Fic: Due South WIP "Foreign Territory" (RK/BF) 1/?
TITLE: Foreign Territory
AUTHOR: Aristide (Mairead is still sulking, I'm afraid. I suspect that she and Snape are off getting righteously pissed together somewhere.)
FANDOM: Due South
PAIRING: Ray K./Fraser
RATING: NC-17 for m/m smut
WARNINGS: Mild schmoop. Bad mondegreens.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, which is undoubtedly a relief for the characters involved.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: To Bone for the beta without which I would suck so deeply they could use me to drain Possum Lake. Also to Laura Shapiro, for inspiration via her vid 'Wonder of Birds', also known affectionately by me as Woobiest. Vid. Ever.
ETA:
dar_jeelingmade beautiful beautiful covers for this story! So cool!
Author's notes: Again, not HP. My HP may very well have up and died on me. In the meantime, this is my distraction and my refuge, and another fluffersmutter. Much gratitude to nancy for suggesting that I soothe my wounds with the sweet balm of DS--such plot-free bliss!
Foreign Territory
By Aristide
Sometimes, Fraser made him crave a bologna sandwich. White bread, squishy mayonnaise, some tomato and a slice of that gross and addictive American cheese that was as violently orange as his hair had been after that first disastrous tenth-grade dye job (the one that had only lasted a day before the comments at school made it clear that he looked more like Howdy Doody than David Bowie).
It was a throwback, an echo from a time in his life so long ago that it was even before Stella (which was weird, because he'd pretty much gotten used to thinking that he hadn't had a life at all before Stella), a time when his favorite thing was to climb to the top of the monkey bars, hook his knees over, then swing upside down as fast as he could, beating on his chest with a Tarzan yell and screaming: lookit lookit lookit! And people would lookit, and eventually Mrs. Mitsopoulos the playground monitor would come over and tell him to stop it before he fell off and cracked his fool head wide open, and then he'd go and unpack his lunch and swap his apple for somebody else's something (he always angled for a Twinkie, but who in their right mind would fall for that? Not even little Donnie 'Damaged' Damachuk--who didn't have a right mind to begin with--would fall for that), and then he'd eat his bologna sandwich, right down to the crusts, which were poison.
Not that he swung from monkey bars anymore--if he'd done that now he probably would crack his fool head wide open before he could get out one decent Tarzan yell--but there was no question that he did... things, little things, sometimes bigger things, pretty much always dumb things, and it seemed like he always did them around Fraser, and somewhere in the back of his mind there was an echo of lookit lookit lookit, and Fraser sometimes would lookit but never seemed to really *see*, and then Ray would stop and act like it had nothing to do with Fraser at all and go away grumpy, wishing he had a bologna sandwich.
Which was how Ray ended up dangling off a building, after he and Fraser had witnessed a hit-and-run that went from a car chase to a foot chase to the kind of chase that made him wish he had a video camera, because the guy they were chasing (with his blow-dried razor cut and his tailored three-piece suit) may have *looked* like somebody's lawyer, but he moved like an Olympic sprinter on crack.
The guy climbed a building. A seven-story building. True, there was an old, rusted ladder running up the side which made it a lot easier, but in Ray's world, dependable-looking lawyers in three-piece suits did not climb buildings, with or without ladders and crack.
Ray hit the ladder with a clang, and Fraser signaled to him that he was going to go up through the building to the roof so they'd have the guy pinched. Ray nodded, and started up. At first he meant to go only a little way up, enough so Mr. Olympic Lawyer couldn't jump down past him (because on flat ground the guy was a fucking *streak*), but once he started climbing there was that voice, the one that said maybe he should go a little higher, a little further, because Fraser would undoubtedly peer over the edge of the building at any moment (when he was sure to say something very Mountielike to their perp, something in Canadian that translated roughly to 'oh, you bad, bad law-breaking person, you see now that Crime Does Not Pay, A-ha-ha!'), and there was no need for Fraser to think he was pussy about heights, which he was not. Much.
And then, when he had really gone as high as he wanted to, he went a little higher because Fraser still hadn't appeared and it looked like maybe Mr. Bad Guy-Lawyer-Perp might actually make the roof first, which would suck. Which is when the bad guy put on a burst of speed and started climbing like a demon, and Ray wondered what had happened until a horrible screech-creak-squeal filled his ears, and he felt the ladder sway beneath him. He started climbing like a demon himself and forgot all about the Olympic Lawyer for the moment, because he was far too high now to back down safely and if this baby went with him on it that would *suck*, that would be, that was gonna be, that was...
That was happening. Ray scrambled, boosted, lunged and grabbed, and the next thing he knew he was dangling seven stories off the ground, hearing the ladder fall behind him with a hollow, clanging crash.
In front of him was crumbling brick and a rusty square of cement with two gaping holes in it where bolts had once been. Above him was the sky, the lawyer having apparently made it over the top unharmed. Below him was... nothing. A long, long stretch of nothing.
And his arms were tired.
Ray swallowed, kicked, and then stopped kicking when it just made his hands start to slip and his feet found nothing to push against but more crumbling brick. He tried to pull himself up, but once the top of his head reached the ledge the brick in his left hand came loose and he had to grab frantically for another handhold--and after that he just settled for hanging on, hanging on was good, hanging on would suit him just fine.
Ray closed his eyes. He tried to close his mouth, but it seemed he needed more air right now than he could get just through his nose, so he left it open. He wasn't going to short himself on air, not while he was still inclined to breathe it--
"Hold it right there," he heard from above, from the roof. "You are under arrest--well, technically, it's a citizen's arrest, but--"
"Fraser!" he yelled, and the next few seconds were just a blur. He heard his name, and he couldn't open his eyes but he knew Fraser was there, and then big Mountie hands gripped his wrists and there was a yank and air swooping by and then he was up, slumped on a graveled roof with two bricks still clutched in his hands, shivering in the mellow September sunshine and treating himself to all the air he wanted.
"I don't think that ladder met basic fire safety codes, Ray," he heard Fraser say disapprovingly. "It doesn't look like it's been inspected for some time."
"Yeah," Ray managed, tossing his two bricks aside so he could bury his face in his hands. His voice sounded all crazy and jerky, and he rubbed his face hard, wiping away sweat.
