Author's Website: http://N/A

Disclaimer: not mine, not making money, make no claim -- but if they show up in a sale bin somewhere, yippee!

Author's Notes: This is for Beth, Livia, JiM. They make me happy. = )

Story Notes: Um, some vague refs for CotW, but really, really vague. It's R
because of language rather than one or two non-specific sexual refs,
but that's really the only reason.
The title is shamelessly stolen from Great Literature and Damned Good
Film.

A Room With A View

by Carmen Kildare

Fraser and me, what we've got going is an honest-to-God courtship. That's exactly what he called it, like he was Dudley Doright and I was Penny Pureheart or whatever the hell her name is. He got all pink when he said it, too. Cracked his neck so loud Dief damn well musta heard it.

But he's right, he's got it right. We're not rushing this, at least the relationship part. I mean, hell, we're not making like monks, either, and Fraser, he's pretty damn red-blooded under that uptight Mountie con-job he pulls on most of the people. It's been a pretty wild ride, on that side of things. But all the same, we're taking our time with each other. Learning. Listening. Talking. And not talking, just communicating. Going places, seeing things. Remembering the little things. And I like it.

With me and Stella, I was always the one with all the little things, and hell, most of the big things, too. It's what's expected, you know? The dinner thing and the movie thing and the flower thing and the dancing thing. And I liked it. Made me feel good to make her feel good. Made me feel shitty when I couldn't make her feel good anymore. When I realized she didn't want that from me anymore.

Fraser, he wants that from me. And, even though it knocks me on the ass to realize it, I want that from him. Not the flowers and dancing thing -- I got allergies and he's got the rhythm of a stick. I'd be better off dancing with Dief. But there're all sorts of little things, you know? Like when he stays over, and he's gone before I manage to pull my head together, and he leaves me a scrap of poetry, or a quote from something he read, or a box of Smarties 'cause he thinks the chocolate in them tastes better than M&M's. Stupid stuff, that let's me know he's thinking about me.

Fraser, he's a bit harder to do things for. Not a man that gives stuff away easily. Afraid of asking and not getting, I think. Damn near lives like one of those monks. Trapeze, Trappist? Something like that. I mean, there's a bunch of stuff I could get him, his new place is pretty damned empty. Vecchio tells me the old one was just as bad, and hell, I know he had pretty much jack squat at the Consulate. More stuff in his cabin, but still -- it's all useful stuff, practical. Not the sort of thing I'm going for with this.

So I have to ponder, you know? Sift through all the little things, and that ain't so bad, 'cause it means I get to think of Fraser and that's not exactly a hardship, unless of course I'm trying to concentrate on work or perps or Welsh. Makes tuning Dewey out a lot easier, though. So I sometimes trade his poetry with song lyrics, or snatches of stuff that I found in college and never quite let go of. Yeats, for some reason, still have him rattling around my head, and Frost, too. And e.e. cummings. "She being brand" got me laid seven ways to Sunday. Good mileage on the metaphor with Fraser, if the metaphor's right.

He likes camping, too. We do that, some weekends. Manly men, getting back to nature. Seem to have got a taste for it on our adventure. Certainly got a taste for the Mountie. So that's usually good -- plan a little trip out, kidnap him and the wolf and we go sniff pine trees and swab calamine on each other's bites. Romantic as hell, at least to the Mountie, so it works for me, too.

Right now, though, I'm still thinking. He's had that look in his eyes, like the time I found him out on the reservoir, fishing for floaters. He's feeling homesick again. Not that he says anything; I think he's afraid I'll panic. Hyperventilated all over him when our adventure finished up, and even though it got us to the point where we are now, it means he thinks I'm a bit, uh, sensitive about the whole separation thing. Since he got a front-row seat for my whole Stella freak-out when she was with Orsini, he's probably got a good reason for thinking that.

