Title: Sing Me a Love Song
Author:
queenklu Beta: ultimately
dugindeep , whom i forced against her fandom. I'm impulsive and incosiderate. *hangs head* HAPPY V-DAY.
Pairing: Fraser/RayK
Rating: pg13. Ish.
Summary: Singing is naked. Worse than dancing by a long fucking shot.
A/N: The tenses flip on purpose. ^o^
soundtrack is here.
Must’ve been three months since we started working together when I got sick-that’s the first time it happened. I mean, we’re talking sick as a dog here, and not like a ham of a half-wolf who wallows for weeks if he so much as chips a nail. I was flat out. Flat on my back, took every fucking thing I had to get the phone and call in to Welsh, and even then I gave up and crawled to the couch afterwards ‘cause it was closer.
I was too hot but it hurt to twist the way I needed to take off clothes, and I wasn’t wearing much to begin with. So I just wound up lying there, you know, sorta on my sofa (I was pretty sure), and so fucking tired I couldn’t sleep. I must’ve stared at the TV remote for hours trying to talk myself into reaching for it. Just fucking could not move.
So someone starts knocking on my door.
Someone? Pffft, yeah right. Like any other freak in Chicago wants something to do with me. Like even if it was just a neighbor looking to borrow something they wouldn’t be pounding the door instead because that’s what you do, big city.
“Fraser.” Well, I tried to say it. I could barely manage a rough sort of rasp, definitely not anything he could’ve heard, but the knocking stopped.
Then it was Fraser’s voice calling my name through the wood, and I’d known, I’d known it was him but it still felt really good to know, too, you know? Any case, I could hear Fraser talking to me, probably trying to get me to open the door, but my ears felt all swollen and my head’s underwater, felt like, and by the time I got my mouth open I could hear his boots walking away.
And that right there is the story of my life. I mean, I got the one freak-the one person in the entirety of Chicago who might actually give a damn if I was dying (like I’m something special. What, Kowalski? He’s Canadian, he’s programmed to care like that) and I can’t get it together enough for him to stick around.
Then, though. Next thing I know he’s right there, crouched down so he’s just inches from my face so even these crappy, watery eyes of mine can see he’s worried. He gets all crinkly-eyed and frowny when he’s worried. Oops, might’ve said that out loud. Fuck, might have said that out loud.
The crinkly-eyes stayed but the frown quirked a little, and Fraser said-holy shit, way too loud-he said, “Thank you, Mrs. Lobachev, we should be all right now.”
And I tried to tell Fraser, “No, I’m Kowalski, remember? Not Vecchio, not Lobachev,” but then I remembered she’s my landlady, and then I could hear her chittering something before she shut my door and twirled her keys, locking us in again.
Heh. Locked in with Fraser. Somehow this seemed funny to me.
“Ray,” Fraser said then, speaking slow and patient like he does to Dief, and I’m thinking that’s probably a good idea, considering. “Ray. Ray. Ray.”
Hate when he does that. Usually means I’m walking not in the direction of the car. I coughed, or grunted or something to make him shut up.
“Ray.” And now I can see it. I’ve got a hand on his face, cupping the side of it. He’s got his fingers holding my wrist, tip of one tucked under the silver chain. “How are you feeling? I need you to tell me.”
Aw, man. I frowned at him. He couldn’t have asked me something easy, like, like something about curling? “Mean.” The word came out garbled and awful, but he seemed to get it. Sort of.
He looked be-bewildebeested. “You feel mean?”
“No. You.” I tapped his forehead with one of the fingers already there. Then I sighed, because that? Not buddies. “Ugh, Frase.” Felt better when I wasn’t pushing sound out, when I could just shove air past my lips to make words. My ears stayed popped when I did it that way too. “’M sick.”
“Yes, I can see that.” He huffed like he was losing patience with me, and that didn’t hardly seem fair, did it? I’d seen this guy not lose patience with a suspect after a six-hour interrogation, but you put him in a room with me… I tuned back into his rattling off my pulse rate and eye-dilation just in time to hear, “Have you had anything to eat or drink yet today?”
I gave him what I could scrape up of my Yeah, what do you think? patented Kowalski look, and I felt the crinkles show up under my hand. Oh. So not so much a no patience thing as a…okay.
Fraser was gone before I could whisper, “Sorry,”-not too sure what I was apologizing for, there-and without his face to hold it up my whole arm fell off the couch. I let it. Not much else to do.
