"Nonsense"
By Viridian5
1/5/01

RATING: PG-13; Fraser/Kowalski. If m/m interaction bothers you, walk on by.
SPOILERS: slight spoilers for "The Edge" and "Strange Bedfellows."
SUMMARY: This time Fraser is the one having trouble with dreams and Ray's the one trying to help.
ARCHIVAL/DISTRIBUTION: Hexwood and Serge. If some kind person feels that this story is appropriate for DSX and wouldn't mind posting it, that would be great as well. Anywhere else too, as long as you ask me first.
FEEDBACK: can be sent to Viridian5@aol.com
DISCLAIMERS: All things due South belong to Alliance no matter how much I want Ray K to belong to me. No infringement intended. Suing me would be a waste of time. Besides, I'd just kick you in the head.
NOTES: Sequel to "Wings" in the Fear of Falling series.
Thanks to realitycek and LaT for read-through.

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"Nonsense"
By Viridian5
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I gazed out at the broad, snowy expanse of my home in great satisfaction, yet something was missing. From behind me I heard, "Hunh, it's colder here than I thought it would be." I turned to face Ray and gasped.

Floating six inches above the ice, Ray had wings of fire, pulsing in shades of citron, tangerine, cerulean, and lapis lazuli, casting a colorful glow on his hair. Instead of feathers, they had tongues of flame, moving without ceasing. They crackled and whispered, comforting as a campfire in the darkness, as they gently beat the air. His mundane dark winter clothing only made the wings seem more amazing. A summer-like breeze surrounded and wafted around him, extending tendrils of almost painful warmth out to me.

He was beautiful. He was always beautiful, but never more so than now, with his very soul echoed in plain view, showing up as a blaze of living color against the winter whiteout.

Ray looked down and watched the snow and ice beneath him melting. "This could get dangerous, right?"

I realized that we stood on an ice field. "Yes, very dangerous."

"Better move then."

Ray started to fly away, as he had to, for his safety and mine. Leaving me.

Tentacles of ice whipped up out of the ground and wrapped around his neck, pulling him back down. Ray made choking sounds until he broke them off with his wings. Then three more hit him, the ice thorns on one slicing open his cheek, before they wrapped around his wrists and neck and brought him crashing to the ground.

"Ray!" I attacked the things with my axe, chopping at them, but every blow hurt. Hurt as if I chopped at myself.

These tentacles were a part of me somehow, and they were killing Ray. I continued to hack at them, ignoring the pain.

He struggled hard in a cloud of steam, but frost crept over his hair, skin, and clothing, leaving him as white and icy as everything else here. Only the bright, thick blood that dripped from his cheek and neck and stained the tentacles pink provided any color on him now.

I felt as much as heard the ice cracking beneath us. "Fraser! Go!" Ray choked out.

I would not. This was my fault, and I would not leave him.

The ice broke, and we fell, screaming, plunging toward--

I hit the floor and woke up. Dief whined and backed away as I groaned and tried to catch my breath. "I know," I said. I tasted sweat and tears upon my lips.

I climbed back into my cot and ran through calming visualization exercises until my heart rate slowed. I needed more than three hours of sleep. I wouldn't think about my dream until later. I would go back to sleep and spend the rest of the night peacefully. I would go see Ray at the 27th tomorrow. Right now I needed to sleep....

When I turned the corner, I saw Ray sitting at his desk talking in low, soothing tones to... a toad? It sat near his phone, facing him.

Diefenbaker whined. I answered, "I don't know what's going on here either. We'll play along."

"--a group of 'em? Yeah, I'd be anxious too. And then they assaulted you with their tongues. All of 'em? That's overkill. Yeah, we'll get 'em. Oh, hey, Fraser." Both Ray and the toad looked up at me. Ray had styled his hair in that almost flat yet spiky style he'd worn the day we first met. It made me smile in spite of the confusion the rest of the scene engendered in me.

"Ray, is there anything you would like to tell me?"