Hell, I know he's got a good reason for thinking that. Thought of him leaving makes me crazy. But the thing is, I know he ain't leaving. Know it in my gut. And I know this is the long haul, know it like I know Stella and me never could've been the long haul. Hell, I'm forty, I'm taking the time to court my partner and I told my mum -- but Jesus Christ, not my dad -- that I'm queer. And Frase lets me wear the hat. I'm feeling good about this.

In a few months, we'll have enough leave time saved up to go up, live rough in his cabin, maybe do some sledding and adventuring, and that'll help. In a few years, I'll take early retirement, part pension, head up there and live there. He says he's happy with that deal, and so'm I. Canadians are nice people, even if they're a bunch of freaks. But none of that does me any good right now, when he's feeling the heat and the grit of the city, when he's all Michael Valentine, wandering planet Earth and thinking about Mars.

)0(

It bugs me for a few days, 'cause I'm supposed to be the guts one, the guy who goes with intuition, but I've got nothing, nada, zip. And he's still got that faraway look, and there's too much quiet in him.

So I drop by a bit more, try to distract him. He likes that, and so do I. Not monks, either one of us, and distracting usually ends up with us naked and sweaty. Tonight, I even pick up healthy take-out; he checks my pupils and my breath after he sees the cartons from the vegetarian restaurant, and I have to flip him off. Dief just laughs at us both, tries to sneak himself a free meal. When I dish it up on the table Goodwill wouldn't take, I can see Frase's got the photo albums out. Most of his family ones got lost in the fire at his old place, but between Maggie and Frobisher and some friends up in Inuvik, he's gotten some copies of the old photos, plus some 'new' oldies.

I like going through them with Fraser. He was a cute kid, a pretty good-looking teenager. Looked pretty damned serious most of the time, but in the pictures he's smiling, goddamn. And he's got stories to go with almost every picture, every place, every person. So I keep the albums out, and we go through them while we eat, and yeah, I've heard most of the stories before, but you know, he can read the phone book, what the hell, I'll listen, so long as nobody's trying to blow us up or anything. And as he's talking, that look, the lost one, sort of eases out. It's like he's finding himself again, in the pictures, in the story. Finding his place again.

By the time we get to the albums from our adventure, I've got an idea going, pinging around in my head. But it's gonna take planning, cunning, accomplices and probably lying.

Fortunately, I'm good at all of the above.

)0(

I get lucky pretty damn quickly, and I take it as a sign that somebody up there likes me, or at least hates me less than usual. Three weeks after I start getting my idea, the RCMP brass are hauling his ass up to Ottawa to yak at a bunch of other RCMP officers about working with American police agencies. Seems Fraser's a bit of an expert on international police relations. When he says that, his mouth twitches, and I get the joke pretty damned quick. Guy's got a sense of humour, just likes to pretend he doesn't. So we practice some international police relations of our own, and sleep in and damn near miss his plane, but hell, it was fun.

An hour later, I meet up with Vecchio at the paint store to get all the paint I ordered as soon as I knew when Fraser was going. You know, if anyone had asked me a year ago if Vecchio would be aiding and abetting me on anything, I'd've laughed my ass off. Even after I got over the whole crazy jealousy thing, I still figured he'd freak out when he figured out what was going on between me and Fraser since the Great White Adventure. Guy was a bit possessive before we left, and hell, Italian macho to boot. But he was so busy trying to be subtle about getting with Stella that he didn't even notice at first, and when Fraser finally told him, he seemed kinda relieved after the initial "What the fuck?" was over. Guess he'd been expecting me to freak over him and my ex, especially after everything Stella and Dewey and Welsh had told him, so after some adjusting and a threat to kill either of us if we ever gave him too much information, he just sorta accepted it. He's a pretty good guy. When I told him my idea, asked for his help, he said sure, sounded good, see ya then. Even showed up in scrubs, no Style Pig in sight.

I think Fraser's glad Vecchio's still around. He lost the guy once, and while we're both pretty happy with how that worked out, I think it'd hurt him to lose Vecchio again, and he almost did. They were gonna move down to Florida, open up a bowling alley, for chrissakes. The bowling alley deal fell through, though, so instead, Stella took the money and opened her own practice here. Vecchio does some security consulting, sometimes some investigating for Stella. He and Frase still hang out, and sometimes he pitches ideas in on our cases, and we help out with his. We play hoops, too, now and again. We don't do couples dinners, though. Too freaky. Way too freaky, even for Fraser.

