TEAM REALITY: Day 11, "Detail "
Sep. 9th, 2008 02:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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ds_flashfictionTitle: Detail
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sisterofdream
Team: Reality
Prompt: “Well it’s not completely unheard of - especially in the Amazon basin.”
Pairing(s): Fraser/Kowalski
Rating: G
Word count: 6800
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: Thanks to Wihulta and JS for betas. To Spuffy for maintaining my sanity (while we both followed the strict codes of team secrecy). To akamine_chan for being an all out rockstar and performing emergency rescue.
Summary: There is a system. There is a system based on tradition and how things work.
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**
Monday - 2:00 pm
Ray was ignoring him.
At first he thought Ray simply hadn’t heard the question, and so he asked again.
By the third repetition, Fraser became concerned about the state of Ray’s hearing, and
had considered asking Diefenbaker to give Ray lessons on navigating the world without
the benefit of sound. But it quickly became apparent, by the set of Ray’s mouth, his
occasionally rolling eyes, and the fact that he sighed whenever Fraser spoke, that his
hearing was in no way impaired.
Fraser turned, watching the city pass far too quickly for Ray to be obeying the
speed limit, and tried to determine the best way to get a reaction out of his partner.
Keeping Ray talking was never a challenge; getting him started could be.
“You know, Ray,” Fraser began, still staring out the window, “my father once
told me a story about a man, a lifeboat, and a pickax.” As expected, Ray immediately
went for the radio, only to begin cursing softly when he recalled the incident last week
involving Diefenbaker, a cup of coffee, a now broken radio, and the promise of a two
month donut-free existence.
“You see Ray,” Fraser continued, “the man had been lost for quite some time, and
he’d come to the realization that-”
“Fraser, no Inuit stories.” Ray said quickly, pushing up his sunglasses so he could
rub at his eyes. Fraser grinned to himself. Success.
“Well, Ray, there aren’t, in fact, any Inuit in this particular story.”
“Fine. No Canada stories.”
“This is a timeless story, one which could take place in any number of locales.”
Fraser paused for just a moment, giving Ray a chance to ready a reply and then heading it
off. “Chicago, for example.”
“Guy has a lifeboat and a pickax in Chicago?”
“He could be on the lake.”
“With a pickax?” And there it was. Fraser could hear the smile in Ray’s voice and
he turned his head quickly to catch it before it disappeared.
“Well it’s not completely unheard of - especially in the Amazon basin.”
“Fraser. This the Amazon Basin?”
“No, this is Chicago.”
“That anywhere close to the Amazon basin?”
“No, Ray. As you are probably well aware the Amazon is actually located-”
“Frase.”
“Ah, a rhetorical question, Ray?”
“Correct, Fraser.”
“Well, Ray. If you listened to the story, you’d know why he had the pickax.”
“No stories. None at all. Storytelling is banned in this car.” The tone was serious
and a few short months ago Fraser would have accepted the comment at face value.
Silently accepted the ban. But by now, he knew Ray better than that. He could hear the
undercurrent of humor, the sound of Ray enjoying the back and forth, even the
anticipation of him waiting for the next line.
“Ah. And does telling me why we’ve been asked to drop everything and focus all
our attention on this particular case count as a story?”
“Fraser, there has been a mistake of justice here.”
“Miscarriage?”
“Right. That. Plus, we haven’t been asked to drop everything. And we have the
time to focus on this. The Rice robbery is nothing. The O’Donnell thing’s going nowhere
right now. And we’re still waiting on Mort and the lab for the Chawkat and DiNaldi
deaths.” Ray kept talking as he pulled the car to a stop in front of a rather impressive
looking brownstone. “We make cases a priority all the time, Frase. We’ve made minor
league baseball teams in other cities a priority. This one involves an alderman. He
decides how much money we have. Happy alderman equals more money. Angry
alderman equals less money. We like the more money option. It’s how we buy things.
Pizza. Beer. Pemmican.”
Ray turned, bringing his right knee up on the seat, and pointing at Fraser, both his
index and pinkie fingers extended. Fraser waited for Ray’s hand to hit his chest, but it
stayed safely on the other side of the car.
“Now, you gonna be Canadian in there?”
“I can hardly be anything but.” Fraser had been focused on Ray’s hand, but
suspected that the question wouldn’t have made much sense even if he had been paying
attention.
“I meant, are you gonna be polite? In no way mention or imply or infer that we
have open murder cases that we could be working on? Or that if he wasn’t having an
affair in the first place, no one would be blackmailing him?”
“I promise to behave, Ray.” Ray didn’t look the slightest bit convinced, but he
shifted to open his car door anyway.
“Good. Let’s do this thing.”
After the butler had shown them in (and Ray had mouthed the word “butler” at
Fraser the second the man’s back was turned, eyes half mocking and half impressed),
they met with Alderman Blum. Fraser hadn’t expected the man to be so young, but had
certainly expected him to be unwilling to discuss his situation, staying as vague as
possible. Fraser’s presence seemed to make him uncomfortable, so Ray suggested that he
speak with Blum alone, and the Alderman happily accepted.
Fraser took the time to review the copies of the letters and photographs that were
the cause of the investigation.
“Jeeves is gonna bring a list of everyone who was at the party last night,” Ray
said when he returned alone nearly a half hour later. Fraser nodded vaguely and went
back to inspecting the folder while Ray wandered around the room.
“Huh.”
“What did you find, Ray?” Fraser asked, coming up quickly to look at the
bookshelf Ray had been studying.
“Nothing. Just had a thought.” He paused for a moment and then shook his head,
as if to clear it. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
“Who were you talking to?” Fraser looked instinctively over his shoulder to see if
his father had shown up again.
“No, I mean, I was ignoring you. And then I wasn’t.”
Fraser wasn’t sure if a response was necessary, so he just waited Ray out.
“Used to complain all the time, about my moods.” Ray said vaguely. Fraser again
got the impression that he wasn’t the one being spoken to. “That I’d go quiet when she
wanted to talk. Terse, she said. I was terse.”
“I can’t really imagine you quiet for too long, Ray.” Fraser said without thinking.
“Yeah,” Ray said, with a quick grin at Fraser before he dropped his eyes back to
the shelves. “Not surprising, since apparently I can’t go more than five minutes without
talking to you.”
The butler returned just then, breaking the silence as he handed a few pieces of
paper to Fraser and made a request for discretion. Fraser nodded solemnly, added the new
pages to the folder he carried and followed Ray out the door.
Monday - 3:50 pm
“I don’t remember the authorization of any sort of surveillance equipment on this
case, detective.”
“Yeah. Didn’t use any. Fraser overheard the conversation.” Ray scratched at his
neck and kept his eyes trained about a foot above the Lieutenant’s head.
“You overheard it?” With a small spin in his chair, Lieutenant Welsh leaned back
and focused all his attention on Fraser. Something in the Lieutenant’s eyes made Fraser
immediately move from parade rest to stand at attention. Ray, on the other hand, visibly
relaxed with the change of target.
“That’s correct, sir.”
“You overheard Finn O’Donnell directly discussing his role in the distribution of
Class A narcotics….in a bank vault?”
“Once again, sir, that is correct.”
“Detective, Constable, the universe in which this holds up in court simply does
not exist.” Fraser began to object, but was stopped at the second syllable by a small wave
from the Lieutenant. “Constable, nobody in their right mind is going to believe you, and
it does not speak well to my mental state that I do. Detective, I think it’s time to talk to
the ASA, see if we can get some actual evidence of one of these meetings.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Excellent. You now have permission to go solve crimes.”
Monday - 4:30 pm
“Well, detective, I think we can safely rule that Mr. DiNaldi died a natural death.”
Mort said, holding out a thin, manila folder.
“Greatness. Fraser, let’s roll,” Ray said swiftly, grabbing the folder with one hand
and Fraser’s hand with the other, pulling him right back out of the room, Fraser’s ‘thank
you kindly’ getting lost behind the swinging doors.
Monday - 5:00 pm
Fraser perched on the edge of Ray’s desk, spinning his hat in his hands as he
listened to his partner list fifty possible restaurants for Fraser to choose from for dinner.
The phone rang on Huey’s desk then, with Ray’s following just a second after. Fraser
knew he should follow Ray’s conversation but his attention was drawn by Huey’s.
“Sir, I’m confused. In what way are you now a man in which you weren’t
yesterday?”
Ray slamming his phone down brought Fraser back and he looked at Ray, who
was already shrugging into his jacket and picking up his keys.
“Jewelry store got robbed. Think it’s related to the Rice one last week. Can you
wait to eat?”
“Certainly, Ray.”
Huey’s voice faded behind Fraser as he followed Ray out of the precinct.
“Okay then, sir. Ma’am. Of course. Have you consulted a medical professional?”
Wednesday - 8:00 am
“Morning Fraser. How was Tuesday in fake Canada?” Fraser wasn’t sure how
Ray knew it was him, slumped over the desk as Ray was, his hand possibly the only thing
keeping his head from crushing a nearly empty cup of coffee.
“I successfully put our entire library in chronological order by year of initial
publication.” Fraser tried to inject a hint of sarcasm into his voice, but it came out closer
to delusional enthusiasm.
“Wow,” Ray said, tilting his head up on his palm, giving Fraser a view of a small
smile under bleary eyes. “I don’t know if my plans can compete with that. I was just
going to fight some crime.”
“Well, since you went to all the trouble of making plans, it seems rude to refuse.
What’s all this?” He asked, gesturing at the neat stacks of manila folders that had
replaced the loose papers, knick knacks, and garbage which had always threatened to
consume Ray’s desk.
“Blum casework. Everything we have on all of Alderman Blum and wife’s
relatives, employees, friends, college roommates, little league teammates, and former all
those things I listed.”
