TEAM ANGST: Day 1, "Into A Far Country"
Oct. 24th, 2007 01:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sage posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
ds_flashfictionTitle: Into A Far Country
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
keerawa
Team: Angst
Prompt: "I don't know why you're so upset."
Pairing(s): F/K
Length: 9000 words
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: Thanks to my betassecretlybronte and nos4a2no9, and to isicolo for the last-minute assist.
Summary: It was like the streets had swallowed Fraser up without leaving a ripple.
Once you've read the story, please take a moment to vote in the poll below. Ratings go from 1 (low) to 9 (high), so all you need to do is enter a single number in that range into each text entry box. You'll be able to see the Prompt and Team (Genre) information in the header above.
More details about the voting procedure can be found here.
**
The bed moved, and the sudden feeling of cool air along his front woke Ray up from his nap. He was sweaty, sticky, limbs loose and head hazy. Ray held himself still. With his eyes closed, he listened to the quiet rustling and jingling of Fraser getting dressed. As the door clicked closed behind him, Ray pulled a pillow into the empty curve of his body and reminded himself that this thing with Fraser was supposed to be fun.
~
The call came in the next morning as he was blow-drying his hair. "Vecchio," Ray grumbled into the phone. He hadn't had his coffee yet.
"Detective?" It was Turnbull. The stress in his voice woke Ray up better than a whole pot of coffee. "Is Constable Fraser there?"
"Nope." Ray was careful to sound casual, relaxed, as though the question didn't worry him. Fraser hadn't spent the night since they'd gone past just partners. It was too risky.
There was a funny scratching sound at the door.
"Oh," Turnbull trailed off. "Oh no, oh no, oh no …"
"Turnbull! Slow down, big guy! What's wrong? Fraser's not at the Consulate?"
"No. He's … No." Turnbull took a shuddering breath. "I arrived at 7am to find the Consulate still dark and locked. I checked Constable Fraser's office. His cot was unmade." Ray's heart started to beat faster. "And his window was smashed open."
Something big slammed into Ray's door.
"Hold on, Turnbull, I'll call you right back."
Ray opened the door to find Diefenbaker, squinting through blood-matted fur, getting ready to throw himself at the door again. "Fuck." Ray took a second to pull himself together. He had to be calm. It was just like interviewing any freaked-out witness.
Ray squatted down and spoke slowly. "Dief, you don't look so hot. I'll drive you to the vet, okay?"
Diefenbaker's head went down as he took a step backwards, lips pulled back to show his teeth in a silent snarl. It made him look less like a dog, more like the kind of thing that howled for your blood in the night.
"I get it, I get it, no vet. Wanna come in?"
Dief shook himself all over. Then he limped past Ray and in through the door, his right leg folded up out of the way. Ray followed him in and closed the door.
His first impulse was to offer the half-wolf a cup of coffee. Instead he got out his first aid kit and the mixing bowl Dief usually used, filled the bowl up with cold water from the sink, and set it down next to him. Diefenbaker leaned down awkwardly and took a big, long, messy drink while Ray got down on the floor next to him and wondered what the hell had happened to Fraser.
"So, Dief," Ray said cautiously when he finally looked up. "Mind if I check out your foot?"
Diefenbaker solemnly held out his paw. Ray reached out and turned it, gently prodding the bloody underside. Diefenbaker flinched. There was a piece of glass embedded in one of the pads, driven in deep. Suddenly Ray knew what had happened to Fraser's window.
"You bust out of the Consulate?"
Diefenbaker's ears flicked forwards.
If that was an answer, Ray didn't understand it.
Diefenbaker flattened his body to the floor, quivering with pain as Ray pulled the glass shard out and bandaged up the paw as best he could. He got a warm, wet paper towel and cleaned the blood off of Dief's face. It came from a cut across his ear, wide but shallow.
"I think that's the best I can do for now," Ray told him.
Diefenbaker stood up. He put a bit of weight on his bandaged paw, and then held it out in front of him as he walked to the door and looked back over his shoulder at Ray.
"Okay, I get it. Fraser's down the well. You know where he is?"
Diefenbaker ostentatiously sniffed Ray's boots.
"Right, right, you can track him."
Ray took a quick inventory. Badge, gun, extra clip, cuffs, keys, cell phone. Vest in the trunk of the car if he needed it. Outside, Ray opened the GTO's door for Dief, but the wolf hung back, wouldn't jump in. Ray tried to argue, but Diefenbaker just turned his back and loped away down the sidewalk. Even on three legs, Dief was fast. Ray locked the car up and had to jog to catch up with him.
Ray called Turnbull from his cell phone to let him know that Dief had turned up. Turnbull confirmed that the window in Fraser's office had been broken from the inside. Then Ray dialed the lieutenant to let him know he wouldn't be in this morning; he had a situation to investigate.
"Is the Mountie involved?" Welsh asked.
"Yeah, looks like it," Ray admitted.
"Try to keep property damage to a minimum, Vecchio. I'll expect a full report this afternoon."
It was a gray morning, clouds hanging heavy over the city, trapping in the noise and fumes of the morning traffic as Ray and Dief walked under rusting El tracks and past doorways filled with sleeping men. Dief was smarter than half the sworn officers in the CPD, Ray told himself. They'd find Fraser soon and get him out of whatever mess he was in, no problem.
They walked north, then west. Diefenbaker was tracking now, nose to the ground, occasionally yipping at Ray to keep up. As they turned onto West Harrison there was a low rumble of thunder. Ray realized they were following one of the possible routes from the Canadian Consulate to the station. Had Fraser been trying to get to the 2-7 last night? If so, why? And why'd he leave Diefenbaker behind?
Diefenbaker stopped dead. He backtracked half a block and then ducked into a familiar alleyway. Ray followed him. Diefenbaker started barking at something on the ground. Too small to be a body, Ray told himself.
It was Fraser's Stetson, sitting on top of a neatly folded pile of clothes. Leather jacket, jeans, shirt, underwear, socks tucked into a pair of hiking boots. The back of Ray's neck prickled. He'd seen suicides leave behind tidy little piles like that.
Ray ran a hand through his hair. "He must have brought some other clothes to change into," he muttered. "But why … Dief! Where'd he go next?"
Diefenbaker moved down the alley, sniffing from side to side. Then he moved back to the pile of clothes and walked slowly back to the entrance of the alleyway, searching for Fraser's trail. Must've been nothing to find, because after a couple of minutes he gave up, sat down next to Ray, and leaned against his legs.
"No dice, huh? Not your fault." Ray looked up, but the fire escapes were way down the other end of the alley. "He must have gotten into a car. Or … been forced into one." Ray knew a car could fit into this alley. He was starting to get a bad, bad feeling.
Ray dialed Welsh on his cell phone. "Lieutenant? I think maybe Fraser's been abducted."
There was a moment of quiet static. "We have a possible crime scene?"
"Alleyway on the south side of West Harrison, half-way between South Jefferson and South Clinton."
"I'll have dispatch send Ramirez and Chase over right now, and then more men as the day shift clocks in. Forensics will have a team there within the hour. Secure the perimeter, detective."
"You got it." Welsh hung up the phone.
Ray put his cell phone away. He moved to where the alleyway opened up onto the street. He couldn't tell Welsh that this wasn't some random alley. Ray knew this place. He didn't think he'd ever forget it.
It had happened a few months ago, after they closed the Kelly robbery case. Fraser's friend Quinn from up north had almost gotten Fraser killed, and Ray'd had to pull a pretty crazy stunt to save him. Steve McQueen would've been proud.
Ray had been driving Fraser home from the 2-7 in his GTO. He finally had his parents back, and his car, and Fraser was okay. Every time Ray glanced over, Fraser was staring at him. Fraser was safe. Ray knew it was stupid, but Fraser wouldn't stop looking at him, and he just couldn't wait any more. When he spotted a busted streetlight over the dark alleyway on West Harrison, Ray pulled the car in and turned off the engine.
"Ray, what …"
Fraser's lips were soft under his. Ray'd thought Fraser might be mad about getting jumped on all of a sudden, or maybe shy. But Fraser wasn't mad, and he wasn't shy. Fraser pushed back against him, crawled over the gearshift until he was practically in Ray's lap, and kissed him like it was going out of style.
Fraser's hands tilted Ray's head, and his tongue pushed into Ray's mouth. Fraser was desperate, starving for it, moaning into his mouth. Like he needed everything Ray had to give, and more. It was incredible.
If a gunshot were to take Ray out this second, that was the memory he wanted to bring with him. A drop of water slid down Ray's cheek. He scrubbed at it, annoyed, because he wasn't crying. He was not.
No, he wasn't. Rain fell from the sky, and the few drops turned into a downpour in the time it took Ray to realize what was going on. Shit, the crime scene! Fingerprints, hair, fibers, DNA, trace evidence, everything that gave the PD a leg up when it came to solving a crime – all of it would get washed away. And he didn't have a tarp; it was in the trunk of his car. He didn't have anything that could stop it.
Ray took off his jacket, threw it over the pile of Fraser's clothes, and stood shivering in the rain.
~~
A few hours later Ray was at his desk, drinking a really bad cup of coffee, and wearing the extra set of clothes he kept in his locker ever since he had started working with Fraser. Diefenbaker was back from the vet with a professional bandage on his paw and a few stitches in his ear.
Ray was busy. He’d spent most of the morning and afternoon running down leads and cross-referencing lists of likely suspects. And the list of people who had reason to snatch Fraser off the streets was a long one.
The first few hours of any investigation were important, but in a kidnapping case, timing was everything. Minutes could mean the difference between bringing the victim home and prosecuting his mur …
Ray grabbed his coat off the back of his chair and put it on. It was freezing in here.
Ray wasn't worried. Not really. There was no need. Bad guys had grabbed Fraser so many times he probably had a merit badge in escape. So all they had to do was rescue him before he, oh, made friends with the rats and convinced them to chew through his ropes or something, and then wandered into the precinct with a snide remark. Yeah. That'd be just like him. Ray held his coffee cup in cold, shaky hands.
"Vecchio!" Welsh called from his office door.
Ray walked into the office and closed the door behind him.
"Any progress?" Welsh asked.
"Not much. No witnesses so far, but officers are still out canvassing. There's been no contact from the kidnappers. We know that something must've woken Fraser up in the middle of the night, but Thatcher released the Consulate phone records, and there were no incoming or outgoing calls after 5pm. Fraser doesn't have a cell phone," Ray reminded him. "Turnbull's checking for prints that don't belong in Fraser's office."
"Constable Turnbull?" Welsh asked dubiously.
"Yeah, Thatcher won't let any CPD personnel in the front door, but she says Turnbull's real good at lifting prints." Actually, she'd said something about his penchant for forensic housecleaning, but Ray didn't want to worry Welsh with that.
"I had Frannie print out a list of all the cons Fraser sent to prison who were recently paroled, but most of them are small time. Thatcher's going to fax over a list from north of the border."
"Have you considered personal motivations?"
"Well, sure, but it's not like Fraser has enemies. Aside from the bad guys, that is. He barely even has a personal life." Except for Ray.
Welsh grunted. "Have you pulled the Metcalf file yet?"
Ray thought back to his original briefing. "Metcalf? Open case file. Alaskan bank robber chick. That the one where Vec, uh, I shot Fraser, right?"