"Nothing I can think of. If you can excuse me, I'm taking a statement here."

"That's exactly what I wished to know about."

"Oh. Ya couldn't just say that? 'Course not. Okay. See, Fraser, the frogs are revolting." Then Ray looked down at the toad with a look of concern. "No, I didn't mean that as a blanket slur against frogs, sir, not at all! I meant rebelling. Vive la revolution style, though we definitely don't want this revolution to live."

"Ray, you're speaking to a toad." Even for Chicago, this was odd.

"You think I don't know that? 'Course I know that. Been getting his statement for the last 15 minutes. Don't mind my partner, sir, he's confused. 'Course I know yer a toad."

"I wasn't aware that you understood Toad."

"You understand Wolf but I can't understand Toad."

"I don't see where you would get a chance to learn it, living in the city of Chicago as you do."

"I can't speak it--I can't make the sounds in my throat right, and I've been told that my accent is terrible-- Don't say a word."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

"But I understand it. Community outreach. I also know English and the language of love."

If anyone should know Toad, I should be the one, yet I could make no sense of its noises. It left me somewhat disgruntled.

Ray turned back to the toad. "Please come back if you remember anything else. We'll be looking for the bastards that attacked you, don't worry."

The toad hopped off the desk and along the floor toward the door. I watched the officers accord it all due respect, clearing out of its path as it departed. They rarely showed such courtesy to their fellow humans.

I didn't understand this at all. I'd hoped my Uncle Tiberius' madness had passed me by, but perhaps--

I awoke in my cot at 5 a.m., as usual, but I felt utterly out of sorts.

What the hell had that been?

I tried to puzzle it through as I did my morning grooming. My first dream had been straightforward and directly symbolic, blatant, what I was accustomed to from my dreams. The message may not have been pleasant, but I could see what my unconscious mind intended there. Some part of me obviously worried about Ray's spontaneity and warmth breaking through the cool, protective shell of my reserve.

Some part of me remained certain that closer association would end in our mutual destruction, mostly due to an inability on my side to let go of him even after I saw the danger to him and to myself.

Simple. Brutal, unfair, but simple.

"Damn!" I put my razor down and sighed at the gash left on my neck. Thick, red blood running over white skin.... I put pressure on it to stop the bleeding and tried to ignore the raw sting.

I understood the first dream all too well, but the second nagged at me like a rotten tooth. What could it possibly mean? Ray speaking to toads. Frog revolutions.

Dief wondered when we'd see Ray next. Indeed, I hadn't seen much of Ray this week since Inspector Thatcher had needed my talents to finish a number of very important reports that required research of the consulate's last 15 years of expense forms. I shouldn't visit him today either, but my dreams made it necessary for me to see him in the flesh to drive the nightmare and nonsense away.

"I haven't been away so long that he's turned into Dr. Doolittle in my absence," I muttered. "No, I'm not talking to myself. I'm talking to you. I'm not using you as an excuse to talk to myself. I'm sorry I fell on you, but I was hardly conscious at the time. You're hardly a treat to live with either." Dief huffed and left the room.

As much as I wanted to leave the nightmare behind, I couldn't help holding on to the image of Ray with his wings. Though he'd tried to downplay them when he'd discussed that dream of his with me weeks ago, I'd seen him remembering and watched the beauty and poetry of them in his eyes. He'd kept the words that described them in his mind even if he'd felt too self-conscious to share them with me.

With that image in mind, I finished shaving without any further mishaps, dressed, and slipped out of the consulate to see Ray.

I felt such deja vu as Diefenbaker and I walked through the 27th. Part of me almost expected to turn the corner and see Ray taking the toad's statement. I didn't know what I'd do if I saw that, although many people seemed to believe that I'd snap completely one day anyway.

If I told Ray about that dream, I'd no doubt walk in one day to find a toad on his desk and him pretending to listen to it. Knowing him, he might do it without even explaining it to the rest of the squad room first. A smile crossed my lips before I remembered it shouldn't be there and banished it.

