The Consulate is quiet. Inspector Thatcher and Constable Turnbull have
left for the day, returning to their homes and the lives they lead outside
of work. As always, I remain here, because I have nowhere else to go.
No-one to go home to. Only Diefenbaker, who does not care where he sleeps,
as long as he is with me. I am grateful for his loyalty and friendship.
But tonight it is a poor substitute for what I truly need. 

//Ray.// I
let his name curl through my body. Seductive, alluring, yet
so golden and
beautiful I can barely stand it. Sometimes it hurts even
to look at him,
so full of energy and life. I feel old by comparison,
though we are the
same age. Weighed down as I am by hidden emotions and
tenacious control,
I'm amazed that I can keep up with him. We connect
on a level that is
almost uncanny in its completeness. 

The idea makes me smile wryly. Not
*quite* complete. There are things
I keep hidden from everyone, even Ray.
*Especially* Ray. Things that
would cause him to turn away from me, if he
knew that I felt them. That
I *feel* them, for him. 

Oh, he wouldn't be
disgusted, or even insulted. He wouldn't belittle
me in any way. Ray is
too - too *Ray* to every hurt anyone he cares about
like that. He has no
hang-ups about such things. He would possibly even
be flattered by my
feelings for him, in a way. But it would change things
between us, and
that I cannot risk. He would see me differently. The
easy camaraderie, the
sense of brotherhood we share, which I have come
to depend on so heavily -
it would all vanish, and I would be alone again.
Lonely. I would lose
everything that I hold dear, save for the wolf at
my side. 

I do not
think I could survive that again.

So it is that I sit here, in my small,
dark office, with Dief on the
floor beside me and a bottle of
twenty-year-old Scotch whiskey open on
the desk in front of me. The bottle
was sealed when the evening began.
It is now decidedly less than full. I
squint in the dimness, aiming for
accuracy. The bottle is, in fact,
two-thirds empty. Not a bad effort
for a man who professes not to indulge
in strong drink. The liquid is
the same colour as my boots, I note idly,
examining them as they rest
on the surface of my desk with my feet still
in them. It is something
I have watched Ray do many times. Now it helps me
feel closer to him.

I know I am pathetic. Sitting here alone in the
middle of the night,
steadily drinking myself into forgetfulness for love
of a man I know
I cannot have. It is a situation derived straight out of a
romance novel,
and a bad one at that. Still, I cannot refrain from
imagining a suitable
conclusion: Ray storming into the room, eyes and hair
wildly dramatic,
declaring his love for me in front of God and Queen and
man, and meaning
every word. I let myself revel in the thought for just a
moment. If only
... 

Then I laugh harshly, saluting myself with the glass
and drinking deeply.
It will not happen. Ray does not love me. He does not
even know me. Not
the deepest parts of me, which no-one has ever seen. I
would show him,
if he wished it. I would give him everything, all of
myself, if he wanted
me to. 

And there's the rub. Ray, for all his
sensitivity and beauty, does not
see me. He sees nothing but Stella, the
misty memory of his only true
love, who has moved on. I can see the signs
in both of them. After living
with it for so long, it is second nature for
me to see unrequited love
and the pain it causes. I have vowed never to
inflict that kind of pain
on Ray. I do not wish to lose him like that, the
way he has lost Stella.
But in this, as in most affairs of the heart, he
has the advantage. Because
at least he *had* Stella, if only for a while. 

The slow ticking of the clock is the only sound in the room. I reach
for
the bottle again, noting my unsteady hand and blurred vision. Good.
The
liquor has done its work well. Tonight, at last, I might sleep without
dreaming of what might have been. Then I feel the first tears slide down
my face, and I know the true depths of despair. When did I start lying
to
myself? 

I take the bottle with me when I climb into bed. It pains me
that I am
brought so low, to use alcohol as a crutch like this. But the
alternative
is to show myself to Ray, knowing that he will reject me, and
that, I
fear, would destroy me completely. 

And yet, some small vestige
of hope remains. I laugh bitterly and disdain
the glass, raising the
bottle in a final toast to the stubborn futility
of love. Then I close my
eyes in pretence of sleep and await the coming
of dawn. 

FINIS