Welsh nodded. "Let's just say that the summary report is a masterpiece of its genre. Read the entire file. Speak to Detective Huey or myself if you have any questions."
Ray had Frannie pull the Metcalf file up from the basement. He read it cover to cover. Then he dragged Detective Huey into Interrogation Room One.
"What gives, Vecchio?" Huey said, straightening his suit jacket.
Ray pointed to a chair. Huey sat.
"The Metcalf case. Tell me about it."
Huey looked around the room. "Frannie warned me you'd pulled that file. What do you want to know?"
"Victoria Metcalf. Did Fraser really …" He couldn't say it.
"Yeah. Yeah, Fraser skipped Vecchio's party to spend the night with her, called in sick to work. When he found out that she'd set him up, shot his wolf, he looked …" Huey blew out through his lips in a soundless whistle. "Any other cop, I figure he would've crawled into a bottle for a month or two. Fraser, he tried to help us catch her. But the Mountie had it bad for that woman."
When they'd had the sexual histories talk, Fraser'd said, "There was one woman, yes. It ended badly." And now Ray found out that this, this was the woman? And 'ended badly' was Canadian for almost getting sent to prison by the woman he loved and then getting shot in the back by his best friend?
"Look, Vecchio, if Metcalf drove up and told Fraser to take off his clothes and get in the car with her … he might've done it. I mean, probably she'd have to hold a gun on him. But I don't think he'd fight that hard."
"Thanks, Huey, that's a big help." Huey walked out of the room.
Ray sat down in the seat. He could imagine it, the lady who even looked gorgeous in mug shots pulling up in a car, holding a gun on Fraser. She gave a quiet command, the dare sparkling in her eyes. Ray pictured Fraser stripping down piece by piece, watching her face instead of the weapon. Victoria steps away from the car, pacing a tight circle around Fraser to inspect him. Fraser is facing forwards, breath coming faster as she steps out of view. As Victoria presses the muzzle of the pistol against his spine, Fraser shivers and closes his eyes.
Fraser had kept his eyes closed, head back against the headrest, for the entire drive back to Ray's place after that first kiss. When they reached his apartment, Ray was so eager he could barely get his key in the lock. He really, really wanted another kiss. But it turned out Fraser wanted to talk.
Seemed there were risks to becoming physically involved. And Ray got that. He knew that if Detective Vecchio and his Mountie partner started flying a rainbow flag, some of Vecchio's pals from the old neighborhood would wonder why. And the real Vecchio might end up in a hole in the Vegas desert. Ray understood that.
"So long as we're cautious, there's no reason we shouldn't be able to enjoy our partnership on an additional level," Fraser'd said, with a funny, tense little smile.
Ray had said yes. It's not like he'd been expecting dinner and dancing. Just, maybe, someone to be with. Someone who needed him. What Ray got was a casual fuck a few times a week.
So he screwed around with Luanne Russell, partly to make Fraser jealous, and partly because, hey, it wasn't like Fraser was offering him a white picket fence. And Fraser let Lady Shoes into his red pajamas and gave her a 'delightful' kiss.
They were still partners. Still buddies. And the sex, man, the sex was great. Everything was good, really. It was just so far from what that first kiss had promised that sometimes Ray laid awake in bed at night, wanting things he couldn't have.
So maybe Fraser was still carrying a torch for Metcalf. Or maybe she'd hurt him so bad that casual was all he had left in him. Didn't really matter.
What mattered was finding Fraser. And for that, he had to get back to work. Back to work, he told his legs. And after a few times, they started moving. He stood up, walked back to his desk, and left a message for his pal Lynch over at the FBI to see if they had anything on Victoria Metcalf.
Ray contacted three snitches that knew him as Vecchio, and two that remembered him as Kowalski. It was risky, breaking undercover protocol like that, but he didn't give a fuck. Ray leaned hard. Big threats, big promises. Nothing. Not a whisper, a hint, a knowing smile or a too-eager denial. It was like the streets had swallowed Fraser up without leaving a ripple.
~~~
Ray woke from a nightmare where Fraser was calling out his name, his voice getting weaker and weaker. Ray gasped, a metallic taste of fear in his mouth. Diefenbaker's face was only an inch or two away.
"Jesus, Dief, your breath stinks!" Dief stared at him. "What, you need to go out? Fine, just give me a second here."
Ray lay his head back down on the pillow. The bed was icy cold, but Fraser's voice was still echoing in his head …
Diefenbaker barked in his ear.
"Fuck! Okay, I get the message, I'm getting up."
As Ray struggled into yesterday's jeans he looked at the clock. 4:31 a.m. Great. "Might as well head into the station, see if Lynch faxed anything overnight. Hey, Dief, think you can cross your legs long enough for me to grab a shower?" Dief didn't answer, so Ray decided not to risk it.
By lunchtime, Ray was getting pissed off. He had nothing. Nada. The FBI hadn't gotten a whiff of Victoria since she left Chicago. Turnbull hadn't found any weird prints at the Consulate. He'd read every one of the files Thatcher had sent over, and none of the perps seemed like they'd travel from North Bumfuck, Canada all the way to Chicago to kidnap the Mountie that brought them in.
There was a local mob boss by the name of Zuko that got Ray's cop senses tingling as he looked through Vecchio's old case files. Normally the Chicago families didn't mess with cops. It was bad for business. But this guy'd had some run-ins with Vecchio and Fraser before. Last go-round one of Zuko's lieutenants had tried to kill Vecchio with a car bomb, and took out Huey's old partner instead. Zuko's sister got caught in the crossfire. Could be that Zuko had taken it personally, and decided to make some kind of statement by grabbing Fraser.
Ray sent in a request over to the 2-4 for fresh information on Zuko, since they were covering his neighborhood after last year's redistricting. He asked Frannie for anything she could dig up on Zuko's sister. If Fraser'd been snatched on her birthday, or something, that'd mean he was on the right track.
Ray ripped through the Zuko file again and came up with the name of an older guy in Zuko's organization that Fraser'd described as, "Most helpful." Charlie DeLuca wasn't active anymore, but he might still be clued in and willing to talk.
Ray sent Huey and Dewey out to pick up DeLuca. He drank two cups of coffee, called up all of his snitches to see if they had anything. Nothing. Frannie handed him a sheet with basic stats on Irene Zuko. Nothing.
Ray wandered down to holding. Some drunk asshole got a hand free on his way to a hearing, took a swing at Officer Carmichael. Ray almost put the guy through the wall before Carmichael got the restraints back on.
Finally Huey and Dewey showed up with DeLuca. They walked him into Interrogation Room Two. Ray slipped into the observation room to watch.
DeLuca was one tough old bastard. He sat down in the Interrogation Room chair like it was a throne. Huey and Dewey were out of their depth. They kept soft-pedaling the guy like he was somebody's sweet old grandpa, not a made man with a rap sheet going back four decades.
Ray listened to DeLuca's spiel with half an ear, focusing on body language and the guy's eyes. DeLuca had hard eyes. The kind that could do anything without blinking. The kind that could hold a gun on a naked man, force him into a car, and drive him out to the middle of nowhere.
Ray threw open the door to the Interrogation Room. "Enough of this crap. You're talking to me, DeLuca."
Dewey swung around. "What the fuck, Vec —"
Huey stepped on his foot and cut him off. "Tom. Come on."
The two of them left the room.
Ray slammed the door behind them and stalked over to DeLuca.
DeLuca's eyes flicked up and down him. His lips curved upwards, like something was fucking funny. "And who might you be?" he asked.
Ray felt the muscles in his shoulders tense up as he moved around behind DeLuca. "I'm a friend of Fraser's. And you're gonna tell me where to find him."
DeLuca threw his hands open and sat back in his chair. "Like I told the other detectives, I wish I could help you. The Mountie was a good man."
Ray's hands slammed onto the chair back. He leaned down and snarled in DeLuca's ear, "You saying he's dead?"
"Detective!" a voice snapped. Lieutenant Welsh was framed in the door. "My office. Now."
Ray pushed off the chair and followed him out of the Interrogation Room, turning around for one last glare at DeLuca, who was sitting very still in his chair. Huey was standing outside, not looking at him.
Welsh was waiting for Ray in his office. He closed the door and the blinds and nodded towards the chair in front of his desk. Ray shook his head no. He leaned against the door, arms crossed.
Welsh sat down. "So. Why don't you explain to me what you thought you were doing in there."
Ray shrugged. "I was questioning DeLuca."
"Ah yes. The man who has known Ray Vecchio since childhood. I see. And you felt the man who came in voluntarily to make a statement might suddenly recall additional information if you attacked him from behind?"
"Hey, Huey and Dewey couldn't get him to say word one!"
Nobody said anything. Ray's leg started jittering. He made it stop. "I wasn't really gonna hurt him. I do that kind of thing all the time."
"No," Welsh contradicted him, "if you habitually interfered with investigations, endangered your own cover, and risked the lives of two of my men, I'd have taken your badge and gun a long time ago."
The coffee sloshed around in Ray's stomach.
Welsh heaved a sigh and stood up. "You're a mess, Vecchio. Go home. Eat. Shave. Get some sleep. Get your head screwed on right. I don't want to see you until noon tomorrow. Convince me you can follow the rules, and I'll put you back on the case then."
Ray shook his head. "You can't do this, Lieu. Fraser's out there somewhere, and —"
"I'll call if we find anything," Welsh interrupted, voice heavy with sympathy. He started to say something, cleared his throat, and started again. "Now get out of here before I make it an official administrative leave."
"Right. Okay. I'm going." Ray drifted out of Welsh's office and back to his desk. He picked up his coat. Dief shuffled out from under the desk.
Dewey spoke up as Ray walked past his desk. "Look, I'm sorry about that, in there."
That? Oh, yeah. Almost calling him Vecchio in front of DeLuca was a monumental fuck-up. Ray seemed to have run out of angry. That was a little worrying.
Dewey was giving him a funny look. "You okay? Here, want half my sandwich?" He pushed a greasy pastrami on rye across the desk.
"Nah, I'm good. Thanks anyway."
"Dewey! Get in here," Welsh yelled from his office.
Dewey plodded off. It was good that someone was going to yell at him. Ray wandered out to the parking lot. Diefenbaker jumped into the car, excited to get going. Ray got into the driver's seat and turned around to face the wolf.
"Look, we're not on the job. I screwed up, and Welsh took me off the case. Just until tomorrow, okay?"
Diefenbaker moaned low in his throat.
"Fuck, I wish I could speak wolf. Bet you know exactly who grabbed Fraser."
Figured that he couldn't find Fraser without Fraser here to translate. Maybe they could communicate without him?
"Dief, let's try this. You ready?"
Diefenbaker listened, ears forward.
"Did you smell anybody else in the alleyway besides Fraser? Bark once for yes, twice for no."
Dief stared at him for a few seconds, and then laid down on the back seat and started licking his balls. Ray got that message loud and clear. But there had to be some way.
Wait. Wait. There was that guy they brought in a few weeks ago, that voodoo guy who stole the GTO. Laferette. Seemed like he understood Dief. If Ray could get him to translate, maybe he could figure out what'd happened to Fraser.
~~~~
Ray couldn't ask Frannie to look up Laferette's street address, so he ended up driving around Bronzeville looking for the right building. It wasn't a good neighborhood. Not as bad as Cabrini in the old days, when cops would only travel in heavily armed groups. But bad enough. Officially, police response time was five minutes anywhere in Chicago. Unofficially, it could take twelve minutes or more for cops to respond to a call on Dearborn.
