Second half, for the Broken Challenge by Brigantine

[brigantine.livejournal.com]

Title: Out from Under, 2/2
Author: Brigantine
Fandom: Due South/Men with Guns
Pairing: F/K
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: angst, drug addiction, me not knowing what the hell I'm doing.
Disclaimer: I'm just riding on the coat tails of other people's genius.
Feedback: is useful and deeply appreciated
Summary: For the "Broken" challenge. Got out my sledgehammer, and, yeah. MotB takes a sharp left turn at the very beginning. Nearly a year later, Fraser follows Ray down the rabbit hole.

Split this into two parts, because I suspect LJ won't let me post the whole enchilada at one go. bleah.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Come morning Fraser finds himself late to the scene after all. He and Diefenbaker have been out on a quick run, which turned into a rather longer run, as they felt obligated to foil first a pick-pocket and then the robbery of a small convenience shop. Oddly, the perpetrator seemed most interested in shop-lifting a snorkel, a large bottle of canola oil, and fifty feet of Ace bandage. Fraser and the responding peace officer couldn't help but be intrigued, but Diefenbaker really didn't want to know.

When Fraser and Dief are still half a block from the Bronco, Dief suddenly stops in the middle of the sidewalk, sniffs the air, and begins barking furiously. He dashes across the street, then halts at the entrance to the alley, casting and whuffling. He can smell Ray -- and Richie now, which is new, and disturbing. D. R. Becker, it seems, has told them at least a partial truth after all. Probably he doesn't even realize it yet.

Fraser paces the wolf along the side of the building, past the fire escape, past the refuse dumpsters, and there's a battered door, standing slightly ajar. Dief whines excitedly and shoves his muzzle into the gap. "Softly," Fraser cautions. He winces when the door creaks, and they ease inside.

Dief is halfway up the stairs, Fraser close behind when he hears, "It's me, open up the door." He starts running.

He's flying onto the fourth floor then, skidding to his right down the hall, and he sees a familiar figure leaping through the doorway at the end of the hall. Black jeans and a long black coat with a red lining flapping behind him, it's Ray, his Ray, and it's all Fraser can do to keep from calling out.

Dief screeches to a halt ahead of him, there's gunfire, one and then another, Fraser throwing himself to his hands and knees. He's wide eyed on the floor in the doorway, where a man in a blue shirt is bleeding out on the linoleum in front of him, but Fraser is watching Ray flow upward onto a desk, as though the law of gravity is second-rate by comparison. There's a brief standoff with the man behind the desk, then it's one two three four five six shots to the other man's body, Ray's face turned away, the blood spurting onto Ray's shirt, onto the side of his face. Out of the corner of Fraser's eye he sees Dief crawling, scrabbling into the melee, hugging the floor around the edge of the room, and it's just as Fraser gets inside the office that a third man arrives from the pick-up entrance. Ray can't see him, and Fraser's mouth opens in warning, but somehow Ray knows. He twists left, and one, then two three shots, and Ray is down off the desk and stalking the room like a tiger denied.

Eddie is standing in the middle of the slaughter laughing as though it's some sort of game, while Fraser crawls through the cartridge casings and the blood, slick beneath his palms and oozing up through his jeans, between his fingers. Ray is smiling a strange, disengaged sort of grin, and there's a warning in the pit of Fraser's stomach. Ray has never killed anyone before.

Dief whines, imploring, and Fraser manages to croak out, "Ray."

Ray whistles a brief, unfamiliar little tune, presses the muzzle of his gun to the soft under part of his jaw, there toward the back, near his throat, and Fraser gasps, "Ray," just as he pulls the trigger. Fraser makes a harsh, keening sound, as though he's being gutted.

The gun goes, "click."

Eddie is staring at Ray and looking alarmed and sick, and there's a telephone persistently going off in another room.

"Click," again.

Ray frowns and murmurs, counting on his fingers, "One for the guy at the door, then one.... six..."

"Ray." Fraser is trying not to be sick, trying to blink the salt of tears and sweat out of his eyes.

"...one two three for the guy in the nasty shirt..."

"Ray."

"...and one for the dog. That's eleven."

In the room with the ringing telephone someone is yelling for Eddie. Eddie stares at Fraser, and demands, "Who the fuck are you, man? And who's Ray?"

"Ray."

"Fuck, I oughta have four rounds left." The disappointment in his voice is heartbreaking.

"Fuck this, I'm going after Richie," Eddie says, and he follows the sound of his friend's voice.

"Ray," Fraser says.

Ray turns to him, stares blankly for a moment, and then his mouth opens in a round, red O of recognition. He takes a deep, harsh breath as though there is no air in the room, and he turns white and slides down the wall behind him into a heap of cringing angles on the floor.

Ray's eyes are huge and blue, and his voice is very small. "Oh, oh.... How did you get here?"

"We came to--"

"Why are you here, why are you here, why are you here," and he squeezes his eyes shut and tries the gun again, but Fraser's got hold of his wrist now, Ray's slender right wrist with the little metal bracelet, and he takes the weapon from Ray easily, as though Ray's got no strength left at all. He pulls his shirt loose and cleans Ray's prints from the weapon and he sets it aside.