He sat there like that for a few seconds, waiting for his heart to stop trying to climb out of his body via his throat, until he remembered-- "Fraser, where's the guy?" he looked around, saw nothing but a bunch of gravel and the roof access door, a rusty monstrosity that looked like it had been battered open, hanging by one hinge. "He got *away*?"
Fraser's big hand patted his shoulder. "Not to worry, Ray; he won't get far. The fire doors in the stairwell lock automatically--another code violation, I'm afraid, but in this case, one that works in our favor." Fraser sighed. "I'll try to find the building superintendent."
Ray looked at him.
"It's shocking, Ray, really. Somebody could have been hurt."
"Uh huh," Ray said, and then laid down on the gravel and waited to see whether or not he was going to puke.
***
As it turned out, the guy wasn't a lawyer. He was a television advertising executive. Ray didn't warm up to him any on account of that. Ray walked him through processing in a kind of haze, only fully present when he was yelling threats into the guy's scared, rabbity face. Finally he watched him get led off towards the lockup by a couple of uniforms, and then, standing in the hallway with his fists clenched, he started to shake just a little.
"Ray?" he heard, and even though he knew Fraser was right there next to him, his voice sounded as if it were coming from very far away. "Ray, you look... you're pale. Are you all right?"
"Nope," he said calmly, and then walked out of the station without another word.
***
An hour later he felt guilty. He was fine, he'd been scared but he'd made it and he was fine, it wasn't Fraser's fault that Ray sometimes did dumb things. He was all set to suck it up and go back to the station and see if he could get some actual work done, when there was a knock on his door. He opened it to find Fraser and Dief standing there, Fraser with his hat tucked under his arm and a large, grease-spotted pizza box in his hands.
"Fraser, I'm okay," he said right off, but he held the door open anyway. Fraser stepped through with Dief on his heels, the wolf's eyes glued to the pizza box like Fraser might suddenly decide to hurl it like a giant Frisbee and he wanted to be ready.
"Of course you are, Ray," Fraser said warmly, setting the box down on the coffee table. "I just happened to notice that you left the station without the benefit of any lunch, and since I hadn't had any either and I needed to take Diefenbaker for his afternoon walk, I thought I would combine--"
"That's crap, Fraser," Ray said flatly. "You're checking up on me. You're bringing me Chicago comfort food, and you're checking up on me."
Fraser gave him the wide-eyed look. "Nonsense, Ray. Why on earth would you think I need to--"
"You are, though," Ray interrupted with an edge in his voice, daring Fraser to deny it. "You were worried, and so you're checking up on me."
He stared hard at Fraser, who looked back at him evenly for one beat, two, and then gave one of those weird sideways nods he did. "All right, Ray, yes, perhaps I am, a bit. But you really didn't look well when you left, so I was concerned."
Ray tossed his head. "Knew it," he said. "But I'm okay now."
Fraser didn't look convinced. "Are you sure, Ray? Because you truly were behaving rather strangely..."
Ray sighed. It looked like he wasn't going to get out of this without talking about it, and he didn't want to talk about it, and didn't really know how to talk about it, but Fraser was obviously gonna be a pain in the ass until he did talk about it. "Look, Fraser," he said, and he started out slowly enough but as he spoke he sped up until the words were rushing out, one after another to get it over and said and done with. "It's like... like I do these things, these dumb things, and I know they're dumb but I do 'em anyway because you're there and I always think you're gonna see, but you don't and then it's like hey, okay, maybe next time. But this time I was hanging off a building, and maybe you do that all the time no sweat but I'm not like that, I can't compete with that, and I don't want there to be a next time when you don't see my dumb thing and I end up with my leg stuck in a wood-chipper or something, craving a bologna sandwich."
Fraser blinked. "A bologna sandwich?"
Ray waved his arms. "It's a long story. Forget the sandwich, it's not about the sandwich."
"All right." Fraser stood up straight, shoulders back, giving him that 'I am now forgetting the sandwich' look, the one that told him that Fraser had no idea at all what the hell he was talking about.
Ray shook his head. "It's like this, Fraser. You do these things, really dumb things sometimes, like Super-Mountie things, and I see you do them and I think hey, he's a freak, but he caught the bad guy or stopped the explosion or made Turnbull shut up or whatever, and then... and then I think: cool. That's cool. You know?"
Fraser looked like a light had gone on somewhere, which was good, which was greatness because Ray really, really didn't want to talk about it anymore. "Ah," Fraser said, and it wasn't his I'm-pretending-to-understand-you 'ah', it was his I-read-a-book-about-this-once-and-therefore-know-everything-about-it 'ah'. "I see, Ray. Thank you."
Ray looked at him. "You do?"
Fraser nodded firmly. "I do." He hesitated for a minute, and then scratched his eyebrow. "Although I must admit that I have no idea how luncheon meat figures into it--"
"I told you, forget the sandwich!"
"Right you are."
"Okay then." Ray shifted from foot to foot for a second, and then nodded at the couch. "So--we gonna split that pizza, or what?"
***
These days, about the only thing Fraser made him crave was his old combat boots: the steel-toed ones with their laces busted in about a thousand different places and a few random jumbo-sized safety pins jammed through the tongues to keep them from slipping (those boots had been a casualty of his engagement to Stella, one of her 'conditions', and it had made him laugh until he realized that she was serious, and he wondered now if the pure hell of throwing those boots out shouldn't have been some kind of a hint). He missed those boots. They were perfect. They would have been perfect for kicking Fraser in the head.
He hadn't been certain at first whether or not Fraser had really understood what he was talking about, but now he knew. Fraser did. Fraser got it. And Fraser was trying to help. And more than anything, Fraser was Driving. Him. Nuts.
Fraser looked at him *all the time*. Stared at him. Smiled at him. All the time. Not the huge, goofy smile, not the shy smile or the polite smile or the 'we must do bark tea sometime soon' smile, but the quiet, happy, proud 'oh-Ray-my-dearest-friend' smile that used to be special, used to be something he waited for (and maybe even worked for, a little) until Fraser started beaming it at him all the time and it went from 'special' to 'annoying' to 'can't somebody please die so that this bastard Mountie will stop smiling at me?'
