"Glass Jaw"
Author's Notes: Thoughts after the punches in MOTB. First posted as two companion stories, "Bare Knuckles" and "Marquis of Queensbury," plus two scenes of what movie people call "previously unreleased footage."
Disclaimer: A curse will descend upon your hard drive if you take this story, but the characters in it are only on loan from Alliance-Atlantis Communications. Their lawyers say I have to return them after playtime.
***
I think I'm gonna puke.
It's those eyes. Those great big, sky fucking blue, whydja-betray me eyes.
I don't puke, though. Maybe it would feel better if I did. Get my mind off it. Then I'd at least have a mess on the station floor to worry about, with Frannie and anyone else who even gave a shit asking what was wrong. Like I'd tell them.
No way I could tell them without making myself look even more completely screwed over than I already am. Of course, everybody's gonna know soon enough. I did it with Welsh and the Duckboys and everybody and their cousin watching it in living color. Everybody watching Stanley Raymond Can't Make Up His Mind About His Name Vecchio/Kowalski/Asshole as he hauled back and popped his partner for being so goddamned perfect.
Hell of a reason to hit a guy. Cause he's right all the time. Jesus, would I rather he be wrong? Which time, huh? The time he was right that the car was gonna go up in a goddamned fireball? Been wrong then, and I'd be cop crispies at the bottom of the Lake They Call Michigan. Or maybe about timing that bomb down to the gnat's eyeball? Wrong that time, and either Stella and I woulda been toast, or some poor bastard minding his business on the sidewalk woulda been. Or what about Cahill?
I've wandered down into some dark part of the basement that smells like the back of my fridge, and I let myself kinda sag back against the wall. My hands fist in my hair, pulling `til it hurts. Didja want him to be wrong about Cahill, Kowalski? Huh? You're so pissed that he's always right, so maybe he shoulda been wrong about that one. Maybe he shouldn't have even bothered to put his red-painted ass on the line with every crime lord in town just so that you could know for sure that it wasn't your skinny fingers on the trigger. Maybe he shouldn't have stood there in the hall, dark circles under his eyes cuz the obsessive bastard wouldn't let himself sleep, and told you that you were his friend.
His fucking friend.
Of course he didn't say that exactly. Well, he said he was your friend, but not your fucking friend. Mounties don't swear. Only skinny-ass Polish cops with screwed up non-existent love lives, careers so desperate that they've had to hijack someone else's name, and crappy experimental hair have to swear. What did my Grandma used to say? You swear if you can't think of nothing better to say. If you're too stupid to think of anything better to say.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Yeah, Grandma was right. I am a stupid bastard. Anybody else had a guy like that handed to them on a platter, they'd be falling all over themselves trying to make sure he never got away. Hell, anyone with half a brain would be thrilled just to find out that he's a forensics lab with feet. Toss in that Canadian Jedi mind trick thing that makes suspects start singin' like my uncle in a Sunday shower, and add his strange delusions that he's my friend...anyone with half a brain would have popped me by now for doin' what I did today.
I hit him.
Pow.
Right in the kisser.
I squish my eyes shut, as if that'd make it stop playin' over and over and over again in my head, like some kind of freakish instant replay got stuck. I didn't even just kinda hit him. I belted him, the whole rotate the hips put every skinny ounce ya got behind it line up the shoulders to get the most out of it thing that I learned boxing. I can still hear the sound, too. A sickly solid THWACK.
He didn't hit me back. Just kinda held his jaw for a second, then ran his thumb over the corner of his mouth like he was surprised it wasn't bleeding. And he looked at me. Looked at me with those betrayed eyes. I was sure he was gonna hit me back, and I was suddenly scared as hell. Shit, I am such a coward, huh? I mean, I hit him, I hit him as hard as I can, and then I'm scared stiff that he's gonna hit me back. I've taken a hit from him before, when we were boxing once. Knocked me flat. As if I couldn't have clued in from the fact that his shoulders are what...three times as broad as mine?
Everything about him is bigger. Better. Faster. Stronger. He's just...just...just... He's Superman and Clark Kent at the same time. He's as independent as the Lone Ranger, as shrewd as Columbo, as good with suspects as Perry Mason, as cool as James Bond, as freaky as MacGyver, as tough as John Wayne, and as good looking as Tom Cruise.
Shit.
You ever have one of those moments when stuff just pops into place? An epitaph...epitome...aw, hell. It's one of those Scrabble words Fraser uses all the time. An epiphany! Yeah. An epiphany.
Constable Benton Fraser is everything I ever wanted to be and wasn't. He's this strong, athletic, tall, dark, gorgeous chick magnet with an IQ of six zillion, a dictionary's vocabulary, a decent name, tons of confidence, and no real bad habits...who also happens to be the best goddamned cop ever made. God, no wonder I wanted to belt him one.
All the stuff he *is* just erects this sign over me that shows off what I'm *not*, flashing out the shitfaced truth in neon letters for everyone to see. KOWALSKI IS AN ASSHOLE. An absolute asshole. The stupid one that Fraser always has to correct. The crazy one that Fraser always has to hold back. The one who's always just a little bit behind, trapped there in that pitch black, swallow your soul up, chomp on it good, and spit it out Mountie shadow.
I mean, I know I'm about a ninety-nine percent fuck-up, but I'm not completely fucked yet, am I? I've got my own arrest record, you know, and it's not totally chopped liver. I had a great wife. Ok, so she's an ex wife now. So she wants to see my ass deep fried in hell. I had her for a little bit. I'm a damned good shot with my glasses on. I've managed to keep myself alive in Chicago, haven't I? I've managed to survive this crazy cop game where the dice are always loaded because you have to play by the rules and the psycho fucks who are trying to kill you don't have any rules. I've survived that. That's gotta be worth something, right?
Maybe with a normal partner. Hell, maybe even with a great partner. Just not with a perfect partner. Not with a partner throwing a shadow Paul Bunyan would envy.
I had to get out of that shadow. I could feel it getting me, sucking me down. Even Fraser was starting to see it, I was sure. Superman was starting to get that little pinchy look around his eyes, he was getting kinda snarky, and he was this close to rubbing his eyebrows off with his thumb. In Fraserese, that's all crystal clear for `Ray, I can't believe that you can be so amazingly stupid, and I'm starting to wonder why I don't just save the world all by myself, since I do that five times before breakfast anyway.' He was seeing me getting lost in his shadow, and he was seeing that was where I belonged.
Had to get out of that. Had to get away from him. Had to just...just...just...
Just hit him for making that shadow. For being so perfect he swallowed me up. Just hit him as hard as I could. Only thing I could think of doing. I was too pissed to think up some kind of a speech, and I'm not too good at those on the best days. Today was definitely not the best day.
I push away from the wall and start pacing. What the hell am I going to do now? I am in shit up to my eyeballs, and it's only getting deeper the longer I sit in it. Gotta think. Gotta line it up all Fraser-just-so.
Okay. So I've just k-oed the first real friendship I've had in years. I've kissed off the Mountie that's supposed to be hanging around the station for Vecchio's cover, and made it so he'll never want to see the Chicago PD again. I've made an asshole out of myself in front of half the department, who are probably up there planning how to tan my ass for daring to hit Saint Fraser the Red. I've got a wadded up transfer letter in my pocket that's gonna take me back to a life I was all too happy to get out of in the first place. Knowing Fraser and his martyr complex, I'll be lucky if the Mountie hasn't already slit his wrists or jumped off a building or even just shipped himself back up to Freezadipshit.
