Disclaimer: I own diddly.

Author's Notes: Thanks muchly to Heuradys, who read this as a WIP--dangerous, as WIP reading can cause tooth-gnashing injuries if the author in question experiences a dry-up on the story. I nearly called this "The Bad Feet Weekend" due to one of her comments and remembered a minor character, who now has a very significant contribution, thanks to her poking me to remind me.

Story Notes: Uh, mush. Mushy, mushy stuff. Lots of it. Not much sex, but it's in there.

Before Ray could get all the way up the block to the consulate, the building's door burst open and Fraser ran out.

Now, when Ray thought of "Fraser" and "run", he thought of a red blur zigging and zagging so fast it gave him reverse peristalsis to watch. Fraser ran with such a deft, precise grace--for anybody, not just for a medium-big guy in a big-ass uniform and boots--it was almost unreal. It helped, of course, to have seen how proportionately graceful that "medium-big" build really was under all that serge. Hell, under the right circumstances, Fraser could almost literally *fly*--which was not to say he couldn't also pour on the power, steady and sure. Ray had seen Fraser steeplechase, go from zero to sixty in point nothing and stop on a dime at point less, pace it over distance with a look on his face like he'd just been waiting for this all *day*, and never break a sweat.

This was not that.

Not *any* of that.

In fact, he had some difficulty recognizing the red uniform as being Fraser's and not Turnbull's, except with Turnbull's legs, if *he'd* been running like that, he'd have hit escape velocity already and been on his way to entering low earth orbit.

Further, this was a not a guy checking the lay of the land just ahead and gauging his steps over the uneven surfaces of the stairs and walks, like Fraser would have done, no matter how fast he was moving. This was a guy who didn't *care* if he killed himself as long as he did it as far away from *here* as possible.

Ray's amazement took about a picosecond to reach deathly alarm, and he changed trajectories. He didn't yell to Fraser to wait up. When a guy was running like that, you didn't tell him to slow down; you fucking turned whichever way he was going and kept *up* with him. Maybe the problem would turn out to be personal, but it was the act of a fool to stop and try to find out because that kind of running frequently signaled a threat to the entire area. Geez, Fraser didn't have his *hat*. True, he took it off inside if he was in uniform, but he could be *dead* and he would grab his hat if he were in uniform and leaving a building.

Ray had gotten a glimpse of the expression on Fraser's face, but he hadn't seen much of anything but BIG fucking eyes. He slowly--very slowly, and only because he'd had some warning and an ample parabolic (or hyperbolic, whatever) off-path head start--began to close the distance between them--

--and now he was aware that they were being pursued. He could hear it, heavy pounding footsteps of something two-legged and big. Fucking great, and running like this he didn't dare turn his head to see who or what it was, but if it was anything that could make Fraser-of-all-people run like *this*... Especially considering that while Fraser might refuse to carry a gun for the legalities, he *did* carry a fixed-blade knife about the bladelength the Cook county carrying laws allowed for (and was a serious fucking badass in any fight, armed or not)--well, whatever was chasing them was something that would have to be able to take him under those circumstances. And whatever was chasing them didn't have a gun, or they'd both be dead, but the time factor was bad--Ray, in slowing enough to pull his gun and turn, preferably at the same time, might still give whatever was after them enough time--at this speed about half a second would do it--to kill him in passing on its chase for Fraser.

And so they went, through traffic, pedestrians, alleys--god, he hated alleys--until finally he realized that he recognized the tail-end part of a walk they sometimes made, though not from the consulate; the way to Morris park.

Fraser blasted through, by the grace of god and his own dexterity avoiding the picnics and small children and animals scattered about the area; Ray tried to help, yelling "Police! Clear the area! Clear the area NOW!"

And suddenly, Fraser was *gone*.

No, Fraser must have...stopped.

Ray was still moving; he was about to skid across a small path and into a streamlet-fed pond. He saw water and reflexes kicked in; he fell over backwards, *bam*, boot heels digging sod, fingernails plowing up furrows, and he would have done *exactly* the same thing if he'd been on cement.

He lay there a moment, listening to the fact that he was deaf--his blood was screaming and the pressure of his breathing and the congestion presently built up by the expanded blood vessels in his head had cut his ears off from their internal air supply. He couldn't see. He couldn't feel anything but burning all over. If he was about to get killed, he probably wouldn't be able to tell when it happened.

But it didn't happen. Eventually, long before he felt ready, he rolled over a little and managed to fall on his face, which was one step in getting up. It was a bit before he could try for the second step. The prospect of seeing dead picnickers everywhere was not a motivating one.

He hadn't made it yet when: "Sir? Officer?" There was a touch on his shoulder. He got his head turned to the side and tried to focus. His glasses were in his pocket, but she was more than close enough to see. It was an older woman, short, so she didn't have to bend too far to touch him. "Are you all right? The emergency's over."

"The...emer...Fraser...where's...red suit, guy in red, boots, is he..."

"Oh, yes, the mounties. I had no idea they were so terribly...uh, conscientious. I was confused at first, of course, when the, ah, the first one went up that tree, but the second one, that terribly big fellow, he explained the situation and apologized if anyone was startled or stepped on or otherwise--"

"Other one?" Ray rolled to a sitting position. "Kinda nervous-looking guy?"

"Yes, that would be him. He explained about the chickadee egg."

"The chick what?"

"When the constable was gathering evidence, in that tree, earlier this week, and the egg fell into his uniform? Apparently his own warmth in the wool was enough to incubate it, or perhaps it was that the place he lives is warm--I wasn't listening that closely, I'm afraid--in any event, he finally found it because he detected movement in the shell. It was close to hatching, and, well..."

"--it was, of course, imperative that he return the egg to the nest before the chick could be born," Turnbull said, reaching down and picking Ray up. He ended up holding him close up and tight in his arms, even had a hand smacked securely on his ass to support his weight, because Ray had *no* muscle tone happening anywhere at all--Ray's head was a deadweight on Turnbull's broad shoulder. But Ray supposed it was at least a little more dignified than Turnbull picking him up as if he were about to carry him over a threshold, and him hanging there in the serge-clad arms like a passed-out teenage girl. Turnbull was finishing his explanation with "The mother would *reject* the chick, otherwise, and hand-rearing a baby songbird is a nearly impossible task--they're too delicate, and finding appropriate food is difficult. Bait generally won't do. Only adult songbirds can usually manage it. It would have been as much as condemning the chick to death."

"Fraser...got...over...*bird*!?"

"Well, of course."

"Fraser *guts* things to eat that are *cute* and *fuzzy* and baby birds are *not*!"

"Never juveniles. The eating, that is. Plus," and his expression was, for him, just a bit severe, "I know you realize that there is a difference between natural predation--animals do eat each other to live--and human carelessness or selfish concerns causing the death of an animal for no defendable reason."

"It would never have *known*!"

Turnbull raised one of those flexible eyebrows. He was still panting, too, and his face was flushed and sweaty, and he actually looked kind of ticked, though he didn't let go of Ray. "And, being telepathic, you would know this for a fact."

Hm, now he'd managed to piss off the nicest person in the world, with the possible exception of Fraser. "Okay," he croaked. "Okay, you got me. You gonna put me down?"

"Can you stand?"

"No." He lifted his arms clumsily around the Sam Browne and serge to hang on limply at the taller man's waist. "Take me to Fraser."

"Of course. He's right over here." Turnbull began to walk him carefully back the way they'd come. The lady who'd been concerned for him, evidently reassured at seeing him in responsible care, had vanished to wherever she'd come from.

Fraser was lying on his back, looking like a dropped mountie doll. He must've fallen out of the tree, Ray realized, when he got the egg back in the nest--how the hell did he manage to get the egg back in the nest in that kind of shape without destroying either? But he had. A merry multicheeping emanated from the shifting branches overhead and several people were sitting or standing around, peering upward into the sunlit foliage and smiling, or leaning worriedly over Fraser.

"We got him, we got him," Ray said, falling to his knees by Fraser as Turnbull let him go and collapsed himself, somewhere behind him. "Chicago PD. All clear. Emergency's over. No more getting trampled by big nasty boots, it's safe now. You may return to your interrupted hanging around."

"Are you guys going to be all right?"

A man's voice; Ray looked, and the fellow was fairly young, athletic, with an air of un-pushy authority that made Ray think he was probably an off-duty EMT or other emergency worker, or maybe a lifeguard or someone else trained not to walk away from the ill and injured-looking without making sure all was well. So Ray took pity on him, and, instead of snarling, said "Yeah, I'll call somebody to come get us," pulled out his badge just so the guy and everybody would get the point, waved it with a lazy, general, get-out-of-here swing of his arm. "Super-high-level-security-international-crucialness is all done with."

People laughed a little, apparently taking this for a joke rather than extreme sarcasm, but began to fade off, back to blankets and swingsets and benches and lunches. It was a pleasant park--it used to be a nine-hole golf course, so it rolled around the area with little paths and fresh, tended ponds and streams and a small fountain, and Fraser, while it certainly didn't remind him of home, did think it was pretty, and a nice thing to do with an out-of-favor golf course instead of turning it into a dump or a strip mall. Plus it was an excellent place to walk, with all the little paths and the room, and many trees.

"Fraser, were you really gathering evidence up there?" Ray panted.

Fraser made a little clicking sound in his chest, like "uik", and Turnbull's voice, soft and in a lower register than Ray thought he'd ever heard it, came from behind him, saying "I can't presume to say, but I suspect he was simply relaxing. There were few trees where he grew up, unless he went in specific search of them..."

"So he likes climbing them now."

"Yes. Which would of course have made it all the more crushing for him if the chick had come to harm."

"Yeah..." Ray sighed. Kill a wild baby songbird--in one of his favorite spots, which would probably always be ruined for him then--without even an excuse like working, just what he'd see as his own carelessness...okay, he would forgive Fraser--he would *yank* Fraser, that was a given, when Fraser was in any shape to be yanked, but Ray'd already let it go as a hair-tearing, are-you-trying-to-kill-me-for-FUN topic.

"It occurs to me that the constable..." Turnbull paused to pant, "...might be more comfortable out of his tunic and nearer that pond, a bit over north of where you, um, stopped...where the elm trees are?"

"Yeah, I'd like it better there too." Ray managed to sit up, sitting out of his jacket as he did so, so it just stayed on the ground back there, and heard Turnbull moving, unbuckling and unvelcroing and all that carrying on, and Ray fumble-fingeredly started on Fraser, remembering to go with the lanyard first. Turnbull was there soon to help, his own tunic and its accoutrements neatly tucked and buckled into an easy-to-carry fold over his arm. Ray had never noticed before, but Turnbull was built. Not just big, that was obvious, but nice. The trimness of his waist and hips were evident in the uniform, but for some reason the bulk of his chest and shoulders and back were minimized by the tunic. But he was long and tall and carried it well, and like Fraser, he moved with subtle, inobvious grace. Unless he was nervous, of course, or getting overperky...well, anyone who could paint and do ink drawing as well as he could would have to have some grace stashed somewhere, right?

Then Fraser's tunic started coming off, and Fraser's gorgeous face was all mussed and sweaty and flushed and gazing up at them with gratitude, and wow. Ray decided that you just can't compare good-looking mounties, at least not if you still feel half-dead. If the ice queen were here, he'd probably be noticing her sweaty ass, too.

They each took one of Fraser's arms over their shoulders and managed to get their three rubbery bodies to the pond, near the streamlet that fed through some of the shade tree roots, and collapsed again there. Turnbull started on Fraser's boots.

"That's not..." Fraser wheezed.

"I saw your ankle turn, sir. I'm sure it's not serious, but I'm going to check. Besides, we wouldn't want to have to cut the boot off if there's swelling beginning."

That shut Fraser up, and Ray was taking his boots off purely for the purpose of hanging his burning feet in the water. "What took you so long, anyway, Turnbull? You gotta be able to run faster than me."

"Late start," Turnbull panted. His Dennis-the-Menace hairdo was pretty much a loss, sweat having turned it normal-looking, probably when he ran a hand through it to keep it from dripping into his eyes. "Constable Fraser had the egg, so I had to stop and lock up. I wasn't surprised to see you following him, but I must say I'm impressed with your ability to..."

"Run like hell? I heard you behind us and thought you must be the reason he was running. That if I stopped, whatever you were would pop me like an M'n'M and keep right on moving. God. I am gonna hurt. You do not run like *that* in these boots, not for however many--"

"Two and a half miles, since we traveled overland, as it were, rather than with the prescribed routes. Two and...possibly closer to two-thirds--"

"That's too fucking far."

"For your boots--and for ours; they're riding boots, with high, hard heels that have no real shock-absorptive ability--that's quite true. I am truly amazed none of us have a sprain, if indeed we don't."

So they all got bootless, and checked their sweaty, aching, turning-red feet and ankles, and were all sitting there with their nekkid feet in the water, stripped down to the public decencies--jeans and a ribbed undershirt for Ray, and everything but boots, tunic and suspenders for the mounties. They had their pumpkin pants undone at the bottom and tugged up their legs to keep them dry, not that it mattered too much now as far as Ray could tell.

An ice vendor came by on the little path behind them and they all got ices, paid for by Ray, who was feeling better, and starting to get amused by the whole thing, especially this glimpse of his uptight mountie friends. Fraser still wasn't really talking. His eyes were closed as he leaned against the tree, the rounded shoulders slumping a little, head a bit tilted back. His breeze-blown, dampened curls were moving on his forehead and cheeks and over his ears. He looked pooped, but peaceful and pink and gentle-expressioned. His mouth was all soft. He done his doody. He saved his bird.

Ray looked at him a moment, smiling with affection that couldn't be beaten down even by his being so beaten up. "So...how's your friend Quinn, Frase?" he finally prodded him.

Fraser's lush dark lashes fluttered and his eyes opened. His voice was a little wheezy, and deep with prolonged harsh panting and accompanying soreness, but audible. "Fine, thanks for asking." His small, bushed, but sweet smile made it obvious Ray didn't need to pursue the query to make it clear to Fraser that Ray understood. That he understood maybe--make that "probably"--better than Fraser did.

"Oh, yes, mister Quinn," Turnbull murmured quietly. "I remember him well. Have I ever thanked you for your actions that day, Ray?"

"You have now. Think nothing of it."

"I knocked myself out on a plate," Turnbull said morosely. "It took until I woke to get that information to you and the others at the station."

"I know. I hated your ass at the time, but on reflection I doubt you did it on purpose, though I'd pay to see how the hell you managed it. Or did that ink sketch while you were still dizzy."

"I eventually had two black eyes."

"You did? That all, I hope?"

"I did, and no, it was no worse. A blow to the head hard enough to knock out an adult human carries repercussions, but that was all, this time. Such massive clumsiness...which could have cost Constable Fraser's life."

"I hope you're not about to compare what he just did to you feeling guilty over nearly getting him killed 'cause you brained yourself on a plate, which you didn't almost get him killed, by the way, at least more than I did. What I did could have gone either way, you know. It wasn't thought out. I just...couldn't leave him in there with an obvious crazy fuck who was yelling about 'expendable hostages'--and the shot went off--"

"I didn't mean to imply that what he and I did, both accidentally, are...the same, not exactly, just that...I understand why he did this."

"I know you do, but you'd have done the same thing he did just 'cause you're you."

"I was hoping to help you understand, too. Your usual manner of dealing with these circumstances..."

"Oh. You want me to stay off his case about it." Ray was quiet. "Well, you did, kinda, with the understanding thing. I mean, you guys are weird, don't even try to get out of it. But seeing things from new viewpoints, that's something he's helped me a lot with. God, I hope he's too out of it to remember I said that. Anyway, you guys have strange priorities. You're both gonna be hurting, Fraser may have a sprain, and you've busted and smeared up your representing-the-Queen uniforms pretty good, and you had to leave the consulate with nobody in it, even if it is close to closing time, for one baby bird. Maybe I wouldn't have done what you did, but I don't mind having, uh, helped you guys do it."

Turnbull smiled. "I'm glad to hear it, Ray."

"So am I," Fraser whispered, still smiling, and closed his eyes again.

"Rats," Ray said. Now if he yanked Fraser about the egg, Fraser would just yank him right back by the opposite viewpoints. "Well. Fraser's got his happy, flappy, cheepy, worm-eating caribou. Now I think we oughtta get somebody to come get our asses and get us back to the consulate, and I'll get my car, and Fraser can get the dog and do something about his uniform, maybe wash up--and ditto you, we'll stop at your place, but you can wash up at mine, because we're going there and order in. Because we need bare feet and hot pads and stuff like that, and I don't trust him that way."

"I'm not arguing," Fraser said, for the first time with anything approaching his normal vocal density, "but...could we stay here just a bit longer?"

Probably figuring his uniform was already as trashed as it got anyway, for purposes of taking the trouble to get it all nice again. "Yeah, just a bit. Sure. I'll, uh--" Ray fished for his cellphone. "By the time I can actually get anybody here, and to the nearest parking lot, it'll probably have been a little bit longer. So you just enjoy yourself." He dialed numbers, slurping happily through his straw at the melty ice and pink sugary flavoring in his cup. "Nice day out. Thank God."

"Yes. Quite a lovely day," Turnbull agreed. He was braced with his hands behind him, head fallen back, his eyes closed to the greenery overhead. The sweat was drying, leaving him mussy, too.

"You guys *are* human," Ray said, shaking his head. "Fraser, okay, *maybe*, but Turnbull, I never expected to see you look...relaxed."

"This is not relaxation, Ray," Fraser said softly, "this is exhaustion. But in a way...it does feel rather good."

***

"Now *here* we have a bedroll," Ray was saying. The inches-thick, eggcrate-pad-surfaced memory-foam pad thumped to the floor first, followed by dense billows of cushy cotton-and-wool indoor sleeping bag, with other additions that Ray had made after experimentation--some of it with Diefenbaker's help--like an extra pad made of a chopped-to-size dense memory foam pillow to put under your ass so it didn't bang the surface beneath no matter how you flopped around, even if you were heavier than Ray.

"That's a bed on the floor," Turnbull said.

"Says a guy whose bedroll consists of three napkins. Fraser busted himself today. I mean, we all did, but I got a bed, and maybe you got a bed. Fraser sleeps on that cot thing and he's *not* sleeping on it tonight."

"It doesn't sound like he's arguing," Turnbull said. He was sitting on the couch with his feet in soft white cotton socks covered with plastic bags, the plastic bags then resting in a pan of cool water with just enough ice floating in it. Fraser was in a similar position, with similar foot accoutrements, though he had more ice, and two heating pads wrapped around his lower legs. He looked like he felt pretty silly, but was half-smiling tolerantly at Ray. Apparently he hadn't felt there was any real need for him to contribute to the conversation. Or maybe his throat was still sore.

"'Course he's not. He knows better. You're bigger, though; you better take the bed with me."

There was a slosh and Turnbull nearly lost his bottle of water, avoiding a spit-take with the assistance of the back of one wrist to his mouth, trying to control the dripping. "I assure you, detective, I have no need--"

"It won't hurt us once, Turnbull," Fraser finally murmured. "It's the weekend, and we honestly should allow our feet time to dry and peel a bit, and that means remaining barefoot. Soaking our feet in the pond was the best thing to do under the circumstances--cooling abraded and friction-burned tissue quickly, before more damage can be done, is important. But while I doubt we have any serious worry in the area of infections under these circumstances, the water itself did saturate the tissues, and that isn't as helpful."

"As you say, sir," Turnbull sighed.

"I'll just go put this in the bedroom," Ray said, started to get up, and sat down. "Later."

Dief got up, managed to get part of a corner of the bedroll in his mouth, and started backing into the bedroom.

"Odd he'd be so helpful without being asked," Fraser mused.

"He probably's been following the conversation and knows that with all three of us in there, he has uncontested claim to the couch," Ray pointed out.

"Of course."

The TV was on and keeping his guests entertained (the viewing matter of choice at the moment was a movie about a group of vulcanologists, which Turnbull found exciting, Fraser interesting from a "find the scientific errors in the script" standpoint, and which Ray liked because of all the lava and things blowing up). Dinner's remains had been swept into a large plastic trashbag, the window to the fire escape had been opened for Dief, and Ray was beginning to think seriously about lying the fuck down.

"Uh...I'm gonna go with Dief's plan, here, but I think I'm gonna take the floor. Nah, it's okay, that's my floor bed. I made it just for me after that mess with Turnbull's old place, so it's how I like it. And I'm liking the Aloe Ice on my feet, which I can have just as easy down there; I don't think my feet are where I took the worst of it. You guys may end up needing to sleep on your backs with your feet on the floor if you feel as crappy as I do any time soon and can't take 'em out of the cold."

"Actually," Turnbull said, "I think that Aloe Ice for a cooling effect might be worth a try." Turnbull removed his feet from the pan, then removed his socks to mop up the drips. He had spare soft sweat socks with him. Lots of them. "The damage really isn't that severe, Ray, though the discomfort isn't anything to cheer about. Constable Fraser and I are simply being as thorough as possible in our treatment to ensure that we'll be as ready as we can be--with luck and attentive care, almost entirely recovered--for duty again by Monday. If necessary, I'm sure constable Fraser and I can explain it sufficiently to Inspector Thatcher that she'll be willing to forgo the standard sentry duty hours for a few days. That is, when she learns it may be the difference between two full-uniform-wearing underlings and two underlings who will be coming to work shod only in slippers."

Fraser snorted a little, getting a half-smile on his face that looked distant and remembering.

"Okay," Ray said, "whatever. But I'm still the skinniest, and that *is* my bedroll which is just how I like it with even my favorite fabric softener, and I'm gonna retire to it now if I can just get the hell in there. I got shinsplints like I haven't had since...I've never had shinsplints, not like this. So this is shinsplints. They suck."

"Indeed," Fraser murmured, reaching down to adjust one of his warming pads.

"Can I get you guys any more anti-inflammatory stuff?

"There are about six ibuprofen tablets swimming about in my bloodstream as we speak," Fraser said. "I believe any more would cause immediate liver damage. But, since there's no chance of our prematurely taking the reduced pain for healing, I admit your wisdom in their use; reduction of pain is reduction of muscle tension, and increase of rest, both of which greatly speed healing. I'll take more if I feel the need."

Turnbull just made a "me too" kind of nod, his eyes on the TV screen.

"Okay. Be seeing you guys. Do not step on me because I will bite your legs."

"At the moment, that's a pretty effective deterrent," Fraser muttered.

***

"Is he asleep?" Turnbull murmured.

"Yes," Fraser murmured back, examining Ray's still form on the bedroom floor; the slimmer man was on his side, semi-fetal, with his curled hands tucked under his chin and cheek and a smoothed, content look on his face; the sight evoked a feeling of deep fondness in Fraser. He smiled a little at himself. "I admit, his bedroll arrangement looks comfortable enough even for him."

"Then I'll leave the lights off," Turnbull whispered; he added shyly "I do hope you don't mind sharing the accommodations with me, sir..."

"Fraser will do for the duration, Turnbull. And it was my idea to share the accommodations...here." They had assisted each other over Ray, to the bed, and sat down to begin disrobing.

"He looks rather charming," Turnbull said, smiling at Ray. "Very...not to sound trite, but very young."

"Yes," Fraser agreed simply, with a smile he knew was probably somewhat fatuous, gazing at Ray for a minute as well, before shaking himself out of it. "How is it all?" he asked, nodding toward Turnbull.

"Actually, whether it's the ibuprofen or not, I feel substantially better," Turnbull said. "Which is fortunate. There's more soreness due in the morning. And the possibility of guard duty on Monday. That would extend the period of discomfort substantially if we hadn't taken all the precautions one possibly could. Hardly life-threatening, but a rather tiresome prospect, nonetheless." Turnbull made a face, and apparently noticed Fraser having a bit of a struggle. "Sir--ah, Fraser. Let me help you with that...I hope that didn't hurt."

Fraser shook his head absently. "Mm. Not to worry about." In their underwear, they applied Aloe Ice to what needed it of their feet, Turnbull gently prodded Fraser's ankle to check for swelling and didn't find any, and they put on clean socks and managed to get under the covers without falling over each other too much. A queen-sized bed would hold them both comfortably, but only just.

As they got settled, Turnbull whispered "Detective Vecchio...well, this one...is a...rather contradictory personage, would you agree?"

"I believe that sums him up fairly well, actually," Fraser whispered back, his eyes closed, smiling.

"It's very generous of him to do this for us."

