ds_flashfiction | Quadruped Challenge, by keerawa

Title: Proper Care and Feeding
Author: keerawa
Characters: RayK/Fraser, Turtle
Rating: PG-13
Length: 2918 words
Thanks to: My beta,

slidellra
Disclaimer: Due South, Fraser, and Ray belong to Alliance/Atlantis.

When we first came back to Chicago after the Quest, I thought everything would work out. Welsh got me my job back at the 2-7. I had a badge with my own name on it, even if I kept looking for Stella every time somebody yelled "Kowalski!" in the bullpen.

Fraser was working at the Consulate. The Ice Queen's replacement didn't seem nuts enough to be a Mountie, but I wasn't complaining. At least he didn't make Fraser stand statue duty. Which was good, because Fraser seemed tired these days. Tight around the mouth, eyes a little hollow, balanced stiff instead of solid. He had a right, after months of working hard to keep us alive up in the Northwest Areas. Only, he'd never really looked tired during the Quest. Only when we got back. That was bad.

The good news was, Fraser kept watching me. Watching me all the time. It gave me ideas. Not just the lights-out, in bed, 'Fraser's ass looked mighty fine in those jeans today' jerk-off type ideas. Those looks gave me actual 'maybe he's interested' ideas.

For about two weeks.

And then things started getting weird.

I'd invited Fraser over for dinner Tuesday night. He left Dief at the Consulate, and I was hoping that maybe, maybe tonight he'd go for it. We chowed down on some Thai food and kicked back on the sofa to watch the Cubs game. He kept glancing over, eyes darting to me and then back away, not letting me make eye contact. So during the 7th inning stretch I stretched, hummed 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame' along with the TV, and let my leg close those last few inches between us.

Fraser jumped up off the couch like I'd zapped him with a cattle prod. It was an entire conversation in body language. My leg said, "Hey buddy, wanna do the nasty?" And his whole body told me, "Not even if there was a million bucks and a supermodel thrown in to sweeten the deal." And … fuck. He could have just, oh, looked away, or said he had to pee, or something. That would've been the polite thing to do, right? The game started back up. I stared at the screen.

Out the corner of my eye, I saw Fraser start poking around my place. At first I figured he was just avoiding me, but, no, he was tossing the apartment. Flipping through my CDs, checking behind the stereo, looking in the fridge, going through my kitchen cabinets, inspecting my chili pepper lights. I was getting ready to block the doorway to my bedroom, because no way was I letting him find the porn collection under my bed. Then he got to my turtle tank. Fraser crouched down and looked into the tank.

Fraser and my turtle stared at each other. It was … a thing, a whole weird thing, going on right in front of me. If the wolf had been involved, I would've run over there to save Turtle. But I was pretty sure Fraser wasn't going to eat him.

After a minute, Fraser stood up, thanked me kindly for my hospitality, and took off.

The next day, things seemed almost back to normal. Fraser showed up at his usual time and I filled him in on the new case. Jose Santos had been a mid-level dealer for the Spanish Vicelords. Right up until somebody shot him in the face last night.

Maybe the homicide was drug-related, maybe it was personal, but the gunpowder burns told us the perp had made the shot from less than two feet away. I'd been on the phone with Macavoy over in Vice. He gave me a list of names of Santos's family and friends, mostly Spanish Vicelords, a few non-affiliated, and his rivals in the Aztec Souls.

These street gang types were hard-asses. They were used to cops getting in their faces, wouldn't tell us jack about shit. But with Fraser along, his whole politeness thing might throw them off enough that they'd let something slip.

Fraser was right there, walking through the crime scene with me, coming up with a plan of attack, like we always do. Usually when we work a case, Fraser's on, 110%. Today he was … I don't know, distant. Distracted. He didn't even lick anything. Probably nobody else would notice.

It's like when the timing starts to go on the GTO. I can hear the difference in her engine's purr, way before some mechanic could call it. And then I set aside a little quality time, tune her up, and she's good as new. But with Fraser, I didn't know how to fix this, get our duet up and running smooth again.

Thursday I tried to give Fraser a little space when he showed up, but it was hard. I mean, on the Quest, Fraser was in arm's reach 24-7. I still kind of missed that little half-snore he'd let out every few minutes when he slept. When Stella got pissed at me, sometimes it helped if I gave her some of that "breathing room." But Fraser didn't seem to notice one way or the other. He just kept right on being not all there, and the passenger seat of the GTO might as well have been a million miles away.

The only real conversation we had all day was this freaky long one about the turtle over lunch. And, see, I really didn't want to talk about the turtle, especially not now. I bought him right after the divorce came through. Wandered into a pet store looking for something that wouldn't hate my guts. Thought maybe I'd get a dog, but those puppies were just way too needy. And that's when the guy working there showed me Turtle. He was pretty mellow, and the really cool thing was, when something scared him, he'd pull in his arms, and legs, and head, and then close up his little turtle shell flaps, and there he'd stay, safe and sound, where nothing could get to him.