And then there were the comments. "Oh, well done, Ray!" and "That was an excellent shot, Ray," and "Why, this instant cocoa is utterly delicious, Ray," and "What an admirable performance of parallel-parking skills, Ray" until Ray was grouchy and irritable and afraid to let Fraser stand next to him at urinals.
It took less than a week for him to snap. It was Sunday, and he and Fraser had made plans to watch the game together (that was back before Fraser had become his own personal cheerleading squad, and Ray made himself a solemn promise that if Fraser showed up with a huge foam-rubber finger that said 'Go Ray', he was gonna make him eat it). Fraser arrived precisely on time as usual, and there was no foam-rubber finger in sight, but as soon as Ray let him and Dief in and closed the door behind them Fraser removed his hat, beamed, took a deep breath--
And Ray stepped in close, quick, and slapped one hand over Fraser's open mouth. "Don't say it, Fraser. Do not say it."
Fraser, his eyes wide, made a noise that translated effortlessly to 'don't say what, Ray?'
"Don't tell me how great it is to be here, or how nobody brings out a bag of chips like me, or that you and the wolf have been looking forward to this like it was Christmas or something. I'm done. I don't wanna hear it. So don't say it. Okay?"
Fraser made a noise that Ray couldn't translate, so he took his hand carefully away from Fraser's mouth. "Ray," Fraser said quietly. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought, that is, I was under the impression that what you wanted was a... a freer expression on my part of the admiration I feel for you--"
"Jeez, Fraser--stop!" Ray said, stepping back and waving his hands.
Fraser looked faintly shocked. "That's not what you wanted?"
"Not when you put it like that--I didn't say that. That is not what I said."
Fraser hesitated. "Well of course, Ray, I was paraphrasing, extrapolating conclusions from the actual conversation--which I don't mind telling you was somewhat difficult, owing to the oblique nature of--"
"Look, Fraser, just... I know what I said, and I know you've been trying to help in your own freaky way, but you gotta stop now."
Fraser stared at him. Looking confused. And maybe kind of hurt.
Ray scratched his head. "It's like this, Fraser--yeah, there was something I wanted from you, okay? But I had to ask for it, and then you bend over backwards to make all this stuff up to make me feel better--"
"Pardon me, Ray," Fraser said stiffly, "but if it's a question of authenticity, I can assure you that my sentiments were perfectly--"
"Do not use words like 'sentiments', Fraser. As far as I'm concerned you don't have sentiments, or if you do, you don't point 'em at me."
"Well that's just silly--"
"I hate being needy, Fraser," he snapped, his voice suddenly too loud and too naked and too honest, knowing that he'd gotten to the heart of it right there but not feeling too cool about saying it out loud. "I been needy, okay? Needy sucks. I hate it. I'm done with that. Finito."
Fraser's expression softened, and Ray's stomach tensed up like a clenched fist. "But... we all need things, Ray," he said gently. "Over and above the basic requirements of food and shelter, it's human to need things, other things, from our fellow--"
"Well I don't, okay?" Ray interrupted, temper spreading like a shot of whiskey in his gut. "And anyways, that is *rich*, that is something else, coming from you. When was the last time *you* needed anything, huh?"
Fraser rocked back a little, as if Ray had struck out at him with fists instead of words. "You think I..." He paused, and took a deep breath. "Ray, I need... I feel need all the time. Always. I may not always act on those feelings, but... I do, indeed, need things."
Ray bounced a little, shifting his stance as if he and Fraser were boxing. "Oh yeah? You do, huh? Well, it doesn't show, Fraser. It doesn't show at all. You could have fooled me."
And for a second he thought Fraser was going to head-butt him and really take the fight up a notch, but the only thing Fraser did when he leaned in was kiss him--once, on the lips, and it wasn't fast and it wasn't slow and it wasn't hard and it wasn't soft--it just *was*, like a word spoken or a fact handed to him: one kiss; plain and unadorned and pretty much the fucking shock of his life.
Fraser put his hat on. Like that was a normal thing to do. "Apparently I *have* fooled you, Ray," he said calmly. "And for that, I am sorry. Dief--come." He snapped his fingers, turned and went and was going, going, was gone, closing Ray's door behind him with a faint click.
Ray stood there, unplugged, the world yanked right out from under him and he didn't like heights, he really didn't like heights, he'd never liked heights at all.
***
On Monday, Ray called in sick. He spent the day in front of the TV with the remote glued to his hand, flipping channels every time he caught himself actually paying attention to something. He stayed up way too late and woke up on Tuesday groggy and irritable, and for a minute it was a toss-up whether he was going to go ahead and call in sick again, but in the end that was a little too much like running away, which he didn't do, so he hauled his ass out of bed and yawned his way through a shower and made himself some industrial-strength coffee and went to work.
Fraser didn't show until almost noon, and by then Ray had started to wonder whether it might be time to start worrying about whether Fraser was going to show up or not, so it was kind of a relief. Kind of.
"Ray," Fraser said, and that one word was just like the... the thing Fraser had done on Sunday: it wasn't sorry and it wasn't eager, it didn't ask for anything or tell him anything, it just was. It left it up to him, left everything up to him, whether to walk away, or... or not. It was up to him.
Ray took a deep breath, then flipped the file in his hands around so Fraser could read it. "That guy," he said, tapping the incident report on top of the file with one finger, "that freak from last month who was running into jewelry stores in a Nixon mask and a raincoat and flashing everybody at gunpoint--looks like he's back." He looked at Fraser then, met his eyes. "Guess he didn't move to California after all."
"Apparently not," Fraser agreed, staring right at him, then took the file and sat down in his usual chair, leaning forward to study it.
And they were off and running.
***
At the time, Ray remembered, he'd felt weirdly grateful that Fraser had left it up to him (the other alternative he could think of being Fraser insisting on talking about it, which just then seemed about as appealing as undergoing involuntary dental surgery). The thing was, though, even then, he *knew* Fraser would bring it up sooner or later. He'd have to. And then they'd talk about it, and Ray (with the benefit of the time he'd had to adjust) would keep it together and be cool and say 'hey, Fraser, thanks but no thanks, 'cause I'm not that guy', and Fraser would tell him he understood, and then they'd go on. Just like before, only Ray maybe wouldn't worry so much about impressing Fraser, because Fraser was obviously (in a weird, weird way Ray would never have considered in a thousand years) already impressed.
