He’s driving across a bridge when it hits, that stomach-twisty feeling you get when you know it’s going to be a bastard of a day but you haven’t figured out why yet. Like the second of “oh, shit” before the hangover really lands.  Like waking up not quite remembering for a second that it’s signing-the-final-divorce-papers day.
 
Ray drives on for a minute, waiting to remember whatever the bad thing is, but there’s nothing.  Pretty normal day scheduled for today—Fraser-free because he’s off doing some Official Canadian stuff--so a little boring, but nothing wrong.
 
So.  Not something he already knew about.  Something he just saw or heard or smelled then, without realizing it.
 
And because he’s been a cop for a long time, Ray pulls a U-turn and drives back across the bridge. Dief in the back seat makes a little confused noise, and Ray says, “Chill, just gotta check something out.”
 
He does a quick side-to-side scan, looking for stuff that would have just barely been on the edges of his vision the first time across.  And yeah, over there, parked down by some ruins of an older bridge, almost hidden, there's a black van. And when he sees it his stomach does that thing again, almost a cramp. 
 
“Badness,” he mutters, and pulls off to the roadside once he’s off the bridge.  
 
He picks up his radio mike and considers for a minute, but it’s not exactly standard procedure to call for backup for an abandoned vehicle.  And what’s he gonna say, “This one is giving me a real wiggins?”  Right. 
 
He goes ahead and gets his gun out, though, scrambles down the bridge embankment, and walks very slowly and quietly toward the van.  He checks out the bridge ruins before he gets there--the only thing close by that could be cover for someone else.  Empty. Scans the front van compartment through the window; edges up close enough to peer through and check out the floorboards. Nobody home. 
 
He goes around to the back, getting more and more twitchy. He stands off to the side of the doors, out of range of fire if they’re flung open; slams a fist on the metal, yells “Chicago PD, open up!”  He has his gun up and ready and stands there for a minute, but there’s nothing.  Too much nothing—he oughta be hearing pigeons and traffic, but it’s really, really quiet. Fuck. 
 
He gets his left hand silently on a door handle, yanks and jumps back at the same time, gun up in his right, but nobody’s busting out at him.  It’s dark in there, curtained off from the front, and still quiet, and there’s a weird smell. 
 
Ray’s pretty sure it’s blood. 
 
He gags, keeps the gun up, digs his little Maglite out of his pocket with his other hand.  Flicks the flashlight on—it looks cute, but at the Academy they taught you a bunch of ways to cause serious, serious pain with it if you needed to.  The gun should ensure he doesn’t need to, but having both hands full makes him feel a little better. 
 
He takes a deep breath of outside air and then steps up into the van. 
 
He’s sweeping the floor with the light, and it’s just clothes and cd's and junk until he gets all the way up to the back of the front seats, and oh Jesus, there’s a kid, a naked blood-spattered kid lying there. 
 
Ray holsters his gun and drops to his knees, gets the flashlight beam on the kid’s neck and feels for a pulse, which there is one, hallelujah. The kid doesn’t stir while Ray’s feeling his neck, though; he stays limp, eyes closed. Pretty thoroughly out of it, then, from blood loss or maybe drugs. 
 
Ray reaches up and slides the curtains aside to let more light in so he can do a quick med-assess and find out where all the fucking blood is from. When the light comes in he decides the kid’s older than he thought, eighteen or twenty, just on the short-and-scrawny side. There’s a ton of bruising, showing through the blood spatters. And the blood is—holy fuck.  The blood is all from one of the kid’s wrists and one of his ankles, which are just shredded. Because they’re handcuffed to the undercarriage of the seats. 
 
Ray practically jumps back to the doors of the van and scans the surroundings again, because whoever did this to the kid sure as hell was planning to come back, meant for the kid to be here when he did. Parked the van where it almost couldn’t be seen from the road, and where nobody would hear anything, either, and Ray has stumbled into something really disgusting, here. 
 
He stands in the doorway and just breathes for a second, trying to think.  He really, really wants to get the kid out of the cuffs, out of the van, into the sunlight.  Really a lot.  But he is not fucking up a crime scene, ever again. But—if he goes back up to his car to call it in, there will be at least a couple of minutes there where he won’t be able to see the front of the van—when the perp, if he’s hanging around here somewhere, could scramble back into the driver’s seat and take off with the kid still in the back. 
 
Ray gets two fingers in his mouth and whistles a high sharp note, and Dief jumps out the car window and barrels down the embankment.  (He’s a lot less deaf, when Fraser’s not around.) 
 
Ray figures on planting Dief right behind the van, to keep anybody else away while he goes back up to the car. 
 
Problem is, Dief gets about twenty feet from the van and freaks the fuck out.  He starts growling and bristling like he’s about to attack, but he’s frantically backing up at the same time, and the growling is mixed in with weird strangled whimpers like somebody was hurting him. At maybe thirty feet from the van he seems to reach a point where wanting to attack and wanting to retreat balance each other out, and he just stays there, snarling and whining and twitching. 
 
Ray’s never seen him like this before, and it is not exactly adding to Ray’s already pretty fucking low supply of calm. 
 
“Ohhhkay,” he says.  “You just stay right there for a minute, buddy, all right?  Anybody gets near, you tear ‘em a couple new ones, okay?”  And he steps closer to Dief to try and give him a little reassuring pat or something.  But when he gets within a few feet of Dief, suddenly Ray’s head is totally full of—it makes no sense, it’s something that happened when he was about four, hadn’t thought about it in years and it’s got nothing to do with the shit that’s going on right now.  But for a second or two he’s there, sights and sounds and smells and fear, even more than he’s got going now because everything’s more when you’re four.
 
Ray staggers, comes back into the now.  This day is just not getting any less freaky, but he shakes it off because this is really not the time to be dealing with toddler flashbacks, and clambers back up the embankment and calls for backup and an ambulance. 
 
When he gets back to the van he says, “You can wait in the car if you want to,” to Dief, who looks embarrassed but takes him up on it.  Actually trots off with his tail between his legs, which is new. 
 
He climbs back in the van and hunkers down next to the kid, careful not to disturb any of the heaps of clothes and stuff.  Takes another reluctant look at the two sets of cuffs, at the gory wrist and ankle to make sure his first impression was right—and, yeah, really fucked up but not still bleeding. Ray doesn’t need to bandage, he can leave that for the guys who know what they’re doing. The kid's overall extreme paleness is worrying him, though, so Ray gently pulls his lip up with a thumb and checks his gums; they're nice and pink, so he hasn't had a dangerous level of blood loss, he's just naturally a seriously white guy.  
 