Ray started feeling less like a flattened cardboard box as he drove along the back streets. He couldn't believe Welsh had told him he'd have to follow the rules to get back on the case. He got the job done, but not by following rules. Not even Fraser's. And Fraser had a lot of weird-ass rules. He didn't come out with them upfront. Ray had to figure them out by trial and fuck-up. Ray could treat Fraser like his own personal monkey bars; do anything to or with him in bed. But they couldn't talk about any of it. And asking Fraser to stay the night was a sure-fire way to get rid of him.
Ray'd tried it a few times since he figured that one out. "Hey, Fraser, you don't have to be back at the Consulate until eleven. Want to —" Like clockwork, Fraser'd come up with some weak excuse and be out the door. There was a funny, bitter satisfaction to it. Like wiggling a loose tooth with your tongue, knowing it'd come out soon enough whether you played with it or left it alone.
There. Laferette's building was in better shape than the others in the area. No drug dealers on the corner. The broken glass had been swept off the sidewalks, replaced with hopscotch squares and a weird circular pattern chalked in since yesterday's storm. Ray carefully parked the GTO right out in front, and promised it that he'd be back as soon as he could.
Ray walked up the front steps and into the building. It smelled like funky spices and clove cigarettes. He checked the mailboxes. Laferette was up on the third floor, apartment 309. Ray started walking up the narrow stairway.
The first time they'd come here, Ray had been seriously pissed off. The night before, Ray had made the mistake of moaning "Ben" in bed. Fraser had been out and up, dressed and gone so fast that Ray'd checked himself for friction burns. The next morning Fraser pretended like nothing had happened, which was just fucked up. Then the GTO was stolen. They had their first kiss in that car, and to have it disappear at the same time he realized he wasn't even allowed to call Fraser by his first name … it felt like a bad sign.
At least he'd gotten the car back.
Ray paused outside of number 309. He had nothing on Laferette, no pressure to apply. So he'd just have to ask real nice. Like Fraser would.
He knocked. Mrs. Laferette opened the door. Diefenbaker wagged his tail.
"Hi ma'am, remember me? Detective Ray Vecchio?"
The woman eyed him warily before bending down to greet Diefenbaker.
Ray stretched his lips into a smile. "Could we maybe come in?"
"What is it you want?" she asked from the floor where Dief was licking her hands.
"Just to talk to your husband. I, um, I need his help."
She sighed and stood up, wiping her hands on her skirt. "All right then, come in."
Laferette and his daughter were sitting at the kitchen table, eating. Diefenbaker practically threw himself at Laferette with eager little whines and yips. The guy looked down and seemed to be listening.
"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your dinner," Ray said. "You want me to come back later?"
"That won't be necessary. I know a desperate man when I see one." Laferette stood up, whispered something to the girl that made her nod solemnly, and then beckoned Ray into the bedroom. When the door was closed behind them he turned.
"So, detective, what is this about?"
Ray took a deep breath and cut to the chase. "Fraser's disappeared."
"Interesting choice of words. And you want me to find him for you?" Ray shook his head no. Laferette's voodoo thing kind of creeped him out.
"Nah, I just need somebody who can translate wolf. Dief here's my only witness."
Laferette looked down at Diefenbaker. "Is there anything you want me to tell him?"
Diefenbaker replied with a short bark and a rumbling growl. Laferette nodded.
"The wolf says that something had been stalking your Constable in his dreams. And that the same thing came to you last night." Laferette's eyes were bright.
"Well, that's a big help," Ray muttered.
Was Laferette just fucking with him? No, Dief would let him know if the guy was blowing smoke up his ass.
"Yes, I should think it is. You'll need protection —"
"I don't need any damn protection! I need to find Fraser! And why doesn't this dream-stalking thing surprise you? That just a normal, everyday kind of thing where you come from?"
"Not normal, no. But the Constable is gifted. With the proper training, he could have been a houngan, a shaman, many things," Laferette said.
"What, you think Fraser got kidnapped by some magical-aid society for remedial classes?" This was total bullshit.
Laferette's lips thinned. "I am saying that there are dozens of ways for the human will to bend reality. Magic, prayer, wanga, the power of positive thinking. But your Constable doesn't know his own strength, and he tends to punch a hole right through reality."
Ray snorted.
"Haven't you noticed that strange things just seem to happen around the Constable?"
Copy-cat performance arsonists, old ladies shooting their husband's coffins, geriatric Russian spies, automatic weapons hidden in crates of rubber duckies, dead guys in the walls, ghost pirate ships, millionaire pretzel vendors, dead not-dead voodoo priests, and a deaf half-wolf who could read lips in three languages.
"Nope," Ray said.
"Really?" Laferette asked dryly. "Well. His abilities may have attracted something from the other side."
"You mean something," Ray cleared his throat, "something evil's got Fraser?"
Laferette shrugged. "Is a hungry tiger evil, when it takes what it needs?"
"If what it needs is my partner, yeah!"
"Then I suppose, by your definition, the answer is yes."
Ray tasted blood. He'd bitten his lip. He was a cop. He had a gun, a badge, a city full of boys in blue at his back. But if some thing had taken Fraser, none of that was going to do him any good.
"Look, Laferette, I'm a little out of my league here. Is there anything you can do, to find him, help get him back?"
Laferette squinted at him. "Possibly. You and the Constable, you are close, yes?"
"Yeah. Yeah, we're close." Way closer than they were supposed to be, and nowhere near as close as Ray wanted them to be.
Laferette closed his eyes and ran his hands around the outside of Ray's body, an inch or two above his skin. Ray shivered.
Laferette opened his eyes. Ray could see the bad news in them.
"No. Sometimes, when two people are tightly bonded together, there is a connection that I can trace. It's there, between you and the Constable, but not strong enough for me to follow back to him. I'm sorry."
"Right. Well, thanks anyway." Ray opened the bedroom door and walked through the kitchen, trying to get out of the apartment. This was his fault. If he'd just pushed a little harder, gotten Fraser to open up more, maybe stay over one goddamned time and spend a night in his arms. Maybe then they would've been connected enough for Laferette to find Fraser.
"Detective," Laferette called after him. "He may not realize it, but I'm sure that the Constable has power enough to return on his own, should he truly desire it."
Ray nearly ran down the hallway to get away. Dief scampered after him.
~~~~~
Ray sat on his couch, not watching an infomercial. He'd spent a couple of hours trying to convince himself that Laferette was nuts, that Fraser'd just been snatched by Metcalf or Zuko or some other plain old bad guy. It hadn't worked. Weird shit was always, always happening around Fraser. And Ray'd had some funny dreams last night.
So something had Fraser. Ray didn't even know what it was. Laferette had compared the thing to a tiger. Not like Ray had any idea how to hunt a tiger … Hold on. During a stakeout, Ray'd begged for something that wasn't an Inuit story. And Fraser'd told him about a stakeout some hunters in India ran. They'd tie a goat to the base of a tree, climb the tree with their rifles, and then, when the tiger showed up in the middle of the night to eat the goat, bang!
Cops have their own version. When there's a serial offender they can't catch any other way, the police take one of their own and dress him or her up to look like the perp's perfect victim. Cute little blond, vulnerable old man, drunk frat boy, whatever. Then the 'victim' trawls all the perp's favorite hunting spots until the bad guy makes his move.
Ray turned off the TV and got ready for bed. He had to get this thing to jump him in his sleep. Dief said he was being stalked, so he must fit its profile. But how could he make sure it'd go for him tonight? Fresh sheets? Silk boxers? Ray noticed the dream catcher Fraser'd given him last year, tacked up over the bed.
Right. Ray took the dream catcher down and stuck it in his sock drawer. Diefenbaker whined.
"What, you got a better idea?" Dief huffed out his breath, circled three times, and lay down at the foot of the bed. "Didn't think so."
~~~~~~
Ray followed Fraser's trail through a snowfield. It was night, but the full moon hung over his shoulder, filling each of Fraser's boot prints with light, highlighting irregular speckles of dark-colored ice. The snow made a soft crunch with each step. It wasn't cold. Every now and then he heard Fraser's voice calling from up ahead.
The snow tapered off, revealing a huge slab of naked rock that stretched as far as Ray could see. No boot prints to follow. Ray stood at the edge of the stone, trying to figure out which way to go.
"Go on, a child could follow that blood trail," someone nagged. An old guy was standing next to Ray, wearing warm clothes and a funny hat.
"Blood?" Ray bent down and touched one of the specks of dark ice. It melted onto his finger, smeared. It didn't look red. Blood never did, in the dark. Ray looked up. "Is Fraser hurt?"
The old man stared at him like he was an idiot. "For some time now. Are you going to follow it?"
Ray's paranoia kicked in with a jolt. Because it seemed like everything, not just the old guy, but the snow, the dark sky, the moon, every drop of Fraser's blood, was waiting for his answer. And he didn't know what the bad thing that took Fraser looked like, did he? It might even look like an old guy in a funny hat.
"Why should I?" he challenged.
"Why?" the old guy said, standing straight and tall. "Because Benton's in danger, and you are his partner." It sounded like the start of a big speech, but Fraser's distant call cut it short.
Raaaay, where are you? Fraser sounded strange. Relaxed, almost drunk, playful, like this was some game of hide-and-seek. Ray wanted to see the look on his face that went with that voice.
The guy swung around at the sound, shook his head frantically, turned back. "Because he sounds like he's losing himself! And I ... I can't save him."
"But I can?"
The man slumped, looked down at the snow. "I don't know," he muttered. "But you have to try. I can sense the creature that has him. It's a terrible threat. To Benton, and to you."
That sounded honest, at least.
Ray set off across the rocky ground, using the frozen drops of blood as a guide. When he glanced back, the man was gone. Ray walked and walked. His legs should have been getting tired, but they weren't. Eventually he came to a giant wall of ice, blue in the moonlight. Fraser's blood trail disappeared into a wide black crack that ran straight up the wall, a few feet across. Ray stopped just outside it to listen. A breath of cold air whispered past his ear, Ray.
"Don't." The old guy appeared right behind him. "Don't go in. Glacial crevasses can be treacherous."
Ray glared at him. "I gotta. You asked me to find Fraser. He's in there."
"Maybe." The old guy cracked his neck in a familiar gesture. "Maybe not. All I know is, my son followed your voice into there two nights ago, and he hasn't come out since."
His son? Ray was about to ask when he saw something moving out the corner of his eye. There was a darkness, a shadow skittering across the ice wall, getting closer.
"Get back!" The old guy shoved Ray away from the ice, drawing a gun. Ray was falling, falling …
He woke up with a hundred pounds of angry wolf on his chest. "Dief?"
Diefenbaker was snarling viciously at the corner, making a sound like metal being torn apart. Ray slowly turned his head to look. There was nothing there. Nothing Ray could see, anyway. But that sense that tells you when a room is empty said there was something in that corner. Something dangerous. Diefenbaker stood up, tensed to jump at it, and then suddenly relaxed. He barked once, and lay down next to Ray on the bed.
Ray put out a hand and rested it across Diefenbaker's back. "Guess it's gone, huh?"
