New Environments Challenge, by Chris
Southern Exposure
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 4700 (approx)
Note: Running late for a wedding and I wanted to get this in before the deadline, so my apologies for any funky formatting, which I will fix the minute I get back. This is apparently what my brain comes up with when I combine due South, my love for the NZ curling team, and a New Environments challenge. I mean, Fraser and Ray in my hometown... irresistible. Thanks to shihadchick for getting me back into due South, for telling me I should actually write this and for beta.
I always thought I was kidding about Fraser being the way he was on account of being Canadian - I come from Chicago, no way he's the first Canadian I ever met - but they can do some funny things to you, the Territories. Like, there you are halfway up a mountain, and suddenly you're telling your partner stuff you never told anyone, not even Stella, about how you never grew out of wanting to go on a for-real voyage-of-discovery-type adventure, like when you're a kid and you don't realise everything's already on the map.
Except maybe it's OK, because Fraser doesn't laugh and ask what you think a city cop could do out in the unexplored wilds, even if he could find any, which, not likely, and the second-best thing about the Territories is that there are parts where no one much has ever been - even if it's because why would they want to - and dreams like Franklin's Hand to go chasing after.
So you're out in the middle of nowhere with only each other and the dogs for company, and the ice must be getting into your brain, because you're letting Fraser sing about it and maybe a little bit trying to learn the words so you can join in, and suddenly it hits you. I don't want to leave. Pizza be damned, the 2-7 be damned - not that they'd want you back, they have the genuine-article Vecchio, so what would they be doing with an undercover guy and his experimental hair - Chicago be damned, you're not going home. Cos this place, it's tough as all hell, hard work every second of the day (and man, there's a lot of day up here) what's the word, unyielding, and probably going to get you killed, but there's something about it that makes it feel like home. Not to mention it's pretty.
And you figure if you don't want to go back, Fraser definitely doesn't, so one day you mention that maybe you're thinking of staying up here, and he says something boringly polite and Canadian, but you can tell he's pretty pleased. Then you and Fraser fix a guy's snowmobile a little way out of Inuvik, and the guy turns out to know someone who's looking to hire a mechanic, and somehow your permits get fixed up too, for a while, anyhow. For a while it's just like Chicago, with criminals on the streets and hockey on TV and beer for you and tea for Fraser, only with less pizza (bad), less Stella (overall good, especially if she's marrying Vecchio, which, how the fuck did that happen?) and more snow, and Fraser goes home across the living room to his bedroom and not across town to the Consulate. But one day you realise the ice froze up your brain-cells worse than you thought, because it's suddenly blindingly obvious, blinding like the sun off the snow if you open the curtains too quick - the Territories are pretty, yeah, but so is Fraser pretty, and one guess which it is that's keeping you here.
Or maybe that's just me.
***
I thought about going home after that, running scared as usual, but I figured - this Vecchio gig had pretty much soured me for undercover stuff, and I was over being a cop in general, and I did like it here, people I might like here aside.
Plus the beer's better up here, which is a factor never to be underestimated, believe you me. So I stay, even though either Fraser isn't interested or he lacks clue so badly that even if a little plastic man bopped him over the head and yelled, 'It's Ray in the bedroom with the handcuffs!' he would continue to just not get it. Not that I would do a thing like that, you understand.
Anyone else, I'd figure it was a lost cause and go home with whatever shreds of self-esteem I could scrape up, but the trouble is, with Fraser there's always a thread of hope that he is that clueless, because being brought up by your grandparents in a travelling library on an ice floe with only the Abominable Snowmen for company doesn't exactly lend itself to figuring out when your best friend is making a pass, at least not unless those Abominable Snowmen are a whole lot more abominable than they're usually made out to be.
And when all's said and done, he is my best friend. So I stay.
***
One weekend - and this is where I'm gonna start talking real fast about my frozen-brain slushie if Stella, Welsh, the Duck Boys, Vecchio, anyone finds out about it - Fraser asks me to come somewhere with him. I've got nothing else to do, and Fraser has that slightly formal tone in his voice that means he's really keen, really wants me to say yes, even though he's evasive when I ask where, so I do.
It's curling. The freakiest of all Canadian freak sports. I figure they hit on a proper sport by accident when they got into hockey, so they had to balance it out by inventing a sport where you throw a bunch of rocks at ice. I mean, really, let's go bowling instead, it's the same thing only warmer and with beer.
Fraser's really good at it. It's still a Canadian freak sport, but the big Canadian freak, and I mean that in the nicest possible way, looks a natural at it, sliding down the ice all graceful-like and his face closing in on itself as he concentrates on the rock. Stone. Whatever.
He's pink and doing a pleased half-grin at me.
'Would you care for a turn, Ray?'
'Nuh-uh.'
'I really think you’d enjoy it. Please?'
'Frase, just because I move to Yellowknife doesn't mean I start getting interested in Canadian freak-'
Shit, it's the wide-eyed look, and he totally knows how well that works. On government officials, on perps, on the entire female population of Chicago, and, apparently, on me.
And fuck me sideways with Fraser's weird-ass broom, because I'm good at it. Not as good as Mr Grew Up With Abominable Snowmen And Only Rocks And Ice To Play With, plus it's my first time playing, but turns out I can put bullets in bad guys, rocks on coloured dots, whatever, a target is a target.
I do make one spectacular pratfall when Fraser shows me how to sweep, but that's a pretty good incentive to learn the trick of chasing round the ice with those shuffly little steps, and once I get my knee out of the habit of dropping inwards, I stop sliding around on my ass and start playing.