Ray should just wait outside the van to keep the scene totally pristine for the techs, but he can’t stand the idea of the kid maybe waking up like that and not knowing for a second that the cavalry’s here. 
 
He crouches there looking the kid over, noticing that what looks to be the kid’s clothes are in shreds all around him.  And there’s a pair of what probably used to be sneakers—they look exploded, what the hell? And there are many, many bruises and—burns, maybe? This just gets worse and worse. Turns out staying in the van was a good call, because after Ray’s been there a couple of minutes, the kid wakes up.   
 
Doesn’t wake up shrieking or struggling, just opens his eyes, looks Ray right in the face, blinks, and calmly says, “Huh.” 
 
“You’re okay, you’re safe,” Ray says quickly, and flips his badge open.  “Whoever did this is gone, I’m a cop, he tries to come back I’ll blow a hole in him.  You’re safe.  What’s your name?” Because you’re supposed to do that, with vics, get their names quickly and use them over and over, keeps them grounded, keeps them from freaking. 
 
“Daniel,” the kid says, but he hesitates, his eyelids flicker. Ray’s pretty sure that’s a lie, but okay. 
 
“I’m Ray, Daniel. Sorry I had to leave the cuffs on, I want the prints clean for the crime scene techs.  They’ll be here in a second, and an ambulance, and we’re gonna take care of you, I promise this is over, Daniel.” 
 
“No it isn’t,” Daniel says, and he sounds so tired, it’s really wrong for someone twenty years old to be that tired.  “But thanks.”  
 
He smiles at Ray then, a small smile, and says, “Thanks, but you’ve got it wrong.  Nobody did this to me, I did this.  You can call off the cops, okay?  I’m fine, no problems.” 
 
“Oh yeah, sure,” Ray says.  “I find naked bleeding cuffed people all the time who did it to themselves. Daniel.”  He had considered, for a second, that maybe he was interrupting some kind of—weird but not evil sex game, that there was a scared boyfriend or girlfriend hiding out nearby.  But the kid had tried way too hard to get out of the cuffs for that. Plus there’s all the bruising and burning. Did that to himself? No way. 
 
“Yeah, really.” Daniel says.  “See?  Key’s right here.”  He scrabbles around with his free hand for a second, and damn if he doesn’t come up with a handcuff key. 
 
“Hey, don’t touch anything,” Ray says, and Daniel drops the key.  Ray’s pretty sure that arguing with the victim isn’t in the manual, but it seems to be working so far, the kid is almost unnaturally calm. So Ray says, “The guy musta dropped that there after you passed out.  No way you did that to yourself with the cuffs, with the key right there.” 
 
“It’s a sex thing,” Daniel says.  “All the kids are doing it,” and one corner of his mouth quirks up a little, and Ray just—out of all the things he could have possibly expected from someone in this totally fucked-up situation, funny was not one of them, and Ray can’t help laughing. 
 
Which is when one of the med techs peeks in the van doors and gives Ray a really weird look, and then the van is crawling with EMT's and crime scene guys and Ray gets out of their way, tells them he’ll follow the ambulance to the hospital and interview the kid there. 
 
When he gets back in the car Dief is on the floor with his head stuck under the passenger seat. 
 
“What the hell got into you, anyway?” Ray says, but Dief just whimpers and won’t come out from under the seat. 
 
“That’s just great.  Fraser’s gone for three days and you have a nervous breakdown.  He’s gonna make that my fault, somehow.” 
 
Ray drops Dief off at the consulate on the way to the hospital.  The replacement guy doesn’t bake dog biscuits from scratch like Turnbull did, but he keeps a box of Scooby Snacks in his desk, and Ray figures Dief’s kinda worn out on police business for the day. 
 
Ray doesn’t get much closer to any answers at the hospital.  He tells the doctors that Daniel is waaaay too calm for the circumstances, maybe he was drugged, but they run a screen and he comes up clean for anything that seems likely. And he keeps repeating that bullshit story to Ray, that he cuffed himself and then practically yanked off his hand and foot instead of just letting himself out. 
 
“Why?” 
 
“I’m a masochist,” Daniel says.  “Wheeeee.” 
 
The techs bring Ray all the bagged-and-tagged stuff from the van, and he signs for them, gloves up, starts going through the bags while the hospital’s still working on Daniel, cleaning and bandaging, doing a tetanus shot and a rape kit.  Clothes, cd's, toothbrush and toothpaste…nothing that makes any of this make any more sense.  A picture of a cute red-headed girl; Ray flips it over and checks the back, but it just has “Pez witch!” written on it, next to a smiley face.  But then, hello, a wallet, with a drivers’ license:  Daniel Osbourne.  Ray’s surprised that really is his name; it didn’t feel like it.  Papers for the van, same name.  Lots of baggies of herbs, but none of them smell illegal.  A couple of books on meditation and biofeedback.  Most of the stuff has hair on it, brownish-gray; could be human, could be dog, definitely isn't Daniel's. Ray shuffles through the paperwork, and, yeah, the techs took some hair for testing. 
 
A couple of nurses walk Daniel back into the room.  The blanket that the ambulance guys wrapped around him at the scene’s been replaced with baggy gray sweatpants that are a lot too big, and a pink t-shirt that’s a little too small. And has the PowerPuff Girls on it.  Ray snorts and Daniel grins at him.  Apparently they didn’t have any extra shoes lying around; they’ve given him those booties that go with scrubs. 
 
One of the nurses looks to be in "end of my shift, about to fall over" mode, but the other one looks a little more awake and interested, so Ray takes her out into the hall, where he can still keep an eye on the door of the room.  "Hey, uh, Maureen," he says, looking at her name tag.  "Thanks for taking care of him.  I'm Ray from the two-seven.  He say anything useful?"  
 
"He didn't say much of anything at all," she says.  "One of my more taciturn patients for the evening.  And it'll be a long damn while before we get any sort of lab results from the rape kit.  I know you know what kind of backup there is on processing those. 
 
"Yeah," Ray says wearily, because he doesn't even like to think about those numbers.  "Supply and demand." 
 
 "But—no visible signs of force, no tearing or anything.  Given the way the rest of him looks—I’m guessing you’ve got a perp here who gets off enough on pain that he doesn’t need penetration.” 
 
