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Fraser stared at his combination pencil cup, lost in thought, oblivious to time passing, until the phone rang. He blinked to make his eyes refocus and picked up the receiver, mechanically giving the consulate's standard telephone greeting.
"Hey, Benny, it's me."
"Hello, Ray." His spine relaxed fractionally. Ray was giving him his customary afternoon phone call to let him know he'd be by to give Fraser a ride home from work. It was a habit they'd inadvertently fallen into, since Ray refused to let Fraser walk that distance on crutches.
"How's the leg?"
"I'm fine, Ray. I've been sitting at my desk for the course of the day. There's no reason for me to be anything but fine."
He wasn't, of course. His thigh throbbed, the pain centering on the wound made by Harold Geiger's serrated-edge knife. But the pain nagged in a different way, and as hard as Fraser tried to cover it up, to keep the sound of it out of his voice, Ray could sense it.
"I bet. I'll be there in fifteen minutes." They said their goodbyes and hung up. Fraser began organizing his desk with a desperate hope of being able to get out from behind it for a few hours.
All police officers dreaded being put behind a desk, after all. Buck Frobisher had said he believed he'd die if he were put behind a desk. And sometimes, on the rides home, Fraser would catch Ray giving him pitying looks. Ray knew that Fraser was feeling useless, stuck in a moment of time while the world left him in its dust. He picked up on the fact that Fraser was sinking into a kind of depression he'd never encountered before, and, despite all his skill and knowledge, didn't know how to fight.
He'd been incapacitated by injuries before, but that had been in Canada. He'd been in the hospital both times he'd broken his left leg, then thrown himself back into his work immediately after being released. Being on forced bed rest had almost been better, really, than the alternative of being discharged from the hospital with a half-healed knife wound. It wasn't serious enough for him to stay, but it was serious enough that he was a burden to his colleagues and friends. Most everyone he knew, in fact, had soundly chastised him for leaving the hospital too early and doing even more damage to his leg in the fight to get Harold Geiger back into police custody. Because of that, he was faced with the possibility of ending up like Sergeant Frobisher, and with that in mind, Fraser had tried to follow his doctor's orders for rest and medication. But after leaving the hospital again, he was left to return to a set of duties that Diefenbaker himself could do, a lonely apartment, and an ugly city full of strangers. He had no excuse not to work, but the work seemed more terrible than anything he'd ever done. He hurt all the time and was quickly growing to despise his job, America, and himself.
It took him the entire fifteen minutes just to close up the consulate, a series of tasks that normally took him a third of the time. Ray was waiting at the curb when Fraser hitched himself out the front door and paused, locking it and setting the security alarm. When he turned back and steadied himself on the crutches, he found Ray coming up the walk.
"No need, Ray," he said with forced cheerfulness. He forced himself to move, but his body was so tired and a shadow of its usual condition that he was dangerously unsteady. Ray ignored his remark and stepped behind him, a hand ready to grab him if he wobbled. Fraser held his breath until he got to the passenger door of the Riviera, then sighed with relief as he made it without incident.
The ride back to his apartment was much like the previous five days since Fraser had been re-released from the hospital. Fraser rode in silence, the cheerful fade having quickly slipped, quieted by exhaustion and bad moods. Ray drove carefully and watched him with openly worried glances, but said nothing.
Once at his apartment, they went through the usual ten-minute routine of walking up three flights of stairs on crutches. Ray made his same frustrated comment about calling the city down on a landlord who wouldn't fix an elevator when there were disabled people living in the building, and Fraser made his standard hurt retort that he wasn't disabled. Ray said, "Sorry, but dammit, Fraser..." and left it at that for another day. Dief ran up another five steps and paused, checking to make sure they were still following before going up the next five steps.
They made it into apartment 3J without any accidents or embarrassments. This time, though, Ray set down a paper bag he'd carried from the car, and pulled out a large glass pan covered in aluminum foil. "Ma sent this over. I could hardly keep the animals at the station off of it. Sorry, Dief," he added in deference to the canine whine from under the kitchen table.
"Thank your mother for me, but she needn't have gone to the trouble." Fraser sat at the table, forcing himself to lean the crutches gently against the wall rather than throw them to the floor. Dief set his head on Fraser's good leg and sighed. He'd become much more attentive and caring since the stabbing. He thought about remarking on the signs of a fair-weather friendship to Diefenbaker, but he couldn't risk offending one of the only creatures who still cared about him.
