Chapter Text
“Speaking of which, I haven’t had a chance to mention; I spoke to Maggie earlier.”
He immediately feels the mood of the conversation shift.
Forced casual, “oh? How’s she doin’?”
“Good. I did as you suggested and asked her what she felt the status was between you two.”
Expectant, “um, and?”
Fraser gives a deep reluctant sigh; should he tell him everything? He pauses biting his lip thinking.
The pause drags on, so long that Ray finally interrupts gently, “hey, you all right?”
Fraser finds his voice drop an octave as well in volume and colour, “I - I find it difficult, because I am in love with you-”
“-I’m knowing it, love you too. Look, you don’t have to say anything. Or, here, can I guess what she said, and you can tell me whether I’m right?”
He sighs and replies, “fine.”
“Frasers, Frasers, how’d a conversation between you two go? K’ay, you’d ask if she has feelings for me, and she’d say she does. She’d say she finds me attractive, and yada yada, but we’re not involved, we’re just friends trying to get to know each other better, but she lives in Inuvik and I live in Chicago. Something kinda along those lines?”
Surprise, “almost exactly, minus the ‘yada yada’ part.”
“Heh, at least we’re still on the same page.”
“But where does that leaves you and me?”
A sigh, “I was going to do this a bit differently, but what the heck... Benton Fraser, what would you say, just you and me, in an exclusive, committed relationship, eh? You wanna be my boyfriend?”
He brightens at the unexpected turn, “boyfriend?”
“Yeah.”
“Not, ‘lover’ or ‘romantic partner?’”
He suddenly hears something akin to a gagging noise on the other end of the phone line. “Ugh. Fuck, I hate that word, ‘lover.’ Barf. Please don’t ever use that around me.”
“Why?”
“It sounds pretentious. Gross.”
“How come... lover?”
“You can go fuck right off into the sun with that. Seriously, I will hang up on you right now if you keep it up!”
Fraser chuckles to himself, “okay, okay.” A pause, “I would like that very much, as in the relationship, not the hanging up.”
He can hear Ray lightly chuckling in the earpiece.
“However... we’re back to Maggie, again.”
A large expelling of breath, “you learn being married, relationships aren’t all cut and dry. They’re complicated. You can hold feelings for more than one person at a time. That doesn’t mean the person you’re committed to means any less to you, or your commitment to them. You also can’t switch y’er emotions on and off like a light switch either ‘cause when you do try to, they have a tendency to overload, same as when you try to cover them up.”
“Understood; although I will note those with more conservative morales would likely disagree with your premises, however, I tend to agree with your insights.”
“Okay, all that said; I know this is way more difficult because it’s y’er sister. I have feelings for her I can’t simply switch off, but I have no intentions other than friendship with her because I am committing myself to you; I want you, I love you. Do you understand? Does that work?”
“Yes, yes it does.” He exhales deeply and pauses for a moment. “Where on earth was this ‘Ray’ when we were partners?”
“Ha! I’m like a frickin’ onion, Fraser. Layers for days,” he chuckles. “Your fuckin’ snarky ass Polish flatfoot with experimental hair is still ‘ere, ya know? But for you, and only you, instead of one sentence answers, y’er gettin’ the full meal deal right now; yappie, with an extra side of emotional self reflection, full personal history, mediocre dropout community college education, but for the first time today on surprisingly effective Ritalin. Oh yeah, and he’s in luuuvres with you,” he makes a loud kissing noise.
Fraser can’t help but laugh out loud. Yes, this is his Ray, he thinks.
“Oh, I need to tell you, Maggie did ask me directly during our conversation if I was currently interested in anyone. I didn’t feel at the time I could completely obfuscate my answer, so I admitted I was, however that I couldn’t tell her whom because it was complicated at the moment.”
Ray’s voice appears to grow tense, “great. Okay. All right, fair.”
“Is that all right?”
“Yeah. I know we’re gonna have to tell her at some point, but you gotta know I’m not super pumped about it.”
“Understood. To be honest, I feel similarly; I am not overly enthused at the prospect of telling her either.”
“Right.”
Pause.
“All right, anyways, so Stella; look, conversation, full circle, finally. I don’t know how many hours or months we’ve been on this phone call already, but?”
Fraser’s eyes flick to the wall clock, in surprise he reads just past nine. He notices now that the porter has already come and gone clearing his dinner tray away, but for once he had been too absorbed in their conversation to notice.
“Close to four.”
“-Months?”
“Hours.”
“Close enough.”
“It would have been near impossible to have had this long of a conversation if I were still in Canada. I would have had to have stayed very late to catch you at home after your shift, and even then it would have cost a ludicrous amount in long distance for either of us.”
While he speaks he pictures Ray in the dim light of his living room sprawled out on his old couch likely barefoot in a sweatshirt and jeans talking to him on his cordless phone; it would have been dying at this point, making those incessant beeping noises every few minutes, the last few dying gasps of their conversation drawing to an end.
