Author's webpage: http://www.virtue.nu/skalab

Author's disclaimer: I don't think the mountie would approve of frivolous litigation, do you?

Author's notes: This is for Mel. Well, really, every Vecchio story is for Mel.

Dief raised his head when Ray opened the door, but made no comment.

For a moment, Ray just leaned against the door frame, rubbing the snow from his shorn scalp.

No matter how dark it got in Fraser's apartment, thanks to the city, there was just enough brightness to see by. Fraser was arranged neatly on his narrow cot, as if some careful little girl had placed him under the covers just so. His arms were straight, his eyes and his mouth were closed, and his chest, covered with a turned down blanket, rose and fell in a steady rhythm.

Eventually, Ray crossed the threshold and leaned down to rest a hand on Fraser's broad shoulder.

"Benny," Ray whispered hoarsely.

The man's blue eyes slid open as if he'd never been sleeping, and he tensed under Ray's hand.

"Ray?"

Ray nodded, and sat down on the cot, with his back to Fraser. He could feel Fraser's solid thigh warm against the small of his back, even through his damp coat.

"I couldn't sleep. I been driving around... Went to a strip club, even." He let out a tired two note chuckle.

"Is there any--"

"Don't talk right now, okay? Just let me say this."

Fraser was obligingly silent.

"Shove over."

And Fraser paused only a moment before sidling over to make some room.

Ray stretched out beside him, wet coat and all. Resting his cheek on his left hand, he merely stared into the dim blur of Fraser's empty apartment.

Eventually, he spoke.

"I don't know what to do, Fraser. I don't got a clue. Sincerely. I've been thinking about it and thinking about it, but it still... It doesn't look good."

He could feel Fraser next to him, all tensed up because he was doing his best not to speak.

"I figured you should know, okay? That maybe you could... I don't know. Help me with it or something.

"'Cause you have to know, it's just not easy for a guy like me. I mean, nothing is, but this... this is just too hard, Benny. I don't think I got what it takes."

And he could feel his throat getting scratchy and that weird bridge-of-the-nose pressure building behind his eyes. Fraser made a soft wordless sound and held still.

Leaning up on his elbow, Ray turned his head. With his back to Fraser, the best he could do was confess to the twin lumps Fraser's feet made under the blankets.

"Look, I love you, okay? I'm in love with you, and I don't know what do about it!"

Then he slammed himself back down on the cot and tucked his right hand under his own hip, resting his cheek against his left hand as before.

They were both quiet for such a long time that Ray began to hope this was some elaborate dream he was having, one where he was weak and rudderless and coming to Fraser for some direction. One where he could look at Fraser but never touch him. One where he made a fool of himself in the middle of the night, in a wet coat, smelling like diesel exhaust and two sleepless nights.

"I'm sorry, Ray."

Ray screwed his eyes shut. It wasn't what he'd hoped for. But Fraser really wasn't much of an I Love You kind of a guy, anyway. He was polite. Even so, Ray would have preferred a little anger or embarrassment, something vital, volatile.

Something he could feel.

"I'm sorry that you feel so... badly. I would have thought that... That is to say, I've heard that love can cause a great feeling of joy--"

"Yeah, well fine. So you read it in a book. Love is happy happy joy joy, and I'm not saying it's not, and I'm not even saying I don't get some of that joy-in-my-heart feeling sometimes when I look at you, and I remember loving Irene and Angie, and I can tell you that it's a kick in the guts a lot of the time, too."

"Loving me is like a... 'kick in the guts?'" Fraser sounded miffed, and Ray could feel him wiggle under the covers, as he raised himself up on his elbows behind Ray and out of his field of vision.

"Sometimes. Like now, when I don't know what I'd do about it, when I think about my ma, and how Frannie's gonna cry her eyes out. Even though you don't love me back."

"What makes you think I don't?"

"Well, you didn't say it, did you?"

"Well... No. but that doesn't mean I don't... That I'm incapable of strong feeling, Ray."