I told Fraser I got him 'cause turtles are cool. Then we wasted the rest of lunch on the proper care and feeding of box turtles, which I knew already and Fraser had been reading up on. Freak. I was starting to feel like the fat chick that only gets talked to by cute guys when they want to find out if her hottie roommate might be interested. Only, that would make Turtle the hot roommate, and that was just … wrong.

Back to work. I said, "I'm sorry for your loss. Take your time," to red-eyed women. With the hard-eyed gangstas I was all, "Look, I'm just trying to take down whoever offed Jose. Was he beefing with anybody?" Hostile faces blurred together as we worked our way down Macavoy's list.

Things had been pretty level lately between the Vicelords and Aztec Souls, but now there were a whole bunch of well armed 'bangers, some too young to shave, staring each other down in the streets of my city. Not good. Not good at all. We had to figure out who killed Santos, and put him away, before more bodies hit the concrete.

Dief kept a pit bull from taking a chunk outta my leg. Santos's sister was enough of a gossip that she'd even talk to cops; filled my ears with stories about Santos's way with the ladies while Fraser bounced her kid on his lap and whispered to him about turtles. I added six women, two angry boyfriends and a pissed-off father to my list. We managed to set-up a midnight meet with Santos's boss. I asked him, real polite, to keep a leash on his boys so we could catch the real killer, and started breathing again when we made it out of the alley alive.

By sunrise we were back at my place. We were close. I could feel it. We'd finally gotten one of Santos's friends to cough up the name of the chica that Santos had been with the night he was killed – Lizzy Esteban. We even had an address for her. I just needed to grab a quick shower, throw on some fresh clothes, guzzle some coffee, and pretend like I'd gotten some sleep in the last 24 hours.

I walked out of the bathroom, t-shirt sticking to my back where I hadn't quite dried enough, and found Fraser with his hand in my turtle tank.

"Fraser, what're you doing?"

Fraser whipped around with this guilty look on his face. "Ah, Ray." He stood at attention with his hands behind his back. Dief snatched up whatever he'd just dropped on the floor. "I just thought I'd see if your turtle might enjoy a bit of pemmican."

On the Quest, I'd had pemmican every day. Pemmican, oatmeal, coffee for me, tea for Fraser. That was breakfast. And it's not that it tasted good. It's not that I liked it. But it was ours. Our breakfast. I hadn't had any pemmican for weeks now, not since we'd got back. We'd skipped at least two meals today. And now I find out that Fraser had a secret stash of the stuff, and he wanted to share it with the turtle.

It was a stupid thing to get mad about. Wasn't like Fraser was trying to piss me off. So I did that counting thing Welsh kept telling me to try, walked to the fridge, and pulled out some mealworms for Fraser to feed the little guy. I held it together, put out a bowl of water for Dief and drank my coffee.

I talked my way through the case; trying to bounce stuff off of Fraser, figure out if there was something we'd missed. Only, Fraser wasn't bouncing anything back. He just kept dangling more squirming mealworms down into the tank for Turtle. It reminded me of that last month with Stella, when she was just going through the motions.

Then Fraser absently corrected me, "Exculpatory, Ray," and I lost it. Ripped into him.

"This case is important, Fraser! The Vicelords and Souls go to war, civilians are gonna get caught in the crossfire! I need your A-game, here, and you're … what, what are you doing? Partnering up with the turtle, I guess, 'cause you're sure not working the case with me."

I was ready for a fight, but Fraser just flushed and put the mealworms back in the fridge without a word. We drove over and banged on Lizzy's door until she woke up. At first she just wanted to slam the door in our faces; her boyfriend didn't know she'd been stepping out with Jose, and she wanted to keep it that way. Fraser switched on the charm, got her to admit that Jose's cousin, Carlos, had shown up, drunk, at the apartment. The two of them had been in the middle of a screaming fight when her cab showed up.

We got a warrant and searched Carlos's place. Fraser found blowback on a leather jacket and ID'd the guy's favorite restaurant by tasting sauce stains on the clothes in his laundry basket. We staked out the taqueria and caught Carlos as he headed in for lunch. Once we got him in the interrogation room, I yelled and paced and pushed. Fraser smiled and nodded like he knew just where the guy was coming from, like he really wanted to help. Carlos confessed in under an hour.

Fraser took off before I'd even started the paperwork. I didn't see him all weekend. He didn't come into the precinct on Monday.

Tuesday afternoon I dropped by the Consulate. Turnbull's replacement, Ellens, was plenty nuts enough to meet Mountie standards. He told me Fraser was unavailable, and that he really couldn't divulge anything more than that to an American. I pulled the partner card, told him if I didn't get in touch with Fraser one of our busts might fall through. Ellens caved, told me that Fraser had taken a few days of leave and headed up to Ottawa to discuss his next posting. "And I'd think, given how close the two of you are, he might have mentioned it," he sneered. Yeah, you'd think.