“I always loved it when you’d call, even for five minutes. My heart would always shoot out of my chest and start racing once I heard your voice on the other end, I’d have to tell myself to calm the fuck down and act cool or you’d hear how excited and breathless I was; ’act cool Ray, act cool, he’s gonna know, he’s totally gonna know.’”
He chuckles, “but I didn’t know, or, at the least, I could tell you were happy to hear from me. When you would call me at work, the first thing that always struck me - was your accent. Everything would suddenly freeze for a split second, and then I would feel my heart suddenly kick start, and I can empathize, because my heart would begin to race as well hearing your voice, I would try to calm myself so I could at least make some sense of what exactly you were saying to me, and what I needed to say back in response to sound at least somewhat comprehensible.”
“Heh, we were feeling the same way.”
“Yes.”
“-Stella, Stella, fuck, see, we did it again. Conversation goes this way, then it goes that. It was just two things. Okay. First; she told me to tell you that she’s rooting for us. The second, Christ on a bike, you can’t tell anyone this, I can’t believe she even said this at all and that I could tell you; she finds the idea of the two of us together ‘extremely hot.’ Her exact words, not mine. Although, agree, but what the hell, Stell-”
He suddenly laughs uncomfortably, “oh my. Oh dear. Well. Hmmm. We know we have at least one person in our corner. But, hmm...” He continues to uncomfortably chuckle to himself.
“Funny thing is, don’t think she’d mind me saying this; I think y’er growin’ on her. She seemed to really enjoy the conversation you two had this afternoon.”
“I did as well. She’s delightful. It was enjoyable getting to know her on a more personal basis instead of strictly professional. I assume our paths will be crossing more frequently due to her relationship with you and Ray.
“Perhaps, I have a confession, or more aptly a story to tell now that I think of it, concerning yourself, Stella, and my first meeting her.”
“-Please don’t tell me you had the hots for Stella back then.”
“Oh, no, no, no, most definitely not. She’s a stunning woman, but I absolutely had no previous interest in her whatsoever. No, I think this might better explain how my feelings for you actually began to develop.
“I had never met someone before with whom I so quickly developed trust with, and who so quickly and disarmingly showed me their wounds... You ‘spun’ my head on our first day, within days you had allowed me in as you confronted an old demon from your youth in the form of Marcus Ellery, and then within a week you had brought me along as you tried to work through your feelings as your ex-wife, the love of your life, began her first courtship since your divorce.
“First, I am not condoning your actions, but I will say I understood them, and the feelings driving them. However, at the beginning, you werestalking Stella, Ray. It was wrong, and you dragged me into it.”
There was a long pause. “I know. I fucked up d’ere, real bad. I’m still sorry for that.”
“I know. We dealt with all of that back then, but whenever it comes up I will continue to remind you that it was wrong.”
“-Fair.”
“To say the least, between that and the Ellery incident, I was becoming aware you had obsessive aspects to your personality which raised some red flags for me. I’m not criticizing, I am just bringing awareness to; because that obsessive aspect of your personality appears to have led to some of the highest closure rates in the department before we had ever met, and it often drives your passionate nature and your loyalty and love for others, so it would be highly unfair to characterize it completely in a negative light. To be honest, I often delight in your obsessiveness - until it comes too close to crossing a line; which fortunately has only occurred once in this case.
“I’m still unsure as to why you brought me along to spy on Stella, you must have been aware I would have multiple objections to us following around your ex-wife; however I have my theories. I believe within those few weeks you had already come to trust me and were comfortable enough relying on me. I believe unconsciously having me there was a means to balance and force yourself to be more morally grounded; I was acting as your anchor, grounding you, and preventing you from straying too far out of line.
“As I said, saving my life on our first day together cemented me to you, and I continued to feel tendrils growing and beginning to connect us during the Ellery incident, and by the end of Alderman Orsini’s case I felt tendrils had begun to grow directly between my heart and yours.
“Recall it had been less than a year since Victoria had left, the loss at that point was mostly healed over; watching you interacting with Stella made that ache freshly reawaken within me. I could see the occasional spark between you two, the unconditional love that still remained. But more so it was your voicing of a haunted longing for her, the way you looked at her, the way you moved about in her space, the ache I could sense in your heart. I felt you in my heart, I ached your ache.
“I sat watching you dance with her on that dinner cruise, mesmerized and aching by the two of you moving so seamlessly together, that was when I first consciously sensed swirls of admiration for you that quickly shifted into attraction and desire rising up towards you; how handsome you looked, how impassioned, even with your eyes closed, how incredibly expressive you were with your hands, your face, your body, how well you moved as you danced. I also felt my first swirl of jealousy towards Stella, and when Orsini and she broke you out of your trance while dancing to tell you that the song had ended; I suddenly wanted to take her place. I wanted to tell you that you could keep going even if there was no music; that I would keep dancing with you. I recall all I could muster afterwards was complimenting you both on being excellent dancers, but admittedly, I felt myself very briefly trying not to look bitterly at Stella.”
