ds_flashfiction | darkest before dawn challenge

Just under 1000 words; thank you to

lyra_sena for wonderful beta work.

*****

You sleep, mostly.

*****

You wake up, confused and disoriented, from another dream you can't quite remember. It was odd, you always remember that much. That, and your mother. Her face and touch, real in your dreams in a way that they haven't been for years in your waking mind, where they long ago froze into hard and clear and sharply preserved memories.

You swallow around the thickness in your throat and take some breaths, but it's a while before you fall back sleep.

*****

You wake up in one sudden jolt, from another dream you remember all too well. For a moment you can't even believe it was a dream -- it felt real, more real than this office, this life, by far. You can still hear her voice.

You dream of dying in the blizzard in her arms. You dream of dying on the platform of the train station, fallen away from her, unable to even watch her leave you. You dream of letting her go in the North and of fleeing with her from Chicago.

You don't return to sleep from this dream. There isn't much longer before the day will begin, anyway. There's ironing you could do, reports, a shower, reading -- plenty of things more trustworthy and dependable than your own mind.

*****

You sit on the roof of Ray's apartment building, watching him as he paces around you, adrenaline still running through him, preventing him from going to bed or even sitting still beside you. You yourself feel some of the same giddiness. Despite your exhaustion, you have no desire for sleep.

You sit back and stare up at the sky and Ray says, "You can't see the stars in the city, Fraser."

"Oh, you can see some of them," you reply. Gazing up, you see in your mind's eye all the constellations and assorted stories you learned in your youth. "You know, Ray, the stars are like a map. A man who studies them can always find his way back, find his way home."

Ray looks at you, and he begins to say something, but his expression changes to something else and he stops. He comes to sit down beside you.

"I know, uh, the Big Dipper," he offers, and you smile and raise your hand to point.

*****

Your father seems to have, since his death, lost all normal sense of time. This is perhaps most apparent in his newfound fondness for the middle of the night (or morning, as the case may be) as the setting for his heart-to-heart talks and sharing of his wisdom.

"Oh, it's all the same to the dead, son," he tells you, quite cheerfully. "Sometimes it feels like just after lunch for days on end. Wreaks havoc on a man's digestive system."

You try, once, to point out that just because it's all the same to the dead doesn't make it all the same to you. But your father responded to this with a story concerning a criminal he tracked, and his not stopping to sleep for days on end (as if *you* had never done anything similar), and you didn't bother mentioning it to him again.

*****

You wake up in the middle of the night with the need to urinate. When you return from the toilet, Dief has relocated himself on the foot of your cot, snoring as loudly and soundly as if he has been there for hours.

The cot is much too small for a full-grown man and a lazy half-wolf, but you climb back in regardless, ignoring him. The warmth of his body is somewhat comforting and perhaps you both could use this unacknowledged affection, anyhow. Neither of you is going to be a pup again.

*****

You're running down the alley, flat out. Ray is a few steps behind you, struggling for his gun, badge, glasses, and Dief is overtaking you, his four legs beating your two as you chase the miscreant.

"Freeze! Chicago PD!" Ray yells, but the man ignores him, of course. He tries to turn, escape at the end of the alley, but Dief has expected this, of course, blocking off one pathway. He's forced in the other direction, and you're right there, Ray barely a step behind you, and this is it -- you feel the thrill pulsing through your body, as the two of you move together to apprehend him.

*****

You've been slogging through the heat and humidity for days now, suffering through the suffocating thickness of another Chicago summer. The heat wave broke earlier tonight, though, in a dramatic fashion -- thunder, lightning, a downpour that slowly calmed through the hours.

It's the first night in ages that it's cool enough to sleep comfortably, but you nonetheless find yourself lying awake, listening to the light, steady patter of the rain against the windows and roof.

Eventually you turn again, restlessly, and note the time; it strikes you with surprise that it's sunrise in Inuvik.

*****

Your back hurts in this bed, too soft, too pliable beneath you to be really comfortable. Ray has no such problems: he seems to sleep like the dead, a fierce and total dive into unconsciousness. But then, it's his own bed, and he should be used to it.

When he shifts positions again, his leg settles down, leaning firm against your own. Even after the rest of the night's events, it still feels like a new intimacy, and after a few seconds you settle into it, into the weight and press of his limbs.

You fold your hands over your chest, close your eyes, still controlling your slow and steady breaths.

You see:

The spiked edge of Ray's hair, framed against the pale wall.

The small curve of his half-smile.

Ink, black and red, against smooth skin.

The sharpness of bone, thin and strong and solid, as he stretches.

The inside of your eyelids, pure black, awaiting morning light.

*****

Mostly, though, you sleep.