"Your uniform's hangin' off you, Frase. You could use some lasagna." Ray turned on the oven and pulled a wine bottle and covered salad bowl out of the paper bag. Fraser wondered how deep the bag actually was, then rubbed a hand over his face. Ray was not about to start pulling scarves out of the sack. He was too tired to think straight.
"You haven't taken any of your meds today, have you?"
"Not precisely." Fraser had stopped taking the pills while out of the apartment, hating how they made him incapable of functioning at work.
At the thump of a glass on the counter, he looked up to see that Ray had set the glass down hard enough for water to slosh out. Ray stared at the counter, bracing his weight with a fist. "Dammit, Fraser. I can tell--" Fraser watched him evenly, waiting for the rest of that sentence. If Ray told Fraser he could see how much pain he was in, Fraser wasn't sure what he could say in response. It would be too embarrassing.
"Just take it, okay? Doctor's orders."
"My doctor doesn't seem very sympathetic to the fact that this medication does not sit well with me, Ray." Fraser took a pillbox out of the pouch on his Sam Browne. Ray strode over with the water glass and set it down hard on the table.
"You gonna make me force 'em down?"
Resigned, Fraser opened the pillbox and selected a dose. Ray's watchful gaze felt heavy, and the pill nearly caught in the back of his throat, but it went down.
Satisfied, Ray went back into the kitchen. "You want some wine with dinner?"
"It would interfere with my medication, Ray. There's milk in the refrigerator."
Fraser looked up to see Ray sniff the carton, then dump its contents into the kitchen sink. "It's bad."
"I haven't been to the store in a few days, I'm afraid."
Time slowed down again. Ray bustled in the kitchen area and Fraser sat at the table, mechanically taking sips of water, rubbing Dief's head where it was still pressed against his leg under the table. After some minutes, he looked up and realized that Ray was only preparing food for one.
"Ray. You're not going to go, are you?" He was filled with a sense of dread at the prospect of watching Ray walk out the door, of spending a night with his leg keeping him awake.
"Almost done here. You got any parmesan?" Ray poked into the refrigerator again.
"Please, I can't eat alone." That sounded so pathetically desperate for attention. "There's too much food, and no point in you going home for your mother to cook you more. You've gone to this much trouble already."
Ray acceded to Fraser's reasoning and dished another serving of salad and pasta. He had to juggle all the plates and bowls, though, since Benny was staring at his water glass and lost in thought again. When a bowl thumped on the table and wobbled, he jerked to attention, then apologized and quickly reached for the plate Ray extended his way.
"What's wrong, Benny? Talk to me." Ray tried to keep his voice quiet and concerned, hiding the urge to grab Fraser by the arms and shake him until he spit out another cheerfully stupid Inuit story. Dammit, he just wanted his friend back to normal, even if normal was annoying.
"Nothing is wrong. Have you made any progress on the case you mentioned on Monday? The woman who was stabbed in her apartment?"
Ray wasn't fooled by the quick change in subject, but he played along, and kept the conversation going through dinner. Fraser didn't eat enough for his liking, but by the end of the meal it was obvious that he was even more tired, and growing loopy from his medication. Ray dumped the dishes in the sink and left them, then walked over to Fraser's chair and put an arm around his torso. He'd taken his tunic off during dinner and draped it over the chair. His ribs were hard under Ray's hand.
"C'mon. Up we go." Fraser's body was no longer stiff since he was feeling no pain, but he was even less steady on his feet than when Ray had picked him up from work. He helped him the few feet to his bed, then watched attentively as Fraser sank down and stretched out. Fraser began talking under his breath as Ray started unlacing his boots. After Fraser repeated what he'd just said, Ray paid closer attention.
"Do you ever feel out of control, Ray?"
Ray looked up toward his face, loosening the laces by feel, working a hand down the side of a tall boot until he could touch Fraser's ankle. "What do you mean?" Fraser's skin was hot under the sock. He pulled the boot off and started on the other one.
Fraser didn't seem to have picked up on Ray's response. He was staring at the ceiling, face flushed and eyes glassy. He ignored Ray completely as he went on. "The sergeant said it'd kill him. I'm not dead yet. Unless I am. Maybe I'm dead. I'm dead and in purgatory, waiting to pass on, above or below."