He's tampering with evidence. Meg and I will worry about the rest of it. Damn well hope so. Not that he's ever been screwed by his superiors before.

Ray cringes away from him, flinches when Diefenbaker snuggles in, whining, trying to offer comfort. "I can't," Ray chants. "I can't. I can't." He makes a small, desperate sound. "There's not enough left." He leans his forehead into Dief's then, lets himself be comforted by the insistent wolf.

Fraser puts a bloody hand on Ray's shoulder. "We have to leave now." He can hear Eddie and Richie in the other room.

Richie's breathing indicates that he is in an enormous amount of pain. He needs a hospital, not a getaway car.

Fraser pulls Ray to his feet, and leads him swiftly through the fern room. They step over a battered corpse. Fraser wonders, but he hasn't got the time to find out, because he can hear the service elevator rising, and two male voices, and he's guessing they're not RCMP. He can hear Eddie and Richie heading directly toward the sound, and he calls to them, but they don't hear him.

Ray turns, one last act as Mamet when he shouts, "Eddie! Don't go out through fuckin' pick up! Eddie!"

But Eddie isn't listening. Fraser dithers for a moment, his instinct and his training leading him to go and somehow force Eddie and Richie to follow him. Diefenbaker turns to Fraser and growls, insisting they be far away from here as quickly as possible. Fraser pulls Ray along behind him, and they run until they find the fire escape. Fraser throws a potted palm through the painted-shut window, hauls Ray, cursing volubly and not nearly as heavy as he should be over his shoulder, and launches himself after Diefenbaker down the back fire escape. Once on the ground they make for the Bronco. If anyone notices two men and a half-wolf splattered with blood, no one points them out.

Fraser shoves Ray into the passenger seat and buckles him in like a child, while Dief jumps over the back of the seat into the rear of the vehicle. Fraser nearly breaks off the key in the ignition in his hurry to leave the warehouse behind. He forces himself to calm down. The last thing they need now is a traffic accident.

"Ray," Fraser says as he guides the Bronco into traffic, "we're not going home right away. I'm going to take you some place where you can rest."

Ray is quiet for a moment, and then he whispers, "Don't wanna go to no hospital."

"I know. We won't."

Fraser glances at him, finds him biting his lower lip and squinting at the sun, and nearly doesn't hear him when he asks, "Why did you come here?"

"I should never have walked away from you," Fraser confesses.

"You walked. I ran. What you been doing for the last nine months?"

"Paperwork, mostly."

Ray laughs sharply, "Jesus, you poor bastard!"

A smile tugs at Fraser's mouth. It feels so good, it almost hurts. "Thank you kindly."


Fraser has parked under a tree in the lot of a supermarket and now he's on the phone to Reickhart. The D.C.I. is at the warehouse already. "Christ, it's a slaughter," Reickhart says, as though Fraser doesn't know. "Burke is dead."

"Um… the other two, I mean, there were two young men there, not Burke's."

"We're still sorting them out. We've got one survivor. How's Kowalski?"

One. Just one.

"Right here in the fuckin' car," Ray mutters. He rolls down the window.

Reickhart asks Fraser if he remembers the directions to the safe house.

Fraser gets them on the road again. He's aiming northwest. "How long do you have until, you know?" Why can't he just say it? Until the withdrawal symptoms begin. Was that so difficult? Yes.

"Dunno," Ray says. "Dunno, I got no sense anymore."

Fraser realizes Ray means he's got no sense of time. "Where were you when you took your last pills?"

"Eddie's place," Ray says. "Before Eddie woke me up."

Which means an unknown period of time between the pills and Eddie waking him.

"We'll be at the house in a couple of hours."

Ray glances sideways at Fraser. "Just us?" Blood has dried maroon on the side of his neck, his forehead.

"Just us." Fraser grimaces. The steering wheel is sticky in his hands. He does not want to drive two hundred kilometers like this.

"I can not believe I did it again," Ray mumbles. "Jumped out of a fuckin' window after you."

"Well now technically you didn't actually jump, as I was--sorry, I'm, ah, doing the niggling thing again, aren't I. Dotting the i's, crossing the t's."

"Perpetually," Ray says flatly. He's glaring sideways at Fraser, a challenge in his stare.

Fraser doesn't know how to answer that look. Perpetually.

"What, no treat, no 'Good boy Ray, you used a word longer than two syllables'?"

"Ray, I'm sorry, I--"

"Just let me out at the stop light, Fraser."

"I can't do that."

"You press on the brake pedal, I open the door and I get out."

"And go find some other way to do away with yourself?" The images won't be leaving him any time soon. One dead near the office door, one at the desk, a third near the pick-up door, and the muzzle of the Beretta pressed up tight against Ray's lower jaw. Blood all over the walls. Fraser's stomach lurches, and he swallows hard several times.

"I will handcuff you to the door handle of this truck, if I have to." His teeth clench. "Don't force me."