Ray suddenly interrupts, “whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, you were jealous of Stella, right from the get go? And, and, you knew you were already feeling... stuff, for me, even then?”
Fraser finds himself licking and biting his bottom lip to himself, murmuring, “yes.”
“Geeze. Gah. K’ay. Keep goin’.”
“When you were saying goodnight to Stella at her condo after Weston had been arrested for the bombing, I stood in the hallway behind you two, I felt a confusing cocktail of emotions. When you turned towards me I could see it written all over your face. I felt your pain. There was so much I wanted to say, but I understood it wasn’t my place to do so, that I had to be silently there for you. I didn’t want you to be alone, so instead casually asked if you wanted to get something to eat, but when you replied you wanted to be alone, I understood, and let it be, although I ached for you.
“After the case ended, I will admit I pushed my feelings aside and tried to ascribe it as a onetime situation due to the heightened emotions of the case involving Stella, and my lingering pain involving Victoria.
“I admit it was difficult to look at Stella straight in the eye without feeling some sort of resentment the first few times afterwards, but it quickly faded. Our friendship and partnership was evolving quickly at that point and everything else I had felt seemed to slip away into it... until a few months later on the Henry Allen case.”
“Heh, so you had a bit of a freak out watching me dance with Stella.”
“‘Freak out?’”
“Yeah, you suddenly realized y’er attracted to more than one gender and had a bit of a freak out. But just wait, it gets even better, especially when y’er in a space where there’s multiple people y’er attracted to and they’re all different genders; you get completely overwhelmed. It ain’t just women anymore; it’s men, Frase, it’s everybody, everybody is fair game - and so are you!”
“I did not ‘freak out,’ not during the Orsini case at the very least. I’ll admit it was difficult at first to tell the difference between my admiration and attraction to you, as well as my resentment and jealousy towards Stella. But it was the overwhelming intensity of my emotions that alerted me something different was happening. I didn’t suppress them, I simply experienced them and tried my best to behave in an appropriate fashion, and afterwards, as I said, I set those feelings aside and moved on.
“If I indeed had a moment where I ‘freaked out,’ it was when I had that nightmare of you in the bathtub. That is when I began to realize I felt something overtly sexual towards you, that a part of me wanted you physically. Afterwards is when I began to truly question my feelings towards you.”
Ray jumps in, “I guess after that the next person you were really attracted to was Janet, wasn’t it? Really thought you two were gonna end up together; I always pictured you’d go lookin’ for her someday and wind up on her doorstep. I was a bit jealous of her I’ll admit, but I liked her though, thought she was good for you. Felt bad for you when she left.”
“I cared for her greatly, however it was complicated with her ex-husband.”
“Right.”
Tentative, “well... you met that blonde Constable on the Bounty whom you kissed. Then that woman whom you arrested for cheque fraud and went to Mexico with; I apologize, I cannot recall her name at the moment?
“-It was Sarah.”
“Sarah. You, suddenly going off with Sarah admittedly made me, disappointed? I was just starting to realize I might have feelings of attraction towards you...”
“-And I was dealing with all of the fallout from the Henry Allen case; our fight, the buddy breathing, trying to avoid my feelings for you. So I turn around and kiss the first attractive blonde I see, and then run away with the next woman I meet, and she turns around and immediately dumps my sorry ass, of course!
“But then comes along Lady Shoes; could tell from the get go she had you completely spun. Which, let me tell you, drove me nuts. Y’er always lookin’ for the best in people, and I could see what she was doin,’ how she was playin’ you and taking advantage of that fact and using it against you. It just pissed me right off. I was angry at her, angry at you, at least in the beginning ‘cause I thought you were lettin’ yourself get blinkered by her good looks, God only knows I get it; but I should’ve known better. I just wanted to protect you from getting your heart stomped all over trying to help her because I’ve been there, and I couldn’t stand the idea of that happenin’ to you. But, you stopped her...”
“-Because I listened to you.”
A pause, “Then there was Tracy-“
“I did not-“
Ray gently interrupts him, “-yeah, you did...”
Fraser makes a disgruntled noise but doesn’t argue further.
“Luann-“
“Ugh, Luann. Let’s not.”
“-I felt for you.”
“I royally fucked that one up all on my own; that’s a situation where I could have used being a lil’ more like you, instead I kept expecting the worst in people, as though that’s all I could ever attract; as though that’s all I could ever deserve-”
“-You don’t attract the worst, Ray, but you do deserve the best.”
“I keep tellin’ myself that, but it’s lot easier some days than others...”
He replies firmly, “then I will keep telling you.”
Ray replies, “then there was...” they say at the same time, “-Maggie.”
“Meg-”
“Adrienne-”
“Francesca.”
“Sounds like we were both definitely jealous of each other a few times. But at least we weren’t complete monks while we worked together, or at least I wasn’t,” a loud laugh on the other end. “Still, not a whole lotta sex goin’ on.”
“No-”
“-Well, that’s gonna change.”
Fraser slowly grins to himself, tentative, “all right-”
To be continued in Holding On: Part Two