But Fraser didn't bring it up. They worked together, spent time together just like before, and Fraser had thankfully stopped with the staring and the smiling and the comments, and it really was just like before--before all of it, as if none of it had ever happened.
Which was when Ray started to get pissed all over again. The nerve of the guy--to do something like that, shake his whole life up like that, and then what, ignore it? Forget it? Just bury it, and go on like normal? What kind of a jerk would do that?
A tall, polite, Canadian jerk, that's who.
They caught the Nixon-mask guy (turned out he worked as an orderly in a mental hospital, you couldn't beat that), and after he was squared away there was the purse-snatching ring made up entirely of blind guys (who were harder to catch than you might expect), and finally a string of fires set in florist shops from one end of the city to the other, in which Fraser did some kind of bizarre forensic analysis with a shoe print and crime scene mud and a long, totally confusing story about lion dung and predator hierarchies, after which Fraser led him to a crappy old Irish pub on Christiana Street called The Burning Rose, which was, unsurprisingly, where they found their allergy-suffering arsonist.
And through all that Fraser didn't bring it up, didn't hint around about it, didn't give Ray any knowing looks or have any awkward pauses in his freaky speeches, didn't do anything at all other than be tall and polite and Canadian. And a jerk.
Ray wanted to kill him.
***
The idea of revenge crept up on Ray a little at a time: first as idle speculation during one of his more frustrated moments, the kind of thing he thought about when he needed to blow off steam and knew if he opened his mouth about it he'd be sorry. After that it became a kind of secret, a cherished, hoarded fantasy, the sort of thing he knew he'd never do anything about but it was good to have anyways, for when he needed it. And after that, when he and Fraser were stuck on a seemingly endless stakeout and Ray was finding it harder and harder to dance around the elephant in the room (the only kind of dancing that Fraser would ever be better at than he was), he found himself thinking about it, really thinking about it, thinking that maybe he was tired enough and frustrated enough and just-plain-pissed enough to actually do it.
He wasn't. Yet.
That particular limit was reached on the day when they finally hauled in Gerald Oberhauser, the seldom-seen subject of their stakeout, a hardcore scumbag who'd been running a scam on illegal immigrants, taking a chunk of their poverty-level wages for years by selling them phony protection and bogus papers.
Ray had taken this one personally, had dogged the guy and followed every lead and checked every angle and now they had him, had him wrapped-up solid with absolutely nowhere to run and no room to wiggle, but it looked like there was no way they were going to get a confession out of him until Ray let loose on him in the interrogation room, talking a blue streak and slapping down fact after fact after fact until the stony-faced bastard crumbled and broke wide open, whining something about needing the money for his Mother's cancer treatments--which was greatness because they'd done the standard background investigation, and both the scumbag's parents were dead.
"That was excellent work, Ray," Fraser told him, after Oberhauser had been taken away to lockup. Ray stared at him, but there was nothing there, no hint of what had gotten them into this mess in the first place, just Fraser being proud of him, genuinely proud of him for having done good work. There was no sign that Fraser knew--and he did know, Ray knew he knew, which Fraser also knew--how much Ray wanted that. Needed it.
It was too much. "Thanks, Fraser," he said, and then, before he could think twice or back out or lose his nerve he did it, reached out and hooked Fraser by the back of the neck and tugged, and planted a good one right on Fraser's polite, Canadian lips.
Fraser's reaction was everything he could have hoped for. Fraser jerked away like Ray had burned him, his eyes wide and shocked--no, *stunned*--he'd stunned Fraser good and proper, which should teach him a thing or two about--
"Ray!" Fraser said, sounding strangled.
"What, Fraser? You think you get some kind of special, jerky Canadian pass to do whatever you want--"
"Ray--"
"And I don't? You think you can just yank the bottom right out of everything--"
"Ray--"
"Mess with my head like that, and I'm just gonna sit back and--"
"Ray!"
"*What*!?"
Fraser blinked. "I simply wanted to tell you... I believe Lieutenant Welsh is still in interrogation room one."
Ray whipped his head around, staring right at the one-way glass. From far away he dimly heard something break and shatter, something that sounded like a coffee mug hitting the floor somewhere outside the room. Like maybe one room over.
"Oh."
Fuck.
***
Back in that first year of loving Stella, back when Ray would have gladly climbed monkey bars the size of the Sears Tower if she'd been there to watch him do it, Ray had ridden his bike over to her house one Sunday morning only to find her eating pancakes with a half-dozen pajama-wearing, giggling girls--the aftermath of a Saturday night sleepover. He'd left immediately, only to find that his bike had a flat and he had no choice but to trudge back up to the house to ask Stella's Dad if he could borrow their tire pump and a wrench. No sooner had he gotten the tire off than they all came piling out to watch him, a flannel-and-cotton flock of high-pitched geese with his Stella, swanlike, in the middle, chattering and gossiping and teasing Stella about her *boyfriend*, and someone brought the portable radio out and Ray kept right on working as if he didn't even know they were there, but of course he did. They were there like the hot sun on the back of his neck or the glasses stuffed into his pocket so he would maybe look a little bit more like Stella's mysterious boyfriend and less like a South Side freakshow, and every time he stole a glance at Stella she seemed to be smiling, at least he thought she was.
That smile and the sun and all that giggling must have gone to his head, because without even thinking about it he started to sing along with the radio (just like his Dad did when he worked on the car), singing along with Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves, only back then he didn't know that was what it was about, because he'd always thought it was about Hippie Chimpanzees, and then the giggles soared up into hysterical bursts of laughter and Stella had looked *horrified*, even without his glasses he could see that, and she'd shooed all the girls back into the house and turned off the radio and slammed the door shut.
He'd finished fixing his tire in the early-morning silence, his face burning red every time a muted whoop of laughter sounded from inside the house, and Stella refused to speak to him for almost two weeks after that, and when she finally did she was careful to never, ever bring him anywhere near her friends (which maybe should have been a hint).
Aside from the bank robbery, it was the most embarrassing, most humiliating memory of his life.
