Disclaimer: Property is organised robbery (George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950)

Author's Notes: Many thanks to Helleboredoll for the beta

Ray was gloating, which Fraser didn't really mind. Yet.

"And what would you be doing if we'd gone into the warehouse?" Ray asked, swinging his long legs up onto his desk and grinning at Fraser.

Fraser rolled his eyes. "Recovering from the smell, I imagine."

"And what would I be doing if I'd listened to you about Turnbull's mystery witness?"

Ray was heading into 'obnoxiously smug' territory in Fraser's opinion. He sighed. "Probably identifying my corpse."

"Yep, and what are we doing because I took charge for a change?"

Fraser narrowed his eyes. "Well, you're gloating in a most unbecoming fashion, while I appear to be writing up your report. And it's not like I never listen to you."

"Ha!" Ray looked like he was about to start listing all the times Fraser should have listened to him and hadn't. Which, Fraser admitted, might take rather a long time. Fortunately the phone interrupted him.

"Vecchio!" Ray growled into the phone. "Hey! Morrison! How you doing? Wait, how did you know to call me here?"

Fraser returned to the report, tuning out Ray's conversation. It wasn't until he'd finished the part about the explosive device and the skunk residue that he noticed Ray had hung up the phone, taken his feet off the desk, and was sitting far more quietly than he normally did. Fraser looked up, and Ray was pale and staring into space.

"Ray?"

Ray jumped, then blinked a couple of times and looked at Fraser. "Uh. Yeah, sorry. What?"

"Bad news?" Fraser asked, nodding at the phone.

All the energy suddenly snapped back into Ray and he shrugged. "Guy I helped put away just got parole. Nothing important. You finished?" Ray leaned over Fraser's shoulder. "Looks good. Let's get out of here."

~

They decided to go for Chinese, and Ray was quiet but fidgety. Fraser ignored it until Ray accidentally flipped a chopstick across the room.

Fraser swallowed his broccoli. "What did he do?"

"Huh? Who?" Ray wasn't paying attention; he was waving apologetically at one of the wait staff.

"The man who got parole today."

Ray's gaze jerked back to Fraser's face, and he shrugged. "We only got him for murder two. Which is why he's out already. He should have gone down for half a dozen murder ones, but... we never found the bodies."

Fraser poked at his dinner with a chopstick. "A serial killer?"

"Yeah." Ray slumped in his seat. "A really clever one. Picked kids no one would miss."

Ah, that explained Ray's mood. Or did it? Ray normally took it as a personal affront when a criminal got less than his just desserts. Ray should have been bristling with manic hostility, not this quiet, distracted nervousness.

After ten minutes of silence, Fraser's curiosity got the better of him. "He targeted children?"

Ray jumped and glared at Fraser. "Nice dinner conversation, Fraser. Teenagers. Gay kids. Runaways and throwaways, and we'll never know how many of them, because nobody fucking noticed." Ray slammed twenty dollars down on the table, kicked his chair back and stormed out of the restaurant.

~

Fraser dreamed of touch. He felt strong hand on his hip, the brush of gel-spiked hair on his stomach, and the tickle of affectionate grumbles breathed on the inside of his thigh. He woke up reluctantly when Diefenbaker put a paw over his face. "What..." Fraser started to complain, annoyed at being pulled from his dream, then realised he could hear scratching noises coming from the foyer. He quietly got out of bed and slipped out of his office. The noises were coming from the front door, and sounded like someone was trying to pick the lock. He was about to yank the door open and apprehend the malfeasant when a thump and a muffled 'oops' revealed who was on the other side of the door.

"Good evening, Ray." Fraser said, opening the door. "Is there oof..." Ray tumbled through the door and knocked Fraser off his feet.

"Sorry. Sorry. Didn't see you there." Ray sat down on the floor next to Fraser, and Fraser blinked at the smell of whisky and stale cigarette smoke that clung to Ray.

"Have you been drinking?"

Ray shrugged. "Yeah. A lot. Didn't help much." Ray sank further down onto the floor, looking like nothing more than a relaxed puddle of angular limbs. "Need a nap."