"You brought your handcuffs, looking for me?" Ray snorts.

Fraser steers the Bronco onto the highway. "We've got a couple of hours' drive. Get some sleep, if you can."

There's a long stretch of highway ahead of them. At this speed Fraser doesn't think Ray will try to escape from the truck. He won't end himself like that. It's inefficient, and messy.

Out of the corner of his eye he can see Diefenbaker shifting about in the covered truck bed. Finally the wolf can't stand it anymore, and he lunges toward the front to slurp Ray joyfully on the back of his left ear. Fraser expects loud exclamations of protest and disgust, but instead Ray silently reaches a hand back and buries his fingers in the wolf's soiled fur. Dief rambles happily. Fraser concentrates on the yellow lines down the middle of the highway.

One survivor. Just one.


There came a certain point when Fraser began withholding things from Ray during investigations. Observations. Details. Small bits of pertinent information. The consideration and respect due one's partner and friend. The knowledge of how desperately Fraser wanted him.

He supposes the subterfuge reached its peak shortly after what he and Ray referred to as The Extradition Incident. For a brief period of time, Ray was entirely dependent on Fraser; on his friendship, on his deductive skills. For those few days, in a way, Ray was his. It was difficult to let him go afterward, let him walk out of the consulate and back to belonging to no one but himself. Perhaps still he belonged a little bit to Stella. He always would. But not to Fraser. Nevertheless, something in Fraser persisted in trying to pull Ray back, make him dependent. Fraser had never intended to turn traitor, but once again, he found himself in the dismaying position of obsessively wanting someone he couldn't have. Surely, Fraser should have recognized the signs, by then?

And that fateful day, the day they fought and Ray demanded of him, "Why don't you listen to me?" and popped Fraser a smart one on the jaw when Fraser refused to shut up, that day Ray should not have had to remind him that he couldn't swim, before Fraser nagged him into leaping twenty-odd metres into the lake they call Michigan, thereby maneuvering Ray into the position of being rescued by Fraser, yet again. Fraser couldn't get enough of rescuing Ray. But Ray could.



They arrive at the safe house late in the afternoon. It's a small, neat blue cottage set in a large meadow with a gravel drive, bordered by a curve of trees. Behind the trees Fraser glimpses the glitter of a lake. There are no visible neighbors. It's a beautiful spot, but Fraser hasn't got the time to enjoy it.

Ray is looking the worse for wear, a bit 'green around the gills,' as Fraser's grandmother might have said. He's been hugging himself tightly for the past half hour or so, his eyes closed, his mouth set in a grim line.

When Fraser opens the passenger side of the Bronco and urges Ray out he trudges silently after Fraser and follows him into the small cabin, as though all the fight has gone out of him.

It's not much bigger than Fraser's cabin in the north, but it's warm and comfortably furnished. The single bedroom is off to the right of the front door, and the bathroom just to the left of the bedroom door, accessed from the bedroom.

"Come on," Fraser urges gently. "Let's get you into the shower, and then into bed."

Ray nods mutely and begins to strip down in the bedroom, while Fraser runs the hot water. He washes the blood from his hands in the spray from the shower.

Ray shuffles in, apparently not caring that Fraser is in the room. God, but he is thin. This is not at all Fraser's fantasy version of his first time seeing Ray naked. All he can think of now is how breakable Ray looks. "You'll be all right on your own?"

"Yeah." Ray nods and closes the curtain. Fraser tugs it to at the far end of the shower, pulls clean towels out of a cupboard above the toilet and leaves two of them on the lid.

He finds clean sheets and blankets in the closet, and makes up the double bed while Ray washes the blood off of himself. Fraser finds himself staring transfixed at the bed, dozing on his feet, and he comes to when he hears Ray turn off the shower. He finishes tucking the blankets in at the bottom.

Dief arrives from his survey of the rest of the cabin, makes the rounds of the bedroom. Double bed, dresser, chest of drawers, where Fraser finds neatly folded clothing of various sizes; t-shirts, sweat pants, even boxer shorts. He and Ray have got their choice of grey or blue.

Ray emerges from the bathroom stark naked, rubbing at his shoulders, and once again Fraser is struck by the look of him. Ray has never had any weight to spare, but now...

"What?" Ray eyes him warily.

Beautiful. Fragile. Fraser shakes his head sharply. "I'm sorry, I just--you could use some food."

Ray frowns. "Feel sick. Any ginger ale in this place?"

"I'll check the kitchen." Fraser hands him a set of clothing; grey t-shirt, sweat pants, boxers, and Ray sits on the edge of the bed to get dressed.

Now that the adrenaline of the day's earlier events is wearing off, Fraser finds it difficult to concentrate. Still, he checks for ginger ale, and brings some to Ray. He'll make himself a cup of tea. Once he's got Ray settled, then perhaps he can take a cat nap. Dief has already chosen a spot in one corner of the bedroom, and is beginning to doze off. Fraser smiles to himself. Now that they've found Ray, Dief doesn't seem to want to let him out of his sight.

