Bare Knuckles    Bare Knuckles by Voyagerbabe

 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