Chapter Text
November 1992
Spoilers for Due South Season 1, "China Town."
So, you were sitting up there when this supposed crime took place....where?
Approximately thirty-five meters south-south west.
And you saw this from across the room, through the pagoda and around the corner, right?
No, I heard it.
You heard it?
Hey, Lewis. He heard it.
Tell, me Fraser, what exactly does a kidnapping sound like?
Well, in this case, there was the sound of a foot breaking glass. This was followed by the scream of a female bystander and the squeal of tires as the vehicle pulled away from the curb.
And did you happen to hear a license plate number, too?
No, the license plate was concealed by mud.
You know what we have here, Jack? Another case of... speeding with a dirty license plate.
Fraser was being weird. He'd pulled out all the stops on this one, was way over the top, and Ray really wished he had something better to go on, some kind of circumstantial evidence Forensics would believe or maybe a nice witness, but no, all they had was Fraser being weird, and Ray had to go with it. He had to, because the FBI was fucking up the case and Ray and Fraser had helped them do it. That kid was going to get killed, and as pissed as Ray would be about that, Fraser would be devastated, and, no, Ray could live with failure but he couldn't live with Benny blaming himself over this. No, just no. So Ray griped and whined but let Fraser play around on the floor with fingernail clippings--fingernail clippings, for God's sake--and hoped for a miracle. Benny was good with miracles.
"It's not the nails we're interested in, Ray, it's what's underneath them." He'd pulled a pair of tweezers from somewhere and was picking through the little pile of nail parings like they had all the time in the world.
"Fraser, this guy wears two thousand dollar suits. He's not going to walk around with dirt under his nails."
"Well, exactly, which means that anything we find had to have been collected since he showered this morning." He lifted one of the parings in the tweezers and touched it to his tongue. It was too disgusting to watch, and Ray threw up his hands, yelling for Fraser to quit it. "Just close your eyes, it won't bother you," Fraser said calmly.
Ray's eyes were already closed, but he was ready to gag anyway. It was like Fraser had no understanding of filth. Jesus. "Just hurry up, will you?" Ray waited through the long seconds of silence until he couldn't stand it any more. "Well?" he asked, peeking.
"Potassium nitrate," he frowned, lightly tasting the disgusting thing again, "and a touch of sulfur."
"That's gun powder," Ray said, forgetting the nasty method of data collection.
Even as he nodded at Ray, all of Fraser's attention was on the sliver gripped by the tweezers. "Not ordinary gun powder," he said. "It's very low grade. It's not like anything I've ever tasted."
Right. Because somehow Fraser was an expert in the taste of gun powder. "Do you do this a lot?" he asked. "Try to solve cases by gnawing on ammunition?" Did they just not have forensic laboratories in Canada? Surely, everybody up there didn't work like this. He'd seen Canada, of course. Once, but that was enough. Ray knew that sometimes you really were on a case hundreds of miles from the nearest town, and yes, okay, then you had to use the assets you had with you, but still.... He had that feeling again. Something just wasn't right.
"Well, I admit, it is a calculated risk, Ray." His eyes lit briefly with something like amusement as he put away his tweezers. "But I am a professional. This is not for amateurs." He rose briskly, retrieved his hat, and headed for the door, leaving Ray staring at the disgusting little pile of nail clippings. Ray would risk his life for a case, sure, but he drew the line at tasting stuff. Even whatshisname, Edwards, up in forensics, he didn't taste stuff, and he was a sentinel....
***
The case swept them along as fast as Ray could keep up. There really wasn't time to sit down for a few minutes and tally up Fraser's enhanced senses. In a way, he didn't need to. Now that he'd seen it, so much of the last half-year made a lot more sense. And also a lot less sense, but he didn't have time sort it out because Wong was going to kill the kid in an hour and Fraser was sure that the low-grade gunpowder meant fireworks, not munitions.