Ray shares a wince with Maureen, gives her his card in case anything useful occurs to her later, and then he goes back into the room with Daniel. 
 
“So,” Daniel says, “can I have my stuff back?” 
 
“Nope.” 
 
“I need my license.  I need to get out of town.” 
 
“Why?” 
 
“Wanderlust.” 
 
“You are going exactly nowhere until you tell me the truth about what is going on,” Ray says.  Because, fuck if he can figure out what’s going on, but he has the feeling if he lets Daniel go, whatever it is, it’s going to start happening again.  Because, if Daniel’s covering for whoever did this—it’s possible he’ll let him keep doing it. 
 
“Already did,” Daniel says. 
 
“No.  No, you did not.  Look.  There are shelters, okay?  They have spaces for guys who are getting—whaled on, or whatever, too.  Nice, safe, nobody-can-find-you places. But I can’t—they won’t take you if you keep saying nothing happened.” 
 
“Nothing happened,” Daniel says.  Gives Ray a little wave.  “Bye.” 
 
Ray glares at him.  And a couple of years ago he probably would have said fine and cut the kid loose at that point, because everybody always says that you can’t help people who aren’t ready to be helped.  But, you know, that’s pretty much all Fraser does, is help people who are violently objecting to being helped, and it usually seems to work out, eventually, so Ray says, “Okay then.  You’re under arrest.  Coming back to the station with me, until you decide to give me some real answers.” 
 
Daniel closes his eyes, gets paler, which Ray wouldn’t have thought was possible.   
 
“That’s a really bad idea,” he says, looks up at the wall clock.  “Really bad.” 
 
Ray looks too; shit, he’s blown most of the morning on this mess.  “Yeah, well, that’s what we do with suspects.” 
 
“Suspected of what?” Daniel says.  “There’s no crime, here.  No law against bashing yourself up.  I’m a strange sex fiend.  It’s not illegal.”  Long freaking speech, for this kid. 
 
Ray scrubs at his forehead with the heel of his hand, waits for inspiration, and there it is. 
 
“Vagrancy,” he says happily, and takes Daniel by the arm. 
 
When they get near the doors of the hospital he can feel Daniel tensing up under his hand, and he almost laughs, because he can tell the kid’s expecting to surprise him with a bolt for freedom.  He tightens the hand on the arm, clenches his other in the back of Daniel’s shirt, and says, “Guess what, I don’t underestimate the skinny guy,” and Daniel sags a little, lets himself get hustled out the door and into the back of the squad car. 
 
Daniel’s really quiet through the ride, and Ray taps his fingers on the steering wheel and makes himself not ask questions, tries to wait Daniel out, drag the silence out long enough that Daniel’s the one to break it.  Which is not exactly the standard interview procedure that Ray is the most talented at, and then he flashes back on something from the evidence bag—there was a dog involved somewhere, maybe Daniel’s clammed up because the bad guy has his dog? 
 
Ray stops at a red light, says, “Hey.”  Keeping it casual, light, not looking around at Daniel.  “You got a dog?” 
 
And Daniel breaks out laughing.  First time Ray’s heard that, but it’s not nice laughing, not happy. 
 
“More like it’s got me,” Daniel says, and that’s all Ray gets out of him for the rest of the trip. 
 
Daniel’s fairly calm and cooperative through the booking process (and Ray is not looking forward to the paperwork for this hitting Welsh’s desk.  “Vagrancy, detective?  I presume you’ve cleared all the murders on your desk, if vagrancy has come to the forefront of your consciousness?" ) 
 
He tenses up a little under Ray’s hand when they go back to the cells, but relaxes again when Ray leads him to the one empty one they’ve got left.  He figures the kid really doesn’t need to deal with being locked up with anybody scary right now.   
 
Ray gets him locked in, and it’s weird, because he wouldn’t have figured Daniel for someone who’s done time before.  But most first-timers, you put them in and they back away from the bars like they were electrified, cannot deal with the fact of the bars.  Daniel, though, puts his hands through and slouches against them, looks totally comfortable.  Gives Ray a little smile. 
 
“Hey,” Daniel says.  “I want you to know.  Later on tonight.  I’m probably going to end up in a lab somewhere.” 
 
“Okaaaay,” Ray says, thinking, huh? 
 
“And that’s—that’s not good, but I can’t really work up a lot of caring about it right now. And I just want you to know—thank you.  For trying. And…be really careful, okay?  And, uh, do you guys have tranquilizer guns?” 
 
“Sure, yeah,” Ray says.  “They’re in the supply closet next to the whips and the lion-tamer chairs.” Daniel snorts.  “So, hang out here a while and think about things, and I’ll make some calls and come back and we’ll talk, okay?” 
 
“Yeah.” 
 
Ray’s cheering up a little on the way back to his desk, because maybe if the kid keeps talking about trank guns and ending up in a lab he can get him committed at least.  Not that that would be a great environment, but better than going back to whatever just happened, anyway.   
 
He gets the stack of paperwork out of his desk chair (it has a purple post-it note from Frannie that says “Sometime this year, Ray”) drops into the chair, gets his boots up on the desk and calls Fraser’s cell. 
 
“Hey, Frase,” he says. 
 
“Hello, Ray.”  And Ray has to take a second to get used to the way he says that, just like he has every single time for the past year.  Because he never sounds, anymore, like he used to, before their stupid world’s-shortest-quest.  Never sounds like he just lit up when it turned out to be Ray on the phone.  Which is a dumb thing to miss, and he always sounds fine and perfectly reasonably happy to hear Ray, but—Ray misses it, anyway.
 
“You gonna be able to wrap up this afternoon, or do you need me to keep Dief another night?  He’s over at the Consulate right now, but I can pick him back up.” 
 
“I’m more or less done now, Ray.  I’m beginning to believe that my required presence at this conference was purely…decorative.” 
 
Ray has to smile at that, because Thatcher’s replacement is pretty close to as chilly-hot for Fraser as Thatcher was.  Poor guy hasn’t figured out yet that Fraser’s—straight or just not interested in sex at all, or whatever the hell Fraser is that translates to: not happening, ever, sorry. Ray’d had a bitch of a time figuring that one out, himself, but it’s sunk in over the past year. 
 