Ray sips at the ginger ale, finally wincing and setting it aside on the night stand. "Thanks for making the bed," he murmurs, and then crawls between the sheets, and curls into a ball on his side, hugging the extra pillow.

"Call me if you need anything?" Fraser says.

Ray's eyes are closed tight, his brow furrowed, as though determined to find the sleep he needs. He nods. "You and Dief need to get the blood off you."

"You'll be all right?"

"'M good."

Fraser collects a set of clean clothing for himself and rouses Dief, who follows him into the bathroom. He sets aside the wet towel Ray used, drops his blood stained clothing on the floor, kicks the bundle into a corner. He hopes there are laundry facilities, but realistically? That amount of blood is not going to come out in the wash.

Under the warm, strong spray of the shower he scrubs vigorously at the wolf's blood-encrusted fur, Dief grunts and moans with pleasure at the attention. Fraser watches swirls of blood circle down the drain. Dief waits patiently, play-snapping at the spray and shredding a wash cloth while Fraser washes himself. Fraser takes a few moments to simply lean into the hot spray, letting it wash over him. He recalls what Marquez told him, that Ray has been stripped down to his nature, down to his metal. What does that mean, after Fraser has watched the same man who has repeatedly risked his life for others kill three people and then attempt to kill himself?

"Ray is a hunter by nature," Fraser whispers into the water running over his face. "A successful hunt normally ends in a kill." He steps back and looks at Dief. "The veneer of civilisation is very thin. Are you hungry?"

Dief woofs softly. Silly question.

"We still have the attempted suicide to reckon," Fraser says, as he's drying himself.

Dief shakes himself for a second time and head-butts Fraser's left thigh. "Of course, you're right. Detox, first. Analyze, later." He smiles wearily at the young wolf. "And supper, now."


While Ray tries to rest Fraser explores the small house. There is a small library in one corner of the living room, and upon cataloguing the kitchen cupboards he discovers a large supply of canned goods and a faintly alarming range of medical supplies. There is a mud room between the right corner of the kitchen and the tub end of the bathroom, making the house a neat, efficient rectangle. The rear steps descend from there. In the mud room are more cupboards and a washer and a dryer, large enough to accommodate blankets, even a light duvet. He recognizes a woman's touch here and there throughout, and he theorizes that this place is intended not merely as a hideout, but as a sanctuary.

He finds a couple of bowls suitable for feeding Dief, and manages to feed himself, though his appetite is subdued. He eats anyway, because he knows he should.

As the daylight fades into evening Fraser clicks on the reading lamp and sits on the sofa in the living room, listening to the small sounds Ray makes in the bedroom. He's trying to read an RCMP booklet on drug withdrawal symptoms. His are not the first hands on it. He wonders who else has writhed and sighed in that bed while his partner... friend... frets over how best to help. Have there been knifings, gun shot wounds tended here? This is not a situation he ever imagined himself in while he was patrolling in the Territories. He is ill prepared for this, and really rather frightened.

His first inclination is to fashion a bedroll for himself on the floor of the bedroom, but Ray is still resentful enough of Fraser's interference on his behalf that he is reluctant to crowd him. From here he's got a view into the middle of the bedroom, but he can't see the bed itself, as it is positioned off to the right of door. He hears the rustling of linens, Ray restless between the sheets, shifting constantly in the attempt to find some ease. He pants heavily, sometimes making small noises of discomfort or distress, but he never expresses a genuine complaint. Fraser is reminded of nothing so much as an animal gone to ground, trying to hide its weakness. He would feel vastly better if Ray were grousing and complaining.

Ray tumbles out of bed suddenly, dashes across Fraser's frame of vision, then into the bathroom. Fraser hears him vomiting into the toilet. He starts to get up to help, then thinks better of it. What on earth would he do in there? The last thing Ray will want is Fraser hovering.

After a while he hears the sound of running water, brushing teeth. Fraser wonders whether Ray chose the red tooth brush or the green one. Ray shuffles into the living room in his loose grey t-shirt and his boxers, shed of the sweat pants. He hugs himself tightly, wincing.

"What'd Reickhart say about the other two, about Richie and Eddie?"

"One survivor," Fraser says. "He didn't say which."

"Prob'ly Eddie," Ray guesses. "If one of 'em was gonna make it, it'd be Eddie." He turns again at the bedroom, shuffles back past the sofa.

"Ray, would you like some tea?"

Ray grunts, shakes his head.

"Water? Ginger--"

"Fraser." He paces into the kitchen and back through the living room.

"Understood." He would like very much to get some fluids into Ray, but if they won't stay down, it's no good forcing the issue.

"Sorry."

"I understand. It's just that I feel rather useless."

"You are useless, Fraser. No. That's not what I mean." Ray puts up one hand, long fingers wafting in apology. "I mean there's nothing you can do, I just gotta--" and then he gulps and gulps, and whirls, back into the bathroom, and there's the harsh sound of dry heaving. Diefenbaker trots through the bedroom door to lie down on the rug near the bathroom with his nose between his paws.