"No, you need to drink something non alcoholic, eat something if you can, and find somewhere a little less uncomfortable to sleep it off." Fraser stood up, swung the door closed and levered Ray to his feet.

"Yeah, you're a pal, Frase." Ray wobbled a little, but let Fraser lead him to the kitchen. "Why am I here again?"

Fraser manhandled Ray into one of the kitchen chairs. "You didn't say. Perhaps you wanted to talk?"

Ray made a rude noise and laid his head down on the table. "Like that would help."

Fraser hunted through the cupboards in search of sugar. "This is about the serial killer that was released today, isn't it?"

Ray was quiet long enough that Fraser worried he'd fallen asleep. Ray's face was turned away from him, and his chest rose and fell slowly.

"Ray, are you..."

"It was my first undercover gig. Except it wasn't. If you look in my file it says I 'assisted'. They're not supposed to put rookies in undercover, but Morrison was desperate. Back then... I wasn't much out of my teens myself, give me a haircut, put me in the right clothes... I looked just like all those poor bastards."

Fraser poured some sugar, too much in his opinion, into the tea he'd made and put it down on the table. Ray didn't move.

"This guy, DeSilva, staggered into the 18th, shot in the gut, bleeding out. Didn't manage to say a word before he passed out on the floor. Died on the way to the hospital. Turns out he was an ex-cop, working as private security for some big shit, Reilly, out in the sticks. Big shit had a gay son he'd been trying to straighten out, but the kid was some kind of Houdini. Looney bins, reprogramming centres, military schools... kid broke out of 'em all. So the big shit sent DeSilva to follow the kid around, make sure he didn't do anything to embarrass his old man."

"And the boy was dead?"

Ray sighed and sat up. "Don't know for sure. We never found a body." He picked up the tea and took a gulp. "Shit, Fraser. You never heard of sugar?"

~

Fraser woke up late the next morning. Ray hadn't made much sense after his sugarless tea complaint, and had fallen asleep on a couch in one of the public rooms halfway through kicking his boots off. Fraser slipped quietly into the room to check on him, silently thanking any deities who might be listening that it was a Saturday, and no one was likely to come knocking at the door.

Ray was sleeping on his side on the long leather couch, one arm dangling down and exposing the inside of his elbow, and one sock-clad foot poking out from under the blanket. Simply by his presence, Ray gave the formal room an air of homeliness. Fraser smiled, feeling ridiculously happy that Ray had come here instead of going back to his apartment. The Consulate often felt cold end empty, but never when Ray was there, even passed out.

Fraser crouched down and stared at Ray. Such a confusing person. Fraser wasn't used to being confused. Since coming to Chicago he'd become used to being in situations where he might not understand exactly what was going on, but normally felt confident that thorough investigative technique would bring greater understanding. Not so with Ray. Studying Ray only brought more confusing variables to Fraser's attention.

Fraser brushed sweaty hair off Ray's forehead, relishing the chance to touch him, even though he didn't smell very appealing at the moment. Ray opened his eyes, and for a moment there it was like the air hummed between them. Both caught off-guard with all their barriers down, everything showed on their faces.

Then Ray groaned and rolled off the couch onto his hands and knees. "Tell me you brought a bucket."

In the scramble to get Ray to a bathroom before he vomited, the hum was lost.

~

Fraser concentrated on the back of Ray's neck in an attempt to tune out the smell of the alley, the sounds of the busy street behind them, and the stifling summer heat. It wasn't working well, but he'd noticed that Ray was slightly tenser than usual, information that might be useful later.

"Hey, sugar, that toy soldier come with batteries?" Fraser tried not to sigh; it wasn't the first proposition he'd had that day, but it was the first one from someone so young. The boy couldn't have been much more than fourteen. He opened his mouth to reply, but Ray waved at him to stay silent.

"Never mind the Mountie, kid. Look... I'm not down here to bust heads."

"Pfft! Yeah, right." The boy rolled his eyes. "What do you want, and what do I get out of it?"

Ray handed over one of his cards. "There's a guy, just got out of prison..."