That night I went home and fed strawberries to a turtle who glared at me between nibbles, like he was pissed I'd scared off his new best friend.

I had to face facts. Fraser was leaving. What's dark, then bright, cold and clean, with snow all over? Canada. I'd been kind of surprised that he came back at all, after seeing how much he liked it up there. And now I'd fucked everything up, between that stupid stretch move, like a kid on a first date at the movies, and then yelling at him, telling him he wasn't doing his job right, just 'cause I was jealous of my own goddamned turtle. So, he was going back.

Wednesday morning I barely dragged myself out of bed. Fraser didn't show up. Even the job was starting to suck. Bad hours, bad pay, bad guys. You work your ass off to put somebody dangerous away behind bars, and six hours later they've made bail and are back out on the streets. You get a brick of H off the streets, and the junkies go two blocks further down the street to get their fix. The witnesses lied. Lizzy wouldn't press charges against her boyfriend, even after he put her in the hospital. The perp's mom called me a racist piece of shit. It was all bad. I left the station the second my shift was over, before Frannie could ask me about Fraser again.

I might be dumb, but I'm not stupid. Hit me in the head enough times with a two-by-four, and I'll get the picture. Stella had to box up my shit and leave it in the hall before I understood she actually wanted me gone. Fraser deciding 3,000 miles was just about enough personal space should do the trick.

I plodded up the stairs to my apartment, got out my keys. Something was hinky … the door was unlocked. Adrenaline spiked through me, making everything sharp and clear. I moved up close to the door and listened. A quiet, scraping sound. Someone was inside.

I took a deep breath, drew my weapon, flattened against the wall, and slammed open the door. "Chicago PD, freeze!"

Dief snarled at me from over the back of the couch, and then settled back down with a disgusted look. I closed the door behind me, walked over to the couch, and saw Fraser leaning against my turtle tank. "Fraser?"

He turned around slowly. Glad as I was to see him, the guy looked like hell. He had a five o'clock shadow, which on Fraser meant he hadn't shaved for days. Dark circles under his eyes, even his hair looked kind of messy.

"I tried, Ray. I really tried. There is just no way that this species can possibly survive in Northern Canada."

This was a whole new level of freakishness. I holstered my gun.

"An outside enclosure is out of the question, naturally," he continued. "But even indoors, Terrapene carolina have such a limited temperature range, and that strict diurnal schedule… the UVB lights would need to be special ordered, and any generator failure could be fatal. Fresh produce and live insects are difficult to procure during the winter months, and he simply won't accept any of these substitutes," Fraser said miserably, gesturing at a bunch of weird cans and jars sitting on the table.

Fucking nuts. "Let me get this straight. You want to bring my turtle back with you to Canada?"

Fraser tilted his head, puzzled. "Well … not as such, Ray. I wanted to invite you to return to Canada with me, but I can't provide adequate facilities for your animal companion, and so …"

Don't remember closing the distance between us, but I was wrapped around Fraser in a full-body hug. He was shaking, and so was I. "Okay," I said, voice muffled by Fraser's shoulder. "We're okay." I held him until the shaking turned into shivers, and then those disappeared. I felt Fraser's chest rise and fall in a deep, quiet sigh.

I lifted up my head until I was looking him straight in the eye. "Fraser, the turtle can go live with Frannie. I think he's sweet on her anyway." Fraser nodded, tongue flicking nervously over his lower lip.

"All right, that's settled." I backed off of Fraser, which took a minute, tight as he was holding on. Then I picked up the pad and pen by the phone and sat down at the kitchen table to make a list. Dief hopped off the couch and curled up on top of my feet.

"I'm gonna call Welsh and my landlady, then head down to the HR Department, get that paperwork rolling. There are some boxes in the closet, if you want to start packing up the kitchen. Then, oh, whatever you want, but don't throw away any of my clothes, no matter how raggedy, don't look under the bed until I get back, and don't pack the stereo or my music. Those get boxed up last, so we can listen to tunes while we're getting ready, right?"

I finally dared to look up. The wide-open smile on Fraser's face reminded me of blue skies over clean snow. "That sounds like a wonderful plan, Ray."

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

secretlybronte.livejournal.com

Omg, omg, omg! I made an actual, honest-to-God squealing noise here. Let us take a moment here to speak of the ways in which you rocked this challenge. First, we have Ray, who is a perfectly crafted mix of insecurity and confusion-induced anger and vulnerability and just like the show competence as a detective. Then, we have Fraser, who is wonderfully nutball-ish in all the best and most endearing ways--ten steps ahead of everyone else in entirely the wrong direction. Thirdly, we have the plot, which I can only gaze at adoringly. I want to be able to do this. It's funny and sweet and it has a twist that (okay, maybe I'm a little dim) I didn't see coming. For as short as it is, this is just amazingly well-structured and well-written. This is wonderful and I can't wait to read it again in a little bit.

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Quadruped Challenge, by keerawa

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