Author's webpage: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Starship/6102/home.html

Author's disclaimer:
There once was a group in Toronto,
Who made the world's best TV show.
People, wolves, places, and plot,
All the rights they have got.
But here I can do what I want to!

Author's notes: Don't expect anything in the way of plot. This is just pain-seeped stream of consciousness rambling. Also, Ray is upset. When Ray is upset, Ray has a potty mouth. Deal.

NOTE: The author of this story is not available on line. Please give feedback through player@widomaker.com or courser@aol.com The author still DOES crave feedback.

I think I'm gonna puke.

It's those eyes. Those great big, sky fucking blue, whydja-betray me eyes.

I don't puke, though. Maybe it would feel better if I did. Get my mind off it. Then I'd at least have a mess on the station floor to worry about, with Frannie and anyone else who even gave a shit asking what was wrong. Like I'd tell them.

No way I could tell them without making myself look even more completely screwed over than I already am. Of course, everybody's gonna know soon enough. I did it with Welsh and the Duckboys and everybody and their fucking cousin watching it in living color. Everybody watching Stanley Raymond Can't Make Up His Mind About His Name Vecchio/Kowalski/Asshole as he hauled back and popped his partner for being so goddamned perfect.

Hell of a reason to hit a guy. Cause he's right all the time. Jesus, would I rather he be wrong? Which time, huh? The time he was right that the car was gonna go up in a goddamned fireball? Been wrong then, and I'd be cop crispies at the bottom of the Lake They Call Michigan. Or maybe about timing that bomb down to the gnat's eyeball? Wrong that time, and either Stella and I woulda been toast, or some poor bastard minding his business on the sidewalk woulda been. Or what about Cahill?

I sag back against the wall, having wandered down into some dark part of the basement that smells like the back of my fridge. My hands fist in my hair, pulling 'til it hurts. Didja want him to be wrong about Cahill, Kowalski? Huh? You're so pissed that he's always right, so maybe he shoulda been wrong about that one. Maybe he shouldn't have even bothered to put his red-painted ass on the line with every crime lord in town just so that you could know for sure that it wasn't your skinny fingers on the trigger. Maybe he shouldn't have stood there in the hall, dark circles under his eyes cuz the obsessive bastard wouldn't let himself sleep, and told you that you were his friend. His fucking friend.

Of course he didn't say that exactly. Well, he said he was your friend, but not your fucking friend. Mounties don't swear. Only skinny-ass Polish cops with screwed up non-existent love lives, careers so desperate that they've had to hijack someone else's name, and crappy experimental hair have to swear. What did my Grandma used to say? You swear if you can't think of nothing better to say. If you're too stupid to think of anything better to say.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Yeah, Grandma was right. I am a stupid bastard. Anybody else had a guy like that handed to them on a platter, they'd be falling all over themselves trying to make sure he never got away. Hell, anyone with half a brain would be thrilled just to find out that he's a forensics lab with feet. Toss in that Canadian Jedi mind trick thing that makes suspects start singin' like my uncle in a Sunday shower, and add his strange delusions that he's my friend...anyone with half a brain would have popped me by now for doin' what I did today.

I hit him.

Pow.

Right in the kisser.

I squish my eyes shut, as if that'd make it stop playin' over and over and over again in my head, like some kind of freakish instant replay got stuck. I didn't even just kinda hit him. I belted him, the whole rotate the hips put every skinny ounce ya got behind it line up the shoulders to get the most out of it thing that I learned boxing. I can still hear the sound, too. A sickly solid THWACK.

He didn't hit me back. Just kinda held his jaw for a second, then ran his thumb over the corner of his mouth like he was surprised it wasn't bleeding. And he looked at me. Looked at me with those fucking betrayed eyes. I was sure he was gonna hit me back, and I was suddenly scared as hell. Shit, I am such a coward, huh? I mean, I hit him, I hit him as hard as I can, and then I'm scared stiff that he's gonna hit me back. I've taken a hit from him before, when we were boxing once. Knocked me flat. As if I couldn't have clued in from the fact that his shoulders are what...three times as broad as mine?

Everything about him is bigger. Better. Faster. Stronger. He's just...just...just... He's Superman and Clark Kent at the same time. He's as independent as the Lone Ranger, as shrewd as Columbo, as good with suspects as Perry Mason, as cool as James Bond, as freaky as McGuiver, as tough as John Wayne, and as good looking as Tom Cruise.

Shit.

You ever have one of those moments when stuff just pops into place? An epitaph...epitome...aw, fuck. It's one of those Scrabble words Fraser uses all the time. An epiphany! Yeah. An epiphany.