Fraser became a fraction more alert. He'd thought this was something to do with attempting to find witnesses for the Feretti case, but this sounded more like whatever had been bothering Ray at the weekend.

"... He's bad news. Any kids go missing, you let me know, okay? And stay away from a tall white guy with black hair and a Georgia accent."

"Like I said, what's in it for me?"

Ray rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, an action Fraser found strangely attractive. He watched the twist of tendons under Ray's skin, and wondered if the skin on Ray's inner arms felt as soft as it looked. Realising he was becoming distracted while working, Fraser brought his attention back to what Ray was saying.

"Apart from you maybe not being another victim? Twenty bucks, okay? If a kid vanishes for no obvious reason, and you let me know, twenty bucks, deal?"

"Sure." The boy plucked the card out of Ray's hand and slipped it into his pocket. Then he turned to Fraser. "You want to come back some time without your boyfriend, you and me could play dress up. I got a sailor suit back at my place. I do discounts for pretty daddies."

This time Ray grabbed onto Fraser's upper arm and dragged him out of the alley before he could reply. "Shouldn't we try to help..."

"We are helping!" Ray growled, towing him down the street. "What do you want me to do? Drag that kid over to Family Services? He'd be gone five minutes after we dropped him off, and you know it."

Fraser ignored the tingling in his arm where Ray was still gripping him. "This is about that phone call you got on Friday, isn't it? The serial killer? Maybe I could help, if you told me about it."

Ray shrugged. "Yeah, maybe. Come on, my place. The pizza's on me."

~

Ray tossed a crust back into the box and settled back on the couch next to Fraser. "So... they had a dead ex-cop, and it all got bumped up to Homicide. Which is where Morrison came in. Before Homicide he worked Vice, and even though the Reilly kid hadn't been working the streets, missing gay kids were still a Vice problem back then. He got the lead because he knew his way around. Only they couldn't investigate, because the kind of places where the Reilly kid was hanging out everyone could smell cop at two hundred paces and were pretty wary of anyone over twenty."

Fraser swallowed his last bite of pizza, and shifted slightly so he was facing Ray. "So they asked you to participate?" Ray looked a lot more relaxed than he had the last time they'd talked about this. Of course, the last time they'd talked about it, Ray had been drunk and they'd been in the comfortless and brightly-lit Consulate kitchen. Now, in Ray's cluttered and cosy apartment, with the lights dimmed and something slow and vaguely Latin playing quietly on the stereo, Fraser couldn't imagine being anything other than relaxed.

"I volunteered," Ray said, stretching out and sprawling across the couch until his head rested on the arm and his knee pressed against Fraser's leg. Ray stared at the ceiling for a moment, then continued, "I was just a dumb rookie. If they hadn't been desperate to get someone on the inside they'd have told me to get lost."

Ray pulled a cushion out from under his hip and stuffed it behind his neck so he was facing Fraser instead of the ceiling. "I got dressed up like jailbait and went and hung out with the lost boys for a while. And that's when we found out about the other kids. They'd been disappearing for years and no one reported them missing. Suddenly a murder/missing person investigation turned into a hunt for a serial killer. You ever worked a serial killer case?"

"No," Fraser said, "Although there were a series of mysterious deaths involving carved whalebone artefacts that quite..." Fraser noticed Ray's irritated expression. "No, not as such."

Ray sat up for a moment, suddenly so close Fraser could feel the heat radiating off him. "Serial killer cases... they're not like regular cases. It's a circus. And I got sucked right in." He dropped back down into an untidy sprawl, exposing a thin slice of belly between the bottom of his shirt and the waistband of his jeans, and leaving Fraser a little breathless. "I'd been hanging out in the right places, so they told me to hang out some more. Ask a few questions. Get accepted into the community."

Fraser reluctantly pulled his gaze away from Ray's stomach. "Which you did."

"Yes," Ray said, making a grab for his untouched beer on the table, and splashing it across the back of his hand. Fraser watched, slightly dazed, as Ray absently sucked the beer off his knuckles. "Even then, I was good at undercover." Ray paused and took a sip of his beer. "And we caught the guy, but only for DeSilva. Not for any of the kids. And now he's out."