Diefenbaker panted softly. Ray checked the clock. 4:32 a.m. "Might as well get a move on then. Don't think either of us'll be getting anymore sleep tonight."
By dawn the two of them were patrolling the streets near the alley where Fraser had disappeared, canvassing for witnesses they might have missed on the first two sweeps.
~~~~~~~
Ray sat at his desk with his head resting on a pile of useless files. This wasn't a case. This was the opposite of a case. No leads, no evidence, no witnesses. Forensics sent over their report an hour ago. After two days' work, all they'd managed to prove that the clothes belonged to Fraser. The little tags Fraser sews in his shirts might have given it away.
The detectives that had been working Fraser's disappearance with him had drifted back to their own caseloads. He didn't blame them. Thing was, Ray knew better than to expect a break in this case. Fraser wasn't anywhere cops could find him, and the thing that had him wasn't about to leave any prints behind. All that Ray had managed to do last night was nearly get himself grabbed, like some rookie who makes everything worse by getting taken hostage.
"Ray." Frannie was standing over him. Her voice was gentle. "Come on, it's time to go."
Ray peered up at her. "Huh? Go where?"
"Dinner at our place. Ma said. And I know you haven't eaten."
"How would you know that?" Ray argued.
"I know because you haven't moved from that chair in six hours." Frannie held out his coat.
Ray automatically put it on. Diefenbaker shoved his way out from under the desk.
"Now get a move on," Frannie ordered. "You know how Ma gets when someone's late to dinner."
Ma Vecchio fed him lasagna and homemade bread while the Vecchio family argued around him. It was kind of relaxing, actually. Dief ate himself sick from everyone sneaking him scraps under the table. Then they headed out to evening mass together. Not to the Vecchio's regular church, where people might have wondered about the blond sitting with them, but to an echoing stone cathedral across town, where they still said mass in Latin. Stern saints and a blind statue of the Madonna stared down at Ray as he stood, and sat, and kneeled in the rhythm he'd learned as a kid.
He watched the Vecchios pray for Fraser's safe return. He had decided years ago that, if there was a God, he was an asshole. Ray sat in the pew clutching the bible Frannie had handed him. It was leather-bound, soft and worn like Fraser's jacket. No faith in God here. All he had was faith in Fraser.
Faith in Fraser — that might be enough. Laferette said that Fraser was strong enough to come back on his own. All Ray had to do was convince him it was worth it.
Ray burned rubber back to the station-house and bullied the lady down in evidence into letting him sign out the box of Fraser's clothes, because Fraser would want to get dressed when he came back. And he was coming back tonight.
Next he broke into the Consulate. Looking around the tiny, impersonal office that Fraser lived in, Ray started worrying again. Whatever that thing was offering, this life wouldn't be hard to beat.
"Help me out here, Dief. What're the things Fraser really likes, things he'd want to come back to?"
Diefenbaker nosed some sheet music, a box of tea, and a soft striped blanket from the closet, not the military one on the cot. Then he scrabbled at Fraser's desk drawer until Ray opened it for him. Inside was a postcard showing Fraser and Vecchio together. The hot little spurt of jealousy didn't stand a chance against Ray's need to get Fraser back.
Ray pulled the GTO into the alleyway on West Harrison. That streetlight was still broken. Municipal Works sucked. He and Diefenbaker got out of the car, then slid around the hood into the alley.
"Dief," Ray said. There was barely enough light to see but he figured wolves had night-vision or something, because it never seemed to stop Dief from reading lips. "I want you to keep watch, but don't wake me up, okay? I'm not coming back without Fraser. Got it?"
Dief sneezed.
"Fine. Be that way. Just don't wake me up."
Ray didn't know what he was doing. But that was okay. Fraser was the one who needed a plan, a map, a set of rules. Ray was Mr. Instinct. He'd done some of his best cop work walking into situations where he had no clue what was going on.
It was about three in the morning, the coldest, darkest time of the night. Which felt right, for this. Ray put down a few layers of blankets, Fraser's and a few of his own. Then he laid down Fraser's things, the stuff Dief said he liked, on the ground. The pile of Fraser's clothes, with the Stetson on top, he reverently placed exactly where he'd found them in the first place.
Ray took off his boots and started stripping down, his breath coming out in white puffs. He folded up his clothes, quick and careful as he could, and made a pile of them, right next to Fraser's clothes. Then he jumped in between the blankets, waited for them to warm up, listened to the distant drone of traffic, and tried to slow his breathing so he could sleep.
~~~~~~~~
There was no moon tonight. It was dark, but the ice wall shimmered with strange colors. Ray looked up the wall. Up, and up, and up. The night sky was alive with colors.
Tendrils of green curled around clouds of burning red. Blue slashed across the gaps. Between, behind, underneath it all, the black pulsed a slow invitation.
Fraser.
Ray took a gasping breath. It felt like his first in a long time. He had to find Fraser. He forced his eyes down, away from the night, and listened for Fraser's voice.
When it finally came, the call was so faint that Ray might have imagined it. Raaaay, where are you?
Ray put his hands out so that he touched both sides of the crack in the wall and leaned in. "Fraser," he yelled into the darkness. "Can you hear me?"
The cold ice stung his palms. Ray?
"Fraser! It's me buddy, I'm here, I'm right here. But I can't come in. You've got to come out to me, okay?"
There was no answer, but Ray kept on going. "You've got to come back, 'cause I miss you. And I need you. And ... I love you, Fraser, okay? I love you, and I need you to come back to me."
Darkness swirled across the face of the ice.
"Fraser?" Ray tried to take a step back, but his hands were stuck to the ice. "Fraser? There's something out here, and I think it's after me."
The cold spread up his arms, numbing.
"Fraser?"
The ice wall lit up, a gentle golden light emanating from somewhere deep within. The shadow suddenly rushed down the ice towards him.
"Fraser? Help! Fraser!"
Ray!
The light flared a thousand times brighter. Ray closed his eyes and tried to look away, but even through his eyelids, it was blinding. Something touched his face.
Warm. He was warm. Hands, arms, body, everywhere. Fraser was lying naked on top of him, between the blankets in the alleyway.
"Ray, there you are." Fraser's voice was sweet and slow, like warm honey. He brushed a kiss against Ray's cheek and snuggled into him with a sigh, as if everything he needed in the world was right here.
Ray knew the feeling.
Then Fraser woke up. His body stiffened as he rolled off of Ray.
"Ray? Where are we? What's going on?" Fraser asked, cold and quick.
It hurt. It hurt, feeling Fraser throw a wall back up between them.
There was a clicking of nails on asphalt. Diefenbaker jumped on top of them and started frantically licking Fraser's face.
"Oof," Fraser said as he shoved Dief off to the side, away from Ray. "Diefenbaker. Diefenbaker! I don't know why you're so upset. I'm perfectly fine," he enunciated, holding Dief's muzzle.
"Fraser, what do you remember?" Ray asked.
Fraser sighed and turned over onto his back. With a pissy twist to his lips, he replied, "I returned to the Consulate, went to bed, and woke up here."
"Nothing in between?"
Fraser paused. "Just a few fragments of a dream."
"Nightmare?"
"No. No, it was a good dream."
Huh. "Tell me about it?"
"It was still, in my dream." He closed his eyes. "Very peaceful. Someone was singing to me." Fraser cocked his head to the side a bit, as if he were listening. "The song was so beautiful …" His words slurred a bit at the end, as if he were falling asleep.
That wasn't right. Dief barked just as Ray called out, "Fraser!"
Fraser jerked a bit and opened his eyes.
"You've been missing for three days."
"Three days?" Fraser sat up, pulling the blanket with him.
Ray scooted closer, to stay under the covers.
"Yeah, three days. At first I thought you'd been snatched by some bad guy. But Dief, and Laferette, and some old guy in a funny hat that I dreamed about, they all said that some thing had you."
This was the point where most people would start calling the guys in the white coats. Fraser looked to the wolf.
"Some thing?" he asked.
Diefenbaker gave a short growl.
"I see." He turned back to Ray. "And how did we come to be here," Fraser's blanket shifted a little, "like this?"
"Naked?"
Ray could see Fraser blush in the gray pre-dawn light as he nodded.
Ray told him everything, about Dief tracking him to the alley, the pile of clothes, the wall of ice, the shadow.
"You defeated it?"
"Me? No. Maybe you did. There was this really bright light, right at the end. Does any of that sound familiar?"
Fraser lay down on his side facing Ray. With a little gleam in his eye, he murmured,
"When far into the rock he strode,
It grew more bright, and so at last
Into a far country he passed,
Bright as the fairest summer sun:
All smooth and plain and green and vast,
For hills and valleys were there none.
Amid the land a castle tall
And rich and proud and wondrous high
Uprose, and all the outmost wall
Shone as a crystal to the eye."
"Yeah, that's what it was like," Ray said eagerly. "Only, with winter white, instead of summer green. Does the poem talk about the shadow thing?"
"No, its 'Sir Orfeo', a Middle English Breton lay in which he travels to the land of the faerie to rescue his abducted wife. It's a very unique retelling of the original Greek legend of Orpheus, and …" Fraser cut himself off. "There's no shadow creature in the lay. Actually, that description is the only point of similarity."
Damn. "So you don't know what that thing was?"
"No, Ray."
"Well, are we safe, or is it going to come back?"
"Ray, I don't know," Fraser whispered, huddling deeper into the blankets. "I don't know what it was. I don't know where I was. I can't remember anything."
Nothing was ever easy around Fraser. "All right, tell you what. I'll take you home. You can take a shower, get something to eat, maybe a couple hours sleep if you want, and then call in and report yourself un-missing." Ray stretched under the blanket and glanced over at Fraser. For the first time Ray got a glimpse of what was going on in Fraser's head when he rabbited.
Fraser was scared. Being kidnapped by a shadow monster didn't faze him, but the thought of sleeping in Ray's bed was enough to send Fraser into a panic. Great. Just great. Guy wasn't back five minutes and Ray was already screwing things up. Ray had to turn away from the fear in his eyes.
"Sorry. Sorry, that was stupid. Look, I can drive you back to the Consulate. You don't gotta walk." He groped for his pile of clothes, and felt cool fingers close on his shoulder.
"Yes," Fraser said in an unsteady voice.
Ray flipped over to look at him. "Huh?"
Fraser's face was pale as he blinked against the first bright rays of sunlight. "Yes, let's go back to your apartment. I … I want to."
"That," Ray ran out of words and started again. "That's good, Fraser. Really good. We can grab some breakfast on the way."
Ray came to a decision, as they both pulled their clothes in and got dressed under the blanket. He'd told Fraser he loved him, even though Fraser didn't remember it. And there were no take-backs.
So Fraser was fucked-up. Ray could deal with that. 'Cause now he got it. That first kiss and the last one were telling the truth. Fraser needed him. Everything in between was the lie.
Ray could wait for the Vecchio gig to be over. He could keep it casual, until Fraser was ready for more. People thought he was no good at waiting, but he was. He could be one stubborn fuck, when he needed to be. No matter what Fraser pulled, Ray was sticking by him.
Love was an endurance sport, and you had no business stepping in the ring if you couldn't take the hits.
THIS POLL IS NOW CLOSED. ANY FURTHER VOTES WILL NOT BE COUNTED.
**
[Poll #1076835]
edit: please note that the first question's rating scale SHOULD read "How well does this story fit the team genre? Rate from 9 (totally fits) to 1 (not so much)." Apologies for any confusion.
