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Like Glass
for Loz
Author's Notes: Many thanks to the amazing AuKestrel, who came through for me yet again with a lightning-fast beta, literally at the 11th hour. She rocks.
Ray still had glass in his hair when he went out to the parking lot. Huey'd said Ray's parents were out there, and that just didn't compute. Ray'd sooner have believed Santa Claus was out there with his sleigh and all his reindeer.
His parents hadn't set foot in Illinois in fifteen years.
But it was them, Damian and Barbara Kowalski, looking a little chilly and uncomfortable in Chicago's fall air, sitting outside an enormous white RV.
Jesus, they even had a little fake lawn and a picket fence with them.
His mom hadn't changed much. She was all smiles, her blue eyes kind of watery, and she hugged him real tight like he was still the gangly kid she'd chased around. Ray remembered she was always patching the knees of his pants because he was in constant motion, always climbing up something or falling off something.
Come to think of it, Ray was still climbing up stuff and falling off stuff (but a lot of that was because of Fraser). He just wore pants with better knees now.
His mom was apparently still trying to feed him up the way she did back then. You'd think she'd have realized by now Ray just wasn't built like her and his dad, he wasn't going to put weight on. But she didn't get it. She went into the RV saying she was going to fix something for Ray to eat, even though he told her he wasn't hungry.
So that left Ray alone with his dad. Christ, his dad did look older.
Actually, maybe his mom did, too.
Ray hadn't been prepared for that. He'd been in touch with his mom on the phone, of course, but he hadn't actually seen her in ages. His folks didn't come to Chicago anymore. They'd left, they didn't come back, that's the way it was.
Ray tried not to think about it.
And now here his dad was, pulling the cover off Ray's old Goat, which that was some kind of miracle or something, since he'd just been telling Fraser about her today. And damn if she wasn't in beautiful shape and damn if Ray's dad hadn't said, "I've got something of yours here."
Meaning he was giving the car back to Ray for good this time.
He shook Ray's hand and said something about Arizona highways being good for engines, but Ray heard something totally different under the words. Something about long Arizona highways being good places to think about what you had, what you lost...maybe about what you really wanted.
Ray needed some time to take it in. He slid into the driver's seat of the Goat and touched the dash and the gauges and tapped out a rhythm on the steering wheel. He'd have to rent a garage spot for it, he guessed, until he could sell his Ford. But he didn't care; it was worth it to have the Goat again.
Damian stood and watched Ray enjoying the car for a few minutes, then he mumbled something about seeing whether Barbara needed help in the kitchen.
Ray tapped the steering wheel some more, thinking. It wasn't like Damian had stormed off to Arizona saying "you're no son of mine" like some guys would have. He didn't make big scenes over nothing like the Vecchio family did; it wasn't his way.
He just didn't talk to Ray any more.
Ray could probably have stood a shouting match better, because he did shouting pretty well, always had. Damian didn't. He was a quiet guy, simple, hardworking. Not a shouter. Just a guy who wanted a better life for his sons.
One of them found it: Andy finished college, went to Arizona and became a lawyer, and not the kind that dealt with bad guys. He was a suit, he dealt with corporations and numbers and money and stuff. He had a real job and a wife and three cute kids. And he probably had a real lawn and a real picket fence, or whatever passed for that in Arizona.
Ray saw him and his family once in a while, but only when they visited Chicago. Ray'd never been to Arizona.
Ray did a couple years of college, but he wasn't a college kind of guy. He hated numbers. Anything over four digits he couldn't keep straight; they seemed to jump around on him and never stayed in the same order. He had to write down phone numbers, his social security number, everything. He put all the phone numbers he could on speed dial, because otherwise he was stuck looking them up all the time.
Hell, he'd almost forgotten the kidnapper's phone number earlier when Fraser and Quinn were being held hostage. Ray'd have wanted to die a thousand times over if his stupid number problem had cost Fraser his life.
It was a memory thing, maybe. His memory was good, it was real good, it just wasn't good in a school kind of way, like Andy's. Ray remembered with his ears. He remembered how things felt. He remembered where he was standing in relation to all the stuff around him. He knew where to find every scrap of paper on his messy desk.