"He is a generous person, though he does his best to convince the rest of the world otherwise. I understand his motivations for that, as...every Ray Vecchio I've ever known has considered it best not to get a reputation as a pushover, even if he is naturally rather softhearted. This one may be a little more so, though."

"He's been hurt, hasn't he," Turnbull said, still barely murmuring.

Fraser was quiet a moment, then said "I think that would be a question better directed to Ray."

"Of course, I didn't mean to imply that you'd...well. I've noticed...he seems...very attached to you. Very desirous of your friendship."

"Well, yes, we are friends. Good ones. And partners."

"I meant...never mind. Yes, of course, you're partners. It's just that I've seen him express such pleasure at your unexpected arrival, or similar such things...and he's always disappointed, though he attempts to hide it, when I have to tell him that you're unavailable. Frustration, occasionally, more than disappointment, but even when there's no pressing matter..."

"I think you simply recognize loneliness," Fraser said gently, and, when Turnbull's eyes flicked sharply up to his, added quickly, before Turnbull could become offended at the obvious conclusion, "I recognize it, too, of course. He *is* undercover; it *is* a lonely occupation; and in this particular job, he's forced to have semi-regular contact with his ex-wife, from whom he has had no time to separate himself emotionally. His missing of that connection is given no chance to fade, under such circumstances."

"You think he simply...relies on you out of...out of that? The difficulty of making new acquaintances undercover, and...the other peculiarities of his situation?"

"May I ask if there's a reason you're so concerned for Ray's emotional state, all of a sudden?"

"I only...I think about him, I suppose." Turnbull sighed and turned over.

"If you'd like...I mean, well...I'm sure he wouldn't....well, just invite him to spend time with you."

"It isn't *my* time he wants, sir. But I'm glad that you're willing to share yours with him."

Fraser was quiet, then rearranged himself as well, prepatory to sleeping.

"You said you recognize loneliness too, sir?"

Fraser was quiet again, then finally said "Yes, but...well." Fraser coughed softly. "One makes the best of one's situation."

"I'm glad he's willing to share his time with you, too, then."

"Ah. Ahm...Turnbull...you needn't carry the conviction that..." he wished he were better at this. He should have known better than to make that comment about loneliness, but sometimes he simply seemed determined to undermine himself. "...that it would take something like this rather bizarre little circumstance before either Ray or I would..." but he trailed off, because he wasn't sure he could absolutely guarantee that what he'd been going to say was true. After all, he hadn't spoken to Ray...nor could he be sure that his and Ray's behavior wouldn't reasonably look at least somewhat like what Turnbull seemed to be seeing.

"Being stationed away from home," Turnbull said quietly, "it's...rather like being undercover, in that way. It doesn't pay to...initiate new social relationships that will only have to be abandoned, sometimes with little or no warning. It's not fair to those who would be left, and it isn't...it isn't easy to do, in any event, for some of us. No matter where...in any case, that you have such a friendship with the man you work most closely with on your current assignment is something that...ah, the advantages make up for the drawbacks, I believe. It's worth it, to both of you, the risk and the inconvenience." He seemed about to go on, but stopped, took a deep breath, let it out, and said "Good night, sir."

"Fraser, Turnbull. Or Benton, if you like. Whenever we aren't working," he added, extending the invitation to call him by name past the "duration" of their current predicament.

"Goodnight, Fraser."

"Turnbull...there's a Faust being performed at the Watt theater beginning next week; I'm sure we could settle on a suitable date for both of us if you'd care to see it with me. Do you enjoy opera?"

"Ahm...I'm afraid I've never had the opportunity to learn to appreciate the nuances, ss--Fraser. But your invitation..." he sighed tiredly. "...is very kind. As are you."

"It's never too late to learn to appreciate the finer things, you know. If one is familiar with the play 'Phantom of the Opera', as most of us are, the relevance of the 'Faust'--"

"Goodnight, sir."

Fraser pressed his lips together, accepting that. He couldn't blame Turnbull for refusing an invitation that blazed forth pity on the face of it, even if Fraser didn't intend it that way--though, guiltily, he realized he couldn't swear there was no element of the "kindness" that Turnbull referred to in it, and he wouldn't have stood for that himself, in Turnbull's position. Not "kindness" per se, but something less benign...a word he didn't even want to think.

Still. It had been an honest invitation. Perhaps...moved by he knew not what impulse, he reached over and pressed his hand, palm flat, gently to Turnbull's t-shirt-clad back. Turnbull shivered, and Fraser felt guilty; evidently he'd been correct--Turnbull was as starved for touch, as lonely as he'd sounded like, as lonely as Fraser often felt. This was taking advantage of that knowledge, but it wasn't to hurt Turnbull, or pity him, or lie to him.

This would, in fact, be a truth of the caliber that was very hard to get out of one's mouth.

"Would...we could...sleep a bit closer. If...what I mean is, I would, if...I mean, I'd like that. *I* would like that. I've been, ah....well--" he let his hand rub trepidatiously along Turnbull's shoulder once, then drew it away, and repeated once more, in the soft voice they were both using in care of Ray's sleep, "I would like it," he repeated, aware of what a fool he sounded. "But if you wouldn't feel comfortable, I won't hold it against you. Don't worry about that."

What was he thinking? Two large men in a queen sized bed? They couldn't get closer unless they deliberately wrapped up in each other, and there were no utilitarian reasons in sight to do such a thing. But how to say what he'd really meant? He had no idea.

Turnbull shivered, then rolled over again, and Fraser was stunned to descry tears in the pale blue eyes. "Sir, I realize that my saying such things is entirely inappropriate, and I won't say this again, I assure you. But I...feel something for what's between you and detective Vecchio. And I can't help but...still, I have no place in it. No natural part in it. What you and he have may admit of room for others, but not for just any others, and certainly not for me. But I know you intend well, and I do appreciate that you'd take the trouble. That you would care enough to offer as much as you have--and you have no idea--" he stopped a moment, swallowed, and whispered "--no idea how much it is. But in the long run, it would...I would want far more than I could have. Similar to the way detective Vecchio feels about his ex-wife, I suppose. Less than the closeness that he really wants only exacerbates the pain, far more than complete separation would."

Fraser stared. He didn't understand. "Turnbull...what do you think *is* between me and detective Vecchio? I assure you there's no reason not to--"

"It's irrelevant, sir. Whether it's friendship or anything else, it's yours, and I don't want to have to exist any closer to it than I do. It would simply be intolerable. But--if you're certain you'd like..." Turnbull took Fraser's hand, his right to Fraser's right, so they were joined easily, resting on the mattress, as the two of them lay facing each other. "Here. Closer. And not too much for me. Goodnight, sir." Turnbull's eyes closed, this time with the definite sense that if Fraser tried to speak again, Turnbull might very well not only not respond, but get up and leave. The tears that had been standing in his eyes ran down across his face when he closed his lids, but he made no sign that he noticed, nor did his breathing catch.

Turnbull was envious of the friendship he and Ray had, that was obvious, and understandable. Fraser was convinced that, like so many other examples extant now in the King James translation--"charity" (which most people interpreted as material charity) for "ecstatic love"; "witch" for "poisoner", and many others--envy had either changed meanings over the years or been mistranslated. The word in the listing of the seven deadly sins had probably originally been something closer to the meaning of "jealousy". Envy was not jealousy; with jealousy came anger. Jealousy was the feeling of personal hatred, personal anger, personal animosity toward someone for having something you felt you deserved to have and did not. Envy only meant you...wanted, wanted to also have something someone else had. You didn't want *theirs*, necessarily, nor feel you had a *right* to theirs. Or even that you had a *right* to the thing you wanted at *all*--you just wanted it, wanted something similar for yourself. It brought only sadness and pointless wistfulness with it, not anger or hatred. He couldn't ever imagine Turnbull being *angry* over someone else's...happiness.

That he had with Ray, yes. Ray made him happy. He loved Ray Vecchio, but with the man on the floor there...it was a warmth and contentment that he'd never experienced before, and thinking about it like this took him by surprise; he might never have realized how much it was to him, how much it *was*, period, until he was deprived of it--or at least, until he was threatened with being deprived of it. He was familiar with that, and it had hurt horribly; but he had been angry, too--and, to a degree, unbelieving anyway that Ray could really choose to leave. He remembered how he had kept intimating that Ray would not leave, by insisting on assurances that he would and then not believing them--simply reiterating the whole process later, again and again; this prevented it from being anything more than a nasty thought, a real and dangerous existing shoal in the current, but one that was visible, and therefore avoidable; never entering, to him, the territory of inescapable disaster.

It seemed that Turnbull could clearly see the value of what Fraser and Ray had; much better than Fraser could see it himself. And if that were so, perhaps he should do something...what? Something, to indicate to Ray that he did value it. Since things *had* come to a near-disastrous head once before. Something to indicate that he valued Ray's friendship...no, Turnbull was right, the specific word or even the specific type of...love was unimportant; how one chose to divide such things was entirely a subjective matter, in any case. He loved Ray, and felt a strange, sinking sensation that Ray didn't know how much, and might never have known how much, if it hadn't been for this...realization.

He thought suddenly, with a chill, that ten years ago, he wouldn't have felt that concern...but he did now. He no longer labored under the lack of a sense of mortality that the young did. Time was a factor in his life now, and was making a difference in the way he saw this whole situation. When had he grown so old?

He didn't want to make either of them uncomfortable, but on occasions that called for it, Ray himself had initiated fairly intimate contact between them. There was no reason to fear Ray's rejection or distaste--Fraser was not, he thought--sighing with a vague, tender sadness--Turnbull, who no doubt had reason to fear. Though in Turnbull's case that didn't refer only to Ray.

Perhaps he should ask for Turnbull's help, he thought, quirking a smile. The young man had just concisely and clearly encapsulated his observations, feelings, reasons...and his limits, in an extremely brief conversation. Fraser would never have thought him capable. He wondered if anyone thought Turnbull capable of such a thing.

He squeezed their joined hands a little, and felt an odd little bubble of pleasure inside when Turnbull squeezed back, shifting a bit. It was a pity that in their society, this sort of touch, between adults, was limited to relationships in which there was some sort of openly acknowledged sexual component. Those without such relationships grew starved for touch, and often, sadly, resorted to meaningless sex to get it--well, some did, and some merely tried. Fraser knew that Ray's horndog routine was nothing but a cover for his desperate missing of his ex-wife's companionship, physical and otherwise.

There were many cultures where adults touched in affection and friendship, far more freely than in the white western world, or however best delineation could be defined in terms of culture, since area and skin tones weren't the only factors; humans had an undeniable need for touch. So, in Fraser's society, anyone who was not in a relationship with a sexual component, and who had no access to physical affection with a child--and even child-variety sexless affection was different from adult-variety sexless affection--and who felt dissatisfied with meaningless sex, was left without touch; and humans were herd animals, living, in the wild, closely, and touching to a high degree for many reasons besides sex. Some reasons were sheerly practical, such as for warmth or other aid, and some more for comfort, emotional and physical.

He cackled silently to himself. The idea was interesting. A world where he would greet Turnbull with a good long hug each morning; the Inspector, being his boss, perhaps only with a handclasp and a quick peck on the cheek. He and Ray could recline on the couch in the evenings watching their preferred entertainment, together on the cushions, idly stroking each other's persons, without thinking twice about it. Francesca, being small, could sit conveniently in his lap when they worked together at the station, allowing both of them to reach the desk and the computer, since he could easily reach around her and see over her shoulders...

His thoughts ground to a halt. By the time he'd gotten to the idea of Francesca's compact weight situated warmly in his lap and their arms intertwining as they reached around to work, he had begun to feel a genuine desire--not sexual desire, but definite desire.

And it was beyond improper to desire such things--it entered the realm of the ridiculous. What was, was; despite that it was not the norm for humans either in the wild or in most cultures, he did live in a milieu in which it simply *was* improper and unacceptable to engage in the sorts of touch he was thinking.

He'd only meant to amuse himself, never imagining that anyone as comfortable with solitude as he could find the notions anything but entertaining speculation...but he'd found himself growing almost as wistful as Turnbull, and quickly, and he began to be alarmed. True, he had asked for touch with Turnbull--and been surprised at himself--but...that had been...simply...an impulse.

All right, a very out-of-character impulse.

Damn it.

He didn't know what this meant, any of it, but it was obvious he'd better not include touch in his plans to make Ray aware of how much he valued their friendship. All right, their love. Whatever. Turnbull, at least, didn't seem to make any distinction; but Turnbull felt as generally unwanted in friendship as he did in more sexual love, so it was natural that he thought of love simply as love--contact simply as contact, desire for the emotionally intimate presence of another as simply that, and the labels unimportant.

Though there was no reason Turnbull should have to feel that way, Fraser thought, and sighed, knowing that no matter how idiotic he was being about it, he would never feel right about this again until he had found a way to give Turnbull *some* reason to believe that even if Turnbull felt he couldn't comfortably be much closer to Fraser or Ray, there were other people out there who would be pleased to be on intimate terms with him.

Ray Vecchio would probably call him the nicest person in the world again for thinking such things, but he would probably also smile. He would think it was like Benny. Stupid and impossible. Fraser chuckled a little.

Well, they had to get over this minor ran-their-legs-off-in-inappropriate-footwear problem in as little time as possible, so his attention would be devoted to that for a bit, and there couldn't really be any rushing such things--if whatever he had in mind didn't come across naturally, he might as well have skipped it, because it would enter the realm of "gesture" and so be as meaningless as Turnbull believed the invitation to the opera had been. And he was very, very poor with "natural", by most people's standards.

So, perhaps...simply keep it in mind. Let things happen. Let...let himself...relax. This last thought was almost enough to make him physically squirm in the bed--he was simply not a naturally relaxed person, and his interpersonal relationships almost always required a degree of formality to make them bearable. That was why simply telling Ray how he felt was rather out of the question; he'd make such an ass out of himself that it would only be torture for them both and perhaps come across as insincere, as the opera invitation had.

Turnbull actually seemed to understand these things quite well--casually well, almost. Perhaps, if Fraser was careful about it, he could get a little indirect advice and help.

***

Ray was awake, and looking at a Very Cute Thing.

It was the ache that woke him, probably--his ibuprofen was wearing off. His feet burned and wanted attention, and he needed an antihistamine; his nose was a bit stuffy from sleeping on the floor, though he was pleased to notice that his bedroll dry-run had been on the money. Since he'd put it together with his own spine and joints in mind, the parts of him that normally twinged on waking weren't twinging. That was a nice plus. His mattress was pretty new, but maybe he'd look into those remember-your-body's-weirdnesses cushions for the bed, too.

He'd managed to stifle a shriek as he started to move, tamped down his automatic vocal response, and got to his knees; then he very carefully applied the sole of one foot to the floor.

Ow. Ow. Ow ow ow--reallll careful, other foot, and okay, balance, find the worst spots so they don't surprise you, and walk like an old guy to the bathroom, one foot in front of the other...it wouldn't have been nearly as difficult if he didn't have to stay quiet so as not to wake the mounties, both of whom, fortunately, were probably sleeping the sleep of the pure at heart, so he could at least pee and run the sink and stuff without any problem.

He dealt with his feet--not too bad, kind of more advanced in terms of redness and skin swelling, but it was the same areas; there weren't any new possible blistering type places coming up that he could see--and jeez, they ached, and they and his lower legs *hurt*, like *pain*, if touched in certain places. He took four more ibuprofen and some sneezer pills, then started back to the bedroom.

He stood in the dark of the doorway a moment, trying to let his eyes adjust; if he just walked forward until he hit the bedroll, it'd be harder to get into. He needed to get to the floor and crawl in, kind of. So he waited a moment, then proceeded.

Then he paused, and rerouted slightly, so he could get to the bed's foot and take a look at his guests. They were both pretty big; if one of them was hanging ass off the bed or something, putting Fraser on the bedroll so a skinnier person could sleep with the biggest one might be a good idea after all. But all was quiet. All was better than quiet. All was downright sweet. They were both curled up on their sides, facing each other and holding hands, Turnbull with his pillow folded into his other arm and his head down so it could rest on the ungrabbed end.

Ray'd had no idea these two were that close. Two guys--more particularly, *these* two guys--doing *this*, that's pretty darn close.

But maybe they hadn't done it on purpose. People auto-snuggled in their sleep sometimes. Ray did it himself. This just looked...awfully deliberate, carefully arranged. Then he leaned a little closer, waited for his eyes to adjust, and moved again, resting a hand on the wall so he could take a better look at Turnbull.

At that moment, Turnbull gave a wet sniff and Ray nearly screamed at the response from his aggrieved body as he controlled his jump. When all was still again, including Ray's sore muscle twitchings, Ray waited for his heart to slow down and looked more closely.

Tear tracks? And sniffing? Why had Turnbull been crying?

Ray backed away, made his way to the bedroll again, and got himself rearranged.

Explained the hand-holding. Turnbull had been upset, and Fraser was comforting him. A lot of things upset Turnbull, even to the point of tears, but they were usually pretty shocking for the crying to start. The only two he knew about involved Turnbull thinking Fraser had *died*, and Fraser getting his lanyard snatched in half in suspension. Fraser had told Ray about that, when he'd explained his absence from their regular dinner night with the information that he was helping Turnbull with his French for a few hours a week lately. He'd added that he was sure it was only Turnbull's state of upset that caused him to mess up his intended statement of support so badly, but no harm to either of them to get in a little extra practice, right?

Was Turnbull worried about Fraser? He liked Fraser a lot, pretty much worshiped him, seemed like. He was almost as bad as Fraser about taking responsibility for everything. But he hadn't seemed particularly upset. Exhausted to the point of actual humanity, yes--Ray had noticed before that Turnbull acted a lot more like a normal human person when he was beat to hell than he did when he was rested and perky.

Maybe he felt bad about Ray. Or the bird. Who knew. One way or another, Fraser seemed to be handling it--though, again, a lot more close and cuddly than Ray would ever have expected from Fraser. He would've expected a lot of throat-clearing and ear-tugging and maybe a pat on the shoulder, at most, in terms of touch; with some generalized verbal reassurance--but the next Fraser move, bolting, would have been obviated by their situation, so maybe he'd had no choice but to do whatever it took or just watch the poor man cry. But then, Turnbull, Ray would have thought, wouldn't've been easy with that kind of closeness either--specifically, not with his superior officer, constable Fraser sir.

Well, that might be true as far as he'd ever seen...which, he now realized, wasn't much. Fraser and Turnbull might act differently with each other off duty, though he had a little trouble picturing Turnbull off duty--that was his own lack of imagination, though, not anything on Turnbull's part. They guy *did* have to go off duty, and he did, obviously, have hobbies, interests, probably friends...

Okay, maybe it was that he hadn't thought about Fraser and Turnbull being friends...though there was no good reason for it to surprise him. They had plenty in common. Besides, Turnbull was just friendly in the extreme, and there was no reason Fraser shouldn't have other friends. Besides Ray. Close friends, besides Ray.

As he'd thought, maybe he never saw them get close because he usually saw them at work. And on the occasion Fraser had been present for Ray's tears, Fraser *had* had touched Ray, too--first in the car, and again, later, after they made it home and he'd helped Ray with the worst of the cleaning up, Fraser had actually held him, a few moments, by the door, before leaving. And he'd even offered to stay, though Ray had refused. Hadn't wanted that. Had wanted Fraser to stay, but didn't want to...fuck it, he didn't know. Maybe he just felt like he'd lost it bad with a witness enough for one evening, or he didn't want Fraser to have to deal any more with Ray's personal crap. Maybe he was just a *guy*, maybe that was all. He smiled a little, remembering how they'd had to practically pry Dief off the doorframe to get him to go with Fraser. Dief was a guy, but he wasn't a human guy. And he was no fool. He knew Ray wanted a friend close right then.

So, hooray for snuggling. Hey, three guys in a bedroom, rub-a-dub-dub, they were fine.

Nothing to see here, people.

***

"Uh, hi." Ray blinked. He looked down at himself, then kind of backed up with a little I'm-not-fully-dressed gesture, squirming in on himself, though the person at his door was hardly noticing him; she was attempting to see past him and Diefenbaker.

"Detective. Fraser left a message that I could find him and Turnbull here. Something about a foot chase and some minor injury?"

"Uh, yeah. Come on in." Ray backed up to let Thatcher in and shut the door behind her. "I, uh, got hit with it too, see, same, uh, same chase."

"Are they lying down?" She'd glanced around the living room and kitchen area, unpopulated except for Dief and Ray.

"Fraser is. Turnbull's in the shower. I'll tell Fraser--"

"Don't bother, I'll just knock. No need for him to get up, if his feet are injured--" She was already at the bedroom door, knocking. "--Constable! It's Inspector Thatcher. May I come in?"

There was a muffled response from behind the door, and boom, in she went. Ray and Dief stood there a moment; Dief looked up at him and Ray looked back, and they both kind of shrugged, and followed.

In the bedroom, Fraser was sitting up, still in his underwear, but with the covers pulled over him so that nothing was visible but his shoulders and arms, and his legs and feet from the knees down. She had pulled off one of his socks and was examining his foot critically; she seemed to have some idea of what she was doing, holding the foot gently by supporting at the lower calf, and the probing with her other hand was careful. Ray remembered, in his coffeeless haze, that she'd have the same first-aid type training for minor injuries that Fraser did, and the same training for foot care in long marching and hiking over different kinds of terrain, wet and dry, etc.; mounties weren't only city police.

"Nothing, as I said, to worry about, as you can see, sir," Fraser was saying.

"Not if you're careful with it, no. And I do expect you to show the proper care, constable," she added, tucking the sock carefully back on his foot, in a curiously maternal gesture. "And to make sure constable Turnbull does the same, of course. Sit on him if you have to. I need you both back on duty Monday. We can work out something about the standard sentry hours; I *can* submit the proper forms to records saying that I found it necessary to simply hold them in abeyance for a few days, since all the qualified parties were physically incapacitated for such duty. Bringing in a temp officer from Milwaukee or another location for such a reason would be silly." She bit her lip briefly and added "I will do that, of course, if either of you are in difficulty--you *are* my responsibility while you're under my command--at least to the degree of issues involving fitness for duty--and I would not want to see either one of you in unnecessary discomfort. I *especially* don't want Turbo at work with a limp. In any event...if the paperwork for the abeyance of the standard sentry hours could be avoided--seeing as there may be an...explanation required..." she sighed. "At this point, I, personally, am willing to throw it in the basket with the other 'international cooperation' oddities around here that no one really wants to know about, but such lack of concern for detail may not be the case higher along the line; and all that could be avoided...that is to say, if *none* of us had to 'explain' anything--"

"Naturally, sir. That's our goal here. Detective Vecchio has been very kind in offering to share his apartment while we assist each other. Ray, sit down somewhere."

"I was gonna get coffee. You guys wanna coffee?"

Dief barked.

"Oh. Yeah, I guess I gotta take the dog, there's some things he can't do on his own off the fire escape--"

"I'll take the wolf," Thatcher said briskly, "you shouldn't walk that far if it can be avoided." She brushed past him, with a snap of her fingers to Diefenbaker. Rather than stare stonily at her, as he would have if Fraser or Ray had done that, Dief happily let himself be sucked into her wake, and they were out the bedroom door; the front door went *shut-click*.

"Uh," Ray said. "I guess the least I can do is have her a coffee waiting when she brings him back up."

Fraser nodded quickly. "That would be very considerate. Considering. That she's being so..."

"Considerate."

"Right."

"I'll..." Ray sighed, scratching at his stomach, and wandered back out toward the coffeemaker.

***

The not-so-icy queen had coffeed up and cleared out, and Fraser was in the shower, or maybe shaving by this time; Turnbull and Ray were finishing the breakfast that Fraser had prepared them all. Dief was under the table requesting the occasional biscuit with jam.

"How's the achey?"

"Oh, much better with the wet heat of the shower. I suggest a hot bath for you, in addition, Detective, with some sort of padding against the hardness of the tub. You ought to keep your feet elevated on the tub's sides, though."

"I was planning on it. Just take those pills. Comfy people who stay down get better faster than uncomfy people who stay down."

"Of course, Detective."

"Ray."

"Right. Ray." Turnbull vacuumed in another huge forkful of egg. Ray'd wondered why the hell Fraser had insisted on buying so much food on their brief store stop last night (which they'd made at Ray's insistence, since he didn't want to tell them that he planned on Fraser at least sleeping over, not until he had them fed full of Chinese and hopefully too food-blissed to move). Ray had decided it was just some odd proper-preparation Fraser thing, and he guessed it had been after all; Fraser had expected Ray to insist he stay over, and he himself was ready to insist on Turnbull if Ray offered. Ray didn't know if he felt warm and fuzzy that Fraser knew him that well, or a little unsettled that Fraser could read him that well. Anyway, it was a good thing they'd stocked up. Turnbull ate like he was four months pregnant.