By late afternoon we've got the little bachelor suite of Fraser's cleaned and spackled and primed and I'm going through the poster-size blow-ups I had made from our trip, showing them to Vecchio. He sips the beer I gave him, looks through them. "Nice. Lot's of snow." He shoots me a look. "It's a wonder you two made it back here alive, you know that? I mean, hell. You. Benny. Barren wasteland of snow and ice. Crevasses and avalanches and all that shit. Dief should've ended up picking his teeth with you."

Dief cocks his head at that, smiles a wolfy smile like he's agreeing with Vecchio. "Enough outta you, or no pizza," I tell him, and he puts his head down, grumbles at me.

"You tell him," Vecchio says, laughing around his beer bottle.

"Who says I was talking to the wolf?" and he laughs harder, finishes his beer while I clean up the brushes and get stuff put away for the night.

)0(

By noon the next day it's dry enough for phase two, and that means hauling Frannie in, who enjoys the hell outta bossing us around and talking to us like we're damaged between the ears. It's gotta be every little sister's dream. But she knows what she's doing, has us smushing and sponging and ragging and stuff with all the little cans I had them mix up, and by the time the sun's down it looks a hell of a lot like what I was going for.

I try to thank 'em, but hell, it's for Fraser, and they get that. They're happy to do it. So I'm buying again, steak house this time 'cause Frannie don't work for beer and pizza.

A coupla days later, I just put on the finishing touches, and it's ready.

)0(

I pick Fraser up, and he's tired and he's a little pissy in the quiet, polite way of his that he gets when he's tired and fed up; suddenly, I've got buzzards, never mind butterflies, in my belly, wondering if I've done good or managed to fubar this whole thing. Vecchio thought it looked all right, but he's not Fraser. Nobody's like Fraser, and how he'll react is anybody's guess.

Even before he's through the door, his nose is wrinkling up. Aired the place out good, but this is the guy who licks day-old gum and knows what the perp had for breakfast, so hey, he can still smell the paint. He makes it three feet in, and then he's dropping his bag, moving to the centre of the room, spinning around, his eyes wide.

For about ten seconds, my guts drop down to around my knees, and then he's smiling, that crazy-assed grin from the snow field, from the first time he got me to roll naked in the snow, from the first time he woke up beside me. "Ray," he says. "Ray, Ray, Ray!" and he's shaking his head, like somebody who's not too sure if he's awake or dreaming.

The walls are sorta like the pictures I picked, a horizon that circles around the room. The bottom half is like the snow, the sort of pressed blues and grey shadows and eyeball-aching white mixed together. The top is the same colour as the sky in the photos, or as close as we could get, with a few clouds Frannie managed to make look almost real. The pictures are in big glass clip frames, stuck up evenly around. Any which way we look, we're up North. We're walking in the sky.

"Do you like it?" I ask, 'cause hey, I still have my issues, deep down, I still have to ask. He nods at me, and his eyes are like the blue-grey shadows in the snow, and wet and shiny, a bit, and when he tries to talk, he can't.

I shocked Fraser speechless. Holy Christ.

Then he's across the room, back at the door with me, and he's kissing me so hard his buttons scrape me and he damn near splits my lip and goddamn, it feels good.

"Frannie and Vecchio helped," I manage to tell him as he's pulling at my shirt, my pants, just going nuts. "And hey, stop giving your neighbours a free show!" I kick the door shut behind me, grin at him. "You can finish getting me naked, now, if you want."

"Ray," he says again, and he sounds lost and helpless and found and sure all at the same time. He looks around the room, looks back at me. "I love you, too," he says at last, and then we don't say anything, not for a coupla hours at least.

Him and me, we're getting damned good at this communicating stuff.

)0(

An End.