“Good,” Ray says, “’cause, can you come on over?  I got a freaky Mountie case.”  He fills Fraser in on every detail he can think of, even throws in his own weirdo reaction to the van before he knew what was in there, because Fraser doesn’t make fun of the instinct stuff, not anymore.  Then he gets to the part he really doesn’t know how to explain:  the thing with Dief, the thing where Ray’s brain jumped back thirty-some years good and hard.  
 
“When Dief—“  and this is embarrassing, because he’s never exactly admitted to Fraser that he believes him—“when Dief, uh, talks to you, how does he do it?” 
 
“Well, Ray,” Fraser says, perfectly calm, just like they talk about this all the time, “I usually hear words.  He has quite an extensive vocabulary.  More extensive since meeting you, I might add.” 
 
“You’re welcome.” 
 
“When he’s really—upset, though, or extremely happy, any sort of—overwhelming emotion, words tend to fail him.  And at that point, he—it’s hard to explain.  He seems to—grab a memory of mine that fits the emotion or the idea, and push it to the forefront of my consciousness?  By way of example, when he grieves—when Ray Vecchio left, when Turnbull went back to Canada—he, ah, shoves a memory at me of, of when I first heard my mother had died.”
 
Ray sits silent for a minute, because—Jesus.  “Jesus, Fraser, that—that sucks,” he says, finally.  
 
“Well—yes,” Fraser says, and it kills Ray how he always sounds surprised when anybody notices that something might be hard on him. “He doesn’t mean any harm, though.  What happened?” 
 
“Well…apparently Dief thinks that this kid is some kind of scary crossbred clown.” 
 
“Clarify, Ray.” 
 
“Well, the memory I got was—and, you know, ‘memory’ doesn’t sound like much, but it was like I was there—“ 
 
“That’s how it feels, yes.” 
 
“When I was four, okay, my parents took me to this little dinky circus, and I was really into the clowns with their little clown car, yeah?  It was probably more the car than the clowns.  But anyway, what they didn’t realize was, I was four, I was stupid, I didn’t know clowns were people.” 
 
“Hmmm?” 
 
“I thought they were a different species.  Like monkeys.  I thought they actually looked like that.  So, anyway, after the show was over my dad took me around to the dressing-room part of the tent, I guess he thought I’d like to shake hands with a clown or something, and one of them was standing in the doorway and he’d taken off his big pants and his giant shoes.  So he still had the clown shirt on and the makeup and the nose and the hair, right, but then under that he just had boxer shorts and these little skinny people legs.  And I fucking lost it.  I’m not sure if I thought a clown had halfway eaten a person, or somebody had cut up a clown and a person and stuck pieces together, but I knew something was really, really wrong.”
 
“Hmmm,” Fraser says.  “Well, Dief may possibly have been saying—“ 
 
Which is the point at which Ray notices that he’s been hearing noises without really noticing them for a while, noises from the cellblock, and now they’re suddenly really loud and there are a lot of people shouting, and one of them is Welsh yelling, “KOWALLLLSKIIIII!!!!!” 
 
“Gottagocomesoonsyoucan!” he yelps into the phone, slams it down and bolts for the cells. 
 
Where, it turns out, Huey and Dewey brought in another perp while Ray was not paying attention because he was chatting with Fraser about clowns, Jesus.  And stuffed him into the cell with Daniel. 
 
And apparently Daniel objected to sharing his space, which is a conclusion Ray reaches because Daniel beat the crap out of the guy. 
 
And the new guy is spraying blood from his nose and screaming about lawsuits, and the Duck Boys are trying to pin Daniel, who’s still thrashing and yelling, “I told you I can’t have anybody in here!  Get him the fuck out of here!” and Dewey’s hollering, “The fuck you think this is, the Hilton, you think you get to request a single!?!” 
 
And Welsh is saying, “Detective, would you like to clear this situation up for me?” 
 
“Wish I could,” Ray says, and Daniel stops flailing around, looks at Ray and says, “I gotta be in a cell by myself.  Please, please, please.  God.  Please.” 
 
Ray looks desperately at Welsh, says, “I can’t explain this. Because I don’t understand it yet, but something is seriously wrong here, and Fraser’s on the way over and maybe we can sort it out, but, for right now—please?” 
 
Welsh blinks a little, probably at a “please” coming out of Ray, and Ray’s hoping that maybe he’ll consent to crowd up one of the other cells and leave Daniel alone in this one, but instead he grabs one of Daniel’s arms and nods at Ray to get the other one.  Welsh takes off walking fast, and they’re down the stairs and then down some more into the basement, and turning left and right and Ray didn’t even know there were this many corridors down here, and Welsh ducks behind a head-high wall of stacked phone books (with a faded “PLS RECYCLE” sign taped to them) and hey, there’s a door back there. 
 
Welsh fiddles through his key ring and unlocks the door.  They go through, and Ray starts sneezing and trying to figure out if there’s a word for “extra-musty.” 
 
They’re in a short little stub of a hall, and there is, weirdly, one cell off it.  Most of the cell is ceiling-high with boxes that have “UNIFORMS” printed on the sides, but there’s a little space left on one side. 
 
“Why is this here?” Ray says. 
 
“Oh,” Welsh says, scrubs at his face wearily.  “When we ordered new uniforms a few years ago they sent us an entire shipment of them sized for people under four-foot-eight and over 600 pounds.  Have you ever tried to return anything to our official supplier?  The paperwork is epic.” 
 
“No, I mean, why is there a cell here?” 
 
“Ah.  I’ve never gotten a straight answer on that from my predecessors, Kowalski.  But I get the impression that one of the past lieutenants did not always want to know exactly what interrogation techniques his detectives preferred.”
 
“Oh.” 
 
Welsh gives Daniel a look, says, “I assure you that is no longer the case.” 
 
“Okay, sure, thanks,” Daniel says, and walks into the cell, and sits on the floor next to the boxes of spherical uniforms. 
 
“Yeah, thanks.  Hey, when Fraser gets here, send him down, okay?” Ray says, and Welsh gives him a “there will be much explaining from you later, oh yes” look, hands him the cell key and hall door key, and leaves. 
 
“I’ll just hang out here until you feel like giving me some straight answers, okay?” Ray says, and slides down the hallway wall until he’s sitting on the floor too.  “It’s not like I need to work on a dozen unsolved murders or anything.” 
 
Daniel smiles and says, “Sorry,” but that’s all he says, and Ray sits there for a long while and really, really tries to be patient, which, like usual, results in his brain getting so freaking bored that it goes somewhere else entirely. 
 