I refuse to admit I enjoyed myself, but I don't complain (much) when we start playing as a regular thing. After a while, Fraser enters us and a couple other guys in a tournament. This is good. This is familiar. I know tournaments from when I was a kid and I used to play hockey.
They’re kind of like that cliche they use about war - about 95% sitting around, 4% chewing your nails and 1% frantic activity - but the sitting around's its own kind of fun, cos you go a bit nuts and do stuff you normally wouldn't in a million years. I remember this one time, this kid who may or may not have been me chased another kid round the hall making a noise like a Harley until the coach banged our heads together and sent us to help with the snacks.
I'm still a little weirded out, which shows up as pissy, about Fraser making me like his nutty sport, but the tournament's fun. It's still 95% going out of your mind, and I'm a bit old now to make a noise like a motorcycle, so Fraser pulls out a bunch of Inuit stories and it's good just listening to his even voice and trying not to be too obvious about staring at his nose, which I never noticed how nice a shape it was before.
We lose - Fraser's still kind of out of practice and I was never in practice - but the team that wins is apparently most of the New Zealand national team, and, see, that's interesting, because OK, it takes a nation of however many (Fraser probably knows) to beat a bunch of Canadian regional teams, but who knew anyone else in the world was nuts enough to like curling? While I get acquainted with the snacks - another great thing about tournaments, the cheap food - Fraser's talking intently with the New Zealanders. The captain's compactly built, with these shy brown eyes and hair that I'd bet dollars to rocks his mother cuts for him. Not bad-looking, despite the hair, which sort of suits his shy-guy look anyway.
Fraser probably needs a sandwich, so I wander over, casual-like.
'Oh, thank you kindly, Ray. I'd like you to meet Sean Becker. Sean, this is my good friend Ray Kowalski.'
Sean? Sean thinks it's nice to meet me. I think I'm getting Fraser home.
***
He drops the shoe over dinner.
'Sean's invited us to play a return match in New Zealand.'
'Huh,' is my intelligent response.
'I'm thinking of taking him up on the invitation. Of course, I don't know if Jim and Daniel would be interested, but I'm sure there are enough spare players in Auckland to make a team with us.'
I like how he assumes I'm going, there. 'It's a long way.'
'Yes, but he tells me that since they did relatively well at the last world championships, the national sporting body provides them with a certain number of discounted tickets to foster international cooperation and player development, and it seems that we would qualify. And we both have considerable vacation time accrued.'
'Isn't New Zealand near Australia? I hate Australia.'
'Ray, you've never been to Australia.'
'I don't have to. I hate that crocodile guy, and have you ever tasted Vegemite?'
'Point taken. There is, however, a large stretch of water between the two countries, and I'm told relations between Australians and New Zealanders are analagous to relations between the US and Canada.'
'So... Australians are obnoxious and New Zealanders are weird?'
Here come the wide eyes. I gotta get him some sunglasses. 'I wouldn’t put it quite that way, Ray.'
'OK, whatever. But you owe me.'
'Of course, Ray.'
***
The first thing I notice when I get off the plane is the heat. Intellectually I get the southern-hemisphere thing with the crazy-ass opposite seasons, but it's still just wrong to be stepping from cold like a Northern hell dimension via the moisture-sucking cool of the plane to 80 degrees in the middle of February.
The locals seem very anxious to tell me that it isn't the heat, it's the humidity, and my hair agrees. A pat in the terminal yields ominous results, and when I get to a bathroom… well, it's still experimental, but it's experimental stick-it-on-an-island-and-make-a-horror-movie, not experimental edgy and avant-garde. Fraser's still looks lacquer-perfect. Of course.
Still, I've been through worse heat in Chicago, not that I can remember when right now with my T-shirt stuck to my ribs, and Auckland's not bad. Even the slightly crappy-looking suburbs we drive through after leaving the airport are leafy, green, lazy in the sun. And the centre of town does a good enough line in traffic and butt-ugly high-rises to make me feel almost at home.
'You guys probably want to get unpacked. Pick you up later for dinner, eh?'
'Sure, yeah.' I’m pretty beat, but they say you should try and work on local time, so whatever.
I figure Fraser to be feeling right at home, too, what with all the people who say 'eh' a lot and worship funny-looking quadrupeds (sheep, not moose, but let's not be picky here).
Hell, jumping off buildings is practically a national sport, judging by the tourist brochures a lady in a funny hat made me take at the airport. People line up and pay money to jump off buildings. Fraser paradise, right? But he's quiet, way quiet all through dinner, not swapping stories about lucky stones and tricky throws or comparing pictures of the Queen on their money or whatever New Zealand curlers like to talk about, and when I sneak a proper look at him, he's looking... well, it sounds dumb, but smaller.
Normally the way I think of it is, when he takes off all those buttons and buckles and serge, he's got room to relax, expand into his skin, be just Fraser instead of Constable Fraser, RCMP. Fraser's got wider shoulders than the Constable, a firmer stance, a heavier step. He does whole grins instead of half ones, and sometimes he even laughs. He still tells Inuit stories at the drop of a pointy hat and holds doors for people, but it's like in Chicago when he got away from the Consulate to my apartment or the 2-7 and there was this whole part of him that switched on. But tonight he's all closed in on himself, glossier and more remote than his worst Constable act, so I plead jet lag, which is even true, considering it's about one in the morning by the watch I forgot to change, and haul him back to the motel. Maybe a good night's sleep will fix things.