Constable Benton fucking Fraser is everything I ever wanted to be and wasn't. He's just this strong, athletic, tall, dark, muscular, gorgeous chick magnet with an IQ of six zillion, a dictionary's vocabulary, a decent name, tons of confidence, and no real bad habits...who also happens to be the best goddamned cop ever made. God, no wonder I wanted to belt him one.

All the stuff he *is* just erects this sign over me that shows off what I'm *not*, flashing out the shitfaced truth in neon letters for everyone to see. KOWALSKI IS AN ASSHOLE. An absolute asshole. The stupid one that Fraser always has to correct. The crazy one that Fraser always has to hold back. The one who's always just a little bit behind, trapped there in that pitch black, swallow your soul up, chomp on it good, and spit it out Mountie shadow.

I mean, I know I'm about a ninety-nine percent fuck-up, but I'm not completely fucked yet, am I? I've got my own arrest record, you know, and it's not totally chopped liver. I had a great wife. Ok, so she's an ex wife now. So she wants to see my ass deep fried in hell. I had her for a little bit. I'm a damned good shot with my glasses on. I've managed to keep myself alive in Chicago, haven't I? I've managed to survive this crazy cop game where the dice are always loaded because you have to play by the rules and the psycho fucks who are trying to kill you don't have any rules. I've survived that. That's gotta be worth something, right?

Maybe with a normal partner. Hell, maybe even with a great partner. Just not with a perfect partner. Not with a partner throwing a shadow Paul Bunyan would envy.

I had to get out of that shadow. I could feel it getting me, sucking me down. Even Fraser was starting to see it, I was sure. Superman was starting to get that little pinchy look around his eyes, he was getting kinda snarky, and he was this close to rubbing his eyebrows off with his thumb. In Fraserese, that's all crystal clear for 'Ray, I can't believe that you can be so amazingly stupid, and I'm starting to wonder why I don't just save the world all by myself, since I do that five times before breakfast anyway.' He was seeing me getting lost in his shadow, and he was seeing that was where I belonged.

Had to get out of that. Had to get away from him. Had to just...just...just...

Just hit him for making that shadow. For being so perfect he swallowed me up. Just hit him as hard as I could. Only thing I could think of doing. I was too pissed to think up some kind of a speech, and I'm not too good at those on the best days. Today was definitely not the best day.

I push away from the wall and start pacing. What the hell am I going to do now? I am in shit up to my eyeballs, and it's only getting deeper the longer I sit in it. Gotta think. Gotta line it up all Fraser-just-so.

Okay. So I've just k-oed the first real friendship I've had in years. I've kissed off the Mountie that's supposed to be hanging around the station for Vecchio's cover, and made it so he'll never want to see the Chicago PD again. I've made an asshole out of myself in front of half the department, who are probably up there planning how to tan my ass for daring to hit Saint Fraser the Red. I've got a wadded up transfer letter in my pocket that's gonna take me back to a life I was all too happy to get out of in the first place. Knowing Fraser and his martyr complex, I'll be lucky if the Mountie hasn't already slit his wrists or jumped off a building or even just shipped himself up to Freezadipshit.

If I'm lucky, he'll let me talk to him again, but I know that I've got just enough pride left to be stupid about it if he does. He already knows I'm an asshole, right? So why tell him? Why chuck the last little bit of self-respect I've got out the nearest window? No. Just...just let him go without getting all martry. Make him think it's a mutual thing. Maybe make up some pretend American slang term or ritual. "You see, Fraser, down here, we do this punch your partner in the head thing just before we transfer. Nothing personal. Just a culture thing. Like the house boys. I punch you, you..."

Not even he'd fall for that one. Yeah, the great American ritual where one guy hits the other, and the second guy, the one who could turn the first guy into a little smear on the pavement, the second guy just stands there forever, then walks away. If he'd just hit me back. If he'd yelled at me, shoved me, cussed me out. Something, anything. Anything so that I don't feel like a total shit who just kicked some beautiful, blue-eyed little puppy.

Maybe I can at least get him to hit me back. Play on that honor thing of his, that chivalry code, that eye for an eye justice thing. Tell him he's got to hit me back. That it's justice, that it's his duty. Benton Fraser always does his fucking duty.

Shit. How screwed up is this? I've screwed up this entire thing so badly that I'm left with trying to think of a way to get him to hit me, just so I can feel some kind of crazy balance about this thing. That's all I've got left, because there's no way I can save this now. No fucking way.

I suck.

I think I'm gonna puke.

I do.

THE END