Disclaimer: These characters are not mine and I do not profit from their use.

Author's Notes: Thanks to the great omphale23 for doing the beta thing on this story ages ago. I never got around to posting it because I suspect I was waiting for this challenge.
The title comes from a [misquoted] line of dialogue in John Irving's novel 'Hotel New Hampshire':"Keep passing open windows. Stop at a window and you may decide to jump out."

Story Notes: Written for the "windows" challenge at ds_flashfiction. This story deals with domestic violence. It's not explicit but it's there, and forewarned is forearmed and such.

Keep Passing Open Windows

They've been catching a lot of domestic-violence cases lately. Crime runs close to the seasons sometimes: one month it rains for a week and it's all liquor-store robberies. The next month it's ball-freezing cold and homicides are the flavor of choice. August and hotter than hell means it's all DV calls.

It's sad stuff. Ugly and "insoluble," which what Fraser calls it at the end of yet another long day where nothing went right and they couldn't get a damn thing done because the wife wouldn't press charges or the husband made bail or the boyfriend had skipped town by the time they found the body. Fraser mutters it while he's staring blankly into his lukewarm tea, his skin pale under the florescent lights of the diner. Ray just nods and slouches down a little more, memorizing the random patterns of the Formica tabletop and jigging his leg because his body won't stop moving even though his mind is gone, gone, gone.

They don't tell you about this part of the job during the CPD recruitment drives that happen every fall. They never say anything about bad coffee and greasy-smelling diners and skyrocketing divorce rates among cops. And they don't say anything about how most guys don't make it to retirement because they get shot or stabbed or burned out or stuffed behind some desk and have a heart attack. And they definitely don't tell you that part of being a cop is seeing, day in and day out, what love does to people. But Ray knows now. He knows.

He knows how love can make a woman put on that extra layer of concealer, thick sunglasses, long-sleeved blouse and a scarf to cover the bruises that ring her neck. The bruises that form a perfect impression of a man's hand.

Love makes them cover it up, drawing on the extra clothes and makeup and sunglasses like they're tugging a curtain across a too-bright window. Love makes them stay long past the point where they should have gotten out. And Ray knows - he knows - that most of them don't have anywhere to go. They've got kids, usually, or no money, or they'd never be safe because the guy who made them run in the first place would find them and make them pay. It's about love and it isn't; mostly it's about desperation and loneliness and poverty, and a lot of the time these women die because all of it gets mixed together and nothing makes sense anymore.

Ray thought once upon a time that he'd die for love. Her name was Stella and it was 1973 and a big fat guy with a beard pointed a shotgun at him and said, "Move." Ray'd pissed himself and Stella got away and Ray thought, yep, that's it, because Marcus Ellery was bound to make somebody pay for making him lose his pretty little blonde hostage. Twelve years old and staring down the barrel of Ellery's shotgun Ray knew his number had come up. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to make himself believe it was worth it. That Stella was worth it.

Of course fifteen years later and more lovesick than any of those scarf-wearing women, Ray knew that it would have been worth it. Stella was worth anything, worth dying for. Only...that's not what she wanted. Ray had never figured out what she'd wanted but in the end it wasn't him. So here he was, up in the middle of the night at some deserted diner with a deaf half-wolf and a sleepy, shell-shocked Mountie, and he never got the chance to die for love. Not really.

Fraser has. Ray's read the file and he knows some of the details, although he's never managed to ask directly about any of it. He wonders sometimes, reading between the lines, if Fraser wishes he had died on that platform at Union Station. If he ever feels that maybe life without that woman - Metcalf - isn't worth living. Ray thinks about this every time he visits Fraser in his tiny, airless office at the back of the Consulate. Everything Fraser owns could be folded up inside his knapsack or tucked away in his hatband. He could be gone in a flash. It's like he's planning to run, and he could give lessons to all those abused women out there. All the ones they can't save any other way.

So maybe that's it. Maybe whatever Fraser went through all those years ago with Metcalf broke him up inside. The bruises don't show, so instead of putting on an oversized pair of sunglasses Fraser puts on that tunic and packs up his life every morning. And he comes home at the end of the day and takes off the serge and unpacks his little bag and stays another day. But it's all still suspended living, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

What love does to people. Ray'd laugh if it didn't break his fucking heart.

"Ray. Ray. Ray," Fraser's been saying for the last couple of minutes. Ray finally looks up away from the Formica that keeps swirling and blurring in front of him. Fraser's eyes are soft and blue and tired-looking.