Author:
keerawaTeam: Angst
Prompt: "I don't know why you're so upset."
Pairing(s): F/K
Length: 9000 words
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: Thanks to my betas
secretlybronte and nos4a2no9, and to isicolo for the last-minute assist.Summary: It was like the streets had swallowed Fraser up without leaving a ripple.
Once you've read the story, please take a moment to vote in the poll below. Ratings go from 1 (low) to 9 (high), so all you need to do is enter a single number in that range into each text entry box. You'll be able to see the Prompt and Team (Genre) information in the header above.
More details about the voting procedure can be found here.
**
The bed moved, and the sudden feeling of cool air along his front woke Ray up from his nap. He was sweaty, sticky, limbs loose and head hazy. Ray held himself still. With his eyes closed, he listened to the quiet rustling and jingling of Fraser getting dressed. As the door clicked closed behind him, Ray pulled a pillow into the empty curve of his body and reminded himself that this thing with Fraser was supposed to be fun.
~
The call came in the next morning as he was blow-drying his hair. "Vecchio," Ray grumbled into the phone. He hadn't had his coffee yet.
"Detective?" It was Turnbull. The stress in his voice woke Ray up better than a whole pot of coffee. "Is Constable Fraser there?"
"Nope." Ray was careful to sound casual, relaxed, as though the question didn't worry him. Fraser hadn't spent the night since they'd gone past just partners. It was too risky.
There was a funny scratching sound at the door.
"Oh," Turnbull trailed off. "Oh no, oh no, oh no …"
"Turnbull! Slow down, big guy! What's wrong? Fraser's not at the Consulate?"
"No. He's … No." Turnbull took a shuddering breath. "I arrived at 7am to find the Consulate still dark and locked. I checked Constable Fraser's office. His cot was unmade." Ray's heart started to beat faster. "And his window was smashed open."
Something big slammed into Ray's door.
"Hold on, Turnbull, I'll call you right back."
Ray opened the door to find Diefenbaker, squinting through blood-matted fur, getting ready to throw himself at the door again. "Fuck." Ray took a second to pull himself together. He had to be calm. It was just like interviewing any freaked-out witness.
Ray squatted down and spoke slowly. "Dief, you don't look so hot. I'll drive you to the vet, okay?"
Diefenbaker's head went down as he took a step backwards, lips pulled back to show his teeth in a silent snarl. It made him look less like a dog, more like the kind of thing that howled for your blood in the night.
"I get it, I get it, no vet. Wanna come in?"
Dief shook himself all over. Then he limped past Ray and in through the door, his right leg folded up out of the way. Ray followed him in and closed the door.
His first impulse was to offer the half-wolf a cup of coffee. Instead he got out his first aid kit and the mixing bowl Dief usually used, filled the bowl up with cold water from the sink, and set it down next to him. Diefenbaker leaned down awkwardly and took a big, long, messy drink while Ray got down on the floor next to him and wondered what the hell had happened to Fraser.
"So, Dief," Ray said cautiously when he finally looked up. "Mind if I check out your foot?"
Diefenbaker solemnly held out his paw. Ray reached out and turned it, gently prodding the bloody underside. Diefenbaker flinched. There was a piece of glass embedded in one of the pads, driven in deep. Suddenly Ray knew what had happened to Fraser's window.
"You bust out of the Consulate?"
Diefenbaker's ears flicked forwards.
If that was an answer, Ray didn't understand it.
Diefenbaker flattened his body to the floor, quivering with pain as Ray pulled the glass shard out and bandaged up the paw as best he could. He got a warm, wet paper towel and cleaned the blood off of Dief's face. It came from a cut across his ear, wide but shallow.
"I think that's the best I can do for now," Ray told him.
Diefenbaker stood up. He put a bit of weight on his bandaged paw, and then held it out in front of him as he walked to the door and looked back over his shoulder at Ray.
"Okay, I get it. Fraser's down the well. You know where he is?"
Diefenbaker ostentatiously sniffed Ray's boots.
"Right, right, you can track him."
Ray took a quick inventory. Badge, gun, extra clip, cuffs, keys, cell phone. Vest in the trunk of the car if he needed it. Outside, Ray opened the GTO's door for Dief, but the wolf hung back, wouldn't jump in. Ray tried to argue, but Diefenbaker just turned his back and loped away down the sidewalk. Even on three legs, Dief was fast. Ray locked the car up and had to jog to catch up with him.
Ray called Turnbull from his cell phone to let him know that Dief had turned up. Turnbull confirmed that the window in Fraser's office had been broken from the inside. Then Ray dialed the lieutenant to let him know he wouldn't be in this morning; he had a situation to investigate.
"Is the Mountie involved?" Welsh asked.
"Yeah, looks like it," Ray admitted.
"Try to keep property damage to a minimum, Vecchio. I'll expect a full report this afternoon."
It was a gray morning, clouds hanging heavy over the city, trapping in the noise and fumes of the morning traffic as Ray and Dief walked under rusting El tracks and past doorways filled with sleeping men. Dief was smarter than half the sworn officers in the CPD, Ray told himself. They'd find Fraser soon and get him out of whatever mess he was in, no problem.
They walked north, then west. Diefenbaker was tracking now, nose to the ground, occasionally yipping at Ray to keep up. As they turned onto West Harrison there was a low rumble of thunder. Ray realized they were following one of the possible routes from the Canadian Consulate to the station. Had Fraser been trying to get to the 2-7 last night? If so, why? And why'd he leave Diefenbaker behind?
Diefenbaker stopped dead. He backtracked half a block and then ducked into a familiar alleyway. Ray followed him. Diefenbaker started barking at something on the ground. Too small to be a body, Ray told himself.
It was Fraser's Stetson, sitting on top of a neatly folded pile of clothes. Leather jacket, jeans, shirt, underwear, socks tucked into a pair of hiking boots. The back of Ray's neck prickled. He'd seen suicides leave behind tidy little piles like that.
Ray ran a hand through his hair. "He must have brought some other clothes to change into," he muttered. "But why … Dief! Where'd he go next?"
Diefenbaker moved down the alley, sniffing from side to side. Then he moved back to the pile of clothes and walked slowly back to the entrance of the alleyway, searching for Fraser's trail. Must've been nothing to find, because after a couple of minutes he gave up, sat down next to Ray, and leaned against his legs.
"No dice, huh? Not your fault." Ray looked up, but the fire escapes were way down the other end of the alley. "He must have gotten into a car. Or … been forced into one." Ray knew a car could fit into this alley. He was starting to get a bad, bad feeling.
Ray dialed Welsh on his cell phone. "Lieutenant? I think maybe Fraser's been abducted."
There was a moment of quiet static. "We have a possible crime scene?"
"Alleyway on the south side of West Harrison, half-way between South Jefferson and South Clinton."
"I'll have dispatch send Ramirez and Chase over right now, and then more men as the day shift clocks in. Forensics will have a team there within the hour. Secure the perimeter, detective."
"You got it." Welsh hung up the phone.
Ray put his cell phone away. He moved to where the alleyway opened up onto the street. He couldn't tell Welsh that this wasn't some random alley. Ray knew this place. He didn't think he'd ever forget it.
It had happened a few months ago, after they closed the Kelly robbery case. Fraser's friend Quinn from up north had almost gotten Fraser killed, and Ray'd had to pull a pretty crazy stunt to save him. Steve McQueen would've been proud.
Ray had been driving Fraser home from the 2-7 in his GTO. He finally had his parents back, and his car, and Fraser was okay. Every time Ray glanced over, Fraser was staring at him. Fraser was safe. Ray knew it was stupid, but Fraser wouldn't stop looking at him, and he just couldn't wait any more. When he spotted a busted streetlight over the dark alleyway on West Harrison, Ray pulled the car in and turned off the engine.
"Ray, what …"
Fraser's lips were soft under his. Ray'd thought Fraser might be mad about getting jumped on all of a sudden, or maybe shy. But Fraser wasn't mad, and he wasn't shy. Fraser pushed back against him, crawled over the gearshift until he was practically in Ray's lap, and kissed him like it was going out of style.
Fraser's hands tilted Ray's head, and his tongue pushed into Ray's mouth. Fraser was desperate, starving for it, moaning into his mouth. Like he needed everything Ray had to give, and more. It was incredible.
If a gunshot were to take Ray out this second, that was the memory he wanted to bring with him. A drop of water slid down Ray's cheek. He scrubbed at it, annoyed, because he wasn't crying. He was not.
No, he wasn't. Rain fell from the sky, and the few drops turned into a downpour in the time it took Ray to realize what was going on. Shit, the crime scene! Fingerprints, hair, fibers, DNA, trace evidence, everything that gave the PD a leg up when it came to solving a crime – all of it would get washed away. And he didn't have a tarp; it was in the trunk of his car. He didn't have anything that could stop it.
Ray took off his jacket, threw it over the pile of Fraser's clothes, and stood shivering in the rain.
~~
A few hours later Ray was at his desk, drinking a really bad cup of coffee, and wearing the extra set of clothes he kept in his locker ever since he had started working with Fraser. Diefenbaker was back from the vet with a professional bandage on his paw and a few stitches in his ear.
Ray was busy. He’d spent most of the morning and afternoon running down leads and cross-referencing lists of likely suspects. And the list of people who had reason to snatch Fraser off the streets was a long one.
The first few hours of any investigation were important, but in a kidnapping case, timing was everything. Minutes could mean the difference between bringing the victim home and prosecuting his mur …
Ray grabbed his coat off the back of his chair and put it on. It was freezing in here.
Ray wasn't worried. Not really. There was no need. Bad guys had grabbed Fraser so many times he probably had a merit badge in escape. So all they had to do was rescue him before he, oh, made friends with the rats and convinced them to chew through his ropes or something, and then wandered into the precinct with a snide remark. Yeah. That'd be just like him. Ray held his coffee cup in cold, shaky hands.
"Vecchio!" Welsh called from his office door.
Ray walked into the office and closed the door behind him.
"Any progress?" Welsh asked.
"Not much. No witnesses so far, but officers are still out canvassing. There's been no contact from the kidnappers. We know that something must've woken Fraser up in the middle of the night, but Thatcher released the Consulate phone records, and there were no incoming or outgoing calls after 5pm. Fraser doesn't have a cell phone," Ray reminded him. "Turnbull's checking for prints that don't belong in Fraser's office."
"Constable Turnbull?" Welsh asked dubiously.
"Yeah, Thatcher won't let any CPD personnel in the front door, but she says Turnbull's real good at lifting prints." Actually, she'd said something about his penchant for forensic housecleaning, but Ray didn't want to worry Welsh with that.
"I had Frannie print out a list of all the cons Fraser sent to prison who were recently paroled, but most of them are small time. Thatcher's going to fax over a list from north of the border."
"Have you considered personal motivations?"
"Well, sure, but it's not like Fraser has enemies. Aside from the bad guys, that is. He barely even has a personal life." Except for Ray.
Welsh grunted. "Have you pulled the Metcalf file yet?"
Ray thought back to his original briefing. "Metcalf? Open case file. Alaskan bank robber chick. That the one where Vec, uh, I shot Fraser, right?"
Welsh nodded. "Let's just say that the summary report is a masterpiece of its genre. Read the entire file. Speak to Detective Huey or myself if you have any questions."
