Wind howled outside, savaging the windows with dust and dead leaves, whipping through the night-dark streets and whistling in banshee howls through the cracks in the window frame. It was a savage, angry sound, the wild wind beating against the bastions of civilization on the edge of the lake.

If he closed his eyes, he could hear the sounds of the North. There, this would not be the dry, angry wind of Chicago, chivying urban dwellers and whipping up the waves on the lake called Michigan. No, in the North, the icy wind would lance through layers of fur and chill to the very marrow of his bones. It would summon the snows and pelt down ice and snow in a thousand different combinations. It would howl very much like this Chicago wind, but the dwelling it would batter would be a small cabin, or perhaps an igloo, sheltered from the world by drifts of snow.

And perhaps there would be a fire, a small one, just enough to shed a warm red glow across the bed and take the edge off the chill in the air. It would be cold, still, despite the fire. Cold enough to drive him beneath the pile of blankets and huddle beside the warm form beside him. No, not huddle. Cuddle - wrap his body around the man beside him, stroke the soft, silken spikes of hair that would glisten golden in the ruddy firelight. Lovingly trace the sharp/soft features of his lover as he slept...

Benton opened his eyes in the dark, alone again. Perhaps someday, but tonight - he levered his legs off the cot and padded to the kitchen. The only thing to do during a storm that howled like this was to sit and drink tea, and listen to the lonely cry and whine of the wind.

It was hot, too hot, and cold besides. Ray threw off his covers and lay panting in the abruptly empty chill of his apartment. Sweat clung to him, as did the tattered remnants of his dream, empty and hollow. His head and his mouth felt as if they were filled with straw, brittle and old. A gust of wind shook the window casement, its mournful howl sending shivers up his spine.

The teeth-clenching whine weaseled through the window again. Goaded, Ray rose, running his hands through unruly feathers and spikes of blond hair. The wind was familiar, but as unwelcome as always, prodding him out of sleep and into motion. Move, he had to move, his sleep-deadened brain informed him, setting his autopilot for the kitchen and coffee and M&Ms.

He needed something with a beat to it, to drown out the unsteady pounding of his heart. Something with a rhythm he could loose himself in, full of beauty, unlike the beastly ravings of the wind outside. He swiftly cleared the floor and set the music, and stood, coffee mug still in hand, waiting for the first swells of...

There. He closed his eyes, and conjured his partner. Taller, more solid, but willing to let him lead in this one thing he knew so well. The music led his feet and he danced with the phantom as the wind blew.

"Wind's stopped blowing." Ray shivered and looked out across the lake. The water was slate grey and choppy, the storm that had passed still pushing waves up against the rocks and pilings of the shore.

Fraser 'hmm'ed. There was still a breeze, more of a stiff wind to those unaccustomed to Chicago, and it rippled at the edges of their coats and snaked into their necks and pockets to chill them further.

"Couldn't sleep last night." Ray stamped his feet in emphasis, and Fraser turned to watch him instead of the waves. In the early light, his eyes matched the lake, and the hollows under them from sleeplessness were faint blue bruises.

"Nor I."

Ray snorted. "Thought you always slept like a baby, Frase. Sleep of the innocent and Mountie-like or somethin'."

"It was the wind. It... reminded me of home."

"Tuktoyakinville, the Windy Wilderness?"

Fraser pursed his lips, summoning a half-hearted smile. "Something like that. The wind sounded mournful. Lonely." He took a quick in-drawn breath, then let it out in a slow sigh. "I had tea."

Ray turned from the lake. "You had tea. I don't get dat, Frase. You get all lonely and sappy and you just hole up in your consulate and have tea." He shook his head, then grimaced and nodded. Mounties. "No wonder Dief's pissy at you. You musta messed up his beauty sleep."

"Diefenbaker is not 'pissy', he's merely upset because I wouldn't share the tea cookies with him last night."

Ray laughed. "No wonder he's sulking."

"He's not... well," Fraser huffed. "Let me advise you, Ray. Never let a wolf save your life."

Ray's grin dimmed in a sudden quicksilver mood change. "What about a Mountie?"

Fraser paused, watching his partner's hair ruffle with the breeze in the dim morning light. "I suppose that would depend on the Mountie." He leaned a little closer, involuntarily. "But I would hope that you would choose to be saved, no matter the source of salvation."

Ray shrugged. "I kin still express a preference, can't I?" He leaned into Fraser's presence, and the wind whipped between them. The corners of their coats batted each other.

Fraser nodded, swallowed. "What is your preference, Ray?"

Ray grimaced, his frown quickly followed by a sly grin. "I don't do dis verbal dancin' too good, Frase." He snaked his arm around Fraser and pulled him closer. "I do the other kind real good, though."

Fraser leaned into the embrace of his partner and let himself be swayed in time to Ray's soft humming. He tucked his head into Ray's shoulder, settling his ear next to the pale throat. The noise of the wind humming dimmed as Ray's hum and Ray's heartbeat overcame his hearing.

The red numerals of Ray's bedside clock herald three twenty-seven ante meridian. 3:27am. It is an hour of quiet in the city of Chicago, one when few people are awake, and fewer still care to break the silence as late night glides into early morning. The ever present wind outside his bedroom window is still, and that stillness blankets Ray's apartment in a muffled silence.

Out in the living room, I can hear Diefenbaker snoring from his nest on the couch. But even that noise does not break the stillness, it adds an even, measured quality to the hush within, a metronome of sorts.

I wonder what in all this silence woke me, and I return my attention to Ray. He is curled up in a little ball around his pillow, huddling the blankets around him, and a simple breath of air as I shift alerts me to my reason for waking. It is hard for me to remain asleep if half of my backside is bared.

I curl closer to Ray, take the opportunity to softly stroke his cheek, to marvel his easy, rough beauty, and then I begin to tease the blankets away from him. I could of course, simply wake him, but the border between sleep and wakefullness is not so easily crossed for him, and so I let him sleep.

It is a slow process, made slower by my cold back, but joyful as well, as I avidly drink in every snuffle and shift he makes in his sleep, when he chews on his pillow or when he rubs his head against it like a sated cat and murmurs 'Ben' in his dreams. Finally, half the blankets are mine again, and I wrap myself around him again, settling my head next to his.

I almost do not wish to sleep again, but to wallow in this quiet stillness, to listen to him breathe, to feel his warmth next to mine, and to nuzzle the hair at the back of his neck. I hold onto the moment for the longest time as sleep claims me once more. I slide into the dark stillness with Ray's soft breath the only sound I care to hear.

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