ds_shakespeare fic... better late than never. Part 2.

[bertybertle]

The light bars of the patrol cars lit up the courtyard when they finally emerged. The CPD had spared no expense with paramedics, forensics and any number of uniformed officers - a possible Mafia-related crime had to be seen to be getting the attention it deserved, particularly when a child was involved. A crowd had gathered at the end of the street, craning their necks to catch every detail of the scene.

Ray moved stiffly to the patrol car assigned to take them back to the 27th. The paramedics had established that there were no broken ribs, but Fraser had seen the rather spectacular bruising already visible on his chest and shoulder. Fraser sat beside him in the back of the black and white, and winced in sympathy as Ray grunted each time the car turned a corner.

Outside the 27th, camera crews were already set up, jostling for position, flash guns dazzling them as they got out of the car and walked into the station.

“It’s a damned circus out there,” Welsh grumbled, eyeing the activity with a sour expression on his already dour face.

Fraser filed his report quickly and went to sit in on Ray’s statement, which was nearing completion by the time he got there. Ray knew how it worked and answered all the questions briefly but succinctly, rubbing his temples and sipping water all the time, presumably trying to fend off the headache Fraser knew he would be experiencing as a result of the night’s exercise.

By midnight they were finished. Ray Vecchio would have to face a board to investigate his use of a firearm, but it was merely a formality. There were witnesses to corroborate the necessity. Anna had been reunited with her parents amid grateful tears. The kidnapper had yet to be identified, but that job, and the subsequent task of finding out who he worked for, had been assigned to Huey and Gardino.

Fraser found Ray walking down the hall to the exit, his progress slow and obviously painful.

“How are you getting home?” Fraser asked softly, not wanting to make him jump.

“Hey, Ben, my car’s still in the parking lot.”

They walked in silence into the darkness behind the building. Lieutenant Welsh had already given the outline details of the case to the reporters, but when the press had followed this case so closely, they liked to have a bit more than Welsh was happy to give, so had dug in for the night at the front of the 27th.

“Is this your car?” Fraser asked, eyeing the sleek black lines of the automobile they’d stopped beside.

“Yeah, Pontiac Gran Tourismo Omologato - only 770 made like this one,” Ray replied, leaning heavily on the roof, but smiling proudly.

“It’s a fine specimen,” Fraser said - not because he had any specific knowledge of classic automobiles, but because he had seen that look on Ray Vecchio’s face too.

“You wanna drive me home, Fraser?” Ray asked, wincing again.

“Should you not be going to the hospital?” Fraser countered, cocking his head to one side.

“Nah, they’ve given me some happy pills, I just wanted to get home before I took them.”

Ray held up his keys and swung them on the end of a finger, then carefully tossed them to Fraser when he smiled in assent.

They drove in silence for a while. Ray seemed relaxed and happy to let Fraser learn the car by himself.

“Did they not have roads where you learned to drive, Ben?” Ray asked with a little laugh when Fraser slowed down to adhere to a speed limit.

Fraser quirked an eyebrow at him, but said nothing.

The number of cars in Ray’s street should have tipped them off really. They drove down towards his little shop, Ray explaining where the garage was, tucked back from the street.

“Oh dear,” Fraser said when he saw the TV film trucks and the assembled crowd turning toward them.

“Shit!” Ray whispered. “Take a right here, Fraser, we can get out around the back. Quick!”

But it was too late; they’d been spotted. Camera flashes began to pop, refracted by the windshield into spirals of blinding white.

Fraser took the right turn faster than he normally would have, and followed Ray’s muttered directions back out of the maze of little interconnected streets. When the instructions were no longer necessary, Fraser drove them to Racine, parking the GTO out of sight around the back of his building.

Ray made no move to get out and Fraser sat with him in silence until Ray shook himself and seemed to take notice of their surroundings.

“I’m sorry, Ray. I know this is the last thing you wanted. I can’t imagine who would have…” Fraser said, hoping very hard that he didn’t know who it was.

“It doesn’t matter who it was. It’s done now,” Ray replied woodenly. “And I know what you’re thinking. She wouldn’t have. She’s a lot of things, Frannie, but she’s a good person and she wouldn’t do that.”

Fraser nodded, wanting to add the word ‘intentionally’, but inexplicably filled with pride that Ray wasn’t casting around for someone to blame; which was ridiculous, he reminded himself: Ray’s personality strengths were no cause for him to feel anything.

“Come up, Ray. You can stay here tonight. They won’t find you here. Tomorrow, with any luck, they will have moved onto another story.”

