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Ray isn't sure when the nightly calls started. During a case, probably — a robbery, maybe, or a vandalism of some rich connected scumbag's car. Nothing too urgent, but something that took a little while to figure out. He'd thought he'd started it, but looking back, maybe that first call had been Fraser's, and maybe the pretext was a little shakier than either of them would've admitted to at the time.
Point was, it became a thing. "One of their things," but real, this time.
(He asked Fraser about it, one night. If they'd ever chatted like this... before.
"Before—? Ah. Well. Not as such, no."
Oh he'd call Vecchio, but turns out it was always too loud there, too many people. And besides, Fraser had added, after a pause while Ray leaned against the headboard and studied his socks, toes tracing the not quite even lines of the quilt his mom shipped him after the divorce. "Besides, it was hard to hold a conversation when both parties are in their respective hallways, and all one party wants to talk about is his recent 'conquests' or 'failures'."
Ray thought about the bitterness that wasn't in Fraser's voice, that wouldn't be there no matter what he'd felt at the time, and asked:
"But, uh. Did you want to? Talk, I mean. Like this."
A longer pause; Ray traced to the end of the line, and stopped, let his foot fall to the side. Wasn't holding his breath, but maybe wasn't breathing much, just so he could hear the answer.
"Not like this. No."
Ray huffed a laugh (inhaled first), pulled off his socks and pulled his feet in close. "You hear about the kid they found tagging the council cars? Put the names of aldermen who voted against the school lunch bill on each one. What I gotta figure is, how'd he find out, and whose hand should we shake for that leak?"
Fraser didn't laugh, but Ray could hear him not-laughing, and he smiled at the sound and they kept bullshitting for another two hours that night.
Took half an hour to hang up, that night, and Ray woulda sworn Fraser was smiling as hard as he was at the end. Ray had to get up and dance around for another hour before he could even sleep, and needed an extra three pots of coffee the next day, but it hadn't sucked. He still smiled when he thought of it.)
It was one of their things, and it was one of the things (one of the many things, he didn't usually let himself think) that they didn't talk about.
Also on the list (that never got listed anywhere, 'cause they didn't do that) were:
- What Ray did the times he wasn't around for the nightly call.
- Why a decorated cop like him didn't get missed much when he had to slip away and be someone else for a while.
- How come Fraser didn't head back to Canada, Mothership say so or no.
- What they'd do when Vecchio wanted his life back.
(Even in his own head, Ray never phrased it with an if. You didn't do that to a fellow cop, not even one you kinda maybe hated and more than kinda owed all the best parts of your sorry excuse for a life to, even when you hadn't met him.)
(It'd been a while since "What are you thinking when you look at me like that?" was taken off the list. They still weren't talking about it, but it got to the point where they didn't really need to, Ray figured. And he was too chicken shit to put "What're you gonna do about it?" on there, except maybe late at night, after they'd hung up, when he was still too wired to sleep.)
It's wacky how much you can talk without saying anything much, Ray thought on one of those nights, half an hour after hanging up. He ran his boxers over his chest — cooling rapidly now, sweat streaked and still kinda breathless — and swiped off the worst of it below that and tossed them sorta toward the dirties pile. It was the kind of thought he mighta shared with Fraser, but.
Yeah.
He tossed the thought away too, like he was doing with more and more thoughts these days, and rolled over, hoping to catch at least a few Zzzs before his alarm. Fraser liked it better when he could string at least a couple words together in the morning.
It stayed like that for a couple years. Not always like that — there were cases, and there were fights, and sometimes one of them would go off the rails (Fraser), or off in a huff (Fraser), or on a bender when the whole thing got too much (Ray) — but mostly like that. Like that a lot, so much that Fraser joked one day that it was a good thing that international calls didn't count the bit of Canada that was in Chicago, and Ray remembered to smile, and tried to remember how to breathe.
(He was out of his place the next night, 'cause he had to be — but he was back after that, both of them subdued, but neither of them saying anything about it. Again. Always.)
