Disclaimer: I don't own any of these people. Or the wolf.

Author's Notes: It's sort of--happy. For a death story. Kinda.

Ray drops his Froot Loops the first time Fraser shows back up.

For a while there Fraser had nagged him into eating those eighty-seven-fiber-grams, make-you-live-forever cereals. But it's not like there's a point to that, now. Ray's started smoking again, and people keep trying to talk to him about the drinking, and living forever is not looking likely. Or appealing. So, anyway, he's leaning against his kitchen counter eating out of this bowl of fluorescent cereal, and then Fraser's there, in the living room, smiling at him, and Ray drops his dinner.

He can't come up with anything to say for a second because there are too many things to say, everything from "So, buddy, how's dead treating you?" to "Huh, looks like my psychiatric leave wasn't long enough," so he's just gaping for a while there, and then what comes out of his mouth is, stupidly, "You're still in the uniform?"

Fraser glances down. "I don't think I have to be," he says, in a static-y voice. And he was sort of see-through already, but now he shimmers, and when he's done shimmering he's got on-

"Shorts?" Ray says weakly.

"Problem?"

"Just never seen you in them before. They look, uh, kinda dorky," Ray says.

Dief trots in just then, and glances over at Fraser and gives him this totally casual woof. An "Oh, hi, Fraser," woof, and then Ray really can't take this anymore, he puts his hands over his eyes and his knees give and he just slides down the cabinets to sit in the puddle of milk on the floor.

When he uncovers his eyes Fraser's gone, and he sits there for a while with his pants soaking through while Dief cleans up the cereal, and then he gets up and squishes over to the liquor cabinet. He's discovered by now that drinking doesn't keep him from having the dreams, but at least it makes them blurrier.

The second time he's not holding anything, so it's a little less messy, but it still freaks him the hell out. He's sitting on the couch staring at the tv, which has a Bulls game on but he can't even remember who they're playing, and then he hears something and turns and Fraser's on the couch with him; their faces are maybe six inches apart.

"Jesus!" Ray says, and climbs halfway up the back of the couch, but sits back down fast when it starts to tip.

"Hello, Ray."

"Hi," Ray says, and that seems really inadequate but he can't think of a useful follow-up, so he just keeps looking at Fraser, because that's a good, a happy thing to do, even if it means he's lost his fucking mind. Fraser's less see-through now, and his voice sounds more like him.

"I'm sorry to have disappeared without warning last time," Fraser says. "I'm still working on manifesting. Trickier than you would think."

"I'm sure," Ray says, and then, because it only takes an extra second to be polite to a hallucination, adds, "I'm sorry about the shorts thing. I was just. Startled."

"I'm not sure why you're so surprised," Fraser says. "I did tell you about my father. And you seemed to believe me."

"Well, yeah. Mostly. But I thought it was, I don't know, a Canadian thing, or a Mountie thing, or just a freaky you thing."

"Ah," Fraser says. He makes a concentrating face, then says, "I think I'm getting the hang of this. And if I don't push it too much this time, I think I can do it much better soon. I should go."

"Better?" Ray says, but Fraser's gone, there's just nothing on the couch beside him again. But Dief trots in and sniffs the cushion and looks happy and curls up in Fraser's spot, and somehow that makes Ray feel a little less insane and a little less like he should probably kill off the vodka, so he finishes watching the Bulls/whoever game and just goes to bed. And it's a pretty good night, because he only has the dream twice.

A couple of days later Ray's standing in front of his bike that's hung on the wall, and spinning the front wheel. It's kind of comforting, and kind of hypnotic, and he thinks he's probably been doing it for a while. Maybe since he got home from work-when was that? And then he can suddenly feel Fraser behind him, and when he turns around he's right. And Fraser's somehow-brighter? Clearer? He's just in jeans and a white Henley, not the red uniform, but he's still somehow the shiniest crispest thing in the room, like he always was, like he sucked up all the light, and he's smiling that big goofy smile.

"I think I've achieved tangibility, Ray," he says.

"Tangibility?" Ray says, because he didn't know that was even possible for a delusion.

"I'm touchable."