The other boot thumped to the floor. "You're not dead, Fraser. What the hell are you talking about?"
"I'm going to spend the rest of my life behind a desk. I'll never walk a patrol again. I know it, Ray, I just know it, know it..." He trailed off into a whisper. So he did remember whom he was speaking to.
Ray winced and sat on the bed at Fraser's hip, laying a hand carefully on his kneecap. "Benny, you got a couple decades before you get to retire. They're not going to keep you in Chicago forever. You just gotta wait this out, heal up, and you'll be out chasing cars and wagging your tail before you know it." Dief whined and walked over to sniff Fraser, then lay on the floor next to the bed.
Fraser's head rolled on the pillow, his eyes focusing feverishly on Ray's face. "What do you yearn for, Ray?"
Ray blinked, having trouble keeping up. "Um, I dunno, Benny. What do you, uh, yearn for?"
Fraser's eyes closed. His mouth opened and closed a couple of times, trying out words before he said them. "The sound of a silent snowfall. Birds singing to the midnight sun at three o'clock in the morning. Nobody passing me on a trail for weeks at a time. Cold fingers in my mouth." Ray blinked. "The smell of skin." Fraser seemed to hum softly, then murmured, "And the fire that breaks from thee then..."
Ray felt unnerved, but he played along. "Okay, uh, here's mine. For Huey and Louie to take a hike and never come back. Free dry-cleaning for the rest of my life. For my ma, not to get any older, and for Frannie to grow up."
Fraser had closed his eyes and appeared near to sleep. Ray stood, trying not to jostle the bed, but Fraser reawakened at the movement. "Ray, don't go, please don't go."
Ray sat again before Fraser finished his plea. "All right, Benny. Close your eyes and go to sleep." He felt like he was babysitting one of his distant cousins, not his Mountie partner.
Fraser caught his hand first, clutching it firmly before closing his eyes. Ray didn't try to pull away, just sat watching him while Fraser's breathing slowed.
He was used to seeing Fraser get a little stupid from the Percocet. When they'd witnessed the side effects the first time Fraser had taken a dose, they'd called the doctor and asked about it. Apparently the common side effects were lightheadedness, sedation, and dizziness. Rarer side effects were euphoria and dysphoria. Ray had had to look that one up. When he'd read, "A state of feeling unwell or unhappy," he'd thought, No shit.
But Fraser hadn't babbled like that before. Ray ruminated over the more curious things Fraser had said, until he'd worked them out. He figured the sergeant to be Buck Frobisher, and evidently the dying thing was somehow connected to being desk-ridden for the rest of his career.
And the woods thing...Ray didn't really get it, but he sympathized. It had always been obvious that Fraser loved being in the wilderness, doing whatever Mountie things he did. For that to have been taken away from hi...it had to be crushing. He wasn't just going stir-crazy waiting for that leg to get back to normal and heal up. He was becoming increasingly convinced that he'd never be the same again. He wouldn't get a posting back in the field in Canada, wouldn't do his patrols and whatever, and ultimately, wouldn't be the person he loved being. The dream of returning to Canada was quickly fading from Fraser's eyes.
That left the last things Fraser had on his list.
The thought of Fraser having sex, in some freezing Canadian cabin under mounds of furs and blankets, sucking on someone's fingers, smelling them and tasting them the way he did everything else...it was unsettling. No. Not unsettling. Was it arousing? Ray couldn't decide.
Fraser was asleep now, but he still had a firm grip on Ray's hand. Ray looked at him, feeling a sudden wash of affection and sympathy. Not thinking precisely about what he was doing, he got up and toed off his shoes, then slipped onto the sliver of bed next to Fraser. Fraser's head rolled on the pillow and his eyelids cracked open.
"You stayed." His voice was hoarse and slurred. With his head next to Fraser's on the pillow, Ray could feel Fraser's breath on his mouth.
"Yeah." Ray closed his eyes and pressed a kiss to Fraser's slack mouth. The lips firmed under his, pressing back. It felt natural; not unsettling, not arousing. He pulled away gently. Fraser was smiling faintly. "Go back to sleep, Benny."
For once, Fraser did as he was told immediately and without argument.