But he couldn't keep numbers straight, and a lot of times he couldn't spit out the right word for something, even though he knew it. He'd had to take the equivalency test to pass high school, and they'd only let him into college because a few of his teachers had somehow talked somebody at the community college into it, something about how Ray learned differently and had this slight aphasia thing, but he was still pretty smart, and they should give him a chance.
He did okay, he got Cs and even some Bs, but the thing he learned to read best was the writing on the wall, and it said college wasn't his thing. There sure as hell was no way he'd be following Stella and Andy into law school. So after he got the two full years of credits he needed for the police academy, he quit college.
It was a bad day when he told Damian Kowalski he was done with college and he was going to the police academy. It was even worse the day Ray graduated and stood there in his dress uniform trying to look like he didn't care that everyone else's dad was all smiles, button-busting proud, and his looked like he was about to have a stroke.
But Ray had to live his own life, so he put on the uniform and started doing what he'd wanted to do since that day in 1974 when a bank robber took Stella hostage and scared the piss out of him.
Nobody was ever going to do that to Ray Kowalski again.
So he had that, he was a cop and a tough guy, he carried a gun and wore a badge, and he'd made detective eight years ago. He got the nod to do plainclothes work not long afterward, and then he did decoy work and undercover work, whatever it took.
Which the upshot was, he gave directions to out-of-towners and rescued cats a lot less and he arrested bad guys a lot more.
Damian Kowalski might have been okay with hearing about the cat rescues.
Ray pretty much told his mom, "tell Dad I said hi," and that was about all he said to his dad. Because what else was he going to tell him? I came home today stinking of bad guys just like always, and I went to sleep in my apartment alone, because Stella finally left me two years ago, and I still got no kids.
Or he could say, hey, this month I took a big drug dealer off the streets, I arrested a murderer, I nailed a creep who pimped kids, I busted a con artist who stole old people's money. I left the street a little cleaner than I found it.
Today I drove a motorcycle through a window and took down a whackjob jewel thief who was probably just seconds away from killing my partner and his Indian guide friend.
Nah, Damian was never going to bust his buttons over stuff like that.
Ray's mom knew about the three times Ray'd been cited for bravery by the CPD, because Stella had told her. Ray figured his mom had kept it quiet, because if Damian had almost stroked out at Ray's graduation from the academy, the citations would probably have given him a heart attack.
Especially if he knew they awarded them at an embarrassing ceremony and everything.
Ray didn't want to think about the attack Damian would have if Ray started telling him about all the wacky cases he got into with Fraser. His mom would freak if she knew how close Ray'd come to dying in some of them, and that included today's incident with that psycho, Kelly, the laughing bandit.
Which reminded Ray he still had glass in his hair, all sorts of mud and crap on his jeans from the warehouse floor, probably grease from the motorcycle and God-knew-what else on him. He slid out of the car and shut the door carefully, pulling the cloth back over the car. Might as well keep the stinky-bad-guy dust from the police parking lot off her.
He went over to the door of the RV and knocked. His mom opened it. "Stanley! It's nearly five o'clock, isn't it? I think I'm just going to make dinner, all right? That nice Lieutenant Welsh said it was okay to keep the RV here for a few more hours."
Jeez, he couldn't do this alone. "Um, but there's...I, um, I usually grab a bite with my partner after work, and he's..."
"He's perfectly welcome to join us. And anyone else you want to bring along. I'd like to meet your friends."
"She's cooking for an army," Damian said quietly. "There's five chairs in here, but there's the lawn chairs, too."
"Nah, just me and Fraser," Ray said. He glanced over to where Fraser was saying goodbye to Quinn as he got in a taxi. Ray could sort of tell Fraser was watching them out of the corner of his eye. Maybe he was curious about Ray's parents because Ray'd mentioned them earlier, or maybe he was just keeping tabs on his partner. Ray didn't know, but he was glad Fraser was there.
"Look, um, I'll go ask him, and I got to clean up, and I'll come back. When...?"
"Half an hour or so, and I'll have it all ready."
"All right. All right, Mom. I'll be back."
She reached over and patted his cheek, and Ray couldn't help smiling even though he was still nervous as all hell.
He made it over to Fraser just as Quinn's taxi pulled away.
"Hey, Frase. Clocking off early today. I've kinda had it."