My ears were feeling a little less swollen-or at least enough to hear stuff, ‘cause I could hear Fraser rummaging through my kitchen, muttering things that didn’t make sense. Probably talking to Dief, though I hadn’t heard him come in. Stuff like, “Yes, I know,” and, “Well, what would you have me do?” and, “He’s my friend,” and that made my stomach flip over until I realized that was just the smell of oil cooking on the stove.
Oh God. I was gonna hurl. I’d known eating was a bad, bad, oh God oh God oh- I freaked, grabbed Fraser’s jacket where he’d left it on the coffee table and pressed it to my face, covering my nose and mouth with the smell of wool and that leather polish stuff and real leather and Fraser, and breathed and breathed until the roaring in my ears dimmed enough that I could hear Fraser chanting my name. I looked up, and he had these wide, wide eyes fixed on me as he pushed open the kitchen windows to get rid of the smell. Probably worried I’d hurl on his uniform. I gave him a real shaky O-K sign and sank bank into the couch, wondering when I’d sat up. I didn’t take the coat off my face, though. Not dumb.
I let the sound of Fraser apologizing roll over me, explaining how he needed the oil warmed for some poultice thing or other blah blah blah-timed my breathing to it. Moving slow, I managed to get the coat on, kept it unbuttoned so I could wrap the collar up over my nose. Just kept listening to the Mountie wrapped in Mountie-smells, absorbing all that superpower into my squirming belly. I couldn’t be sick because Fraser never got sick because Fraser was a Mountie. It all made sense in my head when I thought it enough.
I didn’t open my eyes when Fraser sat down next to me, not right away. Kinda glanced at him under my lashes just to make sure he wasn’t holding food. He wasn’t. Just tea. But he caught me looking and ducked his head to keep my gaze, that coaxing-small-children-to-the-moral-high-ground smile on his face. He probably saw my nose twitch in a sneer because he just said, “Ray,” in that way he does when I’m being childish and I know it, “I made you some tea.”
It took quite a lot, but I managed to stick my tongue out at him. It caught on the top of his collar, underside dragging on wool.
“Ray,” he said again, eyes flicking back up to mine. He was thinking about when he’d get his coat to the dry cleaners, I could tell. And he must’ve known I could tell ‘cause he went a little pink at the tips of his ears. “Please.” He put a hand on my shoulder-over his black stripey things-thumb rubbing circles on the wool. “It will make you feel better.”
I felt cold all of a sudden, shivery. I was just in my boxers and this thin sleep-tee under the jacket, and I dragged my knees up to my chest and tried to fit inside Fraser’s coat. No dice, of course. The guy’s not that much bigger than me, actually a good inch shorter, though no one will believe me until we stand back to back and measure.
So I got so caught up in that, that I didn’t notice Fraser shifting closer until he was one long line of heat against my left side, knee to hip and all the way up my ribs and over my shoulders because that’s where his arm was, around me. If it wasn’t for the fact that I felt like death, like that dead caribou Fraser hid inside for eleven weeks or whatever, this might’ve been a problem. ‘Cause, you know. Fraser. You gotta be dead or Dewey to not want Fraser, and I’m not even too sure about Dewey.
But see, I’m a tough guy. Ask anybody. Except Stella, ‘cause you know what Stella knows that no one else but my mama does? I’m a complete pup when I’m sick. So while maybe there might’ve been problems with Fraser’s arm around me before, at least I’d’ve had the strength to fight it. If I was healthy.
No fucking chance, now. Not with Fraser’s chin propped up on my arm, blinking wide and too innocent at me as his free hand eased the mug closer to my mouth, murmuring, teasing little, “Hm? Hmm?” noises all the way.
I didn’t even have the strength to glare at him anymore, though I gave it my best shot, easing the collar down with my stiff, shaking fingers. I was just real glad he didn’t want me to hold it or nothing ‘cause I’d’ve spilled it all over his coat for sure. The rim touched my bottom lip and I let my mouth open, puffing the steam away. I barely made ripples, it was so weak.
Fraser caught on before I could hardly pull a face and said, “Here, let me,” and before I could stop him he pursed his lips and blew.
Jesus. Jesus.
This was gonna haunt me when I no longer had the plague.
When I opened my eyes the crinkles were back around his, so I quickly took a gulp of still too hot tea to distract us both. Still too hot, gross, fuck, disgusting tea, and I tried to push him away so I wouldn’t hurl on him but his arm tightened around me and his head touched mine and my stomach rolled, heaved…then settled.
See? Fraser’s smile said. Trust me. And what can you say to a smile like that, even if you can talk?