Fraser led the way up the stairs past the tired-looking doors of his neighbour’s homes, waiting for Ray’s comments, but none came. Fraser even looked closely at the man at his side when he opened his own front door, watching for any sign that Ray was horrified and biting back some version of “You live like this?” But Ray seemed merely weary and perhaps somewhat interested, with no trace of scorn apparent.

As soon as the door shut however, Ray seemed to become unsettled, and Fraser wasn’t sure if that was the evening’s excitement or because he was a guest. Ray moved stiffly from window to window, as if this were a prison to him and he could only experience the outside from behind the glass. He also, Fraser noticed, stayed as far from Fraser as the small apartment would allow, the surprising familiarity they’d shared now gone, evaporated by their experience with the local media.

Even Dief noticed the uncomfortable atmosphere and took himself off into the night without a backward glance.

“Would you like to go for a walk?” Fraser asked quietly, worried that he would startle Ray in his current introspective state.

Ray seemed to come back from somewhere far away. “Uh, nah, I’m fine. Not unless you want to.” Obviously to demonstrate his ease, Ray sat down at the table, wincing as he did so, but was only able to stay still for a minute before he got up and unconsciously began pacing again.

“Are you in pain?” Fraser tried carefully, so as not to annoy Ray with his attentions.

“No, I took one of the pills. It’s fine. It looks worse than it is.” Ray smiled unconvincingly and lopsidedly to avoid the spectacular bruising all around his eye.

“You should put some more of this on your face,” Fraser said, passing Ray the jar from his belt once more.

Ray took it and dabbed some more of the ointment on his skin, Fraser’s eyes tracing the path of his quick, long fingers across the fine bones of his discoloured cheek. With a nod of thanks, he offered the jar back to Fraser.

“Keep it. I have more,” Fraser told him, having to clear his throat to get rid of the breathless feeling in his chest. “Well, you must be hungry, I’ll make us something.”

When Ray was finally seated in front of an omelette and a salad, he at last began to show signs of relaxing. His shoulders became looser and he smiled more, answering Fraser’s attempts at conversation more fully with each question.

“I’m sorry,” he said with a rueful grin, pushing his empty plate away. “I get kind of antsy when I’ve been… you know. Once the headache passes, it’s like I can’t switch off. Used to drive Stella nuts. She used to make me sleep on the couch.” Ray looked around the apartment as if for the first time. “But you don’t have one, so I guess that’s out.”

“No I… I have a bedroll. You can sleep in my bed.”

“Ben, I’m not taking your bed. You haven’t slept in two days.”

“I shall be supremely comfortable in my bedroll, Ray, I can assure you. It’s almost second nature to me.”

Fraser showed Ray to the bathroom and was once again surprised when Ray made no comment about the facilities. Most who had visited his apartment had been quite unable to mask their dismay at his simple domestic arrangements.

He busied himself with washing the dishes and making up his bed on the floor while Ray was gone.

“Thanks, Ben, I really owe you one,” Ray said as he came back into the room, rubbing a towel through his damp hair. He’d obviously washed and put his own clothes back on, Ben noticed, as his t-shirt clung to him where he had failed to dry properly; his back and shoulders plainly defined by the thin cotton of his shirt.

“On the contrary. It is we who owe you. You saved a little girl tonight. Without your assistance we might never have found her in time.”

Fraser could tell from the lift of Ray’s chin and the sudden tension in his shoulders that he’d said something unwelcome, but for the life of him he couldn’t see what. The certainty with which he held this view came as something of a surprise, having known Ray for such a short time; the gesture was hardly overt, but undeniably there. He retreated to the bathroom himself to ponder his choice of words.

It was as he was brushing his teeth that Fraser thought he might have solved it. Ray’s thanks had been a personal statement, something between the two of them. His own response had been on behalf of the CPD and Anna’s parents. With one sentence he’d taken himself out of the equation. Could it be that Ray was seeking to make a form of connection between them?

Perhaps the friendship that Ray had so emphatically declined earlier today in his shop was now something he desired?

Fraser quickly finished up and went back to his apartment. The lights were out except for his storm lantern, and Ray was lying tucked up in his bedroll on the floor.

“Ray,” Fraser said carefully. He wanted to insist. He wanted to demand that Ray take his bed -if nothing else the man had stepped in front of a bullet for him today. “What kind of a host would I be if I let you sleep there tonight?”

“One who doesn’t want a two-hour argument on his hands. Which he’d lose,” Ray replied with a small secretive smile. “I’m a stubborn bastard, Ben.”

“Ordinarily, I would take you up on that. I too can be most obstinate and tenacious - even mulish, pig-headed and arrogant, according to some.” Fraser cast a surreptitious eye around the dark apartment, waiting for his father to agree.