"That's good," Fraser said. "You've put in very long hours all week." He cleared his throat. "Er, Ray. I couldn't help noticing..." He looked over at the RV.
"Yeah. It's my folks, all right. They want to meet my friends, so um. Mom's making dinner. Please come?" He wondered if he sounded as needy as he felt.
"Wouldn't you rather see your parents alone, Ray? Didn't you say they moved to Arizona shortly after you were graduated from the police academy?"
"Yeah, so?"
"Well, that's nearly sixteen years, Ray."
"Yeah."
"I wouldn't want to intrude on your reunion."
"No excuses, Fraser, you're coming to dinner."
Fraser rubbed at his eyebrow. One of these days he was going to rub the damn thing off.
But Ray knew what the eyebrow thing meant. "Fraser?"
"Yes, Ray?"
"Look, don't worry. There's not going to be a big emotional scene. Not even a little one. Not their style."
"But it is your style, Ray."
"Sometimes. Not tonight. I'm all emotionaled out after that thing in the warehouse." He sighed and touched his hair carefully. He didn't need a bunch of annoying little cuts in his scalp to make his day complete. "Look, come on inside."
"Is there more paperwork to finish?"
"Nah. Done with it."
So Fraser followed him inside. He didn't even go into the bullpen. He headed straight downstairs to the locker room, which was, thank God, empty because it was mid-shift. He took off his coat and hung it up, then fished around in his locker for a towel. He found two and held one out to Fraser.
"Ray?"
Ray shrugged. "You want a shower? I don't know about you, but I'm still covered in crap from the warehouse floor, and I got glass in my hair."
"Oh. Well, now that you mention it, I am rather dusty." Fraser took the towel. He was looking at Ray oddly, like maybe he was trying to figure him out. "I suppose...ah, I suppose you'd rather I not wear the uniform to dinner with your parents?"
Ray shook his head. "Wear what you want. I gotta clean up, just thought you might wanna, too. You still got spare clothes down here somewhere?" Fraser nodded and pointed to a neat little pile of clothes on the top shelf of Ray's locker.
"You keep them in my locker? How did I not know that?"
"I have spare clothes in the trunk of your car, too."
"We get into some messes, don't we?" Ray said, smiling. If it wasn't the lake it was something on fire, or a dumpster full of smelly trash, or a boatload of toxic waste, or a million rubber ducks.
"Okay. So Mom said a half hour. I gotta get moving here." He shouldered out of his holster, checked the safety on his weapon, and hung it up. He pulled some clean clothes out of the locker, locked it back up because of the gun, and then he stripped off his gross clothes and left them on the floor. Jeez, he'd been sitting in the GTO in those? He'd have to find a plastic garbage bag to bring them home in. He'd wash them good, though. There was no way he was letting his Bulls t-shirt get thrown away.
He went over and stepped under a showerhead, and turned it on, nice and hot, and behind him he heard Fraser getting out of the uniform and probably folding it.
It was a safe bet Fraser didn't throw the serge on the floor.
Ray found some shampoo and washed his hair carefully, getting the glass shards out. He closed his eyes tight when he stuck his head under the water to rinse. Glass in his hair was one thing, but he didn't need any glass in his eyes.
Jeez, this was getting to be a regular drill. Go to work, watch Fraser get himself almost killed, jump through glass to rescue him. Why was this Ray's life?
He got his hair rinsed, wiped his eyes, and looked around for the soap. Fraser had stepped under the showerhead next to his and was doing his hair. Ray glanced over at him. Jesus. Fraser was big and pale and muscular like always. He looked healthy, and that was great...but he had a scary-looking collection of bruises over his ribs and on his wrists. His hands were still scraped up from this morning. He had rope burns.
God.
Ray didn't think he'd made any sound, but maybe he had, because Fraser gave a start and opened his eyes, looking right at him.
"I'm sorry, I'm..." Ray stammered and looked away.
"What's the matter, Ray?"
It took Ray almost a minute before he could get his head around something normal to say. "Fraser...um, did you...did you even think of having a doctor look at those?"
Fraser shook his head. "I'm fine, Ray. It looks worse than it is."
Ray didn't believe that one for a second. "You're...God, you're Technicolor. I should have kicked that freak in the head while I had him down."