Until now.
End Part One
AUTHOR: Aristide (Mairead is still sulking, I'm afraid. I suspect that she and Snape are off getting righteously pissed together somewhere.)
FANDOM: Due South
PAIRING: Ray K./Fraser
RATING: NC-17 for m/m smut
WARNINGS: Mild schmoop. Bad mondegreens.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, which is undoubtedly a relief for the characters involved.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: To Bone for the beta without which I would suck so deeply they could use me to drain Possum Lake. Also to Laura Shapiro, for inspiration via her vid 'Wonder of Birds', also known affectionately by me as Woobiest. Vid. Ever.
ETA:
dar_jeelingmade beautiful beautiful covers for this story! So cool!
Author's notes: Again, not HP. My HP may very well have up and died on me. In the meantime, this is my distraction and my refuge, and another fluffersmutter. Much gratitude to nancy for suggesting that I soothe my wounds with the sweet balm of DS--such plot-free bliss!
Foreign Territory
By Aristide
Sometimes, Fraser made him crave a bologna sandwich. White bread, squishy mayonnaise, some tomato and a slice of that gross and addictive American cheese that was as violently orange as his hair had been after that first disastrous tenth-grade dye job (the one that had only lasted a day before the comments at school made it clear that he looked more like Howdy Doody than David Bowie).
It was a throwback, an echo from a time in his life so long ago that it was even before Stella (which was weird, because he'd pretty much gotten used to thinking that he hadn't had a life at all before Stella), a time when his favorite thing was to climb to the top of the monkey bars, hook his knees over, then swing upside down as fast as he could, beating on his chest with a Tarzan yell and screaming: lookit lookit lookit! And people would lookit, and eventually Mrs. Mitsopoulos the playground monitor would come over and tell him to stop it before he fell off and cracked his fool head wide open, and then he'd go and unpack his lunch and swap his apple for somebody else's something (he always angled for a Twinkie, but who in their right mind would fall for that? Not even little Donnie 'Damaged' Damachuk--who didn't have a right mind to begin with--would fall for that), and then he'd eat his bologna sandwich, right down to the crusts, which were poison.
Not that he swung from monkey bars anymore--if he'd done that now he probably would crack his fool head wide open before he could get out one decent Tarzan yell--but there was no question that he did... things, little things, sometimes bigger things, pretty much always dumb things, and it seemed like he always did them around Fraser, and somewhere in the back of his mind there was an echo of lookit lookit lookit, and Fraser sometimes would lookit but never seemed to really *see*, and then Ray would stop and act like it had nothing to do with Fraser at all and go away grumpy, wishing he had a bologna sandwich.
Which was how Ray ended up dangling off a building, after he and Fraser had witnessed a hit-and-run that went from a car chase to a foot chase to the kind of chase that made him wish he had a video camera, because the guy they were chasing (with his blow-dried razor cut and his tailored three-piece suit) may have *looked* like somebody's lawyer, but he moved like an Olympic sprinter on crack.
The guy climbed a building. A seven-story building. True, there was an old, rusted ladder running up the side which made it a lot easier, but in Ray's world, dependable-looking lawyers in three-piece suits did not climb buildings, with or without ladders and crack.
Ray hit the ladder with a clang, and Fraser signaled to him that he was going to go up through the building to the roof so they'd have the guy pinched. Ray nodded, and started up. At first he meant to go only a little way up, enough so Mr. Olympic Lawyer couldn't jump down past him (because on flat ground the guy was a fucking *streak*), but once he started climbing there was that voice, the one that said maybe he should go a little higher, a little further, because Fraser would undoubtedly peer over the edge of the building at any moment (when he was sure to say something very Mountielike to their perp, something in Canadian that translated roughly to 'oh, you bad, bad law-breaking person, you see now that Crime Does Not Pay, A-ha-ha!'), and there was no need for Fraser to think he was pussy about heights, which he was not. Much.
And then, when he had really gone as high as he wanted to, he went a little higher because Fraser still hadn't appeared and it looked like maybe Mr. Bad Guy-Lawyer-Perp might actually make the roof first, which would suck. Which is when the bad guy put on a burst of speed and started climbing like a demon, and Ray wondered what had happened until a horrible screech-creak-squeal filled his ears, and he felt the ladder sway beneath him. He started climbing like a demon himself and forgot all about the Olympic Lawyer for the moment, because he was far too high now to back down safely and if this baby went with him on it that would *suck*, that would be, that was gonna be, that was...
That was happening. Ray scrambled, boosted, lunged and grabbed, and the next thing he knew he was dangling seven stories off the ground, hearing the ladder fall behind him with a hollow, clanging crash.
In front of him was crumbling brick and a rusty square of cement with two gaping holes in it where bolts had once been. Above him was the sky, the lawyer having apparently made it over the top unharmed. Below him was... nothing. A long, long stretch of nothing.
And his arms were tired.
Ray swallowed, kicked, and then stopped kicking when it just made his hands start to slip and his feet found nothing to push against but more crumbling brick. He tried to pull himself up, but once the top of his head reached the ledge the brick in his left hand came loose and he had to grab frantically for another handhold--and after that he just settled for hanging on, hanging on was good, hanging on would suit him just fine.
Ray closed his eyes. He tried to close his mouth, but it seemed he needed more air right now than he could get just through his nose, so he left it open. He wasn't going to short himself on air, not while he was still inclined to breathe it--
"Hold it right there," he heard from above, from the roof. "You are under arrest--well, technically, it's a citizen's arrest, but--"
"Fraser!" he yelled, and the next few seconds were just a blur. He heard his name, and he couldn't open his eyes but he knew Fraser was there, and then big Mountie hands gripped his wrists and there was a yank and air swooping by and then he was up, slumped on a graveled roof with two bricks still clutched in his hands, shivering in the mellow September sunshine and treating himself to all the air he wanted.
"I don't think that ladder met basic fire safety codes, Ray," he heard Fraser say disapprovingly. "It doesn't look like it's been inspected for some time."
"Yeah," Ray managed, tossing his two bricks aside so he could bury his face in his hands. His voice sounded all crazy and jerky, and he rubbed his face hard, wiping away sweat.