If I'm lucky, he'll let me talk to him again, but I know that I've got just enough pride left to be stupid about it if he does. He already knows I'm an asshole, right? So why tell him? Why chuck the last little bit of self-respect I've got out the nearest window? No. Just...just let him go without getting all martry. Make him think it's a mutual thing. Maybe make up some pretend American slang term or ritual. "You see, Fraser, down here, we do this punch your partner in the head thing just before we transfer. Nothing personal. Just a culture thing. Like the house boys. I punch you, you..."
Not even he'd fall for that one. Yeah, the great American ritual where one guy hits the other, and the second guy, the one who could turn the first guy into a little smear on the pavement, the second guy just stands there forever, then walks away. If he'd just hit me back. If he'd yelled at me, shoved me, cussed me out. Something, anything. Anything so that I don't feel like a total shit who just kicked some beautiful, blue-eyed little puppy.
Maybe I can at least get him to hit me back. Play on that honor thing of his, that chivalry code, that eye for an eye justice thing. Tell him he's got to hit me back. That it's justice, that it's his duty. Benton Fraser always does his duty.
Shit. How screwed up is this? I've screwed up this entire thing so badly that I'm left with trying to think of a way to get him to hit me, just so I can feel some kind of crazy balance about this thing. That's all I've got left, because there's no way I can save this now. No fucking way.
I suck.
I think I'm gonna puke.
I do.
***
I'm nauseated. Actually, physically nauseated.
I think it was something in his eyes. Large blue eyes, churning with pain and anger that I had somehow put there.
I'm nauseous, but I don't actually become sick to my stomach. Perhaps I should, if for no other reason than to provide myself with a distraction. If I had a physical, tangible problem to deal with, I would probably feel a bit better.
Of course, Turnbull would wonder why, as would the Inspector. I am never sick. What would I tell them? I don't know.
There isn't anything to tell them that wouldn't be a useless reflection of my own inner chaos. Of course, they will undoubtedly know soon enough. Lieutenant Welsh witnessed the incident, as did Detectives Huey and Dewey, and several other officers. They witnessed Ray, a man who has been good enough to surrender his very identity for another, as I unintentionally provoked him to violence.
The Inspector has probably already been informed in great, painful detail. She will have questions. I will not have answers.
He tells me that I always am correcting him. I had thought it was a mutual relationship of give and take, of improving weaknesses in one another. He displays an instinctual intelligence on the streets that I will never understand, a hunter in his natural habitat. How many times would I have been humiliated at best, killed at worst, had it not been for him? I have been in this city for nearly three years, but `house boys' can still catch me off guard.
Have I made him feel inferior somehow? In my attention to the little details, have I neglected to tell him that I admire him on a far deeper level than grammar or procedure? That I covet the spontaneity of his soul?
I close the door of my office and latch it behind me. If someone needs me, they may knock. The removal of my hat and tunic are accomplished with the movements of a robot, as if some other man is undoing the buttons and buckles, hanging the red serge and tan felt on the coat rack. My own thoughts are not nearly so orderly. I am nearly falling into my chair, my head sagging into my hands, elbows braced on the desktop as my fingers tangle in my hair, pulling and twisting until it hurts.
If I am so concerned about his prudence, he certainly shouldn't have embraced a complete stranger as he did. Not merely a literal, physical embrace such as he offered within only moments of seeing me, but his willingness to run headlong into friendship on nothing but a handful of reports and a dossier. His willingness to trust me with his life.
Maybe he shouldn't have called us a duet. Duets seldom allow themselves to become this badly out of tune.
Of course, that was indeed when he had known me only a few moments. He knows me better now. He knows that I am not the postcard image many seem to consider me. He knows that I am not the perfect Mountie he expected. Perfect Mounties don't doubt.
Only Mounties stranded two thousand miles from home with careers in a force that barely tolerates them and hearts crying out in fear that they will lose the one anchor holding them back from a bottomless crevasse of loneliness...only they doubt.
My Grandmother used to say that gentlemen do not swear. I have always thought that my vocabulary, my education offers far better alternatives to simple crudities. Yet now, looking upon the mess I have made of my life, I believe I see what Ray finds in an occasional vulgarity. There are times when only a single descriptor will fit a situation.
As you would say, Ray, I've fucked this one up big time.
I'm stupid. I should have been deliriously grateful. I should have done anything possible to keep him from getting away.
When I lost Ray Vecchio, I thought that I would never find his like again. I thought that men of such caliber were gifts offered once in a lifetime. To be offered the opportunity to work with another would have been enough for anyone with the smallest amount of common sense. To add in his own uniqueness, his fierce loyalty, his flawless instincts, and beyond this, his incomprehensible insistence on being my friend...anyone with the smallest amount of common sense would have hit me long ago for not appreciating it.
But anyone did not hit me.
Ray hit me.
Full in the face.
I close my eyes tightly, as if that would make it stop repeating itself over and over and over again in my head like a broken record. He didn't even strike a glancing blow, something possibly impulsive or accidental. He punched me, rotating his hips and lining up his shoulders in what I recognized as a trained boxers move designed to allow a man to throw his full weight behind the blow. I can still hear the sound, a solid THWACK that echoed through my skull.
I was too stunned to even consider striking back. Instinctively, I cradled my suddenly-tender jaw, startled at the strength he possessed. I had known that Ray was strong for his size, but I had never fully understood it before. I touched the corner of my mouth, surprised not to see blood on my fingers.
And he looked at me. Looked at me with those accusing, angry eyes. I was certain he was going to hit me again, steeled myself for it. The first blow was a shock, the second would only have been punctuation on a familiar sentence. `Fraser, I don't want you.'
I suppose I could have hit back. Most of the onlookers were probably expecting it. I hit him, he hits me. Were it a simple matter of fisticuffs, I believe I would be the victor. I am somewhat larger and stronger than he, yet still light on my feet and well trained. I have sparred with him once before, and I knocked him down easily. That isn't the point.
This wasn't sparring. This wasn't a brawl. This wasn't even a challenge, a gauntlet. This was simply a statement. Ray's statement that he was through with me as a friend. I've heard these statements before. I know them when I see them.
I will miss Ray. Everything about him was imbued with a remarkable energy, a zest for life as bright as his blue eyes and his golden hair. Everything was hotter. Faster. More instinctive. He's just...just...just... He's the immovable glacier and the wild snowstorm at the same time. He's as brave as Wolf, as shrewd as Raven, as stubborn as Salmon, as tough as a scrub pine, as free and beautiful as Eagle, yet still retains that unique quality of American `cool.'
Oh dear.
Have you ever had one of those moments when your entire life slips into place? An epiphany?
Detective Stanley Raymond Kowalski is my counterpoint, my harmony. Like Ray Vecchio, he complements me, his strengths standing hand in hand with my weaknesses and vice versa.
Ray Vecchio, however, was as an elder brother. Ours was a deep bond, and I believe will always be, but it was always with him in a position of strength. This was his city, his home, and he was established in it deeply, with a loving family twined around him in a supporting net that he never really saw for the incredible gift it was. I was the outsider, needing guidance, coming to him as the last of my family had fallen, being taken into his. I often took the lead in our duties, it was true, but my strength came from my skill. His came from somewhere deeper.
