Author's website: http://www.trickster.org/kass/

Disclaimer: Boys are theirs, words are mine.

Author's Notes: In response to the telephone challenge at the livejournal community ds_flashfiction. Thanks to Sihaya Black for beta.

Story Notes:

I wish you had a cellphone.

Not that one would work up where you are. I know that. I was there, just three days ago.

But I wish there was some way of reaching you.

We were just getting going. Ten days out and I was starting to learn some of your tricks, the things you learned so young you take them for granted: like drying sweaty socks at the end of a day with body heat, so they're not frozen stiff come morning when it's time to put 'em back on. I was just getting to where I could imagine getting the hang of the mushing, and the skiing, and the ice.

And then you saw something moving in the snow. A speck I couldn't hardly make out, but you swore it was people, and it was coming towards us. We didn't break camp. It was a weird morning, waiting for the dogsled to reach us, wondering whether the people on the sled were actually looking for us, whether they carried news.

If I'd known it was our last day together, I would've said something. Told you what I wanted: why I was really out there. What I hoped you wanted, too.

Turned out they'd been riding hard on our trail for three days. Their dogs looked exhausted when they settled down, too tired to even whuffle when ours started howling, and the two constables didn't look much better.

MOM SICK STOP COME HOME STOP. Shortest telegram I ever saw, and before I even had a chance to say anything you were switching the teams so our dogs could pull the two guys and me back to someplace a plane could land.

We didn't get off the sled until sometime the next day. Plane was waiting in the middle of an ice field.

I think I was crying when I hugged Dief goodbye. Told him to tell you I'd miss you. He cocked an ear and at the time I thought he understood me, but now that I'm home in this godforsaken empty apartment I'm wondering what I was smoking to be pinning my hopes for communication on a deaf wolf.

Ma's in the hospital. By the time I got my ass home her condition was looking up. Some kind of stroke, they think, and her left-side motor control still isn't good, but she's going to make it.

Dad did the right thing. If she'd died while I was up there with you, and I hadn't known about it, I'm not sure I could have forgiven him. Or myself.

But now I'm here, it's two in the morning, the apartment already feels stale and dusty and too goddamned small. Even the turtle's at Frannie's, so there's nobody to talk to.

So I'm talking out loud, sitting next to the telephone, because I miss you more than I ever thought I could, and believe me I thought I knew what lonely felt like.

I wish I could make you call.

O'Hare is exhausting and noisy at the best of times, and two a.m. on a Saturday is not the best of times. I left Diefenbaker behind, not wanting to put him through the rigamarole of quarantine again so soon after our return home. He asked me to convey his most sincere face-lickings to Ray, and I'm still not certain whether or not he meant that flopped ear to be the lupine equivalent of a human raised eyebrow.

Attributing archness to my wolf. It's possible I'm losing my mind.

That would explain why I'm standing indecisive outside a dirty payphone booth, back so soon in the city I was so relieved to bid farewell.

But I know that if my erstwhile partner's mother is dying, I need to be here with him: I know something about how it feels to be that lost.

I know Ray's number; I have dialed it more times than I could count. Still, my fingers hesitate over the grimy keys. What if he is not pleased to hear from me? What if his mother's illness holds the silver lining of releasing him from his northern adventure, his real or perceived obligations to me, and my voice is the last one he wants to hear?

I know these are ridiculous questions, the products of a mind both overtired and, of late, underused. I let Walker's dogs rest half a day, fed them well on frozen meat and the stock of biscuit I had intended for our journey, and then spent two days driving them hard myself. An hour with Dief, a few phone calls, and the plane was back to ferry me to a proper airport. I left our gear at the station with my wolf. I spent the money and the time to come all this way. I cannot lose my nerve now.

In my heart of hearts, I know that Ray will not turn me away. That even if his desires do not match mine, he will not reject at least my offer of a shoulder to lean on in this difficult time.

I am lifting the receiver. I am taking a deep breath, ignoring the various savours of the city entering my lungs. I am lifting my finger to dial.

(877 words)

End Communication by Kass: kass@trickster.org

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