Fraser sighs and rubs at his eyebrow. "He's right, I'm afraid. There's not much we can do for him, except be here for him." He makes a face, grumbling, "I sound like a self-help book. 'Drug withdrawals in three easy steps.' Lord."

The next hours are long and frustrating, Ray pacing and retching, steadily turning paler, and gradually beginning to shiver and sweat. Somewhere in the wee hours -- Fraser doesn't know when, there's a clock on the kitchen wall, but no one's looking at it. What's the point? Somewhere in the small, dark hours Fraser starts awake on the sofa and realizes that he's dozed off for a short while.

He listens carefully, but hears nothing. He rubs at eyes that sting with weariness, gets up and peers into the bedroom. Ray is not in the bed. When he checks the bathroom he can make out, there in the dark, Ray huddled on the floor next to the bathtub. He has pulled his arms and legs snug to his torso, all tucked inside the t-shirt. He shivers in the dark, and when Fraser rests a tentative hand on his forehead he finds Ray's skin cold and sweat-slick. Ray hardly stirs when Fraser lifts him off the floor and carries him back to the bed.

Fraser briefly considers getting under the covers with him, to hold him, warm him, but decides against it, and instead decides to make a bedroll for himself after all on the floor, near the foot of Ray's bed. Diefenbaker settles near the chest of drawers, near Fraser's head. Ray's got a clear path to the bathroom, should he need it. Fraser almost wishes Ray would make a little more noise. He's so quiet, his breaths quick, shallow. Fraser doesn't think he'll sleep, but he does.

When he wakes it's just past dawn, and he's roused by the sound of the shower. The booklet he'd been reading estimated that Ray's symptoms would peak at between forty-eight and seventy-two hours. So far it's been less than twenty-four, so Fraser doesn't expect a miracle. The shower curtain is half closed, and at first he doesn't see anyone. He experiences a flutter of panic the moment before he spots Ray crouched on the floor of the tub, knees drawn up, his head resting on his forearms, letting the spray run over him.

"Hot," Ray mumbles. "'M hot." Fraser realizes that only the cold water is running. Ray shivers beneath it.

Fraser helps Ray out of his wet clothes, helps him dry himself, all the while trying not to look, not to let his hands linger over Ray's cold skin. He helps Ray change into a set of dry clothes, and gets him back into bed, but Ray asks, "Fraser, could you... my neck, it's. Ow."

Fraser kneels on the bed with him. "Muscles ache?"

"Yeah."

"Turn around," Fraser instructs, and then he puts his large, sturdy hands on the back of Ray's slender neck, and he begins to knead.

The back of Ray's neck. The soft point of his hairline narrowing down into the pale column of it. The gentle slope of Ray's neck into lean, tense shoulders. The low bumps of his vertebrae, the peach fuzz swirl, just there at the juncture of neck and shoulders, the tiny, pale hairs leading up. When Fraser first recognized his attraction to -- no, his desire -- for Ray, he managed to keep his thoughts, his feelings in their place -- mostly in their place, but then one fateful day in the midst of a homicide investigation he was blind-sided, stunned by the grace of the back of Ray's neck. He wanted to press his face against it, press his teeth against it, taste and inhale Ray's scent, just there, at the base of his beautiful neck. This, Fraser thinks as he grinds his thumbs into the knotted muscle of Ray's shoulders, was the beginning of his swift and terrible downfall.

Ray whispers in the dim light, "Fraser."

"Yes?"

"Did you bring your revolver?"

Fraser pictures the Smith & Wesson, cold, solid and loaded at the bottom of his knapsack. "Do I ever?"

"That is not what I asked you." Ray's voice is soft, like snow over ice.

"No," Fraser lies. "I did not bring my revolver."

Ray finally says, "Okay."

Fraser gently presses his face to the back of Ray's neck, and takes a long, slow breath, and does not weep.


He wakes from an all too brief sleep. He leaves Ray curled around his pillow, and Fraser gently tucks the covers about his shoulders. Ray mutters something he can't make out.

In the kitchen Fraser manages a welcome hot cup of tea, but yearns for the nutritious, caloric jolt of a good bit of pemmican. What he finds is canned fruit, something purported to be a "Tropical Assortment." Upon investigation he finds that the 'assorted' flavors of the bite-size chunks have blended together into an overly sweet concoction suspiciously unlike any fruit he's ever tasted, and utterly inedible. Diefenbaker disagrees, and slurps up the mess with enthusiasm.

Fraser adds a can of stew to Dief's meal, then lets him out for a stretch, perhaps to chase the odd rabbit, run the perimeter of the large lot, making sure no one is sneaking up on the house. Fraser has no reason to believe that anyone but D.C.I. Reickhart knows or cares where they are, but it gives Dief something to do.

Fraser steps out onto the porch that runs across the front of the little house, watches the afternoon sun gilding the summer grass. He rolls his shoulders, cracks his neck, notices that his hands are shaking, though he can't for the life of him think why they should.