Maybe it woulda gone on like that, but turns out, what happened when Vecchio wanted his life back is he got shot and Ray got pushed out of a plane. In Canada.
Turns out, "bullshitting every night by the campfire" is a lot like "bullshitting every night over the phone", except a: a shit ton colder, and two: about a thousand times more awkward.
Cause it's a lot harder to pretend you're not both grinning like lunatics when all you have to do is glance over.
(It's a lot harder when you glance over and the other lunatic looks like he was sculpted in a church somewhere, too fucking pretty to be human, and you gotta catch your breath and stare at the fire and not think too hard about what's an arm's length away from you and completely untouchable.)
But it's not all bad, cause Ray hasn't laughed that much that regularly in his life, and he's getting so he can get Fraser to giggle at least every other night. Plus, in person plus Fraser plus no shame multiplied by a million nights in a row equals a hundred new ways of teasing the guy. Some jokes you just can't make as well without a good head waggle or wicked leer, and Ray, not to brag, but he's pretty determined to find them all.
No, the campfires aren't the problem, awkward as they are. Campfire bullshitting is still vertical, or mostly so. Slouched, anyway. Dressed, for one. And outside, for another.
Nuh uh, it's after that that has Ray longing for home and the plastic handset he beat his head against every night for too many damn months. Because after the campfire comes the tent, and the speed stripping (and speed throwing on new layers because no one wants skin exposed for too long out there, not even Mr Snow Baths himself), and then being horizontal. In the dark.
And okay, so maybe it's Ray's fault for building up certain... associations, but hey, maybe it's the freak's fault for not taking those into account! Maybe it's Vecchio's fault for getting shot so he couldn't come get in the way! Maybe it's really goddamn cold and he should stop trying to think and just unzip the bag and... unzip the tent and run outside naked and go riding on the polar bears, 'cause that'd go at least as well as—
"Ray? Are you all right?"
Ray unclenches his teeth and tries to rehinge his mind. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."
"...I'm glad to hear it. Try to sleep. Or just notice your breath — in — and out. You'll warm up and drift off before you know it."
"Yeah. Sure. In, out, got it."
It isn't actually possible to see a dark lump against the other dark lumps look dubious, but damn if Ray doesn't see it anyway.
He goes to sleep, eventually.
Every night.
Ray is probably the happiest he's ever been: no perps, no paperwork, just Fraser and his stupid snow-big grin, and Dief and the dogs, and just enough mortal peril to get them working together all smooth and oiled-slick. No phone calls, no Vecchio on his badge, no Vecchios in his face. Just Fraser all day, all evening, and every night sleep (eventually) so deep he hadn't known it was possible.
He is going to go insane.
He probably does. He's pretty sure the sky isn't supposed to change colors like that, and he's REALLY sure Fraser's pulling his leg with the whole "pingo" thing, but hey, he's never had a trip this good for this long, and he doesn't even have a hangover or a wicked come down to show for it.
That's worth a little blue balls.
The come down comes in the form of an ugly, boxy hotel in a dingy, one-street town Ray probably couldn't pronounce even if he could remember it. It comes when he sees the first white person other than Fraser he's seen in months (he hasn't seen a mirror in at least that long, but Fraser swears he's not been doing anything hinky with the hair trims — but Ray figures if Fraser's anywhere as good on Ray's head as he is on his own, it can't be that bad).
It comes when the receptionist asks if they want one bedroom or two and Fraser hesitates. "Two," Ray butts in, and okay, Fraser looks surprised (hurt), but Ray can't, he just... he can't.
They divvy up the gear and split into their separate rooms, and Ray thinks there's gotta be laundry somewhere on site, and Fraser's probably found it already, as Ray face-plants onto the bed and groans.
He considers staying there for the rest of his life, then considers that he already smells likes a corpse, and he gets up and strips — and does NOT reach for his other longjohns, thank you very fucking kindly, gods of central heating — and showers, and shaves, and doesn't do much more than stare at the face in the mirror that he's pretty sure can't be him anymore, and then climbs into the bed properly.
