Keep Passing Open Windows    The Due South Fiction Archive Entry    
Home

 Quicksearch
 Search Engine
 Random Story

 Upload Story

      	  Keep Passing Open Windows 
 by Nos4a2no9  

 Disclaimer: These characters are not mine and I do not profit from their
use.

 Author's Notes: Thanks to the great omphale23 for doing the beta thing on
this story ages ago. I never got around to posting it because I suspect I
was waiting for this challenge. 
The title comes from a [misquoted] line of dialogue in John Irving's novel
'Hotel New Hampshire':"Keep passing open windows. Stop at a window and you
may decide to jump out."

 Story Notes: Written for the "windows" challenge at ds_flashfiction. This
story deals with domestic violence. It's not explicit but it's there, and
forewarned is forearmed and such.

 

 Keep Passing Open Windows

 They've been catching a lot of domestic-violence cases lately. Crime runs
close to the seasons sometimes: one month it rains for a week and it's all
liquor-store robberies. The next month it's ball-freezing cold and
homicides are the flavor of choice. August and hotter than hell means it's
all DV calls.

 It's sad stuff. Ugly and "insoluble," which what Fraser calls it at the
end of yet another long day where nothing went right and they couldn't get
a damn thing done because the wife wouldn't press charges or the husband
made bail or the boyfriend had skipped town by the time they found the
body. Fraser mutters it while he's staring blankly into his lukewarm tea,
his skin pale under the florescent lights of the diner. Ray just nods and
slouches down a little more, memorizing the random patterns of the Formica
tabletop and jigging his leg because his body won't stop moving even
though his mind is gone, gone, gone. 

 They don't tell you about this part of the job during the CPD recruitment
drives that happen every fall. They never say anything about bad coffee
and greasy-smelling diners and skyrocketing divorce rates among cops. And
they don't say anything about how most guys don't make it to retirement
because they get shot or stabbed or burned out or stuffed behind some desk
and have a heart attack. And they definitely don't tell you that part of
being a cop is seeing, day in and day out, what love does to people. But
Ray knows now. He knows.

 He knows how love can make a woman put on that extra layer of concealer,
thick sunglasses, long-sleeved blouse and a scarf to cover the bruises
that ring her neck. The bruises that form a perfect impression of a man's
hand. 

 Love makes them cover it up, drawing on the extra clothes and makeup and
sunglasses like they're tugging a curtain across a too-bright window. Love
makes them stay long past the point where they should have gotten out. And
Ray knows - he knows - that most of them don't have anywhere to go.
They've got kids, usually, or no money, or they'd never be safe because
the guy who made them run in the first place would find them and make them
pay. It's about love and it isn't; mostly it's about desperation and
loneliness and poverty, and a lot of the time these women die because all
of it gets mixed together and nothing makes sense anymore.

 Ray thought once upon a time that he'd die for love. Her name was Stella
and it was 1973 and a big fat guy with a beard pointed a shotgun at him
and said, "Move." Ray'd pissed himself and Stella got away and Ray
thought, yep, that's it, because Marcus Ellery was bound to make somebody
pay for making him lose his pretty little blonde hostage. Twelve years old
and staring down the barrel of Ellery's shotgun Ray knew his number had
come up. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to make himself believe it
was worth it. That Stella was worth it.

 Of course fifteen years later and more lovesick than any of those
scarf-wearing women, Ray knew that it would have been worth it. Stella was
worth anything, worth dying for. Only...that's not what she wanted. Ray
had never figured out what she'd wanted but in the end it wasn't him. So
here he was, up in the middle of the night at some deserted diner with a
deaf half-wolf and a sleepy, shell-shocked Mountie, and he never got the
chance to die for love. Not really.

 Fraser has. Ray's read the file and he knows some of the details,
although he's never managed to ask directly about any of it. He wonders
sometimes, reading between the lines, if Fraser wishes he had died on that
platform at Union Station. If he ever feels that maybe life without that
woman - Metcalf - isn't worth living. Ray thinks about this every time he
visits Fraser in his tiny, airless office at the back of the Consulate.
Everything Fraser owns could be folded up inside his knapsack or tucked
away in his hatband. He could be gone in a flash. It's like he's planning
to run, and he could give lessons to all those abused women out there. All
the ones they can't save any other way.

 So maybe that's it. Maybe whatever Fraser went through all those years
ago with Metcalf broke him up inside. The bruises don't show, so instead
of putting on an oversized pair of sunglasses Fraser puts on that tunic
and packs up his life every morning. And he comes home at the end of the
day and takes off the serge and unpacks his little bag and stays another
day. But it's all still suspended living, waiting for the other shoe to
drop. 

 What love does to people. Ray'd laugh if it didn't break his fucking
heart. 

 "Ray. Ray. Ray," Fraser's been saying for the last couple of minutes. Ray
finally looks up away from the Formica that keeps swirling and blurring in
front of him. Fraser's eyes are soft and blue and tired-looking.