Fraser knew Ray wasn't telling him everything. Had barely summarised what had happened. There was something about this case that was still gnawing at Ray, but Fraser knew better than to push. Ray could be quite as stubborn as... well... Fraser was himself at times.

"I should go. It's getting late and Diefenbaker really needs to go out." Fraser stood up, ignoring Dief's protesting grumble.

"I'll give you a ride back to the Consulate," Ray said, standing up, just a little too close for a moment.

"Thank you." Fraser had intended to walk, but he was suddenly reluctant to leave Ray's company. "Wait... the beer..."

"Frase, I had less than two mouthfuls." Ray grinned, and Fraser realised that it was the first time Ray had smiled since he'd taken that phone call the week before.

"Any amount of alcohol, no matter how small is enough to impair your..." Fraser found himself grinning back, even as he lectured Ray on the deleterious effects of alcohol.

"Frase, two mouthfuls. I promise I won't crash." Ray patted Fraser on the shoulder, and their eyes locked. The hum was back, and for a moment they swayed towards each other. Then Ray turned away. "C'mon, get your hat."

Fraser blinked, unsure of what had happened. He wasn't an idiot, he knew he was attracted to Ray, but he couldn't work out if the... frisson... between them was one-sided or not. Every so often they'd share a look or a touch and Fraser was sure that his feelings were returned, and then Ray would turn away, or make a joke, and Fraser stopped being so sure. He sighed, collected his hat and followed Ray and Dief out of the apartment.

~

Two weeks later he and Ray were on their way back to the 27th after a fruitless afternoon looking for Johnny 'Smiles' Siler, one of Ray's less reliable informants, when Ray braked hard and glared at a boarded up shop front. 'Starbucks opening here soon!' proclaimed a poster pasted to the boards.

"Huh," was all that Ray said before putting the car back into gear and driving away. Then a few moments later, "Starbucks."

"Is there something significant about that particular Starbucks?" Fraser couldn't imagine what. After all there were probably fifty more in the city.

"No. It's just that everything seems to be reminding me..." Ray trailed off, then slapped the steering wheel. "That's the place, you know. The place all the runaways used to hang out. There were pinball and arcade games at the front, and a caf at the back, and if you looked like you hadn't had a good meal for a few days Chester, the guy who ran the place, would slip you free fries."

"Sounds like a good man." Fraser said.

Ray flinched. "I thought so. Everyone thought so. He was the guy you went to if your parents had kicked you out because they'd found out you were gay. He'd give you a big cup of hot chocolate and send you to one of the charity shelters or help you find a place to stay. He was in the perfect place to pick out the kids who didn't go the shelters, the ones who stayed under the radar. The ones no one would miss."

"He was the killer?"

"Yeah. And I liked him." Ray hunched over the wheel, and Fraser barely resisted the urge to reach over in some kind of comforting gesture. "I thought he was my friend." Ray drove through a red light and flipped off a driver who blared his horn at them. "I felt bad about lying to him. I was this close to telling him who I really was."

"Ah." That certainly explained a few things.

"Yeah, 'Ah'. He killed God knows how many people, and I still feel like I owe... fuck." Ray slammed on the brakes, yanked the GTO to the curb, and leaped out. He'd stormed halfway down the block before Fraser caught up with him.

"Ray..." Fraser touched Ray's sleeve, only to have it tugged away from him.

"Not now, Frase."

Fraser took a deep breath, his own demons not far from his thoughts. "Ray, I understand. There have been criminals who have fooled me too. There were a few I genuinely cared about." Cared about far too much in one spectacular piece of idiocy. He reached for Ray again, his hand barely brushing Ray's wrist.

Ray spun around, furious. "You don't understand."

"So explain it to me."

Ray grabbed Fraser by the front of his uniform and shook him. "You don't want to know, Fraser. You have no idea what a mess it all was." Ray tried to shove Fraser away, but only succeeded in making them both stumble into the doorway of a boarded up store. Fraser caught Ray's elbows and stopped them both from slamming into the spiderweb cracks of the door's safety glass.