The next morning - well, first of all, the man does not know how to dress for summer. Not that I have anything against a leather jacket, flannel and jeans just this side of too tight, you understand, but how he got through four Augusts in Chicago like that is beyond me. Anything feels cool after a day in red serge, I guess. And now that he’s all, what's the word, acclimated to El Frozen North again, he's dying. I bet he's even wearing an undershirt. Flushed cheeks, sweat making his hair curl - it's totally hot, pun not intended, but totally not on. So while he's looking for whatever they call oatmeal here, I run out and get him some T-shirts from the nearest store.
Which, OK, happens to be a tourist trap.
'Ray, these T-shirts have sheep on them.'
'Yes, Fraser, they do.'
'Cartoon sheep.'
'Uh-huh.'
'Ray, the sheep are skiing. And surfing. And... committing suicide?'
'Bungy-jumping, the nice lady at the airport said. Besides, it was all they had.' Which, OK, maybe isn't strictly true, but c'mon. Could I resist? 'And you can't go out there wearing that, you'll melt.'
'In that case, thank you kindly, Ray. I merely wished to point out the biological improbability...'
He pulls his shirt over his head - undershirt, yep, I called it - and the rest is muffled in soft cotton.
***
The rink's out in suburban light-industryville, old and a bit battered, but ice is ice, right? Fraser's back to being buttoned down, if you can button down a picture of a bungy-jumping sheep, though I raise a good half of a laugh when I point out one of the signs inside. '"Auckland Welcomes The Moose." Hey, they put a sign up for us!'
They partner us up with a couple of guys who are pretty good, really, for people who've never seen real ice and we proceed to show them exactly what a jetlagged, antsy Canadian and an equally jetlagged rookie can do, which isn't exactly much. Seven ends' worth of not much, in fact, and in the eighth we only score one. OK, this is officially weird. I'm new at this, but I've got an eye, and Fraser's good. When he's not off his game, that is, and Fraser's never off his game, not at anything.
One of our loaner teammates, Keith, asks what we're doing for the rest of the day and suggests we drive out to some place called the Why-Taps, which, Fraser tells me after a look at his guidebook (proper preparation prevents poor performance, and all that) is actually a set of hills called the Waitakeres, and do not ask me to pronounce that. Whatever, it sounds like Nature, and Nature is a Good Thing for a Mountie off his feed. So we drive for what feels like ages - Auckland's pretty damn big for a city of only a million people, thank you kindly, guidebook - and walk up through tightly wrapped forest to a reservoir, which I am very good and resist the urge to throw stuff into. The ground falls away at our feet into a scrunched-up carpet of green, which in turn gives way to a spread of colourful houses lapping at the edges of a - metric fuckload, I think the term is - of hills.
'Looks like they forgot to iron it, huh?'
'According to the guidebook, the area's known for its volcanoes. I believe there are 48 of them, though some were quarried out of existence before they were granted legal protection.'
I blink. 'Volcanoes? But they're extinct, right?'
'Most are classed as dormant.'
Dormant? 'Fraser, are you telling me the city's going to blow up under our feet?'
'There's little cause for concern, Ray; the most recent eruption was a matter of eight hundred years ago.'
'People live here?'
'Two million people visit Yellowstone National Park per year, and the caldera's period of dormancy has exceeded the average length of time between eruptions.'
'This is why I moved to Canada. We're on the Laurentian Whatsis, right?'
Fraser's been looking happier, Nature doing her magic, even if it's weird-ass foreign Nature with too-thick undergrowth, the wrong colour of green and volcanoes about to erupt everywhere like zits, but now he closes down again and mumbles something noncommittal. I pass him the thermos of tea and we sit quiet for a while. His shoulders are scrunched up almost to his ears, and I want to slide an arm round them, rub my palm against the thin cotton of the stupid sheep T-shirt, nudge my leg against his, offer easy comfort for whatever's eating him the way that we used to, but I catch myself. Guy doesn't want me, he shouldn't have to put up with me pawing at him.
'Frase, something's up. You wanna talk about it?' I try.
He doesn't, but something unwinds in his expression as he turns to me.
He's still unwound at dinner, actually talking to Becker and the others. I thought I was kidding about comparing pictures of the Queen, but I should learn not to make jokes like that around Fraser, because they really are swapping money. Fraser passes me a ginormous silver coin with a picture of a ship and I fish out a few quarters. Then everyone shuts up right fast because a game's come on the bar's big screen, and a reverent silence is observed except for groans and cheers and howls of 'REF!', which I can't follow at all because cricket makes less sense than curling ever did. But whatever, it's beer and sport and guys, and that's fun, even if I keep thinking about Fraser and Becker and their little numismatics club.
The party breaks up pretty soon, anyway, because apparently a bunch of guys in white trousers scuttling up and down a field are quite enough excitement before a game, and it's back to the motel with Fraser trying to explain why no one would tell me who was winning (because a game lasts five days and for most of them you don't know who's winning unless one of the teams completely sucks - see what I mean about it making no freaking sense?) which is at least better than the amazing new non-talking Fraser, who I was sick of like you wouldn't believe.
***
Sunday afternoon's club day, so there's social players talking and laughing, and kids running round the ice before the guy with the sprayer shoos them off. I've hardly noticed how I've been tensing into a giant ball of stress myself, until now, with the atmosphere working its magic. People always did rub off on me. Yeah, this is what we're here for - because we like curling, even if some of us aren't officially admitting that yet. And the match goes great - I place a couple of good stones, Keith and Murray do their thing, and Fraser manages this wicked shot that knocks one of the other team's stones out of the house, ricochets off to take out another, and slides just wide of the stone we have sitting right on the button. And just so you understand how cool that is, this is right at the end of the game, the full competitive ten ends, and the pebble's gone so wonky even the best-thrown stone can't be expected to behave itself. So we end up winning, and the last stone signals beer o'clock.