He sat there like that for a few seconds, waiting for his heart to stop trying to climb out of his body via his throat, until he remembered-- "Fraser, where's the guy?" he looked around, saw nothing but a bunch of gravel and the roof access door, a rusty monstrosity that looked like it had been battered open, hanging by one hinge. "He got *away*?"
Fraser's big hand patted his shoulder. "Not to worry, Ray; he won't get far. The fire doors in the stairwell lock automatically--another code violation, I'm afraid, but in this case, one that works in our favor." Fraser sighed. "I'll try to find the building superintendent."
Ray looked at him.
"It's shocking, Ray, really. Somebody could have been hurt."
"Uh huh," Ray said, and then laid down on the gravel and waited to see whether or not he was going to puke.
***
As it turned out, the guy wasn't a lawyer. He was a television advertising executive. Ray didn't warm up to him any on account of that. Ray walked him through processing in a kind of haze, only fully present when he was yelling threats into the guy's scared, rabbity face. Finally he watched him get led off towards the lockup by a couple of uniforms, and then, standing in the hallway with his fists clenched, he started to shake just a little.
"Ray?" he heard, and even though he knew Fraser was right there next to him, his voice sounded as if it were coming from very far away. "Ray, you look... you're pale. Are you all right?"
"Nope," he said calmly, and then walked out of the station without another word.
***
An hour later he felt guilty. He was fine, he'd been scared but he'd made it and he was fine, it wasn't Fraser's fault that Ray sometimes did dumb things. He was all set to suck it up and go back to the station and see if he could get some actual work done, when there was a knock on his door. He opened it to find Fraser and Dief standing there, Fraser with his hat tucked under his arm and a large, grease-spotted pizza box in his hands.
"Fraser, I'm okay," he said right off, but he held the door open anyway. Fraser stepped through with Dief on his heels, the wolf's eyes glued to the pizza box like Fraser might suddenly decide to hurl it like a giant Frisbee and he wanted to be ready.
"Of course you are, Ray," Fraser said warmly, setting the box down on the coffee table. "I just happened to notice that you left the station without the benefit of any lunch, and since I hadn't had any either and I needed to take Diefenbaker for his afternoon walk, I thought I would combine--"
"That's crap, Fraser," Ray said flatly. "You're checking up on me. You're bringing me Chicago comfort food, and you're checking up on me."
Fraser gave him the wide-eyed look. "Nonsense, Ray. Why on earth would you think I need to--"
"You are, though," Ray interrupted with an edge in his voice, daring Fraser to deny it. "You were worried, and so you're checking up on me."
He stared hard at Fraser, who looked back at him evenly for one beat, two, and then gave one of those weird sideways nods he did. "All right, Ray, yes, perhaps I am, a bit. But you really didn't look well when you left, so I was concerned."
Ray tossed his head. "Knew it," he said. "But I'm okay now."
Fraser didn't look convinced. "Are you sure, Ray? Because you truly were behaving rather strangely..."
Ray sighed. It looked like he wasn't going to get out of this without talking about it, and he didn't want to talk about it, and didn't really know how to talk about it, but Fraser was obviously gonna be a pain in the ass until he did talk about it. "Look, Fraser," he said, and he started out slowly enough but as he spoke he sped up until the words were rushing out, one after another to get it over and said and done with. "It's like... like I do these things, these dumb things, and I know they're dumb but I do 'em anyway because you're there and I always think you're gonna see, but you don't and then it's like hey, okay, maybe next time. But this time I was hanging off a building, and maybe you do that all the time no sweat but I'm not like that, I can't compete with that, and I don't want there to be a next time when you don't see my dumb thing and I end up with my leg stuck in a wood-chipper or something, craving a bologna sandwich."
Fraser blinked. "A bologna sandwich?"
Ray waved his arms. "It's a long story. Forget the sandwich, it's not about the sandwich."
"All right." Fraser stood up straight, shoulders back, giving him that 'I am now forgetting the sandwich' look, the one that told him that Fraser had no idea at all what the hell he was talking about.
Ray shook his head. "It's like this, Fraser. You do these things, really dumb things sometimes, like Super-Mountie things, and I see you do them and I think hey, he's a freak, but he caught the bad guy or stopped the explosion or made Turnbull shut up or whatever, and then... and then I think: cool. That's cool. You know?"
Fraser looked like a light had gone on somewhere, which was good, which was greatness because Ray really, really didn't want to talk about it anymore. "Ah," Fraser said, and it wasn't his I'm-pretending-to-understand-you 'ah', it was his I-read-a-book-about-this-once-and-therefore-know-everything-about-it 'ah'. "I see, Ray. Thank you."
Ray looked at him. "You do?"
Fraser nodded firmly. "I do." He hesitated for a minute, and then scratched his eyebrow. "Although I must admit that I have no idea how luncheon meat figures into it--"
"I told you, forget the sandwich!"
"Right you are."
"Okay then." Ray shifted from foot to foot for a second, and then nodded at the couch. "So--we gonna split that pizza, or what?"
***
These days, about the only thing Fraser made him crave was his old combat boots: the steel-toed ones with their laces busted in about a thousand different places and a few random jumbo-sized safety pins jammed through the tongues to keep them from slipping (those boots had been a casualty of his engagement to Stella, one of her 'conditions', and it had made him laugh until he realized that she was serious, and he wondered now if the pure hell of throwing those boots out shouldn't have been some kind of a hint). He missed those boots. They were perfect. They would have been perfect for kicking Fraser in the head.
He hadn't been certain at first whether or not Fraser had really understood what he was talking about, but now he knew. Fraser did. Fraser got it. And Fraser was trying to help. And more than anything, Fraser was Driving. Him. Nuts.
Fraser looked at him *all the time*. Stared at him. Smiled at him. All the time. Not the huge, goofy smile, not the shy smile or the polite smile or the 'we must do bark tea sometime soon' smile, but the quiet, happy, proud 'oh-Ray-my-dearest-friend' smile that used to be special, used to be something he waited for (and maybe even worked for, a little) until Fraser started beaming it at him all the time and it went from 'special' to 'annoying' to 'can't somebody please die so that this bastard Mountie will stop smiling at me?'