Ray had Frannie pull the Metcalf file up from the basement. He read it cover to cover. Then he dragged Detective Huey into Interrogation Room One.
"What gives, Vecchio?" Huey said, straightening his suit jacket.
Ray pointed to a chair. Huey sat.
"The Metcalf case. Tell me about it."
Huey looked around the room. "Frannie warned me you'd pulled that file. What do you want to know?"
"Victoria Metcalf. Did Fraser really …" He couldn't say it.
"Yeah. Yeah, Fraser skipped Vecchio's party to spend the night with her, called in sick to work. When he found out that she'd set him up, shot his wolf, he looked …" Huey blew out through his lips in a soundless whistle. "Any other cop, I figure he would've crawled into a bottle for a month or two. Fraser, he tried to help us catch her. But the Mountie had it bad for that woman."
When they'd had the sexual histories talk, Fraser'd said, "There was one woman, yes. It ended badly." And now Ray found out that this, this was the woman? And 'ended badly' was Canadian for almost getting sent to prison by the woman he loved and then getting shot in the back by his best friend?
"Look, Vecchio, if Metcalf drove up and told Fraser to take off his clothes and get in the car with her … he might've done it. I mean, probably she'd have to hold a gun on him. But I don't think he'd fight that hard."
"Thanks, Huey, that's a big help." Huey walked out of the room.
Ray sat down in the seat. He could imagine it, the lady who even looked gorgeous in mug shots pulling up in a car, holding a gun on Fraser. She gave a quiet command, the dare sparkling in her eyes. Ray pictured Fraser stripping down piece by piece, watching her face instead of the weapon. Victoria steps away from the car, pacing a tight circle around Fraser to inspect him. Fraser is facing forwards, breath coming faster as she steps out of view. As Victoria presses the muzzle of the pistol against his spine, Fraser shivers and closes his eyes.
Fraser had kept his eyes closed, head back against the headrest, for the entire drive back to Ray's place after that first kiss. When they reached his apartment, Ray was so eager he could barely get his key in the lock. He really, really wanted another kiss. But it turned out Fraser wanted to talk.
Seemed there were risks to becoming physically involved. And Ray got that. He knew that if Detective Vecchio and his Mountie partner started flying a rainbow flag, some of Vecchio's pals from the old neighborhood would wonder why. And the real Vecchio might end up in a hole in the Vegas desert. Ray understood that.
"So long as we're cautious, there's no reason we shouldn't be able to enjoy our partnership on an additional level," Fraser'd said, with a funny, tense little smile.
Ray had said yes. It's not like he'd been expecting dinner and dancing. Just, maybe, someone to be with. Someone who needed him. What Ray got was a casual fuck a few times a week.
So he screwed around with Luanne Russell, partly to make Fraser jealous, and partly because, hey, it wasn't like Fraser was offering him a white picket fence. And Fraser let Lady Shoes into his red pajamas and gave her a 'delightful' kiss.
They were still partners. Still buddies. And the sex, man, the sex was great. Everything was good, really. It was just so far from what that first kiss had promised that sometimes Ray laid awake in bed at night, wanting things he couldn't have.
So maybe Fraser was still carrying a torch for Metcalf. Or maybe she'd hurt him so bad that casual was all he had left in him. Didn't really matter.
What mattered was finding Fraser. And for that, he had to get back to work. Back to work, he told his legs. And after a few times, they started moving. He stood up, walked back to his desk, and left a message for his pal Lynch over at the FBI to see if they had anything on Victoria Metcalf.
Ray contacted three snitches that knew him as Vecchio, and two that remembered him as Kowalski. It was risky, breaking undercover protocol like that, but he didn't give a fuck. Ray leaned hard. Big threats, big promises. Nothing. Not a whisper, a hint, a knowing smile or a too-eager denial. It was like the streets had swallowed Fraser up without leaving a ripple.
~~~
Ray woke from a nightmare where Fraser was calling out his name, his voice getting weaker and weaker. Ray gasped, a metallic taste of fear in his mouth. Diefenbaker's face was only an inch or two away.
"Jesus, Dief, your breath stinks!" Dief stared at him. "What, you need to go out? Fine, just give me a second here."
Ray lay his head back down on the pillow. The bed was icy cold, but Fraser's voice was still echoing in his head …
Diefenbaker barked in his ear.
"Fuck! Okay, I get the message, I'm getting up."
As Ray struggled into yesterday's jeans he looked at the clock. 4:31 a.m. Great. "Might as well head into the station, see if Lynch faxed anything overnight. Hey, Dief, think you can cross your legs long enough for me to grab a shower?" Dief didn't answer, so Ray decided not to risk it.
By lunchtime, Ray was getting pissed off. He had nothing. Nada. The FBI hadn't gotten a whiff of Victoria since she left Chicago. Turnbull hadn't found any weird prints at the Consulate. He'd read every one of the files Thatcher had sent over, and none of the perps seemed like they'd travel from North Bumfuck, Canada all the way to Chicago to kidnap the Mountie that brought them in.
There was a local mob boss by the name of Zuko that got Ray's cop senses tingling as he looked through Vecchio's old case files. Normally the Chicago families didn't mess with cops. It was bad for business. But this guy'd had some run-ins with Vecchio and Fraser before. Last go-round one of Zuko's lieutenants had tried to kill Vecchio with a car bomb, and took out Huey's old partner instead. Zuko's sister got caught in the crossfire. Could be that Zuko had taken it personally, and decided to make some kind of statement by grabbing Fraser.
Ray sent in a request over to the 2-4 for fresh information on Zuko, since they were covering his neighborhood after last year's redistricting. He asked Frannie for anything she could dig up on Zuko's sister. If Fraser'd been snatched on her birthday, or something, that'd mean he was on the right track.
Ray ripped through the Zuko file again and came up with the name of an older guy in Zuko's organization that Fraser'd described as, "Most helpful." Charlie DeLuca wasn't active anymore, but he might still be clued in and willing to talk.
Ray sent Huey and Dewey out to pick up DeLuca. He drank two cups of coffee, called up all of his snitches to see if they had anything. Nothing. Frannie handed him a sheet with basic stats on Irene Zuko. Nothing.
Ray wandered down to holding. Some drunk asshole got a hand free on his way to a hearing, took a swing at Officer Carmichael. Ray almost put the guy through the wall before Carmichael got the restraints back on.
Finally Huey and Dewey showed up with DeLuca. They walked him into Interrogation Room Two. Ray slipped into the observation room to watch.
DeLuca was one tough old bastard. He sat down in the Interrogation Room chair like it was a throne. Huey and Dewey were out of their depth. They kept soft-pedaling the guy like he was somebody's sweet old grandpa, not a made man with a rap sheet going back four decades.
Ray listened to DeLuca's spiel with half an ear, focusing on body language and the guy's eyes. DeLuca had hard eyes. The kind that could do anything without blinking. The kind that could hold a gun on a naked man, force him into a car, and drive him out to the middle of nowhere.
Ray threw open the door to the Interrogation Room. "Enough of this crap. You're talking to me, DeLuca."
Dewey swung around. "What the fuck, Vec —"
Huey stepped on his foot and cut him off. "Tom. Come on."
The two of them left the room.
Ray slammed the door behind them and stalked over to DeLuca.
DeLuca's eyes flicked up and down him. His lips curved upwards, like something was fucking funny. "And who might you be?" he asked.
Ray felt the muscles in his shoulders tense up as he moved around behind DeLuca. "I'm a friend of Fraser's. And you're gonna tell me where to find him."
DeLuca threw his hands open and sat back in his chair. "Like I told the other detectives, I wish I could help you. The Mountie was a good man."
Ray's hands slammed onto the chair back. He leaned down and snarled in DeLuca's ear, "You saying he's dead?"
"Detective!" a voice snapped. Lieutenant Welsh was framed in the door. "My office. Now."
Ray pushed off the chair and followed him out of the Interrogation Room, turning around for one last glare at DeLuca, who was sitting very still in his chair. Huey was standing outside, not looking at him.
Welsh was waiting for Ray in his office. He closed the door and the blinds and nodded towards the chair in front of his desk. Ray shook his head no. He leaned against the door, arms crossed.
Welsh sat down. "So. Why don't you explain to me what you thought you were doing in there."
Ray shrugged. "I was questioning DeLuca."
"Ah yes. The man who has known Ray Vecchio since childhood. I see. And you felt the man who came in voluntarily to make a statement might suddenly recall additional information if you attacked him from behind?"
"Hey, Huey and Dewey couldn't get him to say word one!"
Nobody said anything. Ray's leg started jittering. He made it stop. "I wasn't really gonna hurt him. I do that kind of thing all the time."
"No," Welsh contradicted him, "if you habitually interfered with investigations, endangered your own cover, and risked the lives of two of my men, I'd have taken your badge and gun a long time ago."
The coffee sloshed around in Ray's stomach.
Welsh heaved a sigh and stood up. "You're a mess, Vecchio. Go home. Eat. Shave. Get some sleep. Get your head screwed on right. I don't want to see you until noon tomorrow. Convince me you can follow the rules, and I'll put you back on the case then."
Ray shook his head. "You can't do this, Lieu. Fraser's out there somewhere, and —"
"I'll call if we find anything," Welsh interrupted, voice heavy with sympathy. He started to say something, cleared his throat, and started again. "Now get out of here before I make it an official administrative leave."
"Right. Okay. I'm going." Ray drifted out of Welsh's office and back to his desk. He picked up his coat. Dief shuffled out from under the desk.
Dewey spoke up as Ray walked past his desk. "Look, I'm sorry about that, in there."
That? Oh, yeah. Almost calling him Vecchio in front of DeLuca was a monumental fuck-up. Ray seemed to have run out of angry. That was a little worrying.
Dewey was giving him a funny look. "You okay? Here, want half my sandwich?" He pushed a greasy pastrami on rye across the desk.
"Nah, I'm good. Thanks anyway."
"Dewey! Get in here," Welsh yelled from his office.
Dewey plodded off. It was good that someone was going to yell at him. Ray wandered out to the parking lot. Diefenbaker jumped into the car, excited to get going. Ray got into the driver's seat and turned around to face the wolf.
"Look, we're not on the job. I screwed up, and Welsh took me off the case. Just until tomorrow, okay?"
Diefenbaker moaned low in his throat.
"Fuck, I wish I could speak wolf. Bet you know exactly who grabbed Fraser."
Figured that he couldn't find Fraser without Fraser here to translate. Maybe they could communicate without him?
"Dief, let's try this. You ready?"
Diefenbaker listened, ears forward.
"Did you smell anybody else in the alleyway besides Fraser? Bark once for yes, twice for no."
Dief stared at him for a few seconds, and then laid down on the back seat and started licking his balls. Ray got that message loud and clear. But there had to be some way.
Wait. Wait. There was that guy they brought in a few weeks ago, that voodoo guy who stole the GTO. Laferette. Seemed like he understood Dief. If Ray could get him to translate, maybe he could figure out what'd happened to Fraser.
~~~~
Ray couldn't ask Frannie to look up Laferette's street address, so he ended up driving around Bronzeville looking for the right building. It wasn't a good neighborhood. Not as bad as Cabrini in the old days, when cops would only travel in heavily armed groups. But bad enough. Officially, police response time was five minutes anywhere in Chicago. Unofficially, it could take twelve minutes or more for cops to respond to a call on Dearborn.