By the time I’d choked down the tea my stomach felt almost normal, and my blood felt like it was pumping at least room temperature again. I was e-fucking-xhausted. ‘Let’ was a very strong word for ‘letting’ my head rest on Fraser’s arm. More like there were no more bones in my neck. A low, hopefully grateful hum tingled my lips, nose almost brushing the collar of Fraser’s Henley. He rubbed my shoulder, not brusk-brisket-not rough or in a hurry.
“Mama used to sing to me when I was sick,” I mumbled, only it came out in a long slur of, “Mmasingamenisssick.” I still have no idea why I said it, or how the hell Fraser understood when I wasn’t really speaking in a language.
I half expected him to laugh at me. I’d’ve probably laughed at me. Instead he said, “Hmm,” real quiet, his jaw against my forehead. “Did it make you feel better?”
I nodded, curling in towards his heat as best I could, my hands still tucked up inside Fraser’s jacket so it wasn’t really cuddling. Really. Not even when Fraser set the tea mug on the couch so he could curl that other arm around me.
“Don’t listen to the words,” he said against my hair, then pulled back just enough to start.
“Ten long years ago, it seems so far away. Death called my mother home, seems like yesterday.”
I’d never heard Fraser sing before. Ever. It wasn’t something I thought I’d get to hear. Singing is naked. Worse than dancing by a long fucking shot. I couldn’t really hear the words with the sound of Fraser’s voice bending them, baring them. My heartbeat synced up with his rhythm, the steady rise and fall of the notes.
“I don’t wanna be alone. Death take your hands away. Please don’t take my mother home. Death, please let her stay for a while. Don’t wanna be no motherless child.”
When he was done, my eyelashes were wet, and the next note from his throat sounded strangled. Then his thumbs brushed over my eyes and I know he was whispering, “I’m so sorry, Ray, I don’t know many happy songs,” but I could barely hear him when I was falling asleep.
So yeah. That was the first time.
~*~
Second time he sang to me wasn’t actually at me. He was still too pissed to do anything of that sort, not with our matching bruises on display and the threat of One Last Case hanging over our heads. I thought he was gonna, that night out on the pier with the moonlight giving him a halo in addition to the standard issue Mountie one he always wore, breath puffing cold in the air as he talked about the Robert Mackenzie.
But nope. No song for Ray.
Not that I was expecting one or nothing, ‘cause-it’d just happened the one time. I mean, one time, special circumspecies, I was half-dead and pathetic, whatever, I get it. I’m nothing special, never have been. I bet loads of people heard Fraser sing before me, and there’d probably be a lot more once we were D-U-N, done.
Still. It was a long drive to reach the Henry Allan, and we didn’t have time to stop for coffee breaks. Long drive, and I had the music on to stay awake, but I couldn’t pick a channel, and I knew it was driving Fraser bugfuck in the passenger’s seat but I couldn’t stop. Not until I realized I was looking for a radio station that might play the kind of songs Fraser might know and sing along to.
Yeah. Smart one, Kowalski, they don’t have ESKIMO FM. Not this side of ‘The Lake They Call Michigan.’
I shot a glare over at Fraser, but he was slouched down low with his arms crossed over his belly, face turned to the window. Asleep, or faking it real well. But I just didn’t-I didn’t think Fraser knew how to slouch, same way I didn’t think he knew how to sing. Still, when you’re best at fucking everything it means the bad stuff too.
I kept my head turned straight ahead the whole rest of the way there. Even though it made my neck ache. And, okay, I caved when we were pulling up because Fraser made a sleepy sort of snuffling sound and I had to check to make sure he wasn’t dying or something, okay?
Daylight made it harder to remember why I was angry. Fraser made it even harder with his jacket thrown over one arm, probably the same jacket I’d wrapped up in all those months ago when things were still good. I fixated on his holster-his stupid fucking pointless holster-on our way up the docking ladder, and wasn’t at all tempted to look, y’know, rear-ward.
Because, yeah. That hadn’t changed.
Not even when Fraser had changed-into undercover clothes, that white sweater, which was about the loosest thing I’d ever seen on him, grungiest, torn no fucking less, and he still looked like someone I wanted to wrap up in.
No more, Kowalski. No fucking more.
I wanted Fraser to pick a fight with me again. I wanted to yell at him, shove him around-not hit him again, because in that split second of my life after the punch, I felt worse than I had every day of the week I had that flu bug, combined-just…I wanted to do anything but keep pretending we were okay. I wanted to either be okay, or not. And seeing as okay was off the table… I couldn’t sit there with Fraser and joke about food.
So I told him to keep them occupied. What does he do?
He sings them a song.
Them he’ll sing to. Of course.