Unfortunately where his brain tends to go lately is his and Fraser’s quest, which is really not a good neighborhood. 
 
Because Ray had—Ray had had hopes, when they set off.  He’d pretty much figured out how he felt, and had the required freakout and gotten over it, ready to move forward.  And he was starting to think that Fraser—well, there were all these looks that were softer than they absolutely needed to be, and all this contact that was longer than it absolutely had to be, and probably? Maybe? And Ray was going to find out, he was damn well getting Fraser out in the middle of nowhere where he couldn’t dodge the question with a case needing attention or a neighbor needing a favor, Ray was definitely going to find out. 
 
Except the day they left he was so incredibly fucking tired, tireder than he could ever remember being.  But he sure as hell wasn’t saying anything to Fraser, because Fraser kept talking about how you needed to be in tip-top condition to face the rigors of the North.  So he dozed off a lot on the sled that day, and wasn’t much help setting up camp, and crashed hard as soon as they’d eaten. 
 
The next day, though, he felt even more tired, and his chest was starting to hurt.  Which, he figured, was from terror of getting eaten by bears, or possibly just love.
 
But he woke up sometime that next night, confused and thrashing around in his sleeping bag, because Fraser was sitting on his chest. 
 
“What?” he said.  “Fuck, Fraser. Get off me.” 
 
“Ray, you’re dreaming, I’m over here,” Fraser said, from as far away as he could get in the tent, which was not all that far away but definitely not on Ray’s chest, so who was sitting on Ray’s chest? And something was up with his brain too, his head felt all muggy and hot and confused and the rest of him was really cold, shaking, his head was August and the rest of him was February, and he couldn’t breathe, because— 
 
“Fraser,” he gasped, “get him off. My ribs, God.” 
 
There were sudden zippery noises from Fraser’s tent area and then some soft cool part of Fraser, maybe a wrist, was on Ray’s hot forehead, nice, and then Fraser was saying, “Jesus, Ray,” and it was so weird to hear Fraser swearing that Ray thought for a second that Fraser was actually saying it was Jesus who was squashing his chest, which, you know.  Didn’t seem like something the guy would do. 
 
Fraser got a lantern fired up and it turned out there were just the two of them in the tent, weird, but Ray got distracted from figuring that out when he noticed that he was breathing in train noises. Neat.  There were at least a couple of notes in every breath, and every so often he’d hit three notes at once, and he tried to say, “Hey, Fraser, I’m breathing in chords, isn’t that cool?” but for some weird reason he couldn’t say a sentence that long without stopping to breathe in the middle, and Fraser interrupted him anyway by stuffing some aspirin into his mouth and making him drink. 
 
Then Fraser wrapped him up in every single piece of anything wrappable they had until Ray was a big lumpy burrito, and said, “Hang on, Ray, I’m hitching up the dogs,” and Ray must have dozed off a little there because the next thing he knew he was on the sled and they were starting to move, which was crazy because the tent was still sitting there. 
 
“Fraser,” he said.  “We’re leaving.  The tent?” 
 
“Yes.” 
 
“It’s Frobish.  Er’s.” 
 
“”It doesn’t matter, Ray.” 
 
“LITTERING,” Ray said grimly, and Fraser said, “Stop trying to talk,” and he sounded really pissed, so Ray said, “Fine, Fraser, fuck.  You,” and went back to sleep. 
 
The next few times Ray woke up made even less sense and didn’t feel good.  The first time things seemed even sorta logical was when he stirred awake smelling hospital, and that still didn’t make a lot of sense because he could see that Fraser was there but he was all blurry, and usually even without Ray’s glasses on people didn’t get blurry until they were more than a few feet away. 
 
“Shit,” Ray said.  “I got blinder.” 
 
“You’re looking through plastic, Ray,” Fraser said, and apparently plastic made you sound funny as well as look funny, because Fraser sounded really weird, all high-pitched and hiccupy.  “You’re in an oxygen tent.” 
 
And it turned out that Ray had been extremely moronic and let himself get pneumonia without noticing.  Which must have been some sort of last-straw-Ray-stupidity for Fraser, because Fraser just—froze up on him.  He was perfectly friendly and seemed like he enjoyed being around Ray in a buddies kind of way, but something was gone.  He looked Ray in the eyes a lot less, and he bumped into random bits of Ray a lot less.  And he was so quick to say no when Ray brought up trying the quest again, once he was well, that it was almost—rude. 
 
Ray tried to work up to asking him about it, but it was all so—vague and hard to describe and would leave Fraser all the room in the world to decide not to know what he was talking about. 
 
So, he was pretty surprised Fraser didn’t stay in Canada after that.  But no, he came back to Chicago, and he helped with cases and smiled and stood a lot further away than he used to, and was Ray’s best friend, and Ray’s managed, over the past year, to be sorta happy with that much.
 
Right now he’d be happy if Daniel would stop just sitting there and say something useful, like, “Okay, you win, here’s the name of the guy who thrashed me.” 
 
Instead, what Daniel does is stand up and start taking his clothes off. 
 
“Hey!” Ray says, jumping up himself.  “Jesus!  Cut that out!”  
 
“It’s sunset,” Daniel says. 
 
“I don’t care what time it is.  It is not naked time!  Put those back on!”
 
But Daniel’s completely stripped now, and he smiles at Ray and says, “No point in ruining more clothes,” and then he—seizes. 
 
Ray’s seen plenty of prisoners fake plenty of different illnesses in cheesy attempts to get out of their cells.  This is not that.  This is Daniel snapping backwards at the waist so fast that his feet come off the floor, and for a second he’s in midair and bowed back so hard Ray can’t understand why his spine doesn’t crack in two, and then he hits the floor headfirst with a smack, and there’s blood. 
 
Ray’s fumbling the cell key out of his pocket, and he gets it into the keyhole and Daniel screams "NO NO NO STAY OUT!" Which Ray would totally ignore, except that the words sound really strange. 
 
Like Daniel’s mouth is suddenly the wrong shape for talking. 
 
Which it is.  Because, even with the blood sheeting Daniel’s face, Ray can see that—things are shifting. 
 