Ray Kowalski is another outsider. We are as drowning men who have discovered that they each hold one half of a life preserver. Neither of us has the advantage, so we cling to each other all the more strongly, depending with near desperation that the other will be strong when we fail. Together, I was able to feel myself relaxing, offering him little glimpses of what lay beneath the red serge.
He bared his soul to me within a few days of our meeting, offering up his deepest shames and fears without the slightest hint of reticence. For the first time, I felt the freedom to begin to do the same, one tiny step at a time. Occasionally, I would allow myself to reveal that the wit I inherited from my father bears a significant streak of sarcasm, or that I am sometimes as tired, as disheartened, or even as playful as the next man. I let him begin to meet me as few had before.
What I neglected to recall was that every single time I have showed chinks in my blood red armor, I have been stabbed through them. Perhaps I deserved to be hit for that.
The truth is now laid bare for Ray and all the world to see. Fraser is a fool. An absolute imbecile who is apparently unable to grasp a simple concept: I have an image I was born into. The polite Mountie, always correct in protocol and demeanor. The sensible Mountie that always has to hold back. The one who must always stand out under the bright lights of scrutiny, careful that all the buttons are shined and the boots are polished so that no one notices that the soul beneath the uniform is slowly withering away.
I am aware that many people think that I am some sort of ideal, and in some ways, I suppose I am. I have an excellent arrest record. My father was one of the finest the RCMP has known. I have a tendency to attract women. It does not matter if I would rather not attract them. It does not matter if the only woman I loved turned out to harbor only vengeance in return. I held her for a few nights. I'm an excellent marksman and tracker. I've managed to survive 15 years of police work, haven't I? I've managed to survive despite men and women determined to kill me, and an environment that sees no use for human life. I've survived. That must be worth something.
Possibly it would with a normal partner. Even with a great partner. Not with a partner with a free spirit such as the wind would envy. Not with a partner who held everything I longed for.
He has turned me away. He has seen a glimpse of who I am, and he has found the truth too bitter and inadequate to accept. He has punched me in the face, but hit me square in the heart. I cannot let it be a fatal blow.
I must get away. I can feel it taking me, pulling me down. Ray had been seeing it for a long time, I am sure. There was anger simmering more often in his eyes, he was becoming short with me, and he was moving like an out of control dervish. In the language of Ray, that clearly translates: `Fraser, I can't believe that you are this pitiful, and I'm starting to wonder why I don't do this all by myself, since you're not what I thought you were going to be.' He was seeing me as something weakened, something wounded, something less...and he was seeing that was where I belonged.
I had to let him hit me. Let him hit me as hard as he could, and not do anything to stop him or retaliate. It was the only thing I could think of doing. For once, I was too lost to think up something to say.
I stand and begin to pace. What am I going to do now?
Ray no longer wants me, and that is not changing as I brood over the fact. I must think. I must make sense of it.
The next move is Ray's, I suppose. Or is it mine? I look at the transfer letter there on the desk. A way out. Should I take it? Some logical part of me steps back, taking a matter of fact look at the situation.
I have completely lost the only real kinship I had remaining in my life since the departure of Ray Vecchio. I'm doubtless no longer welcome at the station, which nullifies my use for Vecchio's cover. I've embarrassed myself and Ray in front of half the Chicago Police
Department by pushing and pushing until Ray struck me. I have a transfer letter on my desk that will take me back to a life that did not want me. Knowing Ray and his surprisingly fragile heart with it's massive capacity for ill-placed guilt, I'll be lucky if he hasn't already done something drastic.
If I'm lucky, he'll let me talk to him again, but I know that I have just enough pride left to be stubborn about it if he does. He already knows I'm a fraud, so why tell him point blank? Why abandon my last bit of self-respect?
No. Just...just let him go without losing myself like I have before. I will make him think it's the logical thing. Invent some Inuit ritual or story. "The Inuit have a saying, Ray: `He who has lost his mask must quickly depart for distant snows."
Not even Ray would believe that.
I'll just let him go. Keep my dignity, because it's all I have left, because there's no way to save it now. Lose my heart, my soul, my partner, my friend, my other half. A fair trade, don't you think?
I'm nauseated. Actually, physically nauseated.
Oh dear.
***
He did it. Holy shit, he actually did it.
Fraser hit me back.
He hits like a train, but I expected that. Knew he was strong. Knew he could throw the kinda punches that knock the most bad-ass Chicago punks halfway to next Thursday. Hell, I'm just grateful that all my teeth're still in there nice and solid.
Hadn't expected it to come so goddamned *fast*. One minute, he's just standing there, arms hanging loose at his sides, staring down and away like he couldn't really make himself do it. I thought I was going to have to go through all that shit again about why he had to do this, and then...there was this flash of something on his face.
It was like...like...dunno what like. Like some kind of animal, I guess. Just this, this, this *hate* thing that I'd never thought I'd see on his face. Didn't think he even knew about those kind of feelings. But he does now, and I made it happen. I made that hate-flash, and the punch that came after it so fast that I never even saw his fucking arm move. Just the hate-flash an' next thing I was almost flat on my face.
Ya kept some dignity though, Kowalski, gotta give yourself something there. Maybe you did make that look on Fraser's face, that look that made you feel like you'd shit in a church, like you'd *defiled* something beautiful and special and even maybe a little sacred. Maybe you did make him hit you--and not some fulfill-the-letter-of-the-law punch, but a real roundhouse sock in the jaw--but you kept the dignity. That's what it was all about, right? Dignity?
The dignity not to grab onto that red serge like that Sam-what-the-fuck belt is the handle of a life preserver when you're about to go down for time number three.
The dignity not to beg him to stay, not to say God Fraser I'm so damn *sorry* and I don't know what got into me but you're the best thing that ever happened to me and if you go I don't know what I'm going to do because I'm going to be all alone all alone all alone.
The dignity to catch my breath and force myself to stand up without puking and pretend like I still have some feeling in my jaw other than just these throbbing waves of *pain* and say something kinda along the lines of that's it or we're done.
The dignity to do something totally stupid.
The dignity not to say Fraser you can't go because I love you.
I don't remember exactly what I did say. Not like it matters. It doesn't take fancy words to end something like this. It's like that heirloom vase of my Mom's that I broke when I was six. Something totally precious to her, and it's gone before you know you hit it. Stella was over in what, five words? This. Just. Isn't. Working. Ray. And a marriage and a life and what I thought was everything I could ever love was gone. Just fucking *gone.*
Only it wasn't everything I could ever love. I know that now. Isn't that totally pathetic? I mean, I've been a real asshole a couple times in my life, but this has gotta be worth some kind of prize, don't you think? Brilliant kinda guy that I am, I figure out that I love him at the exact moment I flush everything we had down the toilet.
That look on his face....
I've seen him look at the real shit of the streets. I've seen him face down sons of bitches who pimp children, who beat their wives and girlfriends until their own mother's wouldn't know them, who sell death in pills and powders, who pull the trigger on some poor bastard every Saturday night just to give us cops something to do. I've seen him look down the barrels of guns pointing right between those wide Mountie eyes of his. I've never seen him hate.
Not once.
Until tonight.
He hated me.
For a split second, that half-moment before his fist connected with my face, Fraser hated me. Jesus fucking Christ, I didn't mean for it to go like that. I feel my entire insides shrivel up into one tight, sick ball that's making for my throat like it's gonna choke me and put me out of my misery. I wish it would. But instead I've got that look burned into my eyes, and I feel them starting to try and betray me, try and wash it all away.