There’s a niggling voice in the back of my head saying, “Well, you’ve never asked him since the first time, have you?” but I blocked that pretty quick, what with the being handcuffed to a sinking ship and the nearly drowning and the buddy breathing, Fraser’s hands holding my head still as he pushed air past my startled lips-
You know that expression people say when they get terrified giddy? When their blood sings? Yeah. It felt like that. Coulda been the oxygen deprivation, but that’s not what it felt like. Felt like Fraser was singing for me, just for me, even if he wasn’t really.
That, right there. That’s the moment we started to click again, just a little bit. Not fixed, but that’s what started fraying at my resolve to see this case to the end and split.
Course, he could’ve still split on me, and that kept us fighting as long as we did. Even when I knew my string was snapped, his had to snap, too. This was a two-way string, or street, or something. Submarine. Fraser snapped in that submarine, and if we’re being entirely, you know, honest, a good fuel to my fighting was the fact that Fraser was between my legs.
Not that that’s, uh, important.
~*~
We were in the park for numero three. This wasn’t too long after the Robert Mackenzie case was wrapped up, but with all the international paperwork that had to be done on both sides, I didn’t get to see Fraser very often for going on three weeks after we got back to Chicago. I don’t know if that’s what made me take off for Mexico with some girl I barely knew, or if it was just sheer D-U-M dumb, but we hit the ground running after that, case-wise. Then suddenly I stop to take a breath, and I’m in the park with Fraser in the middle of the night, sitting around the campfire listening to his ghost stories.
I’m not sure if you’d consider the LoooOOOOU in Louscagnetti to be singing, but my gut did. Reminded me exactly why I’d run after that girl-Fraser. Fraser, Fraser, Fraser, Fraser, Frase. So off limits. So straight, if he wasn’t completely asexual. So fucked up. So, so much of a bad idea it hurt a little bit.
It was almost a relief when Mr. Tucci got shot. I mean, no offense, shit, and definitely rest in peace, but I didn’t shoot him. He lived a long life. And left millions for his grieving widow and smoking hot caretaker, who maybe might not have been quite so smoking if I hadn’t needed a distraction from Fraser, and bad.
Well. We all know how that turned out. Back at the campfire, just where we were before, only now I feel like double shit, first for using her, and then blaming her for murder, wrongly. And I-stupid-I’m laying it all out for Fraser, and I’m trying to tell him he’s not the one who’s fucked up, or at least not the only one, and God, I feel like such an utter shit. Stella should’ve capped me in the head and put the world out of its misery.
Then Fraser sang, “LoooOOOOUscagnetti,” and-everything just shut up. I’ve got this helpless grin on my face, maybe because this point it’s laugh or cry, but… It’s good. One high note from Fraser I can carry in my pocket and pull out to look at. Then he gives me another one: “And for a brief second, LoooOOOOUscagnetti could hear his inner bell ring as though it were rung by a thousand angels.”
Maybe that’s what Fraser’s doing to me. Ringing my inner bell.
I tried singing along the third time, but let’s face it. Dancing is more my thing. Plus the story was really freaking dark.
“Fraser,” I said in the middle of our spaghetti ala campfire-which tasted fine, but even I know you boil pasta, not roast it like a chestnut, so I think (hope) that putting it on a stick was just to heat it up (or screw with my head)-“Is it, ah. Is it okay if I stay out here tonight?”
“Of course, Ray,” his mouth answered before his head could think it through, and it was kinda cute him blinking at me like that. “I was…under the impression that you didn’t particularly enjoy sleeping out of doors.”
“Hey.” I dropped a finger at him, “Did I ever say that? No, I did not.” I shook out the blankets I’d kept stashed in the Goat from last night with a decided, Don’t underestimate me, flick of my wrist, sure that Fraser could still see me smirking.
“I believe you likened it to-lying face down in the dirt,” Fraser said, doing a little smirking of his own.
“Yeah well that doesn’t count, the coffee hadn’t kicked in yet. ‘Sides,” I added, shifting dance-style to face him, “this time, there’s a fire. It’s not camping ‘til you’ve got a fire-then it’s just lying in the dirt.”
“You didn’t seem to sleep very much, Ray,” Fraser tried, smile sort of falling.
I stopped what I was doing, half-way to tucked in. “Oh. Oh, I, uh. Didn’t realize. You’re probably super-sensed to, like, breathing patterns, huh?”
“Supersensitive?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Oh, yes, of course. Well.” Fraser looked like two seconds away from a neck crack, which was just…greatness. “We were lying rather…close.”