Fraser had known that. Hm. But then, it wasn't much of a guess, and Fraser had probably felt guilty about stealing Turnbull's sandwich that first day Fraser and Ray'd met, and had made a point of taking him out to eat or something, where he would have noticed how much Turnbull ate at a sitting. Besides, they probably had lunch together in the consulate kitchen fairly often, though Ray had never thought about it until now.

"So, you feeling...aside from, you know...feeling okay? I'd wanna know if you, you know. If you had any problems or anything. I wanna know that stuff."

"Not at all, Ray. I feel quite refreshed this morning. I did oversleep a little," he admitted, pink staining his cheeks. "I don't ordinarily sleep so late, that may account for it. No, you're taking excellent care of us here, really. If I had any problems, I'd certainly let you know." Turnbull gave him a reassuring smile, then drained a pint of orange juice.

Well, *that* went completely wide. Ray sighed and decided to just let it unfold, man.

***

Ray was napping in the bedroom; the bedroll was airing, Fraser was reading, Dief was digesting, and Turnbull was knitting. The TV was quietly showing an old Jacque Cousteau special. The windows were open--they were getting two pleasant days in a row, here in Chicago late "spring", and both of them were inside only because of the foot'n'aches factor--and they'd been exchanging the occasional comment on the show, or their thoughts.

"Actually," Turnbull was saying, flexing the feet that he had propped up by the unworn portions of his ankles on the coffee table--Fraser's were there too, to keep the fluid pressure down in the tissues-- "since I apparently suffered the least of the three of us, and since I do have what I believe the detective would allow to pass as a 'bed', I see no need for me to sleep here again tonight. We could wash the detective's bedroll and store it again for him."

"He'll probably want to do that, or at least supervise, and why do you say you came to the least harm? It's rather a subjective question."

"Because while I was concerned, and coming along as backup, you had the egg. It was more imperative for you to disregard your comfort and safety in the interests of speed than for me to do so. And detective Vecchio was somewhat...disturbed. He wouldn't have had the opportunity to be as careful as I did, either."

"If you mean he was running like hell, you're quite correct," Fraser smiled a little, turning a page.

"That's exactly how he put it," Turnbull said, and smiled down at his knitting, pausing in lifting his current stitch.

"Turnbull...about what we discussed last night...I just wanted you to know that I--that we--"

"Sir, please." Only two words, but they were in what Fraser suspected was the lowest register of Turnbull's voice. Which was lower than Fraser had ever heard before. When he heard that voice, he wondered if it might be Turnbull's speaking voice if he survived to be a hundred and twelve. You could feel that in the *floor*.

Fraser mentally kicked himself. He'd already established that he couldn't just blunder through this thing in his usual manner if he wanted either Turnbull or Ray to take him at face value, and not assume pity or even sympathy--except in that he sympathized with their feelings, having them himself--or any nicest-person-in-the-world-related ideas. "I'm sorry, Turnbull, I'm not very good at this. You...have to help me."

"I have to help you." Turnbull sighed. "As you put it like that, I haven't much choice. What do you need from me?"

"Your...patience. Understanding. I'm not good at...what I want to convey."

"There *is no need* for you to make the attempt. You are a kind man and a considerate superior, and that's more than enough for me."

"No, it is *not* enough. I need to--need to know how, how you can...simply see such things, and say them--quite well--the way you can, when you want to. Because there are things I need to say to...I mean, well, as far as knowing how to do it--though I would never have thought I'd be asking *you*--" he winced. He hadn't meant...

"...that I of all people...?" Turnbull made a face that might have qualified as a sarcastic smirk at his knitting.

"Oh dear lord, I didn't--I just meant that since it's you that I--damn." Fraser sighed.

"We're having quite a pleasant day here, sir. Fraser," Turnbull corrected himself, in a calm voice that sounded like he wanted to let Fraser know everything would be okay--if he just *dropped* it. "Why don't we enjoy it?"

"I suppose you're right," Fraser responded softly, and tried to concentrate either on his book or the TV, but it wasn't easy.

This was totally ridiculous. He just needed to get out of this apartment, and away from these two men for a bit. That was the only reason it all seemed so important, all of a sudden, Turnbull's revelation-inspiring words aside. Once he was away from them, he could decompress, and things would seem less--

"You guys talk loud," came from the bedroom doorway.

Turnbull's head came around and Fraser jerked, wincing a bit as his aches bitched about it.

Ray shuffled in carefully. "Hey."

"We're sorry, Ray," Turnbull said, in a small voice. "We've been under the impression we were controlling our voices."

"You were, I'm lying, I just woke up, that's all," Ray said, wandering into the kitchen. "I want coffee."

"Ray. You had coffee this morning."

"And slept again anyway. I like coffee. I like chocolate. I got hurting body parts. I need my goodies. Here we go." Fraser heard the burble of the coffeemaker. "You guys want coffee?"

Fraser smiled. "No, thank you, Ray. How are your hurting body parts now?"

"I think the feet aren't gonna get worse, but my ass and legs and stuff may hurt worse tomorrow. I've run full out way too far in boots before, and it stays with you. Once when I was a kid I ended up in bed for like three days or so, couldn't walk at all."

"Perhaps you could consider--"

"Take sneakers and throw 'em over the power lines, sneakers have no style. I got style."

"Indeed you do," Fraser said.

"I'll just be a tick," Turnbull said, and got up, walking fairly normally. He was in cotton and tape under his socks now; the deeper blisters that might not surface at all, that Ray and Fraser were dealing with, didn't seem to be showing up on him, if you believed him; he was doing his own minor surgery. The ones he was dealing with were appearing and getting expunged as they came, the skin's tissues kept clean and dry with frequent dressing changes. He did seem to be correct that of the three of them, he was the least inconvenienced. He *was* probably less achy as well, owing to his longer legs and ability to measure his pace during their dash for the park, both things enabling him to keep up reasonably well with much less effort. He had, after all, been able to carry Ray about, before he collapsed to the grass for a rest himself.

As the bathroom door shut behind him, Ray came in, carrying a mug, saying "Is he...he's having some kind of...problem, isn't he? Personal problem. Something's making him sad." He sat down on the couch right next to Fraser, hip-to-hip so they could speak softly, leaning in even closer to examine his book. "'Siddhartha'?"

"It was recommended. I do find it a fascinating take. Ray...about Turnbull..."

"Hm." Ray glanced back over his shoulder, shifted a little to get more comfortable, and murmured "So he *is* having some kinda problem, isn't he? I mean...last night--"

Oh, dear. Had Ray been awake for the talk he and Turnbull had last night? He felt a tingling sensation in his ears and a sinking one in his abdomen.

"--I woke up, and you were holding hands in your sleep. Looked like you'd set it up that way, you don't end up in that position by accident."

"Oh. Then...you were asleep when we came in?"

"I guess so, I don't remember you comin' in. Why, that got something to do with it?"

"Well--Ray--what you heard just now--please don't press Turnbull about it, really, it's as much my problem, it's as much about me--it isn't *his*--I mean, you--with you, it--well, not to say that you don't figure at all, but it--no, you don't need to *worry* about figuring; what I *meant* was--"

The bathroom door opened and Fraser swore internally in several languages, so harshly he was surprised smoke didn't start coming out his ears.

Ray's eyes were big. Turnbull came wandering back over, leaned down and picked up his knitting--it was a large sweater in a slatey-colored silk-wool blend, with some tiny blue and a bare few tiny pink pastel silk threads intermixed. He was working on the cabled collar at the moment. He stood there looking at them inquisitively. "Should I move to the chair?"

"No, I..." Ray belatedly stirred himself to get out of what was practically Fraser's lap. "Just wanted a look at his book. Buddha and stuff. Real interesting, always thought it was--"

Turnbull took a step back, slowly wrapping yarn around his needles. "There's no need, I can move, if you'd like. If you're comfortable there with--"

Fraser suddenly stood up, made an inarticulate noise of pain and found himself being caught by four hands. "Sorry, sorry," he panted. "I just stood up too quickly. I think I'd best check that reddened area on the left anklebone--it's more than likely going to blister before this is over."

"I'll give you a hand," Ray said, and Turnbull let go of Fraser to rescue Fraser's book from being disfigured from its fall; he began to quietly reorganize the area around couch, chair, coffee table and TV, moving his knitting bag to the side of the chair.

Ray got the bathroom door shut behind them; there was good cover reason for that, fortunately, since two people their size couldn't move in there at all with the door open. Fraser sat down hard on the toilet lid with a muffled grunt of pain, letting his forehead fall into his palms, and Ray put a folded towel on the counter and slid up carefully with a wince for his abused glutes.

"Okay, Fraser. From the top."

"There isn't any. I..." what to say? Turnbull is apparently in love with what you and I are? I love you? No, really, I mean it? I want Turnbull to feel loved but you'd have to do it with me and we'd have to practically--

No, only one of those things did he have any right to say.

"...I love you."

There was a pause, and then he felt a long, narrow hand, strong fingers, flexible palm, slide over his shoulder and come to rest on the back of his neck. "Um...I love you, too." Ray sounded puzzled. It was as though Fraser had said "I have two eyes." Which would get either a "Well, yeah," or an "Um...I have two..." etc. Or maybe just a "What's your point?" Just as Fraser had known would happen. Or rather not happen. That Ray wouldn't understand.

"I can't say these things very well, Ray." He realized, to his consternation, that there were tears threatening in his eyes. He pressed his lips together, and his eyelids, but that only made the tears fall; and more came up to replace them. God. What the hell had Turnbull done to him, with nothing but a few words?

"I think 'I love you' is fine," Ray said quietly. "Um...you got crying happening under there, buddy, the tears kinda splashed out into the light on the floor. I wanna hug you. But I know how you feel about that stuff. Is it okay?"

"Anything is okay. Everything is okay. I don't want to lose you. I don't want you not to know how I feel and just leave, just wander out of my life like everyone else. Even if you left, I can't let you go without making you understand."

Ray got back down off the counter, then settled carefully to the floor on the little fuzzy bath rug that matched the towels, tucking the towel he'd had on the counter under him again. He reached up and turned Fraser's face toward him; Fraser fought reflexively, but realized that this was exactly the kind of thing he was trying to overcome, to be able to convey what he wanted to, and let Ray turn his face.

"Jeez, Frase," Ray said, running his thumbs over Fraser's forehead, holding his face carefully. "You look like a thunderhead; it's okay--is it not him at all? Is he the one who's worried for *you*? Frase, you gotta tell me, you, ahm...I know it isn't easy, not that easy for me either, but you gotta know I'm here for you."

"Ray, that is *all*. I love you." He spread his hands helplessly, with a grim, despairing smile-like expression as he lifted his face and shook his head at the ceiling. "That's all I have to say. There's nothing else. Please, answer me. Just let me know you *hear* me. That's all I can ask."

"I hear you, buddy," Ray said, but his voice was different--some of the nasalness gone, because he was speaking so softly now, deliberate clarity and care in his tones. "I hear you."

"I mean--I love you more than anyone else."

"...okay, yeah. I got you."

"I think Turnbull deserves better than we give him."

"Okay. I hear that."

"I never want to lose you."

"Frase." Ray rose to his knees and wrapped his arms around Fraser's shoulders. "Frase...Frase. Jesus. What's got you so freaked out? Where am I going?"

"I don't know. That's just it. Anywhere. Everywhere. I could lose you any time and I'd never have said this, you'd never have understood. Because we just let it all go assumed, except you can't let anything go assumed, nothing this important, not anymore, because we don't *have* so much *time* left to *fix mistakes*, you understand? There wasn't even the time we *thought* we had before, we were only--young, and not realizing that--everything, all that, and now there's even *less*."

"I understand. Frase..."

"You don't understand."

"No, not everything. I'm not sure what the deal with Turnbull being involved here is. Do you maybe think you need to tell him some things, too? Would that help?"

Christ, Ray thought he was just having a midlife crisis, and he probably was, Goddammit. "I did tell him," Fraser said, sounding miserable even to his own ears. "I tried. I didn't even believe myself. He's right; for all my good intentions, I just kept hurting him. After the chance he'd taken, you see--he had to tell me how he felt too, so I'd know *why* he knew what he was talking about. And he was right. I was wrong." Oh, hell. He'd probably not done a clear enough job that Ray knew all, but he'd blurted about Turnbull. Dragged the poor man into this when Turnbull was having a difficult enough time of it as it was.

"We need him, then. Come on."

"No! Ray, don't make him--"

But Ray was already opening the door. "Hey, Turnbull. Come help us walk, could you? Unless you just got settled and stuff; we can make it."

"Not at all. Stay right there."

In a moment, Fraser was back on the couch, Turnbull was next to him, and Ray was sitting on two pillows in the chair. Evidently his posterior and thighs truly had taken a beating.

"Fraser here is upset," Ray was saying. Fraser glared at him. Fraser here was not five years old, thank you kindly.

"I know. I'm afraid that's my fault," Turnbull said softly, looking down at his hands as they rested, folded tightly, in his lap.

"It is not your fault," Fraser insisted, dark eyes snapping over to Turnbull's in irritation. "I tell you--"

"You said something to him that's making him think, and he's thinking things that seem to be blowing him right outta the sky," Ray said. "You don't need to tell me anything you don't wanna, nothing that's not my business. But Fraser can't get his shit together, which is not surprising 'cause he's Fraser and this just isn't the kind of shit he can get together, period. You can, and he said that you were right and he was wrong about it, and some other stuff."

"Other stuff?"

"He said he loves me and doesn't ever want to lose me," Ray said, smiling at Fraser gently, though Fraser felt himself turning red anyway, "and I said it back to him, just FYI. I'm not sure if he means he's suddenly fallen in love with me or he's just realized he hasn't had too many friends in his life as good as me. Or maybe none. That's the way I feel about *him*, anyway."

Fraser looked at Ray again, but Ray seemed perfectly calm. He was adjusting himself on the pillows again, grimacing. "Turnbull, I'm gonna have to go lie on my face again soon here. When I do, could you come put some liniment on my butt?"

Turnbull ducked his head with a little snort. "Certainly that won't be...difficult, Ray."

Fraser had sometimes wondered about Turnbull's sense of humor. The obvious part was rather childish and stoogeish, but the inobvious part...Fraser had been told--in rather more vernacular language, by Ray Vecchio--that his own sense of humor was certainly extant, but weirdly subtle, and sometimes too subtle to qualify as the fun-pokes he occasionally intended. He was beginning to realize that in this, as in a number of other things, it was possible that Turnbull was even more like Fraser than Fraser was.

"Hey, a messed-up butt is no joke. You can't do *anything* with your butt out of commission. You can't sit, you can't stand, you can't walk, it's just a pain. Anyway, can you help us out, here?"

"I think constable Fraser is simply...doing as you said, realizing that his feelings for you are...of a rare nature, that his relationship with you is something he doesn't feel he's properly appreciated; and he would like to remedy that. Perhaps even make up for lost time. He just doesn't know how." Turnbull gave a sympathetic shrug.

It was rather like he was translating. How the hell did he make it so simple? Fraser sighed in near-despair.

Ray was nodding. "I get that. Can you tell me what he thinks we're not giving you enough of? 'Cause he said that. Something like it."

Turnbull looked away. "I'm sure he's simply grateful for my having brought his attention to this. And his feelings of upset are probably just as I said--because he feels he's wasted time and wants to make up for it. You know how he is about that."

"Yeah, I do. He doesn't forgive himself easy."

"I am, however, still in the room," Fraser sighed, a low mutter to the rug. He noticed the TV was now showing something, the volume turned low but not off, about what appeared to be the Gobi desert, though he doubted anyone in the room recognized the place in the filmed footage but him. Interesting place, the Gobi, not really a desert at all, and with quite a few similarities to certain latitudes of the Canadian--

"We know, Frase."

Pay attention, Benton. He forced himself to deal with the current situation, took a deep breath, and said "And Turnbull, I *didn't* only mean that I owe you a favor. I--I said that we--that you don't get--" Fraser growled in frustration, leaned over and kissed Turnbull's cheek, startling the hell out of both of them.

From somewhere far away from the very large, round, greyish world of Turnbull's ping-pong-ball-shaped eyes, he heard Ray saying "That wasn't so hard, was it? Now, see, I get that. I understand that. And Turnbull does too, by the looks on your faces."

Not close enough, not *enough*. All either of them could tell with any certainty at this point, he knew, was that Fraser was freaking out. "Ray, constable Turnbull here has a few issues..." *Constable Turnbull has a few issues*? Constable Turnbull? Had the issues? God, Fraser was hopeless. Make anyone else the heavy.

And anyway, he thought, sighing, it'd be a good time to drop it, considering that no matter how he might hate being discussed over his head as Ray and Turnbull had done--all right, he *had* asked Turnbull for his help-- Turnbull didn't deserve to have *that* done to him. Fraser had said he wouldn't hurt Turnbull, and he already had, and he had no intention of continuing by revealing something so personal that had been told him in confidence, ...though he practically already had revealed it.

"Issues?" Ray said.

"I have a bit of a self-image problem," Turnbull said in a low voice, getting up off the couch. "I mentioned it in passing during our conversation last night."

"Is that what you had to tell him so he'd know why you knew what his problem was?"

Turnbull stopped at the kitchen table, leaned against it with both palms to take the weight off his lower body, and let his head hang. "Why did I open my mouth?"

"It's my fault, Turnbull. I'm so sorry, honestly, I really do apologize, there's no excuse--"

"No, Fraser, if I hadn't been asking all those questions about Ray--"

"Why didn't you ask *me* those questions about Ray?" Ray wanted to know, with a "this is the first I've heard of *that* part" air.

"Because you were sleeping," Turnbull said softly, "and because you might have found them invasive. And because I can be...rather shy."

"Well, fucking understatement cup of the season just went to *you*," Ray said, not unkindly. Almost apologetically, in fact.

"He only complimented your ability to show kindness in the face of personal difficulty, Ray," Fraser said, "honestly."

"Turnbull?"

"That's essentially it, yes."

"Okay, then, let's take this in the bedroom and we'll talk while you rub my ass."

***

"Ray!"

"Did you think the liniment was gonna work through my pants?" Ray was lying on the bedroll, on a towel, wearing an oversized tee shirt and a pair of sweatpants that were pulled down to his knees. Turnbull was frowning in concentration, locating and following muscle lines, massaging firmly with circular strokes, using both the flat of his hand and occasionally his knuckles for deeper muscle penetration. "So don't make me feel self-conscious just 'cause I'm lyin' here with my shiny butt hangin' out where it can get rubbed. He's going for my legs next and the pants come clean off then, so if you can't take that, fair warning. Okay, where were we?"

"Ahm...nowhere, really--may I--"

"Yeah, sit." Ray waved Fraser over. "Where *were* we? C'mon."

"I think we'd discussed everything we needed to," Fraser said quietly. "And I'd made as thorough an idiot of myself as I have in a long time. I'm sorry."

"You're forgiven. Human relationships, Fraser is an ass, that's pretty much the size of it," Ray said, and Turnbull smirked a bit wickedly, glancing up at Fraser before returning his attention to his punfully relevant work.

"No need for you both to gloat," Fraser muttered. Dief came in and slumped at his feet. Fraser watched him a moment, but he apparently felt there was no need to comment. "Nor to feel superior, for that matter," he said to Dief, just to be safe.

Predictably ignoring this, Ray said "Okay, so, Turnbull, you're likin' me and Fraser, and you think we're cute together, and you comment on this to Fraser, and *he* notices we're cute--well, that we're buds--and he has a freakout 'cause maybe he's realizing some stuff about not just me and him, but him and a lot of people...and then here we all are, in each other's faces when it comes up. Right?"

"That's close enough," Turnbull agreed softly. He didn't look up or anything, just continuing to rub. "I don't think constable Fraser's used to this much...enforced physical closeness, either."

Ray made a snorting sound. "No, snuggywuggy and Fraser don't mix much. Frase? Comment?"

"It's disconcerting," Fraser admitted. "I'm used to solitude, or at least to having the ability to...distance myself in other ways, physically, when I need to. Not constantly, no, but when I...find I need it. It would be easier to think about all this if I could just *walk*..."

"Yeah, you can't even get behind the uniform and the behavior at the moment, it won't really work with three grown men in their underwear in a one-bedroom apartment over a long weekend. Well, Fraser, I love you; and Turnbull, anybody with his hands voluntarily on my ass just to be a nice guy is definitely my friend, no two ways about it, and maybe we should just kick back, listen to the breeze since we can have the windows open, I'll take the bedroll and read or something--I gotta be on my stomach a while, my ass and my shins and everything--and maybe you guys get your legs up too, lie on the bed or the couch where they'll stay unswelled, and we'll all just relax for a while, how'll that be? Frase, if you can't walk, maybe you could just meditate or something a little."

"That sounds helpful, Ray," Fraser murmured, his eyes speaking to Turnbull's. *Not telling him*?

Turnbull's eyes spoke back, sadly. *What would be the point?*

And the way Fraser sighed and nodded said *Your choice, of course*. He looked back up, lifted a hand and touched it to Turnbull's cheek lightly before pulling it away. *And me?* the look wondered this time.

Turnbull gave a small shrug, and a small smile. *You already know.*

Fraser touched him again, not giving up. His expression grew more intense. *But do you?*

"Yes, sir?" Turnbull asked out loud, giving him a narrow look.

"Something going on up there?" Ray wondered.

"No," Fraser said quietly, let his thumb stroke Turnbull's cheek a few times, and let his hand fall. Turnbull had grown still at the stroking, and now he gazed pensively at Fraser, who smiled a distracted smile back at him, meeting his eyes. Turnbull lowered his gaze and went back to rubbing Ray's ass.

Then Fraser managed to touch Turnbull again and answered his last question, shaking his head, saying with his shrug and a helpless shake of his head, *I'm not sure what.*

Turnbull acquired a gentle expression, and whispered "It's all right."

Ray sighed. "I'm feeling left out here, guys."

"Oh, you're not being left out. Trust me," Fraser said.

***

"This is a *stupid game*," Ray insisted, shaking the dice in both his hands nevertheless and letting them roll out across the board that was balanced on Turnbull's lap.

"On the contrary. Yahtzee combines the basics of poker, including the element of chance and some element of skill, with a format in which it's quite easy to play for points rather than actual stakes or even counters. One only needs a score pad."

"Forget skill, there is no skill in throwing dice. Anybody can throw dice."

Turnbull just kind of relaxed his hand and the dice rained straight downward in a controlled fall, scattering in an even pattern.

"Small straight," he said delightedly.

Fraser smirked.

Ray sighed. "Okay. What's the score?"

"You're still losing."

"Is Magic Wrist here still winning?"

"So far." Fraser finished recording the throw.

"I'm gonna get a coffee..."

"Ray! You're going to explode."

"I'll get decaf! I need coffee." Ray minced carefully to the kitchen. He'd taken the cotton and tape off, under his socks.

"Ray..." Fraser had noticed the mincing, apparently. His tone was only concerned, not scolding.

Still. "Hey, I'm washing and changing socks as fast as I can wash and change. I gotta let the icky parts of my feet air, right?"

"So long as they're kept clean and as undisturbed as possible," Fraser conceded. "Which means you should sit."

"I can't stay off my feet and my ass at the same time, Fraser."

"Lying on one's face all day would get tiresome, not to mention the strain on the cervical, mandibular and lumbar areas," Turnbull backed him up.

"Mm," Fraser muttered, scooping up the dice with a neat flick of his wrist.

"No rolling the dice 'til I get back. I don't trust you guys."

"I'm hurt," Fraser said, with a half-smile. Turnbull tried not to smirk.

"I'll trust you with my life and pretty much all my feelings, but not with the dice, good? That okay?"

Fraser sniffed. "Well. I suppose. If you *must* put conditions..."

"I must. No dice, Frase." There was clinging and clanging as Ray prepared hot beverage, and Turnbull noticed something on the TV.

"Oh, sir," he murmured, and reached for the remote to turn the volume up.

"--looks like we'll actually get some of it," the weather anchor was saying brightly. "Keep our cool streak going--we've been lucky, lucky, lucky, haven't we, Dave? Almost a week of *spring* in Chicago! Most of the storms will be breaking up over the lakes, but we should get a good shoulder of the southernmost. Expect light rain this evening and tonight, with possible scattered showers tomorrow. Time to put up those screens before it's too late, if you haven't already. Back to you, Sandra..."