I blink hard. God no. I can't do this. Can't cry now. Can't cry ever, because this time would be the time I know I'd drown in it, because this time, it wasn't even like it was mine to lose. I didn't know until it was too late, and even the fact that being in love with him would have been deep shit in its own right doesn't matter now.
All that matters is that now I'm left standing in the wreckage of something that never happened. With Stella, I'd had it all for at least a few years. With Fraser, all I'll get is a trashed friendship and a huge fucking heap of whatifs. That's worse, it's really so much worse.
I've felt this way one time before, and I had thought I'd die if I had to feel it again. Nine years ago. I'd finally talked Stella into having kids. I thought my head and my heart were gonna pop from the happiness when she said she was pregnant. And I thought that I'd totally re-written the dictionary about what pain meant when she called me home and there was blood oh Christ blood everywhere and run to the doctor and get there too late. He called it a miscarriage, said it was common in the first whatever. I almost killed him, almost strangled him, because what the *fuck* is common about seeing your first and last chance for a kid die before they had a chance to even live for a *moment?* Draw *one breath?*
Miscarriage. Thought I'd die if I had to feel it again, only now it's not a little boy or a little girl that I've lost. It's not the same, but it's not any better. Didn't get to draw *one breath* of loving Fraser before it was over, and this time, there's no one to go to. When it happened the first time, everyone was there for us. This time, I'm totally alone with what I lost.
What I threw away.
For a second, my vision blurs, and Fraser swims together into a blood-red smear. I feel myself gag, and I hate myself for my goddamned dignity. I could still save it. I could beg him not to take the transfer, not to leave me. I could tell him I love him. But I don't.
I've got my fucking pride.
That's all I've got.
*I love you.*
***
I did it. Dear Lord, I actually did it.
I hit him back.
He's staggering back, gasping, and I'm horrified that I hit him so hard. I feel numb, my arms falling to hang by my sides like two traitorous pieces of meat. I would never have done this to him, and I can't breathe, afraid that I'll see blood oozing from his mouth, that I'll have actually injured him. I know I hit him more than hard enough to, and the realization is nauseating. My strength and my temper are something I fight to keep under tight rein, and to lose control under any circumstances is reprehensible. To lose control and hurt Ray is unthinkable.
I hadn't been ready for it. I hadn't expected it to come so *fast.* One moment, I was standing there, determined not to do it. I was going to dance Ray in verbal circles until he tired of it, until he walked away. I thought that I could prevent myself from having to enact this barbaric quid pro quo Ray seemed to want to bring down upon himself...then there was a flash of something that shot through me like a hot coal through thin ice.
I know now how a desperate animal feels when they see no alternative but to lash out. An animal. I was behaving like an animal. A feeling of red, glowing rage built up and exploded out in a single flash, brighter and hotter than I'd thought were even possible, much less possible for me. But they were, and it happened. The rage flashed in me, and the punch that came after it flew through my shoulder and out the curled fingers of my hand before I even knew my arm had moved. Just the animal flash, and then Ray was almost on his knees, and I hurt him.
I hurt him.
You kept your dignity, though, Fraser. That has to be worth something. Maybe I did become something inhuman, something that lashed out and *attacked* a man who had proven willing to give his life for me, a man brave and strong and fragile and simply, existentially honest and good in a way that cannot be copied or feigned. Maybe I did attack him far beyond the simple bounds of fulfilling a request, throwing the full force of that red wave against him, but I kept my dignity. That was the purpose of the entire affair, was it not? Dignity?
The dignity not to fall to my knees and hold him and somehow find a way to undo what I did to him.
The dignity not to beg him to stay, not to say Please Ray I'm so terribly *sorry* and I don't know what came over me but I will never allow it to occur again and you're the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me and if I let myself lose you then I'll die forever inside because I'm going to be all alone all alone all alone.
The dignity to catch my breath and stand completely still, staring at my shoes and waiting for him to come to me as if I had the ability to force my numb, rebellious body to do anything else.
The dignity to do something entirely stupid.
The dignity not to say Ray you have to forgive me because I love you.
He says something. I don't remember exactly the words. It isn't as though they matter. The meaning is simple: it's over.
It's like a snowflake that takes a hundred thousand whirling, delicate trips through the strata of a cloud under perfect conditions to form itself. Something beautiful and delicate and entirely unique, and all it takes is a puff of breath to destroy it. My mother was gone in two words from my father. My father in a telegram. Victoria in a gunshot. Ray Vecchio in the click of a telephone. Moments. A split second, and a mother and a father and a lover and a brother and everything I could ever love was gone. Just *gone.*
Only they weren't everything I could ever love. I know that now. It is entirely pathetic. I am aware that my judgment has been less than stellar upon occasion, but I would think that I would be smarter than this. Smarter than to let myself fall in love again. Smarter than to forget what happens when I do that. I love Ray, and this time, I discover that just in time to lose it.
I lost it in that flash.
I've faced down the worst that humankind has to offer. I've protected the man who killed my father as he gloated in my face. I've restrained myself under circumstances that most men would have considered more than ample provocation for violence, even remained calm under the threat of my own death. I have never felt anything like that before.
Not once.
Until tonight.
I hated him.
Firefighters call it a backdraft. The contents of a room will reach many times burning point, but there will be no oxygen for fire to occur. When some well-meaning fireman opens a door or window into the room, the result will be an explosion of flame that annihlates everything in its path. I have felt this backdraft building for years, and tonight Ray opened the door. He opened the door on everyone I ever allowed myself to love and on every time I have driven them away. He opened the door on the consuming hate that has churned inside me for years, remonstrating and condemning my every thought and action and maintaining my prized control with the most brutal of tactics. Oh, Ray...it was my fire, why did you have to be the one that was burned?
For a split second, a half-heartbeat before my fist connected with his face, I actually hated him. I hated him for making me love him, and for making me feel all this all over again. I hated him for letting it out, and for every one of the previous losses atop his own.
But dear God, I didn't mean for it to...I can't believe it could ever happen that way. I hit him. I feel my body and spirit withdraw within itself as though it will shrink and shrink and then simply disappear into a black hole of shame. I wish it would. Instead, however, I have the image of Ray, doubled over and gasping, burned into my eyes, and I feel them begin to betray me with the threat of tears.
I blink hard. God no. I can't do this. I can't cry now. I can't cry ever, because this time would be the time I know I'd drown in it, because this time, it wasn't even mine to lose. I didn't know until it was too late, and even the fact that being in love with him would have caused its own problems doesn't matter right now.
All that matters is that now I have destroyed a last chance at not being alone and that I am left in the remains of something that could possibly have been wonderful, even if only until the inevitable day that I *would* have to lose it. At least with the others, I was allowed moments before that day occurred. This is worse, it's really so much worse.
I will not get a single possibility fulfilled with Ray, and this time, there is no way to even attempt justification of the pain. When it has happened before, I've had the letter of the law or the cruel whims of fate to turn to. This time, I am completely responsible for what I've lost.
What I have thrown away.
For a moment, my vision blurs, and Ray melds to a faintly golden blur. My gorge rises in my throat, and I despise my own pride. I could still save this. I could beg him not to take the transfer, not to leave me. I could tell him I love him. But I don't.
I have my pride.
That's all I have.