“No, he’s not here right now,” Ray confirmed softly, rolling onto his side and closing his eyes.

“Maybe not, but he…” Fraser stopped, stunned into silence. The only other person he’d encountered who could see his father was Buck Frobisher, a man whose own mental stability had been called into question from time to time. It wasn’t a fact he liked to dwell upon. But here was Ray, quite relaxed with the idea of the presence of his father’s ghost and - at least in Fraser’s opinion - quite sane.

“That’s your dad, right?”

“Yes… but…”

“He’s kind of unpredictable, isn’t he?” Ray opened his eyes with a slight, humorous twitch of his eyebrows.

“Very,” Fraser replied. “Ah… in the car. You heard that.”

“The hocus-pocus thing, yeah.”

“I’m terribly sorry. I had no idea that he… Do you see other…?”

“Nope, just him so far. Don’t ask me why.” Ray shrugged, not at all perturbed by it. Upon reflection, Fraser supposed that what Ray thought was normal and what other people’s perceptions might be were two very distinct things.

“Well, I apologise for his rudeness. I’m certain he wasn’t aware that you could hear him,” Fraser said, although he wasn’t sure that his father would have modified a single word he’d uttered in any case.

Ray rolled carefully onto his back, waved him off and closed his eyes again. “Sorry, I should have told you. I never know what to let on and what to keep to myself. Makes for some interesting conversations, I can tell you. Trying to keep track of what I know and what I’ve actually been told - well, it gets complicated.”

Fraser, finally, reluctantly, lay down on his bed. “I can imagine.” And he could. It irritated Ray Vecchio no end when Fraser made one of his leaps of deduction without talking it through with him first. Of course the circumstances were different, but the underlying principle was the same.

“Yeah. If you live with someone, it makes it kind of impossible.”

“Stella.”

“Yeah. Poor Stell. You know, at the end, she used to get this look whenever I touched her.” Ray laughed but there was no humour in it. “That’s what finally clued me in on the other guy, not having seen anything. Jeez, it must have been impossible for her.”

Fraser forced down the unconscionable irritation he felt at ASA Kowalski’s infidelity and lack of vision, and looked across at Ray. His face was calm, a sad little smile curving the corners of his lips and Fraser wondered how he could be so forgiving. “I’m sorry. I can see why you choose to live in comparative isolation after the experiences you’ve had.”

“It’s not so bad, Ben. You make me sound like a freak. I see people. I go out. I just don’t get too close to anyone. S’easier that way.”

“But lonely,” Fraser added.

Ray opened his eyes and rolled his head to look at Fraser. “Yeah,” he admitted softly. He held Fraser’s gaze, gently challenging him. “You don’t have to be, though,” Ray murmured. “Why are you?”

“I… don’t know. I never really learned how to be easy with people,” Fraser heard himself say. “I get… overwhelmed easily.” He shouldn’t be admitting this, he knew. These were words from the part of him that he kept separate, safely away from his everyday life of duty. It was lunacy to speak them; it made them real. And yet he continued, “I’ve… tried.”

“Victoria,” Ray said, nodding slowly. “Frannie told me. I asked her. I’m sorry, I saw this woman and I didn’t understand…”

It was Fraser’s turn to ease Ray’s discomfort. “Yes, Victoria. I suspect you know it didn’t end well.”

“That wasn’t you. That wasn’t because of you, Ben. Just because she was damaged and couldn’t love you, it doesn’t mean that no one can.” Ray sounded distressed, his voice becoming clipped and short. “You shouldn’t give up - you have so much to give.”

“Good advice from someone who’s guilty of something very similar,” Fraser countered, rolling onto his stomach to look at Ray more closely.

“Not quite,” Ray said with a small, self-deprecating smile. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Ben, you’re just reserved. But me? There’s a big something wrong with me.”

“How can you think that? You just saved a little girl’s life. And mine too, I suspect. Did you…?” Fraser was surprised that he stumbled for words in the same way that Ray did when speaking of his unusual gift.

“It’s hard. I saw… something. It’s not terribly reliable.” The lantern flickered, drawing both their eyes to its subtle glow.

“You probably don’t want to talk about this now,” Ben murmured regretfully. He badly needed to sleep, but the lure of having Ray’s undivided attention was compelling. He wanted to know about him, wanted to know about his life, his dreams, his fears, his highs and lows.

Ray looked at him squarely. “No, it’s okay. I want you to understand. It’s like…okay, it’s like your life is a book, only the pages are still being written. What I can see… sometimes… is a single sentence from a single page. Most of the time it’s a page from your past, like tiny snatches of your story - all out of context.”

Fraser watched as Ray gestured while he spoke, his slim hands adding an eloquent simplicity to his disjointed rhetoric.