Ray sat alone at his desk, his head leaning against his hand, seeming every inch the overtired cop. He looked up, bleary-eyed, at me until he recognized me. Then his face lit up almost as brightly as if his wings still reflected a glow upon it. I stepped back, unable to take the radiance.

Dief jumped up at him and started to lick his face. I swear, if Dief had been a smaller canine, small enough to fit, he'd sit in Ray's lap every chance he could find.

"Haven't seen you guys in an age," Ray said with a smile. "It hasn't been the same without you. All this normal police work is boring me blind, and it's not like I have that far to travel, y'know? Or so some people whose names I won't mention keep telling me. Hey, what's wrong?"

"Nothing, Ray. I just missed my time with you as well. I shouldn't be here even today."

"Glad you could drop by, though. I had a weird dream last night."

I almost choked. "Truly?"

"I was having a conversation with Dief, a real one. I don't usually talk to dogs in my dreams." Ray looked down at Dief. "I know yer part wolf. I was just making a point. Hey, that was rude. The fact that Fraser was up with a nightmare and kept you up a bit is no excuse to get snippy with me. He fell on you? Okay, I'm sorry about that, but still."

Perhaps I was still dreaming. "Ray."

"Yeah?"

"You're talking to Diefenbaker now."

"Well, I have to. I can't let him just say that kind of stuff to me and let it go, because he would--" Ray opened his mouth, then closed it. "I think we should both find somewhere to lie down for a while." Ray stood up and grabbed my arm.

"Ray!"

"I know just the place." He snatched his jacket, then commenced to drag me from the building. Dief followed, greatly amused. Ray let go of me to unlock the car door, then made a sweeping gesture to suggest that I enter.

"What are you doing?"

"We're going to lie down."

"This is a car."

"No! My God!"

"Ray."

"When we were checking up on that guy who turned out to be working with Orsini, we reclined in here to stay out of sight, you remember? So we're going to put our seats way back and recline now. Standing up thinking isn't getting us any closer to figuring things out, so maybe we need a change of scenery. In."

Although I sat down in the passenger seat as he instructed, I said, "I don't need you to psychoanalyze me."

Once Ray settled back into the driver's chair, he rolled his eyes at me. "Geez, just shift back and lie down relaxed for a bit. I'm not gonna shrink yer head or nothing." He shifted the back of the seat down until he was lying almost horizontal with the floor. "Lie back and look up at the ceiling. The ceiling in here looks so soft. Might be nice to lie on it, ya know?"

Despite feeling silly, I did as he requested, taking off my Stetson first and setting it on my chest. "I see no difference." Though the ceiling did look comfortably soft.

"Yer lying like the stiffest board in the pile. Relax. Tell Dr. Ray what ails you. Turnabout, and fair's fair, and I wanna know, okay?"

I took a deep breath and tried to take the starch out of my limbs. I was lying stiffly and resolved to loosen up.

"That's a bit better," Ray said. "Breathe. Remember how good it felt to be all superior when I was the one having dream problems."

"Ray! I'm not having 'dream problems.'"

"Dief says otherwise."

How the hell could I answer that? "I was hardly superior."

"Ha! You were all snotty and above it all."

"Perhaps it simply seemed so since you were in such an awful mood."

"Nope, I know snottiness when I see and hear it, and you were."

Chagrin gave me some reprieve from my own worries. "Did I really seem superior? I didn't mean to."

"It's okay. I know you meant well." He laughed when I smacked his arm. "Tell me about yer dream problems, and I'll try not to be snotty about 'em."

I sighed. I supposed that I should tell him about my dreams in return, in the interest of fairness. "My dreams used to be a helpful diagnostic tool for the state of my unconscious mind. Once I could wake from one and know immediately that it meant that I was worrying that I'd lost my edge, was getting too old, and would fail my duty."

Ray turned his head and just looked at me for a moment, then asked, "And you want these kinds of dreams back?"

Put that way, I fathomed Ray's disbelief. "I understand them." I understood last night's first dream too, as much as I almost wished I didn't.