And then there were the comments. "Oh, well done, Ray!" and "That was an excellent shot, Ray," and "Why, this instant cocoa is utterly delicious, Ray," and "What an admirable performance of parallel-parking skills, Ray" until Ray was grouchy and irritable and afraid to let Fraser stand next to him at urinals.
It took less than a week for him to snap. It was Sunday, and he and Fraser had made plans to watch the game together (that was back before Fraser had become his own personal cheerleading squad, and Ray made himself a solemn promise that if Fraser showed up with a huge foam-rubber finger that said 'Go Ray', he was gonna make him eat it). Fraser arrived precisely on time as usual, and there was no foam-rubber finger in sight, but as soon as Ray let him and Dief in and closed the door behind them Fraser removed his hat, beamed, took a deep breath--
And Ray stepped in close, quick, and slapped one hand over Fraser's open mouth. "Don't say it, Fraser. Do not say it."
Fraser, his eyes wide, made a noise that translated effortlessly to 'don't say what, Ray?'
"Don't tell me how great it is to be here, or how nobody brings out a bag of chips like me, or that you and the wolf have been looking forward to this like it was Christmas or something. I'm done. I don't wanna hear it. So don't say it. Okay?"
Fraser made a noise that Ray couldn't translate, so he took his hand carefully away from Fraser's mouth. "Ray," Fraser said quietly. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought, that is, I was under the impression that what you wanted was a... a freer expression on my part of the admiration I feel for you--"
"Jeez, Fraser--stop!" Ray said, stepping back and waving his hands.
Fraser looked faintly shocked. "That's not what you wanted?"
"Not when you put it like that--I didn't say that. That is not what I said."
Fraser hesitated. "Well of course, Ray, I was paraphrasing, extrapolating conclusions from the actual conversation--which I don't mind telling you was somewhat difficult, owing to the oblique nature of--"
"Look, Fraser, just... I know what I said, and I know you've been trying to help in your own freaky way, but you gotta stop now."
Fraser stared at him. Looking confused. And maybe kind of hurt.
Ray scratched his head. "It's like this, Fraser--yeah, there was something I wanted from you, okay? But I had to ask for it, and then you bend over backwards to make all this stuff up to make me feel better--"
"Pardon me, Ray," Fraser said stiffly, "but if it's a question of authenticity, I can assure you that my sentiments were perfectly--"
"Do not use words like 'sentiments', Fraser. As far as I'm concerned you don't have sentiments, or if you do, you don't point 'em at me."
"Well that's just silly--"
"I hate being needy, Fraser," he snapped, his voice suddenly too loud and too naked and too honest, knowing that he'd gotten to the heart of it right there but not feeling too cool about saying it out loud. "I been needy, okay? Needy sucks. I hate it. I'm done with that. Finito."
Fraser's expression softened, and Ray's stomach tensed up like a clenched fist. "But... we all need things, Ray," he said gently. "Over and above the basic requirements of food and shelter, it's human to need things, other things, from our fellow--"
"Well I don't, okay?" Ray interrupted, temper spreading like a shot of whiskey in his gut. "And anyways, that is *rich*, that is something else, coming from you. When was the last time *you* needed anything, huh?"
Fraser rocked back a little, as if Ray had struck out at him with fists instead of words. "You think I..." He paused, and took a deep breath. "Ray, I need... I feel need all the time. Always. I may not always act on those feelings, but... I do, indeed, need things."
Ray bounced a little, shifting his stance as if he and Fraser were boxing. "Oh yeah? You do, huh? Well, it doesn't show, Fraser. It doesn't show at all. You could have fooled me."
And for a second he thought Fraser was going to head-butt him and really take the fight up a notch, but the only thing Fraser did when he leaned in was kiss him--once, on the lips, and it wasn't fast and it wasn't slow and it wasn't hard and it wasn't soft--it just *was*, like a word spoken or a fact handed to him: one kiss; plain and unadorned and pretty much the fucking shock of his life.
Fraser put his hat on. Like that was a normal thing to do. "Apparently I *have* fooled you, Ray," he said calmly. "And for that, I am sorry. Dief--come." He snapped his fingers, turned and went and was going, going, was gone, closing Ray's door behind him with a faint click.
Ray stood there, unplugged, the world yanked right out from under him and he didn't like heights, he really didn't like heights, he'd never liked heights at all.
***
On Monday, Ray called in sick. He spent the day in front of the TV with the remote glued to his hand, flipping channels every time he caught himself actually paying attention to something. He stayed up way too late and woke up on Tuesday groggy and irritable, and for a minute it was a toss-up whether he was going to go ahead and call in sick again, but in the end that was a little too much like running away, which he didn't do, so he hauled his ass out of bed and yawned his way through a shower and made himself some industrial-strength coffee and went to work.
Fraser didn't show until almost noon, and by then Ray had started to wonder whether it might be time to start worrying about whether Fraser was going to show up or not, so it was kind of a relief. Kind of.
"Ray," Fraser said, and that one word was just like the... the thing Fraser had done on Sunday: it wasn't sorry and it wasn't eager, it didn't ask for anything or tell him anything, it just was. It left it up to him, left everything up to him, whether to walk away, or... or not. It was up to him.
Ray took a deep breath, then flipped the file in his hands around so Fraser could read it. "That guy," he said, tapping the incident report on top of the file with one finger, "that freak from last month who was running into jewelry stores in a Nixon mask and a raincoat and flashing everybody at gunpoint--looks like he's back." He looked at Fraser then, met his eyes. "Guess he didn't move to California after all."
"Apparently not," Fraser agreed, staring right at him, then took the file and sat down in his usual chair, leaning forward to study it.
And they were off and running.
***
At the time, Ray remembered, he'd felt weirdly grateful that Fraser had left it up to him (the other alternative he could think of being Fraser insisting on talking about it, which just then seemed about as appealing as undergoing involuntary dental surgery). The thing was, though, even then, he *knew* Fraser would bring it up sooner or later. He'd have to. And then they'd talk about it, and Ray (with the benefit of the time he'd had to adjust) would keep it together and be cool and say 'hey, Fraser, thanks but no thanks, 'cause I'm not that guy', and Fraser would tell him he understood, and then they'd go on. Just like before, only Ray maybe wouldn't worry so much about impressing Fraser, because Fraser was obviously (in a weird, weird way Ray would never have considered in a thousand years) already impressed.