Ray presses himself flat against the far side of the hallway, and watches and listens.  Watches while Daniel’s face lengthens and pushes out, and listens to the horrible gristly noises of his legs getting longer and bent strangely, and watches the line of fur that ripples down the length of his spine and then writhes and spreads to cover all of him, whips out into empty air to form a thrashing tail. Listens to the really big, really fucking scary rumbling growl that starts somewhere down low in—Daniel’s?—chest and rips out and crashes around the cell and the hallway. 
 
Ray stays flattened against the wall, and he’s still trying to process this, because this was not on his mental “things that could conceivably happen today” list, and since he met Fraser that list has gotten a lot longer and a lot weirder, and anything that happens usually is on it.  Then he goes from confused to totally terrified, and is trying to press himself back through the wall, because Daniel leaps at the bars, slams into them and reaches through, and Ray’s suddenly not sure that the hallway is wide enough since Daniel’s—arms? front legs?—got longer.  But it turns out that the claws—fuck, there are claws—stop a couple inches from his face. 
 
Okay, Ray thinks, staring at the claws, which are so close his eyes are crossing a little.  Okay, Fraser’s gonna be here any second, and he’ll say “Ah, this is exactly what I was expecting from Dief’s human-clown-hybrid metaphor, and I happen to have an Inuit legend handy that enumerates the seventeen weirdass herbs we need to dig up to cure the poor youngster,” and everything will be fine and Ray will never, ever have to listen to anyone’s legs gristling longer ever again. 
 
And then Fraser throws open the hallway door. 
 
And says, “EEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!” and slams it closed again.
 
Daniel pulls his arm, leg, something, back through the bars, and drops to all fours in the cell in a way that looks really natural and graceful and upsetting, and Ray takes the opportunity to slide along the wall and open the hall door, catching Fraser midway through trying to open it again from his side. Fraser looks a little embarrassed. 
 
Ray steps out into the dusty alcove of phone books, closes the door behind him, and slides down the wall until he’s sitting on the floor.  He just sits there and breathes for a minute, because breathing is good, breathing is something that would not be happening if that hallway had been a little narrower and his lungs had ended up outside of him. 
 
Then he glares at Fraser.  “Eeeeeeeeee?” he says. 
 
Fraser flushes and fidgets his hat.  “I was startled, Ray.” 
 
“Huh,” Ray says.  “I figured you’d be expecting that.” 
 
Fraser goes from embarrassed to pissed. Which Ray sorta enjoys, because pissy Fraser sometimes gets a little grabby, even now.  Ray stands up, just in case, and yeah, Fraser gives him a little head swat when he says, “No, Ray, I did not happen to be expecting a werewolf.” 
 
And, it’s weird, but even having just seen the damn thing it’s really strange to have the word out there.  Fraser looks startled to have said it.  They just stand there and blink at each other, and then Ray says, “So, what were you expecting?” 
 
“I was thinking perhaps schizophrenia.  There’s the sense of the divided self, and there can be a characteristic goat-like odor, which could have contributed to Dief choosing an image of a human/other hybrid.” 
 
“Oh,” Ray says.  “No, this is some other other.” 
 
“Indeed. I take it you did not sustain any damage?  No bites?” 
 
“No, I—oh, holy shit,” Ray says, because he just realizes then that he could have gotten only a little hurt and it still could have been very, very bad.  “No.  No bites, no scratches.  Would scratches do it?” 
 
“Versions of the myth vary,” Fraser says.  “Although, ah, I suppose I shouldn’t be calling it a myth at this point.” 
 
“Yeah.”  Ray puts his palms to his temples and presses for a second, because massive worldview changes always give him a headache. “Any suggestions?” 
 
“I’m fresh out,” Fraser says, which somehow makes Ray feel a little better, so Ray says, “Okay, let’s just pretend, for a second, that this is one of our normal freaky-ass cases, and—okay, start with running his license. I don’t think we should leave him here alone, and if you try to get Frannie going on the computer she’ll drag it out and make it last for two hours, so, maybe I should go.” 
 
There’s a snarl and the sound of something slamming against the bars, and they both wince.  “And maybe you should keep watch out here,” Ray says. “Or, uh, if you go in there, stay flat against the wall.  And,” he eyes Fraser’s chest and guesstimates the size difference from his own, “Don’t breathe deep, okay?” 
 
“Wonderful,” Fraser says.  “Thank you.” 
 
Ray catches Frannie on her way out the door, and has to promise her a free oil change that weekend before he can get her to stay. (The night-shift computer guy makes Ray crazy—he doesn’t blink nearly often enough, so Ray ends up blinking frantically for him while the guy just stares at Ray, and all he ever talks about is his food co-op where he gets great deals on bulk yogurt and parsley.  Yeesh.) 
 
Frannie’s actually getting pretty fast at this, when she wants to be, and within a couple of minutes she’s dug up a missing-person report on Daniel Osbourne, age twenty, of Sunnydale, California.  Filed by his parents, but it doesn’t look like there was ever much of a follow-up on it.  Which in Ray’s experience means 1) nobody from the family was down at the station every day raising a fuss, and 2) the precinct was way overworked. Number two doesn’t make a lot of sense, because he’s never even heard of this town, and—yeah, when he gets Frannie to pull up population stats, it’s pretty damn tiny.  What, they were too busy writing jaywalking tickets to check out a missing person? 
 
“Pull up the crime stats for the past couple of years, okay?” he says.   
 
“Throw in new antifreeze and windshield-wiper fluid.”
 
“Fine, geez. 
 
Frannie pulls up the records and scrolls down.  And scrolls down, and scrolls down, and Jesus Christ. 
 
“Jesus Christ,” Ray says. 
 
“No kidding,” Frannie keeps scrolling, blinks, says, “Neck rupture?” 
 
“Lots of neck ruptures.  And…how many murders by gangs on PCP?  Chicago doesn’t have that many gangs on PCP.” 
 
“This,” Frannie says, “is some freaky shit, Ray.” 
 
Ray’s scribbling down the name and phone number of the Sunnydale police chief when a guy walks up to the desk and says in an English accent, “Detective Kowalski?” 
 
“Yeah?” Ray says, and looks him over.  He’s a smallish guy but muscly, and he’s smiling but—something about the way he tilts his head back a little while he smiles makes it a “how amusing you lower life forms are” smile, and Ray tenses up. 
 
“Such a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” the guy says, which it obviously isn’t. 
 
“Right,” Ray says.  “Did you need something, Mr.—?” 
 