Ray shut his eyes and started soaping up. He couldn't look at that. Fraser's skin was so fair that it probably looked worse than it was, and Ray used to box, it wasn't like he'd never seen bruises, and he ached in about fifteen places himself from the motorcycle thing. But this was different. This was his partner almost getting killed today.
"If you'd done that, Ray, he'd have a case against the department for police brutality, and you'd be suspended from duty."
"Yeah, I know. Just saying." Ray scrubbed himself hard with the soap. Yeah, he was mad. He could get the warehouse mud off, maybe. Too bad he couldn't wash off how he felt.
There was a long silence. The water was kind of loud, but there was no splashing from the next shower over. It sounded like Fraser was just standing there still staring at Ray.
"Look, it's okay," Ray said, when the silence went on too long. "I didn't kick him. I wasn't even close to kicking him. But it's a good thing I didn't see those bruises on you before, because I would've kicked something." He put the soap down and started rinsing off.
Fraser started splashing again, which meant he was finishing his shower. Ray opened his eyes, and sure enough, Fraser was soaping up, but he was still looking at Ray, his eyes dark, his forehead furrowed like something was worrying him. "It's been a very long, very trying day," Fraser said, understatement of the century.
Jeez, the guy had half his torso turning black and blue. He got pushed off a thirty-story building this morning and kidnapped and tied up by a whackjob this afternoon, and he was worried about Ray?
"Perhaps I should just...find my own way home--well, back to the Consulate--and let you spend some time with your parents." He started rinsing off the soap, which just made his bruises more obvious, so Ray had to look away again.
"Please, Frase. Please. Look. I kinda...I really want you there. I don't want to...." Jeez how did he ask for this without sounding like a total wuss? "Look, it's already been kind of intense. My dad..." He shrugged and picked up the soap and started lathering up.
Next to him, he heard the other shower shut off, but Fraser didn't say anything more.
Ray scrubbed. He rinsed off and started lathering up again. God, what did they put in the water in this city? A guy couldn't get clean.
"Ray. Ray. Ray. Ray. Ray...." The sounds blended in with the water, and it was all one big background noise, like a song you couldn't get out of your head. Ray heard it, but he didn't really pay attention. He had warehouse dust, he had mud, he had the stink of bad guys--really, really bad guys like that laughing sonofabitch who hurt Fraser, who almost capped Fraser today--he had Technicolor bruises to wash off, and none of it seemed to want to come off.
Fraser's hand closed on his arm. Ray gave a shout, nearly jumped out of his skin. "Jesus, Fraser, way to startle a guy. What the hell?"
"I called your name several times. You didn't respond." Fraser still had that worry-crease between his eyebrows. His hair was wet, slicked back, so dark it looked black. He had his towel wrapped around his waist, but it didn't hide all the black and blue.
"Yeah, well, the water's running, I was busy washing up...." Ray looked down, watched the last of the suds swirl around the drain near his feet and disappear.
"Ray. You washed three times. I think you're clean by now."
Fraser was still holding his arm. Ray shook it off. "Christ, Fraser. You don't go touching a guy in the shower, especially in this joint. Give everybody the wrong idea."
"No one else is here, Ray."
"Well, don't do it when they are."
"Understood."
"'Cause this ain't Canada, and I know you get away with all kinds of crazy shit on account of being Canadian, but some things are--"
"I said I understood." Fraser's voice sounded strained, kind of choked in his throat.
Which, shit, that was not what Ray wanted to do, chew out his best friend over nothing. It was a sucky time to worry about what other people thought, anyway. Wouldn't matter what anybody thought if Fraser hadn't made it out of that warehouse alive.
He shut his eyes and blew out a breath. "I'm sorry, buddy. I don't know what I'm..."
"It's all right, Ray." Fraser reached behind Ray and shut the water off. He pulled Ray's towel off the hook and handed it to him.
Ray dried his hair and hid his face in the towel at the same time. Crap. He'd promised Fraser no emotional scenes with his parents, and Ray couldn't even get out of the station without throwing an emotional scene all over Fraser. Ray really sucked sometimes.