(Sheets untucked, blankets pulled up, halfway to a burrito, with a toe out just for testing the air like you can't do in a sleeping bag and really can't do without losing that toe, out where they'd just been. Properly.)
Fraser knocks, at some point. Ray's still staring at the wall. "Ray? Ray, I was going to head down to dinner, if you'd like to join me. Perhaps you're sleeping, though. Ray. Ray. Ray?"
He stops knocking, at some point. The wall is still wall-like. Ray wonders who else has laid here, stared like this. Maybe no one. Maybe everyone. Maybe the north is just full of guys lured up here by inhumanly pretty freakazoid assholes only to be dumped in hotels and left for greener (snowier) pastures. Maybe he shoulda had some dinner.
Fraser comes by a while later and stands outside the door, but he doesn't knock. Ray doesn't answer the knock that didn't happen, so he figures they're even.
He thinks about staying there all night, and then he thinks about Fraser taking not a yes for a no for an answer and taking off on his own, and then he's sitting up and dialing zero and asking for room 106, and the clerk isn't asking why room 105 wants it called she just puts him through and he kinda loves her for it.
Then Fraser answers, and he's not so sure. Maybe she just gets off on helping people make total fools of themselves.
Nah, she's a hotel clerk: she probably got bored of it in the first month.
"Hello?"
Fraser's awake (Ray was pretty sure he hadn't lost that much time), but confused.
"Yeah, hey, hi."
Now Fraser's speechless, which means he's really confused. Ray closes his eyes, and listens to the hum of an active, empty line. At least that's the same in Canada: phone lines suck everywhere.
"Ray. Did you... need something? I went to dinner already, but I could—"
"Nah, nope, just, y'know. Was calling. Like usual."
Ray jiggles his leg. Weird, how much lighter it feels without all the layers. (All the snowshoeing and mushing probably has something to do with it, too.) (He wonders what Fraser's legs looked like now. Probably the same.) (He wants to find out.)
"Like usual."
"Yeah, y'know. Like we do. Like we always do."
"Oh. I... see."
"Do you?"
"I... I don't know. Ray, I'm just across the hall, I could—"
"Don't come over. See, the thing is, I miss you."
"...All right."
"Yeah. So, I miss you, so I call you. And then I miss you on the phone, while we're talking, but it's good too, right? And I miss you at work, 'cause we're not talking, and then I miss you while we're mushing or whatever, and I miss you when we're sitting around the fire, and I miss you at night when you're next to me, and I was lying here naked and missing you and figured I might as well call, you're going back to Canada, right? I mean, I mean, I know we're in Canada, but you're staying, so, I just. I thought I'd call."
He's weirdly calm, though he knows his words were all over the place. But it's out there, now, and it's like free fall, like a jump, and he knows he's probably gonna break something on the landing, but hey, it's for Fraser, when has that ever stopped him?
He kinda wishes Fraser would hurry up, though.
"So, you're saying, you miss me..."
Geez, Fraser's a dummy for someone so—
"And you're naked? And you wanted to call... like usual."
Okay, maybe not.
"Well, uh. Maybe not completely like usual. Maybe, like. Kinda wanted to mix up the missing you on the phone with the missing you after."
And okay, so it's probably assuming a lot, but Ray lays back down, switches the phone to his left hand, and he hasn't done this before, not this, 'cause he was always too paranoid an operator or something would come on, so he never didn't hang it up all the way first, but he's thought about it plenty, one hand around the phone, one hand around — yes.
His breath hitches, and Fraser must hear him, 'cause his does too.
"Ray, we've never — I've never — I mean, I have, but not like — Good God, Ray, on the phone?! I can't talk about—!"
"We're not talking about anything, Fraser. We're just talking. Like usual."
"Ray..."
"You get the laundry started, buddy? 'Cause I know none of our back ups were clean, and you shouldn't be wearing anything dirty in these nice cotton-poly bed sheets."
A muttered something, and God, Ray wishes the lines were better, he wants to know what Fraser said — but then he hears a couple thumps, and rustling, and the squeak of bedsprings, and oh yeah, yes, that is a solid score on the phone side.