Turnbull lowered the volume on the local news again. "Well. That sounds nice."

"Yes." Fraser smiled. "Perhaps if we got a cab instead of walking, we could spend some of tomorrow at the park."

"That would be lovely," Turnbull concurred, with an answering smile. "Or even this evening? If it's raining, I know of a gazebo with a small wooden cookstove and a weathertight roof; it's near a dropping-off curb, and would protect our footgear from the dampness, after we reached it, and I'm sure we could get hold of some galoshes or wading boots--I have a pair, and so does detective Vecchio; finding you some shouldn't be difficult--the rain clears the air so marvelously, pulls those particulate pollutants *right* down to the ground!"

Fraser was nodding. That Ray was happy with the open windows was lovely, but after everything, it would be bliss to get out. "We'll be able to arrange something, I'm sure. Ray, can we plan on it?"

"You guys are more excited over the weather than you get over hockey--" he choked to a stop as two cobalt laser-stares pinned him like a bug to cardboard and he finished "--almost kinda sorta. Not *really*. Just whattayacallit, exaggeration for effect."

"We'll hope so," Fraser said darkly.

"We'd hate for you to be laboring under such a misconception," Turnbull added.

"Yeesh. Here." Ray came in again and handed them both mugs, which they took with mild surprise. The smell of chocolate hadn't made Fraser notice particularly, but a sip of the substance in his mug made him blink. It wasn't coffee with chocolate exactly, or hot chocolate with coffee in it; it was much like the mocha lattes the inspector craved so often, he thought, having taken offered sips from them, more than once when he was working late with her, and things were more relaxed, and he frankly needed the jolt, depending on how late it was.

"I didn't harsh on curling, at least," Ray was grumbling. "Give me some slack."

"Of course," Fraser said, and rolled the dice, with a graceful flick of his fingers in an invisibly fast unfolding pattern from the knuckles.

***

"Lovely," Turnbull was still saying, sighing a little. "Such lovely weather, such a wide variety of different cloud types and formations to observe. I'll just gather my things," Turnbull went on as they came in that night, having left the park only after it became too dark to see anything, though that hadn't mattered much to Fraser, sitting as he was on a picnic table under the gazebo with his legs up in front of him in their protective podal arrangements, his eyes closed, just breathing the noticeably clearer, cooler air. He had felt relaxed, and released, by the experience, even though Turnbull went on, Turnbull fashion, in his softly enthusiastic voice--even more softly than usual; he too was enjoying the quiet of the rain-cleared park, apparently, and didn't want to disrupt it too much. Ray had been a bit bored, but Fraser had noticed him smiling now and then at Turnbull, and eyeing Fraser speculatively, while he threw a ball for Dief from his own picnic table.

"No, Dief, outside in the hall," Fraser said firmly. "Until you're dryer. You did an excellent job of choosing wet as opposed to muddy, but the smell of your fur isn't coming inside."

Ray usually argued clemency for Dief, if Dief wasn't doing something Ray particularly hated, but this time he went and brought Dief's blanket, with an extra for a pad under it, and Dief's water bowl. And half a doughnut. "Here you go, buddy. Half a bribenut to chill in the hall until you evaporate for a while. We'll leave the door open a little; you can come on in and get the couch to sleep on later, okay? Give a bark if you want a fur smell check to see if you can come in before that. We'll bring you dinner."

Dief grumbled but accepted this; he was a bit pooped and relaxed from the park exercise, and pacified by the extra blankets and the doughnut bribe.

Fraser turned from giving Dief a quick, surreptitious hug around the ruff and a caress to the cheek, which Dief leaned into affectionately before settling down, to see Ray taking Turnbull's duffel away. "You slept here fine last night, you'll do fine tonight."

"Ray, there's simply no need."

"Actually, I think the super-bedroll has made it clear I been ignorin' a bad mattress situation," Ray said. "I think I like it better than my bed."

"Really. There's no need to prevaricate."

"Really, there's no need to clear out of here like we got cooties. Get comfy; I'll see what's up for dinner."

"No," Turnbull sighed. "I'm still in the best shape of the three of us. If I'm going to be here, I might as well be useful. You and, ah, Fraser, just have a seat and I'll see what the larder has to offer."

"I was just gonna order..."

"You eat entirely too much take-out. The preservatives--it's really quite alarming if one knows the numbers involved. No, you sit right here and get out of those galoshes. We should all check our feet, for that matter."

This was accomplished; no one seemed to have suffered for the experience, except for one small blister Fraser hadn't broken himself, hoping there wasn't enough of it near the surface to require it, but it had broken on its own and needed cleaning and light bandaging. He tried to shoo Turnbull away for this operation, but the man had apparently decided that if he was going to be present, he was going to be useful, no matter how annoying it got. Of course, that might have been a subterfuge on Turnbull's part. Trying to get thrown out. He wondered if Turnbull could have that much native sneakiness, then wondered where the hell he himself had been while Turnbull managed Inspector Thatcher like a super-tantric snake-handler. Of course Turnbull was capable of, at the least, some subtlety.

Ray had hauled his bedroll into the front room and was lying on his stomach, squirming as he fooled with the TV remote.

"Shall I rub your buttocks, Ray?" Fraser wondered, barely getting the sentence out with a straight face as he settled on a couch cushion on the floor next to Ray.

Fraser grinned as Ray broke up laughing. "That's the best offer I've had in a long time," Ray gave the obligatory comeback, and added "Yes, Fraser, you may rub my buttocks with all blessings. You can even do it through my pants since you're more butt-squeamish than Turnbull." He was wearing a pair of thin grey sweats that had been under his loose jeans, keeping the chill off his cramped muscles.

Fraser was going to object to the two layers of cloth that would inhibit his efforts--they'd have to compromise somehow--but he found that while Ray might be wearing pants, he wasn't wearing any underwear; just an athletic supporter. "Isn't that worse than boxer briefs?" Fraser wondered when his fingers encountered elastic.

"Yeah, usually, but with the sweats under the jeans the boxers bunched. Help me get 'em off." Ray started pulling at one side of the sweats, and Fraser, with as much discretion in his touch as possible, helped get the elastic item off, and the sweats back on up over Ray's still-socked feet and pulled up comfortably.

"You don't have to rub hard, just kind of that circular thing Turnbull was doing earlier," Ray supplied, flopping boneless on the bedroll. "This is great. I've had aches rubbed out of me plenty, but the way you guys do it compared to the way they beat on you at the gym...or maybe you've both got magic hands or something, you *do* both have something happening there, Turnbull and his ink drawing, and painting, and sketching, and you and...everything. Do all mounties?"

"I believe Maggie has demonstrated certain...especially fine-tuned manual capabilities, on several occasions," Fraser said. "And she enjoys sketching and charcoal artistry, as I do, for one thing. But as for the RCMP, it isn't an admission requirement or a training focus."

"Mm. Guess I'm just...lucky then...right there, around my tailbone. There are places there you press--yeah, just like that. And my whole leg relaxes. What is that?"

"In your case, I'd say just easing, or altering, pressure on nerves, some located within spasming muscle fiber bundles," Fraser said. "Even microbundles. In short, it's much like certain acupressure-related techniques. That's all."

"It feels like heaven," Ray moaned into his bedroll.

"If my rear were as sore as it sounds like yours is, I'm sure I'd agree, but const--but Turnbull and I have highly developed deep buttock muscles, along with the thigh adductors and hamstrings and other stabilizing muscles of that area, from horseback riding," Fraser said. "Most mounties don't ride much, despite several related nicknames we have as a group. But as it happens, Turnbull and I have both ridden regularly for years, though I must say I'm out of practice a bit."

"Yeah, horseback riding--involves a lot of squeezing your ass up real tight, doesn't it," Ray said. "For posture. And to hang on with your knees, right?"

"That was a graceless effort, even for you, to get me to set myself up."

Ray chuckled. "Would I do that?"

"I'd pinch you, but it would be against my principles to cause pain to an area of the body that's already injured, especially during a healing therapy."

"Glad my ass is safe with you. But then, I knew that," Ray sighed, and the rather inelegantly phrased assertion of trust made Fraser's face feel warm--despite the fact that Ray regularly accused him of trying to blow his ass up, set it on fire, get it shot off, or cause it to become deformed and/or injured in various more specific ways that happened to be relevant to whatever situation was at hand.

"I think a stir-fry for dinner," came Turnbull's voice from the kitchen. "I can pour off a great deal of the fat from this ground beef that way, since there's no reason at the moment that we need it. Sound good to everyone?" The merry clanking of pots and pans, accompanied by Turnbull's faintly humming the theme from "Rawhide", maybe because he felt it was relevant--though the tastefulness of the idea itself right at that moment was questionable--seemed to close the case without the need for any response from the other two.

"'How he get so big eating food of this kind?'" Ray wondered in a whiny growl.

Fraser chuckled and didn't bother to note the reference, merely explaining "He eats a great deal of it. His one dietary weakness seems to be traditional breakfast fare, and he usually only succumbs to that if he eats it in company."

"You know a lot more about him than I thought you did," Ray said. "I was thinkin' about that last night."

"Really? I suppose I hadn't considered. I've been working with him for a few years, now."

"Mm." Ray sighed, relaxed and content, as Fraser's hands worked his buttocks and hamstrings, quadriceps (via sliding his hands under and using Ray's body weight for pressure), adductors and abductors, finally reaching around and sliding his fingers under Ray's body, to work the front of his hips, reach as deep as possible for the iliapsoas.

Ray smiled and squirmed. "You gettin' fresh?"

"I'm trying to massage all the major muscle groups involved in your injuries." Which was only partly true. The iliapsoas was part of the hip flexor group, but it was unlikely itself to have suffered much overstress; it was damn near impossible to overstress that group. Fraser realized he didn't have to do this part at all. He was simply enjoying it--

And Ray, it turned out, could tell.

"Nooohhh..." Ray opined on a shivering, slightly-uprising note, shivering, as Fraser's fingertips penetrated deep, "you're gettin' fresh. I'm not gonna be able to turn over now."

"Many men react to deep massage with erection, even if the contact's nowhere near the groin. Don't worry about it."

"I know that, Frase, I been telling it to mortified teenagers for years at the gym. But about you, I keep forgetting. You're such a combination of 'aak, a girl *touched* me, I'm so freaked out' and 'don't worry about the hard cock, it's perfectly natural', I can never keep it sorted out."

Fraser felt himself turning pink again and didn't answer.

"Did I embarrass you?" Ray wondered, smiling.

"Yes," Fraser admitted. Very quietly.

"Good. 'Cause I'm a little embarrassed too, Frase." Ray's voice was soft, pitched for Fraser's ears alone. "This isn't a 'whoops, heh heh' kind of woody. You're turning me on, and..." his voice dropped again, an embarrassed whisper. "...I like it."

"So do I," Fraser murmured helplessly, feeling an urgency beginning low in his belly. He quashed it with ease through sheer force of will and habit, but couldn't help but give a sigh, and let his eyes close, and carefully pushed up and in again at the front of Ray's hips, into the joints--just once more.

"Ohh. Ohh. That's good. At least three ways. Um, Fraser, Turnbull's five feet away from us with his head in the fridge," Ray whispered. "Stop with the digging in my crotch for now. Just rub my back a little."

Fraser moved his hands as instructed. "Ray," he murmured helplessly.

"Don't worry, Frase. I know. I'm...thinking now, too. Just...shh, for right now. Rub."

Fraser rubbed. "It's just that I'm...I didn't know that..." *...know anything at all*, he thought, half in disgust, tired of the whole business. Though not of Ray.

"It's okay, Frase. Not said anything 'cause I didn't know if it...would be a good thing to, and I don't really know what it is, anyway. But I think, everything happening in your head right now...it's a *good* thing, to say *something*. Like you said. To let you know. To not just let it...sit there 'til the *us* is all gone, you've done your thing and I've done mine, and that's it, finito, and...we never said. I know you meant about more than that...like, Turnbull...we haven't even mentioned...him, um, later, we'll talk later, maybe we need to talk to..."

"Yes, but I don't know about what, or how."

"He'll help. He's good at that, though I guess you wouldn't know unless you happened to trip over it. He is."

It was true, as his tactic with the renegade FBI agents in the warehouse had proven; men were unsettled as hell talking about feelings. Three *women* in this situation, assuming three women would ever be so similarly inept as to end up in a situation like this in the first place, would now probably be...well, whatever was appropriate for the women in question. Anything from a pillow fight to a group cuddle to...whatever else women did. It wasn't as though he'd know. Perhaps simply have moved the conversation on to other things, issues all dealt with. Men, on the other hand...well. Perhaps, in any event, he was being too harsh on them all. There were emotionally repressed women in the world, as well.

"You kissed Turnbull," Ray mused, rocking gently with the motion of Fraser's hands. "Totally without any clue you were gonna, didn't you."

Oh. Yes. Well, there *was* that, he supposed. He cleared his throat. "I...did, yes," he muttered, and cracked his neck.

"Wanted him to know you liked him," Ray added.

"No, I wanted him to think I despised him. Of course I wanted him to know that. Though that's nearly all I can tell you about why I did it."

"That's what you tried to tell him and it flopped, isn't it? That kept hurting him, when all you wanted was to tell him you liked him, but he was right and you were wrong?"

Fraser puzzled over that a moment, then understood--it was disjointed, but Ray was still analyzing the non-conversation in the bathroom. Dear Lord. "Yes. To oversimplify. I was doing it via...never mind, it really isn't important. That's the gist."

"What'd you do, accidentally make it sound like a consolation prize? 'No, really, you're a great guy, maybe we should hang out sometime' kind of thing? Except the way you talk, I mean."

"That's exactly what I did," Fraser murmured. "Very astute of you, Ray."

"It's not easy, Frase," Ray sighed, turning a little so his right knee pulled up, then stretched his back a little and was still again. "Not for you, not for a lot of us. It is for him, I think, which is the only reason any of it got this far. I'm kinda following his lead, even if it doesn't look like it. I think he knows now that you meant it. You got good instincts--a kiss on another guy's cheek that isn't an obvious joke is impossible to blow off as somebody just being...well, kind." The word Ray meant was obviously "pitying", but apparently he wasn't going to say it, either. "Though I guess he couldn't tell until then. He was a little teary there for a while, huh?"

"How did you...? Oh, yes, you saw us. You...noticed his..."

"Didn't look like he bawled or anything, but he definitely got misty, I saw that."

They were quiet a while, while Fraser continued to rub mindlessly, though his hands never lost their care. Knowing he was unable to concentrate well enough to continue his current method of therapy, he lightened the pressure, turning it into a circular cat-stroke, some pressure down Ray's spine, gently stroking back up--his fingers loosening and curving, lying along Ray's ribs, his liniment-slick skin, then firming to press and stroke back down the spine again.

"That's nice," Ray whispered. "That's...nm," he groaned softly. "Mm. Mm. Hhhhm." His mouth curved in a smile. "I'd purr if I knew how. You take a fiver to do this for me every night before I go to sleep?"

"I'll do it for nothing, but you'll have to admit a regular bedtime schedule wouldn't be too much to ask if it's going to be a nightly thing."

"Ten o'clock every night. Promise. And I'll sleep like a baby."

Fraser chuckled softly.

"And laugh like that at least once. Deep and quiet. You got a voice like black velvet, Frase."

"Like something you'd find by the side of the road?"

There was a snort from the kitchen. Evidently they hadn't been as quiet as they'd thought, or Turnbull's hearing was as acute as Fraser's. Or better. He was beyond-Frasered in quite a few other ways.

Ray grinned without opening his eyes. "C'mon, Turnbull, isn't it? Pretty voice on the pretty mountie?"

Fraser felt his mouth twist in a cross between an embarrassed smile and an annoyed quirk as Turnbull replied evenly "Constable Fraser has a very tuneful singing voice, yes, as he's proven to all our satisfaction, I think."

"Didn't just mean that," Ray muttered, but he didn't add anything else; Fraser could feel the tension surface briefly in him, as he knew it must be in himself, when they both realized that Turnbull, though he might be politely ignoring them--might even be forcing himself not to pay any mind to what he heard--had, in fact, heard their conversation. Then again, if they were all *trying* to get some communication happening here, perhaps a little eavesdropping might be a less painless way to advance the proceedings. Score another for the only man in the place who seemed to be any good at this sort of thing anyway.

Belatedly, in a wondering tone, Ray added "I mean...his voice...makes you wanna roll in it. You know? I mean, if it didn't, as much as he talks about zip for hours without taking a breath, somebody'd have killed him by now, but it's this warm nummy thing, you know?" Ray shook his hips side-to-side a little for emphasis, and quit very suddenly. Fraser controlled a smirk, glad of a humorous distraction.

"Yes, I do," Turnbull replied very softly, then made a very loud noise with an unknown number of utensils and said "Ray, do you save the fat you pour off of--then again, never mind."

"No, I don't believe Ray cooks with his own stored or rendered natural fat," Fraser said, making himself speak easily. "He prefers the oils and shortening products that can be bought in supermarkets."

"It's fortunate he's never been left eating his own kills and maintaining his own gear over a period of months," Turnbull noted. "Proper preservation and use of animal fat is a necessary bit of knowledge under those circumstances."

"It'd mess with my skin condition," Ray said darkly.

"It's probably what you'd be rubbing on your skin condition," Fraser reminded him, smiling a little. "Provided you knew how to preserve and prepare it, of course, as Turnbull says."

"I know a wonderful recipe for an herb-augmented anti-chapping balm using rendered rabbit fat--it sounds implausible, I realize, considering the small amount of fat available in a rabbit for a process like rendering, but it's saved many a northern plains dweller from chapping infection."

"Sounds quite useful," Fraser said politely, and with a fair amount of honesty.

"Eck," said Ray. "How can you cook and talk about stuff like that?"

"Multitasking," Turnbull said, and began to hum "O sole mio" in an Italian chef-sounding manner. Fraser cackled, and Ray smiled. "But perhaps you're right; I should pay attention to the supper." That went by neither of them; Fraser and Ray knew that either they were being apologized to, or Turnbull was saying he wasn't going to listen any more, as he continued to hum and to clatter, making soft, aimless noises.

"Why is he so good at that?" Ray sighed.

"I don't know. If I did..."

"Gotcha," Ray muttered in reply.

***

He had to get out of here.

Now, now. No point panicking. It was true; it was imperative that he leave, and just because his first attempt had been foiled--by Ray, of course--it needn't be difficult; his earlier arguments of major, if not totally complete, recovery had never really been refuted by Ray--simply snarled from the conversation and never taken up again; they were as valid as they had been before. He would complete the dinner--which they did need made for them; constable Fraser and Ray should both still be off their feet--and unobtrusively gather his things, most of which were still in his duffel and the rest of which could be quickly transfered there. He could then be off, with a minimum of fuss.

"Hm...you're gettin' fresh..."

Oh, Lord spare him. He made as much noise as was reasonable, but he couldn't keep up a constant clangor without attracting their attention. He'd have to simply...ignore them.

Dear God, he loved them. He loved them both, but more than anything else, he loved their love for each other, and there was simply no getting close to *that*. You could get close to a person. You could get close to more than one person, separately or with everyone participating together in the affections involved. But you couldn't get in the middle of what two people had between *them* without spoiling it. It was like the Heisenberg principle--to observe it exactly changed it. Observing it from a distance was the best you could do, and trying to close that distance to any degree basically amounted to stalking a relationship. Not the people, but the feelings they had for each other, since he himself was...incapable, not of love, but of loving, of...

God. Madness.

His problem was only that, not that...well. He'd always known he was not wired like most people, but the ways that most people would have remarked on were not the ways that concerned him at all--nor should they, as he'd discovered later.

His lack of any ability to become jealous under circumstances he knew most people would consider it normal, for one example. He'd learned, mostly via the aid of the Internet, and, subsequently, various books written by psychologists, sociologists, and other professionals on the human psyche and human interactions--current and historic, local and worldwide--that he was not unusual in this, that the notion that true love was monogamous and no sharing was allowed was a modern western idea, related to things having nothing, at the root, to do with love.

The modern term for a person who did not feel that the proof of true love was in forsaking all others was a "polyamorist"--a person who practiced, or would practice if the opportunity happened to arise in their life, "polyamory"--a term coined specifically to refer to love and *not* sex; meaning, literally, "more than one love". This was to distinguish it from those who believed in a sexually open policy in their otherwise monogamous romantic relationships; it referred not to sexual license, but truly loving and engaging in loving relationships with more than one individual at a time, with no conflict among the individuals involved. This happened every day the world over, but the dominant culture tended to forget that it was *not* the dominant culture in terms of sheer numbers or ideas.

Moreover, the evidence was all that the natural human state was to have more than one emotionally important sexual partner, whether one was male or female. Monogamy was something recently invented, in terms of the whole of human history; group situations were far more common--were the norm, in fact--before monogamous marriage became an important social institution, largely for reasons of property and legacy. People now believed that a one-on-one situation was the only true expression of love, the only way genuine love could exist between adults, and untold sorrow came about because of this belief, Turnbull knew. He also knew that in most of the world, some form of polygamy--there were many forms--was still, and always would be, for humans, the norm. What types of polygamistic relationships were most prevalent depended on the location in area, and the era in time.

So the fact that he was in love with two men was not what fazed him, saddening though it was that both those men were devoted, emotionally, elsewhere, and in a stage of discovery that didn't admit for noticing much else but each other--which was quite normal, for, as he'd thought, the stage they were at, even for those who hadn't been indoctrinated with modern western values--and who would have been very unlikely to be interested in *him*, even if they hadn't been so preoccupied with each other.

Also, Turnbull had never been one to worry much about gender; his feelings about the person were paramount to him, and the very idea of "picking a side and staying on it" didn't make any sense to him. Further research had shown him that it never used to *be* an issue, certainly not a political one, until very recently. It was *acts*, not *people*, that were considered homosexual or heterosexual, for the far largest part of recorded human history. A person's preferences might be predominantly one gender or the other...but, in past cultures in which there were no such personal labels, people thus left to their own devices, with no particular "lifestyle" pigeonhole forced about one--most people tended to be what, today, would be called bisexual, even if their preferences lay mostly in one or the other direction. Also, especially among males, certain acts with other men were often considered homosexual, where certain others were not; and other such distinctions. And this was in major societies, such as the Roman Empire, for one--not only small island chains in the Pacific somewhere or something.

He himself had always felt the truth of this, instinctively, from as far back as he could remember--and he could remember being very, very young, three years old at the most, and wondering why, when presented, on a TV show, with a situation involving two women confronting a man who had been cheating on both with each (and he *would* now call what the man had been doing cheating, since he had established a monogamous agreement with each woman, then reneged on both), why the story could not be resolved by the women simply dumping the man and going off together. That would be a happy ending for a story, wouldn't it? It was the man who had lied. It wasn't as though the *women* should be fighting each other. It wasn't the women who had lied to each other, or used each other. It was the man, so there was no reason for the women to be angry at each other, as was being shown. *That* simply made no sense to him.

He'd received the first of many indications that it was very dangerous to speak up about these things when he was quickly hushed by two of his sisters, who told him that it simply didn't work that way, that it had to be a man and a woman together. He had been sullen and unsatisfied with the illogic of that answer, but the fact that their alarm was far less anger at him and far more fear at the possibility of his being heard by their father had *definitely* gotten his attention. He had learned quickly the trick that almost all children who grow up knowing themselves to be "different", though not exactly how, *do* learn--keep your mouth shut and observe, until you understand this odd, artificial-feeling framework well enough to pass in it.

But it never, ever, made any logical or emotional sense to him, pass--as he could--or not.

So it was not loving a man that was making him feel that he was crazy to feel the way he did, nor even loving two men.

It was being so impassioned about *what they felt for each other* that he was...dying inside over.

Turnbull never expected anyone he loved to love him back with equal intensity. He never expected them even to love him in the sense that they thought of the word. He was perpetually lonely, and had surrendered to the knowledge that he was, with his history to date and with that history continuing unchanged to the age he was now, always going to be that way.

But did it have to be even worse than that? Did he have to love something so private between two other people that even observing it in a loving way constituted a violation? You just didn't invite yourself into another person's, or persons', feelings that way. It was inexcusably...well, violating.