“But sometimes it’s a page or two in the future - those are the hardest, really hard to understand because they’re not…I dunno… fixed or something. They kind of come out of focus. And sometimes it’s really tough to see the difference between the past and the future.” Ray fell quiet, his hand raking through his hair, making it stick up in uneven tufts.

“Have you always been able to do it?” Fraser asked gently.

“Not really… it sort of really kicked in when I was fourteen. That was interesting. I nearly had a fucking breakdown.”

“And you can do this with anyone?”

“Nope, not with people; things that belong to them, that were touched by them or whatever are easier. People are too, like, noisy or something. Jumbled. That’s why I work and live alone - the noise drives me batshit crazy if there’s a lot of people around. I try to block it out, but I can’t always do it. Once in a while I find people who are… I dunno… who I click with. Them I can see. That wasn’t Stell though. Stella was always really hard. I think she was still a little bit scared of it, in spite of all the years we were together. She didn’t want me to know her like that.” Ray shrugged, but Fraser could hear the pain and disappointment behind his words.

“So, to answer your question, yeah, I saw the girl and I saw you in the bathroom of that warehouse. I saw the dark, and the green light from the sign. Then there was pain… like fire… in your shoulder and chest. Except it turned out to be my chest.”

Fraser rubbed his eyebrow. “So you deliberately sent me to the wrong building to try and stop it happening.”

“That was you, Ben,” Ray said. “You chose which building to search, I just…I didn’t stop you.”

“You could have been killed.”

“But I would have saved your skin.”

“It was irresponsible.”

“I had a vest. I knew what I was doing.”

“But I didn’t. I would never have allowed you to…”

“Exactly.”

A stony silence fell between them, the noises from the street outside filling the quiet with the odd car or barking dog.

This man was infuriating; brave and intelligent and compassionate, perhaps, but infuriating. Fraser briefly felt a stab of sympathy for Stella Kowalski, a woman he’d never really warmed to, but knew to be independent and strong-minded. She must have found it impossible to feel that she was laid bare before her husband, to be so powerlessly open to him, despite Ray’s assertion that he had found her difficult, if not impossible, to read.

He could imagine how that would have infuriated a woman like Stella with her sharp wits and her complexities.

How could Ray ever hope to find someone who wasn’t afraid of what he was or worse, afraid of what they were when laid open to him? Ray’s assertion that he found it easier to see things with an object rather than directly from the person themselves would be no comfort for a lover who wanted to spend a lifetime with Ray but not, necessarily, a life.

“When did you see me in the warehouse?” Fraser asked quickly, a sudden realisation making his voice sound sharper than he’d intended.

“The first time we met,” Ray replied softly, as if he knew what was coming.

“When we shook hands - that’s why you… So I’m one of the people you can see just by touching them?”

“Yes.” His admission, direct and honest, sounded tinged with apology.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” Suddenly Ray sounded guilty even afraid. “I have no idea. That’s why I was so shocked. Usually I get noise, jumbles of images and voices and feelings, but you... I dunno Ben… it was like you were reading me a story, just one sound, one thought, one voice…”

“Perhaps because I don’t have anything to hide from you.” Fraser rolled onto his back and looked at the cracked, stained ceiling. “Or perhaps, even if I did,” he said softly, “I wouldn’t want to.”

When Ray sat up and leaned over to look at him, Fraser didn’t move or change the direction of his gaze, afraid that he might change his mind. Ray sat still for a long time, staring at him while Fraser tracked the crack that looked like the veins of an aspen leaf, the same one he’d stared at every night since he’d come here, that he’d focussed on in the aftermath of Victoria when the pain in his back had been nothing compared to the pain in his chest. He kept his eyes on its symmetry until the very last moment, when Ray’s mouth was only a few centimetres from his own; then he looked and saw that Ray was smiling.

The kiss was soft and warm - offering, not taking, asking, not demanding. Fraser hated himself for making the comparison, but Victoria’s kisses had been a longed-for torment, possessive and dark, filled with lust and hatred and despair.

The touch of Ray’s lips was the difference between black and white, night and day.

Ray opened his mouth readily when Fraser swept his tongue across his lower lip. The taste of him was sweet and cool, and Fraser had to remind himself not to crush Ray against him, although his body yearned for that intensity, for fear of adding to the pain of the impact bruising. He kissed Ray deeply and gently, laying a hand on the back of his neck to keep him there.

When Ray pulled back his eyes were bright, full of questions and hope. “You’re not… scared of me?”

“No.”

“How come?” Ray blinked, gazing at Fraser with a growing smile.