It's about three beers later - good beer, too, which I can admit, see, cos an American living in Canada gets plenty of practice at that - when I decide I've had enough. Not the beer, I could go some more of that, but as long as everything's upside down, what with the water going down the sink the wrong way because of the Corona Effect or whatever (first thing I checked when we got in, whether that was true) and the cars driving on the wrong side of the road with their crazy-ass rules about right-hand turns, which, what the fuck, and pizza being fancy cuisine and Japanese being takeaways, and the Smarties that look like Smarties but taste seriously weird in my coffee, I might as well throw a curve ball of my own. I haven't pushed for anything more than friends with Fraser because I don't want to freak him out and maybe lose him as a friend (also, honestly? I’m scared), but this? Keeping my hands off, watching him talk to other guys and wondering if he's flirting - and, you know, the way Fraser is with most people, if he's laughing like that, it's flirting - I can't handle it, so I guess the friendship's shot anyway, and I might as well administer the coup de grâce, as my Canadian would say.
All of which is a fancy way of saying I. Just. Can't. Take it. Any. More. So I mumble some excuses, dig my elbow into Fraser's ribs to signal him to play along (which he does, and how much do I love him for it?) and we're out of there, along the road and into our room before he has time to get more than a couple of 'Ray's out.
Door. Key. Turn handle. Does getting a door open always take so long? I kick the door shut behind us and before I can lose my nerve, I grab Fraser by the shoulders and just kiss him, like I've been wanting to for months.
He pulls away. 'Ray, I-' Shit.
Then he just shakes his head like Diefenbaker with a fly on his ear, winds one hand in my hair and slides the other down to my hip, and he's kissing me back, and that gorgeous mouth is all mine. God, he's as hungry for this as I am. It's hard and deep right away, and his tongue is just the best thing ever, pushing into my mouth like he owns me. Which he probably does, which I'd be more upset about if I wasn't doing the same right back.
The oxygen runs out much too soon, and we move an inch or two apart, breathing hard. I try to think of something to say, but Fraser gets in first.
'Ray, have I mentioned that I like your hair this way?'
I have to laugh at that, because my hair was the worst it's been since junior high even before he started grabbing at it, and who expects a comment like that in these circumstances? I'm weak with kissing and laughing and Fraser wanting me, so it's a good thing in more ways than one that he cuts me off with more kissing before I have a chance to get stupid.
I haven't kissed anyone like this since Stella, and with her I was always afraid it wasn't real, that she was going to melt away like cotton candy, because it was me and it was Stella and surely that was too good to be true. And now it's me and it's Fraser and it should feel too good to be true, because it feels fucking fantastic, but at the same time it's real and just... right. And if anyone's going to melt away here it's me, with the hot dark kisses and the heat of Fraser's body and his hands in my hair, on my neck, on my jaw, on my hips and ass, pulling us tighter together.
Anyway, Fraser feels like the least likely person in the world to disappear on me, he's so solid and steady and there, taking up his rightful amount of space again, which is good because my legs are thinking there are better things to do than keep me upright, and it's nice not to be the only person on not-falling-over duty for once.
Only maybe 'steady' isn't the right word, cos Fraser's legs are abandoning their commitment to the concept of verticality, and he's flumping back onto the bed and pulling me after him.
Belatedly my hands start pulling at his shirt, trying to find skin, and this is all new territory. Cos, you know, I pretty much always knew I was bent, but there was also always Stella, so I figured it was just a few doglegs in the straight highway to old age and grandkids with her, which was everything I wanted back then. Until, I don't know when, but things changed, and everything I wanted was Canada and a guy in a red suit.
'Fraser, is this-' I don't even know what I want to ask - is this what you want? is this a one-time thing? - much less if I want to hear the answer, but his fingers find the zipper of my jeans and there are no more words, plus the two brain cells I have left after Canada froze them and Fraser melted them are fully occupied trying to remember how buttons work.
***
I wake up with Fraser's chin on my shoulder, his arm across my chest and the rest of him taking up about 96.5% of the bed, which wasn't that large in the first place, but who cares? I'll take sprawly, sexy Fraser over tensed-up, not-sleeping-with-me Fraser any day. God, but I missed waking up like this. I mean, obviously not specifically, but waking up with someone radiating warmth and fuzzy feelings at you, and just waiting for them to wake up so you can say hi. And specifically, even, I want to go right back to sleep so I can do the waking-up-with-Fraser thing all over again. Well, maybe not right back to sleep.
Stubble rasps against my skin, and I can feel him breathing in my ear.
'Ray-'
'What is this?' I blurt. 'Like, is this a one-time thing? Do you want to go back to normal when we go home? Cos I don't.'
'Nor do I.' I wait for elaboration. 'In fact, I was rather hoping this could become normal.'
'Fraser, I moved to the Arctic for you - I am not moving to the Southern Hemisphere, no way, no how.'
'I wasn't suggesting-'
'Yeah, I know.' I stretch and pull him up for a kiss. 'How's this for the new normal?'
'So you-' He can't finish sentences any more. I love it.
'Uh-huh.'
'I thought... In Chicago, you seemed... drawn to me, but after the expedition, you were so distant, and you didn't object when I -- tried to form a connection --'
'Flirted.'
'--tried to form a connection with another man, so I thought...'
'Fraser, you're an idiot, and I mean that in the nicest possible way.'
And since we're both awake, I might as well have a go at showing him my 'nicest possible way', right?
