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If I don’t eat, I’ll die, or something like that.
He took Chicago by storm, a blast of snow and ice from Canada’s east winds, yet somehow too damn hot for Ray to hold, fingertips burning and reddened palms – you can’t keep him forever .
“But I don’t want to?”
Yes, you do.
“...”
His father was too pathetic to be called a lousy man, his temper was a gamble against fate and his love was akin to a fairy tale, a will-o-the-wisp type situation. His father made him feel like he was falling to the ground, skin peeling off his body as the sky would stare at him, clouds shrinking under his vision, and flesh falling off the bone. He had years to fall down, his mother, his sister, his uncle, his family – they marked a large landing ground, a huge X pointing where to go, a cushy surface to comfort his fall. He never felt like he truly landed, even when things had settled down and life circled into the same pattern, he still felt like he was dropping and the air was thin, waiting for his bones to crackle against the solid ground.
In the end, he never got to land. He never gets to feel the sick satisfaction of his body twisting into itself, blood and loose flesh being all that’s left. Maybe there’d be some honor in that.
There’s no honor in this.
Fraser wasn’t meant to be like this. It isn’t like Ray has things usually planned out in his life, anyone he knows can be a testament to that. He’s always been a loose sort of guy, the type who you point and laugh at because he doesn’t even know what day of the week it is. He at least knows when things are blowing out of proportion but he guesses years of desk duty and paperwork have slowed him down because by the time he’s realized how close Fraser has gotten to him, it’s too late. Too late in the sense that he’s lost the wind on his face and the blue of the sky, all replaced with a senseless heat that has no fire. Fraser doesn’t mean to do this to him, he just burns for the sake of it, exerts warmth just because that’s the meaning of the word. It feels like the chains that have been wrapped around him for so long are now melting into his open wounds, rough metal – coarse and jagged steel seeping into his arms and chest. Like some sort of sacrifice, one in a long line of futile attempts, leading to no greater cause than nothing.
The feeling will eventually go, Ray.
It never really does. They talk, fight, chase some bad guys, fight some more, and restart the cycle. At some point, Ray realizes that there really isn’t anything to be disappointed about – guys like Fraser and guys like Vecchio never work out anyway. He’s not good about hiding how that makes him feel, everyone in the department (besides Fraser) looks at him in pity because of it, like he’s any less of a man.
Time undercover has done him well, taught him how to keep it all bottled up, did him well because he never slips up, never lets anyone ruin him the way Fraser did.
“And then you come in here and ruin it all?”
Fraser smiled like an idiot. “Yes.”
And that’s all it took for Ray to crack again. After months and months of living life holding his breath, wondering which day would be his last, thinking what words would lead him to a bullet in his head, and Fraser walks into the hotel room with some replacement at his hip and takes that all apart like it never existed.
This Kowalski guy seems to suit Fraser more, he’s younger, easier to read, and a hell of a lot more likable. They both looked at each other like they were thinking the same thing, like they both knew that they’re running on borrowed time, and eventually one of them was going to disappear.
It’s Vecchio to disappear. Of course it is.
So all he can do is smile as he watches Fraser leave for the second time in his life, this time knowing there is no return, there will never be a chance for Vecchio ever again. Ray knew it was always going to turn out this way from the start, always knew his heart was going to rip in two one day and be too tired to try again.
In the end, he does fall, and he finds out that he’s waited far too long for someone to be at the bottom to pick him up again.