As he had told Fraser, though he had been sure it had gone past the other man in terms of what Turnbull saying such a thing might mean--Fraser probably didn't even know the word "polyamory", though he would have no trouble deciphering the meaning if he heard it--what was between himself and Ray might admit of room for others; it was not his place to make such a judgement. He doubted it would; both men seemed to be very (recent-type tradition, modern western culture version) traditional in their need for a one-on-one relationship to be happy and secure in. But certainly, if they were lucky enough to find another person to love so much with them, that person would not be him.

But that wasn't the most pathetic thing.

The most pathetic thing, he thought, carefully separating yolks out of eggs, was that he didn't want it to be him. He felt that someone like him would...pollute, corrupt, what was so beautiful and real. He didn't *want* them to love him. That would have *spoiled* them. Loving him would just be...wrong, in the sense of a universal wrong, in the way that things don't fall up, in the way that beautiful, complete, real people don't love half-baked, hopeless, blundering--

No. No. No.

That was his father talking. That was certain of his instructors talking. That was...

That was also himself talking. Much as he knew that part of himself had been shaped by them, it could not now be changed. He had been programmed to be unable to accept his own self, and that was a very, very twisted thing, and he could not visit that on anyone else. No one could give him what he could not give himself; no one else's love or respect would mean anything to him if he did not feel himself complete and respectable and whole inside *first*. All the sources he'd consulted agreed on that point, and besides, it was obvious to him instinctively.

So he was spoiled. Ruined. And not fit for them. Therefore, his presence would taint their love, and he did not want their love tainted. Because he loved it, with an almost maniacal passion.

As he'd thought earlier. Madness. Ever-more-convoluted madness.

His hands kept moving, his voice kept responding appropriately, and he kept wincing and turning his mind to other things, any things, as the two of them began to slowly wander toward finding each other, there in the front room. He was glad to have been near for the beginning of that. He could even flatter himself he'd had a small part in it.

But now it was time to get the living hell out of Dodge.

"I do love you," he whispered to them both, facing the other way as he finished the light breading coat he was making for the chicken-strip sides. "I do." He spoke to both of them, in his head; they were no more nor less important to him, each than the other. They were different. Human love could expand to include as many as the heart of the lover had room for. The feelings one had for each human alive were different; one didn't feel one *kind* of love here, another *kind* there, and those *kinds* all identical in each case where one felt them; the love was always different, for each human, and...*labels*, for *love*, were never helpful...or even realistic.

But Fraser and Ray would never understand that, nor would they welcome it if he tried to make them understand his feelings and why he must remove himself from their presence, nor get too close to them. He'd done all he could, with constable Fraser. If it left the two of them befuddled, it was too bad, but there was no way two people like them could understand what he felt or why, nor be in any way at ease with it. He had to work with these men. He had to maintain their ability to deal at least reasonably comfortably with each other--the two of them with him, that was. Getting shed of them now was the only way to accomplish that.

So get shed of them he would.

Diefenbaker had snuck inside now, using the cooking smells for cover, and had been bumping Turnbull's legs occasionally, not really getting in the way, just establishing his presence in the kitchen. Used to this from working in the consulate kitchen, Turnbull had just been moving around him, but Dief now pawed at him insistently, and he finally looked down. "Yes, Diefen--"

His breath choked a bit in his mouth as he saw Dief was carefully holding his stuffed wolf, pulled from his knitting bag, by the tail, so as not to slobber on it overmuch. He raised his head to offer the toy to Turnbull.

Turnbull crouched down briefly, hugging Diefenbaker with one arm, the toy to his chest with the other, for a brief, tear-duct-straining moment, eyes tightly squinched closed, and then said soundlessly into Dief's eyes "Thank you. For noticing, and for trying to help. But please put him back in the bag now. I don't want Ray or constable Fraser to wonder why you brought him to me."

Dief whined softly, pawed a little at Turnbull again and licked his cheek, then took the toy back, carrying it carefully again, to replace where he'd found it. Turnbull knew that the two men in the front room, absorbed as they were in each other, wouldn't notice, any more than they'd noticed the toy's removal from Turnbull's knitting. He watched as Dief quietly returned to the front door and the hallway, and Turnbull wondered if he ought to feel worse that he was being pitied by a wolfdog.

But the fact was, he didn't; Diefenbaker didn't pity him, really, since his standards weren't human; but he understood pain, and comfort. And he was probably the acquaintance around the consulate with whom Turnbull was currently the most comfortable--

--fortunately a distraction presented itself at that point.

"Like something you'd find at the side of the road?"

With a sensation between despair and a relief so profound it almost hurt, Turnbull snorted a half-laugh, half-sob.

The next thing he heard, predictably, was Ray saying something to him about constable Fraser's (beautiful!) voice, and himself offering agreement, and other chatter, relieving the tension in his chest and taking his mind to safer places as he continued to work.

But he was getting out of here if he had to sneak out in the middle of the night, darn it. And if anyone wanted to stop him, constable Fraser had better have his spidey senses on full alert, because Turnbull could move just as quietly as his immediate posting superior when he wanted to. Fortunately, if constable Fraser woke to hear Turnbull departing, Fraser was likely not the one who would care to do anything; *he'd* more than likely understand--well, to a degree; enough, at any rate--and continue to lie there, pretending to be asleep.

***

"Hold it."

Turnbull froze in the beam of the flashlight for approximately a picosecond; then his eyes squinched shut in frustration and despair as the litany continued "Chicago PD. Drop the duffel. Hands where I can see 'em. Now, slowwwwwly turn around; that's good. Step this way please, across the room; park it in the chair. Right, good job." The flashlight beam clicked off, letting him out of its pinning beam; the returning darkness felt good and he slumped in a--small--modicum of relief.

"So, where the fuck you think you're going?"

"Home," Turnbull said with some asperity, half-voice in case he was lucky enough for constable Fraser to be asleep. "The place I live. The place I *sleep*. When I haven't been shanghaied by some city policeman with misguided notions of my physical state. Despite what I said this morning--or yesterday--at breakfast, Ray, I came here with you for one primary purpose--to take care of the two of you should it be needed, not to recuperate myself. Remember, *I* knew what was going on. *I* didn't have the egg. *I* was able to be far more careful than either you or constable Fraser, and I'm just as fast as either of you, plus with longer legs. Aside from a bit of lingering soreness and a couple of places on my feet that could still do with some padding--for which a pair of very thick athletic socks should suffice, provided I change them at lunch and check for any discharge--I'm fit enough to meet the minimum standards for any duty except ceremonial formation marching or standing guard. And since my usual duty as receptionist and administrative assistant involves a great deal of--what was it? Oh, yes--*sitting down*, I hardly need to remain in this convalescent's camp any longer. Rest assured, I'll be spending tomorrow--or the rest of today--off my feet."

"None of that explains why you're so desperate to get out of here you'd sneak off in the middle of the night. Just a really powerful tropism toward your own bed, or what's happening? Take as much time as you want answering. I ain't going anywhere." This last sounded like the knell of doom as Ray sat up in his bedroll, which had been moved from the foot of Ray's bed to the front room at some point that Turnbull had managed to miss. Probably when he'd dozed off briefly next to constable Fraser. The warm feeling at that thought threatened to distract him and he firmly pushed it back under the ones pertaining to the business at hand.

Remaining angry seemed like a good option. It would allow him to fight his natural inclinations; it always did, which was one reason he saved it for truly exceptional occasions. Such as uncultured Americans insulting curling. Repeatedly. Oh, yes, that would do very well.

"I have--or at least had--no desire to cause any kerfuffles in our friendly working relationship, detective Kowalski, which was the reason I sought to avoid any further conflict by leaving after you'd fallen asleep--but, as you *must* insist on confrontation...I am not your prisoner here. The two of you--after tonight's rest, assuming you personally get any--will no longer seriously need me here, and, like anyone else, I am more comfortable living in my own home than in someone else's. I made you dinner, and saw you, freshly washed, bandaged, massaged and medicated, to bed. There's no longer any reason for my presence here."

To his utter dumbfoundment, Ray grinned at him. "You're awfully cute when you're mad."

"Ray!" Turnbull didn't know whether to get flustered at the compliment, or more angry at the patronization.

"Ssh, Fraser's asleep, I'm pretty sure, or else he's faking it because he doesn't want to be rude; let's not make it rough for him. How old are you?"

Turnbull blinked at the non sequitur. "What?"

"How old are you? In years. You know. Since you were born."

"Why?"

"Just answer me, okay?"

"I'm twenty-eight."

Ray made a strangled noise as his eyes got huge for a second--Turnbull could see him fairly easily in the cool light that fell across him now, through one of the open windows, from the street--and managed to whisper-shriek "Twenty-*eight*?"

"As opposed to twenty-seven or twenty-nine, yes, twenty-eight. May I ask why my age has become pertinent to the conversation?"

"Damn, you're hanging onto pissed with all four feet. Okay, I wondered because...well, you can look different. There are times you look...um, a hell of a lot older than twenty-eight, and times when you barely look out of diapers. It just depends on whether you're tired or perky or...partly on your voice, or...whatever, up, down or sideways. I wondered. I would have guessed mid-thirties with a personality that gives you *expressions* that make you look so young, sometimes, but this sure explains it."

"Twenty-eight is hardly a child, and I'm still a one-star constable. Doesn't that give you any indication?" And perhaps it should give Turnbull, he thought, some indication about what Ray thought of Turnbull's abilities as an officer. Thanks, Ray. He sighed internally.

"Well, Fraser's still a constable, and he's my age, though he's had three stars since I've known him."

"Constable Fraser is long overdue for promotion because he...well. Partly it's because he prefers duty in places where it's difficult to win praise and renown popularly. He certainly *deserves* praise and renown for his accomplishments..."

Ray was nodding. "But there's nobody in bumblefuck nowonder to notice it, no superiors, especially, since he writes his own reports and probably downplays his own accomplishments, and that's all anybody ever sees, you're likely right about that. And then there's his habit of being better at everything than his superiors and their getting pissed at him for it."

"I've never noticed the inspector holding anything against him for long."

"No, but...he's not that much better at everything than she is, near as I can tell. She's kind of a supermountie too. Also, I get the feeling that snapping and brisk-to-rude is her M.O., but she identifies a lot with Fraser. She snaps at everyone, it ain't him. But he's got nothing to do here that would qualify him for consideration for promotion on the basis of exceptional performance--his *official* duties are all administerial here. But you and me aren't sitting in the living room at oh dark hundred to talk about Fraser's professional record." Ray managed to scoot his bedroll closer to the chair, though he made a face and a couple of "ooch" noises when his rear hit the padding again each time. "Thanks another one for the butt and leg rubbing, by the way. Saved my life."

"You're quite welcome. Though I doubt anyone ever died from a sore posterior. Can I go now?" Turnbull started to get up, settled back with an exasperated sigh when Ray reached out and grabbed his ankle.

"No. Stupid question."

"I suppose it was, at that."

"Okay, let's get back to your new career as a commando sneak. Why is it so important to get out of here that you're willing to sneak out? That's rude, you know, Turnbull, and you are a long way from a rude guy. You're even less rude that his noble politeness in the bedroom in there."

Turnbull colored a bit. "Yes, I'm aware of that, and I apologize--" no, don't let this interfere with his angered stance. "--but I must reiterate that since you would not allow me to return home earlier, I simply wished to avoid another confrontation."

"You got something at home need seein' to? A pet? Anything?" Dief looked up at that point, but only to give Ray an eyeroll; he put his head back down and closed his eyes this time, apparently ready to tune them out and go back to sleep, unless Turnbull's touch, or something loud enough to penetrate his hearing disorder, happened to indicate need for his assistance. The only pet Turnbull had--and who, in Turnbull's opinion, far exceeded the usual definition of the word--was Heathcliff, who was in his knitting, wrapped in the early stages of constable Fraser's birthday present. "No, there isn't. It's just where I live and I like it there. I'm...intruding here." That had come out half-angry, half-entreating, but it was the best he could do, and closer to the truth than he'd ever intended to come in this conversation.

"You are *not*," Ray said, very softly, shaking his head, his eyes puzzled, not angry. "You are *not* intruding. You are *welcome*--"

Turnbull felt a twist in his insides and very narrowly avoided a gasp of pleasure-pain.

"--so tell me what I did, or what we did. You're the only one of us here who's good at the talking thing. Talk. Why do you feel like you're intruding?"

"I explained it to constable Fraser. Feel free to ask him after I leave."

"Ah, hell, Fraser'll never tell me, he'll be too busy protecting your privacy. If I really pin him to the wall, he might give me some kind of paraphrase that lets me know nothing important. Tell me. Aren't I your friend? Okay, maybe I haven't always been that friendly, but I have been lately, I thought. Or haven't I?"

"You have," Turnbull muttered morosely.

"Geez. You hate this."

"I hate this."

"Then I must have done something pretty bad. Isn't it better I know what it is so I can not do it again to anybody? Wouldn't it be the nice thing to do to tell me?"

Turnbull let his head roll on the chair back so that he was staring up into the darkness toward the ceiling. "Perhaps the more friendly thing, but not the 'nicer' thing, no."

"Then fuck nice and be a friend. What'd I do? Why do you need out of here so bad?"

"Why do you assume it's you?"

"Why won't you answer me?"

Turnbull ground his teeth. "Answer me first, and I will."

"Okay." Ray acceded to that so quickly Turnbull suspected he'd been corralled. "I assume it's me 'cause there's no way it can be Fraser. He'd rather die than make anyone feel unwelcome. He'd rather die than offend *anybody*, unless they deserve it in a very big-ass way, which you do not; you been helpin' us out. You deserve thanks and cuddles and strokes, not to be feelin' like you gotta sneak out. So it must be something me, the stupid rude American, did. What did I say? What obnoxious thing finally convinced you I really want you out of here? Tell me what it was, and I'll tell you why I said it, and we can all go back to bed and spend tomorrow makin' sure we're good for Monday."

"You didn't do or say anything to make me think I wasn't welcome, Ray."

"Then if it's not Fraser, and it's not me, why is it so bad you've gotta *sneak* home?"

Turnbull sighed. "My feelings for...I...you...oh, dear Lord." Turnbull shook his head. "I didn't want to make you uncomfortable, Ray, but you've made it impossible for me to prevaricate any longer. I'm in love with you."

The expected dead silence occurred. Next would be the embarrassed throat clearing, then the stammering apology, then the assertions of understanding and lack of animosity about the whole thing--sure, we're still friends, and I like you too, really, just not...and then, Ray would finally allow him to leave, and never mention it again. It was too bad they couldn't have had exactly the same thing happen *without* his having to toss the last shreds of his pride in the dust, but Ray simply wouldn't let be, wouldn't have it any other way, so there you are.

"Oh my God." There was a touch on his knee, from which he flinched, and the touch was withdrawn, only to come back a second later full gale as Ray heaved up from the bedroll and flumped his top half into Turnbull's lap, which would have sent the latter man bounding across the room if Ray hadn't been holding him down. Not that he didn't make enough of a reflexive try that Ray was galumphed with sufficient force to widen his eyes and make him grab the sides of the chair. "Hey! My ass still hurts and stuff, stop with that."

"Kindly get out of my lap and your ass will be in no further danger."

"Stop being mad? Please? Please stop being mad? I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry--I don't know what you want me to do. I never thought...I guess I maybe wondered, you know, Fraser, if you...I didn't know. I'm sorry, I didn't know."

Astonishment froze Turnbull in the chair as he felt a touch on his cheek, and all animation left his face as his eyes went wide. "I didn't know," Ray repeated softly. "So if I hurt your feelings somehow, I'm sorry. Can't you stay? 'Cause I want you to. If it--you know--if you really can't--if it's, if your head is a big mess and you really need to get private, okay, I'll let you go, but I'll come back--you know, to you, to being friends, to talking--and I won't quit coming back. I can be very *fucking* persistent, I'm warning you right now. But please stay if you can, 'cause I really don't want you to go."

"Would it make any difference if I told you I was also in love with constable Fraser?"

More silence--what the hell, at this point; in for a penny, et cetera. Constable Fraser, at least, would simply behave, in their day-to-day association, as if nothing was different. He could trust the constable that far. Ray was going to make things difficult, obviously.

But there was no way he was going to reveal what was really killing him. Unrequited love was an unadulteratedly hideous thing, no way around it. But the rest was too much to expect him to discuss, and too much to use as a shock technique to make Ray let him out of here, even though it was pretty much certain to work. *No* one normal wanted to get intimately involved with a psyche as irretrievably broken--literally unable to function normally, unable to give and receive *properly*, in the ways the rest of humanity did, as Turnbull's.

Ray's hand moved to cup his cheek. "It makes it *different*, but it doesn't make a *difference* the way you mean, no. I mean, I can understand that. I could...I think I *do*...love Fraser, too."

"I know."

Another pause. Then: "Um...you do?"

"Yes." Let him ponder that one.

"Can I ask how?"

"No."

More pausing. Despite Turnbull's being broken--or perhaps because of it, of his own awareness of his lack of worth in the area--he was very sensitive to *other* people's feelings for each other that way. But he wasn't going to talk about that, no matter what. Not even if Ray pantsed him right in this chair. No way. But Ray should be backing down any minute now; what he'd just learned was enough of what most people would consider a "tangle" that he'd want out of it now, no two ways about it. Hell, it wasn't even like Ray was necessarily gay, judging by the evidence. He might not even realize yet, not fully, that that was the usual label these days for his feelings for constable Fraser.

"Wow. I mean...shit. Wow. You..." Ray leaned forward, taking him completely off guard, and kissed his mouth, fast and gentle, and wrapped his arms around Turnbull's shoulders. "Shit. I mean...shit. I wish I'd known. I'm sorry."

"Does that mean," Turnbull managed, his eyes screwed shut, stiff as a board in Ray's embrace, "that you'll let me go now?"

"Um...if you still want to. If you really want to. If you feel like you have to. But nobody...nobody hates you, nobody's...gonna *want* you to go, here, if that's your reason. I *want* you to stay, Fraser would *want* you to stay--"

"Kindly do *not* presume to speak for constable Fraser on that matter."

"Yes, Ray," came a soft, deep voice that made Ray freeze and Turnbull relax minutely in shock. "I'd prefer to speak for myself. I want you to stay, Turnbull. I would have told you that last night, if I'd known that...what we talked about...was so...was such an imperative. Though I don't think I would have said it very well, any more than I ever do." Fraser sighed the last bit softly, and then shuffled into the room, coming up behind Turnbull's chair. He put both hands on Turnbull's shoulders and said "Please. I'd like you to stay as well. I honestly enjoy the fact that you're here, Turnbull, it isn't...just kindness."

"Mm?" Ray's eyes, gazing up at him in reinforcement of his and Fraser's mutual request, reminded him of an anxious puppy. Turnbull had to close his own.

Fraser added "When we stopped for food, I think I found all the necessary ingredients for--well, for at least a version of your Spanish breakfast omelet. I'd...like to have one in the morning, if you'd stay to make it."

God, please let me go. Why couldn't they let him go? "All right. On one condition."

They both made "name-it" noises, patting and stroking him. He pressed his lips together to control his reaction, and finished "I'll sleep in the bedroll. You two take the bed."

"Um...sure. Sure, yeah, we can do that. I get that. Really, I get that, it's cool--I'll just drag it--"

"No. Leave it out here," Turnbull said, in what he hoped was a warning tone.

"Okay, sure, out here. I'll just, um." Ray gave him an uncertain squeeze and then slid out of his lap, thank you God, and Fraser's hands were removed from his shoulders so he could go help Ray reposition the bedroll. Dief woke enough to lift his head and thump his tail as Turnbull began to remove his boots.

"Now, both of you go lie down," Turnbull said tiredly. "I don't want all the healing you've done so far ruined."

"You lie down too. And...and if you need anything..."

"Ray, I'm quite sure I can handle it if I should need anything. I'll consider myself at home, if such a thing were possible. Go sleep now, please, both of you. Sir," he amended to Fraser.

"Turnbull, I told you--"

"I know what you told me, sir. And I appreciate it." He started tugging his shirt out of his jeans. "Now may I have a bit of privacy?"

"Oh, sure. I mean, you know--sure," Ray said, and Fraser and Ray, steadying each other a bit, removed themselves to the bedroom doorway. "G'night, then..."

"Goodnight, Ray, constable Fraser."

There was a sigh, and then Fraser's voice saying "Goodnight, Turnbull." The door shut behind them.

Turnbull relaxed all over, drooping. Lord God almighty--but at least now, he knew, they would gradually back off, as they realized there was truly nothing they could do but be as accepting as they obviously were. It was kindness incarnate and far more than Turnbull had hoped for, not because he thought either of them unkind, but because most people simply wouldn't know *how* to accept something like this, though the two men did, admittedly, both seem very surprised, in their different ways.

Turnbull got comfortable--he did have to do a bit of readjusting, as Ray had specifically made the bedroll for himself; fortunately, Ray apparently liked room above his head and below his feet, so the padding was just long enough for Turnbull not to be cramped on. He also had to reposition the extra pad Ray liked to support his rear with; he couldn't seem to find a good spot for it, so simply removed it. It wasn't as though this particular bedroll wasn't still far more comfortable than he personally required for sleep, anyway.

The fact that it smelled like Ray was something he would simply have to get around.

Dief hopped down, and Turnbull wondered if he was going to end up with company, but instead he heard Diefenbaker attacking his duffel. "Dief. Diefenbaker--" Dief couldn't hear him, of course, not as softly as he had to speak under these circumstances, nor see him in the dimness well enough to read his lips. Turnbull, as close to grumbling to himself as he ever got, started to unassemble himself from the bedroll.

At that point, however, Dief showed back up, and came right up to him and shoved something soft against his chest. He reached up and took it automatically. Heathcliff.

The dam nearly burst that time. He was forced to hold both Diefenbaker and Heathcliff very tightly for a long time, before he could finally lie down again and let Diefenbaker return to the sofa. And when he did lie down, he had Heathcliff wrapped tightly in both arms, well hidden there, beneath the covers and his own bowed head.

***

"Const--Turn--um, Renfield." There was a touch on his shoulder.

Well, there was only one of them that *that* could be. "Good morning, sir. I take it..." he gently flexed everything; as expected, a bit of residual soreness, a few remaining tender places. Nothing that would make him unfit for duty now. "...that it's morning, unless you require something?"

"It's morning. Though a bit early for Ray, if he isn't getting up for work. I didn't want to wake him yet, on a Sunday."

"Ah." Turnbull rubbed his eyes. The sun was just entering the room; at home, if he hadn't been emotionally worn from a session with Heathcliff and the knowledge of his hideous revelations of the night before, he'd probably have been awake already himself. There was a chapel around the corner from where he lived that held simple sunrise carols, with five or six members of the usual choir, on Sunday mornings, well before services proper; and he liked to dress and go listen to those, and meditate, perhaps pray a bit, though he usually didn't attend service and didn't think of himself as a member of the congregation, as it was a Catholic establishment and he hadn't been raised in that branch of the Christian faith. The choir members who showed at that hour, though, always smiled at him, doubtless glad of at least one human to come and appreciate their efforts, which were ostensibly not for human ears at all.

He continued to Fraser, who had settled back on the couch in a thick flannel bathrobe--he wondered where it had come from, since he hadn't seen it on either of the other men before now--"Then we'll have our breakfast early, sir, and I'll make detective Vecchio's for him when he wakes. Omelets are quite a quick and easy item--" he broke off to yawn.

"I've put the kettle on, Renfield. You can relax and wait for your tea, at least," Fraser said, still softly, as they were both speaking in respect of Ray's sleep, though the bedroom door was, he now noticed, shut.

"That's very thoughtful of you, sir, thank you. However...I know you don't make a habit of watching television any more, but you are familiar with the science fiction program "The X-Files"?

"Yes," Fraser said, smiling a bit and ruffling Dief's fur; the wolfdog had settled messily across his flannel-covered lap and gone back to sleep, apparently seeing no more reason than Ray to be up at this hour on a Sunday. "It's one of Ray's favorites."

"There was an early episode in which Scully, attempting to establish a less formal context between herself and her partner, as she was about to say something slightly more personal than usual to him, used his first name; he was forced to gently stop her before she continued, to inform her that he would prefer she not use his given name even as a gesture of friendship. I believe his exact words were 'I even made my parents call me Mulder'."

Fraser made a bug-eyed face, which was not hard to interpret as a combination of laughter under control and a lack of knowing exactly what the appropriate polite response here was. Lacking a high collar, Fraser was forced to tug at his ear. He cleared his throat quietly and said "I take it that means you prefer to be called Turnbull even by your close friends."