'Understood, Ray.'
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 4700 (approx)
Note: Running late for a wedding and I wanted to get this in before the deadline, so my apologies for any funky formatting, which I will fix the minute I get back. This is apparently what my brain comes up with when I combine due South, my love for the NZ curling team, and a New Environments challenge. I mean, Fraser and Ray in my hometown... irresistible. Thanks to shihadchick for getting me back into due South, for telling me I should actually write this and for beta.
I always thought I was kidding about Fraser being the way he was on account of being Canadian - I come from Chicago, no way he's the first Canadian I ever met - but they can do some funny things to you, the Territories. Like, there you are halfway up a mountain, and suddenly you're telling your partner stuff you never told anyone, not even Stella, about how you never grew out of wanting to go on a for-real voyage-of-discovery-type adventure, like when you're a kid and you don't realise everything's already on the map.
Except maybe it's OK, because Fraser doesn't laugh and ask what you think a city cop could do out in the unexplored wilds, even if he could find any, which, not likely, and the second-best thing about the Territories is that there are parts where no one much has ever been - even if it's because why would they want to - and dreams like Franklin's Hand to go chasing after.
So you're out in the middle of nowhere with only each other and the dogs for company, and the ice must be getting into your brain, because you're letting Fraser sing about it and maybe a little bit trying to learn the words so you can join in, and suddenly it hits you. I don't want to leave. Pizza be damned, the 2-7 be damned - not that they'd want you back, they have the genuine-article Vecchio, so what would they be doing with an undercover guy and his experimental hair - Chicago be damned, you're not going home. Cos this place, it's tough as all hell, hard work every second of the day (and man, there's a lot of day up here) what's the word, unyielding, and probably going to get you killed, but there's something about it that makes it feel like home. Not to mention it's pretty.
And you figure if you don't want to go back, Fraser definitely doesn't, so one day you mention that maybe you're thinking of staying up here, and he says something boringly polite and Canadian, but you can tell he's pretty pleased. Then you and Fraser fix a guy's snowmobile a little way out of Inuvik, and the guy turns out to know someone who's looking to hire a mechanic, and somehow your permits get fixed up too, for a while, anyhow. For a while it's just like Chicago, with criminals on the streets and hockey on TV and beer for you and tea for Fraser, only with less pizza (bad), less Stella (overall good, especially if she's marrying Vecchio, which, how the fuck did that happen?) and more snow, and Fraser goes home across the living room to his bedroom and not across town to the Consulate. But one day you realise the ice froze up your brain-cells worse than you thought, because it's suddenly blindingly obvious, blinding like the sun off the snow if you open the curtains too quick - the Territories are pretty, yeah, but so is Fraser pretty, and one guess which it is that's keeping you here.
Or maybe that's just me.
***
I thought about going home after that, running scared as usual, but I figured - this Vecchio gig had pretty much soured me for undercover stuff, and I was over being a cop in general, and I did like it here, people I might like here aside.
Plus the beer's better up here, which is a factor never to be underestimated, believe you me. So I stay, even though either Fraser isn't interested or he lacks clue so badly that even if a little plastic man bopped him over the head and yelled, 'It's Ray in the bedroom with the handcuffs!' he would continue to just not get it. Not that I would do a thing like that, you understand.
Anyone else, I'd figure it was a lost cause and go home with whatever shreds of self-esteem I could scrape up, but the trouble is, with Fraser there's always a thread of hope that he is that clueless, because being brought up by your grandparents in a travelling library on an ice floe with only the Abominable Snowmen for company doesn't exactly lend itself to figuring out when your best friend is making a pass, at least not unless those Abominable Snowmen are a whole lot more abominable than they're usually made out to be.
And when all's said and done, he is my best friend. So I stay.
***
One weekend - and this is where I'm gonna start talking real fast about my frozen-brain slushie if Stella, Welsh, the Duck Boys, Vecchio, anyone finds out about it - Fraser asks me to come somewhere with him. I've got nothing else to do, and Fraser has that slightly formal tone in his voice that means he's really keen, really wants me to say yes, even though he's evasive when I ask where, so I do.
It's curling. The freakiest of all Canadian freak sports. I figure they hit on a proper sport by accident when they got into hockey, so they had to balance it out by inventing a sport where you throw a bunch of rocks at ice. I mean, really, let's go bowling instead, it's the same thing only warmer and with beer.
Fraser's really good at it. It's still a Canadian freak sport, but the big Canadian freak, and I mean that in the nicest possible way, looks a natural at it, sliding down the ice all graceful-like and his face closing in on itself as he concentrates on the rock. Stone. Whatever.
He's pink and doing a pleased half-grin at me.
'Would you care for a turn, Ray?'
'Nuh-uh.'
'I really think you’d enjoy it. Please?'
'Frase, just because I move to Yellowknife doesn't mean I start getting interested in Canadian freak-'
Shit, it's the wide-eyed look, and he totally knows how well that works. On government officials, on perps, on the entire female population of Chicago, and, apparently, on me.
And fuck me sideways with Fraser's weird-ass broom, because I'm good at it. Not as good as Mr Grew Up With Abominable Snowmen And Only Rocks And Ice To Play With, plus it's my first time playing, but turns out I can put bullets in bad guys, rocks on coloured dots, whatever, a target is a target.
I do make one spectacular pratfall when Fraser shows me how to sweep, but that's a pretty good incentive to learn the trick of chasing round the ice with those shuffly little steps, and once I get my knee out of the habit of dropping inwards, I stop sliding around on my ass and start playing.