The guy glances at Frannie’s computer and mumbles something under his breath, and it chooses that second—along with every other computer in the station, judging by the howls from guys at other desks—to make a “whirmpt” sound and go completely black. 
 
“Piece of shit, “ Frannie says, then blushes, says “I mean—I don’t usually—“ 
 
“I am sure your syntax is usually ladylike in the extreme,” the man says, and adds, “My name is Ethan Rayne, and I believe you may be holding my nephew, Daniel Osbourne?” 
 
Ray blinks at him, and Rayne adds, “He’s an unfortunate case, poor lad—drug addiction combined with mental illness—who knows what he might have done, or said to you.”  He pulls out a thick money clip, and Frannie makes a little sighing sound. “I’d be delighted to make reparations for anything he’s damaged, and,” he looks significantly at Ray, “for any trouble he’s caused you, officer.  I’m sure we can expedite his release to my custody?”  
 
Ray almost laughs, because trying to bribe him?  With a wad of cash, in the police station?  Rayne’s got big brass ones, no question there. 
 
“’Fraid not, buddy,” he says, and enjoys Rayne’s flinch at the “buddy.”  “It’s an ongoing investigation.  But if you want to leave your name and address with Frannie here, we’ll be glad to let you know when we wrap it up.” 
 
Rayne’s smile flickers a little.  “Then, perhaps I could visit him?  Let him know his family is thinking of him?” 
 
“Sure,” Frannie says, and “NO!” Ray says.  She gives him a look.  “Geez, Ray, what would it hurt for the poor guy’s uncle to check in on—“ 
 
“Totally against procedure, sorry,” Ray says. 
 
“Oh, like you’re SO into procedure.” 
 
“Shut up, Frannie,” Ray says, and when he looks back up at Rayne Rayne’s got his head tucked down and is mumbling something, probably something rude, and then…things get weird.  The room goes all kind of colors and they’re swirly, and it’s all yellow-submarine in there for a minute, and then when things go back to normal Ray’s head hurts and everybody else is clutching at their foreheads too.  Rayne’s gone, and magic-markered on the windows of Welsh’s office is, “WHERE IS HE?  WHERE DID YOU HIDE HIM?  YOU’LL WISH YOU’D TOLD ME.” 
 
Welsh walks out, studies the message, then turns to Ray and says, “I assume this will be part of your increasingly long and fascinating explanation-to-come?” 
 
“Probably, yeah,” Ray says, and heads downstairs to check on Fraser. 
 
When he’s almost out of the bullpen there’s a howl from downstairs that makes the hair on the back of Ray’s neck stand up, because that howl says things he’s never heard from an animal before.  He’s heard plenty of yips and snarls (from lots of dogs and a few humans) that said, “I want to bite you.”  This howl says, “I want to eat you,” and the back of Ray’s neck really, really doesn’t like that. 
 
“Oh my God, it’s a werewolf,” Frannie yelps behind him, and Welsh says, “Miss Vecchio?  Go home.” 
 
Fraser’s where Ray left him, standing in front of the door to the little hallway at parade rest, like he’s guarding the entrance into Canada instead of the entrance into a horror movie. “How’s…” and what’s Ray gonna call him? Daniel? The Wolfman?  “How’s our guy?” 
 
“Restless,” Fraser says.  “I’ve been peeking in fairly regularly, and—if he had more room, he’s be pacing.  As it is he’s throwing himself against the bars, which looks painful, and howling.” 
 
“Yeah, that carried,” Ray says.  He fills Fraser in on the missing-persons report and the what-the-fuck Sunnydale crime stats and on creepy probably-not-uncle Ethan.  
 
“Prime suspect, then?” Fraser says. 
 
“He sure knows something about what’s going on.  And he either gassed us or, I can’t believe I’m saying this, cast a spell on us or something.” 
 
“I am more willing to consider that possibility than I would have been a few hours ago.” 
 
“Yeah.” 
 
They sit on the floor and toss out ideas for what the hell is going on here, all of which are pretty stupid. 
 
“An extreme mutation?” Fraser says.  “Possibly related to radiation poisoning in the womb?"
 
“Fell into a vat of chemicals.  Like the Joker.  Except, hairy chemicals.” 
 
“There’s always the traditional story arc—he strayed from the path onto the moors. ‘Even a man who is pure of heart, and says his prayers at night…’” 
 
“Alien abduction.  They puppied him up, in the spaceship, and tucked him back in bed.” 
 
He gets a giggle out of Fraser with that one.  And it’s kind of nice, sitting here, even with the weird bar-clanging and snarling noises coming from behind the door.  “Look, there’s no point bruising our brains about this thing,” Ray says.  “If it’s…the traditional story arc…he’ll be fine in the morning, right?  And he’ll probably talk to us then.  I mean, if we’ve seen this, why not?” 
 
“True, “ Fraser says.  They sit for a while in comfortable silence; even Daniel seems to be quieting down. “We could…do you have cards, up in your desk?  We could play.” 
 
“I’m not playing with you, Fraser, unless we play for money,” Ray says, because Fraser seems weirdly relaxed, and it feels good to tease him; they haven’t gotten to be—playful, much, lately.  “You’re too much of a card shark to play for air.  I’d end up needing an oxygen tent again.” 
 
And Ray fucked that up somehow, because the relaxed disappears and Fraser stiffens up, dammit.  “Right you are, Ray,” he says, stands up and opens the door. 
 
“He seems to be sleeping,” he whispers.  Ray gets up to stand beside him, not too close, and yeah—Daniel’s curled up on his side on the floor, eyes closed, furred ribs rising and falling quickly.  His—flanks?—twitch suddenly and his back legs scrabble on the floor. 
 
“Chasing rabbits,” Fraser says softly. 
 
“Or people,” Ray whispers, and shudders.  Fraser nods and quietly closes the door. 
 
They sit silently on the floor in the phone-books alcove, backs against the door to the cell hall, and Ray gets so fucking bored he’s seriously starting to consider readingone of the phone books, and then next thing he knows it’s—he checks his watch—6:30 in the morning.  He and Fraser apparently fell asleep sort of tilted into each other.  And—it’s pathetic, Ray knows that, but this is the most touch he’s gotten in a long damn time.  So Ray doesn’t wake him for a while, just stays there with his shoulder pressed into Fraser’s and Fraser’s hair tickling his cheek, until Fraser stirs on his own, mumbling something about mohair and dry cleaners. 
 
