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Ray knew he’d spent too much time alone with Fraser when he found himself spouting useless shit as though it was the most fascinating thing ever. Three months up in the frozen wastelands of the north and he’d gone native.
“Did you know—” he found himself telling Welsh in the break room. Welsh! The little angel on his shoulder was panic-stricken, hopping from one foot to the other, waving a red flag. The little devil was puking into a bucket out of sheer fucking embarrassment. “—that the killer whale is a natural predator of the moose?”
It was like an out-of-body experience. He could see Welsh’s face slowly turning to granite but his mouth kept truckin’, like he’d stirred speed into his coffee.
“No shit, hand to freaking god. They’ve got this aquarium-accomodation… shit, no, see they stop up their noses and then dive into the water, and that’s really weird to see, too, as let me tell ya moose are huge. Almost seven feet tall, like deer on stilts. Anyway, they dive into the water to eat this weed, and that’s when the killer whales get ‘em,” he finished in a rush and then slapped a hand over his mouth before anything else came outta it.
Welsh calmly poured himself another coffee and sat down at the table. “Kowalski, I say this with the greatest of respect and the greatest of disinclination to get involved in the personal affairs of my detectives, so help me god… but go back to Canada.”
Ray gaped at him, suddenly and mercifully struck dumb.
Welsh leaned back in his chair and fixed him with a piercing gaze. “I might be driving a desk these days, but there’s nothing wrong with my eyes and ears. I see clues, I put them together, I detect. And believe me, Kowalski, there’s a whole lot to detect when you and Big Red are in the same room.”
The world tilted. Or at least that’s how it felt. “Lieu, I swear nothing’s—“
Welsh waved his hand impatiently, cutting him off.
“Well, it outta be,” Welsh said heatedly. “Even Frannie knows, and she’s as blind as the wolf’s deaf when it comes to the good Constable. Look, the way I figure it, you can turn in your papers early on account of the undercover, put on your snowshoes and go kiss your damn Mountie. God knows he needs you to keep him out of trouble. But as I say, I find myself disinclined to interfere in my detectives personal lives.”
Having delivered a seismic blow to Ray’s world view, Welsh got up, emptied the rest of the pot into his cup and headed back to the bullpen.
The next morning Welsh was unsurprised but not ungrateful to find a new paperweight in the form of a bottle of very good scotch on his desk, and freshly inked paperwork pinned underneath.