Close friends? Let's not make any conclusatory leaps, constable Fraser. "It means I have no fondness at all for my given name, not since I started school and the negative responses began. Usually, it's not a problem, as no one else can stand to call me 'Renfield', either. Everyone I know--but family members--calls me Turnbull, sir. It's what I prefer."

"Very well, then. Just out of curiosity, though--I wouldn't use it unless you told me I could--do you have a middle name?"

"Yes, technically, though I keep it off my records as much as possible. Aloysius."

Fraser got an odd look on his face, as though he didn't know whether a "bleah" face of sympathy would be well-received or not. "Ah."

"Indeed."

"Well. There you are."

"Quite so. I had a girlfriend--" he didn't look at constable Fraser as he said that, as he did not want to see the inevitable, though doubtless quickly-hidden, stunned amazement in his expression at that statement, and continued "--who had an unfortunate habit of calling me "lucious" as soon as she learned of the name, so--"

A choke of laughter brought him up short and he glanced up at the couch, where Fraser now had his face hidden in Dief's ruff, and was emitting the soft snorting sounds of someone trying to control laughter. "Oh, how...how utterly--"

"Embarrassing, yes," Turnbull said, and found himself smiling at the floor in front of him, pinking up a bit; he could always feel it when he blushed, which he was not sure was a blessing, but it left him with no doubts on the score, blessing or not as that might be. Dief woke up, looking annoyed, but not willing to wake up sufficiently to make issue; he just waited out Fraser's laughter storm until the constable could raise his own pink face again, then put his head back down and let his eyes close. Turnbull added "Though I know she meant well."

"You must have...oh, dear, that..."

"I still feel it contributed in some way to our breakup," Turnbull muttered. "Though I definitely can't say it was the sole cause."

"Oh, of course not, I'm sure..." realizing he was wandering into dangerous territory--the indeed-dangerous look Turnbull shot him no doubt helping him along toward figuring that out--Fraser finished "So you prefer Turnbull even from those close to you. I'll just continue to call you that, then."

"Please do, sir. I'd appreciate it." Not that he wouldn't have insisted on it anyway, if he'd had to. He did have a shorter and less formal name, that he'd been called in his life, and that he liked, but neither of these two were going to find out what it was.

"And you prefer to call me 'sir'," Fraser said quietly.

"I do, sir--if, of course, it meets with your approval." Turnbull gave him his blankest expression.

After a pause: "If it's what you're comfortable with," Fraser said, very quietly. "But if you should ever feel otherwise--whenever we're off duty--any version of my name, without any version of title, would be welcome. Just...so you know."

"I'll keep that in mind, sir," Turnbull nodded briskly.

"I'd...better catch the kettle, before it wakes Ray--"

"I'll do it," Turnbull said, making sure Heathcliff, who was still a bit damp, was well secreted under the ample padding and bedclothes of the wide floor-bed. "You should sit, and Diefenbaker is comfortable."

"Diefenbaker is slothful," Fraser muttered, more at Diefenbaker's unaware and unconcerned back than to Turnbull, though Fraser's hands didn't stop moving soothingly in the wolfdog's fur; Turnbull smirked as he made his way to the kitchen, testing his feet and lower legs for more tender spots now that he was upright. He knew that as the day wore on, and gravity caused their feet and lower legs to enlarge more with various bodily fluids, there might be more tenderness. He'd have to be cautious until then, if he didn't want to aggravate anything before he became aware of the problem. He determined that now might be a good time to stop the ibuprofen, since he was largely healed and comfortable, and it might hide leftover small problems that he would have preferred to know about and deal with on this last day before his return to duty.

The tea water was just beginning to undulate, and he swooped the kettle off the burner before it could begin its prepatory-to-whistling muttering. He quickly filled the pot they'd brought from his apartment with leaves, and poured the just-boiling water onto them, filling the pot and popping the lid on.

From the living room came the words "I believe I'll go downstairs and get the Sunday newspaper--"

"I believe you'll sit where you are, sir," Turnbull said, soft but jovial, in the gentle brook-no-argument tone he frequently used to get people to shut up and go along because it was what would make him happy and avoid an upset-Turnbull incident. He wondered if anyone was aware just how conscious that device was.

He came out into the front room again to root in his duffel. He pulled out a sweater, which he tugged over his pajama shirt, a pair of loose jeans to go over the matching light pants, and sneakers to slip on, untied, over his already-stockinged feet. He located his some change and said "I'll be back directly. The tea is steeping. I'll see to detective Vecchio's coffee when I come back up."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome, sir."

"The coffee, though--the smell wakes Ray. As quickly as he can prepare his own, perhaps you should leave that to him."

"Ah." Turnbull continued on his way downstairs. So far, so good--constable Fraser seemed quite willing, despite an initial probe, to back off and let him set the tone. Of course, he'd been expecting that from the constable. Ray was another matter altogether, and he tended to have an effect on constable Fraser that made *him* less...well, under the circumstances, the only fitting word was "manageable", as well. He'd better not count his chickens until Ray was awake and under full steam.

Fraser had got up and was pouring tea when Turnbull came back in. "Sir," he said reprovingly, and Fraser responded with "I had to get up to change my bandaging anyway, Turnbull. You'll be pleased to know there seem to be no further blisters coming up, and only a slight discharge. I've already cleaned and bandaged everything that required it." He was wearing thick white socks, lumpy underneath with taped gauze. "I thought I'd take a moment and pour the tea before sitting back down."

Turnbull didn't answer, just taking his own shoes and socks off for a perfunctory check of his own feet before removing the clothes he'd put on over his pajamas. He'd dress after showering; constable Fraser was still in the bathrobe, and he accepted the newspaper to return to the couch still dressed that way, so the casual tone that had prevailed thus far still seemed to be fine.

Turnbull entered the kitchen and busied himself getting things out of the fridge. "Do you think detective Vecchio has noticed that his eggs have only one yolk per three?"

"If he had, he'd have made sure we all knew about it. But I didn't even notice that myself, Turnbull; you're quite good at making the missing yolks immaterial to the taste. And please, drink your tea before you begin. There's no hurry, Diefenbaker's whining aside."

Turnbull wavered, but Fraser seemed honestly occupied with unfolding and sorting the sections of the paper, rather than planning some verbal ambush; he decided there was probably nothing to worry about. He took the cup Fraser had filled and joined him in the living room.

"Care for the weather page?" Fraser asked as he seated himself in the chair, having recovered his knitting bag from his duffel and set his tea on the coffee table.

"I'll leaf through the paper after the two of you are through with it," Turnbull said, "I'm quite close to finishing the collar section on this sweater; I thought I'd use the morning to get it done, as I'm to be off my feet anyway."

"It's a lovely sweater so far, at least. I like the colors."

Turnbull smiled a little. "Good." He didn't look up from his current pearl.

"Good?" Fraser blinked. Turnbull's tone of voice had implied a little more than just being glad Fraser liked the colors.

Turnbull almost laughed at him. "It's your birthday present. Would you like elastic banding around the cuffs or will a banding of several rows of tighter stitching be sufficient? I can also cable them vertically, like the collar."

There was an odd Fraser throat-clearing noise. It was becoming increasingly obvious to Turnbull that if he could keep the upper hand, keep Fraser and Ray off balance, he could come out of this without having utterly humiliated himself and ending up being seen as even more of a pathetic loser--as long as Ray didn't screw up his efforts, which he could be counted on to attempt, even if not consciously. If they ended up feeling like they'd pushed him over a line it had been rude to cross, well, they'd get over it. After all, they *had*.

Fraser finally said "I--that is--anything is fine, I mean--whatever is, is easiest, is the least trouble."

"Actually, telling you in advance makes it easier. I can check the fit, ask your opinions on details, that sort of thing, as I go. Your height and weight are in your records; your exact measurements remain your secret and your uniform tailor's, but I'm quite good at eyeballing such things. How long would you like it? Waist length, or hip? Many of your sweaters have extra play in the arms and shoulders, so I've been figuring for that."

"Honestly, anything is fine..."

"Sir. Anything *is* fine, and no trouble. As I've ruined the surprise in any case, you might as well tell me your preferences."

"Well..." another throat clearing, "...I generally prefer hip length, and tighter stitch banding at the wrist rather than elastic."

"And the cabling?"

"I'll leave that to your superb sense of the appropriate in these matters, Turnbull." Fraser looked pink.

Turnbull smiled. "Excellent, sir. I'll remember." He kept knitting.

Fraser, apparently now a bit discomfited, reached for the TV remote and turned on the weather channel, muting the sound the second the tube flashed on so as not to wake Ray; he then turned it up in tiny increments until the background music playing over the current local weather repeat loop was just audible to them both.

"Tea?" There was a bump and a shuffle-shuffle from the bedroom door; Ray emerged; apparently following his nose. "Tea?" he wondered again, as though half puzzled and half merely following a tropism. His brows were drawn in confusion. Tea smell, apartment, early morning. Didn't fit, apparently.

"We didn't think you'd want to be wakened so early--please, sit down," Turnbull said, going and giving Ray, whose eyes were still closed, his arm. "Darjeeling, actually. I'll get your coffee, unless you like to try a cup? It's quite tasty."

"Tea," Ray yawned, settling to the couch beside Fraser. He promptly curled up and leaned half over, putting him partway on Diefenbaker. The wolf woke long enough to sniff a couple of bored sniffs of Ray's hair, then put his head down again and went back to sleep.

"Dear me," Fraser muttered, and Turnbull managed not to laugh out loud as Fraser, swamped, considered his predicament.

"You do seem to be the furniture of choice this morning, sir," Turnbull snickered, pouring steaming water over the Darjeeling leaves. "Is it a common problem?"

"With Dief," Fraser acceded. "Not with Ray, at least not until now. I'll assume Ray will find himself a better resting spot when the tea wakes him. He was probably drawn by the warmth and Dief's presence; he does have an unfortunate tendency to encourage Dief's illicit naps on couches and beds. Perhaps you'd better bring Ray's bag of Smarties back in with you."

"Maybe Ray needs a stuffed animal."

"Diefenbaker would probably be offended."

"I doubt that very much," Turnbull said softly, with an unseen smile at Dief, as he touched the wolfdog's head gently before waving the Smarties bag under Ray's nose. "Raaay...chocolate...."

"Mmm..." Ray's head followed the bag until he was sitting up, hair wild and eyes at half-mast, with a small handful of candies stuffed in his mouth, sucking on them like a baby on a dummy; tiny crunching noises emanated from the area of his mouth as the chocolate and candy shells were slowly mushed up. "Mmpf."

"You're welcome. Your tea will be ready in a moment--I usually add a little honey to bring out the flavor, but I thought you might appreciate cane sugar instead."

"Mmpf," Ray said again, his eyes closing in contentment as he curled back over on Dief, clutching his bag of Smarties close.

"Sir," Turnbull whispered, "are you sure this is the same man who saved your and Mr. Quinn's life by crashing a motorcycle through a wall?"

Ray made a mutter of complaint and curled up smaller, pulling part of Fraser's bathrobe over his shoulders.

"Yes, it is," Fraser said, and smiled. "He's a man of well-rounded character."

Turnbull brought the tea, holding it carefully until Ray noticed it, finished with his candies and swallowed, then unlimbered an arm and took the cup. He sat up, tottering a little, until a waft of steam from the cup made his eyes open. "Flowers," he murmured, smiling.

"Yes," Fraser said, "Turnbull likes a blend with a bit of jasmine, too."

"Flowers," Ray reiterated, and sipped. He smacked his lips, seemed pleased, had another sip, and dropped three candies into the cup.

"Ray! In your *tea*?" Turnbull was almost beyond speech, grey eyes huge.

Ray blinked up at him, smiling. "I'm an uncouth American. Hey, the paper...where's the sports..." he slid off the sofa onto the rug, part of Fraser's bathrobe and one of Dief's back legs remaining arranged over him, however he managed that.

Turnbull made a noise that indicated he had no idea what he was going to *do* with a man who would put Smarties in his tea, but sighed at the "give it up" smirk he got from Fraser and only said "Why don't I start breakfast?"

While Turnbull cooked, Ray and Fraser perused the paper and murmured to each other about nothing in particular; Diefenbaker took advantage of the morning-lag that permeated the room to remain a lapwarmer for Fraser, who ordinarily discouraged such behavior, but somehow couldn't bring himself to, this morning. It felt like they were all, Turnbull included, wrapped together in a fluffy down comforter, and had no place in particular to be, any of them.

Until Turnbull called "Breakfast," and everyone came to the table to dig in to Turnbull's Spanish omelets, with toasted English muffins and hash browns.

"Fraser's right," Ray said, between bouts of shoveling and slurps of coffee, which coffee he'd made with the touch of a switch; as always, since Fraser got grossed out one morning and bought him a coffeemaker with a timer, his coffeemaker had been primed and ready. "You do have a weakness for breakfast food."

"Only if I'm cooking for more than one," Turnbull sat down. "I remember family breakfasts with some fondness. My sisters and I all helped cook, and usually...our father wasn't there."

They waited, but he didn't go on, so Ray just nodded and said "Yeah, I remember winter mornings with hot cereal and cinnamon toast like that, kind of. Pass the salsa."

"How are you both feeling?" Turnbull asked. "I seem to be quite fit, myself."

"I'm good too," Ray said offhandedly, "but if you wanted to rub my butt some more I wouldn't complain."

Fraser snorted into his teacup.

"How does it feel?" Turnbull said, giving what passed, on him, for a dirty look to Fraser.

"Oh, sore, nothing serious. Might sit on a pillow at work tomorrow, if I can find a way to do it without every idiot in the village making a comment, but walking around doesn't seem to be a problem."

"I really ought to insist you don't wear those boots to work tomorrow," Turnbull said. "They'll only continue to overstrain the same muscles.

Ray sighed. "Okay, okay--I got some black high-tops that don't make me look like too much of a geek." He frowned, and said, after, apparently, wiggling his feet, "I think all I got left is some tender places. You can take a look and pronounce me fit for regular shoes and stuff. If you think I need it, that is."

"I'll be happy to."

There was a crunch under the table. Fraser sighed. "Raaaay..."

"He was doin' puppy eyes! And he loves raspberry."

"He's not going to love the vet's diagnosis--or prescribed treatment--if people keep this up," Fraser muttered, but he couldn't keep a tiny smirk from the corner of his mouth.

"We'll limit him to one muffin with butter and jam this morning," Turnbull said, glancing below the tablecloth to where Dief was munching happily on the first half of his muffin. "Watch for tactics of thievery. Don't let your guard down until I've put away the leftovers. And do finish the muffins. They just don't keep that well."

"Sure, man," Ray said, smiling, dropping a Smartie into his coffee with a plunk. He drained the cup and crunched the smartie. "I am *spoiled* with you guys here. Now you're gonna go home, and I'll have no one to make me breakfast and fetch my paper and rub my butt and share his bathrobe and dog and body heat in bed at night and it'll just be the pits, compared."

"You can't honestly say you're going to miss tripping over us," Fraser said, his eyes daring Ray to differ.

"I can honestly say I'm going to miss having you both here. It's like having the place to yourself when you're a kid and having a couple of friends over and just...going with the flow, you know? I don't really know how to explain it...and a little like being married, I guess. Just...company. Nice." Ray picked up his fork to finish his eggs. Then he put down the fork, reached over, and touched Turnbull's cheek, lightly, with just his fingertips. "Thanks. Pain and general medical nastiness aside, this has been a great weekend." He smiled at Turnbull, a smaller, slightly glowier version of his full-on sun-breaking-through-the-clouds-smile, and turned the smile to Fraser, stroking *his* cheek gently, once, then went back to the eggs, finishing them in a few bites. "I guess dessert with a breakfast like this is a little too much to ask for..."

"They make excellent cream puffs at the bakery," Turnbull offered, his eyes still huge, and he scooted his chair back. "Does everyone like chocolate?"

"Turnbull, no! I was kidding, I couldn't eat another bite, I'm stuffed to the gills. I'll never move if I eat any more."

"You shouldn't move," Turnbull reminded him, and got back into his quick-trip outfit; he checked his pockets for his wallet, but Fraser had to step in at that and there was a brief tussle over who would pay for the cream puffs, and when Turnbull finally got out the door he was practically running.

"Did you mean to scare him like that?" Fraser wondered suspiciously, starting to clear the table.

Ray took the plates from Fraser's hands and set them back down, then took the hands and tugged Fraser back down too. "If he comes back and we've cleaned up, he'll be pissy what with our feet and stuff. And no, I just wanted to say thank you. To both of you. I love you. And this is the most fun I've had over a weekend with two guys since...hell, I don't know since. Sore ass and all."

Fraser was shaking his head, his eyes shining, his mouth a little open and soft-looking. "You have very little trouble saying that."

"I have no problem with 'I love you', Fraser, never have had. Watch closely; I love you. See? Easy, if you mean it, at least."

"And you mean it. The way...the way you implied last night?"

"Frase..." Ray poured himself more coffee and started to dump in candy, then just kind of played with the candies and finally popped one in his mouth, chewing carefully to speak easily around it. "I meant what I said. I...this is...this is pretty amazing, and I don't know what's going any more than either of you do--except I think Turnbull knows, but isn't telling some stuff. The poor guy is bad off in there somewhere, hurt bad, and I'm not so good at this kind of thing that I can say for sure pouring his guts out is the best thing for him to do, at least not yet. Maybe...I mean, we pushed him--okay, *I* pushed him--right to the wall last night. Which I didn't mean to do. But I feel kinda different. I don't know how much it'll change anything when we start work again tomorrow. If anybody's asking, I'd say...let's let it happen, you know...we all trust each other. I don't think any of us would lie to any of the others about anything important. Refuse to discuss something, instead, probably, rather than lie--I just don't see the three of us doing that. You guys just kind of don't lie. So..." he sighed. "I can't believe I'm gonna eat a cream puff." He burped and covered his mouth. "'Scuse me. Anyway...thank you, both of you. Thank you for...what we did last night. I haven't been held while I slept...I forgot how good you feel when you wake up. And for the little lullaby. That was really nice."

Fraser blushed at his plate. "It was the least I could do, if it...was what you really wanted."

"If you tell anybody I said this I will deny it, but you have a beautiful voice, just like I said, and I'd lie against your chest and listen to it all night if it didn't put me to sleep in about two minutes." He leaned over and pressed his mouth firmly to Fraser's, holding it a while, with caressing movements of his mouth, when Fraser didn't pull away.

The door opened behind them, but there was no jump between Ray and Fraser; the lassitude of the morning seemed to be acting as a tranquilizer. Even Turnbull only started a bit. "Oh! Oh, my, I'll just--"

"C'mere." Ray turned and reached with a long arm, snagging the wrist that supported the bag of cream puffs. "Have some kiss."

Turnbull just sort of stared weakly, paralyzed, so Ray moved to him, pulling Fraser, and kissed the taller man's mouth softly. "Good morning, and thanks for breakfast." He kissed him again and added "And cream puffs, though I'm gonna have a heart attack before fifty." He let go of them both, appropriating the cream puff bag, saying "Have a smooch, you guys, I'm gonna put these over the stove to keep warm and out of the jaws of the mighty creampuff predator down there--great, he's smelled 'em. No, forget it, Dief, no way--well, maybe a crust, you can't eat chocolate--you guys gonna kiss or just stand there and stare?"

As if this comment made them realize that they were in fact standing there and staring, Turnbull took a sudden breath, blinking, and Fraser made a sound in his throat, and Ray said "Oh for God's sake, just *kiss*. Pucker up and go for it. I'll just hound you 'til you do."

Fraser's eyes slid sideways, and he said "It's entirely possible he'll make good on that."

"Perhaps we should simply give him what he wants."

"I'd like that," Fraser said, and moved the step forward into range of Turnbull's mouth; he set his fingers lightly to the larger man's cheekbones and lifted his mouth, delivering a light, open-mouthed kiss with a little parting smack, and then--when Turnbull's mouth followed his when he pulled away, as though magnetized--another, which they both held long enough to let their eyes flutter shut before separating, then slowly looking back up, both their fair complexions turning pink as their expressions turned to embarrassed smiles.

"There, wasn't so bad, was it?" Ray grinned, giving the crust he'd peeled from the creamy insides of the puff to Dief.

"Ray," Fraser said with a tired sigh as he noticed Dief making good on the common expression and rapaciously devouring the puff crust.

"It's a special weekend," Ray shrugged, putting the rest of the puffs away, though he'd have to find a baggie to store them in if they didn't eat the rest of the half-dozen before it got too much later. "He can't have butt rubs or lullabies or hugs and kisses--not the kind we're having--so he gets a little extra munchie. That can't hurt, can it?"

"As long as it doesn't become as regular a thing as I hope the hugs and kisses do," Fraser said, kind of offhandedly, then froze, his blue eyes widening like a couple of stunned mountain lakes as he listened to what he'd just said.

Ray only laughed. "Good point. We'll have to take turns giving him brushes and coat-shed rubs and stuff."

"Oh, yes, he's likely due for an undercoat shed soon, isn't he?" Turnbull said, "I usually notice..."

"...because you usually vacuum most of it up, probably," Ray said, smiling, "which you're supposed to leave to the cleaning staff, but which you generally do anyway because the ice queen is royally sick of fighting you on the apron and featherduster issue."

"Well...she *did* say something about 'as long as my other duties were adequately attended to'..." Turnbull defended his maintenance hobby.

"She probably sighed it, more like," Fraser said, starting to clear the table, but Turnbull took away the plate and gave his shoulder a poke back toward the sofa, with a trademark Turnbull "don't be naughty" stare. Fraser just smirked and went.

"Or grumped it," Ray added.

Turnbull said "Ray, go lie down and I'll check your sore places; we'll see if those muscles are up to walking with and sitting on all day--or worse, standing on, if you see what I mean. Some walking would actually be therapeutic, at this point, if done properly, and in appropriate footwear."

"I gotta drop trou in the front room again?" Ray moaned theatrically.

"We've both seen your hind end, Ray."

"Yeah, but it gets kinda old, you know?" Ray sighed. "The amount of pain I'm in also has a lot to do with how much butt exposure I'm willing to tolerate to get rid of it."

Fraser made a show out of rattling the international section into a broad newsprint shield and holding it up in front of himself.

"There, see? Constable Fraser is quite occupied. Now, lie down on the bedroll...there we go. All right...much pain here?"

"Ooh. Sore...about the same there, not serious. Yeah...no...not much...ouch."

"Largely as I thought," Turnbull said, pulling Ray's sweatpants back up. "The larger muscles are sufficiently recovered for normal use, in my opinion; only the smaller muscles, stabilizers and such, still produce sharper pain when pressed. You should get some work on those muscles; they'll give you less trouble in future."

"I'll do that as soon as I figure out how to isolate my gluteus minimus."

Fraser snorted behind his paper.

"As constable Fraser is implying," Turnbull said, with a glance in his direction while his hands worked around Ray's legs and feet, checking for trouble spots and moving the sweatpants out of the way as necessary, "you can't, really; you need to use the muscle groups that encapsulate them--there are some muscle groups one simply can't easily isolate, the most famous and most problematic probably being the lower abdominals. As far as the muscles we're concerned with go, though, and as constable Fraser has pointed out--riding is one excellent method of firming up the muscles in question. There are machines for skiers specifically designed to work the external lateral stabilizers, adductors and such, but there's less focus on certain of the gluteals, and it seems rather wasteful to me--unless one is a very dedicated skier with little opportunity for out-of-season practice--to use the time strengthening only the skiing stabilizers when one could be working the heart, lungs, and several of the larger muscle sets as well. Though I'm told those lateral-stabilizer machines can be aerobically beneficial if used long and hard enough, and that there are several models available."

"There's about fifty puerile comments I'd make here," Ray said from under the sports section--he was lying now on his back on the bedroll--"if I weren't in a room with the two purest mounties in creation. If the ice queen were here, they probably wouldn't even be able to occur to me. Telepathically destroyed before they could start."

"She does have quite an ability to focus one's attention," Turnbull said, accidentally-on-purpose kicking the bedroll as he stood and started back toward the table to begin cleaning up.

"Ow!" Ray swatted after him with the paper, but missed.

A suspiciously snortlike sound came from behind the international section. "Constable Turnbull is very fond of Inspector Thatcher, Ray," Fraser warned.

"She is my superior," Turnbull corrected.

"Of course," Fraser agreed quickly.

Ray reinterpreted "She's his mommy figure. Hey!"

"Something wrong?" Fraser asked nonchalantly.