And right now he just didn't get Fraser. 'Cause if it was Ray standing there with his ribs all black and blue and angry red, with rope burns on his wrists, and his best friend went off on him like a lunatic, he wouldn't be just quietly handing him a towel, all understanding and concerned.
Ray rubbed his face with the towel, hard. Maybe it'd look like it was the towel that made it so red. He finally moved the towel down and started drying off, fast.
Fraser was still watching his face, he could feel that dark blue gaze on him, but after a minute Fraser moved away, and Ray heard him fiddling with the lock on Ray's locker, getting his clothes out and starting to get dressed.
Ray scrubbed at his skin, which was starting to look kind of pink all over. He'd scrubbed off a lot of layers, he guessed. If Fraser hadn't turned off the shower he'd probably still be in there trying to get the stink off him, and here it was, still here, just like his dad always said.
Bad people, bad food, and bad hours. Hell of a job.
Nothing for a dad to be proud of.
A shadow fell over his bare feet; Ray looked up and there was Fraser again, all neat and clean in his jeans and his flannel shirt and still dogging Ray with that polite, concerned look. He was holding out Ray's clean clothes.
Ray dropped the towel and took them and sat on the bench to pull them on. He had everything on but his boots by the time it got through his thick head that he owed Fraser an out. The guy was bruised, he was hurting, and maybe he didn't want to go to a doctor, but that didn't mean he should have to take care of Ray, too. He deserved some time to lick his wounds or get some extra rest, or whatever he wanted.
"Frase, I'm sorry," he said. He couldn't look him in the eye. He started pulling his boots on. "Look, I can see you need to rest and you know, go mix up some powered horn and pregnant moose goo. You don't have to fend off my parents for me, too. Jeez, I suck. I just...when I begged you to come have dinner with us, I didn't know how bad off you were.
"Which that was stupid of me not to think...I mean, you got pushed off a building this morning and beat up this afternoon, and you're lucky I didn't kill you with the goddamn motorcycle..."
"Ray." Fraser only said it once, but it stopped Ray in mid-blither.
"Yeah?"
"You saved my life with the goddamn motorcycle."
Ray looked up. Fraser's eyes were steady on him, true blue.
"I was going off my nut," Ray said. "Welsh wanted to wait for the SWAT team. I knew that psycho was going to kill you first. When I heard that gunshot I thought he shot you." All of a sudden there was a huge lump in his throat. He couldn't swallow around it, he could hardly talk. "Frase, if I stood there pissing my pants while you died, I swear I'd eat my gun."
Fraser's hand clamped down on his shoulder. "Ray. No." He sounded like he was talking around a pretty big lump, too. His eyes looked kind of shiny. "I want you to swear you won't. Ever. Do such a thing." He bit the words off like they hurt him.
Ray finally managed to swallow. "You think I could live with myself if that happened?"
"Swear," Fraser said. He gripped Ray's shoulder so hard it hurt.
"You remember how my whole cop thing started?" Ray's eyes were filling. "In a bank in 1974. Somebody took my best friend hostage and held a gun on her."
"He was going to kneecap me," Fraser said. "He was going to fire nonlethal shots at me until Quinn gave in and told him where the jewels were, and then he was going to kill both of us."
Ray shuddered.
"But that was only if he kept his tenuous hold on his sanity for another few minutes. I think he was seconds away from shooting me when Quinn got free and drew his fire."
"So Quinn saved your life."
"No. That was the shot you heard. Kelly turned back toward me and was just about to shoot when you burst through the window like an avenging angel."
Ray felt his face heat. An angel. Jeez. Fraser said the queerest things.
"I want you to swear, Ray."
"Frase, you know me. I freak out sometimes. How can I know what I'd do if--"
"I know you'll keep your word to me," Fraser said. "I trust you."
And God, it still turned Ray's crank and rang all his bells to hear that from his partner. He felt his throat tighten up again.
"Today you saved my life. At considerable risk to your own, I might add. I consider it my own fault that I let the situation escalate to the point that your heroism was necessary."
"Heroism." Ray snorted. "You're my partner. I love you like my own brother."
Fraser smiled. "I know." His hand eased up on Ray's shoulder, and he patted it instead. "The feeling is mutual, even though I don't actually have a brother. But if I had one, I could not have done better than you."