“Because I know you. And because you’re my friend.” Fraser hoped the conviction he felt came across in his voice. He knew there was a connection between them - he’d known it even when Ray had denied it. Fraser kept his gaze steady and tried to hide the growing happiness and excitement that tumbled in his belly, the more sure he became of Ray’s intentions.

Ray looked taken aback and didn’t speak for a long moment. “Was that hard to say?” he asked finally, his voice suspiciously gruff.

“Not in the least,” Fraser asserted and, taking his pillow and a blanket, he moved onto the floor beside Ray. He took advantage of Ray’s confusion to kiss him again, gently easing Ray back down onto the bedroll.

Keeping his weight off Ray made the angles difficult but Fraser lost himself in the touch of cool lips and warm tongue, and didn’t feel the discomfort. Ray was tentative, his hands brushing cautiously over Fraser’s back, leaving him with a shivering ache wherever his fingers lingered.

“Ben,” Ray whispered against his lips, into his mouth, stealing his breath. “Ben, Ben, Ben.”

Carefully, Fraser eased back, staring down at the man beneath him with gratitude and surprise. Ray smiled, his bruised face making the expression lopsided. Fraser inhaled deeply, seeking to settle himself but the scent of Ray’s skin, of the soap he’d borrowed, of the t-shirt he’d been wearing all day, gave Fraser a deep, burrowing hunger. An unreasonable need to protect this strange, unworldly man seized him and a desire to know him without any pretences or affectations.

“I want…” Fraser whispered.

“I want you to,” Ray murmured instantly, his direct gaze certain and unwavering.

“I’ll hurt you…”

Ray shook his head slightly, fumbled for Fraser’s hand and laid it against his own face.

Fraser traced the line of his cheek, ghosting the tips of his fingers over Tony Lombardi’s mark before following the curve of Ray’s mouth, his jaw, his throat. In the lantern’s feeble light Ray’s eyes were dark, his eyelashes sweeping closed as he leaned into Fraser’s touch.

Ray huffed a little. “I must look like some kind of…”

“Amazing, Ray. You look… amazing,” Fraser insisted.

“Freak,” Ray said, but the impact was lost in the breathless distraction of his voice.

“I believe current thinking suggests that it takes one to know one.”

He took his time, his hands skimming Ray’s body, seeking to know every inch of him and kissing him all the while. His fingers slid beneath the damp cotton of Ray’s t-shirt, tracing the direction of the fine hairs he found there, following them down to the waistband of his shorts and below, pushing aside the stretchy knit fabric.

When he closed his hand around Ray’s erection, Fraser felt his stifled moan and matched it with a reassuring growl. Ray was exquisitely responsive, leaving Fraser in no doubt about what was good and what was not. He lifted his mouth from Ray’s, leaving him panting, and kissed a trail from his jaw, across his throat and down the centre of his bruised chest. He lingered over Ray’s navel, licking into it, biting around it, then brushed his lips lower. “Can I?” he whispered.

Fraser felt Ray’s hand come down softly into the hair at the back of his head, a reassuring touch, not a demand. “God, yeah,” Ray groaned, arching up when Fraser freed him from his shorts.

He pressed his nose into the crease at Ray’s groin, into the soft, dark curls at the root of his penis, into the cool skin of his scrotum, and breathed. The scent of him was heady, and Fraser enthusiastically lapped away any trace of soap to find Ray’s unique odour beneath. Ray lay and panted under him, still and waiting.

The prickle of Ray’s flavour on Fraser’s tongue was intoxicating. He licked from the base of Ray’s shaft to the smooth, silky tip, tasting the subtle differences. His skin was warm, salty and muted but at the crown his flavour was sharp and musky with a pleasant bitterness that filled Fraser’s mouth, making it water for more.

He took Ray between his lips, feeling the smooth heat slide over them and onto his tongue. He swallowed around him, dragging a ragged moan from Ray’s throat. Wrapping a hand around the shaft, Fraser alternated sucks with licks and kisses until Ray was shaking with need.

“Please, Ben… please,” Ray murmured, his fingers restless in Fraser’s hair.

Fraser hollowed his cheeks, setting up a good rhythm, and rubbed his tongue at the spot beneath the crown that made Ray whisper obscenities and pull at him. It didn’t take long before Ray bucked beneath him, twisting and stretching as his orgasm shook him. Fraser rode the jerks, swallowing the warm floods of semen and didn’t relinquish Ray’s penis until it began to soften, and Ray’s hands had become a heavy stillness on his head.

Fraser sat up slowly, letting Ray’s palms slip from his hair to his shoulders and down his arms to his hands. He twined his fingers through Ray’s, noticing the disparity between them; broad and slim, pale and golden, smooth and rough.

