Forgiveness Challenge by Cherry Ice
Leaving Town
By cherryice
RK/F, 1800
This is going to hurt like hell.
When Ray thinks about the idea of Canada, he thinks about space. (In Chicago, he used to dream about it sometimes, great expanses of snow and sky and the sun so far away. Not that he'd ever admit it.)
The fourth edition of the American Heritage Dictionary has ten definitions for space. Unsurprisingly, not one of them mentions Canada. Of particular interest is the third:
a. An extent or expanse of a surface or three-dimensional area: Water covered a large space at the end of the valley.
b. A blank or empty area: the spaces between words.
c. An area provided for a particular purpose: a parking space.
Canada is not space, Canada is a specific space, with borders and jackasses and a horizon that never goes away.
"Right," he says. All around Ray, the bar is loud. The jukebox is playing something country and a woman is dancing drunkenly by herself on the stage. It's two am and the sun pouring in through the window makes everything look like noon. It won't go down for weeks.
"Ray?" Stella asks on the other end of the line, voice tinny and far away. She's in Florida, but he feels closer to her than he has in years. "Ray, is everything all right?"
Her voice is low, and Ray wonders belatedly what time it is there.
"Are you -"
"Yeah," he says. Knocks back the last of his whiskey. "No."
"Ray..."
"I'm sorry to wake you," he says, leaning against the wall and closing his eyes.
"I'm sure you are. Why don't you just-"
"I get it, Stella," Ray says. Standing in the back of a bar in Yellowknife with an empty glass of whiskey and three years' worth of space. "I get it now."
He gets it now, gets where he and Stella ended, because Fraser doesn't even know that something's wrong.
Fraser doesn't have a fucking clue.
*
When he was eight, Ray was Stanley. When he was seven, when he was six, when he was five, four, he was Stanley, and to his parents he still is.
On his ninth birthday he announced that from then on, he was going to be Ray. It was right after they'd finished with the cake, and his mother had chocolate frosting on her nose. "Right," his father said, and went back to reading his paper.
Ray has never thought of himself as a 'Stanley,' not since he was five years old and decided that 'Stanley' sounded like something you'd name a pet rat. He wasn't old enough to know about Brando.
From the first day he entered the academy (from the first day he had the thought, if he wants to be honest), Ray has thought of himself as a police officer.
Ray Kowalski, cop.
*
It's the horizon that bothers Ray the most. About Canada, that is. The thing about Canada that bothers Ray the most is that he can always see the horizon. Scrimshaw, where Fraser is stationed, is a scattered collection of low-slung buildings. When Ray's walking down the street, he can feel the sky all around him like some giant weight waiting to fall.
It's the horizon that bothers him most, because it's four in the morning and it's as bright as noon 360 degrees around him. It feels wrong, to be stumbling home drunk when the sky's watching him.
It bothers him most because it gives the illusion of space, and Ray's never really liked liars.
Ray doesn't like himself a lot these days, either.
*
Ray and Fraser live a couple minutes outside of town. Boarded at the motel in Scrimshaw for the first few months, until they had the cabin up. They never said anything, but northern didn't mean stupid, and there were few enough explanations for two grown men sharing a one-bedroom cabin.
Maybe Ray got into a few fights when he started going out to the bar, over stupid stuff that shouldn't have bothered anyone, but he's been fighting since he was five years old and the older kids picked on him for having a name like Stanley. Maybe he got into a few fights, but he could hold his own in them, and with these people that counted for a lot.
Fraser was out on patrol a lot, even when they first moved, so Ray oversaw a lot of the work on the cabin. Worked beside the guys they'd hired for a lot of the work on the cabin. He's never put that much time and care into something before, into shaping it and helping it grow (like the kids he'll never have, he thinks); but still his mind is in the city, on the petty criminals and slow thinking thugs.
He thinks that says something about him, but he's not sure what.
Actually, he has his suspicions. He just doesn't know if he likes the thought of it.
*
Diefs gets back before Fraser does. They've been out on patrol for two weeks now, and Dief's fur is slightly matted. He's stepping high and grinning a doggy grin as he bursts in through the door that Ray's left open for air movement.
Over the threshold he stops, head cocked to the side, then walks to Ray and pushes his nose into Ray's hand. Uncomprehending.