“You’ve already been through all of them?” Fraser shifted his attention from the
folders to Ray and took in the bruising under his eyes, the creases fading on his left
cheek. Had Ray slept here?
“Yeah. Bunch of interviews too. Listen, I’m gonna get more coffee and, you
know,” he made a vague waving gesture by his head, “wake up. Then I’ll come back here
and explain it all and you can give them a second look before we head out. I want to try
talking again to that guy who owned the warehouse where the Chawkat body was
dumped.”
“Williams?”
“Mm. Him.”
“I’ll get you coffee, Ray,” Fraser said, puling the cup out from under his partner’s
slowly falling head. “You just try to stay awake until I get back.”
“Mm,” Ray said again, just before his arm gave out and he dropped his head onto
the desk with a soft thud. Fraser picked up his pace.
Wednesday - 9:00 am
“Now, can you tell me where we might find your boss?” Fraser flashed his
brightest grin at the young secretary. She’d spent the past ten minutes listening with rapt
attention to Fraser detailing the differences between French and Quebeçois, so this was
‘in the bag,’ as Ray might say.
At least, it seemed that way until she pulled back, blinked a few times and smiled
sadly.
“Canada, you’re pretty. But you’re not that pretty.” She returned to the paperwork
she’d abandoned on first sighting her visitors, signaling complete dismissal in every way.
Ray nodded at the door and the two left, silently making their way back to the car
and back onto the streets.
Fraser was preoccupied with designing a more effective line a questioning when
Ray broke the silence.
“She’s wrong you know.” Fraser raised his eyebrows instead of asking for Ray to
continue. “You are that pretty.”
There was a moment where Fraser stopped breathing, but then Ray grinned and
laughed quickly, softly, and Fraser breathed out again and turned back to look out the
window.
“Apparently not, Ray.”
“Frase?”
“Or she’d have told us his location,” He said quickly. Too quickly, he was certain.
“Want to go talk to more witnesses from the jewelry heist? Bet we’ll find one or
two who’ll fall for the old Canadian charm.” Fraser felt his face heat up, grateful that he
was already facing the window. It was completely unfair that he couldn’t control his
response even when he knew he was being teased.
Wednesday - 12:30 pm
“Actually, the truck might have been blue.”
“So, blue or black?”
“Right. A dark blue, though. Like a blackish blue.”
“Excellent. Thank you kindly for your assistance. Please call Detective Vecchio if
you think of anything else.”
Ray waved his card in her face, distracting her from finding another reason to
keep the two of them in the hallway and giving Fraser time to make a quick escape.
“Just once, I’d like interviewing a crowd of witnesses to not be a complete waste
of time, Frase,” Ray complained once they entered the stairwell.
“That’s hardly fair, Ray. We learned a great deal today.”
“Right, right. The getaway car was either a truck or a van. It was blue, black,
grey, or beige. And there were anywhere between 6 and 3 men of average height, average
build and who may or may not have been masked and armed.”
“Don’t forget the possibility that it was a yellow Mini Cooper driven by two
exceedingly tall women.”
“Fraser. That guy’s story doesn’t count. He was drunk. He was the most drunk
I’ve seen someone ever.”
“Don’t be silly, Ray. It was ten in the morning when we spoke to him.”
“Fraser, I am too hungry to explain drinking to you right now. Where do you want
to eat?”
Wednesday - 2:00 pm
When they returned to the precinct, a small, fidgety man sitting in Ray’s chair all
but leapt out of his seat at the sight of them, crossing his arms over his chest defensively.
“Charlie!” Ray shouted happily across the room. “Does this mean you’ve got
results on Chawkat? Results that lead to really obvious, impossible to disprove, guilty
verdicts?”
“No, Ray.”
“Tell me they didn’t come back inconclusive.”
“They didn’t. I still don’t have results for you.”
“What’s the freaking hold up?”
“That’d be the tin soldier to your right,” he said, nodding at Fraser, an insincere
little smile on his face. Fraser was confused by Charlie’s comment, but he was
completely thrown by Ray’s reaction.
“Oh. Damn it. Again?”
“Ray?” Ray was focused on Charlie, wincing slightly, his bottom lip caught in his
teeth, giving the impression that the whole conversation was causing him physical pain.
“You said you were going to talk to him, Ray. You said,” Charlie, well, whined
was unkind even if it was true.
“I know. I know.”
“Talk to me about what, Ray?”
“There is a reason, Dudley-” And Fraser turned back to look at Charlie, who had
one finger pointed at the ceiling and looked both angry and frightened. Fraser got the
impression that Charlie didn’t often shout and was not certain how it would go over.
“Whoa! What did I say about calling the Mountie names?”
“Constable,” he amended, immediately softening his tone, “that in this country we
don’t use our tongues as a means of gathering evidence. It’s so I don’t waste time
separating your saliva out from that evidence.”
“Charlie, I said I’d talk to him and I will.”
“Yeah, but you said that before and here I am.”
“I promise. First thing I do once you go is talk to Fraser.”
Charlie stared at Ray a moment longer. Then he nodded quickly and stepped away
from the desk, glaring ineffectively at Fraser until he was blocked by the bullpen doors.
“Ray, what was all that about?” Ray spun Fraser around, threw an arm over his
shoulders and steered him down the hallway.
“Fraser, let’s get to Interrogation One for a refresher course on preserving a crime
scene.”
Wednesday - 2:30 pm
“DiNaldi came back natural. Signed note from the ME, completed paperwork and
everything,” Ray said proudly, tossing the folder he’d brought onto Lieutenant Welsh’s
desk.
“I don’t like when cases come back natural, detective. Someone dies in my city
and takes up an hour of your time, the least he can do is be murdered and scrawl the name
of the killer down on the nearest flat surface.”
“You’re a great humanitarian, Lieu,” Ray said, preventing Fraser from providing
his own opinion of what he certainly hoped was a joke by Lieutenant Welsh.
“On another note, is there any chance you drew your weapon while chasing down
one of O’Donnell’s men and then neglected to fill out the paperwork?”
“Sounds like something I’d do,” Ray said with an uncaring shrug.
“Get me the paperwork before you leave today.” Ray nodded and the Lieutenant
nodded back. “Now, what can you tell me about Blum?”
“Done all the initial work on the files. Met with all of the house staff yesterday.
Waiting for lab results, see if I can narrow it down.”
“Lab still pissed at you?”
“Yeah, but we had a talk today, promised to keep Fraser on a leash.” Fraser chose
not to respond to that comment, though he certainly wished someone had brought this
information to his attention before today.
“Good work. You’re both free to go.”
“Just wondering, am I getting paid for all this overtime?”
“On paper, yes. In reality, next fiscal year.” Lieutenant Welsh dropped his
attention to the folder Ray had given him, but the lack of attention didn’t deter Ray in the
slightest.
“The reason I left my beat for this fancy detecting work in the first place was the
pay.”
“And here I thought it was your tireless commitment to solving crimes.”
“Nah. Just the money.” Fraser thought he saw the Lieutenant smirk at his folder as
he waved the two out of his office without looking up.
Wednesday - 3:00 pm
“What was the name of the guy I pulled my gun on, Frase?” Ray asked, pen
scratching across the top page of the forms he was filling out.
“Patrick Bailey.”
“And we were on Monroe, right?”
“Arcade.” Ray sighed and began digging around in one of his desk drawers. “You
don’t carry Wite-Out in that belt, do you Fraser?”
“Would you like me to fill that out, Ray?”
“No, I’m a big boy. I can fill out my paperwork all by myself,” he said,
brandishing the recently discovered bottle of correction fluid triumphantly.
A few minutes passed where Ray filled out his form (and occasionally swore and
reached again for the Wite-Out), and Fraser looked through files, creating a new set of
stacks within the ones Ray had created.
“Listen,” Ray said suddenly into the silence, “you gonna be able to admit
exhaustion on this thing?”
“On Blum?” F raser said, looking up in confusion.
“No, Frase. O’Donnell. Nobody without bat ears or …eyes like some animal with
good eyes is ever going to catch this guy doing anything. We need to bring in
surveillance equipment.”
“Ah.” Fraser returned to the folder he was holding, certain it had been placed in
the wrong stack.
“You know we can’t do that without convincing a judge that we’ve exhausted all
other options. Can you say that?”
“We’ve only had cars on him for a few days. If I heard the conversation at the
bank, then it stands to reason that eventually someone else will be able to as well.” Ray
sighed and dropped his head to his desk. “And we recently caught one of the men in his
employ. We might get him to talk.”
“So that’s a no?”
“Correct, Ray. Now, if I may return to Alderman Blum, are you really considering
the butler as a suspect?”
“One of these days, Frase,” Ray said, lifting his head from the desk and pointing
at Fraser emphatically, “I will get to say ‘the butler did it’ and have it be true.”
“Not on this case, Ray.”
“500 of air says it’s the butler,” he said, shifting his hand into an open palm.
“You know I don’t normally gamble Ray, but you have a deal,” Fraser said,
reaching his hand out to shake Ray’s.
Thursday - 1:30 pm
Fraser nearly came to a dead stop in the aisle, the sight of Detective Dewey sitting
in the Fraser’s usual chair was so off-putting.
“Ah!” Huey, leaning on the wall beside his partner, had noticed Fraser’s approach
and drawn the attention of the other two detectives. “You’ve got Fraser. That’s another
point in your favor.
“First of all,” Ray said, counting off on his fingers dramatically, “there are no
points. Stop bringing up the points. Second of all, if there were points, Fraser
would give me negative points.”
Fraser halted three steps from Ray’s desk. Everyone forgot Fraser just as easily as
they had focused on him seconds earlier, turning back to Ray.
“How is Fraser a negative?” asked Dewey. The phone rang on Dewey’s desk, but
neither he nor Huey seemed to notice. “He solves crimes by licking things. No one else
can do that. It’s basically a superpower.”