“Ben… fuck… that… wow!” Ray muttered with a sweet, tired smile.

Fraser raised their joined hands, twisting his wrist so he could place a small kiss on Ray’s knuckles before he lay down beside him.

Ray turned his head and smiled again, directly into Fraser’s eyes. “I want to… can I…?” He abandoned trying to find the right words and instead rolled, with some difficulty, onto his side and looked pointedly down at Fraser’s groin, where his own erection threatened to irreparably ruin his boxers.

“Oh! Ray, really, that’s not… not that I wouldn’t enjoy your… that is to say, I’m sure that…”

“Ben.”

“…and after the day you’ve had…”

“Ben?”

“…and your injuries, it would probably be more prudent…”

“Ben!”

“Yes?”

“Relax, would ya?” Ray laughed softly. “I’m not talking about anything… clever. I just want to…”

Ray’s hand touched the hot skin of his abdomen, tentative and cool. “Please?” he asked.

Fraser swallowed and nodded, unable to resist Ray’s soft voice or the sensation of another’s fingers on his skin. People touched him so rarely and his uniform impeded even the most casual of brushes, covering as much of him as it did. The feeling of skin on skin was to be treasured indeed. He consoled himself with the knowledge that his own reaction indicated that Ray would not have to work very hard to achieve his completion.

Ray’s eyes were wide, even the swollen one, as he slid his hand lower, working his fingers beneath the elastic of Fraser’s shorts and curling a cool, uncertain palm around Fraser’s penis. He looked determined, triumphant and more than a little scared as he bravely learned the length and weight of Fraser’s erection, stroking experimentally.

And Fraser just fell apart.

He knew he shouldn’t be so wanton as to work his own boxers down his legs so he could spread his thighs further apart. He knew the sounds he was making were almost animalistic and the way he arched into Ray’s grip was selfish and demanding, but it was just too good, too perfect. He had to have it. And the dark smile that quirked the corners of Ray’s mouth seemed to be there just to spur him on.

He’d been right about his response though, and it was soon - much too soon - that he was spilling over Ray’s fist, gasping and convulsing as his hand slowed and stilled, cupping him while he recovered.

If Fraser had been conscious enough, he would have been ashamed that it was Ray who cleaned them both up with Fraser’s discarded shorts, and who extinguished the lamp before returning to lie curled against his side. He could not recall the last time he had lain with such contentment and security.

As he drifted off to sleep, he checked that Ray was still there, once, twice, three times. The fourth time, Ray was gazing back with an unreadable expression on his face that Fraser could only just make out in the not-darkness of his apartment. But the weight of fatigue was too great and it dragged him down, taking the image of Ray’s pensive face with him into dreams.

~o~o~o~o~

He awoke to fingers, warm and dry and gentle, stroking his shoulder, up to his neck and onto his jaw.

“Sorry, Ben, I didn’t want to wake you, but your wolf is… I think he thinks I’m breakfast.”

The distracting tickle of Ray’s touch made it hard for Fraser to parse his sentence, and it was only Diefenbaker’s scornful response that roused him sufficiently to open his eyes.

The wolf must have returned sometime in the night, because he sat with a disgruntled air at Ray’s side, watching them pointedly.

“It’s not that late,” Fraser protested, although the light coming in through the windows indicated that it was indeed much later than he usually slept.

The wolf flicked an ear.

“Nonsense! I’m sure you used your nocturnal freedom to terrorise the local rodent population. I hardly think that starving is an accurate description of…Oh, very well, but I think your sudden enthusiasm for kibble is suspect in the extreme.”

Dief trotted into the kitchen, his tail waving triumphantly while Ben apologised to Ray, found a clean pair of shorts and followed him.

After he’d fed and watered his smug wolf and made a trip to the bathroom, Fraser returned to the kitchen, uncertain what his next move should be. Ray hadn’t stirred from their place on the floor, but it seemed presumptuous to return to bed and dismissive to begin breakfast preparations. Lost in indecision - again, he really had to get that under control - Fraser didn’t hear Ray pad into the kitchen, lean against the counter and stare at him.

“You okay there, Ben?” The tease in Ray’s voice sounded forced and Fraser realised that his behaviour was unsettling his guest. Of course, it must look like he was having second thoughts, but Fraser didn’t know how to put Ray’s mind at ease without exposing his own neediness. Ray’s presence had a way of disarming him, making him say things that were imprudent and possibly unwelcome. Obviously Ray had lowered his habitual barriers to allow Fraser in, but how much Fraser could assume from this was still open to interpretation. Perhaps it implied an ongoing friendship, possibly some kind of relationship or it could equally represent a single night of connection - a gift - to two men for whom loneliness was a way of life.

