushing, letting
him take his time. He didn't want to scare him off, and if he gave into his
impulse and grabbed the guy up in a hug and never let go, the Mountie would probably head for the high country and never
be seen again. So he wrapped his arms around his own torso, leaned against the
wall of the kitchen, and watched.
After what felt like forever, Fraser got past the place where
As if Ray could. As if he could erase the words echoing in his head. Love. The guy he'd been trying to find a way to trip into
bed for months had said he loved him. Then psychobitch
from hell had shown up and blown the works right out of the water.
Not this time.
He sidled over to the couch, settling lightly next to Fraser. When the
other man made no move to bolt, he scooted a little closer.
"Did you mean what you said?" Fraser turned his head to look
at him, opened his mouth to reply, and Ray broke in before he could say
anything. He couldn't take the chance the answer might be no. "I mean
about that third time going under. About drowning.
About it being me you wanted, not anybody else." He was moving
progressively closer to Fraser with each word, until he was right beside him.
Fraser hadn't moved, didn't even look like he was breathing. Ray figured as
long as he didn't pass out, this was a good sign. "'Cause there's another
way of looking at it, you know. I mean, yeah, you could look at it like you're
going under for the last time, but there's also the third time's a charm thing
going, too, and I think that applies a heckuva lot
more than the drowning thing." Running out of words, he just stared over
at his friend. Please, please, please get it, he chanted in his mind. Please
look at this as a good thing, 'cause it may just be the best damned thing that
has ever happened to me in my life and I don't want to fuck it up. Please.
Please say something.
Thankfully before his control broke and he started babbling again,
Fraser finally opened his mouth.
"She was a dream and I'm not very good at dreams. I tend to mistake
them for reality."
Ray closed his eyes. Not what he'd wanted to hear. He'd wanted
'Ray, I love you, and I want you to fuck me into the middle of next week and
keep doing it the rest of our natural lives.' Not 'she was the best
thing that ever happened to me.'
"She was the worst thing that could have happened to me." His
eyes popped open. Fraser was staring off into the distance, and from the look
on his face, didn't like what he was seeing. "Dad had always put duty
first. Mom died, and he just went away. I saw him very little. He didn't seem
to notice that we missed him. He didn't know Mom, wasn't there to see her,
every day. Put her second, and me, nowhere at all it seemed." His voice
softened. "I did that too, the first time. Put her in prison, put duty
first, love second. Except that it wasn't love. It was
a dream of something that I'd never had, and wanted to have with all my might.
Her return was a second chance, but it was a second chance at a nightmare. She
was nothing like what I thought she was, and she wanted things of me that I
couldn't give without destroying myself."
His eyes sharpened, regained focus, and settled on Ray. Kowalski felt
the weight of them as if they were tearing right through to the heart of him,
seeing everything. If it wasn't for the warmth there, he'd've
been tempted to run himself. As it was, he couldn't have moved if his life had
depended on it.
"I tried to shape her to fit the empty place in my soul. She didn't
fit, she nearly tore me apart, and I helped her. Then I thought, perhaps, that
Ray would fit that hole, but he never quite fit." Ray started, thinking
for a moment that Fraser meant him, then relaxed, realizing that it was Vecchio, this time. "He filled some of the cracks, but
he could never be the one I needed, the one who would complete me."
Fraser's eyes fell to his hands, clenched together now in his lap. His voice
was becoming strangled, hard to hear. Ray leaned closer, not wanting to miss
any of this. It was too damned important.
"She took the light away. She was dark, and cold,
and she made me dark and cold. Ray was a light, but he was a light outside myself, one I could warm myself at but never take into
myself, never make part of me. You …" Fraser's voice broke completely
then, and Ray couldn't stand it any more. He reached over and covered the
whitened knuckles with one hand.
"S'okay, Fraser, I understand."
Narrowed dark eyes stared at him, trying to say more, unable to find any words
left to say. Ray nodded. "We fit."
Fraser nodded in return. A little light was showing in those darkened
eyes, but not enough. Not nearly enough. Not yet. Words wouldn't do it.
Reaching one hand over and tugging Fraser's chin around to face him,
Kowalski angled his head and kissed him. For a heartbeat, Fraser resisted, lips stubbornly tight. Ray nipped at him. Enough talking. They could talk it to death and never say
everything that had to be said. For now, it had to be show, not tell.
Ray put everything he had into his mouth, need and determination, desire
and frustration, pure unadulterated lust only being tempered by love when
Fraser finally gave in and opened his mouth. In a jolt of flash fire, the
hesitancy was gone, and they devoured one another. The tenderness could come
later, with the explanations and the examinations and the poking at it all with
a sharp stick. Right now, right then, there was only fire, burning away the
last of the ice.
Red serge hit the floor, tee shirt and leather jacket following closely,
then jeans were wriggled out of and boots were yanked off two sets of feet. Undershirts, shorts, socks made a trail from the living room to the
bedroom, over the hidden stain in the carpet, covering it with the present,
taking away the sting of the past. While it wasn't the first time for
either man, it was the first time in a long time for both, and pressure and
sublimation created urgency enough that Kowalski was coming before Fraser ever
tipped him onto the bed. He reached out blindly, touching everywhere his hands
could grab, anchoring himself as the world disappeared into vertigo and
flashing colors behind his eyes.
The rough slide of a tongue across his belly brought him back to the
present, and he looked down to see Fraser lapping up the spilled semen there.
He felt like he'd been hit by a truck, but Fraser was still hard as a rock, and
he reached down, drawing his partner up beside him. Holding the face he'd
fantasized about for months close to his own, he licked and kissed all over the
high cheekbones, straight nose, fine brows, long lashes. All the while, he
worked Fraser's erection with his other hand, sliding, pulling, rubbing, using
every trick he'd ever used on himself to drive Fraser over the edge. When it
did, he swooped to cover the open mouth, swallowing Fraser's scream as he came
all over them both. Bringing his dripping hand up to his mouth, curious, he
stuck his fingers in his mouth and sucked the cream off them. Not bad. Different. Sweeter than he'd expected.
He could get addicted to the stuff. Had a feeling he was going to do his
damnedest to get it as often as he possibly could.
Nuzzling the side of his face into Fraser's shoulder, he lazily cleaned
off the rest of his hand and fell asleep, wrapped as far around his partner as
he could get. His last coherent thought he had before dropping off was that
they'd need a crowbar to get 'em apart. It was okay.
He never wanted to move. The thought made him grin, and he was still smiling
when he started to snore.
Ben stared into the darkness, holding Ray Kowalski, feeling warm from
the inside, a novel experience for him. He was a creature of the north, and at
home in the cold. But he was encircled by fire now, and he had never felt more
at ease. His arms tightened, and Ray snuffled in his ear, breath
rasping as he snored lightly into the side of Ben's neck. He was real, solid,
heavy … warm. It wasn't a dream, for no matter how lucid dreams could be, they
were never this tangible. For the first time in his life, he was holding
reality. He had awakened from the nightmare. It was a wonder to wake up and
find that he had finally come home.
finis
Overheard in a closet:
"Fraser? Is it
just me or is it crowded in here?"
Shaft of light,
growled grumbles from knee level, firm click.
"Better?"
"You're too
far away."
"I can remedy
that."
Snuffle. Growl. Grumble.