“Three, the licking is constantly causing trouble. Four, it’s 1:30 and my partner
has only just shown up.”
“Are either of you aware that your phone is ringing?” Fraser felt compelled to
ask, stepping up to the side of the desk.
“I’m always the lead. I take as many calls as the both of you, and not only are
they always my cases, but half the day I’m completely on my own,” Ray continued,
ticking off his points now required two hands.
“Twelve open cases, Ray. We have twelve,” Huey said, pleading for sympathy.
“I took one of your calls last week. I did that out of the goodness of my heart.”
“The brother confessed at the scene!” Huey shouted.
“The system is based on calls! I took the call.”
“You solved your last three cases in what, 45 minutes each?” Dewey raised his
voice to match his partner’s.
Fraser was about to step in, lest the argument become physical, when he was
shoved bodily from his position. He looked back to see that a furious looking Francesca
had taken his place at the desk and the three detectives were all doing rather convincing
impressions of startled caribou.
“Why did nobody pick up the phone? I put it through twice.”
“We’re working on that Frannie,” Dewey said cautiously.
“Do you need help answering the phone? Did you forget how?”
“Ray might be taking this one.”
“Ray is not.” Francesca and Ray managed somehow to say the last
together, with the exact same tone of righteous indignation.
The matching speech threw Ray off for a moment, but Francesca blazed on,
undaunted. She held up a clipboard like a weapon, poking Dewey emphatically as she
spoke.
“There is a system.” Poke. “It’s a very simple system. So simple, even a moron
like you” poke “should be able to follow it. When it’s your turn, you answer the phone.”
Poke. “And since this clipboard says that Ray took the last call in this section, that means
that one of you two” poke “need to return this message.” Having successfully poked
Dewey, chair and all, right into Huey, Francesca shoved a pink phone message into
Huey’s chest with her left hand. “One of you is calling back in the next two minutes, or
I’m slashing your tires.”
“Damn right,” seconded Ray.
“Oh, don’t you start,” she said, wheeling around on Ray, whose face had moved
from smug to terrified in a fraction of a second. “You took one of their calls last week.
And that messed with the system. And when the system gets messed with, there’s
confusion and then you get snappy with me, even though it’s your own fault.”
“Sorry,” Ray mumbled.
“Sorry, Frannie,” Huey and Dewey added. Francesca nodded briefly at them,
before looking up to finally see Fraser. She smacked Dewey on the side of the head with
the clipboard.
“Go back to your own desk. Like Fraser doesn’t stand enough at the Consulate.”
Dewey and Huey practically rocketed across the bullpen, knocking Fraser’s chair
to the ground on their way.
“Good afternoon, Frase,” Francesca said, swinging her hips against his as she
passed.
Fraser coughed, muttered something that was supposed to be a response, and then
focused on getting his chair back upright, and using it a shield.
“That was one of the scariest moments of my life right there, Frase. And I’ve been
handcuffed to a sinking ship.” Indeed, Ray’s wide eyes made his fear apparent. “You
don’t think she’d slash my tires, do you?”
“What was that all about, Ray?”
“The duck boys want me to take on some of their calls. I said no. And I think
that’s where you came in.”
“Ray, that was uncharitable. Surely, if we can take on additional cases, and they
need the help-”
“No. No, Fraser. Just no. There is a system. There is a system based on tradition
and how things work. You do not get to go messing with the system just ‘cause you’re
Canadian. No. Especially ‘cause you’re Canadian.”
“Even if we could help?”
“We have cases of our own. And we have a priority case right now. Normally, we
wouldn’t be taking calls at all.”
Fraser acknowledged the truth of that and quietly returned to the part of the
conversation that had troubled him.
“Ray, do you really think of me as a negative?”
“Don’t get me wrong Fraser, when you’re here, you’re aces. Best partner anyone
could ask for. But I spend a lot of time doing stuff on my own. And some weeks it
balances out okay, but a lot of the time it doesn’t.”
“Would it…would you prefer-”
“Another partner? Not ever,” Ray said with a brilliant smile. “Now let’s head to
the car. I’ll catch you up on the way.
Fraser could hear Ray following him out. To his left, Dewey was trying to
convince the person on the other end of his phone that her television had not, in all
likelihood, been taken by a band of ninjas.
Thursday - 2:00 pm
Fraser had been in the jewelry store for two minutes when Ray grabbed a hold of
his hand, preventing Fraser from picking up the gum wrapper he’d found. A second later
there was a thump on his chest. Fraser reached up blindly, briefly taking Ray’s other hand
and gaining hold of the objects Ray was giving him.
“Gloves, Fraser. Gloves. We just talked about this yesterday.”
Now that he mentioned it, Fraser could feel that Ray’s hands were encased in a
thin layer of latex. He looked down to see a pair of white gloves, and a few small plastic
bags pressed against his serge.
Ray watched as Fraser pulled his own gloves on, as though Fraser wouldn’t do it unless
forced. Which was probably true, but quite definitely beside the point.
When he was done, Fraser held up his hands, wiggling his fingers at Ray, who laughed
loudly in response.
“Good. We’re making progress. Now, Dief stays outside and your tongue stays in
your mouth or I deal with it myself.”
Ray’s words seemed to echo in the room and turn Ray to stone, a look Fraser was
sure he mirrored. Long seconds later, Ray shook himself with a nervous laugh that was so
different from his earlier laugh that Fraser barely considered them the same species. Then
he mumbled something about checking the office and strode from the room before Fraser
could say anything back.
Fraser reached down with a newly gloved hand, picked up the gum wrapper, and
dropped it into one of the bags.
Thursday - 4:00 pm
“We’ve been having trouble getting a hold of the warehouse owner for a follow
up on the Chawkat case. Can we get a car on his house?”
“Not a chance,” Lieutenant Welsh said, not breaking stride as he walked past
Ray’s desk.
“Lieutenant, if I may-” Fraser began, stopping when the Lieutenant spun, with
surprising grace, on his heel and doubled back.
“I don’t have the money to pay overtime for actual work. I’m not paying two men
to sit in a car for an undetermined amount of time for a follow up interview. You can
either do it yourself, for free, or you can give me the address and I’ll ask the patrolmen to
check the place every few hours. That’s all I can do until you bring me something
substantial.” Another graceful spin and Welsh was back en route for coffee.
Thursday - 4:30 pm
“Anything new, Ray?” Startled by a new voice, Fraser looked up to see Stella
Kowalski standing at the desk, looking down at Ray. Fraser returned to his file without
waiting for her to acknowledge him. He considered stepping away from the desk
altogether, but worried about drawing attention, and chose to stoically endure what was
bound to be an awkward conversation.
“Not really. Welsh gave me a priority, so I’m on that at the moment.”
“City council?”
“Yep.” Fraser frowned at Ray’s response. He sounded distant, familiar in a way
Fraser couldn’t place.
“That’s mine. Keep me updated.”
“Sure. Oh, I need to talk to you later about something.”
“Ray, I really don’t want-”
“Gonna claim exhaustion on O’Donnell and request at least three phone taps.
We’ll need to set up the warrants and a time to meet with a judge.”
Fraser did look up at Stella then, and found she looked as shocked as Fraser felt.
He couldn’t recall Ray ever cutting her off.
“I’ll bring the paperwork tomorrow,” she said, her voice betraying her confusion.
“You get it filled out in time, we can meet with a judge on Monday.”
“Greatness. Thanks, Stell.” Ray smiled at her and it confused Fraser again.
Nothing about Ray today followed his typical interactions with his ex-wife. Even the
smile felt off, more like one he would give Francesca, provided he’d already had a cup of
coffee and she’d brought him the right file.
“Tomorrow, Ray,” Stella said, and stepped away from the desk. Fraser waited
until she left the bullpen before he spoke to Ray, leaning in over the desk and dropping
his voice.
“Ray, if ‘playing it cool,’” Fraser tried to make the quotation marks with his
inflection, as it seemed to bother Ray when he made them with his hands, “is your latest
tactic to try to win back Stella’s affections-”
“Getting over it is not a tactic, Fraser. It’s just a thing.” Ray met his eyes, leaning
forward into Fraser’s personal space, giving the conversation more weight than Fraser
had expected when he’d started it. “I’m not trying to get her back. I don’t want her back.”
Fraser wasn’t sure what he did in that moment, but it seemed to please Ray because he
visibly relaxed. “Good. Grab whatever you can. We should move to one of the
interrogation rooms to go through these. More room and also I can yell at you when you
suggest something insane.” Ray grinned then, the difference between this one and his
smile to Stella the difference between freezing and burning.
Terse, Fraser thought as Ray gathered up a hefty stack of files and walked
carefully down the hall. That’s how Ray sounded with Stella. He’d sounded terse.
Friday - 1:00 am
“Ray, I know we discounted the brother-in-law, but what if-”
Fraser cut himself off when he realized Ray had fallen asleep in his chair, chin
resting against his chest, hands still loosely holding one of the many files on the table.
Fraser gathered up the folders, carefully pulling the one from Ray’s hands so as
not to disturb him, and took them from the room. It took two trips to return them to Ray’s
desk and by the time he had finished, bringing Ray’s jacket and keys back with him, Ray
still hadn’t moved.
Fraser had considered letting Ray sleep at the precinct before remembering Ray’s
face on Wednesday morning, still creased from sleep. Clearly, he was in desperate need
of a decent night’s rest, and he wasn’t likely to get it here.
“Ray,” he said softly, shaking his partner. “Let me take you home.”
“You can’t drive the car,” Ray mumbled stubbornly, trying to pull himself from
his slouch as he slowly woke up.
“Ray, you’re having trouble sitting upright. You will not make it home without
falling back asleep. Let me drive you.”