*I love you.*
THE END
Author's Notes: Thoughts after the punches in MOTB. First posted as two companion stories, "Bare Knuckles" and "Marquis of Queensbury," plus two scenes of what movie people call "previously unreleased footage."
Disclaimer: A curse will descend upon your hard drive if you take this story, but the characters in it are only on loan from Alliance-Atlantis Communications. Their lawyers say I have to return them after playtime.
***
I think I'm gonna puke.
It's those eyes. Those great big, sky fucking blue, whydja-betray me eyes.
I don't puke, though. Maybe it would feel better if I did. Get my mind off it. Then I'd at least have a mess on the station floor to worry about, with Frannie and anyone else who even gave a shit asking what was wrong. Like I'd tell them.
No way I could tell them without making myself look even more completely screwed over than I already am. Of course, everybody's gonna know soon enough. I did it with Welsh and the Duckboys and everybody and their cousin watching it in living color. Everybody watching Stanley Raymond Can't Make Up His Mind About His Name Vecchio/Kowalski/Asshole as he hauled back and popped his partner for being so goddamned perfect.
Hell of a reason to hit a guy. Cause he's right all the time. Jesus, would I rather he be wrong? Which time, huh? The time he was right that the car was gonna go up in a goddamned fireball? Been wrong then, and I'd be cop crispies at the bottom of the Lake They Call Michigan. Or maybe about timing that bomb down to the gnat's eyeball? Wrong that time, and either Stella and I woulda been toast, or some poor bastard minding his business on the sidewalk woulda been. Or what about Cahill?
I've wandered down into some dark part of the basement that smells like the back of my fridge, and I let myself kinda sag back against the wall. My hands fist in my hair, pulling `til it hurts. Didja want him to be wrong about Cahill, Kowalski? Huh? You're so pissed that he's always right, so maybe he shoulda been wrong about that one. Maybe he shouldn't have even bothered to put his red-painted ass on the line with every crime lord in town just so that you could know for sure that it wasn't your skinny fingers on the trigger. Maybe he shouldn't have stood there in the hall, dark circles under his eyes cuz the obsessive bastard wouldn't let himself sleep, and told you that you were his friend.
His fucking friend.
Of course he didn't say that exactly. Well, he said he was your friend, but not your fucking friend. Mounties don't swear. Only skinny-ass Polish cops with screwed up non-existent love lives, careers so desperate that they've had to hijack someone else's name, and crappy experimental hair have to swear. What did my Grandma used to say? You swear if you can't think of nothing better to say. If you're too stupid to think of anything better to say.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Yeah, Grandma was right. I am a stupid bastard. Anybody else had a guy like that handed to them on a platter, they'd be falling all over themselves trying to make sure he never got away. Hell, anyone with half a brain would be thrilled just to find out that he's a forensics lab with feet. Toss in that Canadian Jedi mind trick thing that makes suspects start singin' like my uncle in a Sunday shower, and add his strange delusions that he's my friend...anyone with half a brain would have popped me by now for doin' what I did today.
I hit him.
Pow.
Right in the kisser.
I squish my eyes shut, as if that'd make it stop playin' over and over and over again in my head, like some kind of freakish instant replay got stuck. I didn't even just kinda hit him. I belted him, the whole rotate the hips put every skinny ounce ya got behind it line up the shoulders to get the most out of it thing that I learned boxing. I can still hear the sound, too. A sickly solid THWACK.
He didn't hit me back. Just kinda held his jaw for a second, then ran his thumb over the corner of his mouth like he was surprised it wasn't bleeding. And he looked at me. Looked at me with those betrayed eyes. I was sure he was gonna hit me back, and I was suddenly scared as hell. Shit, I am such a coward, huh? I mean, I hit him, I hit him as hard as I can, and then I'm scared stiff that he's gonna hit me back. I've taken a hit from him before, when we were boxing once. Knocked me flat. As if I couldn't have clued in from the fact that his shoulders are what...three times as broad as mine?
Everything about him is bigger. Better. Faster. Stronger. He's just...just...just... He's Superman and Clark Kent at the same time. He's as independent as the Lone Ranger, as shrewd as Columbo, as good with suspects as Perry Mason, as cool as James Bond, as freaky as MacGyver, as tough as John Wayne, and as good looking as Tom Cruise.
Shit.
You ever have one of those moments when stuff just pops into place? An epitaph...epitome...aw, hell. It's one of those Scrabble words Fraser uses all the time. An epiphany! Yeah. An epiphany.
Constable Benton Fraser is everything I ever wanted to be and wasn't. He's this strong, athletic, tall, dark, gorgeous chick magnet with an IQ of six zillion, a dictionary's vocabulary, a decent name, tons of confidence, and no real bad habits...who also happens to be the best goddamned cop ever made. God, no wonder I wanted to belt him one.
All the stuff he *is* just erects this sign over me that shows off what I'm *not*, flashing out the shitfaced truth in neon letters for everyone to see. KOWALSKI IS AN ASSHOLE. An absolute asshole. The stupid one that Fraser always has to correct. The crazy one that Fraser always has to hold back. The one who's always just a little bit behind, trapped there in that pitch black, swallow your soul up, chomp on it good, and spit it out Mountie shadow.
I mean, I know I'm about a ninety-nine percent fuck-up, but I'm not completely fucked yet, am I? I've got my own arrest record, you know, and it's not totally chopped liver. I had a great wife. Ok, so she's an ex wife now. So she wants to see my ass deep fried in hell. I had her for a little bit. I'm a damned good shot with my glasses on. I've managed to keep myself alive in Chicago, haven't I? I've managed to survive this crazy cop game where the dice are always loaded because you have to play by the rules and the psycho fucks who are trying to kill you don't have any rules. I've survived that. That's gotta be worth something, right?
Maybe with a normal partner. Hell, maybe even with a great partner. Just not with a perfect partner. Not with a partner throwing a shadow Paul Bunyan would envy.
I had to get out of that shadow. I could feel it getting me, sucking me down. Even Fraser was starting to see it, I was sure. Superman was starting to get that little pinchy look around his eyes, he was getting kinda snarky, and he was this close to rubbing his eyebrows off with his thumb. In Fraserese, that's all crystal clear for `Ray, I can't believe that you can be so amazingly stupid, and I'm starting to wonder why I don't just save the world all by myself, since I do that five times before breakfast anyway.' He was seeing me getting lost in his shadow, and he was seeing that was where I belonged.
Had to get out of that. Had to get away from him. Had to just...just...just...
Just hit him for making that shadow. For being so perfect he swallowed me up. Just hit him as hard as I could. Only thing I could think of doing. I was too pissed to think up some kind of a speech, and I'm not too good at those on the best days. Today was definitely not the best day.
I push away from the wall and start pacing. What the hell am I going to do now? I am in shit up to my eyeballs, and it's only getting deeper the longer I sit in it. Gotta think. Gotta line it up all Fraser-just-so.
Okay. So I've just k-oed the first real friendship I've had in years. I've kissed off the Mountie that's supposed to be hanging around the station for Vecchio's cover, and made it so he'll never want to see the Chicago PD again. I've made an asshole out of myself in front of half the department, who are probably up there planning how to tan my ass for daring to hit Saint Fraser the Red. I've got a wadded up transfer letter in my pocket that's gonna take me back to a life I was all too happy to get out of in the first place. Knowing Fraser and his martyr complex, I'll be lucky if the Mountie hasn't already slit his wrists or jumped off a building or even just shipped himself back up to Freezadipshit.