Some time near dark he's sitting at one end of the sofa, trying to read a chapter on administering saline I.V.'s, which is something he has reluctantly concluded might become necessary. He keeps getting to the bottom of page three and realizing that he has no idea what he's just read. Dief nudges at his knee, and he leans forward to rub the wolf's soft ears. Dief whuffles at him.

He's been listening to Ray's restless movements in the bedroom. Ray's discomfort is increasing, and Fraser rises to investigate, to see if he might be of any use at all. Within he finds that the bed linens have been shuffled sideways onto the floor, and Ray, slumped in the middle of the bed panting and shaking reminds Fraser of a picture he once saw in his Latin primer, of "The Dying Gaul."

"I can't do this, Fraser," Ray gasps out. He grimaces, a flash of teeth. "I can't do this."

Fraser has kept a small glass of water on the bureau, in anticipation of any moment that he can get some into his friend, and now he sits on the edge of the mattress and offers it to him. "Just a little," Fraser encourages, and when he helps Ray hold the glass steady in tremulous hands Ray doesn't fight him. "We'll see if it stays down," Fraser says.

"Jesus, my head is killing me," Ray confesses.

Fraser tells him, "You're badly dehydrated." He tries not to dwell on the misery in Ray's face, in the hollows of his cheeks, how dark his eyes have become. On why this is happening.

"Dehydrated. Like coffee, or those little packets of soup, just add water?"

Fraser helps him back into bed, pulls the linens into place around him. "Yes, like dried soup."

"I don't want to be dried soup," Ray decides.

"That's very sensible of you, Ray." He brushes the fingertips of one hand across Ray's forehead, and Ray closes his eyes.

Fraser lies down on the floor at the foot of the bed, and tries to sleep.


Dief paces the bedroom floor, whimpering sympathetically while Ray thrashes. His stomach has quit heaving, for which Fraser is endlessly grateful, but the sweats, and the shakes and the muscle cramps, and the incessant thrashing as he attempts vainly to alleviate anything have pushed Ray to tears, to muttering breathlessly, "I can't I can't I can't," and finally begging, "Please don't make me do this, just put a bullet in me buddy, make it stop," at which point Fraser clambers into bed with him and wraps his arms and his legs around Ray until he is trapped, trembling and sodden in Fraser's panicked embrace.

Fraser murmurs thoughtlessly against the back of Ray's head, there below his ear. "It'll be all right. This won't last forever, you'll see, it'll be all right, you'll be okay baby, I won't let you go…"

"Hold me down," Ray begs, and Fraser tries to get closer, holds him hard, listening helplessly to the fevered litany, "Hold me down…"



Fraser blinks awake to the feel of the mattress dipping to his left. Ray crawls carefully over his legs, dragging a fallen pillow in one fist. Fraser focuses blearily on him. He's changed into a blue t-shirt, and fresh boxers. He smells of toothpaste and faintly of soap. His face is gaunt, weary, but he's moving under his own power, and that's certainly something.

"Hey," Fraser whispers. His voice is rough, as though he's hung over. He would move out of the way, but his body seems to have melted into the bed.

Ray makes a pile of pillows and settles into it with a small moan. "Dief's outside checking for ninjas," he says. He peers down at Fraser. "You look like shit." He grimaces. "That's not a criticism, just an observation."

"A concise appraisal, regardless," Fraser admits. Frankly, he feels run over. "You appear improved. How do you feel?"

"Like shit," Rays tells him matter-of-factly. "I think my head might not explode after all, though. Drank some h2o. Hadda pee." He smirks. "Satisfied?"

Fraser thinks, Ray is smiling. Fraser says, "Peeing is a good sign. It means your body contains more water than it needs."

"You are such a freak, that this fascinates you." Ray yawns hugely. "Still got the damn shakes. Can't seem to quit sweatin'." He rolls onto his back and rubs at bloodshot eyes. He leaves his hand draped over his face. Fraser watches his arm trembling, the bracelet of little metal beads dangling loose on his narrow wrist.

"Ray?" He shouldn't ask this. It's too soon.

"Mmm?"

"Why did you try to take your own life?"

Ray's eyebrows twitch upward beneath his hand. He shrugs. "Dunno."

"You must have had a reason."

"Tired, I guess. Musta lost my grip, somewhere along the line."

"Ray."

"Fraser."

"Ray."

"Jesus. Drop it."

"No."

"Okay, gimme time to come up with an answer you can handle, how about that?"

And Fraser thinks, that's enough. "That I can handle? What the hell is that supposed to mean? After everything, after -- God, Ray, I've been interrogated by your... patron, Rob, then there was that idiot Becker, and then the warehouse…" He wonders if he will ever be able to reconcile the horror of watching Ray kill with the thrill of watching Ray move, of seeing him as a creature entirely of instinct, stripped of thought, of hesitation, a completely honest animal. The duality of his own feelings enervates him if he thinks about it too much.

Ray rubs both hands over his face and turns, frowning. "Can we do the guilt thing when I don't feel like I been drug through the streets of Laredo?"