“You don’t drive good.”
“Better than you drive asleep, I imagine. I promise no harm will come to the car,
Ray.”
“But if you do hurt it, I can kill you, right?” Fraser got the impression that in the
moments just before fully waking, Ray was exactly the same person he’d been at five
years old.
“Of course.”
This seemed to be enough for Ray, and he held out his hand to let Fraser pull him
up. Fraser pulled Ray’s arm over his shoulder, and wrapped his own around Ray’s waist
as they made their way through the precinct. Ray did his best to walk, but Fraser ended
up carrying a substantial portion of his weight, making it a relief to get to the car.
The trip was entirely uneventful, Ray didn’t move at all for the duration, and the
undamaged car meant Fraser would be allowed to live. Fraser breathed a sigh of relief
when he finally cut off the engine in Ray’s parking space, before getting out and opening
Ray’s door to let him out.
“Ray, you’re home,” he shook Ray’s shoulder and reached across to unbuckle the
seatbelt.
“Car okay?”
“Yes, Ray. Do you need help getting upstairs?”
“Mmm, yeah,” Ray said just before falling forward, his head hitting Fraser’s
shoulder and staying there. Fraser had to manhandle Ray, but eventually got him out of
the car, into the building, and up the stairs.
There was a frightening moment when he leaned Ray against the wall while he
unlocked the door the apartment complex and Ray began to fall sideways, but Fraser
caught him seconds before he hit the ground. The advantage was that it woke Ray up
enough that he was able to do some of the work in getting up to his apartment.
Fraser intended to leave Ray just inside his apartment, but Ray held onto Fraser’s
hand and dragged him a few unsteady steps inside. Fraser pulled the door shut and moved
forward to help Ray to his room, where he promptly collapsed to sit on the bed. Fraser
dropped to his knees to pull off Ray’s boots, and Ray’s hand slid onto his shoulder,
fingers resting at the nape of Fraser’s neck.
“Don’t walk home. Should stay,” Fraser considered the offer. It was quite late and
he was tired. It was foolish to attempt to return to the Consulate until he’d slept.
“I will, Ray,” he said. He gave Ray a little shove so that he fell onto his back, his
hand sliding back again across Fraser’s shoulder. Then Fraser stood, lifting Ray’s legs
onto the bed on his way up before turning back toward the living room couch.
“No, stay here,” Fraser looked back at Ray
“I will, Ray,” he said with more emphasis. Ray frowned and started to speak
again, but Fraser hit the lights, not wanting to keep him awake any longer. “I promise.
Good night.”
Friday - 11:00 am
Ray was pacing outside the precinct when Fraser arrived. He stopped once he
caught sight of Fraser, furrowing his brow as if he hadn’t expected Fraser’s arrival
despite having called the Consulate no more than twenty minutes earlier.
“Did you run here?”
“No, Ray.” It was technically true. Jogging wasn’t running.
Someone rushed out of the building and Ray caught the door, gesturing for Fraser
to go in ahead of him.
“Caught a break,” Ray said, as they climbed the stairs to their floor. “Uniforms
just brought in Williams. I need my good cop for the interrogation. Turnbull didn’t tell
you any of this?”
“Ah. No. To be fair, I didn’t give him much of an opportunity to speak.”
“Ah,” Ray said without elaboration, quickly moving on to sum up what the
uniforms had said when they brought Williams in, finishing just as they got to the door.
“Ready?”
Fraser nodded and stepped into the room, holding the door for Ray to follow.
“Mr. Williams, we’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Lawyer,” he snapped.
“Well, if you’re-”
“Lawyer,” he said again, placing emphasis on each syllable and grinning sharply.
Fraser heard the door to the room open and looked up to see Ray already halfway out the
door.
“I’ll send someone in to contact your attorney,” Fraser said before stepping out to
find Ray leaning against the opposite wall looking almost disconcertingly calm.
“He totally did it,” he said simply.
“I’m inclined to agree, Ray.”
“We’re going to need to prove that somehow.” Ray bit his thumb and stared down
at the floor. “Sorry to drag you out here for nothing.”
“Nowhere I’d rather be, Ray,” Fraser said, surprised to find that it was true.
“Yeah?” Ray asked, sounding much like Fraser had just confirmed something Ray
already suspected.
“Yeah, Ray,” Fraser said, grinning helplessly.
Friday - 1:45 pm
Three heavy folders fell on Ray’s desk, causing Fraser and Ray to both look up at
Stella Kowalski.
“Get everything filled out correctly, and be at the courthouse Monday at 3. Judge
Thomas. Bring the Mountie.”
“Bad move,” Ray said. “He won’t admit to it.”
“What?”
“Judge’ll ask ‘have you exhausted all ordinary measures?’ and Fraser will say,”
and here Ray adopted a rather convincing Canadian accent, “‘not at all. Why, I once
staked out an igloo for two weeks living only off small, passing woodland creatures. We
can continue in our current status indefinitely.’ And we’ll never get the warrant and so
we’ll never hear his calls.”
Stella turned and looked at Fraser incredulously.
“Is that true?”
“Well, not the part about the igloo and the small creatures,” Fraser said, resisting
the urge to pull at his collar, “but the basic idea certainly holds up.”
She turned back to Ray.
“Don’t bring the Mountie.”
Friday - 4:00 pm
“I don’t want you to make a big deal out of this.”
“Does starting a conversation like that ever help? It’s like starting with ‘we need
to talk.’ All it does is make me edgy.”
“As opposed you your usual zen-like calm, Ray?” Ray looked startled at the
teasing, but smiled back.
“Funny Mountie.”
“You two going to be doing this long, or can I continue?” The Lieutenant seemed
to accept the silence as a good sign and went on. “Alderman Blum would like us to drop
the case.”
“Did he give a reason?” Fraser asked over the sound of Ray kicking one of the
Lieutenant’s chairs.
“Claims that it turned out to be a joke. Thanks us and apologizes for wasting our
time.”
“Is he going to pay me for my time?”
“Let it go, detective.”
Ray kicked the chair again and pulled the door open fiercely. Fraser barely
avoided crashing into him when Ray stopped a half step through the doorway and turned
around, staying right in Fraser’s personal space, tilting his head slightly to speak to the
Lieutenant over Fraser’s shoulder.
“Lieu, did he say if it was the butler?”
“Go home,” the Lieutenant said in a tone which had Fraser pushing Ray the rest
of the way into the bullpen. Ray regained control of his motor functions a few steps later
and made it to his desk without Fraser’s assistance. Ray began stacking up folders to
return to Francesca while Fraser collapsed into his chair with a sigh.
“You all right, Frase?”
“Of course, Ray. It’s just that you put in so much work in such a short amount of
time, for it to end like that, it’s just so…”
“Disappointing?” Ray suggested, still stacking.
“Anticlimactic.”
END
**
Now you've finished reading, please take a moment to vote on this story in our poll here.
[Poll #1256679]
Author:
sisterofdreamTeam: Reality
Prompt: “Well it’s not completely unheard of - especially in the Amazon basin.”
Pairing(s): Fraser/Kowalski
Rating: G
Word count: 6800
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: Thanks to Wihulta and JS for betas. To Spuffy for maintaining my sanity (while we both followed the strict codes of team secrecy). To akamine_chan for being an all out rockstar and performing emergency rescue.
Summary: There is a system. There is a system based on tradition and how things work.
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**
Monday - 2:00 pm
Ray was ignoring him.
At first he thought Ray simply hadn’t heard the question, and so he asked again.
By the third repetition, Fraser became concerned about the state of Ray’s hearing, and
had considered asking Diefenbaker to give Ray lessons on navigating the world without
the benefit of sound. But it quickly became apparent, by the set of Ray’s mouth, his
occasionally rolling eyes, and the fact that he sighed whenever Fraser spoke, that his
hearing was in no way impaired.
Fraser turned, watching the city pass far too quickly for Ray to be obeying the
speed limit, and tried to determine the best way to get a reaction out of his partner.
Keeping Ray talking was never a challenge; getting him started could be.
“You know, Ray,” Fraser began, still staring out the window, “my father once
told me a story about a man, a lifeboat, and a pickax.” As expected, Ray immediately
went for the radio, only to begin cursing softly when he recalled the incident last week
involving Diefenbaker, a cup of coffee, a now broken radio, and the promise of a two
month donut-free existence.
“You see Ray,” Fraser continued, “the man had been lost for quite some time, and
he’d come to the realization that-”
“Fraser, no Inuit stories.” Ray said quickly, pushing up his sunglasses so he could
rub at his eyes. Fraser grinned to himself. Success.
“Well, Ray, there aren’t, in fact, any Inuit in this particular story.”
“Fine. No Canada stories.”
“This is a timeless story, one which could take place in any number of locales.”
Fraser paused for just a moment, giving Ray a chance to ready a reply and then heading it
off. “Chicago, for example.”
“Guy has a lifeboat and a pickax in Chicago?”
“He could be on the lake.”
“With a pickax?” And there it was. Fraser could hear the smile in Ray’s voice and
he turned his head quickly to catch it before it disappeared.
“Well it’s not completely unheard of - especially in the Amazon basin.”
“Fraser. This the Amazon Basin?”
“No, this is Chicago.”
“That anywhere close to the Amazon basin?”
“No, Ray. As you are probably well aware the Amazon is actually located-”
“Frase.”
“Ah, a rhetorical question, Ray?”
“Correct, Fraser.”
“Well, Ray. If you listened to the story, you’d know why he had the pickax.”
“No stories. None at all. Storytelling is banned in this car.” The tone was serious
and a few short months ago Fraser would have accepted the comment at face value.
Silently accepted the ban. But by now, he knew Ray better than that. He could hear the
undercurrent of humor, the sound of Ray enjoying the back and forth, even the
anticipation of him waiting for the next line.