Fraser didn’t want to add to the emotional pressures on Ray by adding his own selfish desires and dreams to the equation. Unable to adequately express this, he fell back on what he knew.

“I was just wondering if you would prefer coffee or tea, Ray,” he asked, smiling politely.

“Coffee, if you’ve got it,” Ray said, sounding careful.

Fraser set the kettle on the burner and found two mugs, watching Ray from the corner of his eye. He’d pulled on only his jeans, and stood with his arms wrapped, characteristically, across his bare chest. The bruising was already edging to yellow at the periphery, but the impact mark was a livid, purple splash low on his shoulder. Ray watched him with a brooding intensity, questions and fears in his eyes that Fraser didn’t know how to answer without adding to Ray’s burden.

Fraser turned to his cupboards and pulled down the jar of instant coffee he’d bought for Ray Vecchio’s infrequent visits. When he turned back, Ray was closer, right behind him. Fraser stilled, straightening and waiting for Ray’s move.

“What’s going on, Ben?” Ray’s voice was controlled, quiet. “You changed your mind? Want me to go?”

“No.”

“Angry? Scared? Disappointed?”

“Dis…? God, no!” Fraser gasped, the very thought of it laughable.

“Then what? What did I do wrong? Why have you gone all…polite on me?”

Fraser turned in the small space that Ray had left between them. He knew he should feel foolish, standing in just his shorts, but it was the last thing on his mind with Ray’s unhappy face just centimetres away and his own body instinctively reacting to that closeness.

“I don’t have much experience when it comes to matters…” He’d been going to say ‘of the heart’, but even that simple phrase seemed loaded with expectations this morning. “… of this kind. I don’t mean to seem distant, Ray, I simply don’t know what behaviour is expected of me.”

Ray wouldn’t meet his eye. “Okay,” he muttered, “I can see that. Behaviour, yeah. I guess it depends on what you want.”

“You.”

Ray’s head came up at that. “Yeah?”

Fraser nodded. “Very much.”

He had to stop this. Once again, Ray’s presence had undone him, pulling truths from him that he would, characteristically, have left unsaid. He seemed unable to curb this blunt honesty, which beset him whenever Ray asked a question.

Despite all his vows to the contrary, despite having sworn that he could never let himself be this vulnerable again, he’d fallen in love. God help him, he’d fallen in love with a man he’d known for two days. This kind of impulsive reaction had almost killed him last time, when the object of his desire had been possessed of such a darkness, that his attempts to save her had ended with him being ensnared by that same madness, a captive of her gravity.

And yet it was clear to him that Ray Kowalski was as far removed from Victoria’s blackness as it was possible to be. This was a simple, honest man, trapped in loneliness and social isolation by the double-edged sword of his gift. Fraser knew Ray was right: he didn’t need rescuing, no more than Fraser did himself. But that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t welcome understanding, friendship, and perhaps even love, if it happened by.

He was deluding himself if he thought that he’d be strong enough to refuse Ray’s offer of friendship - wherever it took them. There was something compelling about the man, perhaps the similarities between them - neither of them fitting comfortably into society, both outcast by their oddity. Ray had a gentle quietness about him that Fraser enjoyed. But what Fraser found most attractive were the differences between them - Ray’s inability to hide emotion, his knack of asking the hard questions without prevaricating, his casual charm, his unkempt attraction and his nervous tics.

Ray lifted a cautious hand, watching him for an unfavourable reaction, but Fraser didn’t need to think about it; he leaned into Ray’s touch, the long, rough fingers cupping his jaw and sending a shiver through Fraser’s whole body.

Wordlessly, Ray brought his mouth to Fraser’s, pressing gentle, warm kisses to his lips before stepping in to join their bodies and kissing him more deeply. He licked into Fraser’s mouth, opening him up and taking possession. Fraser held on, twining his arms around Ray’s waist and pushing his hips into Ray’s unsubtly; showing Ray the evidence of their attraction, since he found the right words so difficult to frame.

“Wait… wait,” Ray muttered, pushing Fraser gently away.

“Sorry, I’m not… I don’t want to… well, of course what I mean to say is that I do want to, but I’m not trying to…”

“Ben? Ben! Calm down, okay?” Ray said with an amused grin. “I just need to pee!”

“Oh! I see. My apologies.”

Briefly lingering to touch Fraser’s jaw, Ray turned and left the room. Fraser waited until he heard his door shut before he sighed and rolled his eyes at his own adolescent, flustered behaviour. Dief huffed and flopped onto his side under the window.

“Oh, shut up,” Fraser growled.

The coffee was already made, and Fraser had pulled on jeans and a Henley by the time Ray returned.