If I'm lucky, he'll let me talk to him again, but I know that I've got just enough pride left to be stupid about it if he does. He already knows I'm an asshole, right? So why tell him? Why chuck the last little bit of self-respect I've got out the nearest window? No. Just...just let him go without getting all martry. Make him think it's a mutual thing. Maybe make up some pretend American slang term or ritual. "You see, Fraser, down here, we do this punch your partner in the head thing just before we transfer. Nothing personal. Just a culture thing. Like the house boys. I punch you, you..."
Not even he'd fall for that one. Yeah, the great American ritual where one guy hits the other, and the second guy, the one who could turn the first guy into a little smear on the pavement, the second guy just stands there forever, then walks away. If he'd just hit me back. If he'd yelled at me, shoved me, cussed me out. Something, anything. Anything so that I don't feel like a total shit who just kicked some beautiful, blue-eyed little puppy.
Maybe I can at least get him to hit me back. Play on that honor thing of his, that chivalry code, that eye for an eye justice thing. Tell him he's got to hit me back. That it's justice, that it's his duty. Benton Fraser always does his duty.
Shit. How screwed up is this? I've screwed up this entire thing so badly that I'm left with trying to think of a way to get him to hit me, just so I can feel some kind of crazy balance about this thing. That's all I've got left, because there's no way I can save this now. No fucking way.
I suck.
I think I'm gonna puke.
I do.
***
I'm nauseated. Actually, physically nauseated.
I think it was something in his eyes. Large blue eyes, churning with pain and anger that I had somehow put there.
I'm nauseous, but I don't actually become sick to my stomach. Perhaps I should, if for no other reason than to provide myself with a distraction. If I had a physical, tangible problem to deal with, I would probably feel a bit better.
Of course, Turnbull would wonder why, as would the Inspector. I am never sick. What would I tell them? I don't know.
There isn't anything to tell them that wouldn't be a useless reflection of my own inner chaos. Of course, they will undoubtedly know soon enough. Lieutenant Welsh witnessed the incident, as did Detectives Huey and Dewey, and several other officers. They witnessed Ray, a man who has been good enough to surrender his very identity for another, as I unintentionally provoked him to violence.
The Inspector has probably already been informed in great, painful detail. She will have questions. I will not have answers.
He tells me that I always am correcting him. I had thought it was a mutual relationship of give and take, of improving weaknesses in one another. He displays an instinctual intelligence on the streets that I will never understand, a hunter in his natural habitat. How many times would I have been humiliated at best, killed at worst, had it not been for him? I have been in this city for nearly three years, but `house boys' can still catch me off guard.
Have I made him feel inferior somehow? In my attention to the little details, have I neglected to tell him that I admire him on a far deeper level than grammar or procedure? That I covet the spontaneity of his soul?
I close the door of my office and latch it behind me. If someone needs me, they may knock. The removal of my hat and tunic are accomplished with the movements of a robot, as if some other man is undoing the buttons and buckles, hanging the red serge and tan felt on the coat rack. My own thoughts are not nearly so orderly. I am nearly falling into my chair, my head sagging into my hands, elbows braced on the desktop as my fingers tangle in my hair, pulling and twisting until it hurts.
If I am so concerned about his prudence, he certainly shouldn't have embraced a complete stranger as he did. Not merely a literal, physical embrace such as he offered within only moments of seeing me, but his willingness to run headlong into friendship on nothing but a handful of reports and a dossier. His willingness to trust me with his life.
Maybe he shouldn't have called us a duet. Duets seldom allow themselves to become this badly out of tune.
Of course, that was indeed when he had known me only a few moments. He knows me better now. He knows that I am not the postcard image many seem to consider me. He knows that I am not the perfect Mountie he expected. Perfect Mounties don't doubt.
Only Mounties stranded two thousand miles from home with careers in a force that barely tolerates them and hearts crying out in fear that they will lose the one anchor holding them back from a bottomless crevasse of loneliness...only they doubt.
My Grandmother used to say that gentlemen do not swear. I have always thought that my vocabulary, my education offers far better alternatives to simple crudities. Yet now, looking upon the mess I have made of my life, I believe I see what Ray finds in an occasional vulgarity. There are times when only a single descriptor will fit a situation.
As you would say, Ray, I've fucked this one up big time.
I'm stupid. I should have been deliriously grateful. I should have done anything possible to keep him from getting away.
When I lost Ray Vecchio, I thought that I would never find his like again. I thought that men of such caliber were gifts offered once in a lifetime. To be offered the opportunity to work with another would have been enough for anyone with the smallest amount of common sense. To add in his own uniqueness, his fierce loyalty, his flawless instincts, and beyond this, his incomprehensible insistence on being my friend...anyone with the smallest amount of common sense would have hit me long ago for not appreciating it.
But anyone did not hit me.
Ray hit me.
Full in the face.
I close my eyes tightly, as if that would make it stop repeating itself over and over and over again in my head like a broken record. He didn't even strike a glancing blow, something possibly impulsive or accidental. He punched me, rotating his hips and lining up his shoulders in what I recognized as a trained boxers move designed to allow a man to throw his full weight behind the blow. I can still hear the sound, a solid THWACK that echoed through my skull.
I was too stunned to even consider striking back. Instinctively, I cradled my suddenly-tender jaw, startled at the strength he possessed. I had known that Ray was strong for his size, but I had never fully understood it before. I touched the corner of my mouth, surprised not to see blood on my fingers.
And he looked at me. Looked at me with those accusing, angry eyes. I was certain he was going to hit me again, steeled myself for it. The first blow was a shock, the second would only have been punctuation on a familiar sentence. `Fraser, I don't want you.'
I suppose I could have hit back. Most of the onlookers were probably expecting it. I hit him, he hits me. Were it a simple matter of fisticuffs, I believe I would be the victor. I am somewhat larger and stronger than he, yet still light on my feet and well trained. I have sparred with him once before, and I knocked him down easily. That isn't the point.
This wasn't sparring. This wasn't a brawl. This wasn't even a challenge, a gauntlet. This was simply a statement. Ray's statement that he was through with me as a friend. I've heard these statements before. I know them when I see them.
I will miss Ray. Everything about him was imbued with a remarkable energy, a zest for life as bright as his blue eyes and his golden hair. Everything was hotter. Faster. More instinctive. He's just...just...just... He's the immovable glacier and the wild snowstorm at the same time. He's as brave as Wolf, as shrewd as Raven, as stubborn as Salmon, as tough as a scrub pine, as free and beautiful as Eagle, yet still retains that unique quality of American `cool.'
Oh dear.
Have you ever had one of those moments when your entire life slips into place? An epiphany?
Detective Stanley Raymond Kowalski is my counterpoint, my harmony. Like Ray Vecchio, he complements me, his strengths standing hand in hand with my weaknesses and vice versa.
Ray Vecchio, however, was as an elder brother. Ours was a deep bond, and I believe will always be, but it was always with him in a position of strength. This was his city, his home, and he was established in it deeply, with a loving family twined around him in a supporting net that he never really saw for the incredible gift it was. I was the outsider, needing guidance, coming to him as the last of my family had fallen, being taken into his. I often took the lead in our duties, it was true, but my strength came from my skill. His came from somewhere deeper.