“Ah. And does telling me why we’ve been asked to drop everything and focus all
our attention on this particular case count as a story?”
“Fraser, there has been a mistake of justice here.”
“Miscarriage?”
“Right. That. Plus, we haven’t been asked to drop everything. And we have the
time to focus on this. The Rice robbery is nothing. The O’Donnell thing’s going nowhere
right now. And we’re still waiting on Mort and the lab for the Chawkat and DiNaldi
deaths.” Ray kept talking as he pulled the car to a stop in front of a rather impressive
looking brownstone. “We make cases a priority all the time, Frase. We’ve made minor
league baseball teams in other cities a priority. This one involves an alderman. He
decides how much money we have. Happy alderman equals more money. Angry
alderman equals less money. We like the more money option. It’s how we buy things.
Pizza. Beer. Pemmican.”
Ray turned, bringing his right knee up on the seat, and pointing at Fraser, both his
index and pinkie fingers extended. Fraser waited for Ray’s hand to hit his chest, but it
stayed safely on the other side of the car.
“Now, you gonna be Canadian in there?”
“I can hardly be anything but.” Fraser had been focused on Ray’s hand, but
suspected that the question wouldn’t have made much sense even if he had been paying
attention.
“I meant, are you gonna be polite? In no way mention or imply or infer that we
have open murder cases that we could be working on? Or that if he wasn’t having an
affair in the first place, no one would be blackmailing him?”
“I promise to behave, Ray.” Ray didn’t look the slightest bit convinced, but he
shifted to open his car door anyway.
“Good. Let’s do this thing.”
After the butler had shown them in (and Ray had mouthed the word “butler” at
Fraser the second the man’s back was turned, eyes half mocking and half impressed),
they met with Alderman Blum. Fraser hadn’t expected the man to be so young, but had
certainly expected him to be unwilling to discuss his situation, staying as vague as
possible. Fraser’s presence seemed to make him uncomfortable, so Ray suggested that he
speak with Blum alone, and the Alderman happily accepted.
Fraser took the time to review the copies of the letters and photographs that were
the cause of the investigation.
“Jeeves is gonna bring a list of everyone who was at the party last night,” Ray
said when he returned alone nearly a half hour later. Fraser nodded vaguely and went
back to inspecting the folder while Ray wandered around the room.
“Huh.”
“What did you find, Ray?” Fraser asked, coming up quickly to look at the
bookshelf Ray had been studying.
“Nothing. Just had a thought.” He paused for a moment and then shook his head,
as if to clear it. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
“Who were you talking to?” Fraser looked instinctively over his shoulder to see if
his father had shown up again.
“No, I mean, I was ignoring you. And then I wasn’t.”
Fraser wasn’t sure if a response was necessary, so he just waited Ray out.
“Used to complain all the time, about my moods.” Ray said vaguely. Fraser again
got the impression that he wasn’t the one being spoken to. “That I’d go quiet when she
wanted to talk. Terse, she said. I was terse.”
“I can’t really imagine you quiet for too long, Ray.” Fraser said without thinking.
“Yeah,” Ray said, with a quick grin at Fraser before he dropped his eyes back to
the shelves. “Not surprising, since apparently I can’t go more than five minutes without
talking to you.”
The butler returned just then, breaking the silence as he handed a few pieces of
paper to Fraser and made a request for discretion. Fraser nodded solemnly, added the new
pages to the folder he carried and followed Ray out the door.
Monday - 3:50 pm
“I don’t remember the authorization of any sort of surveillance equipment on this
case, detective.”
“Yeah. Didn’t use any. Fraser overheard the conversation.” Ray scratched at his
neck and kept his eyes trained about a foot above the Lieutenant’s head.
“You overheard it?” With a small spin in his chair, Lieutenant Welsh leaned back
and focused all his attention on Fraser. Something in the Lieutenant’s eyes made Fraser
immediately move from parade rest to stand at attention. Ray, on the other hand, visibly
relaxed with the change of target.
“That’s correct, sir.”
“You overheard Finn O’Donnell directly discussing his role in the distribution of
Class A narcotics….in a bank vault?”
“Once again, sir, that is correct.”
“Detective, Constable, the universe in which this holds up in court simply does
not exist.” Fraser began to object, but was stopped at the second syllable by a small wave
from the Lieutenant. “Constable, nobody in their right mind is going to believe you, and
it does not speak well to my mental state that I do. Detective, I think it’s time to talk to
the ASA, see if we can get some actual evidence of one of these meetings.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Excellent. You now have permission to go solve crimes.”
Monday - 4:30 pm
“Well, detective, I think we can safely rule that Mr. DiNaldi died a natural death.”
Mort said, holding out a thin, manila folder.
“Greatness. Fraser, let’s roll,” Ray said swiftly, grabbing the folder with one hand
and Fraser’s hand with the other, pulling him right back out of the room, Fraser’s ‘thank
you kindly’ getting lost behind the swinging doors.
Monday - 5:00 pm
Fraser perched on the edge of Ray’s desk, spinning his hat in his hands as he
listened to his partner list fifty possible restaurants for Fraser to choose from for dinner.
The phone rang on Huey’s desk then, with Ray’s following just a second after. Fraser
knew he should follow Ray’s conversation but his attention was drawn by Huey’s.
“Sir, I’m confused. In what way are you now a man in which you weren’t
yesterday?”
Ray slamming his phone down brought Fraser back and he looked at Ray, who
was already shrugging into his jacket and picking up his keys.
“Jewelry store got robbed. Think it’s related to the Rice one last week. Can you
wait to eat?”
“Certainly, Ray.”
Huey’s voice faded behind Fraser as he followed Ray out of the precinct.
“Okay then, sir. Ma’am. Of course. Have you consulted a medical professional?”
Wednesday - 8:00 am
“Morning Fraser. How was Tuesday in fake Canada?” Fraser wasn’t sure how
Ray knew it was him, slumped over the desk as Ray was, his hand possibly the only thing
keeping his head from crushing a nearly empty cup of coffee.
“I successfully put our entire library in chronological order by year of initial
publication.” Fraser tried to inject a hint of sarcasm into his voice, but it came out closer
to delusional enthusiasm.
“Wow,” Ray said, tilting his head up on his palm, giving Fraser a view of a small
smile under bleary eyes. “I don’t know if my plans can compete with that. I was just
going to fight some crime.”
“Well, since you went to all the trouble of making plans, it seems rude to refuse.
What’s all this?” He asked, gesturing at the neat stacks of manila folders that had
replaced the loose papers, knick knacks, and garbage which had always threatened to
consume Ray’s desk.
“Blum casework. Everything we have on all of Alderman Blum and wife’s
relatives, employees, friends, college roommates, little league teammates, and former all
those things I listed.”
“You’ve already been through all of them?” Fraser shifted his attention from the
folders to Ray and took in the bruising under his eyes, the creases fading on his left
cheek. Had Ray slept here?
“Yeah. Bunch of interviews too. Listen, I’m gonna get more coffee and, you
know,” he made a vague waving gesture by his head, “wake up. Then I’ll come back here
and explain it all and you can give them a second look before we head out. I want to try
talking again to that guy who owned the warehouse where the Chawkat body was
dumped.”
“Williams?”
“Mm. Him.”
“I’ll get you coffee, Ray,” Fraser said, puling the cup out from under his partner’s
slowly falling head. “You just try to stay awake until I get back.”
“Mm,” Ray said again, just before his arm gave out and he dropped his head onto
the desk with a soft thud. Fraser picked up his pace.
Wednesday - 9:00 am
“Now, can you tell me where we might find your boss?” Fraser flashed his
brightest grin at the young secretary. She’d spent the past ten minutes listening with rapt
attention to Fraser detailing the differences between French and Quebeçois, so this was
‘in the bag,’ as Ray might say.
At least, it seemed that way until she pulled back, blinked a few times and smiled
sadly.
“Canada, you’re pretty. But you’re not that pretty.” She returned to the paperwork
she’d abandoned on first sighting her visitors, signaling complete dismissal in every way.
Ray nodded at the door and the two left, silently making their way back to the car
and back onto the streets.
Fraser was preoccupied with designing a more effective line a questioning when
Ray broke the silence.
“She’s wrong you know.” Fraser raised his eyebrows instead of asking for Ray to
continue. “You are that pretty.”
There was a moment where Fraser stopped breathing, but then Ray grinned and
laughed quickly, softly, and Fraser breathed out again and turned back to look out the
window.
“Apparently not, Ray.”
“Frase?”
“Or she’d have told us his location,” He said quickly. Too quickly, he was certain.
“Want to go talk to more witnesses from the jewelry heist? Bet we’ll find one or
two who’ll fall for the old Canadian charm.” Fraser felt his face heat up, grateful that he
was already facing the window. It was completely unfair that he couldn’t control his
response even when he knew he was being teased.
Wednesday - 12:30 pm
“Actually, the truck might have been blue.”
“So, blue or black?”
“Right. A dark blue, though. Like a blackish blue.”
“Excellent. Thank you kindly for your assistance. Please call Detective Vecchio if
you think of anything else.”
Ray waved his card in her face, distracting her from finding another reason to
keep the two of them in the hallway and giving Fraser time to make a quick escape.
“Just once, I’d like interviewing a crowd of witnesses to not be a complete waste
of time, Frase,” Ray complained once they entered the stairwell.
“That’s hardly fair, Ray. We learned a great deal today.”
“Right, right. The getaway car was either a truck or a van. It was blue, black,
grey, or beige. And there were anywhere between 6 and 3 men of average height, average
build and who may or may not have been masked and armed.”
“Don’t forget the possibility that it was a yellow Mini Cooper driven by two
exceedingly tall women.”