"I know what it means," Ray snaps, and somehow that makes it real, the fact that for just one second he was angry at Fraser means Fraser's really here, because Ray would never make that up, not now. And Ray wants very much to kiss him, Ray's shaking with wanting to kiss him, but first he's got to check, got to be sure, and he gets one hand up under Fraser's Henley on the left side, runs his hand up and down the skin there where it's soft and perfect and just like it's supposed to be, and Fraser smiles at him and says, "All better, Ray," like Ray was a little kid.

All his muscles and joints forget what they're supposed to be doing and Ray just kind of sags into Fraser, a dead weight, ha, and Fraser grabs him and holds him up, tilts Ray's head back and kisses him until Ray starts working again, until his arms come up around Fraser's neck and then his hands are going everywhere, touching and grabbing and feeling every bit of Fraser he can reach, and it's all solid and warm and real and Ray is maybe crying a little.

They have to stagger crabwise down the hall to the bedroom because Ray can't let go of him. They fall into bed and Ray's peeling off Fraser's clothes, and every piece when he gets it off Fraser it just kind of disappears, goes somewhere else, and Ray is really, really not thinking about that right now, he's thinking about getting his hands in Fraser's hair and his nose tucked into Fraser's neck, that one spot that always smelled the best, the most like him. He kisses and nibbles down Fraser's belly, and the same places as always are ticklish and get that stupid giggle out of him, and then Fraser stops laughing because Ray's got his mouth on his cock. God, Ray missed this so much, and he keeps closing his eyes because it's so good, Fraser on his tongue again, and then he panics and opens his eyes because he needs to see Fraser, so it ends up being a very blinky blow job but Fraser doesn't seem to mind, keeps a hand in Ray's hair and keeps looking at him like he's beautiful. Comes down Ray's throat and tastes right and familiar and good.

Fraser's moaning when he comes, missed you missed you, and then pulls Ray up and kisses him some more, and gets his hand wrapped around Ray's dick, and Ray arches up into his hand and knows he's gonna last about three seconds here, because it's been so long, he can't remember when he even jerked off last because it seemed like too much work.

Three seconds is about right, but afterward Ray feels calm and limp and okay, the first okay he's had in months. He fights going to sleep, tries to keep moving his hands on Fraser, touching arms and chest and face, anything, because god only knows if he'll still be here in the morning. But he can feel his hands getting stumbly and his eyes closing and then he's out.

And he has the dream, the worst one, the one that feels like it goes on for hours but it's all a repeat of that one second when he realized it was over. All over, the laughing at physics. The almost-believing that he and Fraser were some kind of superheroes. Because these particular bad guys had very big guns and very nasty bullets, and when Ray took out the last baddie he turned around to give Fraser their big "we-are-the-men" grin, and then he saw Fraser, and he ran over and dropped to his knees next to him and tried to apply pressure, and when he tried that his hand just. It went in. And it wasn't supposed to do that, really wasn't supposed to, and Ray hates this dream a lot.

But for once he manages to wake himself up, before it repeats and repeats and repeats, and when he does Fraser's still there, still warm and real and wrapped around him.

That's very good.

They figure out some things, over the next couple of weeks. Fraser is able to be there as much as he wants, now, but nobody but Ray and Dief seems to notice him, even when he moves stuff around. Ray wonders if he could get people's attention if he hit them, and Fraser points out that he would probably get exorcised as a poltergeist, and besides, why would he want anybody else's attention?

They figure out that it really doesn't work for Fraser to try to partner Ray on the job, because Ray gets completely freaked whenever they're in any sort of danger, if Fraser's around. Fraser argues this one, says he can help Ray, says obviously he can't get hurt any more. And Ray just says no, over and over, and for once in his...life, or whatever, Fraser lets something drop, just gives up, just spends all of Ray's off-hours with him.

They figure out that, even when he's all tangible, Fraser can still walk through stuff. Which is kind of cool, but also makes Ray need to throw up, so he doesn't do it very often.

Ray figures out (but doesn't tell Fraser) that the sex is actually better now. It was good before, but now Fraser's lost any sort of-tentativeness, overcarefulness, like he's finally figured out that there's no way he can hurt Ray, as long as he's here. Ray should probably be concerned that sex with a dead guy is better, but at this point he's so far from looking a gift horse in the mouth, he's pretty much putting a bag over his head every time the horse walks by.