Ray Kowalski is another outsider. We are as drowning men who have discovered that they each hold one half of a life preserver. Neither of us has the advantage, so we cling to each other all the more strongly, depending with near desperation that the other will be strong when we fail. Together, I was able to feel myself relaxing, offering him little glimpses of what lay beneath the red serge.
He bared his soul to me within a few days of our meeting, offering up his deepest shames and fears without the slightest hint of reticence. For the first time, I felt the freedom to begin to do the same, one tiny step at a time. Occasionally, I would allow myself to reveal that the wit I inherited from my father bears a significant streak of sarcasm, or that I am sometimes as tired, as disheartened, or even as playful as the next man. I let him begin to meet me as few had before.
What I neglected to recall was that every single time I have showed chinks in my blood red armor, I have been stabbed through them. Perhaps I deserved to be hit for that.
The truth is now laid bare for Ray and all the world to see. Fraser is a fool. An absolute imbecile who is apparently unable to grasp a simple concept: I have an image I was born into. The polite Mountie, always correct in protocol and demeanor. The sensible Mountie that always has to hold back. The one who must always stand out under the bright lights of scrutiny, careful that all the buttons are shined and the boots are polished so that no one notices that the soul beneath the uniform is slowly withering away.
I am aware that many people think that I am some sort of ideal, and in some ways, I suppose I am. I have an excellent arrest record. My father was one of the finest the RCMP has known. I have a tendency to attract women. It does not matter if I would rather not attract them. It does not matter if the only woman I loved turned out to harbor only vengeance in return. I held her for a few nights. I'm an excellent marksman and tracker. I've managed to survive 15 years of police work, haven't I? I've managed to survive despite men and women determined to kill me, and an environment that sees no use for human life. I've survived. That must be worth something.
Possibly it would with a normal partner. Even with a great partner. Not with a partner with a free spirit such as the wind would envy. Not with a partner who held everything I longed for.
He has turned me away. He has seen a glimpse of who I am, and he has found the truth too bitter and inadequate to accept. He has punched me in the face, but hit me square in the heart. I cannot let it be a fatal blow.
I must get away. I can feel it taking me, pulling me down. Ray had been seeing it for a long time, I am sure. There was anger simmering more often in his eyes, he was becoming short with me, and he was moving like an out of control dervish. In the language of Ray, that clearly translates: `Fraser, I can't believe that you are this pitiful, and I'm starting to wonder why I don't do this all by myself, since you're not what I thought you were going to be.' He was seeing me as something weakened, something wounded, something less...and he was seeing that was where I belonged.
I had to let him hit me. Let him hit me as hard as he could, and not do anything to stop him or retaliate. It was the only thing I could think of doing. For once, I was too lost to think up something to say.
I stand and begin to pace. What am I going to do now?
Ray no longer wants me, and that is not changing as I brood over the fact. I must think. I must make sense of it.
The next move is Ray's, I suppose. Or is it mine? I look at the transfer letter there on the desk. A way out. Should I take it? Some logical part of me steps back, taking a matter of fact look at the situation.
I have completely lost the only real kinship I had remaining in my life since the departure of Ray Vecchio. I'm doubtless no longer welcome at the station, which nullifies my use for Vecchio's cover. I've embarrassed myself and Ray in front of half the Chicago Police
Department by pushing and pushing until Ray struck me. I have a transfer letter on my desk that will take me back to a life that did not want me. Knowing Ray and his surprisingly fragile heart with it's massive capacity for ill-placed guilt, I'll be lucky if he hasn't already done something drastic.
If I'm lucky, he'll let me talk to him again, but I know that I have just enough pride left to be stubborn about it if he does. He already knows I'm a fraud, so why tell him point blank? Why abandon my last bit of self-respect?
No. Just...just let him go without losing myself like I have before. I will make him think it's the logical thing. Invent some Inuit ritual or story. "The Inuit have a saying, Ray: `He who has lost his mask must quickly depart for distant snows."
Not even Ray would believe that.
I'll just let him go. Keep my dignity, because it's all I have left, because there's no way to save it now. Lose my heart, my soul, my partner, my friend, my other half. A fair trade, don't you think?
I'm nauseated. Actually, physically nauseated.
Oh dear.
***
He did it. Holy shit, he actually did it.
Fraser hit me back.
He hits like a train, but I expected that. Knew he was strong. Knew he could throw the kinda punches that knock the most bad-ass Chicago punks halfway to next Thursday. Hell, I'm just grateful that all my teeth're still in there nice and solid.
Hadn't expected it to come so goddamned *fast*. One minute, he's just standing there, arms hanging loose at his sides, staring down and away like he couldn't really make himself do it. I thought I was going to have to go through all that shit again about why he had to do this, and then...there was this flash of something on his face.
It was like...like...dunno what like. Like some kind of animal, I guess. Just this, this, this *hate* thing that I'd never thought I'd see on his face. Didn't think he even knew about those kind of feelings. But he does now, and I made it happen. I made that hate-flash, and the punch that came after it so fast that I never even saw his fucking arm move. Just the hate-flash an' next thing I was almost flat on my face.
Ya kept some dignity though, Kowalski, gotta give yourself something there. Maybe you did make that look on Fraser's face, that look that made you feel like you'd shit in a church, like you'd *defiled* something beautiful and special and even maybe a little sacred. Maybe you did make him hit you--and not some fulfill-the-letter-of-the-law punch, but a real roundhouse sock in the jaw--but you kept the dignity. That's what it was all about, right? Dignity?
The dignity not to grab onto that red serge like that Sam-what-the-fuck belt is the handle of a life preserver when you're about to go down for time number three.
The dignity not to beg him to stay, not to say God Fraser I'm so damn *sorry* and I don't know what got into me but you're the best thing that ever happened to me and if you go I don't know what I'm going to do because I'm going to be all alone all alone all alone.
The dignity to catch my breath and force myself to stand up without puking and pretend like I still have some feeling in my jaw other than just these throbbing waves of *pain* and say something kinda along the lines of that's it or we're done.
The dignity to do something totally stupid.
The dignity not to say Fraser you can't go because I love you.
I don't remember exactly what I did say. Not like it matters. It doesn't take fancy words to end something like this. It's like that heirloom vase of my Mom's that I broke when I was six. Something totally precious to her, and it's gone before you know you hit it. Stella was over in what, five words? This. Just. Isn't. Working. Ray. And a marriage and a life and what I thought was everything I could ever love was gone. Just fucking *gone.*
Only it wasn't everything I could ever love. I know that now. Isn't that totally pathetic? I mean, I've been a real asshole a couple times in my life, but this has gotta be worth some kind of prize, don't you think? Brilliant kinda guy that I am, I figure out that I love him at the exact moment I flush everything we had down the toilet.
That look on his face....
I've seen him look at the real shit of the streets. I've seen him face down sons of bitches who pimp children, who beat their wives and girlfriends until their own mother's wouldn't know them, who sell death in pills and powders, who pull the trigger on some poor bastard every Saturday night just to give us cops something to do. I've seen him look down the barrels of guns pointing right between those wide Mountie eyes of his. I've never seen him hate.
Not once.
Until tonight.
He hated me.
For a split second, that half-moment before his fist connected with my face, Fraser hated me. Jesus fucking Christ, I didn't mean for it to go like that. I feel my entire insides shrivel up into one tight, sick ball that's making for my throat like it's gonna choke me and put me out of my misery. I wish it would. But instead I've got that look burned into my eyes, and I feel them starting to try and betray me, try and wash it all away.