Ray drops to one knee and hugs Dief, hard. "Sorry, boy," Ray says, pulling back so that Dief can see his lips.
He knows without looking up that Fraser's standing in the doorway because his shadow is etched across the floor, eating up the space between the boxes.
"Ray?" he asks, and Ray finds that he cannot move.
"Ray?" Fraser asks again, and Ray can hear the confusion in his voice.
That's the worst part, Ray thinks, because there are boxes by the door and Fraser just doesn't understand. He didn't get it either, with Stella, until his things were on the curb and the papers were beneath his pen.
He's Stella, he thinks.
Fuck.
"I'm leaving," Ray says. He wants to say: I'm sorry, I love you, I'll stay. He wants a gun and a badge and a perp to kick in the head. Wants to throw himself at Fraser, push him back against the wall and lick his way into his mouth.
"I can see that," Fraser says. "But may I ask why?"
It would have been easy, so easy to orchestrate this moment. Ray knows at least three people in town who'd be willing to sleep with him without being particularly discrete afterwards.
Ray hit a deer once, driving, and that's what it feels like now, like he's bearing down on something standing there defenseless, only this time he has the time to stop and he's choosing to mow it down.
"I am not happy, Fraser," he says.
Impact.
"I have not been happy for a long time now," Ray says. "You gotta - you have to have noticed."
"I - I can't say as I have," Fraser tells him, face so very, very pale against the serge. Pale and starting to tighten. "I can't say as I recall you mentioning anything of the sort, either."
"I should not HAVE to tell you," Ray yells, and he knew it would come to this, because he has always been too good at pretending. "Look," he says. "Fraser, I love you, but this is not enough."
Then comes the yelling and Dief lying by the hearth with his paws over his eyes. Ray throws a plate that shatters against the wall and Fraser aims his words at the places he knows they will hurt the most, and Ray stands there and takes it.
"Yeah," he says finally. "Yeah, I'm an asshole, Fraser. I'm also a cop, and I can't do this any more, play happy homemaker."
Fraser's face is red and Ray's hands are shaking.
"I stay here," Ray tells him, "and I'm not going to be the guy you love for much longer anyway."
Just like that deer, Ray thinks, and he can't step on the brakes.
"Yeah," Ray says, and Fraser, with all his meticulously crafted words doesn't say a thing.
*
The horizon, Ray's thinking. Thinking about the horizon because it's easier than thinking about Fraser standing so formally by his side, holding Ray's duffle bag. They haven't touched in two days, except for when Ray cut his hand cleaning up the pieces of the plate and Fraser held it up to the light to check for shards beneath the skin.
They're standing on the tarmac and close enough for their hands to brush, but they probably wouldn't notice if the Grand Canyon were dropped between them.
Fraser's here with him, though, no matter how far apart they feel, and that's a gift that Ray wasn't expecting.
"So," Ray says. Stops. Dief stayed at home and wouldn't look at him as he left. "You should come visit, sometime," Ray says, watching the horizon lie.
"I shall try," Fraser says. He's formal and composed once again, and Ray wants to yell some more, or kiss him.
"No," Ray tells him. "You won't."
"I said that -"
"You said you'd try, Frase. I know what that means." Ray takes a deep breath and watches the clouds. Nine in the evening and nothing but blue. "Seriously. Please. You have to be getting tired of bannock and beef jerky by now."
Fraser nods, less formally this time. Ray can't help but notice that his knuckles are white where they grip Ray's duffle bag. "I will. Just - not right away, Ray."
"Yeah," Ray says. "Yeah, I just -" Fuck it, he thinks, and he kisses Fraser one last time, on the runway with the horizon around them and the clouds above. The sun's not going down. "Love you," he says when he releases Fraser. "I do. It's just -"
"I know," Fraser says, forehead against his. "If our positions were reversed -"
Ray nods. His fingers don't want to untangle from Fraser's hair. "I have to go," he says, still holding on.
"You do," Fraser tells him. Takes a deep breath and lets go.
Ray just stands there for a moment more, then reaches out and takes his bag from Fraser. "Take care of yourself, okay?" he says, because he's just proved that the gap can still be bridged.
The plane is waiting. Space, Ray's thinking:
Distance: the interval between two times.