I refuse to admit I enjoyed myself, but I don't complain (much) when we start playing as a regular thing. After a while, Fraser enters us and a couple other guys in a tournament. This is good. This is familiar. I know tournaments from when I was a kid and I used to play hockey.
They’re kind of like that cliche they use about war - about 95% sitting around, 4% chewing your nails and 1% frantic activity - but the sitting around's its own kind of fun, cos you go a bit nuts and do stuff you normally wouldn't in a million years. I remember this one time, this kid who may or may not have been me chased another kid round the hall making a noise like a Harley until the coach banged our heads together and sent us to help with the snacks.
I'm still a little weirded out, which shows up as pissy, about Fraser making me like his nutty sport, but the tournament's fun. It's still 95% going out of your mind, and I'm a bit old now to make a noise like a motorcycle, so Fraser pulls out a bunch of Inuit stories and it's good just listening to his even voice and trying not to be too obvious about staring at his nose, which I never noticed how nice a shape it was before.
We lose - Fraser's still kind of out of practice and I was never in practice - but the team that wins is apparently most of the New Zealand national team, and, see, that's interesting, because OK, it takes a nation of however many (Fraser probably knows) to beat a bunch of Canadian regional teams, but who knew anyone else in the world was nuts enough to like curling? While I get acquainted with the snacks - another great thing about tournaments, the cheap food - Fraser's talking intently with the New Zealanders. The captain's compactly built, with these shy brown eyes and hair that I'd bet dollars to rocks his mother cuts for him. Not bad-looking, despite the hair, which sort of suits his shy-guy look anyway.
Fraser probably needs a sandwich, so I wander over, casual-like.
'Oh, thank you kindly, Ray. I'd like you to meet Sean Becker. Sean, this is my good friend Ray Kowalski.'
Sean? Sean thinks it's nice to meet me. I think I'm getting Fraser home.
***
He drops the shoe over dinner.
'Sean's invited us to play a return match in New Zealand.'
'Huh,' is my intelligent response.
'I'm thinking of taking him up on the invitation. Of course, I don't know if Jim and Daniel would be interested, but I'm sure there are enough spare players in Auckland to make a team with us.'
I like how he assumes I'm going, there. 'It's a long way.'
'Yes, but he tells me that since they did relatively well at the last world championships, the national sporting body provides them with a certain number of discounted tickets to foster international cooperation and player development, and it seems that we would qualify. And we both have considerable vacation time accrued.'
'Isn't New Zealand near Australia? I hate Australia.'
'Ray, you've never been to Australia.'
'I don't have to. I hate that crocodile guy, and have you ever tasted Vegemite?'
'Point taken. There is, however, a large stretch of water between the two countries, and I'm told relations between Australians and New Zealanders are analagous to relations between the US and Canada.'
'So... Australians are obnoxious and New Zealanders are weird?'
Here come the wide eyes. I gotta get him some sunglasses. 'I wouldn’t put it quite that way, Ray.'
'OK, whatever. But you owe me.'
'Of course, Ray.'
***
The first thing I notice when I get off the plane is the heat. Intellectually I get the southern-hemisphere thing with the crazy-ass opposite seasons, but it's still just wrong to be stepping from cold like a Northern hell dimension via the moisture-sucking cool of the plane to 80 degrees in the middle of February.
The locals seem very anxious to tell me that it isn't the heat, it's the humidity, and my hair agrees. A pat in the terminal yields ominous results, and when I get to a bathroom… well, it's still experimental, but it's experimental stick-it-on-an-island-and-make-a-horror-movie, not experimental edgy and avant-garde. Fraser's still looks lacquer-perfect. Of course.
Still, I've been through worse heat in Chicago, not that I can remember when right now with my T-shirt stuck to my ribs, and Auckland's not bad. Even the slightly crappy-looking suburbs we drive through after leaving the airport are leafy, green, lazy in the sun. And the centre of town does a good enough line in traffic and butt-ugly high-rises to make me feel almost at home.
'You guys probably want to get unpacked. Pick you up later for dinner, eh?'
'Sure, yeah.' I’m pretty beat, but they say you should try and work on local time, so whatever.
I figure Fraser to be feeling right at home, too, what with all the people who say 'eh' a lot and worship funny-looking quadrupeds (sheep, not moose, but let's not be picky here).
Hell, jumping off buildings is practically a national sport, judging by the tourist brochures a lady in a funny hat made me take at the airport. People line up and pay money to jump off buildings. Fraser paradise, right? But he's quiet, way quiet all through dinner, not swapping stories about lucky stones and tricky throws or comparing pictures of the Queen on their money or whatever New Zealand curlers like to talk about, and when I sneak a proper look at him, he's looking... well, it sounds dumb, but smaller.
Normally the way I think of it is, when he takes off all those buttons and buckles and serge, he's got room to relax, expand into his skin, be just Fraser instead of Constable Fraser, RCMP. Fraser's got wider shoulders than the Constable, a firmer stance, a heavier step. He does whole grins instead of half ones, and sometimes he even laughs. He still tells Inuit stories at the drop of a pointy hat and holds doors for people, but it's like in Chicago when he got away from the Consulate to my apartment or the 2-7 and there was this whole part of him that switched on. But tonight he's all closed in on himself, glossier and more remote than his worst Constable act, so I plead jet lag, which is even true, considering it's about one in the morning by the watch I forgot to change, and haul him back to the motel. Maybe a good night's sleep will fix things.