The doorway was deep and shaded, and the street behind them was silent and deserted. Fraser was suddenly all too aware of Ray's closeness, the smell of his sweat and the beat of his pulse, visible at the juncture of shoulder and neck. Fraser could feel the hum, back again and buzzing through both their bodies as Ray swayed towards him, then pressed their lips together.

Fraser opened his mouth, determined to enjoy it however long it lasted. He had a brief taste of Ray's warm wet mouth before Ray pushed him away.

"Hell, no." Ray backed away, looking even angrier. "No. We can't do this. This is so way beyond wrong." Ray stepped out into the sunlight. "Don't do this to me."

Fraser reached out a hand. "Ray, we're not doing anything wrong. Surely you know how I..."

"NO!"

Fraser blinked. Ray had shouted at him many times before, in the heat of the moment and occasionally in real anger, but it had never had force like this before.

"Don't you get it, Frase?" Ray yelled. "We were fucking. He was such a nice guy, and I didn't know shit about myself, and he thought I was sixteen, and I still let him do me." Ray seemed to realise they were on a public street, and stopped shouting. He stepped back into Fraser's personal space and continued in a low intense voice. "When they arrested him, he found out I was a cop and didn't say a word about me. He could have ended my career and my marriage right there, but he didn't. He was setting me up to be his next victim, and I owe him for not screwing up my whole damned life." Ray spun on his heel and headed back to the GTO.

"Ray..."

"Fraser, leave this alone. Leave me alone." They reached the car and Ray opened the driver's side door. "Just... look, you're only a couple of blocks from the Consulate. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

"I..."

"Tomorrow, Fraser."

It wasn't until Ray was out of sight that Fraser remembered Diefenbaker was still in the back of the car.

~

Fraser knocked on Ray's door. He wasn't sure he was doing the right thing, but he had to talk to Ray. He waited for a few minutes, then knocked again. The door slowly opened and Ray stood there looking resigned.

"I forgot about Dief. Sorry. He's on the couch." Fraser heard Dief slithering off the couch and onto the floor where he should have been.

"Can I come in?"

Ray hesitated for a moment, then swung the door open. "As long as you don't expect me to talk."

"You don't have to talk. I'd appreciate it if you listened though?"

"Fine." Ray turned away, and Fraser heard Ray open a beer in the kitchen. He gave Diefenbaker a reproachful look.

"The couch is for humans. You shouldn't take advantage of Ray like that."

"I don't mind. I get why you talk to him so much. He's a good listener." Ray sat down and put his feet up on the coffee table. "So... why are you here, Fraser?"

Now that he was here, Fraser wasn't sure how to start. He wished Ray had offered him a beer, just so he had something to do with his hands. He sat down next to Ray, but not so close they were touching, and said, "I've been in love twice. Both times with the same woman." He blew out a breath. This wasn't going to be easy.

Ray was looking at him like he was insane. "Okay."

Fraser settled further back into the cushions and tried to relax a little. "The first time I fell in love with her I knew she was a criminal. She'd taken part in a robbery and was on the run from the authorities. I arrested her and she went to prison. But not before I'd slept with her."

Ray picked at the label on his beer. "Victoria Metcalf?"

"Yes." Fraser reached over and took the beer from Ray. He raised it to his lips and drank deeply before continuing. "The second time I fell in love with her, I thought she'd paid her debt to society, but really... she was just running up a larger one. She was a thief and a murderer, she killed a man with my gun, framed me for it, shot Diefenbaker, and when she asked me to run away with her I decided to go. The Vecchios would have lost their home, Dief was in a cage at the veterinarian's, and I would have been on the run for the rest of my life. But I went with her."

"And Vecchio shot you." Ray was looking right at Fraser now. He took his feet off the coffee table and turned a little, curiosity clear on his face. Fraser decided that was better than the miserable blankness that had been there before.

"Yes. He's always said it was an accident, but I think it makes me feel better to assume he did it on purpose. I did something very wrong and stupid, and I don't want to be unpunished." Fraser turned his head to the side and studied Ray. Ray looked like he did when he'd found the solution to a particularly difficult set of problems. A sort of dawning comprehension, but not the good kind.