Ray started feeling less like a flattened cardboard box as he drove along the back streets. He couldn't believe Welsh had told him he'd have to follow the rules to get back on the case. He got the job done, but not by following rules. Not even Fraser's. And Fraser had a lot of weird-ass rules. He didn't come out with them upfront. Ray had to figure them out by trial and fuck-up. Ray could treat Fraser like his own personal monkey bars; do anything to or with him in bed. But they couldn't talk about any of it. And asking Fraser to stay the night was a sure-fire way to get rid of him.
Ray'd tried it a few times since he figured that one out. "Hey, Fraser, you don't have to be back at the Consulate until eleven. Want to —" Like clockwork, Fraser'd come up with some weak excuse and be out the door. There was a funny, bitter satisfaction to it. Like wiggling a loose tooth with your tongue, knowing it'd come out soon enough whether you played with it or left it alone.
There. Laferette's building was in better shape than the others in the area. No drug dealers on the corner. The broken glass had been swept off the sidewalks, replaced with hopscotch squares and a weird circular pattern chalked in since yesterday's storm. Ray carefully parked the GTO right out in front, and promised it that he'd be back as soon as he could.
Ray walked up the front steps and into the building. It smelled like funky spices and clove cigarettes. He checked the mailboxes. Laferette was up on the third floor, apartment 309. Ray started walking up the narrow stairway.
The first time they'd come here, Ray had been seriously pissed off. The night before, Ray had made the mistake of moaning "Ben" in bed. Fraser had been out and up, dressed and gone so fast that Ray'd checked himself for friction burns. The next morning Fraser pretended like nothing had happened, which was just fucked up. Then the GTO was stolen. They had their first kiss in that car, and to have it disappear at the same time he realized he wasn't even allowed to call Fraser by his first name … it felt like a bad sign.
At least he'd gotten the car back.
Ray paused outside of number 309. He had nothing on Laferette, no pressure to apply. So he'd just have to ask real nice. Like Fraser would.
He knocked. Mrs. Laferette opened the door. Diefenbaker wagged his tail.
"Hi ma'am, remember me? Detective Ray Vecchio?"
The woman eyed him warily before bending down to greet Diefenbaker.
Ray stretched his lips into a smile. "Could we maybe come in?"
"What is it you want?" she asked from the floor where Dief was licking her hands.
"Just to talk to your husband. I, um, I need his help."
She sighed and stood up, wiping her hands on her skirt. "All right then, come in."
Laferette and his daughter were sitting at the kitchen table, eating. Diefenbaker practically threw himself at Laferette with eager little whines and yips. The guy looked down and seemed to be listening.
"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your dinner," Ray said. "You want me to come back later?"
"That won't be necessary. I know a desperate man when I see one." Laferette stood up, whispered something to the girl that made her nod solemnly, and then beckoned Ray into the bedroom. When the door was closed behind them he turned.
"So, detective, what is this about?"
Ray took a deep breath and cut to the chase. "Fraser's disappeared."
"Interesting choice of words. And you want me to find him for you?" Ray shook his head no. Laferette's voodoo thing kind of creeped him out.
"Nah, I just need somebody who can translate wolf. Dief here's my only witness."
Laferette looked down at Diefenbaker. "Is there anything you want me to tell him?"
Diefenbaker replied with a short bark and a rumbling growl. Laferette nodded.
"The wolf says that something had been stalking your Constable in his dreams. And that the same thing came to you last night." Laferette's eyes were bright.
"Well, that's a big help," Ray muttered.
Was Laferette just fucking with him? No, Dief would let him know if the guy was blowing smoke up his ass.
"Yes, I should think it is. You'll need protection —"
"I don't need any damn protection! I need to find Fraser! And why doesn't this dream-stalking thing surprise you? That just a normal, everyday kind of thing where you come from?"
"Not normal, no. But the Constable is gifted. With the proper training, he could have been a houngan, a shaman, many things," Laferette said.
"What, you think Fraser got kidnapped by some magical-aid society for remedial classes?" This was total bullshit.
Laferette's lips thinned. "I am saying that there are dozens of ways for the human will to bend reality. Magic, prayer, wanga, the power of positive thinking. But your Constable doesn't know his own strength, and he tends to punch a hole right through reality."
Ray snorted.
"Haven't you noticed that strange things just seem to happen around the Constable?"
Copy-cat performance arsonists, old ladies shooting their husband's coffins, geriatric Russian spies, automatic weapons hidden in crates of rubber duckies, dead guys in the walls, ghost pirate ships, millionaire pretzel vendors, dead not-dead voodoo priests, and a deaf half-wolf who could read lips in three languages.
"Nope," Ray said.
"Really?" Laferette asked dryly. "Well. His abilities may have attracted something from the other side."
"You mean something," Ray cleared his throat, "something evil's got Fraser?"
Laferette shrugged. "Is a hungry tiger evil, when it takes what it needs?"
"If what it needs is my partner, yeah!"
"Then I suppose, by your definition, the answer is yes."
Ray tasted blood. He'd bitten his lip. He was a cop. He had a gun, a badge, a city full of boys in blue at his back. But if some thing had taken Fraser, none of that was going to do him any good.
"Look, Laferette, I'm a little out of my league here. Is there anything you can do, to find him, help get him back?"
Laferette squinted at him. "Possibly. You and the Constable, you are close, yes?"
"Yeah. Yeah, we're close." Way closer than they were supposed to be, and nowhere near as close as Ray wanted them to be.
Laferette closed his eyes and ran his hands around the outside of Ray's body, an inch or two above his skin. Ray shivered.
Laferette opened his eyes. Ray could see the bad news in them.
"No. Sometimes, when two people are tightly bonded together, there is a connection that I can trace. It's there, between you and the Constable, but not strong enough for me to follow back to him. I'm sorry."
"Right. Well, thanks anyway." Ray opened the bedroom door and walked through the kitchen, trying to get out of the apartment. This was his fault. If he'd just pushed a little harder, gotten Fraser to open up more, maybe stay over one goddamned time and spend a night in his arms. Maybe then they would've been connected enough for Laferette to find Fraser.
"Detective," Laferette called after him. "He may not realize it, but I'm sure that the Constable has power enough to return on his own, should he truly desire it."
Ray nearly ran down the hallway to get away. Dief scampered after him.
~~~~~
Ray sat on his couch, not watching an infomercial. He'd spent a couple of hours trying to convince himself that Laferette was nuts, that Fraser'd just been snatched by Metcalf or Zuko or some other plain old bad guy. It hadn't worked. Weird shit was always, always happening around Fraser. And Ray'd had some funny dreams last night.
So something had Fraser. Ray didn't even know what it was. Laferette had compared the thing to a tiger. Not like Ray had any idea how to hunt a tiger … Hold on. During a stakeout, Ray'd begged for something that wasn't an Inuit story. And Fraser'd told him about a stakeout some hunters in India ran. They'd tie a goat to the base of a tree, climb the tree with their rifles, and then, when the tiger showed up in the middle of the night to eat the goat, bang!
Cops have their own version. When there's a serial offender they can't catch any other way, the police take one of their own and dress him or her up to look like the perp's perfect victim. Cute little blond, vulnerable old man, drunk frat boy, whatever. Then the 'victim' trawls all the perp's favorite hunting spots until the bad guy makes his move.
Ray turned off the TV and got ready for bed. He had to get this thing to jump him in his sleep. Dief said he was being stalked, so he must fit its profile. But how could he make sure it'd go for him tonight? Fresh sheets? Silk boxers? Ray noticed the dream catcher Fraser'd given him last year, tacked up over the bed.
Right. Ray took the dream catcher down and stuck it in his sock drawer. Diefenbaker whined.
"What, you got a better idea?" Dief huffed out his breath, circled three times, and lay down at the foot of the bed. "Didn't think so."
~~~~~~
Ray followed Fraser's trail through a snowfield. It was night, but the full moon hung over his shoulder, filling each of Fraser's boot prints with light, highlighting irregular speckles of dark-colored ice. The snow made a soft crunch with each step. It wasn't cold. Every now and then he heard Fraser's voice calling from up ahead.
The snow tapered off, revealing a huge slab of naked rock that stretched as far as Ray could see. No boot prints to follow. Ray stood at the edge of the stone, trying to figure out which way to go.
"Go on, a child could follow that blood trail," someone nagged. An old guy was standing next to Ray, wearing warm clothes and a funny hat.
"Blood?" Ray bent down and touched one of the specks of dark ice. It melted onto his finger, smeared. It didn't look red. Blood never did, in the dark. Ray looked up. "Is Fraser hurt?"
The old man stared at him like he was an idiot. "For some time now. Are you going to follow it?"
Ray's paranoia kicked in with a jolt. Because it seemed like everything, not just the old guy, but the snow, the dark sky, the moon, every drop of Fraser's blood, was waiting for his answer. And he didn't know what the bad thing that took Fraser looked like, did he? It might even look like an old guy in a funny hat.
"Why should I?" he challenged.
"Why?" the old guy said, standing straight and tall. "Because Benton's in danger, and you are his partner." It sounded like the start of a big speech, but Fraser's distant call cut it short.
Raaaay, where are you? Fraser sounded strange. Relaxed, almost drunk, playful, like this was some game of hide-and-seek. Ray wanted to see the look on his face that went with that voice.
The guy swung around at the sound, shook his head frantically, turned back. "Because he sounds like he's losing himself! And I ... I can't save him."
"But I can?"
The man slumped, looked down at the snow. "I don't know," he muttered. "But you have to try. I can sense the creature that has him. It's a terrible threat. To Benton, and to you."
That sounded honest, at least.
Ray set off across the rocky ground, using the frozen drops of blood as a guide. When he glanced back, the man was gone. Ray walked and walked. His legs should have been getting tired, but they weren't. Eventually he came to a giant wall of ice, blue in the moonlight. Fraser's blood trail disappeared into a wide black crack that ran straight up the wall, a few feet across. Ray stopped just outside it to listen. A breath of cold air whispered past his ear, Ray.
"Don't." The old guy appeared right behind him. "Don't go in. Glacial crevasses can be treacherous."
Ray glared at him. "I gotta. You asked me to find Fraser. He's in there."
"Maybe." The old guy cracked his neck in a familiar gesture. "Maybe not. All I know is, my son followed your voice into there two nights ago, and he hasn't come out since."
His son? Ray was about to ask when he saw something moving out the corner of his eye. There was a darkness, a shadow skittering across the ice wall, getting closer.
"Get back!" The old guy shoved Ray away from the ice, drawing a gun. Ray was falling, falling …
He woke up with a hundred pounds of angry wolf on his chest. "Dief?"
Diefenbaker was snarling viciously at the corner, making a sound like metal being torn apart. Ray slowly turned his head to look. There was nothing there. Nothing Ray could see, anyway. But that sense that tells you when a room is empty said there was something in that corner. Something dangerous. Diefenbaker stood up, tensed to jump at it, and then suddenly relaxed. He barked once, and lay down next to Ray on the bed.
Ray put out a hand and rested it across Diefenbaker's back. "Guess it's gone, huh?"
Diefenbaker panted softly. Ray checked the clock. 4:32 a.m. "Might as well get a move on then. Don't think either of us'll be getting anymore sleep tonight."