Fraser sighs. "I didn't intend to make you feel guilty."

"Yes you did. It's a thing that you do. You're off your game today, usually you're sneakier about it. Christ." He groans as though in pain and turns again, staring up at the ceiling. "Jesus H. Christ, can you imagine what that would have done to my mother?"

"We've been waiting for word of you for over nine months."

Ray glances sideways. "You been hangin' around the consulate all this time? I'd have thought you woulda gone back to the great white north, back when -- right about the time I skedaddled."

"No. Well, they offered me a transfer to Ottawa--"

"Promotion?"

"Possibly. But I did not, do not wish to live in Ottawa. It's a very big city."

"Chicago is a very big city."

"I wasn't alone in waiting for you there, Ray."

Ray groans. "I suck."

"Ray," Fraser insists. "You're avoiding the question."

Ray grunts, and one long hand flails at him feebly. "Okay. Okay. Look, honest, I can't remember what did it, the whole…" He flails a little more, as if trying to gather his thoughts. "…thing, what tipped me over the edge, I just…"

"The drugs?"

"No… Yeah. But Hendrickson, I think. I think that was the big push."

"You and I fought," Fraser reminds quietly. He'd just as soon forget, but that would hardly be fair.

"Yeah." Ray admits. "That was the beginning, wasn't it? Then Hendrickson… Jason Hendrickson, he was hard to get close to. See, the thing is…"

Ray shifts, wriggles about until he can get a pillow beneath his knees. Fraser realizes that Ray's back is hurting him.

"I had to be there when stuff happened," Ray begins. "The sort of stuff we'd put a stop to if we saw it happening back home, but I had to stand there and watch when that stuff happened, like I was okay with it. I didn't have to do stuff -- I started out as a bar tender, for Chrissakes, but then he liked me, and I got into his circle, and I saw stuff… there was this guy…" His voice drops to a murmur, softly plaintive. "I saw that. Stood there and watched. But I didn't do it. I didn't do that."

Suddenly Ray chuckles bitterly, "Never been the kind to sleep with the boss, before."

The implication takes a moment to sink in, and then Fraser can't look at him. Rob was bad enough, but now Hendrickson? If he looks at Ray right now he will hold Ray down on the mattress whether he will or no, and start hunting for fingerprints on Ray's body. "Did he hurt you?"

"No. Not really." He swallows hard, his voice stressed and young. "Can I just not talk about that?"

Fraser nods. "Perhaps later."

"No, Fraser. Not later. Just not."

Fraser gets up and sits at the edge of the bed. The room tilts a bit, and he blinks at the dizziness. "Ray," he persists, "you're going to need to work this through eventually." He sounds pompous even to himself.

When he turns to look back, Ray has slipped down from his heap of pillows and burrowed beneath the covers. Only the top of his head is visible, short blonde tufts going all directions. "Ray."

"Fuck you," Ray's outline says from beneath the blankets.

"Fuck everybody, apparently," Fraser mutters, and instantly regrets it. "No, I'm sorry, I didn't--"

"Yes you did mean it, you son of a bitch!"

Fraser wonders, riding a surge of self-loathing like a wave of acid, which number amongst his betrayals this would be. He turns and scoots further onto the bed, hovering over the lump of blankets that hides his friend. "Ray, I didn't mean to be angry at you! To take it out on you. I just…" Thinking of someone else, anyone else with their hands on Ray fills him with rage. But he can't tell Ray that. Can he? Now?

"I shouldn't have pried." Understatement, that. He snorts, it turns to a giggle, a weird, hard-edged sound, and he scrubs at one eyebrow. He strongly suspects he may be developing a hole in his bag of marbles. It's likely been a long time coming, he's simply been too busy to notice. "You were right. I couldn't handle the answer." His voice cracks on the last. "Please forgive me?"

"I think," Ray's muffled voice says, "It started to get bad when I let go of the wall. I don’t remember exactly how that happened, but I know I did it."

Fraser sits back, blinking and lost. "The wall? What wall?" When did they start discussing architecture?

Ray sits up cross-legged across from Fraser, the blankets puddling in his lap. "It's the key to the puzzle, the maze thing… the labyrinth," he explains. "It's the secret of the labyrinth, Fraser. If you keep one hand on the wall, no matter how many turns or dead ends you get to, the wall will eventually lead you out. When you're under cover you got to keep one hand on the wall, at all times. Deep down, you can't forget who you were when you started, or the jig's up.

But Hendrickson... Man, it was like if he could look me in the eyes long enough, he'd see the real me hiding down there. We were like evolution, y'know? Me and him. The lion and the antelope, and we kept circling around each other, him letting me close, but not sure if he should let me too close, me trying to get him to let me closer. Who'd be smarter? Who'd be faster? Neither of us sure who'd turn out to be the lion and who'd turn out to be the antelope."

Ray shakes his head, smiling ruefully. "Look at me here. I guess we know who was the antelope."