"In case you didn't realize, Mister Mountie, that you cannot buy, sell, or manufacture fireworks anywhere in the city of Chicago," Ray said.
"That is unless you have a license to exhibit."
Right. That made sense. Ray looked up, wondering if Fraser was just guessing.
Fraser nodded. "City Ordinance, section fifteen dash twenty."
"You read that?"
"There's a world of information at your local library, Ray," and yeah, he was just being Fraser, both funny and serious at the same time, but that didn't change the fact that he'd nearly memorized the city ordinances. Ray couldn't help wondering if the memory thing was a sentinel thing, too.
***
After the shoot-out in the firework warehouse (and the near-death experience that usually accompanied working a case with Fraser) and the fighting and yelling and running and last-second rescue and arrest, Ray stood on the sidewalk with Fraser, watching the fireworks the FBI had accidentally set off paint the sky in glittering colors. He smiled. They wouldn't get the credit on this one, but since it all worked out, they wouldn't get fired either. The kid was alive and being hugged to pieces by his parents. The FBI had Wong in custody. Life was good.
The crowd was huge, though, and the fireworks were close and loud. Benny wasn't fond of either crowds or loud noises, and now that Ray knew why, he thought it would be a good idea to get him away. He started up the street, knowing that Benny would follow.
"Shouldn't we stay and...fill out some reports?" Fraser asked, his long strides quickly catching up.
Ray smiled, felt the smile dissolve into a smirk. "Well, no, we have to leave them something to do."
Ray spotted a diner a couple of blocks down and ducked in as a refuge. The young waitress spotted Dief and hesitantly stepped toward them. Ray flashed his badge and growled, "The dog's a material witness," which made the girl back down and Fraser frown uncertainly.
"It wasn't a lie," Ray muttered as they sat down at a back booth. "He's witnessed three felonies this week alone, including the kidnapping we just closed." Briefly, just briefly, Fraser met Ray's eyes. He was curious; usually Ray was just as happy to leave Diefenbaker in the street while they ate. He didn't understand the sudden change of heart. Come to think of it, neither did Ray, but he didn't want to let either of them out of his sight.
The girl came back with the menus. Ray set the menu aside and ordered coffee. Fraser had tea and ordered a scrambled egg for the wolf. As the waitress walked away, Ray found himself asking, "So, the tea. Is that a Canadian thing or a sentinel thing?"
He actually surprised Fraser with that. It hardly ever happened, but Ray saw the flash of astonishment and the wariness that followed before the polite Mountie mask slid into place. "Personal preference," he said blandly.
Ray nodded. "So, they do have Sentinels in Canada?"
"Oh. Yes, of course. Although, interestingly, not as many as in the States. Well, proportionally speaking. I've heard several theories--"
"Are you official? I mean, do you have a diagnosis and paperwork and everything?"
"It's not an illness, Ray. You don't get a 'diagnosis.'" He paused, caught under Ray's careful scrutiny. "Yes, it's official. I've been tested. My scores aren't particularly high, but they're well over the threshold--" He trailed off and glanced away. He looked more uncertain than Ray had ever seen.
Ray found himself nodding slowly. All the licking and the sniffing and going into closets to remember sounds...Oh, yeah, everything made more sense now. Except the things that made less sense.
"Aren't you supposed to have a guide?" That was one of the things that didn't make sense. Ray would have twigged right away if there had been a guide around, but no, and there had to be one, didn't there? Edwards wasn't allowed to fill out paperwork without a guide on duty. "I mean, isn't it illegal or something to work alone?"
Fraser fingered his right eyebrow thoughtfully. "I'm an employee of the RCMP, Ray, here in a diplomatic capacity. Occupational Health and Safety regulations don't apply to me."
"And you don't...mind not having one?"
"Customs are somewhat different in Canada. While a guide is usual, it is not required."
"Yeah, but don't guides...do something."