Straight. Straight. “Straight. I mean-Right. I, uh, look, I didn’t mean to keep you awake or nothing, Frase, I could’ve-“
Fraser’s eyes got big. “No, I was-I was staying awake to keep guard on the Tuccis.”
“Right, me too,” I lied real quick, sat a second, then popped upright, trying to get my shit together without lighting anything on fire. “Look, I’ll just-I’m gonna go. I don’t want you to miss out on two nights’ sleep, so…”
“I don’t want you to go sleepless either, Ray,” Fraser said in a definite rush as he got to his feet, gesturing to the scabby piece of dirt like it was the queen’s suite itself. “If you believe you could get some sleep out in the great outdoors then, then I would be happy to have you.”
He was all Mr. Polite Mountie, which is sometimes hard to buy once you’ve been socked by the guy. Plus there was that hesitation. Then, then.
“Nah, it’s okay,” I said, hugging the blankets to my chest and not at all staring at that dirt spot like I wanted it. I forced something like a chuckle. “I’m tired enough I’ll just drop anywhere-might as well be a bed. See y-“
“Ray,” he said, cutting me off (and that was more like it), “Why don’t you want to go home?”
My mouth kinda twisted. I know I didn’t scuff my boot, no matter what anyone says. But I was sort of looking bootwards when I answered. “There’s nobody there.”
“Ah,” Fraser said, quiet. Almost like a melody if I pretended real hard.
I snorted without any real feeling to it. “Ah.” Then I raised my head just enough to see him.
“Ray,” he said, reaching out to grasp my arm just above the joint, “Would you mind, terribly, staying at least until Diefenbaker returns? I understand this park is not entirely safe at night.”
He was teasing at me, eyes smiling. I ducked my head again then brought it up with a grin. “Yeah, no, I hear there was a shooting just the other day.”
“Really.” Fraser pulled a face like this was news. “That’s too bad.”
“Mmm.”
“You might as well make yourself comfortable,” Fraser said when he saw me hesitating. “I don’t expect Dief back for some time.”
“Like dawn?” I played along, shaking out my blankets.
“Oh, at least.”
We settled down, me on one side of the fire, him on the other, our heads together. He banked the fire explaining stuff about coals and heat distribution that I didn’t listen to, except for the sound of his voice. Then he stripped off his jacket and folded it neatly, tucking it under his head, and I was wishing really hard for the day when I’d stop wondering if it was the same coat I’d curled up in, if that was the same collar I’d accidentally licked. I was half-convinced by now that I’d hallucinated most of that day, anyway. I knew now that Fraser just didn’t touch people like that. Not even the damsels in distress.
I shoved aside thoughts of that coat-I couldn’t ask him for that. There was something I could, though. I’d been putting it off long enough.
“Hey, Frase?”
“Hm?” There was just enough light from the dying fire to see the dark smudge of his lashes blink open. “Yes, Ray?”
I rolled on my back, arms pillowing the back of my head. “I still feel like shit.”
The silence was just long enough to mean Fraser thought I was telling him that was somehow his fault, so I huffed and turned just enough to show him a raised eyebrow. “Would you like another story?” he offered, sounding uncertain and rightly so.
“Um, never ever again.” I said it with just enough truth that he laughed, which made me grin. That was like music too. “So when I was little,” I said, all casual-like, “my mom used to sing to me.”
Fraser went extra still, but this time I made sure not to look over. When he said, “Really?” it was even more casual-like than me.
“Yeah.” I couldn’t see the stars but I started counting them anyway. “When I was feeling bad.”
He was so quiet I could hear the fire snap, but it didn’t feel like a bad silence. Felt like one of those right before something good happens, like the silence before Stella said Yes.
“Did it make you feel better?” Fraser asked, and all the breath slid right outta me. I hadn’t realized how scared I’d been that it’d all been in my head, all this time. Nope, not now, not ever, and in the dim light I could let myself pretend Fraser’s eyes were dark as burning coals.
“Yeah,” I said on the last of my air, then rolled quick onto my side and tucked my hands under my chin, reflex. “You gotta know something happy, though, by now.”
He laughed, this loud bright sound in the Chicago wilderness, and I heard him roll on his back rather than saw it. “Alright, I know one.”
I did not hold my breath. Fraser was superspecified.
“If I had a boat, I’d go out on the ocean. And if I had a pony, I’d ride him on my boat. And we would both together, go out on the ocean, me upon my pony on my boat.”
At the end of the song I fell asleep grinning, and I’m pretty sure I woke up that way, too. Face down in the dirt.
PART TWO