By cherryice
RK/F, 1800
This is going to hurt like hell.
When Ray thinks about the idea of Canada, he thinks about space. (In Chicago, he used to dream about it sometimes, great expanses of snow and sky and the sun so far away. Not that he'd ever admit it.)
The fourth edition of the American Heritage Dictionary has ten definitions for space. Unsurprisingly, not one of them mentions Canada. Of particular interest is the third:
a. An extent or expanse of a surface or three-dimensional area: Water covered a large space at the end of the valley.
b. A blank or empty area: the spaces between words.
c. An area provided for a particular purpose: a parking space.
Canada is not space, Canada is a specific space, with borders and jackasses and a horizon that never goes away.
"Right," he says. All around Ray, the bar is loud. The jukebox is playing something country and a woman is dancing drunkenly by herself on the stage. It's two am and the sun pouring in through the window makes everything look like noon. It won't go down for weeks.
"Ray?" Stella asks on the other end of the line, voice tinny and far away. She's in Florida, but he feels closer to her than he has in years. "Ray, is everything all right?"
Her voice is low, and Ray wonders belatedly what time it is there.
"Are you -"
"Yeah," he says. Knocks back the last of his whiskey. "No."
"Ray..."
"I'm sorry to wake you," he says, leaning against the wall and closing his eyes.
"I'm sure you are. Why don't you just-"
"I get it, Stella," Ray says. Standing in the back of a bar in Yellowknife with an empty glass of whiskey and three years' worth of space. "I get it now."
He gets it now, gets where he and Stella ended, because Fraser doesn't even know that something's wrong.
Fraser doesn't have a fucking clue.
*
When he was eight, Ray was Stanley. When he was seven, when he was six, when he was five, four, he was Stanley, and to his parents he still is.
On his ninth birthday he announced that from then on, he was going to be Ray. It was right after they'd finished with the cake, and his mother had chocolate frosting on her nose. "Right," his father said, and went back to reading his paper.
Ray has never thought of himself as a 'Stanley,' not since he was five years old and decided that 'Stanley' sounded like something you'd name a pet rat. He wasn't old enough to know about Brando.
From the first day he entered the academy (from the first day he had the thought, if he wants to be honest), Ray has thought of himself as a police officer.
Ray Kowalski, cop.
*
It's the horizon that bothers Ray the most. About Canada, that is. The thing about Canada that bothers Ray the most is that he can always see the horizon. Scrimshaw, where Fraser is stationed, is a scattered collection of low-slung buildings. When Ray's walking down the street, he can feel the sky all around him like some giant weight waiting to fall.
It's the horizon that bothers him most, because it's four in the morning and it's as bright as noon 360 degrees around him. It feels wrong, to be stumbling home drunk when the sky's watching him.
It bothers him most because it gives the illusion of space, and Ray's never really liked liars.
Ray doesn't like himself a lot these days, either.
*
Ray and Fraser live a couple minutes outside of town. Boarded at the motel in Scrimshaw for the first few months, until they had the cabin up. They never said anything, but northern didn't mean stupid, and there were few enough explanations for two grown men sharing a one-bedroom cabin.
Maybe Ray got into a few fights when he started going out to the bar, over stupid stuff that shouldn't have bothered anyone, but he's been fighting since he was five years old and the older kids picked on him for having a name like Stanley. Maybe he got into a few fights, but he could hold his own in them, and with these people that counted for a lot.
Fraser was out on patrol a lot, even when they first moved, so Ray oversaw a lot of the work on the cabin. Worked beside the guys they'd hired for a lot of the work on the cabin. He's never put that much time and care into something before, into shaping it and helping it grow (like the kids he'll never have, he thinks); but still his mind is in the city, on the petty criminals and slow thinking thugs.
He thinks that says something about him, but he's not sure what.
Actually, he has his suspicions. He just doesn't know if he likes the thought of it.
*
Diefs gets back before Fraser does. They've been out on patrol for two weeks now, and Dief's fur is slightly matted. He's stepping high and grinning a doggy grin as he bursts in through the door that Ray's left open for air movement.
Over the threshold he stops, head cocked to the side, then walks to Ray and pushes his nose into Ray's hand. Uncomprehending.