“Fraser. That guy’s story doesn’t count. He was drunk. He was the most drunk
I’ve seen someone ever.”
“Don’t be silly, Ray. It was ten in the morning when we spoke to him.”
“Fraser, I am too hungry to explain drinking to you right now. Where do you want
to eat?”
Wednesday - 2:00 pm
When they returned to the precinct, a small, fidgety man sitting in Ray’s chair all
but leapt out of his seat at the sight of them, crossing his arms over his chest defensively.
“Charlie!” Ray shouted happily across the room. “Does this mean you’ve got
results on Chawkat? Results that lead to really obvious, impossible to disprove, guilty
verdicts?”
“No, Ray.”
“Tell me they didn’t come back inconclusive.”
“They didn’t. I still don’t have results for you.”
“What’s the freaking hold up?”
“That’d be the tin soldier to your right,” he said, nodding at Fraser, an insincere
little smile on his face. Fraser was confused by Charlie’s comment, but he was
completely thrown by Ray’s reaction.
“Oh. Damn it. Again?”
“Ray?” Ray was focused on Charlie, wincing slightly, his bottom lip caught in his
teeth, giving the impression that the whole conversation was causing him physical pain.
“You said you were going to talk to him, Ray. You said,” Charlie, well, whined
was unkind even if it was true.
“I know. I know.”
“Talk to me about what, Ray?”
“There is a reason, Dudley-” And Fraser turned back to look at Charlie, who had
one finger pointed at the ceiling and looked both angry and frightened. Fraser got the
impression that Charlie didn’t often shout and was not certain how it would go over.
“Whoa! What did I say about calling the Mountie names?”
“Constable,” he amended, immediately softening his tone, “that in this country we
don’t use our tongues as a means of gathering evidence. It’s so I don’t waste time
separating your saliva out from that evidence.”
“Charlie, I said I’d talk to him and I will.”
“Yeah, but you said that before and here I am.”
“I promise. First thing I do once you go is talk to Fraser.”
Charlie stared at Ray a moment longer. Then he nodded quickly and stepped away
from the desk, glaring ineffectively at Fraser until he was blocked by the bullpen doors.
“Ray, what was all that about?” Ray spun Fraser around, threw an arm over his
shoulders and steered him down the hallway.
“Fraser, let’s get to Interrogation One for a refresher course on preserving a crime
scene.”
Wednesday - 2:30 pm
“DiNaldi came back natural. Signed note from the ME, completed paperwork and
everything,” Ray said proudly, tossing the folder he’d brought onto Lieutenant Welsh’s
desk.
“I don’t like when cases come back natural, detective. Someone dies in my city
and takes up an hour of your time, the least he can do is be murdered and scrawl the name
of the killer down on the nearest flat surface.”
“You’re a great humanitarian, Lieu,” Ray said, preventing Fraser from providing
his own opinion of what he certainly hoped was a joke by Lieutenant Welsh.
“On another note, is there any chance you drew your weapon while chasing down
one of O’Donnell’s men and then neglected to fill out the paperwork?”
“Sounds like something I’d do,” Ray said with an uncaring shrug.
“Get me the paperwork before you leave today.” Ray nodded and the Lieutenant
nodded back. “Now, what can you tell me about Blum?”
“Done all the initial work on the files. Met with all of the house staff yesterday.
Waiting for lab results, see if I can narrow it down.”
“Lab still pissed at you?”
“Yeah, but we had a talk today, promised to keep Fraser on a leash.” Fraser chose
not to respond to that comment, though he certainly wished someone had brought this
information to his attention before today.
“Good work. You’re both free to go.”
“Just wondering, am I getting paid for all this overtime?”
“On paper, yes. In reality, next fiscal year.” Lieutenant Welsh dropped his
attention to the folder Ray had given him, but the lack of attention didn’t deter Ray in the
slightest.
“The reason I left my beat for this fancy detecting work in the first place was the
pay.”
“And here I thought it was your tireless commitment to solving crimes.”
“Nah. Just the money.” Fraser thought he saw the Lieutenant smirk at his folder as
he waved the two out of his office without looking up.
Wednesday - 3:00 pm
“What was the name of the guy I pulled my gun on, Frase?” Ray asked, pen
scratching across the top page of the forms he was filling out.
“Patrick Bailey.”
“And we were on Monroe, right?”
“Arcade.” Ray sighed and began digging around in one of his desk drawers. “You
don’t carry Wite-Out in that belt, do you Fraser?”
“Would you like me to fill that out, Ray?”
“No, I’m a big boy. I can fill out my paperwork all by myself,” he said,
brandishing the recently discovered bottle of correction fluid triumphantly.
A few minutes passed where Ray filled out his form (and occasionally swore and
reached again for the Wite-Out), and Fraser looked through files, creating a new set of
stacks within the ones Ray had created.
“Listen,” Ray said suddenly into the silence, “you gonna be able to admit
exhaustion on this thing?”
“On Blum?” F raser said, looking up in confusion.
“No, Frase. O’Donnell. Nobody without bat ears or …eyes like some animal with
good eyes is ever going to catch this guy doing anything. We need to bring in
surveillance equipment.”
“Ah.” Fraser returned to the folder he was holding, certain it had been placed in
the wrong stack.
“You know we can’t do that without convincing a judge that we’ve exhausted all
other options. Can you say that?”
“We’ve only had cars on him for a few days. If I heard the conversation at the
bank, then it stands to reason that eventually someone else will be able to as well.” Ray
sighed and dropped his head to his desk. “And we recently caught one of the men in his
employ. We might get him to talk.”
“So that’s a no?”
“Correct, Ray. Now, if I may return to Alderman Blum, are you really considering
the butler as a suspect?”
“One of these days, Frase,” Ray said, lifting his head from the desk and pointing
at Fraser emphatically, “I will get to say ‘the butler did it’ and have it be true.”
“Not on this case, Ray.”
“500 of air says it’s the butler,” he said, shifting his hand into an open palm.
“You know I don’t normally gamble Ray, but you have a deal,” Fraser said,
reaching his hand out to shake Ray’s.
Thursday - 1:30 pm
Fraser nearly came to a dead stop in the aisle, the sight of Detective Dewey sitting
in the Fraser’s usual chair was so off-putting.
“Ah!” Huey, leaning on the wall beside his partner, had noticed Fraser’s approach
and drawn the attention of the other two detectives. “You’ve got Fraser. That’s another
point in your favor.
“First of all,” Ray said, counting off on his fingers dramatically, “there are no
points. Stop bringing up the points. Second of all, if there were points, Fraser
would give me negative points.”
Fraser halted three steps from Ray’s desk. Everyone forgot Fraser just as easily as
they had focused on him seconds earlier, turning back to Ray.
“How is Fraser a negative?” asked Dewey. The phone rang on Dewey’s desk, but
neither he nor Huey seemed to notice. “He solves crimes by licking things. No one else
can do that. It’s basically a superpower.”
“Three, the licking is constantly causing trouble. Four, it’s 1:30 and my partner
has only just shown up.”
“Are either of you aware that your phone is ringing?” Fraser felt compelled to
ask, stepping up to the side of the desk.
“I’m always the lead. I take as many calls as the both of you, and not only are
they always my cases, but half the day I’m completely on my own,” Ray continued,
ticking off his points now required two hands.
“Twelve open cases, Ray. We have twelve,” Huey said, pleading for sympathy.
“I took one of your calls last week. I did that out of the goodness of my heart.”
“The brother confessed at the scene!” Huey shouted.
“The system is based on calls! I took the call.”
“You solved your last three cases in what, 45 minutes each?” Dewey raised his
voice to match his partner’s.
Fraser was about to step in, lest the argument become physical, when he was
shoved bodily from his position. He looked back to see that a furious looking Francesca
had taken his place at the desk and the three detectives were all doing rather convincing
impressions of startled caribou.
“Why did nobody pick up the phone? I put it through twice.”
“We’re working on that Frannie,” Dewey said cautiously.
“Do you need help answering the phone? Did you forget how?”
“Ray might be taking this one.”
“Ray is not.” Francesca and Ray managed somehow to say the last
together, with the exact same tone of righteous indignation.
The matching speech threw Ray off for a moment, but Francesca blazed on,
undaunted. She held up a clipboard like a weapon, poking Dewey emphatically as she
spoke.
“There is a system.” Poke. “It’s a very simple system. So simple, even a moron
like you” poke “should be able to follow it. When it’s your turn, you answer the phone.”
Poke. “And since this clipboard says that Ray took the last call in this section, that means
that one of you two” poke “need to return this message.” Having successfully poked
Dewey, chair and all, right into Huey, Francesca shoved a pink phone message into
Huey’s chest with her left hand. “One of you is calling back in the next two minutes, or
I’m slashing your tires.”
“Damn right,” seconded Ray.
“Oh, don’t you start,” she said, wheeling around on Ray, whose face had moved
from smug to terrified in a fraction of a second. “You took one of their calls last week.
And that messed with the system. And when the system gets messed with, there’s
confusion and then you get snappy with me, even though it’s your own fault.”
“Sorry,” Ray mumbled.
“Sorry, Frannie,” Huey and Dewey added. Francesca nodded briefly at them,
before looking up to finally see Fraser. She smacked Dewey on the side of the head with
the clipboard.
“Go back to your own desk. Like Fraser doesn’t stand enough at the Consulate.”
Dewey and Huey practically rocketed across the bullpen, knocking Fraser’s chair
to the ground on their way.
“Good afternoon, Frase,” Francesca said, swinging her hips against his as she
passed.
Fraser coughed, muttered something that was supposed to be a response, and then
focused on getting his chair back upright, and using it a shield.
“That was one of the scariest moments of my life right there, Frase. And I’ve been
handcuffed to a sinking ship.” Indeed, Ray’s wide eyes made his fear apparent. “You
don’t think she’d slash my tires, do you?”