The next morning - well, first of all, the man does not know how to dress for summer. Not that I have anything against a leather jacket, flannel and jeans just this side of too tight, you understand, but how he got through four Augusts in Chicago like that is beyond me. Anything feels cool after a day in red serge, I guess. And now that he’s all, what's the word, acclimated to El Frozen North again, he's dying. I bet he's even wearing an undershirt. Flushed cheeks, sweat making his hair curl - it's totally hot, pun not intended, but totally not on. So while he's looking for whatever they call oatmeal here, I run out and get him some T-shirts from the nearest store.
Which, OK, happens to be a tourist trap.
'Ray, these T-shirts have sheep on them.'
'Yes, Fraser, they do.'
'Cartoon sheep.'
'Uh-huh.'
'Ray, the sheep are skiing. And surfing. And... committing suicide?'
'Bungy-jumping, the nice lady at the airport said. Besides, it was all they had.' Which, OK, maybe isn't strictly true, but c'mon. Could I resist? 'And you can't go out there wearing that, you'll melt.'
'In that case, thank you kindly, Ray. I merely wished to point out the biological improbability...'
He pulls his shirt over his head - undershirt, yep, I called it - and the rest is muffled in soft cotton.
***
The rink's out in suburban light-industryville, old and a bit battered, but ice is ice, right? Fraser's back to being buttoned down, if you can button down a picture of a bungy-jumping sheep, though I raise a good half of a laugh when I point out one of the signs inside. '"Auckland Welcomes The Moose." Hey, they put a sign up for us!'
They partner us up with a couple of guys who are pretty good, really, for people who've never seen real ice and we proceed to show them exactly what a jetlagged, antsy Canadian and an equally jetlagged rookie can do, which isn't exactly much. Seven ends' worth of not much, in fact, and in the eighth we only score one. OK, this is officially weird. I'm new at this, but I've got an eye, and Fraser's good. When he's not off his game, that is, and Fraser's never off his game, not at anything.
One of our loaner teammates, Keith, asks what we're doing for the rest of the day and suggests we drive out to some place called the Why-Taps, which, Fraser tells me after a look at his guidebook (proper preparation prevents poor performance, and all that) is actually a set of hills called the Waitakeres, and do not ask me to pronounce that. Whatever, it sounds like Nature, and Nature is a Good Thing for a Mountie off his feed. So we drive for what feels like ages - Auckland's pretty damn big for a city of only a million people, thank you kindly, guidebook - and walk up through tightly wrapped forest to a reservoir, which I am very good and resist the urge to throw stuff into. The ground falls away at our feet into a scrunched-up carpet of green, which in turn gives way to a spread of colourful houses lapping at the edges of a - metric fuckload, I think the term is - of hills.
'Looks like they forgot to iron it, huh?'
'According to the guidebook, the area's known for its volcanoes. I believe there are 48 of them, though some were quarried out of existence before they were granted legal protection.'
I blink. 'Volcanoes? But they're extinct, right?'
'Most are classed as dormant.'
Dormant? 'Fraser, are you telling me the city's going to blow up under our feet?'
'There's little cause for concern, Ray; the most recent eruption was a matter of eight hundred years ago.'
'People live here?'
'Two million people visit Yellowstone National Park per year, and the caldera's period of dormancy has exceeded the average length of time between eruptions.'
'This is why I moved to Canada. We're on the Laurentian Whatsis, right?'
Fraser's been looking happier, Nature doing her magic, even if it's weird-ass foreign Nature with too-thick undergrowth, the wrong colour of green and volcanoes about to erupt everywhere like zits, but now he closes down again and mumbles something noncommittal. I pass him the thermos of tea and we sit quiet for a while. His shoulders are scrunched up almost to his ears, and I want to slide an arm round them, rub my palm against the thin cotton of the stupid sheep T-shirt, nudge my leg against his, offer easy comfort for whatever's eating him the way that we used to, but I catch myself. Guy doesn't want me, he shouldn't have to put up with me pawing at him.
'Frase, something's up. You wanna talk about it?' I try.
He doesn't, but something unwinds in his expression as he turns to me.
He's still unwound at dinner, actually talking to Becker and the others. I thought I was kidding about comparing pictures of the Queen, but I should learn not to make jokes like that around Fraser, because they really are swapping money. Fraser passes me a ginormous silver coin with a picture of a ship and I fish out a few quarters. Then everyone shuts up right fast because a game's come on the bar's big screen, and a reverent silence is observed except for groans and cheers and howls of 'REF!', which I can't follow at all because cricket makes less sense than curling ever did. But whatever, it's beer and sport and guys, and that's fun, even if I keep thinking about Fraser and Becker and their little numismatics club.
The party breaks up pretty soon, anyway, because apparently a bunch of guys in white trousers scuttling up and down a field are quite enough excitement before a game, and it's back to the motel with Fraser trying to explain why no one would tell me who was winning (because a game lasts five days and for most of them you don't know who's winning unless one of the teams completely sucks - see what I mean about it making no freaking sense?) which is at least better than the amazing new non-talking Fraser, who I was sick of like you wouldn't believe.
***
Sunday afternoon's club day, so there's social players talking and laughing, and kids running round the ice before the guy with the sprayer shoos them off. I've hardly noticed how I've been tensing into a giant ball of stress myself, until now, with the atmosphere working its magic. People always did rub off on me. Yeah, this is what we're here for - because we like curling, even if some of us aren't officially admitting that yet. And the match goes great - I place a couple of good stones, Keith and Murray do their thing, and Fraser manages this wicked shot that knocks one of the other team's stones out of the house, ricochets off to take out another, and slides just wide of the stone we have sitting right on the button. And just so you understand how cool that is, this is right at the end of the game, the full competitive ten ends, and the pebble's gone so wonky even the best-thrown stone can't be expected to behave itself. So we end up winning, and the last stone signals beer o'clock.