"I never said you were."

"Point taken."

A pause.

"So?"

"So...?"

"Do you love me back?"

Ray finally felt up to the task of reading Fraser's smooth, impassive face for himself. He rolled over and studied his friend intently. Fraser's hair was a little fluffed up on the side, and that reassured him somehow.

"You were in the snow for some time," Fraser said softly.

"I was pacing in front of your building. For a while. Do you love me back?"

"I won't be... pressed. I would rather not say it casually. It's not a call and response, Ray. I will say it when I'm sure it will mean something to you."

"It means something to me right now!"

"If I said it now, you'd think I was merely placating you."

Ray huffed and rolled over again.

"So placate me, why can't you? Sheesh. Ask you for one thing..."

"Ray. Ray. Ray!"

Thus entreated, Ray slowly turned to face his friend.

"Are you really so upset to find that you're in love with me?"

"The love isn't the problem. It's the everything else. Like the can't touch you part, the Frannie's gonna put a curse on me part, the part where my Ma stops talking to me because she doesn't know who I am anymore."

"She's your mother, Ray. She loves you."

"And you love me, too. So what? Is it going to keep you from pining for the white skies of Canada? Is my Ma gonna suddenly stop listening to the priests she's been seeing every week for her entire life? It doesn't make a difference, anyway. I don't even know why I told you."

"It makes a difference to me."

Ray felt his shoulders slump, and he turned his face against the thin mattress of the cot and rubbed his cheek against it.

"Not so's I would know, Fraser."

"Ray, I love you dearly. As a friend. As... more than a friend. But how can I agree to let you love me, when it would seem to be in your best interest to discourage you?"

Ray flopped onto his back and squinted at Fraser.

"You don't *want* me to love you?"

"Well, to be more specific, it seems that you would prefer not to be *in* love with me, and as your friend, I feel it would be my duty to do whatever would make you happiest."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that I love you. So much that I would rather see you relatively happy and at peace with yourself and your family and the world at large, then enjoy the gift of your physical love for me."

"You'd enjoy my physical love?"

"Well, I imagine so. Never having had it, I can only think it would be a thoroughly pleasurable experience for us both. Of course, as it can never be, I will content myself with your brotherhood and platonic companionship."

"Nobody asked you to!"

"Does that mean you *want* me to return your romantic love for me?"

"Who said it was romantic? I just want to kiss you and hold you and see you naked and hear you moan my name when you come. There's nothing romantic about that."

Fraser raised an eyebrow.

"I would tend to disagree. So... you *are* interested in pursuing a physical relationship with me?"

"Sure. Why not? I follow you everywhere else. At least this time I'll be *able* to explain the stains to my dry cleaner."

"And your mother?"

"Oh, Fraser, did you have to bring that up?" Ray drew closer, pressing his shoulder to Fraser's. "Benny, I gotta tell you, if you and me were actually doin' it, I'd be so goddamned happy all the time that I wouldn't care that my mom wasn't talking to me and that Frannie was making little bald -headed voo doo dolls."

"Yes, you would."

"Okay, maybe I would, but not right away. For a while, I'd just be *happy*. Don't you want me to be happy, Fraser?"

"Of course, Ray."

"And don't you think I deserve a little happiness?"

"I do."

"And maybe I could make you happy, you ever think of that?"

"The thought has occurred to me."

"So you and me, we'd both be happy. A couple of happy guys, gettin' laid on a regular basis, instead of two guys with long faces and no action."

"It's an appealing argument."

"You think so?"

"Indeed," Fraser replied affably.

"You don't look convinced."

Fraser leaned over and pressed his full length all along Ray's body. He lowered his head, slowly, slowly, so that every tortuous moment of frenzied anticipation could be felt before he finally kissed Ray's parted lips.

After several minutes of sweet, hot, thorough kissing that heavily featured Fraser's truly prodigious tongue, Fraser pulled back and murmured, "You've swayed me."

"I knew I could."

END