One thing Ray doesn't figure out, because he doesn't ask, is--he keeps remembering this whole weird Fraser's-dad thing. And what he remembers about it is, it was a limited-time offer. There was an expiration date. He doesn't know whether this new weird thing has a ending date too, or when it might be, and he spends a lot of time not asking.

So they have a great few weeks. Ray's hardly drinking at all, which makes his brain cells a lot happier, which seems to make Welsh happier too. ("Good to have your attention back, Detective. I know it's been, you've had... It's good to have you back.") He's put back on some of the weight he lost, which cheers Frannie up. ("Jesus, Ray, you were starting to look like Sting or something.") And he's coming home every night to a bed full of happy smiling Fraser. Nothing better.

And then one day they're walking down the sidewalk, heading for the diner where nobody seems to mind if Ray talks to himself at the corner table. Invisibility has loosened Fraser up a little, so he's entertaining Ray by sticking his tongue out at everybody they pass. And Ray sees him for a second, framed in the mouth of an alley. This beautiful, perfect--ghost or angel or whatever he is now, and behind him the alley, a grimy little chunk of Chicago, overturned trash cans and rats and a crazy homeless guy with a cardboard sign that says "PIGEONS FEAR ME, GIVE ME A DOLLAR."

It's not fair. It is completely not fair.

Ray barely talks all through dinner. The waitresses keep looking over at him and seem a little disappointed that he's not doing his usual waving-French-fries-and-laughing-at-nothing routine.

He's thinking, Fraser's dad was getting punished, when he got sent here. For trying to kill Muldoon, according to Fraser. (And for being a completely worthless dad while he was alive, Ray thinks, not that he ever told Fraser that.) Fraser went out a hero. Fraser got shot foiling a mob hit on an informant's family. What the fuck is he getting punished for?

By the time they get back home that night Ray's made up his mind, and he has to do it right now, because if he curls back up in that bed with Fraser one more time he'll never be able to do it. Fraser getting taken away almost killed him; sending Fraser away is probably going to finish the job, and if he has time to think about it it's not gonna happen.

"Fraser," he says, and puts his arms around him, which is a mistake, he almost stops talking, lets him stay. But manages to get himself going again, because: so unfair.

"Fraser," he starts again. "I know you're like, Mr. Do-What-The-Boss-Said. But you gotta see that--whoever they, he, she is, they made a mistake here."

"What?" Fraser says.

"You gotta complain. You gotta get it fixed," Ray says. "Your dad had--things he had to work out, make up for. But you--they screwed up, Fraser, sending you to Chicago, you don't even like Chicago, that's a punishment, and what for? You go out a big fucking hero and they send you back where you were in exile, back babysitting me? That's just wrong, Frase, talk to them, you ought to be going into the light or something."

Fraser, who's been blinking and looking a little hurt, suddenly smiles. "I believe you are suffering under a misapprehension, here, Ray. Totally different situation from my father's." He looks thoughtful. "Perhaps that's why the tangibility rules seem to be different. He only ever attained the slightest-"

"That's my point," Ray interrupts. "Totally different, and you get the same shitty results."

"No, Ray," Fraser says gently. "Peter and his staff shared your--over-effusiveness about the circumstances of my demise. Very complimentary. A bit awkward, really."

"Peter," Ray says. "Like, Saint? At the gate? With a book."

"Well, yes."

"You met Saint Peter," Ray says. "And it was...a bit awkward."

"Well, I'm not accustomed to talking to total strangers in their bathrobes, Ray."

"Right."

"My point," Fraser says, "my point is, that they gave me carte blanche. Anything I wanted, anyplace, there or here, for as long as I liked."

"What?" Ray says, because he can't work this out, his head is full of clouds and harps and bathrobes.

"This is the posting I asked for, Ray," Fraser says, and puts his hand on Ray's face, spread out, warm fingers cupping Ray's cheek and warm thumb on his lips.

Ray leans into it, lets himself really hear everything Fraser just said, really believe it, and then he says the only thing he can, which is, "Thanks."