"Even in yer dreams you have to work? That sucks. I mean, people need to dream just so they won't go crazy, right? So it seems to me that dreaming itself would be work enough. And I might be more helpful if I knew what happening in yer dreams."

"You had the flame wings and melted a hole in an ice field, plunging us to our deaths." Benton! That was mean. As well as untrue. "Actually, you saw the danger and tried to move away but couldn't." Because I stopped you.

"Geez. Okay, I see why you'd be upset."

"That wasn't the dream that upset me."

"Hunh?"

"I was bothered by a dream in which you were taking a statement from a toad."

"You have something against Kermit?"

"You were speaking to a toad, not a frog."

Ray looked confused. "Did anybody die in this dream?"

"Not that I saw."

"Okay. Let me break this down to make sure I got it right. You had this dream where we died in an ice field. But that's the dream you don't mind. The dream that pissed you off has both of us alive but me conversing with a toad. Nothing terrible happens in this dream, but it was, what, overly whimsical and you can't make out any symbolism and that pisses you off?"

It sounded silly when he said it that way. "Basically, yes."

"Yer right. There isn't anything I can do for ya, because you need a professional."

"Perhaps you're right." But I knew that I would be a poor patient. A patient/therapist relationship had to be one of trust and honesty, while I would never be able to reveal all the things necessary to uphold my side of the transaction. Mostly out of fear that any therapist would recommend institutionalization within an hour of hearing the truth from me, even before I mentioned that I spoke to my dead father now and then.

When I heard Dief grumble and looked into the back seat, I saw him lying on his back looking up at the ceiling as well, in mockery, no doubt. "Diefenbaker, that's rude."

"Actually, he says he had a bad dream too, but he understands what his means. He dreamed he was in a world without donuts and was understandably horrified. Once he woke up, he made sure his dream didn't come true by prompting you to come see me."

I wondered whether I should believe Ray, since I heard nothing from Diefenbaker at all. At least I started to see how my usual habit of conversing with Dief would be annoying to others not privy to the conversation, not that I would ever admit that to Ray. "He did not."

"Did too."

"He did n-- I am not going to start one of these useless go-rounds with you."

"They're not useless. I have a blast with 'em. And, no, I'm not right about the professional help thing. There's a simple explanation for yer toad-talking dream."

"I fail to see it."

"Look, lately you've been doing a lot of boring stuff at the consulate like forms and doorstop duty without getting the interesting stuff of coming to see me and help out on cases. Or putting yer nose in something and making a case for me."

"It's hardly 'doorstop--"

"Those doorstop and form-filling-out things don't exactly challenge you. Maybe yer brain is trying to at least do something creative in its sleep. Yer a complicated guy, Fraser, and you don't come with an instruction manual. Revel in it. It's a good thing."

That made sense. As much as I appreciated the importance of my duties, I'd been rather lost in them lately, to the exclusion of all else, and they could be dull. I'd missed Ray and the 27th, as well as the endless surprises both brought. Thus, my dream made a certain kind of sense after all, and it had compelled me to seek out what I'd lost, thus rendering it both productive and meaningful.

It may not have been a good thing to be pining for Ray in my dreams, but at least it was a comprehensible thing.

"I got the feeling that yer happy with yer dream now, but it's from disregarding most of what I had to say."

"Not at all, Ray. You've helped me find what I was missing."

"That's great. So yer good?"

"I'm... good." Truly.

"Yer sure?"

"Yes."

"No more pissiness?"

"I don't get 'pissy.'"

"Oh, yeah. Right." Ray winked at me. "Now I'm gonna make sure Dief's nightmare doesn't come true. C'mon, guy!"

Ray and Dief had the doors open and were running outside before I understood what he might mean. Then I did at last and ran out of the car after my two snickering partners. "Ray! Don't you dare!"

As Ray stood at the building's door and waved Dief inside, he called back, "You think I stop on yer say-so? Not even in yer dreams!"