By dawn the two of them were patrolling the streets near the alley where Fraser had disappeared, canvassing for witnesses they might have missed on the first two sweeps.
~~~~~~~
Ray sat at his desk with his head resting on a pile of useless files. This wasn't a case. This was the opposite of a case. No leads, no evidence, no witnesses. Forensics sent over their report an hour ago. After two days' work, all they'd managed to prove that the clothes belonged to Fraser. The little tags Fraser sews in his shirts might have given it away.
The detectives that had been working Fraser's disappearance with him had drifted back to their own caseloads. He didn't blame them. Thing was, Ray knew better than to expect a break in this case. Fraser wasn't anywhere cops could find him, and the thing that had him wasn't about to leave any prints behind. All that Ray had managed to do last night was nearly get himself grabbed, like some rookie who makes everything worse by getting taken hostage.
"Ray." Frannie was standing over him. Her voice was gentle. "Come on, it's time to go."
Ray peered up at her. "Huh? Go where?"
"Dinner at our place. Ma said. And I know you haven't eaten."
"How would you know that?" Ray argued.
"I know because you haven't moved from that chair in six hours." Frannie held out his coat.
Ray automatically put it on. Diefenbaker shoved his way out from under the desk.
"Now get a move on," Frannie ordered. "You know how Ma gets when someone's late to dinner."
Ma Vecchio fed him lasagna and homemade bread while the Vecchio family argued around him. It was kind of relaxing, actually. Dief ate himself sick from everyone sneaking him scraps under the table. Then they headed out to evening mass together. Not to the Vecchio's regular church, where people might have wondered about the blond sitting with them, but to an echoing stone cathedral across town, where they still said mass in Latin. Stern saints and a blind statue of the Madonna stared down at Ray as he stood, and sat, and kneeled in the rhythm he'd learned as a kid.
He watched the Vecchios pray for Fraser's safe return. He had decided years ago that, if there was a God, he was an asshole. Ray sat in the pew clutching the bible Frannie had handed him. It was leather-bound, soft and worn like Fraser's jacket. No faith in God here. All he had was faith in Fraser.
Faith in Fraser — that might be enough. Laferette said that Fraser was strong enough to come back on his own. All Ray had to do was convince him it was worth it.
Ray burned rubber back to the station-house and bullied the lady down in evidence into letting him sign out the box of Fraser's clothes, because Fraser would want to get dressed when he came back. And he was coming back tonight.
Next he broke into the Consulate. Looking around the tiny, impersonal office that Fraser lived in, Ray started worrying again. Whatever that thing was offering, this life wouldn't be hard to beat.
"Help me out here, Dief. What're the things Fraser really likes, things he'd want to come back to?"
Diefenbaker nosed some sheet music, a box of tea, and a soft striped blanket from the closet, not the military one on the cot. Then he scrabbled at Fraser's desk drawer until Ray opened it for him. Inside was a postcard showing Fraser and Vecchio together. The hot little spurt of jealousy didn't stand a chance against Ray's need to get Fraser back.
Ray pulled the GTO into the alleyway on West Harrison. That streetlight was still broken. Municipal Works sucked. He and Diefenbaker got out of the car, then slid around the hood into the alley.
"Dief," Ray said. There was barely enough light to see but he figured wolves had night-vision or something, because it never seemed to stop Dief from reading lips. "I want you to keep watch, but don't wake me up, okay? I'm not coming back without Fraser. Got it?"
Dief sneezed.
"Fine. Be that way. Just don't wake me up."
Ray didn't know what he was doing. But that was okay. Fraser was the one who needed a plan, a map, a set of rules. Ray was Mr. Instinct. He'd done some of his best cop work walking into situations where he had no clue what was going on.
It was about three in the morning, the coldest, darkest time of the night. Which felt right, for this. Ray put down a few layers of blankets, Fraser's and a few of his own. Then he laid down Fraser's things, the stuff Dief said he liked, on the ground. The pile of Fraser's clothes, with the Stetson on top, he reverently placed exactly where he'd found them in the first place.
Ray took off his boots and started stripping down, his breath coming out in white puffs. He folded up his clothes, quick and careful as he could, and made a pile of them, right next to Fraser's clothes. Then he jumped in between the blankets, waited for them to warm up, listened to the distant drone of traffic, and tried to slow his breathing so he could sleep.
~~~~~~~~
There was no moon tonight. It was dark, but the ice wall shimmered with strange colors. Ray looked up the wall. Up, and up, and up. The night sky was alive with colors.
Tendrils of green curled around clouds of burning red. Blue slashed across the gaps. Between, behind, underneath it all, the black pulsed a slow invitation.
Fraser.
Ray took a gasping breath. It felt like his first in a long time. He had to find Fraser. He forced his eyes down, away from the night, and listened for Fraser's voice.
When it finally came, the call was so faint that Ray might have imagined it. Raaaay, where are you?
Ray put his hands out so that he touched both sides of the crack in the wall and leaned in. "Fraser," he yelled into the darkness. "Can you hear me?"
The cold ice stung his palms. Ray?
"Fraser! It's me buddy, I'm here, I'm right here. But I can't come in. You've got to come out to me, okay?"
There was no answer, but Ray kept on going. "You've got to come back, 'cause I miss you. And I need you. And ... I love you, Fraser, okay? I love you, and I need you to come back to me."
Darkness swirled across the face of the ice.
"Fraser?" Ray tried to take a step back, but his hands were stuck to the ice. "Fraser? There's something out here, and I think it's after me."
The cold spread up his arms, numbing.
"Fraser?"
The ice wall lit up, a gentle golden light emanating from somewhere deep within. The shadow suddenly rushed down the ice towards him.
"Fraser? Help! Fraser!"
Ray!
The light flared a thousand times brighter. Ray closed his eyes and tried to look away, but even through his eyelids, it was blinding. Something touched his face.
Warm. He was warm. Hands, arms, body, everywhere. Fraser was lying naked on top of him, between the blankets in the alleyway.
"Ray, there you are." Fraser's voice was sweet and slow, like warm honey. He brushed a kiss against Ray's cheek and snuggled into him with a sigh, as if everything he needed in the world was right here.
Ray knew the feeling.
Then Fraser woke up. His body stiffened as he rolled off of Ray.
"Ray? Where are we? What's going on?" Fraser asked, cold and quick.
It hurt. It hurt, feeling Fraser throw a wall back up between them.
There was a clicking of nails on asphalt. Diefenbaker jumped on top of them and started frantically licking Fraser's face.
"Oof," Fraser said as he shoved Dief off to the side, away from Ray. "Diefenbaker. Diefenbaker! I don't know why you're so upset. I'm perfectly fine," he enunciated, holding Dief's muzzle.
"Fraser, what do you remember?" Ray asked.
Fraser sighed and turned over onto his back. With a pissy twist to his lips, he replied, "I returned to the Consulate, went to bed, and woke up here."
"Nothing in between?"
Fraser paused. "Just a few fragments of a dream."
"Nightmare?"
"No. No, it was a good dream."
Huh. "Tell me about it?"
"It was still, in my dream." He closed his eyes. "Very peaceful. Someone was singing to me." Fraser cocked his head to the side a bit, as if he were listening. "The song was so beautiful …" His words slurred a bit at the end, as if he were falling asleep.
That wasn't right. Dief barked just as Ray called out, "Fraser!"
Fraser jerked a bit and opened his eyes.
"You've been missing for three days."
"Three days?" Fraser sat up, pulling the blanket with him.
Ray scooted closer, to stay under the covers.
"Yeah, three days. At first I thought you'd been snatched by some bad guy. But Dief, and Laferette, and some old guy in a funny hat that I dreamed about, they all said that some thing had you."
This was the point where most people would start calling the guys in the white coats. Fraser looked to the wolf.
"Some thing?" he asked.
Diefenbaker gave a short growl.
"I see." He turned back to Ray. "And how did we come to be here," Fraser's blanket shifted a little, "like this?"
"Naked?"
Ray could see Fraser blush in the gray pre-dawn light as he nodded.
Ray told him everything, about Dief tracking him to the alley, the pile of clothes, the wall of ice, the shadow.
"You defeated it?"
"Me? No. Maybe you did. There was this really bright light, right at the end. Does any of that sound familiar?"
Fraser lay down on his side facing Ray. With a little gleam in his eye, he murmured,
It grew more bright, and so at last
Into a far country he passed,
Bright as the fairest summer sun:
All smooth and plain and green and vast,
For hills and valleys were there none.
Amid the land a castle tall
And rich and proud and wondrous high
Uprose, and all the outmost wall
Shone as a crystal to the eye."
"Yeah, that's what it was like," Ray said eagerly. "Only, with winter white, instead of summer green. Does the poem talk about the shadow thing?"
"No, its 'Sir Orfeo', a Middle English Breton lay in which he travels to the land of the faerie to rescue his abducted wife. It's a very unique retelling of the original Greek legend of Orpheus, and …" Fraser cut himself off. "There's no shadow creature in the lay. Actually, that description is the only point of similarity."
Damn. "So you don't know what that thing was?"
"No, Ray."
"Well, are we safe, or is it going to come back?"
"Ray, I don't know," Fraser whispered, huddling deeper into the blankets. "I don't know what it was. I don't know where I was. I can't remember anything."
Nothing was ever easy around Fraser. "All right, tell you what. I'll take you home. You can take a shower, get something to eat, maybe a couple hours sleep if you want, and then call in and report yourself un-missing." Ray stretched under the blanket and glanced over at Fraser. For the first time Ray got a glimpse of what was going on in Fraser's head when he rabbited.
Fraser was scared. Being kidnapped by a shadow monster didn't faze him, but the thought of sleeping in Ray's bed was enough to send Fraser into a panic. Great. Just great. Guy wasn't back five minutes and Ray was already screwing things up. Ray had to turn away from the fear in his eyes.
"Sorry. Sorry, that was stupid. Look, I can drive you back to the Consulate. You don't gotta walk." He groped for his pile of clothes, and felt cool fingers close on his shoulder.
"Yes," Fraser said in an unsteady voice.
Ray flipped over to look at him. "Huh?"
Fraser's face was pale as he blinked against the first bright rays of sunlight. "Yes, let's go back to your apartment. I … I want to."
"That," Ray ran out of words and started again. "That's good, Fraser. Really good. We can grab some breakfast on the way."
Ray came to a decision, as they both pulled their clothes in and got dressed under the blanket. He'd told Fraser he loved him, even though Fraser didn't remember it. And there were no take-backs.
So Fraser was fucked-up. Ray could deal with that. 'Cause now he got it. That first kiss and the last one were telling the truth. Fraser needed him. Everything in between was the lie.
Ray could wait for the Vecchio gig to be over. He could keep it casual, until Fraser was ready for more. People thought he was no good at waiting, but he was. He could be one stubborn fuck, when he needed to be. No matter what Fraser pulled, Ray was sticking by him.
Love was an endurance sport, and you had no business stepping in the ring if you couldn't take the hits.
THIS POLL IS NOW CLOSED. ANY FURTHER VOTES WILL NOT BE COUNTED.
**
[Poll #1076835]
edit: please note that the first question's rating scale SHOULD read "How well does this story fit the team genre? Rate from 9 (totally fits) to 1 (not so much)." Apologies for any confusion.