"Yeah?"

"Perhaps we should go."

Ray blinks and glances around. The diner staff are making closing-up gestures and shooting them dirty looks. He pushes back from the table and staggers to his feet, depression and exhaustion making him wobbly. "You drive, okay?"

Fraser just nods and catches the keys Ray tosses him.

Outside the air is sweltering and the stench of garbage makes the dizziness worse. He slides into the passenger seat and flicks on the AC as soon as Fraser starts the car, closing his eyes against the familiar rumbling vibrations of the GTO's engine. They drive in silence through deserted streets; Ray can't even call up the energy to tease Fraser about doing the posted limit when there's no one around to care.

"Fraser, you ever wonder if the guys who beat their wives or girlfriends or, hell, their boyfriends...do they ever really love them? Hate them? What?"

His eyes are closed so Ray can't tell if Fraser has any kind of reaction to the question. But because it's too hot for telling lies and keeping secrets, Ray has a hunch that Fraser won't bother with his usual bullshit routine of psychological motivations or statistics or any of the other stuff he's read on the subject. And he knows Fraser won't do his deflecting thing and hide behind being a Mountie or being Canadian or being too naive to understand the fucking question. He knows, even before Fraser opens his mouth to answer, that Fraser will just tell him straight out what Ray's always wondered.

"Love. Hate. That pretty much sums it up."

And the words don't sound like Fraser at all. Ray gets the feeling he's repeating something somebody once told him.

"You don't think-"

"Ray," Fraser interrupts, parking the car in front of Ray's building. "We're here."

They get out of the car and walk up the stairs, matching each other stride-for-stride and shoulders brushing like always. But this isn't like all those other times before, all those other times when they've moved perfectly in sync. Something else is going on.

He knows what it is as soon as they reach his door. Fraser takes the keys right out of his hand and opens the deadbolt, then nudges Ray inside. He locks the door carefully behind them, takes a deep breath, and leans back against the door. Ray gives himself a second to admire the picture Fraser makes up against the dark grain of the wood, one booted foot planted firmly on the closed door.

"Ask me."

Fraser's eyes are still soft like they were in the diner but the gentleness has gone out of them. Now he's just sad and tired and empty-looking. Ray wants to pull him close and wrap his arms around him; instead he fidgets with his keys and chews on his lower lip.

"Ask me," Fraser says again, his voice still low and quiet in the dim apartment. "Please. I need-"

Maybe it's the way Fraser's voice breaks. Or maybe it's the thickness there that could be tears. Or just the look on Fraser's face. Their day was spent taking statements from three women whose faces looked like raw hamburger. That's on Fraser's face too.

But whatever it is - all of it, none of it, something else that Ray's been fighting for the twenty months and twenty-six days since he first took on the Vecchio gig - it makes him close the space between them and pull Fraser close.

They stand like that for a long time, and as the minutes tick by Fraser relaxes. He's all solid warmth against Ray's chest, the serge scratchy where it rubs up against Ray's bare arms below the sleeves of his t-shirt. Fraser smells good; the stink of the day doesn't cling to him, and Ray's not surprised. He turns his face into Fraser's neck and breathes in deep, wondering why wool and shampoo and sweat make him so hard and so sad all at once. He can feel Fraser's erection against his leg and it makes his heart beat a little faster. But this isn't about sex. Not yet.

This is about what love does to people and what love makes people do.

Fraser pulls back a little, his eyes drifting over Ray's face. He seems to find what he's looking for, or what he needs, and so he reaches down and tugs on Ray's hand. Ray watches as Fraser draws Ray's fingers into his mouth.

He doesn't suck on them, or even lick them, because just like Ray Fraser knows this isn't about sex. He just holds them there, warm and secure, his tongue wet and hot against Ray's fingers. Ray sags against him and discovers that Fraser is strong enough to support them both. He puts his nose back into the place where Fraser's neck meets his shoulder and keeps breathing in the scents of wool and shampoo and warm, clean skin.

**********

In the morning Ray wakes up tangled in Fraser's arms and legs. Fraser is still dozing and Ray watches him sleep for a long time, thinking that in the bright hot morning light Fraser looks like an innocent again. Chicago and his father's murder and the stuff with Vecchio and Metcalf never happened; he's just some guy asleep in bed with his boyfriend. And he'll never be asked to do anything more than live and be happy.

Ray smiles, snuggles closer and shuts his eyes. As he drifts off to sleep Ray wishes they really could live in that kind of world.

END