After a moment Ray spoke. "You think all this coming up again is freaking me out because I feel guilty?"

"Well... yes." Fraser frowned. "It seemed to fit the facts."

"Huh." Ray took back his beer, his fingers brushing over Fraser's and leaving a faint tingling warmth. "It didn't occur to you that the whole queer thing might be what's freaking me out?"

Fraser's stomach dropped and he cursed himself for an idiot. Just because he didn't have a problem with flexible sexuality didn't mean Ray would be the same. He rubbed his eyebrow and tried not to let his embarrassment show on his face. "Ah, no. Not really."

"You're usually smarter than that, Frase," Ray said, looking away from Fraser. "Any time I've wanted... that... it's been wrong." He flicked a glance back and shrugged. "I'm not saying it's wrong for everyone, but me... I can't trust myself when I feel like that. I've got no sense. I was sleeping with a serial killer, and when we arrested him I didn't think 'One less killer on the streets', I thought 'I'm not going to get to have sex with him ever again'." Ray took another mouthful of beer and rubbed a hand over his eyes. He looked tied and defeated. "This queer stuff...it can't end my marriage now, but it can still mess up the rest of my life. It can mess up me. You understand?"

Fraser nodded slowly, feeling sick and sad.

Ray stood up. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" He finished off his beer and set the bottle down on the coffee table and went to his bedroom, not quite slamming the door behind him, but certainly closing it rather more firmly than necessary.

~

The next day Ray seemed more or less himself. A little more volatile than usual, and he didn't invite Fraser to spend time with him after work, but on the whole... normal. Fraser filled the long Rayless evenings with books and long walks with Diefenbaker. It was almost unbearably boring, and the temptation to lock himself in his room and retreat into carnal fantasies of an unrestrained and eager Ray was ever present.

Normal lasted for fifteen days. On the fifteenth day, Ray got another phone call from his former Lieutenant, Morrison. Ten minutes later they were standing in the middle of a crime scene.

Fraser stood on the sidelines as Ray unzipped the body bag far enough to see the man inside. Ray's usual distaste for dead bodies showed on his face, but he didn't turn away. "You got the shooter?" Ray asked, waving at one of the patrolmen.

"Yeah, the crazy bas... the perp didn't even try to get away. Just stood there yelling about how the vic had killed his son." The patrolman nodded at an elderly man sitting in the back of a black and white.

Ray finally looked up, and turned towards the car. "Is that Luke Reilly?" Ray asked.

The patrolman checked his notebook. "Yeah. You know him?"

"I met him once, a long time ago."

"The vic kill his son?"

Ray zipped the bodybag back up. "Don't know, we never found..." Ray rubbed his face and swore under his breath. "Yeah. We never found any of the bodies, but yes. He killed Reilly's kid, and probably a dozen other kids."

The patrolman opened his mouth to say something, but Ray bounced to his feet and strode away, past Fraser and out under the crime scene tape. Fraser followed Ray back to the car. "Ray... are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Fine. I just need to..." Ray stopped in the middle of the street. "Shit!"

"Ray..."

Ray turned around. "We're never going to find the bodies of those kids. We're never going to nail that son of a bitch for their murders. I was keeping an eye on him, following him. He'd have lead me to them eventually." Ray stormed off towards his car, waving his arms and swearing under his breath.

Well, that explained why Ray hadn't wanted to spend time together outside of work. Fraser decided not to feel guilty about that cheering him up.

~

As soon as they got back to the 27th, Ray was on the phone. "Hey, Morrison. So last week, when you phoned me, who else did you phone?" Ray had a tight grin, completely devoid of humour, on his face. "You phone Reilly too?"

Fraser sat down and watched Ray, wondering if the phone was going to survive.

"You manipulative bast... you were hoping one of us would take him out, weren't you?"

Fraser started counting. He'd reached seven before Ray threw the telephone at the wall.