“I don’t suppose you have chocolate? Candy? M & M’s ?” Ray asked peering into the blackness of his coffee mug.

“I… ah… no. Is that what you usually eat for breakfast, Ray?”

Ray snuffed in surprised laughter. “Oh, no. Not to eat - they’re for my coffee, but it doesn’t matter. Black’s good.”

Understanding dawned. “Ah. I don’t have M & M’s, but Constable Turnbull brings me Smarties every time he goes home on leave. Perhaps those might suffice,” Fraser suggested, pulling several unopened boxes of candy from the back of a cupboard.

“Cool. Canadian style coffee,” Ray said, seemingly delighted. He ripped into a box enthusiastically, rendering it quite impossible to reseal adequately, and dropped a handful of the bright chocolates into his mug. Fraser wordlessly passed him a spoon, watching the display with indulgent amusement.

Ray stirred, sipped and then smiled beatifically. “Perfect,” he declared, including Fraser in his happy grin.

Fraser couldn’t help the frisson of want that caught him low in the belly. Having Ray standing in his kitchen, half-dressed, barefoot, his hair still sleep-rumpled, and smiling at him like he was the best thing in the world was like a scene from another person’s life. But despite that, it felt comfortable and safe to Fraser and a wave of happy well-being swept through him for the first time he could recall, a completeness that he hadn’t missed until now.

Ray must have seen something of this on his face, because his smile turned knowing and predatory. He took another gulp from his mug, then placed it carefully on the table before moving slowly toward Fraser.

“You got somewhere you need to be? Got Mountie stuff to do?”

“Inspector Thatcher was kind enough to give me the morning off when I informed her of last night’s situation,” Fraser replied, watching Ray’s approach without bothering to hide his hunger.

“That’s good, because I’ve got nowhere to be until someone moves that news crew from outside my shop.” Ray’s movements were exaggerated and slow, almost stalking Fraser, although he had to know Fraser had no intention of trying to escape.

“It might take the police some time to achieve that.”

“That’s what I thought,” Ray said, arriving nose to nose with Fraser, his warm, sweet coffee breath ghosting over Fraser’s lips, making it impossible for him to do anything but fall into the kiss that Ray gave him.

They made it back to the bedroll without incident and without relinquishing the other’s mouth. Ray’s kisses were slow and hypnotic, giving Fraser a feeling of unreality. With the blinds still drawn and the thick, honey sunlight that crept around the edges making his apartment glow, he had a deep sense of being out of place and time. The ease he felt with Ray, the way he could touch him without thought or fear, was a novelty that Fraser should have been unsure of. Instead he had a sense of having had this kind of connection forever - that he didn’t need to worry about it because it just was - always had been and always would be.

Ray’s hands were knowledgeable, his mouth strangely familiar and his weight, once they had undressed each other and Ray had settled, carefully, on top of him, was comfortable. Welcome. They took their time, still not rushing to completion, but letting the feelings grow and bloom, experiencing each act as a thing in its own right. Every kiss was enjoyed thoroughly, each touch was a thing to be savoured and Fraser felt almost drugged by the intensity and focus of their lovemaking.

When, finally, they could no longer prolong their pleasure, they moved together, a rhythmic swell and ebb which confounded Fraser by delivering the most overwhelming but mellow orgasm he had ever experienced, stealing his voice and his very consciousness for long minutes afterwards.

Ray simply kissed him sleepily when Fraser rolled out from under him and took himself back to the bathroom. He took an unhurried shower, taking time to see his body, something he usually gave only cursory notice, in a new light, now Ray had touched it so thoroughly. The man in the mirror when he shaved was unmistakably still himself, but with a new awareness in his eyes, a humour and softness that hadn’t been there two days ago; a hope that he’d never dared show.

Ray was still sleeping when Fraser returned and dressed. He roused Dief, who complained at the injustice of this, and replaced Ray’s now-cold coffee with a new one, placing it carefully close enough for Ray to reach, but far enough that he wouldn’t roll over and knock it.

Fraser reached out a hand to Ray’s good shoulder, preparing to wake him enough to say goodbye, when he heard a familiar tread on the stairs, confirmed seconds later by Ray Vecchio’s confident tone wishing Mr. Mustaffi an insincere good morning.

Fraser dropped his lips to Ray’s ear and kissed him. “I’ll be back later. Stay here and rest, Ray,” he murmured.

Ray grunted and smiled slightly, making Fraser’s stomach flip-flop.
Then he rose, quickly signalled to Dief and walked out into the corridor to greet his partner in order to avoid explanations he didn’t yet have.

~o~o~o~o~

Part 3.