I blink hard. God no. I can't do this. Can't cry now. Can't cry ever, because this time would be the time I know I'd drown in it, because this time, it wasn't even like it was mine to lose. I didn't know until it was too late, and even the fact that being in love with him would have been deep shit in its own right doesn't matter now.
All that matters is that now I'm left standing in the wreckage of something that never happened. With Stella, I'd had it all for at least a few years. With Fraser, all I'll get is a trashed friendship and a huge fucking heap of whatifs. That's worse, it's really so much worse.
I've felt this way one time before, and I had thought I'd die if I had to feel it again. Nine years ago. I'd finally talked Stella into having kids. I thought my head and my heart were gonna pop from the happiness when she said she was pregnant. And I thought that I'd totally re-written the dictionary about what pain meant when she called me home and there was blood oh Christ blood everywhere and run to the doctor and get there too late. He called it a miscarriage, said it was common in the first whatever. I almost killed him, almost strangled him, because what the *fuck* is common about seeing your first and last chance for a kid die before they had a chance to even live for a *moment?* Draw *one breath?*
Miscarriage. Thought I'd die if I had to feel it again, only now it's not a little boy or a little girl that I've lost. It's not the same, but it's not any better. Didn't get to draw *one breath* of loving Fraser before it was over, and this time, there's no one to go to. When it happened the first time, everyone was there for us. This time, I'm totally alone with what I lost.
What I threw away.
For a second, my vision blurs, and Fraser swims together into a blood-red smear. I feel myself gag, and I hate myself for my goddamned dignity. I could still save it. I could beg him not to take the transfer, not to leave me. I could tell him I love him. But I don't.
I've got my fucking pride.
That's all I've got.
*I love you.*
***
I did it. Dear Lord, I actually did it.
I hit him back.
He's staggering back, gasping, and I'm horrified that I hit him so hard. I feel numb, my arms falling to hang by my sides like two traitorous pieces of meat. I would never have done this to him, and I can't breathe, afraid that I'll see blood oozing from his mouth, that I'll have actually injured him. I know I hit him more than hard enough to, and the realization is nauseating. My strength and my temper are something I fight to keep under tight rein, and to lose control under any circumstances is reprehensible. To lose control and hurt Ray is unthinkable.
I hadn't been ready for it. I hadn't expected it to come so *fast.* One moment, I was standing there, determined not to do it. I was going to dance Ray in verbal circles until he tired of it, until he walked away. I thought that I could prevent myself from having to enact this barbaric quid pro quo Ray seemed to want to bring down upon himself...then there was a flash of something that shot through me like a hot coal through thin ice.
I know now how a desperate animal feels when they see no alternative but to lash out. An animal. I was behaving like an animal. A feeling of red, glowing rage built up and exploded out in a single flash, brighter and hotter than I'd thought were even possible, much less possible for me. But they were, and it happened. The rage flashed in me, and the punch that came after it flew through my shoulder and out the curled fingers of my hand before I even knew my arm had moved. Just the animal flash, and then Ray was almost on his knees, and I hurt him.
I hurt him.
You kept your dignity, though, Fraser. That has to be worth something. Maybe I did become something inhuman, something that lashed out and *attacked* a man who had proven willing to give his life for me, a man brave and strong and fragile and simply, existentially honest and good in a way that cannot be copied or feigned. Maybe I did attack him far beyond the simple bounds of fulfilling a request, throwing the full force of that red wave against him, but I kept my dignity. That was the purpose of the entire affair, was it not? Dignity?
The dignity not to fall to my knees and hold him and somehow find a way to undo what I did to him.
The dignity not to beg him to stay, not to say Please Ray I'm so terribly *sorry* and I don't know what came over me but I will never allow it to occur again and you're the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me and if I let myself lose you then I'll die forever inside because I'm going to be all alone all alone all alone.
The dignity to catch my breath and stand completely still, staring at my shoes and waiting for him to come to me as if I had the ability to force my numb, rebellious body to do anything else.
The dignity to do something entirely stupid.
The dignity not to say Ray you have to forgive me because I love you.
He says something. I don't remember exactly the words. It isn't as though they matter. The meaning is simple: it's over.
It's like a snowflake that takes a hundred thousand whirling, delicate trips through the strata of a cloud under perfect conditions to form itself. Something beautiful and delicate and entirely unique, and all it takes is a puff of breath to destroy it. My mother was gone in two words from my father. My father in a telegram. Victoria in a gunshot. Ray Vecchio in the click of a telephone. Moments. A split second, and a mother and a father and a lover and a brother and everything I could ever love was gone. Just *gone.*
Only they weren't everything I could ever love. I know that now. It is entirely pathetic. I am aware that my judgment has been less than stellar upon occasion, but I would think that I would be smarter than this. Smarter than to let myself fall in love again. Smarter than to forget what happens when I do that. I love Ray, and this time, I discover that just in time to lose it.
I lost it in that flash.
I've faced down the worst that humankind has to offer. I've protected the man who killed my father as he gloated in my face. I've restrained myself under circumstances that most men would have considered more than ample provocation for violence, even remained calm under the threat of my own death. I have never felt anything like that before.
Not once.
Until tonight.
I hated him.
Firefighters call it a backdraft. The contents of a room will reach many times burning point, but there will be no oxygen for fire to occur. When some well-meaning fireman opens a door or window into the room, the result will be an explosion of flame that annihlates everything in its path. I have felt this backdraft building for years, and tonight Ray opened the door. He opened the door on everyone I ever allowed myself to love and on every time I have driven them away. He opened the door on the consuming hate that has churned inside me for years, remonstrating and condemning my every thought and action and maintaining my prized control with the most brutal of tactics. Oh, Ray...it was my fire, why did you have to be the one that was burned?
For a split second, a half-heartbeat before my fist connected with his face, I actually hated him. I hated him for making me love him, and for making me feel all this all over again. I hated him for letting it out, and for every one of the previous losses atop his own.
But dear God, I didn't mean for it to...I can't believe it could ever happen that way. I hit him. I feel my body and spirit withdraw within itself as though it will shrink and shrink and then simply disappear into a black hole of shame. I wish it would. Instead, however, I have the image of Ray, doubled over and gasping, burned into my eyes, and I feel them begin to betray me with the threat of tears.
I blink hard. God no. I can't do this. I can't cry now. I can't cry ever, because this time would be the time I know I'd drown in it, because this time, it wasn't even mine to lose. I didn't know until it was too late, and even the fact that being in love with him would have caused its own problems doesn't matter right now.
All that matters is that now I have destroyed a last chance at not being alone and that I am left in the remains of something that could possibly have been wonderful, even if only until the inevitable day that I *would* have to lose it. At least with the others, I was allowed moments before that day occurred. This is worse, it's really so much worse.
I will not get a single possibility fulfilled with Ray, and this time, there is no way to even attempt justification of the pain. When it has happened before, I've had the letter of the law or the cruel whims of fate to turn to. This time, I am completely responsible for what I've lost.
What I have thrown away.
For a moment, my vision blurs, and Ray melds to a faintly golden blur. My gorge rises in my throat, and I despise my own pride. I could still save this. I could beg him not to take the transfer, not to leave me. I could tell him I love him. But I don't.
I have my pride.
That's all I have.
*I love you.*
THE END