"No." The urge to reach across and take Ray's thin face between his hands is almost irresistible. "You brought him to justice. All those… things that you had to witness, he'll be made to pay for them. Inspector Reickhart had nothing but praise for how you handled your assignment."

His own sincerity sounds idiotic to him. As though having helped to put Jason Hendrickson behind bars means Ray might instantly forget all of the horrors he has seen, all of the dreadful things he has been forced to do in order to complete his mission. As though Ray will not continue to pay the price, for a very long time.

Fraser wants to ask Ray if he let Jason Hendrickson kiss him.

"Went in there and got my man, huh? Maybe you'd be good under cover after all." Ray is looking at him with that sharp, intuitive gaze that he ordinarily reserves for criminal suspects.

"What do you mean? I'm a terrible liar."

"No," Ray argues. "No, you just make people think you are."

"Ray, I'm tired. You're tired--"

"Anybody who can fake naïve the way you do is a very dangerous man," Ray says. His voice drops, low and even. "You are one of the most dangerous men I know, Constable Benton Fraser."

Fraser sits there with his mouth open, as though he's been slapped. Popped again when he can't shut the hell up, leave it to Ray. Then he laughs, harsh, humorless, end of the campfire trail. "God, Ray, do you think I do it for a lark? To amuse myself, to mess with you? God in Heaven, Ray I lie because I am terrified!"

"Yeah? Of what? Not jumping off buildings, or drowning, or burning cars, so what is it?"

What really makes Fraser angry, makes him feel foolish and helpless, is that Ray is looking at him the same way Rob looked at him, as though he already knows, and dragging the confession out of Fraser is merely a formality. Fine. Fine, then.

The words come out staccato, a sharp snarl pushed out through his teeth. "Of--of everyone! Of others' expectations of the man they assume I am. Of people who want things from me that I can not possibly give them. Of myself. Of wanting things I can't have, wanting things I shouldn't want, wishing things were different. Of you."

Something integral has unbuckled inside him and he's loose, shaking. He might also be crying, but he's too overwhelmed by his fear and his outrage to tell. "Mostly I am terrified of you, Ray, because I want you so fucking much, and you… You look past the uniform and the big hat and the choir boy manners, all the representations of me, and you start rummaging for the man beneath it all, and there is so much in me that is unworthy, so much darkness I don't want you to find!"

"I read the file," Ray tells him.

"What?" He can't keep track, can barely breathe. God, when, how far back down the labyrinth did he let go of the wall?

"You read my files, I read yours. The one time you let yourself have what you thought you wanted, you'd been wanting for so long, you wanted so hard, and she knew you so awfully well, that you were almost destroyed, you and Vecchio both. Getting shot in the back wasn't even the worst of it. She was a part of your own darkness, Fraser, and she went after your best friend."

Fraser can't find the words. They've deserted him, utterly; his shields of formality, of dissembling, of ingenuousness, and all the clever words he uses to construct them, they're gone, and he is exhausted, naked and unarmed.

He wails at Ray, "I watched you shoot yourself in the head! I walked away and left you--you standing there, when I knew you were trying to--to tell me something, you needed me to listen to you, and then you shot yourself in the head! Jesus--!" His throat closes on the emotion and he can't speak, can't even see through this mysterious water in his eyes. He kneels there, stunned, gasping and shivering, until he feels Ray's hands on his face, on his neck, pulling him in, tangling the two of them together.

"You called me 'baby,'" Ray recalls gently. "That why you messed with me, Fraser? Wanting me and not thinking you could have me, that scare you? People try to control what scares 'em, and you wanting me scared you, so you tried to control us both, that it? Except it backfired a little bit, huh."

Fraser is trying to say, 'Oh God Ray, I am so sorry,' but he can't make the words, only press his face against the crook of Ray's neck, Ray's long fingers soothing through his hair, cradling the back of his skull.

"I shouldn't have run. I shoulda had the guts to stick around, but I ran. I am so sorry I put you through this, Ben!"

Fraser buries his face into the corner of Ray's jaw, near the spot where the Beretta's muzzle pressed against the skin. He clutches at Ray, feeling him ridiculously light weight in his arms.

"This," Ray declares, "this you can have, Ben. Me." He shifts a little, nuzzles against the side of Fraser's face. "You can hold on, Ben. I won't break."

Ray's ribs are sharp beneath the jersey, beneath Fraser's hands. He protests against Ray's throat, "But you did, Ray! I hurt you and you left--"

"Stop it," Ray admonishes. "Hey." He pulls back a little, makes Fraser look at him; at Ray's sweat-flattened hair, at the dark smudges around his eyes, at his haggard smile. At the fact that he is still here.

Then Ray tugs up the edge of the sheet and wipes first at Fraser's tears and then his nose, and then he kisses him, soft and sweet, and all of the storm inside Fraser goes quiet, just like that.

He hiccups and mouths at the beard stubble around Ray's lips. "We've been living in your apartment since you left."

Ray's smile stretches into a grin. "Keeping it warm for me, huh?"

"Yeah."

"That's good," Ray says, and he kisses Fraser again. "That's a good idea."



--end--