"Okay. Yeah. Yes. I started. The... 'laundry'." And man, if Ray hadn't loved Fraser before, for this, for that perfectly bitchy mix of the things I do for you and are you really this juvenile and I am extremely uncomfortable but I'm doing it anyway, topped off with air quotes you can hear, shit, for that alone Ray finds himself falling all over again.
He speeds his hand up, and his breath follows.
Fraser groans, so quiet Ray almost misses it.
"That's good. That is good, 'cause laundry, man. Laundry is... important."
"And have you also been missing... laundry?"
Ray wants to laugh, he wants to come, he wants to swallow the phone whole and have it be Fraser he was swallowing down, getting closer to him than ever.
"Yeah. Yeah, buddy. It's been a long time without laundry, y'know? And I gotta say, even you were starting to smell like caribou."
"Did I? You're aware bestiality is illegal in nearly every—"
And he hates him, Ray hates him for making a joke like that while they're doing this, but he laughs, and Fraser huffs, and then pants, and dammit, dammit he's so close...
"Yeah, okay, so arrest me, alright? 'Cause it was working for me, working for me except there was no laundry, just you, and the smell of you—"
Fraser mutters, "Caribou!"
"—so hey, pull out the handcuffs and slap 'em on—"
"Hah — oh! Oh!"
Oh shit fuckchristshit yes!
It's not silent, but they're both panting, and neither one is speaking.
After a while, Ray reaches for... something, finds only a corner of the sheet, shrugs and wipes himself down with the finest cotton-poly (same as Fraser is lying on — sweating on — came on!).
"I think... I'll pass on the arrest. I seem to have left the handcuffs in my other pocket."
Ray laughs, flops his head down. Okay. Maybe he just broke everything, but maybe, maybe they'll be okay.
"Night, Fraser."
"...goodnight, Ray."
Ray dreams of snow so warm you can walk in it, of sun and skies that swim with color, of a smile that blinds him. And then he just sleeps.
In the morning, Ray wakes up slowly, spends a while debating jumping out the window and running off into the wilderness (he'd just track you down). In the end, he gets up, dresses slowly, and tells himself it's for the novelty of being able to without risk of losing anything important.
He doesn't make the bed.
He opens the door, looks up — and there's Fraser, pulling his door shut, and for a couple beats they're just standing there, looking at each other, and if Ray looks even half as freaked out and lost as Fraser does...
He steps back, holds his door open. "Come on."
Fraser's nose flares as he looks around the room (across Ray's bed, sweat and spunk soaked, smelling like... well, like that), and finally picks a nice comfy wall to lean against, arms folded.
Okay, two can play at that. Ray hops on the bed, crosses his legs. Doesn't move the blankets to cover... anything.
He doesn't say anything, either.
"Ray—"
"Good morning to you, too."
Ray will never get tired of making Fraser look irritated, if only (not only) 'cause he's the only one — other than Dief, maybe — who can.
"Good morning. Ray, I don't know what... obviously, what I feel for you is... and you know, you must know—"
"You're staying here. Not here, but. Canada. Aren't you."
It wasn't a question. They both knew it wasn't.
Fraser looks at him in agony. Ray holds his gaze.
Fraser drops his eyes, head bowed.
"Yeah."
"So." Ray shrugs. "So last night."
"Ah."
Ray looks over Fraser's face — Study In Stoic Agony, he'd call it — then down at his lap. Forget cotton-poly, this bedspread — crumpled and scrunched under him, off the rest of the bed — is pure, scratchy, indestructible poly. His mom's quilt was made in Arizona, barely did well enough piled on top of three other blankets in a Chicago winter. He'll miss it too, he thinks.
"You're going back to Chicago, then."
"Nah. Couldn't afford the phone bills."
Fraser whips his head up, and Ray watches Fraser search his face, watches Fraser find what Ray knows must be written all over it, and then Fraser's grinning, and Ray's grinning, and yeah, they haven't talked yet, they haven't even kissed yet, but yeah, he's already sure of it. This is gonna be good.