~

Fraser wasn't surprised when he was woken by drunken scratching at his door that night. He opened the door, and this time Ray caught himself on the doorframe instead of knocking Fraser over.

"I'm not really drunk," Ray said, stepping inside with the exaggerated carefulness that came with inebriation.

"You could have fooled me," Fraser said, crossing his arms.

"Aw, Frase, don't get all pissy. I have decided," he threw an arm out, miming casting something away, "to let it go. Sure, closure with... him in jail, and a proper burial for all those kids would have been better, but I'm over it. He's dead. I'm still here. Any day you're not dead is one you won, right?"

Fraser smiled. "I'll make some tea."

"Put sugar in it this time," Ray said, following him to the kitchen. "I don't know what you've got against sugar. My metabolism, I need the stuff."

Fraser knew better than to argue with someone under the influence, so he just smiled, nodded and put the sugar bowl in front of Ray as he slumped into the same kitchen chair he'd sat in last time.

"Sorry," Ray said, as Fraser put the tea down in front of him.

"About what?" Fraser blew on his tea and took a sip.

"For being weird. For being weird about..." Ray waved his mug, sloshing tea onto the table, "... all the stuff since Morrison phoned."

"That's fine, Ray, "Fraser said. "It was a stressful situ..."

"And before." Ray put the mug down. "Before he called. When I was weird about us. All this time we've known each other, I've been weird about us. And I'm sorry."

Fraser sat back in surprise. "Oh."

"I wasn't being fair. I should have either said yes or no. I shouldn't have pretended there was nothing going on."

Fraser blinked, unsure of how to react. Ray had been very good at pretending nothing was going on. To the point where Fraser had been half convinced all the touches and meaningful glances, the buzz were in his mind. "Would you have said yes?"

Ray looked uncomfortable. "I'd have said no."

"Oh." Fraser knew it was impossible for his stomach to drop down to pelvis level, but it did feel like it.

Ray reached out and grabbed Fraser's arm, pinning it to the table. "I'd have said no then. All the stuff I said about it screwing up my life. That stuff was more important then. Because it was all tied up with... what happened when I was a rookie. All of it was mixed up together in this box marked 'wrong'."

Fraser also knew it was impossible for his stomach to be in his throat. "And now?"

"And now... it's not as important. He's dead, and I can't owe a dead man anything. What happened back then was a mistake, but that doesn't mean that anything that happens now is a mistake too." Ray let go of Fraser's arm. "Not that I'm really sure what I want to happen now."

"You should probably sleep on it," Fraser said, leaning back to grab a towel and mopping up Ray's spilt tea.

Ray grinned, and Fraser couldn't help grinning back. The buzz flared to life until Ray said, "Remember to leave me a bucket this time."

~

Fraser was dreaming again. This time he felt warm lips pressing gently on the side of his neck, he turned towards the warmth and woke up suddenly when he realised they were real. "Ray?"

Ray slid, fully clothed, under the blankets, and Fraser could see the outline of his face in what little pre-dawn glow got through the thick curtains. "Yeah. Hi. I woke up sober, and I just..." Ray shrugged. "There didn't seem to be any good reason why I wasn't here."

"Maybe not good reasons, but you did have reasons." Fraser tried to ignore his body's insistence that he pull Ray closer. "You told me about them last night, remember?"

"They're stupid reasons. Really stupid." Ray pushed at Fraser until they were lying on their sides, facing each other. "I was so worried about making a mess of my life I was making a whole different mess. You're not Chester, and I'm not a dumb rookie. Comparing us to that back then is like comparing cheese and rocks."

Fraser nodded, his whole body heated to the point where he could barely think. "Yes, but you can't just change your mind..."

"Sure I can." The dim light couldn't hide Ray's grin. "I've been carrying this around for all these years, and now I don't have to. I don't want to. Whoosh! It's gone."

Fraser shook his head. "No, it's not."

Ray's grin faded. "Okay, maybe not all of it. He brushed his lips over Fraser's. "But it's okay to want this, isn't it?"

Fraser lifted a hand and wrapped around the back of Ray's neck. "Yes. Yes, it's okay to want this." And kissed him back.

The End