“What was that all about, Ray?”
“The duck boys want me to take on some of their calls. I said no. And I think
that’s where you came in.”
“Ray, that was uncharitable. Surely, if we can take on additional cases, and they
need the help-”
“No. No, Fraser. Just no. There is a system. There is a system based on tradition
and how things work. You do not get to go messing with the system just ‘cause you’re
Canadian. No. Especially ‘cause you’re Canadian.”
“Even if we could help?”
“We have cases of our own. And we have a priority case right now. Normally, we
wouldn’t be taking calls at all.”
Fraser acknowledged the truth of that and quietly returned to the part of the
conversation that had troubled him.
“Ray, do you really think of me as a negative?”
“Don’t get me wrong Fraser, when you’re here, you’re aces. Best partner anyone
could ask for. But I spend a lot of time doing stuff on my own. And some weeks it
balances out okay, but a lot of the time it doesn’t.”
“Would it…would you prefer-”
“Another partner? Not ever,” Ray said with a brilliant smile. “Now let’s head to
the car. I’ll catch you up on the way.
Fraser could hear Ray following him out. To his left, Dewey was trying to
convince the person on the other end of his phone that her television had not, in all
likelihood, been taken by a band of ninjas.
Thursday - 2:00 pm
Fraser had been in the jewelry store for two minutes when Ray grabbed a hold of
his hand, preventing Fraser from picking up the gum wrapper he’d found. A second later
there was a thump on his chest. Fraser reached up blindly, briefly taking Ray’s other hand
and gaining hold of the objects Ray was giving him.
“Gloves, Fraser. Gloves. We just talked about this yesterday.”
Now that he mentioned it, Fraser could feel that Ray’s hands were encased in a
thin layer of latex. He looked down to see a pair of white gloves, and a few small plastic
bags pressed against his serge.
Ray watched as Fraser pulled his own gloves on, as though Fraser wouldn’t do it unless
forced. Which was probably true, but quite definitely beside the point.
When he was done, Fraser held up his hands, wiggling his fingers at Ray, who laughed
loudly in response.
“Good. We’re making progress. Now, Dief stays outside and your tongue stays in
your mouth or I deal with it myself.”
Ray’s words seemed to echo in the room and turn Ray to stone, a look Fraser was
sure he mirrored. Long seconds later, Ray shook himself with a nervous laugh that was so
different from his earlier laugh that Fraser barely considered them the same species. Then
he mumbled something about checking the office and strode from the room before Fraser
could say anything back.
Fraser reached down with a newly gloved hand, picked up the gum wrapper, and
dropped it into one of the bags.
Thursday - 4:00 pm
“We’ve been having trouble getting a hold of the warehouse owner for a follow
up on the Chawkat case. Can we get a car on his house?”
“Not a chance,” Lieutenant Welsh said, not breaking stride as he walked past
Ray’s desk.
“Lieutenant, if I may-” Fraser began, stopping when the Lieutenant spun, with
surprising grace, on his heel and doubled back.
“I don’t have the money to pay overtime for actual work. I’m not paying two men
to sit in a car for an undetermined amount of time for a follow up interview. You can
either do it yourself, for free, or you can give me the address and I’ll ask the patrolmen to
check the place every few hours. That’s all I can do until you bring me something
substantial.” Another graceful spin and Welsh was back en route for coffee.
Thursday - 4:30 pm
“Anything new, Ray?” Startled by a new voice, Fraser looked up to see Stella
Kowalski standing at the desk, looking down at Ray. Fraser returned to his file without
waiting for her to acknowledge him. He considered stepping away from the desk
altogether, but worried about drawing attention, and chose to stoically endure what was
bound to be an awkward conversation.
“Not really. Welsh gave me a priority, so I’m on that at the moment.”
“City council?”
“Yep.” Fraser frowned at Ray’s response. He sounded distant, familiar in a way
Fraser couldn’t place.
“That’s mine. Keep me updated.”
“Sure. Oh, I need to talk to you later about something.”
“Ray, I really don’t want-”
“Gonna claim exhaustion on O’Donnell and request at least three phone taps.
We’ll need to set up the warrants and a time to meet with a judge.”
Fraser did look up at Stella then, and found she looked as shocked as Fraser felt.
He couldn’t recall Ray ever cutting her off.
“I’ll bring the paperwork tomorrow,” she said, her voice betraying her confusion.
“You get it filled out in time, we can meet with a judge on Monday.”
“Greatness. Thanks, Stell.” Ray smiled at her and it confused Fraser again.
Nothing about Ray today followed his typical interactions with his ex-wife. Even the
smile felt off, more like one he would give Francesca, provided he’d already had a cup of
coffee and she’d brought him the right file.
“Tomorrow, Ray,” Stella said, and stepped away from the desk. Fraser waited
until she left the bullpen before he spoke to Ray, leaning in over the desk and dropping
his voice.
“Ray, if ‘playing it cool,’” Fraser tried to make the quotation marks with his
inflection, as it seemed to bother Ray when he made them with his hands, “is your latest
tactic to try to win back Stella’s affections-”
“Getting over it is not a tactic, Fraser. It’s just a thing.” Ray met his eyes, leaning
forward into Fraser’s personal space, giving the conversation more weight than Fraser
had expected when he’d started it. “I’m not trying to get her back. I don’t want her back.”
Fraser wasn’t sure what he did in that moment, but it seemed to please Ray because he
visibly relaxed. “Good. Grab whatever you can. We should move to one of the
interrogation rooms to go through these. More room and also I can yell at you when you
suggest something insane.” Ray grinned then, the difference between this one and his
smile to Stella the difference between freezing and burning.
Terse, Fraser thought as Ray gathered up a hefty stack of files and walked
carefully down the hall. That’s how Ray sounded with Stella. He’d sounded terse.
Friday - 1:00 am
“Ray, I know we discounted the brother-in-law, but what if-”
Fraser cut himself off when he realized Ray had fallen asleep in his chair, chin
resting against his chest, hands still loosely holding one of the many files on the table.
Fraser gathered up the folders, carefully pulling the one from Ray’s hands so as
not to disturb him, and took them from the room. It took two trips to return them to Ray’s
desk and by the time he had finished, bringing Ray’s jacket and keys back with him, Ray
still hadn’t moved.
Fraser had considered letting Ray sleep at the precinct before remembering Ray’s
face on Wednesday morning, still creased from sleep. Clearly, he was in desperate need
of a decent night’s rest, and he wasn’t likely to get it here.
“Ray,” he said softly, shaking his partner. “Let me take you home.”
“You can’t drive the car,” Ray mumbled stubbornly, trying to pull himself from
his slouch as he slowly woke up.
“Ray, you’re having trouble sitting upright. You will not make it home without
falling back asleep. Let me drive you.”
“You don’t drive good.”
“Better than you drive asleep, I imagine. I promise no harm will come to the car,
Ray.”
“But if you do hurt it, I can kill you, right?” Fraser got the impression that in the
moments just before fully waking, Ray was exactly the same person he’d been at five
years old.
“Of course.”
This seemed to be enough for Ray, and he held out his hand to let Fraser pull him
up. Fraser pulled Ray’s arm over his shoulder, and wrapped his own around Ray’s waist
as they made their way through the precinct. Ray did his best to walk, but Fraser ended
up carrying a substantial portion of his weight, making it a relief to get to the car.
The trip was entirely uneventful, Ray didn’t move at all for the duration, and the
undamaged car meant Fraser would be allowed to live. Fraser breathed a sigh of relief
when he finally cut off the engine in Ray’s parking space, before getting out and opening
Ray’s door to let him out.
“Ray, you’re home,” he shook Ray’s shoulder and reached across to unbuckle the
seatbelt.
“Car okay?”
“Yes, Ray. Do you need help getting upstairs?”
“Mmm, yeah,” Ray said just before falling forward, his head hitting Fraser’s
shoulder and staying there. Fraser had to manhandle Ray, but eventually got him out of
the car, into the building, and up the stairs.
There was a frightening moment when he leaned Ray against the wall while he
unlocked the door the apartment complex and Ray began to fall sideways, but Fraser
caught him seconds before he hit the ground. The advantage was that it woke Ray up
enough that he was able to do some of the work in getting up to his apartment.
Fraser intended to leave Ray just inside his apartment, but Ray held onto Fraser’s
hand and dragged him a few unsteady steps inside. Fraser pulled the door shut and moved
forward to help Ray to his room, where he promptly collapsed to sit on the bed. Fraser
dropped to his knees to pull off Ray’s boots, and Ray’s hand slid onto his shoulder,
fingers resting at the nape of Fraser’s neck.
“Don’t walk home. Should stay,” Fraser considered the offer. It was quite late and
he was tired. It was foolish to attempt to return to the Consulate until he’d slept.
“I will, Ray,” he said. He gave Ray a little shove so that he fell onto his back, his
hand sliding back again across Fraser’s shoulder. Then Fraser stood, lifting Ray’s legs
onto the bed on his way up before turning back toward the living room couch.
“No, stay here,” Fraser looked back at Ray
“I will, Ray,” he said with more emphasis. Ray frowned and started to speak
again, but Fraser hit the lights, not wanting to keep him awake any longer. “I promise.
Good night.”
Friday - 11:00 am
Ray was pacing outside the precinct when Fraser arrived. He stopped once he
caught sight of Fraser, furrowing his brow as if he hadn’t expected Fraser’s arrival
despite having called the Consulate no more than twenty minutes earlier.
“Did you run here?”
“No, Ray.” It was technically true. Jogging wasn’t running.
Someone rushed out of the building and Ray caught the door, gesturing for Fraser
to go in ahead of him.