"I've been attacked by...a little...wolf?" Ray said, and Fraser looked around his paper to see Ray picking a stuffed grey-and-white doglike animal up off his stomach, where it'd apparently landed when Turnbull threw it there, probably with some fair overhand action, to judge both by Ray's reaction and the smacking noise it'd made against the newspaper.

"Ah. That's Heathcliff," Fraser said, and went back behind the international section.

"Heathcliff?"

"Yes. He's a friend of Turnbull's, and probably became irritated with your baiting." Fraser turned a page of the paper, saying no more.

Ray gazed at the toy for a bit, cut his eyes quickly once to see that, while Turnbull might be quite busy with tidying the kitchen area, he was definitely watching Ray--and set Heathcliff carefully on the coffee table, putting a piece of cream puff crust in front of him on part of a wrapper. "There. Have a snack, Heathcliff. No offense meant." He glanced to see whether this treatment was acceptable, and managed to smirk only slightly when he got a look of brow-lifted approval before Turnbull's attention turned entirely to straightening up.

***

"I oughtta get up and shower," Ray sighed. The newspaper was in considerable disorganization on the floor all around the bedroll and a few coffee and tea remains were still undealt-with in the afternoon sun, though the lunch leavings were, of course, history.

"You should," Turnbull agreed, without taking his eyes off the radiological medicine special on the Discovery Channel. His hands easily moved yarn and gleaming blue metal needles. Fraser was reading his book; his feet were still in slightly lumpy white socks and resting on the coffee table. He and Turnbull were both dressed in old but neatly pressed jeans and t-shirts, Turnbull with a crisp-collared blue plaid flannel over his. Fraser had such a shirt lying on the sofa arm next to him, but had somehow never got around to putting it on. The level of Sunday relaxation replacing the air in the room with a honeylike goo might have had something to do with that; Turnbull, maybe because of being younger and more determined, was able to fight this to a degree, apparently at least enough to actually get the flannel on. Come to think of it, Ray thought, Turnbull being so young might indicate an awful lot of things. Like what a total nightmare Fraser must have been at that age, for example. At least there were plenty of signs the younger man would age well, providing he didn't start licking everything in sight. Not that he wasn't pretty cool the way he was, Ray thought, regarding him, wishing he'd take the flannel back off. Fraser in his t-shirt was enough to drool at all afternoon, and Turnbull was pretty droolable dressed as he was, but if he could get 'em both in the same room in their scanties...

Well. Yummy thought, at least.

"Fraser, did you know Turnbull was only twenty-eight?"

"Yes," Fraser said, turning a page. "It's in his file."

"Oh. Yeah, I guess it would be. I guess it's just that when he does get pissed off there's this kind of Moses effect. Suddenly he's the biggest badass in the room; he doesn't seem, y'know, *young*."

"Don't piss him off," Fraser suggested. Turnbull was forced to snort, covering his mouth with one hand. "It's not even as though it's easy to do," Fraser continued to point out. "One would have to work at it in a particularly malicious fashion. One which, I admit, you have frequently shown yourself quite capable of demonstrating."

"That was before I knew he had serious protection." Ray waved without looking up toward where Heathcliff still sat with his unconsumed snack. Dief had taken care of much of the rest of the leftovers, but that one still resided untouched with its intended recipient.

There was a tap at the door, and Turnbull hopped up at once, causing Ray's halfhearted beginning of a sit to reverse immediately and the newspaper to go back over his face. Fraser chuckled at him as the door opened. "Hello, Inspector. Come in."

"Don't get up, Constable," came Thatcher's voice. Apparently she could figure there wasn't any particular need to caution Ray to stay down. "I just came to see if the two of you felt you'd be up for duty tomorrow; I've...decided we can...gloss over the standard sentry hours if necessary."

"Gloss over?" Ray wondered.

"Experience an attack of amnesia and forget to fill in the initial form in the first place," Thatcher clarified in a mutter, leaning over Fraser's legs to pull his socks off and examine his feet again. "Turnbull, sit down."

"Of course, sir," Turnbull said, doing so next to his knitting, "but I'm largely recovered, as you can see. I'm here mostly to see that constable Fraser and detective Vecchio have assistance, if they need it."

"Well, I still think that form must've fallen behind the file cabinet," she said, peering with evident fascination at whatever sticky mess lurked under the gauze she'd pulled up from Fraser's other foot. Ray made a face at the intent way she was examining it, causing Turnbull to smirk and look away as politely as possible. "Yes, Constable Fraser at least has made quite a bit of progress. This needs changing; most of this fluid discharge looks old. Keep them clean and dry, stay off them today and tonight, and I'll look forward to seeing you both bright and early tomorrow, with whatever bandaging is appropriate under your boots, of course. If there's any official RCMP work to be done that involves excessive standing or walking, I'll reschedule it or do it myself, if none of our clerical staff are qualified."

"Yes, sir," Fraser said, putting his book down to finish removing the old dressing she'd just pulled up.

"We'll be there bright and early, sir," Turnbull added, smiling, appropriately enough, brightly.

She glanced behind her, where Kowalski still lay in his sweats and tee and crumbs and newspaper parts in front of the TV, on the bedroll. "Are you all right?" She actually sounded as though she weren't sure--not from the gander she was presently getting.

"Yeah, mostly. Butt's still kinda sore. And I got mauled by Turnbull's attack critter, I'm still recovering," he said, not coming out from under the paper with which he was presently shielding his face from the sun, and waving, he hoped, at the coffee table.

She noticed Heathcliff. "Ah. Hm. I see. In any event, take care of yourselves; I have a few more errands to run--everything closes so early on Sundays." She sighed in irritation, striding for the door. "I'll show myself out." Click.

*And Low Pressure System Meg blows on back outta here,* Ray thought. "She knows, uh, Heathcliff?"

"Of course. She...presented Turnbull with Heathcliff," Fraser said.

"She *what*?"

"He was a birthday gift," Turnbull said, sounding especially proud, beaming at the toy where it sat. "Isn't it a terribly considerate thought?"

Ray stared at them both as they went about their business, Fraser reading and smirking, Turnbull knitting, watching the radiology special, and smiling.

"You people are all a bunch of fucking Canadian weirdos," Ray said, and went back under his paper.

Either unhearing or unheeding--most likely the latter--Turnbull said "Oh, constable Fraser's bandages--I'll just be a tick." He wrapped his knitting and headed for the bathroom.

Fraser tried "Turnbull, I can--"

"I *said* I'll just be a tick," Turnbull called, the cheerfulness in his voice now pushed to near-hardhat levels, and Ray cracked up under his newspaper; he was pretty sure he heard a chuckle from Fraser amidst all the paper rattling.

"Watch it, Fraser, he'll kill you with kindness."

"He may indeed."

***

"I *really* gotta get up and shower."

It was now sufficiently dim in the room that Ray didn't need the paper to keep the light off his face; most of it was coming from the TV and one of the lamps. Ray'd had a nap that lasted maybe three hours, curled on his side in tactile distance of the warmth of the near-silent TV behind him and the company of the Very Softly Spoken Mounties in front of him, who would have been that way out of simple politeness, but whom he suspected, judging by looks he caught on their faces when they saw him apparently half-asleep, also thought he was cute when he was sleeping, which he might have to mix it up with them about later. Dief had come to join him on the bedroll for a while, but that hadn't been enough to disturb him for more than a few seconds while the wolf got situated, and it kept him nice and warm. Whenever Dief left again, later, it hadn't been enough to wake him, especially since somebody had put the bedroll covers over him at that point--he remembered murmuring and snuggling in satisfaction, though he hadn't really woken up--which kind of clinched the thinking-he's-cute-when-he's-asleep thing. He wasn't sure whose ass to kick about it, though, or exactly how to approach it. Or if he even wanted to approach it.

He was really liking this warm-gooey-Sunday thing. He wondered if he could convince them to make it a semi-regular event. Or a regular event.

He wondered if he should get a king-sized bed.

Not make a big deal about it or anything, of course. Just get the thing, and get them over there for a weekend, come up with some reason...he would never even have thought of it before this weekend or considered it if he had, but now...piling in with the two of them sounded really, really nice.

If they could catch Turnbull. He was pretty sure, from the night before, that Fraser wouldn't be a problem, alone, at least. They hadn't done anything but hold each other a bit, talk, spoon up, and Fraser had sung him to sleep; but he'd seemed happier, like the things that had been bothering him, that had made him so upset when the conversation with Turnbull brought them out in his head, were being stroked good now, and it felt good to Ray, too. Fraser might be a little nervous with Turnbull tossed into the equation, but Ray didn't think it was an impossible idea by any means, though he didn't know much about just exactly what Fraser had meant by loving Turnbull, as they'd felt kind of abashed last night by having pinned poor Turnbull like that and made him angry, and they'd talked mostly about each other, what little they'd said before sleeping.

Turnbull had whole other issues, Ray could see that. He'd admitted to being in love with not just one, but both of them, and Ray had a feeling that *still* wasn't the biggest deal on Turnbull's plate. The guy had shown himself to be damn tough when you really put his back to the wall; if he dissolved in tears, it would be for someone else, most likely. For himself, a sniff or two, maybe. If he was defending his deepest darkest deeps, you'd better wear your protective gear; you were NOT gonna get in easy, if at all--he kept himself, in that particular way, at least, to himself. It was easy to miss that he was hiding what was really important because he was so open about everything else--loudly open, and, probably, deliberately misleadingly to some small, reflexive degree. He *was* an open person...mostly.

He was confusing, was what he was. But then, that was hardly new about Turnbull.

"Gotta shower," he repeated, and Fraser, who'd redone his feet at some point without most of the gauze, to judge by the smoothness of his socks now, smiled and told him "I think it might be a moot issue at this point. You probably smell largely like salsa, muffins, roast beef sandwiches and cream puffs, and you haven't moved enough to sweat worth mentioning. If you're comfortable, you might as well stay where you are, if you think you have any hope of sleeping tonight after being so indolent all day."

"Mm." Ray rubbed his eyes, and got a double smile; damn it, he must look cute again. "Stop smiling. Not cute. Turnbull's d'p'rtment."

"Turnbull can and often is undeniably cute," Fraser said, earning a quick, big-eyed look from Turnbull, that got bigger as Fraser went on, "adorable, in fact. But when you're sufficiently comfortable, you radiate your contentment. When it isn't smug, it's quite an attractive characteristic."

"C'mere and I'll 'attractive' you right across the room."

"You already are," Fraser said softly, smiling.

Ray blinked, then burrowed under the covers. "No fair sayin' sweet stuff when I'm tryin' to be pissed. Besides, whattaya think I do on Sundays anyway? Calisthenics?"

"Dief hasn't done any, certainly," Fraser says, "not since this morning. You took him out earlier, Turnbull; I'll--"

"You should stay right here, with those feet."

"I wasn't planning on leaving without--"

Turnbull held up a warning finger, with a raised eyebrow Ray's aunt 'Til had used to zap him to silence with, too, so that he nearly cracked up, and Turnbull said "I'll take Diefenbaker out. I think someone should see to detective Vecchio in the shower. It would be easy for him to slip and aggravate his injuries."

"I did fine yesterday morning," Ray said.

"You took a bath yesterday morning. Unless you were planning on another--"

"No, I can take a shower fine myself. I'll just--"

"Be all the better for a little help. A rub in the wet heat would do you good, too."

"In that case," Fraser said, "I'll take a cab with Dief to the park and let him run himself ragged; you're much more familiar with Ray's particular, ah, strains."

Turnbull suddenly went pale.

"Do I get a vote?" Ray wondered.

"I suppose," Fraser said, pulling an extra pair of socks on over the ones he was wearing before sliding his feet into loosened, untied hiking boots.

"Turnbull. He really knows his way around my ass."

Fraser couldn't take it; he cracked up, and even Turnbull barked a laugh before the scareds could totally drown the impulse. "Give me a break, Turnbull, my butt's in need here," Ray pleaded, getting to his hands and knees to crawl over to where Turnbull was sitting and settle back, making a face, with his hands on Turnbull's knees and his own butt lightly on the floorboards between his feet, where he was using his knees and connected muscles to help keep some weight off it. "C'mon, be the first guy in your neighborhood to reach out to a pain in the ass." Ray continued, as he didn't intend to give them a break to stop laughing and start feeling too weird until he'd got Turnbull to say yes, which he would not go back on if Ray didn't let him.

"All right!" Turnbull managed finally. "Just please, stop it!"

"Okay," Ray said meekly, smiling.

"I've been driven right through the chute," Turnbull sighed.

"Yes, I'm afraid you have," Fraser was cackling as he got up carefully, "but I probably wouldn't have been able to hold out, either."

***

"C'mon in, it's fine," Ray said, peering around the curtain.

Turnbull, stripped to the boxers and looking like an unbelievable fucking hunk, took a deep breath, said "Right," and pulled the boxers off. He didn't have anything to be ashamed of anyplace at all that Ray could see; Turnbull and Fraser both made Ray feel skinny and assless, with Turnbull adding "short" to the mix; yet he knew he was the one of the three of them least uncomfortable naked around the others. He knew what Fraser's reasons were--he wondered what Turnbull's could be. Both of them had to have been repeatedly naked with other men and boys in different kinds of shower and changing rooms, at Depot and other schools--

Oh. Right.

Ray held out a welcoming hand. "My ass don't bite," he said quietly, smiling, and instead of laughing, Turnbull only smiled quietly back, took the hand and climbed in with him.

"Jesus, you're...impressive," Ray said, not even pretending not to look, running his hands gently up and down the long, powerful arms. "In high school I would have killed to be built like you. Legs, especially. What do you do?" he asked, wondering if this might relax the younger man a little. "Anything special, or are you just like Fraser--active as hell in a bunch of different things, so everything gets used in the right balance?"

"Something like that," Turnbull said softly, and his voice strengthened a little as he spoke, especially as Ray let a hand settle to his shoulder and draw him close, raising his eyes to look him in the face as he spoke. "I can hardly pretend to compare to constable Fraser; none of us could. He was...born with something the rest of us will never be able to get by working at it."

"Schyeah, you got that right. There's Fraser and the rest of us, I know what you mean. Somebody left the trapdoor open in heaven and one of the locals went missing, is what happened there, I'm telling you," and Turnbull ducked his head to laugh as Ray continued "So you just do a lot of the same sports?"

"Some of them. I've ridden for years, and I'm considered handy with a dogsled team--I just love dogs, and they seem to trust me. I'm familiar with a form of yoga, and T'ai chi; I believe constable Fraser practices one of the martial disciplines, though I think he uses it more for flexibility and balance conditioning than directly as a hand-to-hand combat technique. I've never asked; I disturbed him at exercises once and was...a bit flustered..."

"Was he naked?"

"No, no--well, almost. In any event I felt...a bit uncomfortable bringing it up after that, so I don't know details. Um..." changing the subject back, he went on "I've also raced snowmobiles, but though that does take a great deal of physical conditioning, it more requires that one *already* have it."

"I hear *that*. Like motorcycling."

"I wouldn't know; I've never ridden a motorcycle."

"And I've never ridden a snowmobile. Still, I can tell you this much; you'd better have the weight and strength to handle that bike--but just getting on and killing yourself over and over isn't going to give it to you. You have to get in shape *first*. One reason I never learned to handle anything but crotch rockets."

Turnbull actually smiled at the euphemism, though apparently he'd never heard it--but then, maybe that was why he was amused instead of embarrassed. "You ride motorcycles?"

"I used to; it was kind of a hobby, but I couldn't ever afford anything but a motorbike, and though an Indian might have been cool, I wanted a particular touring model Harley. But I'd've had to go with a smaller Sportster, probably. Let's face it, yeah, there are women who ride Sportsters, but me, I just...a hundred sixty pounds is a hundred sixty pounds. I've never really been able to pack on anything more, and most of the women who ride full-size cycles *have* been able to pack on some lean weight--more of them is muscle. I'm a lot of skin and bones in comparison. In other words, their hundred thirty or forty or so beats hell out of my hundred sixty."

Turnbull was quiet a moment--Ray wondered if he were trying to decide whether to disagree with Ray on the Ray's body issue, then deciding he didn't have the right, under the circumstances--it was getting easier to figure the guy, at least--and then he said "It's...my understanding that the Sportster is the first model, or one of the first, at least, that Harley-Davidson ever made. Surely you didn't find anything about them that wasn't..."

"Classic? Macho? I didn't, no, but in my neighborhood they called 'em girl bikes, and it's true they're the Harleys most women ride--you gotta be able to control the front of that bike, the whole front end, with nothing but your own strength; sure, leaning into the turns and all, but when it comes down to it, the slightest thing goes off the usual beam and you'd better practically be able to pick the front end of that bike UP if you want to be sure you keep it under control. I'm exaggerating, but not by a lot. Anyway, even bodybuilders, powerlifters, general weight trainers--the women, I mean--usually pick Sportsters, though some of 'em like the bigger styles. Really, though, no matter who you are, it's smart to stay within your upper body ability and lean weight, muscle weight. I'd never have been able to drive the kind of macho bullshit bike I really wanted, not safely, and I figured I'd have Stella on the back a lot of the time, and I wasn't gonna put her at risk 'cause of my pride. Besides, she was less than thrilled with the whole idea when I started to get serious, though at first the whole bad-boy thing was a turn on for her. For a while, she even liked the idea of a bike she could drive, and I'm kinda ashamed now to say that that turned me *off* the idea worse. I didn't want my girl to be able to drive my bike. Can you imagine what the guys would've said? My girl driving my bike?"

Turnbull smiled a little, and blinked, seemed to notice for the first time that Ray had soaped up the bath sponge and was already done with Turnbull's upper left quarter and was starting on the right side now, working his way up the other arm as he talked. He answered over the gentle drain and swoosh of the water. "I'm afraid it wasn't that much of an issue where I grew up, so I can't really identify completely. Athletic ability was considered a desirable and useful trait in men and women alike, especially in matters of--transportation, for example, snowmobiles, riding, dogsleds. Practical things. Strength and skill at such things was seen as attractive no matter which gender you were. I'll admit there was some inequity in that the man of the pair was 'supposed' to be stronger than the woman, though strength was valued in both; but even so, it was far less a hard-and-fast notion than what you describe."

"I can see that, for sure, the way Fraser talks about the places he grew up. Turn around, I'll get your back." Turnbull obediently rotated, and Ray kept talking before he could start to get nervous again. "You raced snowmobiles--bet that takes some practice."

"One does either learn quickly or find something else to do, I'll tell you that much. Anyone it hadn't happened to might not see how easily a snowmobile wreck, even a single vehicle, such as an overwide turn spinout, can be easily fatal, but..."

"I know. Bikes are heavier than they look, and nobody who hasn't seen one really understands what happens in any argument between a car and a bike, moving faster than maybe parking lot speed--that poor asshole on the motorcyle goes into *orbit*. And Frase has talked about snowmobiles enough that I can see one roll could kill you even in deep snow."

"That's true. I was a distance racer, however--I've seldom raced on tracks, so my danger was more often misjudging the land ahead of me, which did happen fairly frequently while I was training, of course, and twice, seriously, later on. I survived, obviously."

"Get beat up bad?"

"I broke my arm once. The second time, nothing was hurt but, as my father used to say, my hide and my pride, when they had to dig me and the snowmobile out from under the windgrown--that's bent way over, along the ground, one word for it, at least--fall of mature ponderosa pines I'd managed to go down on my side and skid under so powerfully I buried us both in them."

"Oooh, that smarts, all right," Ray chuckled. "Got a scar? From the break."

"You just washed it," Turnbull said, turning his head to wave his right arm a little. "You might be able to see it now, if my skin is turning pink at all. I'm fair, and it's been white for a long time now. It shows sometimes when my blood is up."

"Still, ick, compound fracture."

"Yes, I was lucky I didn't suffer worse nerve or muscle damage. But the arm set well, and it's fine now."

"Only real wipeout I can claim was that day with Quinn, Fraser, and the nutball I hoped I would run over and kill when I crashed the window, and that was kind of on purpose, so I don't know if it counts."

"Did it hurt?"

"Fuck yes."

"Then it counts."

Ray grinned, then laughed. "I like that definition. Speaking of that, you got a lot of pushing definition back here. Ever work the bag?"

"Um...work the bag?"

"Boxing. The heavy bag. What I mean is, you look like you do something that involves a lot of upper-body pushing, and working the bag, and exercises you do to go along with it, make some of that happen--like here, and here..." he rubbed around the areas he meant with the sponge. "Upper arms, too. And some front delt and pec development I noticed earlier. Well, after I got done being wowed, that is."

"Wowed?" Turnbull said curiously, evidently not even suspecting the obvious connotation, though he must have known the word usage.

"Yeah. As in *wowed.* You're one gorgeous son of a bitch, Turnbull, and I hope somebody's had the decency to tell you that before. If not, someone who believes it with every part of their body and mind just did."

There was silence, and Ray prepared to launch into a round of questions to distract the younger man again, but Turnbull said softly "Thank you. Thank...thank you very much."

"You're welcome, very much. But I'm not really the best person to ask, I guess. Everyone I love is beautiful to me. So, you don't box, or at least don't work the bag, but you must--"

Turnbull turned and took the sponge from him, gently, dropped it on the floor, and took both his upper arms. "Do you really--" his breath caught, and he inhaled to try again.

Ray answered him first, his voice soft. "Yes, I mean it, Turnbull. I haven't been worshiping you from afar, and I don't get heartsick when I think of you--I get happy. But I love you, and...I love...I love Fraser, I guess. This is all...kind of new to me. But I don't throw that word around. Don't think that. Don't think I say it every time I'm...attracted, or...I've only said it twice before in my life, and meant it like this." He could feel himself turning pink, and dropped his head to let the water wash across it, then lifted and shook it before Turnbull could think he was hiding from him. "I...I'm liking this. I loved this weekend. Love, I guess, there's still this evening. Will you stay tonight, or are you going to try and sneak out on us again?"

The taller man's grey eyes were huge and shining. "No, I won't try to sneak out. I'd like to stay. I'm liking this, too. I loved--love--this weekend, too," he said, using Ray's words as well as he could. "I just..." his head dropped, cascading water from his sandy hair making him blink rapidly.

"It's okay," Ray murmured. "It's big for me and Fraser, too. Really big. Don't feel like it's not, for either of us. It is. But we're really all friends here. We've all got each other, here. There's nothing we can't say, or ask, or anything like that. No secrets, right?"

Turnbull lifted his head. "No. No secrets. Well..." Turnbull glanced away.

"Privacy issues," Ray said quickly, "we all got privacy issues. I'm not saying it's mandatory, not like we all gotta dump our whole hearts and souls out on the floor right now in front of everybody. I mean, it *never* works like that, there's always gradual learning stuff. It has to be that way. There's stuff you can't find out any other way, and it'd just be too much for anybody at all, otherwise. But, I like that this weekend happened. It's a really good thing. It's been a great thing, I been...feeling all kinds of things, and they've all been good, even if most of 'em are... surprising."'

"You weren't going to say 'surprising'," Turnbull said, with a little smile, a relaxed one, not one of his small tight ones.

Ray picked the bath sponge up, grinning, and started stroking in gentle circles over Turnbull's chest. "No, I was gonna say 'totally fucking gobsmacking'. How about you? You feeling okay? I know you're nervous--we all are a little--but you wouldn't be here if you didn't want to be, would you? If it's really...like I said last night, if you need space bad, if you just don't know how to get away without offending us--"

"No. No, since our...talk, I'd--I'd simply tell you I needed to go, and go. You told me, you'd let me, and not hold it against me. Both of you. I believe you; I believe...that none of us has anything to prove."

"Then it's all okay," Ray agreed, smiling, "all okay. No pressure on anyone. But...well, since we're in a good spot for it anyway... think I might have another kiss? I've really liked the last ones. Don't have to do anything else."

Turnbull nodded, and raised his hands to Ray's shoulders, and Ray was dismayed to feel a faint tremble. "Hey, hey--" he automatically put his arms around Turnbull's waist and squeezed him close. "Don't be scared, I'm nothing to be scared of. I'm just a funny-looking half-blind cop with a sore butt." Ray held him tight and rocked a little.

"It's only..." Turnbull began just as Ray realized he might've misconstrued at least part of the tremble. "It's not all nerves, Ray," Turnbull whispered, as Ray felt the taller man's erection firming rapidly between their bodies. "It's the idea of...another kiss." Ray leaned back and saw the tentative smile, answered it with one of his own, reached up to touch Turnbull's cheek and pressed their wet mouths together softly.