Which that made an actual tear spill down Ray's cheek, so he didn't look up at Fraser.
"So I know you'll keep your word."
Yeah, Ray would. Who was he kidding? Fraser'd haunt him beyond the grave and make his afterlife miserable if he did something so impolite. He felt like laughing and crying at the same time.
He wiped the tear off his cheek with the back of his hand and tried to make it look like he was just rubbing his eye. Probably didn't have a prayer of fooling Constable Sherlock, but it was worth a shot.
"All right," he said. "I promise I won't eat my gun." He looked up and met Fraser's eyes even though his own had to be looking kind of red.
Fraser squeezed his shoulder one more time and let go. "Thank you, Ray." He sounded so matter-of-fact, like he hadn't expected anything different. He probably hadn't.
"Okay. So now that that's out of the way, let's see what Mom made for dinner. She's a great cook, you know."
"I expected nothing less."
Before they went outside, Ray splashed some water in his face and spiked his hair up with his fingers. Still leaning over the sink, he looked up at Fraser. "I don't look like I was, uh..." he waved his hand vaguely at his eyes.
"No," Fraser said. "You look dry-eyed and confident."
Dry-eyed and confident. Jeez. That was Canadian for something, but Ray didn't know what.
"Okay, buddy. Time to introduce you to the Kowalskis."
It was close and cramped inside the RV, but superclean and neat, like Ray's mom always kept her house. Ray'd obviously missed inheriting that gene.
Fraser looked around with a smile, and he seemed to approve. Ray wasn't surprised. He figured Fraser's lean-to in the Yukon was about the same size.
Damian and Barbara shook Fraser's hand real nicely: Damian respectfully, Barbara warmly. They made small talk, which Fraser was way too good at. Fraser declined two fingers of vodka and Ray accepted.
Damian raised his glass in Ray's direction, but he didn't say anything, and Ray was good with that. Ray had something in mind. "To 1967," he said. "They made great cars that year."
"Hear, hear," Damian said. So they were good.
Ray was still kind of tense, but the vodka was warm in his stomach, and his mom had made meatloaf, the original comfort food. It smelled fantastic. Ray knew Fraser really liked meatloaf, so that made him feel a little calmer, too.
When they finally sat down, he saw Fraser kind of drop into his chair. Ray knew those bruises had to be making themselves felt.
"Constable," Barbara said. "You're not well?"
"He's kinda banged up," Ray said hastily. "We had a...a rough day." Nobody ever said Fraser had a lock on understating things.
"I'm sorry," she said. "We've showed up at a bad time, haven't we? We could tell things were very busy in the station. We tried calling several times, but we didn't seem to be able to reach you."
Ray shrugged. He figured they didn't need to know why.
"Not at all, Mrs. Kowalski," Fraser said, glancing at Ray. "Your timing was perfect."
"I dragged him here," Ray confessed. "Figured you ought to meet my buddy."
"I'm glad you did," Fraser said. He looked Ray's parents in the eye, one after the other. "I'm very, very grateful to be here tonight," he said quietly.
Damian looked at him curiously, Barbara looked surprised.
Fraser smiled. "Ray saved my life today."
Damian sat back in his chair abruptly.
Barbara stopped in the middle of putting mashed potatoes on Fraser's plate. "Oh, my goodness. What happened?"
"Jeez, Fraser," Ray said under his breath. Louder, he said, "Look we can't talk about the details of cases that haven't gone to trial yet."
"While that's true," Fraser said, looking at Damian, "I can say one thing, Mr. and Mrs. Kowalski. Your son's a hero, and he proved it again today."
They glanced at each other and then back at Fraser.
Ray grabbed his glass and gulped some water.
Damian looked down at the table. He put his hand up to scratch the side of his neck. When he looked up, he looked at Ray. "I knew that," he said. He cleared his throat. "Stella told us about the citations."
"Oh." Ray didn't know what else to say.
Damian turned to Fraser. "Those cases, the ones he got cited for? Those are okay to talk about, right?"
"They're all a matter of public record, yes."
"Stella never gave us the details."
"I'd be happy to fill them in." Fraser's eyes shone. "In December, 1988, a young boy was being held in a warehouse. Ray went in even though he knew his cover had been blown...."
--end--
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