“Caught a break,” Ray said, as they climbed the stairs to their floor. “Uniforms
just brought in Williams. I need my good cop for the interrogation. Turnbull didn’t tell
you any of this?”
“Ah. No. To be fair, I didn’t give him much of an opportunity to speak.”
“Ah,” Ray said without elaboration, quickly moving on to sum up what the
uniforms had said when they brought Williams in, finishing just as they got to the door.
“Ready?”
Fraser nodded and stepped into the room, holding the door for Ray to follow.
“Mr. Williams, we’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Lawyer,” he snapped.
“Well, if you’re-”
“Lawyer,” he said again, placing emphasis on each syllable and grinning sharply.
Fraser heard the door to the room open and looked up to see Ray already halfway out the
door.
“I’ll send someone in to contact your attorney,” Fraser said before stepping out to
find Ray leaning against the opposite wall looking almost disconcertingly calm.
“He totally did it,” he said simply.
“I’m inclined to agree, Ray.”
“We’re going to need to prove that somehow.” Ray bit his thumb and stared down
at the floor. “Sorry to drag you out here for nothing.”
“Nowhere I’d rather be, Ray,” Fraser said, surprised to find that it was true.
“Yeah?” Ray asked, sounding much like Fraser had just confirmed something Ray
already suspected.
“Yeah, Ray,” Fraser said, grinning helplessly.
Friday - 1:45 pm
Three heavy folders fell on Ray’s desk, causing Fraser and Ray to both look up at
Stella Kowalski.
“Get everything filled out correctly, and be at the courthouse Monday at 3. Judge
Thomas. Bring the Mountie.”
“Bad move,” Ray said. “He won’t admit to it.”
“What?”
“Judge’ll ask ‘have you exhausted all ordinary measures?’ and Fraser will say,”
and here Ray adopted a rather convincing Canadian accent, “‘not at all. Why, I once
staked out an igloo for two weeks living only off small, passing woodland creatures. We
can continue in our current status indefinitely.’ And we’ll never get the warrant and so
we’ll never hear his calls.”
Stella turned and looked at Fraser incredulously.
“Is that true?”
“Well, not the part about the igloo and the small creatures,” Fraser said, resisting
the urge to pull at his collar, “but the basic idea certainly holds up.”
She turned back to Ray.
“Don’t bring the Mountie.”
Friday - 4:00 pm
“I don’t want you to make a big deal out of this.”
“Does starting a conversation like that ever help? It’s like starting with ‘we need
to talk.’ All it does is make me edgy.”
“As opposed you your usual zen-like calm, Ray?” Ray looked startled at the
teasing, but smiled back.
“Funny Mountie.”
“You two going to be doing this long, or can I continue?” The Lieutenant seemed
to accept the silence as a good sign and went on. “Alderman Blum would like us to drop
the case.”
“Did he give a reason?” Fraser asked over the sound of Ray kicking one of the
Lieutenant’s chairs.
“Claims that it turned out to be a joke. Thanks us and apologizes for wasting our
time.”
“Is he going to pay me for my time?”
“Let it go, detective.”
Ray kicked the chair again and pulled the door open fiercely. Fraser barely
avoided crashing into him when Ray stopped a half step through the doorway and turned
around, staying right in Fraser’s personal space, tilting his head slightly to speak to the
Lieutenant over Fraser’s shoulder.
“Lieu, did he say if it was the butler?”
“Go home,” the Lieutenant said in a tone which had Fraser pushing Ray the rest
of the way into the bullpen. Ray regained control of his motor functions a few steps later
and made it to his desk without Fraser’s assistance. Ray began stacking up folders to
return to Francesca while Fraser collapsed into his chair with a sigh.
“You all right, Frase?”
“Of course, Ray. It’s just that you put in so much work in such a short amount of
time, for it to end like that, it’s just so…”
“Disappointing?” Ray suggested, still stacking.
“Anticlimactic.”
END
**
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![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-09-09 08:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-09 08:48 pm (UTC)*goes to happy place and stays there for a long, long time*
All of the character voices in this are absolutely wonderful, but my out-and-out favourite has to be Frannie and her phone system. So very awesome! ♥
Thank you so much, mystery author!
no subject
Date: 2008-09-09 09:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-09 11:07 pm (UTC)Great characterizations for the ensemble, love the sweet/tart interactions between Ray and Fraser. And the little bits of weirdness - like the lady who thinks her tv has been stolen by ninjas - are just goofy enough, but not too... whimsical. Hee. ;)
no subject
Date: 2008-09-09 11:49 pm (UTC)It's about time someone had a talk with Fraser about preserving a crime scene and not licking stuff :)
Frannie was great and I would like to read more about Charlie.
I'm also waiting for more detail (see what I did there?) about what's happening next :)
no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 01:36 am (UTC)And whacking Dewey with the clipboard. Heh. Poor abused Dewey! It's not his fault that Ray messed up the system....! :D
Yay for you, author of anonymity!
no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 02:26 am (UTC)And the end is hysterical. "Anticlimactic" indeed.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 02:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 04:21 am (UTC)also? the banter is PITCH-PERFECT. i could read those scenes between fraser and ray FOREVER. in fact, this story could've been another 500,000 words long and i would've happily followed along.
and YAY for FRANNIE! and YAY for "anticlimactic!"
and the whole thing was hilarious, but this scene in particular made me LAUGH and LAUGH:
"Don't forget the possibility that it was a yellow Mini Cooper driven by two exceedingly tall women."
"Fraser. That guy's story doesn't count. He was drunk. He was the most drunk I've seen someone ever."
"Don't be silly, Ray. It was ten in the morning when we spoke to him."
"Fraser, I am too hungry to explain drinking to you right now. Where do you want to eat?"
HEEEEEE x infinity
no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 01:42 pm (UTC)Also, I love your Frannie.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 07:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 10:33 pm (UTC)You rock.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-11 02:38 pm (UTC)Great pacing, so fast-moving and snappy -- boom-boom-boom, and then the ending went thud, which was perfect.
I think I had more to say, but I'm just going to be over here instead, rereading the banter. “Well, not the part about the igloo and the small creatures,” Fraser said, resisting the urge to pull at his collar, “but the basic idea certainly holds up.” \o/ \o/ \o/ (And the Russian judge gives it a ten.)
no subject
Date: 2008-09-11 10:07 pm (UTC)And tell me about 'anticlimactic' - there is some more to this story. Surely?)
She’s wrong you know.” Fraser raised his eyebrows instead of asking for Ray to
continue. “You are that pretty.”
There was a moment where Fraser stopped breathing, but then Ray grinned and
laughed quickly, softly, and Fraser breathed out again and turned back to look out the
window.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-13 11:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-13 08:46 pm (UTC)Heee! I loved the characterisation and dialogue in this fun story.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-14 09:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-14 08:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-19 02:20 am (UTC)I loved Frannie and her System, loved the Crime Lab guy objecting to Fraser's licking, and loved Ray's comment to Welsh about getting paid for all the overtime he's doing. All completely realistic and cleverly and amusingly done!
I was really, really enjoying all the details, right until the anticlimactic ending. Was that deliberate, or did you just run out of time to finish the story, and then came up with a clever way of getting around that? It *was* very clever, but I was kindof disappointed and let down. :( I'd really like to see a sequel or an expanded version of this story once the challenge is over. MOAR! ::grabby hands::
please?
I also deeply enjoyed the way you moved Ray and Fraser's relationship along, subtly and yet sweetly, and perfectly in character. I really liked this scene:
“Ray, if ‘playing it cool,’” Fraser tried to make the quotation marks with his
inflection, as it seemed to bother Ray when he made them with his hands, “is your latest
tactic to try to win back Stella’s affections-”
“Getting over it is not a tactic, Fraser. It’s just a thing.” Ray met his eyes, leaning
forward into Fraser’s personal space, giving the conversation more weight than Fraser
had expected when he’d started it. “I’m not trying to get her back. I don’t want her back.”
It was very cool that you didn't forget about Stella and her importance in Ray's life, and thought to give us a realistic reason why Ray might be moving on...
Kudos!
no subject
Date: 2008-09-20 12:00 am (UTC)Maybe you don't realize how hurtful that sounds?
no subject
Date: 2008-09-20 10:06 am (UTC)I was truly just curious. Because it *was* an extremely way of getting around it if that's what happened. It was a clever ending in any case, actually.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-19 04:24 am (UTC)I *adore* the secondary characters in this: Frannie, Guardian of the System! Poor, put-upon Charlie! Stella!
no subject
Date: 2008-09-20 01:34 am (UTC)I love how everything translated in the real world. And I'm going to join the ranks of the 'and THEN what happened' readers, because inquiing minds want to know.... Thank you!
no subject
Date: 2008-09-20 12:34 pm (UTC)I really love how you've captured Ray's physicality, which is so central to his character. He's slumped over a cup of coffee, he's repeatedly kicking a chair, he's throwing his arm around Fraser's shoulders to steer him about. It's awesome.
And Fraser. It's fantastic that you've explored his utter Fraserness in a realistic context, and I love that it's from his POV, and he's just slightly out of phase with the way the world sees him. Ray's gentleness with him is gorgeous, and feels like such an act of love. He's challenging and realistic with him, he's not shielding him. But I feel like all his interactions with Fraser are imbued with love, and this blossoming awareness of that romantic potential. Which is, you know, greatness.
“No, stay here,” Fraser looked back at Ray
“I will, Ray,” he said with more emphasis. Ray frowned and started to speak
again, but Fraser hit the lights, not wanting to keep him awake any longer. “I promise. Good night.”
Oh, FRASER. That is just *classic*.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-29 11:11 pm (UTC)“But if you do hurt it, I can kill you, right?” Fraser got the impression that in the
moments just before fully waking, Ray was exactly the same person he’d been at five
years old.
There aren't enough w's in the world.