Then the kiss was less soft, a firm push together with a wet smack to separate them, and a smile at each other that had them both blushing.

"More?" Ray asked

"Mm," Turnbull said, and then he was holding Ray close, using his wider-angle embrace to keep Ray pressed tight despite all the slippery suds, and they were kissing for real, mouths opening and closing, wet lips rubbing, tongues dancing and sliding and stroking. Ray was hard too, in about ten seconds of this.

He didn't know when, at a point when they pulled away from about a hundred short, soft, breath-stealing kisses so they could get some air, Ray whispered "Wow. This is....new."

"New?" The grey eyes opened to shine at him in question, now.

"You're bigger. My only other guys weren't really bigger--Fraser's bigger, but he's not taller. You are."

"I--if you--"

"I like it, I like it you can hold me so I don't slide off to the side or whatever, even in here with the soap." He slid his arms around front, resting his palms against Turnbull's chest. "I just like that you can...that you can hold me like this. It's new. It's neat. Nothing big, just...kinda cool."

"I'm glad you like it," Turnbull whispered.

"Kiss me again," Ray whispered back, and Turnbull obliged.

This time the kiss was slow, hot, intense, and their now mostly soap-rinsed bodies got heavily involved as their hands began to roam. "God..." Ray whispered, as Turnbull's mouth moved hungrily down the side of his neck. "God, yeah...oh, do it, touch me, I wanna feel it, I...God, wait--" he pulled away a little, to a look of bleary confusion from Turnbull.

"I was...this was supposed to...this is fast, faster than I...I didn't get you in here to..."

"Ray, touch me," Turnbull murmured desperately, grabbing him and pulling him back, sliding his hands down Ray's back and grabbing his ass--carefully, even now, and the squeezing and massaging was gentle, arousing even in his current state of soreness.

"Oh, buddy, you *got* it," Ray whispered back before their mouths joined again, and he held Turnbull steady with one hand on his ass as they moved together, and brought the other around to slide under his balls, moving them gently in his fingers, and Turnbull whimpered as one knee nearly went out from under him in his shiver. "Oh," he groaned as their mouths separated momentarily, but he had captured Ray's again in a second and was mirroring what Ray was doing, at least until he wrapped Ray's cock in his hand and gave it a slow, firm stroke from top to bottom.

Ray made a noise deep in his chest and quickly found Turnbull's cock--nice and big, good handful, yeah, extra skin, big deal? Apparently not; Turnbull was rocking just like Ray did when someone did that to *his* dick.

They moaned, and rubbed, ending up with Turnbull's back against the shower wall for some stability and Ray standing between his legs, Turnbull's feet slightly forward and separated to give them some maneuverability, and they were using it, by God.

They finally lost each other's mouths in panting and frantic movement, and they held each other stable and close with one arm and hand as their others began to blur with speed, and Turnbull began to keen in a soft, high voice, his head rolling against the shower tiles, back and forth, his neck arching, and Ray stared up at him, mesmerized, mouth open, as Turnbull's eyes squinched tighter and tighter and Ray began to flip his thumb hard over the head of Turnbull's cock on each stroke and Turnbull's keening ended in a sharp cry, another, one more, and then a panting litany of softer cries as his knees gave way and he slid down the shower, unable to keep his rhythm going on Ray, not that Ray cared, he just wrapped the fingers of his other hand around Turnbull's and three quick strokes later was joining him, crying out and moaning and panting, in the floor of the shower.

They were both shocked as shit by the sudden thudding and cursing of the door opening and someone falling through. The door was shut again as Fraser's voice came, panting, "It's...it's only me. I don't...oh, God. I don't suppose there's enough hot water left for me to get in after you? I'm rather a..."

Ray, moved by not-so-deep intuition, said "Frase, get in here. Now." There was a brief period of thudding and breathless mutters, then Fraser, who was still in his spunked-in boxers, staggered over the tub's edge, and both Turnbull and Ray helped him down to the floor, where there wasn't room for all of them without piling, but hey, up with piling, and anyway standing up was out of the question for anybody right now.

Fortunately, there *was* still plenty of hot water.

"What happened?" Ray asked, as Fraser's eyes moved first to his, then Turnbull's, in an imploring look.

Turnbull, startling them both, leaned over and kissed Fraser, holding the back of his neck with one hand. "It's all right," he panted softly. "It's all right, Fraser. What happened?"

"Yeah, buddy," Ray said, "here, let's get you out of these..." they helped Fraser with his shorts as he spoke.

"There's not much to say," he admitted, lifting up so they could pull the shorts off him and dump them over the side onto the bathroom floor. "I came in the front door. I'd started undressing in the hallway--my outer clothes, I mean--since it had begun to rain again outside. I was coming toward the bedroom, I thought--and I heard the shower--and Turnbull--and then Ray...and I--" he lifted his hand and laid it against his now-spent penis, his eyes closing, his head falling forward as water slicked and straightened his soft dark curls. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have..."

"If not us, who, Frase?" Ray asked, and picked up the hand Fraser had laid over his own softened genitals, and kissed the hand, and laid his own free one in its place. Turnbull pressed his own on top of Ray's.

"Exactly, Fraser," he said softly. "Who if not us?"

Fraser moaned softly and lowered his hand from Ray's grasp to press theirs against himself, holding them there. "Thank you."

"It's okay, Frase, really. It is. But what--it must've--been, like--"

"Immediate, or almost," Fraser said, his voice still shaking. "Just hearing you, knowing all of a sudden what...that you were both--right *then*, both of you, in here..."

"One touch and you came all over yourself?" Ray asked, a smile turning up one corner of his mouth.

"About two strokes, but yes, that's essentially it," he said.

"No wonder you're shaking," Turnbull said, stroking Fraser's shoulders, petting his hair back from his face.

"Next time we'll all be in the same room," Ray promised. "Same shower, same bed, same whatever."

"Yes," Turnbull agreed. "And you never need to apologize again, Fraser," he added, lifting Fraser's chin with a fingertip and kissing that soft, red mouth again. "Even if we don't know. Consider it a blanket permission." He smiled, then looked bashfully away--which, since his and Ray's hands were still resting against Fraser's body just where they were, was a very Turnbullish mix.

***

"There's no way we can all sleep in here," Ray sighed, meaning the bed, where they were all currently piled. "Much as I hate admittin' it. We'll have to drag the bedroll back in from the front room."

"I don't know about that. You spent all day on it, and it didn't get an airing," Turnbull said. "It has to be getting a bit dusty by now."

"I'll take it apart and beat on it for about half an hour, and I'll be the one to sleep on it since you used it last night."

"It ought to be me, Ray, to be strictly fair," Fraser said. "I'm the only one who hasn't used it yet." He was lying with his head on Turnbull's chest, an arm wrapped tightly around the younger man's body. He was still apparently feeling clingy, and Turnbull was conveniently large and easy to cling to.

Ray was lying with his feet tucked up, his head on Fraser's stomach. "No, it's my bedroll. My special beddie-bye. How about this; you two make it fit to sleep on--I know you got special magic mountie powers that way--and I'll sleep on it. Sound fair?"

"Fraser and I will certainly use our magic mountie powers on the--hey," he said softly as Fraser pretend-bit his pectoral, smiling. "But I'll sleep on it. I'm still in the best shape of the three of us, and I found it perfectly comfortable last night."

"You shouldn't have to be all by yourself down there..."

Turnbull said "Neither should you. And I won't be in the front room; I'll be here, right by the bed, tripping you as you try to go to the bathroom."

"You do that, we pee on you," Ray informed him.

They all chuckled as they began to stir in preparation to get enough bedspace ready for all three of them. "I have a clean set of sheets you can wrap around it, use the wrappers on it now for something to lay it on in the floor here."

"I'll open the windows and sweep, cut down the dust again," Fraser said, and Turnbull started to disagree, and Ray picked up a pillow and began to beat them both soundly. "Stop it stop it stop it or we will never get anything done! Now whoever calls a chore first gets it! The End! Got it? My house, my rule. Do like I say."

"Absolutely."

"I'm not arguing."

Both mounties stared, big-eyed and impressed.

"Hey," Ray said, dropping the pillow and grinning. "I'm gonna have to remember that one."

Fraser sighed. "Oh, dear."

From the doorway, Dief laughed.

In the front room, there was an odd haze of light that barely flashed and vanished, with a twinkle, near Heathcliff.

***

When the dust had cleared, literally and figuratively, Fraser was a bit aggrieved and Turnbull was on the bedroll. There had never been a chance of another outcome, but Fraser would have had no way of knowing that.

Dief lay next to Turnbull as the latter was stuffing Heathcliff deep into the bedroll's folds. He stared into Turnbull's eyes, and Turnbull said, again soundlessly, for the benefit of Dief's eyes only, "Thank you, but no. They would ask why, and it isn't their normal policy for you to sleep in here, anyway. I would have to actually request it. Yes, Heathcliff will look after me. Thank you again."

Unsatisfied, Dief bumped his head into Turnbull's and then turned and left the room.

From bed height, there was a puzzled quiet as the mild fussing over blankets and such, mostly coming from Ray, ceased. "Huh," the detective said. "Turnbull, you got some kinda magic touch with him. Not even any doughnuts and out he goes without a word."

"I asked him to keep an eye on the front of the house for me." A minor lie, unimportant; it did far more good in its preventing their worry, than harm by its simple existence. Turnbull told far more complex and significant diplomatic lies every day in his job. A diplomatic lie--both in his opinion and apparently in constable Fraser's, since he practiced the same policy--was simply not the same as an outright lie, one intended to deceive or betray only for personal gain. Inspector Thatcher's job, for example, called for fairly large-scale diplomatic untruths as a matter of course, making the smaller ones he and constable Fraser practiced look positively...well, positive--as opposed to a negative on the x axis, not as the word was used sometimes, to connote "good" as opposed to "bad".

He felt easy, and comfortable, right now; knowing they were up there, but a reasonable distance away. They couldn't see him without peering over the edge. With the light off, he'd be indistinguishable until their eyes acclimated and then only if they made even more effort.

Fraser's senses would be partly filled with Ray. Everything was fine.

When the lights did go out, after they'd dragged him to the bed once more for a final round of goodnight kisses and caresses, he held Heathcliff close, buried his face in the soft fake fur, and sobbed, shaking, silent. He knew how to cry utterly silently, and he did. He felt his love for what was between them, up there in the bed, and let it flow out of him into the plush toy, and hugged the toy, and kissed its soft head, and held it crushingly tight, and loved it and loved it and loved it, love pouring out of him and nothing coming back, the closest thing he had to love, the thing he got instead--until he thought he'd die, from sadness, from loneliness, from sheer, battered exhaustion.

*I love you* said Heathcliff, swirling around Turnbull and the toy.

"I know. Thank you. Thank you for letting me love you, for letting me feel this through you," he whispered soundlessly into the toy's ear. He thought about dissolution, nonexistence, peace.

*you always can* came the silent reply. *you always can*

"They don't know, but they love me in a way, they genuinely like me, they want me around, they want to touch me. They can't know they'll never touch me, but they're my friends, as much of a friend as I can have, Heathcliff, they'd even hold me while I cried, if I could do that; but I can't, because in the end they'd have to ask why, and I can't ever, ever tell them. So thank you, you must have brought this to me somehow, as much as I could ever have, you brought me. Thank you."

*I love you*

"I love you, too."

*you can always love them through me* *when you need to* *let me out* *and I'll be here*

"Someday, it will kill me."

*I know*

"I won't be afraid if you're there. If you'll be them for me, so that they can...be there."

*I will* *I'll let you* *I'll be there*

"Stay with me tonight, Heathcliff. Don't leave again until I sleep."

*I won't* *I'll be here* *feel what you need to feel* *rest when you can*

"I love you, always."

*I know*

***

Something was moving over Ray; it was serge, he could feel it, but he was pretty certain the body pressed behind his was Fraser, by the smell, so--"Hey, Turnbull, where you..."

"Ssh." He felt a soft kiss on his forehead, then his cheek. "I was hoping not to wake you; you don't have to be up yet. I was just telling Fraser that the kettle is hot and flapjacks are keeping warm in the oven. Your coffeemaker should be kicking in soon; I didn't want it to wake you yet. Diefenbaker has been out, and has had his usual breakfast plus a flapjack with butter and a bit of syrup, so don't believe him if he says I didn't give him one." Turnbull had in fact given him two, along with vocal thanks and fur-rubbing for the wolf's kind consideration all weekend when his human partners were--Thank God--unable to fathom either that Turnbull had what they would consider a problem, or what it was--but the extra flapjack could remain a secret.

"Mmm, no leaving," Ray complained sleepily, clutching at Turnbull. He got him by one arm and the lanyard and nearly succeeded in pulling him over, but Turnbull dexterously disengaged Ray's fingers--he was used to getting toddler's hands neatly out of it without discomfort to the hand or the lanyard, so Ray didn't pose much of a problem--and let Ray pull him close for a hug, using his free arm for it.

"I regret the necessity myself, but it's time to open the consulate."

"You shouldn't walk that far..."

"I'm going to take a cab, for once; you're right, it's too soon for long walks in my uniform boots."

"Mm..." Ray pouted. "You get in trouble if the...Inspector has to open the consulate with her own freaking key?"

"No, not this morning, I shouldn't think; she might be expecting us to run a little late, and be willing to overlook it in return for getting two functional underlings that won't require any additional paperwork with any convoluted explanations on it being sent to Ottawa. But it's a matter of only about fifteen minutes in any event. I like to have the consulate open and her tea brewed when she arrives, if Fraser is sleeping elsewhere."

"You did kiss Fraser goodbye too?" Ray demanded suspiciously.

"Yes, Ray," Fraser soothed from behind Ray, kissing the back of his neck. "But he's going to see me again in about forty-five minutes anyway."

"So? Can't kiss at work. Lemme see."

"Not exactly a hardship," Turnbull considered out loud, to an answering smirk from Fraser, a pleased smile immediately following it, and another warm kiss on that soft, red mouth. As Ray might put it, the appearance of Fraser's lips did not write any checks that couldn't be cashed by the way they felt to the touch. "There. Will you be picking Fraser up today for liasing?"

"Yeah. Around lunch. Which you're gonna come eat with us, right?"

"If this is an invitation, I'd be delighted," Turnbull said, nuzzling Ray's cheek.

"It is, and you are, and you're gonna come back here with us tonight, right? I'm gonna cook. I know it'll be pathetic next to what you can do, but maybe you can give me pointers. I'm gonna try to get out of paperwork hell as quick as I can and make my special pot roast, see what you think of it."

"I'm sure it will be delicious."

"So you'll come?"

He kissed Ray's forehead again. "Of course. Now I have to go. And you two should be getting up soon as well." He caressed Ray's head, then Fraser's, with the hand that wasn't now holding the Stetson he'd picked up from the foot of the bed. "Drive carefully today. I'll see you later."

"Thank you for breakfast, Turnbull," Fraser made sure to say, or maybe it was just reflex, since he seemed to be falling asleep again with his face in Ray's hair. Turnbull wasn't worried; Diefenbaker would get them up, though Turnbull had shut off the alarm clock.

"We wouldn't want all the tea water to steam away," Turnbull reminded him, smiling, just as the fragrance of coffee slowly began to steal into the room.

"Mm," Ray complained, knowing he'd never get back to sleep now. "You won't stay to check our feet?"

"Fraser's quite capable of that. I think all three of us, with perhaps some protective additions to our normal sockwear, are ready to face the world again. Thank you for your hospitality this weekend, Ray." He stepped back, then left the room quickly before he could get roped into any more conversational sallies, whether thanks or some such from either of them, more sleepy questions or demands from Ray, or anything else that he was about a heartbeat from tossing his Stetson onto the dresser and climbing on top of them both in response to.

In the front room, Dief got up to see him to the door, and he gave the wolf a ruffle around the ears. "Thank you again, Dief. Your concern was...very reassuring. I'll see you when you arrive at the consulate. Oh, and you probably ought to go climb on the bed to inspire Fraser to wake up enough to make you get down; they were looking like they might slip back, unless the coffee aroma can drag Ray into the kitchen."

Dief thought the smell of the flapjacks ought to do that on its own, and Turnbull smiled. "Thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed them. See you shortly--" and he slipped out, letting the door close behind him.

As he trotted down the stairs of Ray's apartment building, careful but not overcautious, he was whistling, a smile around his eyes, and a very pronounced lightness in his slightly twingy feet.

***

"Mm," Ray said, wriggling and squirming against Fraser with absolutely no goal in mind; he just liked feeling Fraser there to squirm against. "Guess we got goodies waiting, that should make it easier to get up."

"No doubt what he was thinking when he got up early enough to make them before waking us."

Ray sighed, smiling, eyes closed, still sleepy. "I really think I could love him. I mean, I love him, but I think I...you know...time and everything..."

"I know just what you mean, Ray," Fraser murmured. "And I feel the same way. And I am eminently grateful to him for helping me...become more aware of the feelings I was burying for you, the fears and...needs. And other things that I'm afraid I deal very poorly with on my own. I have the chance, now, to make you understand."

"I think I do, some of it, anyway. I know what you were saying in the bathroom, and you're right, nearly forty means time to shit or get off the pot--uh, no pun intended--no matter what you're talking about, if you've been in any kind of holding pattern about anything that's important to you. He helped me that way too, you know. But..."

"You're still worried about him."

"There's still something he's not telling us."

"I think he did tell me part of it, Ray, and if I'm not mistaken, he gave me permission to discuss it with you night before last, when he tried to sneak out. His...statement was very brief, but I think it's enough for us to..."

"To run with?"

"To...begin with. I *am* pretty sure it's not the kind of thing a direct approach would help at all with."

"No *shit*. If he doesn't wanna talk about something he's got in there, he ain't gonna do it. It'll take time, but maybe...maybe we can...I dunno. Get him to at least...tell us a little more, maybe. One thing I know you don't do in situations like that, and this is from being on his end of things, is tell the person that it can't be that bad, or that it can't be unsolvable, or any of that shit, because a lot of the time that flat isn't true. Usually people who say 'Don't push me on this because you can't help' are *right*, especially if it's something that isn't new."

"Can't we at least...offer?"

"'Course we can do that. More importantly, we can offer to *know* what it is without insisting on trying to fix it, tell him that, that he can tell us and we won't be on his case about 'fixing' whatever it is. That he can let us know without being afraid he'll have to deal with that, because that could wreck everything, if we tried it on him--it can always wreck things, when a friend--or someone closer--just won't *leave* a problem that--at least for the time being--*can't* be fixed. It's more than enough to drive people away, if it's a big deal thing. I don't want to drive him away. I just wanna know. Maybe even if we can't fix it for him, we can make things a little easier on him, you know?"

"I'm going to have to let you take the lead there, Ray. I'll tell you what he told me, but I'm afraid...without the two of you, I'm...not very..."

"I get it, Frase. It's okay. And now the smell of breakfast is making me think that if you came with me, I could actually get up. Let's go see what he left us, and not give any to the mutt, and get ready for work. Oughtta be easy, fortified by Turnbull's idea of a good breakfast."

"It should indeed." Fraser managed to sit up, and Ray followed like a nail clinging to a magnet, making Fraser smile. "Do you think we can get up like this?"

"Sure." And they could, wrapped close, not separating until they reached the kitchen and, with various sleepy vocalizations of delight, did the last prep on the waiting breakfast and dug in happily. Dief, resting under the table, wasn't even begging as his tail thumped the floor in contentment.

"I think Turnbull gave him more than one flapjack."

"Turnbull is a softy and he likes to share."

"Had you...ever thought of calling him anything besides Turnbull?" Fraser wondered.

Ray blinked. "Why? That's what he likes."

"Did he tell you so?"

"No. It's just...well, I guess I don't know why I think so, but it seemed kind of obvious." He stuffed more flapjack in his mouth--blueberries and all--and made a sound of almost obscene pleasure as he chewed. "I'd love him anyway, but I love his cooking, too."

"Good. I happen to know that he enjoys having his efforts in that department appreciated."

"Cooking for one is never any fun. Hope you guys like my pot roast. I do good baked potatoes in the same pot, sometimes sweet potatoes too, but in their own dish."

"There's no need for you to go too far out of your way. I'm sure pot roast and potatoes will do us very well. After all, we have to consider the way Turnbull's been feeding us for close to three days. Well, counting this morning, I guess about three days, isn't it?"

"You're always telling me I'm too skinny."

"*I'm* not," Fraser said pointedly. "I'm going to have to consider some further alterations to my workout routine--having to do one at all is a rather foreign concept, something I've had to adopt since I was transferred away from the Territories and other northern provinces, and I'm concerned all this soft living will catch up with me the way it has with Dief."

Dief grumbled.

"We'll still do your runs," Fraser promised him. "In fact, we'll probably be adding a day."

"Don't you do about twenty miles a week with him?"

"He's part husky, Ray, and they've been bred for I don't know how many generations to love to do, and be well-designed to do, one thing--run. They love running, and need it for their health. A forty-minute run five times a week should be well within my capacities at this climate, and I do need to add some more specific exercises to prevent loss of other capabilities I'll be needing up north. Whenever I go, and however long I stay," he added, to let Ray know there was no need for alarm that Fraser was thinking along those lines.

"Turnbull and I had a talk in the shower before we got busy on each other--sounds like he does a lot of the things you do. Looks like he does, too. You guys could get together on it, maybe trade Dief runs, give each other some more time for your other, whatever, maintenance I guess. And I might even join you. You guys are always going to be bigger than me, but there's no reason I can't maybe get back into it, try to put on some more lean weight--I mean, good company is a real good incentive." He smiled at Fraser, downing his chocolate-laced coffee.

"Considering the company, you might have to put up with quite a few helpful suggestions concerning your diet," Fraser pointed out. He knew from experience, Ray was aware, that when those suggestions grew helpful past a certain point, they could make him kick shins and take names until the suggestor was aware that he'd been more than heard and realize it was time to shut up.

"I don't think it'd be that bad, coming from Turnbull," Ray said, "especially since he'd offer to show me recipes. And even his healthy food tastes good, where yours tastes like healthy food." Ray made a face.

Fraser chuckled. "Whatever you think. You're more than welcome, with both or either of us, as I'm sure you know, but please--don't hurt yourself trying to keep up with us at certain activities. Work up."

"I can run with you, no problem. Not five times a week, maybe, but I can keep up when I do. Other stuff, guess we'll wait and see. I was wondering; he does some kind of yoga, and T'ai chi. Either of you be interested in doing that with me?"

Fraser blinked. "I...certainly, Ray, but that's very involved learning. I think some classes might be in order before I worked with you alone, or Turnbull did. He'd probably even be pleased to attend them with you. For that matter, it might not be a bad idea to review the basics myself with a trained instructor." Fraser finished his tea and stood, taking his dishes with him to the sink. Ray was pleased to note that he didn't try to take Ray's, and the serving dishes would probably, as usually, be dealt with by whoever reached them first. Turnbull's presence hadn't permeated the apartment with the kind of mountie courtesy that could get tiresome and terminal if it went on unchecked, Ray thought, and smiled to himself.

Fraser was smiling too, and humming to himself as he washed his plate. Ray grinned at him, joining him there at the counter with his own things. "I ever tell you I like when you sing?"

"Yes, numerous times the last few days. Which is interesting, since until recently, you've never even acted like you could stand it when I sing."

"I'm a big, fat, huge liar. Or else it was a bad time, a couple of times. I like your singing, Fraser, I think I made that pretty clear while you were petting my butt."

They both cracked up, and Ray said "It sounds like something your mother might tell you; never believe anything a man says when you're petting his butt."

"Words of wisdom. But I believe you."

"Good. You believe I love you?"

Fraser looked up at him, his eyes big and shining, and smiled, the water swooshing unheeded over his hands and down the drain. "Yes. I do. Thank you. And I love you, too."

"Don't mention it." Ray kissed him. "We better shower separately or one of us might slip and fall on the other guy's dick."

Fraser snorted. "That might keep us from work, at that. In fact, we'll be running late in another minute or two. Set those to soak and I'll see about the rest of this, and getting packed away, while you shower. You can get me to the consulate on time in the car."

"Right." He leaned over to kiss Fraser, paused, did it again ostentatiously, to a small giggle from both of them, and then managed to haul himself away, heading for the bathroom. He was whistling. He knew he'd heard the tune before--it wasn't whatever Fraser had been humming--but he wasn't sure where...

***

Under the table, Dief saw a little trail of sparkles follow Ray into the bathroom, evaporating before anyone else saw. He smirked in canine/lupine satisfaction.

***