It's about three beers later - good beer, too, which I can admit, see, cos an American living in Canada gets plenty of practice at that - when I decide I've had enough. Not the beer, I could go some more of that, but as long as everything's upside down, what with the water going down the sink the wrong way because of the Corona Effect or whatever (first thing I checked when we got in, whether that was true) and the cars driving on the wrong side of the road with their crazy-ass rules about right-hand turns, which, what the fuck, and pizza being fancy cuisine and Japanese being takeaways, and the Smarties that look like Smarties but taste seriously weird in my coffee, I might as well throw a curve ball of my own. I haven't pushed for anything more than friends with Fraser because I don't want to freak him out and maybe lose him as a friend (also, honestly? I’m scared), but this? Keeping my hands off, watching him talk to other guys and wondering if he's flirting - and, you know, the way Fraser is with most people, if he's laughing like that, it's flirting - I can't handle it, so I guess the friendship's shot anyway, and I might as well administer the coup de grâce, as my Canadian would say.
All of which is a fancy way of saying I. Just. Can't. Take it. Any. More. So I mumble some excuses, dig my elbow into Fraser's ribs to signal him to play along (which he does, and how much do I love him for it?) and we're out of there, along the road and into our room before he has time to get more than a couple of 'Ray's out.
Door. Key. Turn handle. Does getting a door open always take so long? I kick the door shut behind us and before I can lose my nerve, I grab Fraser by the shoulders and just kiss him, like I've been wanting to for months.
He pulls away. 'Ray, I-' Shit.
Then he just shakes his head like Diefenbaker with a fly on his ear, winds one hand in my hair and slides the other down to my hip, and he's kissing me back, and that gorgeous mouth is all mine. God, he's as hungry for this as I am. It's hard and deep right away, and his tongue is just the best thing ever, pushing into my mouth like he owns me. Which he probably does, which I'd be more upset about if I wasn't doing the same right back.
The oxygen runs out much too soon, and we move an inch or two apart, breathing hard. I try to think of something to say, but Fraser gets in first.
'Ray, have I mentioned that I like your hair this way?'
I have to laugh at that, because my hair was the worst it's been since junior high even before he started grabbing at it, and who expects a comment like that in these circumstances? I'm weak with kissing and laughing and Fraser wanting me, so it's a good thing in more ways than one that he cuts me off with more kissing before I have a chance to get stupid.
I haven't kissed anyone like this since Stella, and with her I was always afraid it wasn't real, that she was going to melt away like cotton candy, because it was me and it was Stella and surely that was too good to be true. And now it's me and it's Fraser and it should feel too good to be true, because it feels fucking fantastic, but at the same time it's real and just... right. And if anyone's going to melt away here it's me, with the hot dark kisses and the heat of Fraser's body and his hands in my hair, on my neck, on my jaw, on my hips and ass, pulling us tighter together.
Anyway, Fraser feels like the least likely person in the world to disappear on me, he's so solid and steady and there, taking up his rightful amount of space again, which is good because my legs are thinking there are better things to do than keep me upright, and it's nice not to be the only person on not-falling-over duty for once.
Only maybe 'steady' isn't the right word, cos Fraser's legs are abandoning their commitment to the concept of verticality, and he's flumping back onto the bed and pulling me after him.
Belatedly my hands start pulling at his shirt, trying to find skin, and this is all new territory. Cos, you know, I pretty much always knew I was bent, but there was also always Stella, so I figured it was just a few doglegs in the straight highway to old age and grandkids with her, which was everything I wanted back then. Until, I don't know when, but things changed, and everything I wanted was Canada and a guy in a red suit.
'Fraser, is this-' I don't even know what I want to ask - is this what you want? is this a one-time thing? - much less if I want to hear the answer, but his fingers find the zipper of my jeans and there are no more words, plus the two brain cells I have left after Canada froze them and Fraser melted them are fully occupied trying to remember how buttons work.
***
I wake up with Fraser's chin on my shoulder, his arm across my chest and the rest of him taking up about 96.5% of the bed, which wasn't that large in the first place, but who cares? I'll take sprawly, sexy Fraser over tensed-up, not-sleeping-with-me Fraser any day. God, but I missed waking up like this. I mean, obviously not specifically, but waking up with someone radiating warmth and fuzzy feelings at you, and just waiting for them to wake up so you can say hi. And specifically, even, I want to go right back to sleep so I can do the waking-up-with-Fraser thing all over again. Well, maybe not right back to sleep.
Stubble rasps against my skin, and I can feel him breathing in my ear.
'Ray-'
'What is this?' I blurt. 'Like, is this a one-time thing? Do you want to go back to normal when we go home? Cos I don't.'
'Nor do I.' I wait for elaboration. 'In fact, I was rather hoping this could become normal.'
'Fraser, I moved to the Arctic for you - I am not moving to the Southern Hemisphere, no way, no how.'
'I wasn't suggesting-'
'Yeah, I know.' I stretch and pull him up for a kiss. 'How's this for the new normal?'
'So you-' He can't finish sentences any more. I love it.
'Uh-huh.'
'I thought... In Chicago, you seemed... drawn to me, but after the expedition, you were so distant, and you didn't object when I -- tried to form a connection --'
'Flirted.'
'--tried to form a connection with another man, so I thought...'
'Fraser, you're an idiot, and I mean that in the nicest possible way.'
And since we're both awake, I might as well have a go at showing him my 'nicest possible way', right?
'Understood, Ray.'