 "Yeah?"

 "Perhaps we should go."

 Ray blinks and glances around. The diner staff are making closing-up
gestures and shooting them dirty looks. He pushes back from the table and
staggers to his feet, depression and exhaustion making him wobbly. "You
drive, okay?"

 Fraser just nods and catches the keys Ray tosses him.

 Outside the air is sweltering and the stench of garbage makes the
dizziness worse. He slides into the passenger seat and flicks on the AC as
soon as Fraser starts the car, closing his eyes against the familiar
rumbling vibrations of the GTO's engine. They drive in silence through
deserted streets; Ray can't even call up the energy to tease Fraser about
doing the posted limit when there's no one around to care. 

 "Fraser, you ever wonder if the guys who beat their wives or girlfriends
or, hell, their boyfriends...do they ever really love them? Hate them?
What?"

 His eyes are closed so Ray can't tell if Fraser has any kind of reaction
to the question. But because it's too hot for telling lies and keeping
secrets, Ray has a hunch that Fraser won't bother with his usual bullshit
routine of psychological motivations or statistics or any of the other
stuff he's read on the subject. And he knows Fraser won't do his
deflecting thing and hide behind being a Mountie or being Canadian or
being too naive to understand the fucking question. He knows, even before
Fraser opens his mouth to answer, that Fraser will just tell him straight
out what Ray's always wondered.

 "Love. Hate. That pretty much sums it up."

 And the words don't sound like Fraser at all. Ray gets the feeling he's
repeating something somebody once told him. 

 "You don't think-"

 "Ray," Fraser interrupts, parking the car in front of Ray's building.
"We're here."

 They get out of the car and walk up the stairs, matching each other
stride-for-stride and shoulders brushing like always. But this isn't like
all those other times before, all those other times when they've moved
perfectly in sync. Something else is going on.

 He knows what it is as soon as they reach his door. Fraser takes the keys
right out of his hand and opens the deadbolt, then nudges Ray inside. He
locks the door carefully behind them, takes a deep breath, and leans back
against the door. Ray gives himself a second to admire the picture Fraser
makes up against the dark grain of the wood, one booted foot planted
firmly on the closed door.

 "Ask me."

 Fraser's eyes are still soft like they were in the diner but the
gentleness has gone out of them. Now he's just sad and tired and
empty-looking. Ray wants to pull him close and wrap his arms around him;
instead he fidgets with his keys and chews on his lower lip.

 "Ask me," Fraser says again, his voice still low and quiet in the dim
apartment. "Please. I need-"

 Maybe it's the way Fraser's voice breaks. Or maybe it's the thickness
there that could be tears. Or just the look on Fraser's face. Their day
was spent taking statements from three women whose faces looked like raw
hamburger. That's on Fraser's face too.

 But whatever it is - all of it, none of it, something else that Ray's
been fighting for the twenty months and twenty-six days since he first
took on the Vecchio gig - it makes him close the space between them and
pull Fraser close.

 They stand like that for a long time, and as the minutes tick by Fraser
relaxes. He's all solid warmth against Ray's chest, the serge scratchy
where it rubs up against Ray's bare arms below the sleeves of his t-shirt.
Fraser smells good; the stink of the day doesn't cling to him, and Ray's
not surprised. He turns his face into Fraser's neck and breathes in deep,
wondering why wool and shampoo and sweat make him so hard and so sad all
at once. He can feel Fraser's erection against his leg and it makes his
heart beat a little faster. But this isn't about sex. Not yet. 

 This is about what love does to people and what love makes people do.

 Fraser pulls back a little, his eyes drifting over Ray's face. He seems
to find what he's looking for, or what he needs, and so he reaches down
and tugs on Ray's hand. Ray watches as Fraser draws Ray's fingers into his
mouth.

 He doesn't suck on them, or even lick them, because just like Ray Fraser
knows this isn't about sex. He just holds them there, warm and secure, his
tongue wet and hot against Ray's fingers. Ray sags against him and
discovers that Fraser is strong enough to support them both. He puts his
nose back into the place where Fraser's neck meets his shoulder and keeps
breathing in the scents of wool and shampoo and warm, clean skin. 

 **********

 In the morning Ray wakes up tangled in Fraser's arms and legs. Fraser is
still dozing and Ray watches him sleep for a long time, thinking that in
the bright hot morning light Fraser looks like an innocent again. Chicago
and his father's murder and the stuff with Vecchio and Metcalf never
happened; he's just some guy asleep in bed with his boyfriend. And he'll
never be asked to do anything more than live and be happy.

 Ray smiles, snuggles closer and shuts his eyes. As he drifts off to sleep
Ray wishes they really could live in that kind of world. 

 END  
  

End Keep Passing Open Windows by Nos4a2no9 

Author and story notes above.  

Please post a comment on this story. 
Read posted comments.