But Fraser didn't bring it up. They worked together, spent time together just like before, and Fraser had thankfully stopped with the staring and the smiling and the comments, and it really was just like before--before all of it, as if none of it had ever happened.
Which was when Ray started to get pissed all over again. The nerve of the guy--to do something like that, shake his whole life up like that, and then what, ignore it? Forget it? Just bury it, and go on like normal? What kind of a jerk would do that?
A tall, polite, Canadian jerk, that's who.
They caught the Nixon-mask guy (turned out he worked as an orderly in a mental hospital, you couldn't beat that), and after he was squared away there was the purse-snatching ring made up entirely of blind guys (who were harder to catch than you might expect), and finally a string of fires set in florist shops from one end of the city to the other, in which Fraser did some kind of bizarre forensic analysis with a shoe print and crime scene mud and a long, totally confusing story about lion dung and predator hierarchies, after which Fraser led him to a crappy old Irish pub on Christiana Street called The Burning Rose, which was, unsurprisingly, where they found their allergy-suffering arsonist.
And through all that Fraser didn't bring it up, didn't hint around about it, didn't give Ray any knowing looks or have any awkward pauses in his freaky speeches, didn't do anything at all other than be tall and polite and Canadian. And a jerk.
Ray wanted to kill him.
***
The idea of revenge crept up on Ray a little at a time: first as idle speculation during one of his more frustrated moments, the kind of thing he thought about when he needed to blow off steam and knew if he opened his mouth about it he'd be sorry. After that it became a kind of secret, a cherished, hoarded fantasy, the sort of thing he knew he'd never do anything about but it was good to have anyways, for when he needed it. And after that, when he and Fraser were stuck on a seemingly endless stakeout and Ray was finding it harder and harder to dance around the elephant in the room (the only kind of dancing that Fraser would ever be better at than he was), he found himself thinking about it, really thinking about it, thinking that maybe he was tired enough and frustrated enough and just-plain-pissed enough to actually do it.
He wasn't. Yet.
That particular limit was reached on the day when they finally hauled in Gerald Oberhauser, the seldom-seen subject of their stakeout, a hardcore scumbag who'd been running a scam on illegal immigrants, taking a chunk of their poverty-level wages for years by selling them phony protection and bogus papers.
Ray had taken this one personally, had dogged the guy and followed every lead and checked every angle and now they had him, had him wrapped-up solid with absolutely nowhere to run and no room to wiggle, but it looked like there was no way they were going to get a confession out of him until Ray let loose on him in the interrogation room, talking a blue streak and slapping down fact after fact after fact until the stony-faced bastard crumbled and broke wide open, whining something about needing the money for his Mother's cancer treatments--which was greatness because they'd done the standard background investigation, and both the scumbag's parents were dead.
"That was excellent work, Ray," Fraser told him, after Oberhauser had been taken away to lockup. Ray stared at him, but there was nothing there, no hint of what had gotten them into this mess in the first place, just Fraser being proud of him, genuinely proud of him for having done good work. There was no sign that Fraser knew--and he did know, Ray knew he knew, which Fraser also knew--how much Ray wanted that. Needed it.
It was too much. "Thanks, Fraser," he said, and then, before he could think twice or back out or lose his nerve he did it, reached out and hooked Fraser by the back of the neck and tugged, and planted a good one right on Fraser's polite, Canadian lips.
Fraser's reaction was everything he could have hoped for. Fraser jerked away like Ray had burned him, his eyes wide and shocked--no, *stunned*--he'd stunned Fraser good and proper, which should teach him a thing or two about--
"Ray!" Fraser said, sounding strangled.
"What, Fraser? You think you get some kind of special, jerky Canadian pass to do whatever you want--"
"Ray--"
"And I don't? You think you can just yank the bottom right out of everything--"
"Ray--"
"Mess with my head like that, and I'm just gonna sit back and--"
"Ray!"
"*What*!?"
Fraser blinked. "I simply wanted to tell you... I believe Lieutenant Welsh is still in interrogation room one."
Ray whipped his head around, staring right at the one-way glass. From far away he dimly heard something break and shatter, something that sounded like a coffee mug hitting the floor somewhere outside the room. Like maybe one room over.
"Oh."
Fuck.
***
Back in that first year of loving Stella, back when Ray would have gladly climbed monkey bars the size of the Sears Tower if she'd been there to watch him do it, Ray had ridden his bike over to her house one Sunday morning only to find her eating pancakes with a half-dozen pajama-wearing, giggling girls--the aftermath of a Saturday night sleepover. He'd left immediately, only to find that his bike had a flat and he had no choice but to trudge back up to the house to ask Stella's Dad if he could borrow their tire pump and a wrench. No sooner had he gotten the tire off than they all came piling out to watch him, a flannel-and-cotton flock of high-pitched geese with his Stella, swanlike, in the middle, chattering and gossiping and teasing Stella about her *boyfriend*, and someone brought the portable radio out and Ray kept right on working as if he didn't even know they were there, but of course he did. They were there like the hot sun on the back of his neck or the glasses stuffed into his pocket so he would maybe look a little bit more like Stella's mysterious boyfriend and less like a South Side freakshow, and every time he stole a glance at Stella she seemed to be smiling, at least he thought she was.
That smile and the sun and all that giggling must have gone to his head, because without even thinking about it he started to sing along with the radio (just like his Dad did when he worked on the car), singing along with Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves, only back then he didn't know that was what it was about, because he'd always thought it was about Hippie Chimpanzees, and then the giggles soared up into hysterical bursts of laughter and Stella had looked *horrified*, even without his glasses he could see that, and she'd shooed all the girls back into the house and turned off the radio and slammed the door shut.
He'd finished fixing his tire in the early-morning silence, his face burning red every time a muted whoop of laughter sounded from inside the house, and Stella refused to speak to him for almost two weeks after that, and when she finally did she was careful to never, ever bring him anywhere near her friends (which maybe should have been a hint).
Aside from the bank robbery, it was the most embarrassing, most humiliating memory of his life.
Until now.
End Part One