"Ah, well," Fraser shifted uncomfortably. "A guide can make things...easier. But my own training is more than adequate to compensate."
Ray, used to the Mountie runaround, nodded and waited.
Fraser flushed slightly. "When I need an external distraction or some support, there's Diefenbaker."
And, damn, yes, that made sense, didn't it? The wolf. The inconvenient and obnoxious wolf that Benny couldn't live without.
He felt a surge of anger. Fraser was a damn good cop. Well, an incredible cop, actually, and a sentinel besides. And Canada left him to be guided by a wolf and put him on statue duty outside the Chicago consulate rather then, oh, for example, treating him with a little respect and letting him solve crimes in the Yukon where he'd be really efficient.
The waitress appeared with their order. Ray ground his teeth while she set things down and flirted inexpertly with Fraser. When she was gone, Fraser asked, "What, Ray?"
"Why the hell is the RCMP letting you work cases with me for *free* in your off time when you could be...." he waved his hand vaguely in a direction he thought might be north.
"You know why," Fraser said, dropping his gaze to the Formica table. "I'm very inconvenient. I always was. And now I'm an...embarrassment. A politically awkward reminder."
Ray closed his eyes, lots of other things also coming clear. "Moose Jaw. Why were you pulled out of Moose Jaw?"
Fraser opened his mouth, shut it again. Ray could see him coming to a decision. "I couldn't cope with Moose Jaw." His voice was even and soft, like always, but his eyes were ashamed and a little afraid. "My senses were completely out of control. I was having audio-visual hallucinations. There were...physical symptoms as well."
Ray nodded. Oh, yeah, he bet there were 'physical symptoms.' "Serious ones," he guessed. And his superiors had sent him out of the country. Any foreign embassy, all of them in cities. They hadn't meant Fraser to come back, except in a box. He wouldn't be an embarrassment then.
A hesitation. A nod. Ray pushed aside his anger at RCMP politics and nodded back. "What I don't get, Benny, is why you never mentioned this. I mean, it's kind of important, right?"
"Oh. Well. I'd heard that sentinels were more common in America. I assumed you'd notice almost immediately and think nothing of it. I wasn't exactly subtle."
Ray laughed aloud, remembering the first time he'd seen Fraser tasting mud. "No, you weren't. Some detective I am, huh? But you know, down here, we don't put sentinels on the street. They're, whatchacallit, valuable resources."
"Yes, that strikes me as a terrible waste."
They were quiet for a while. Diefenbaker, finished with his egg, nosed the edge of the table looking for more. Fraser rolled his eyes. "Don't start." For an answer, Diefenbaker turned around and sat with his back to Fraser. "And don't sulk. You've got nothing to sulk about." Ray wondered if there was some way he could get Diefenbaker registered as a service animal. That would make life easier on everyone. He'd do a little research. Or get Elaine to do some research. She liked Diefenbaker.
"So," Ray said, "was your dad--?" How did you ask that? It was embarrassing, somehow. Although why should it be? It wasn't like Ray was asking if insanity or impotence or something else embarrassing ran in the family.
"Was my dad what? Oh, a sentinel? No. My grandmother, his mother...."
"The grandmother who raised you, who taught you three dialects of Chinese and to read music. The librarian. She was a sentinel?"
Fraser nodded.
And okay, that complicated things. Because up until this point Ray had just been assuming that Fraser's grandparents were eccentric. But no, it turned out they were eccentric sentinels, at least one of them. Nothing was ever easy with him.
"Ray...you're not angry, are you? I didn't intentionally deceive you. I wasn't...it didn't seem relevant."
"I'm not mad. Why would I be mad? But you really should tell me, you know? When it's a sentinel thing? It'll save time." He smiled suddenly. "But don't cheat. I don't want you using this to win arguments just because you can. You win enough arguments as it is."
"Ray. I would never--"
"Yes, you would. Yes. You would."
Fraser smiled slightly. "I won't," he promised.
~end