Ray drops to one knee and hugs Dief, hard. "Sorry, boy," Ray says, pulling back so that Dief can see his lips.
He knows without looking up that Fraser's standing in the doorway because his shadow is etched across the floor, eating up the space between the boxes.
"Ray?" he asks, and Ray finds that he cannot move.
"Ray?" Fraser asks again, and Ray can hear the confusion in his voice.
That's the worst part, Ray thinks, because there are boxes by the door and Fraser just doesn't understand. He didn't get it either, with Stella, until his things were on the curb and the papers were beneath his pen.
He's Stella, he thinks.
Fuck.
"I'm leaving," Ray says. He wants to say: I'm sorry, I love you, I'll stay. He wants a gun and a badge and a perp to kick in the head. Wants to throw himself at Fraser, push him back against the wall and lick his way into his mouth.
"I can see that," Fraser says. "But may I ask why?"
It would have been easy, so easy to orchestrate this moment. Ray knows at least three people in town who'd be willing to sleep with him without being particularly discrete afterwards.
Ray hit a deer once, driving, and that's what it feels like now, like he's bearing down on something standing there defenseless, only this time he has the time to stop and he's choosing to mow it down.
"I am not happy, Fraser," he says.
Impact.
"I have not been happy for a long time now," Ray says. "You gotta - you have to have noticed."
"I - I can't say as I have," Fraser tells him, face so very, very pale against the serge. Pale and starting to tighten. "I can't say as I recall you mentioning anything of the sort, either."
"I should not HAVE to tell you," Ray yells, and he knew it would come to this, because he has always been too good at pretending. "Look," he says. "Fraser, I love you, but this is not enough."
Then comes the yelling and Dief lying by the hearth with his paws over his eyes. Ray throws a plate that shatters against the wall and Fraser aims his words at the places he knows they will hurt the most, and Ray stands there and takes it.
"Yeah," he says finally. "Yeah, I'm an asshole, Fraser. I'm also a cop, and I can't do this any more, play happy homemaker."
Fraser's face is red and Ray's hands are shaking.
"I stay here," Ray tells him, "and I'm not going to be the guy you love for much longer anyway."
Just like that deer, Ray thinks, and he can't step on the brakes.
"Yeah," Ray says, and Fraser, with all his meticulously crafted words doesn't say a thing.
*
The horizon, Ray's thinking. Thinking about the horizon because it's easier than thinking about Fraser standing so formally by his side, holding Ray's duffle bag. They haven't touched in two days, except for when Ray cut his hand cleaning up the pieces of the plate and Fraser held it up to the light to check for shards beneath the skin.
They're standing on the tarmac and close enough for their hands to brush, but they probably wouldn't notice if the Grand Canyon were dropped between them.
Fraser's here with him, though, no matter how far apart they feel, and that's a gift that Ray wasn't expecting.
"So," Ray says. Stops. Dief stayed at home and wouldn't look at him as he left. "You should come visit, sometime," Ray says, watching the horizon lie.
"I shall try," Fraser says. He's formal and composed once again, and Ray wants to yell some more, or kiss him.
"No," Ray tells him. "You won't."
"I said that -"
"You said you'd try, Frase. I know what that means." Ray takes a deep breath and watches the clouds. Nine in the evening and nothing but blue. "Seriously. Please. You have to be getting tired of bannock and beef jerky by now."
Fraser nods, less formally this time. Ray can't help but notice that his knuckles are white where they grip Ray's duffle bag. "I will. Just - not right away, Ray."
"Yeah," Ray says. "Yeah, I just -" Fuck it, he thinks, and he kisses Fraser one last time, on the runway with the horizon around them and the clouds above. The sun's not going down. "Love you," he says when he releases Fraser. "I do. It's just -"
"I know," Fraser says, forehead against his. "If our positions were reversed -"
Ray nods. His fingers don't want to untangle from Fraser's hair. "I have to go," he says, still holding on.
"You do," Fraser tells him. Takes a deep breath and lets go.
Ray just stands there for a moment more, then reaches out and takes his bag from Fraser. "Take care of yourself, okay?" he says, because he's just proved that the gap can still be bridged.
The plane is waiting. Space, Ray's thinking:
Distance: the interval between two times.