“Hey,” Ray says, and Fraser shakes himself and Ray can see his face start unrelaxing, armoring up for the day. 
 
“Hello, Ray,” Fraser says.  “I apologize for my lapse in attentiveness.” 
 
“Nah, I fell asleep too, don’t sweat it.  Not like he’s going anywhere.” 
 
“Shall we check on our—“  Fraser blinks for a second, looks like he’s considering options, finally settles on “charge?” 
 
“Yeah.” 
 
They get the hall door open, and, yeah, it’s the traditional story arc, at least this part of it; because lying on the cell floor is a bruised-up, cut-up, burn-marked naked kid.  Also lying on the floor is a lot of loose dog hair. 
 
“Impressive—I believe he sheds worse than Diefenbaker.  I would not have imagined that was possible,” Fraser says, in that big shiny plastic voice that he only uses when he’s looking at something that’s really upsetting him and he does not want to talk about it, thank you kindly.
 
Ray steps a little closer, bumps shoulders.  “Yeah, he looks pretty bad, huh?” he says.  “The wrist and ankle thing, that’s the cuff damage.  I guess he kind of did do that to himself.  But the other stuff—somebody really did a number on him.”  One of the million things that wasn’t making sense yesterday pops into his head right then, and he says, “Kid—Daniel—said something about ending up in a lab.  Maybe he’s already done some time in one?  Ew."
 
Daniel stirs, makes a little whuffly noise, opens his eyes. 
 
“Hi, kid,” Ray says.  “You, uh, you met Fraser, here, but I don’t know if you’d remember.” 
 
“Hello, Daniel,” Fraser says. 
 
“I don’t usually remember, no,” Daniel says.  “So.  Good to meet you.  Looks like I didn’t hurt anybody?” 
 
“Nope, you’re good,” Ray says.   
 
“I imagine you’d like to get dressed?”  Fraser says. He’s a little pink. 
 
“Yeah, sure.”  Daniel scrambles into the borrowed clothes; doesn’t ask them to leave or anything.  Probably doesn’t have a whole lot of shy left.  He snuffles at one armpit of the Powerpuff Girls shirt, says, “God, I need a shower.  Is there any way I could get one?” 
 
“If you’re, you know, non-violent during the daytime?” Ray says, and Daniel nods. “We should really get you out of here—it’d be safer.”  
 
"Great, as long as we can work out something for tonight--it's the last bad one for a while," Daniel says. 
 
Ray fills Daniel in on the whole Ethan Rayne visit, and Daniel says, “Yeah, let’s get the hell out of here, and—okay, I’ve got a lot to tell you.” 
 
“Damn straight,” Ray says.  He unlocks the cell and thumps Daniel in a friendly way on his back as he comes out, because, Jesus, this kid is not having a good week.  Month.  Life, probably.  “You spill everything, maybe we’ll even spring for a shirt that doesn’t have Blossom on it.” 
 
They head upstairs, and Fraser leans close to Ray’s ear, says, “Ray, why do you know the name of—“ 
 
“Shut up,” Ray says. 
 
Welsh isn’t there yet for the day shift, so Ray asks Fraser to leave him a note about them taking Daniel.  “One of your special jobs that’s really polite and pretty but doesn’t say anything, okay?” he says, and Fraser gives him the evil eye but writes the note, and calls the Consulate to tell them he needs to be out all day liaising. 
 
When they get back to Ray’s place Ray’s dying to hear the whole explanation but Fraser insists on being—host-y; all “Certainly you should go ahead and shower, and would you like some coffee, and when did you last eat?  How about some French toast?”  Which is kind of funny seeing as it’s Ray’s apartment, but okay, fine, particularly since he makes a freakin’ tower of French toast, and Ray is suddenly starving. 
 
Part of that starving is probably just from watching Fraser cook.  He’s in his civvies, jeans and a flannel shirt, and it’s so much like—some of Ray’s fantasies of how the quest was going to turn out;  Fraser saying yes, and the two of them holing up in a cabin somewhere, Fraser kissing him and fucking him and cooking for him.  
 
Flannel and French toast.  Jesus.  Even his fantasies are lame.
 
Daniel comes out of the shower, in sweatpants and a CPD shirt Ray dug up, and…not smelling like a wet dog, which, yeah, Ray had wondered. 
 
They all pound down some breakfast, and when Ray figures they’ve eaten enough Fraser’s not gonna bust him for being rude to a werewolf, he says, “Okay, spill.” 
 
“First off,” Daniel says, “all my friends call me Oz.” 
 
“It’s not—in this peculiar situation, if you would prefer to retain a formal relationship, we would take no offense,” Fraser says. 
 
Daniel—Oz—waves a hand at him.  “You’ve seen me with a tail, we’re buds,” he says, and launches into the damnedest supernatural soap opera Ray has ever heard, and that includes the collected tales of Lou Skagnetti. 
 
The telling takes a long time—Ray’s coffee is cold by the time Oz gets to the bit about feeling the change coming on, driving frantically off the road and into the scrub, cuffing himself and hoping like hell that once he’d changed he wouldn’t have the brains or fine-motor skills to work the key. 
 
“And then,” he says, “next thing I remember is you with the little flashlight.” 
 
“Jesus,” Ray says.  “So, you thought you had it under control, but—wait, you knew you didn’t after you started changing and went after her new girlfriend, right?” 
 
Oz flinches at “girlfriend,” but then says, “Yeah, but I thought that was a fluke—middle of the day like that. I didn’t realize I’d lost all the ground I’d gained, that I couldn’t hold it together at the full moon even if I wasn’t being…upset.” 
 
Ray feels a little guilty about the flinch, says, “Sorry she’d--moved on, you know?  That’s rough.” 
 
“Especially after you’d been so noble,” Fraser puts in, and he sounds all warm and admiring and Ray doesn’t want to add insult to fuckery for the kid, here, but Fraser is just so, so wrong, he can’t help it. 
 
"That wasn't noble, Frase," he says, "that was just stupid. Taking off like that, not even staying in touch? Sorry, kid--Daniel--Oz; but--Jesus, just stupid." 
 
Oz shrugs.  "Hear me not arguing," he says. 
 
Fraser, though, doesn't let it go.  Big surprise. 
 
"Surely he felt that keeping in touch would simply make things worse for her?" He gives Oz a little pat on the shoulder. 
 
"Yeah, he felt, exactly," Ray says, and Fraser just looks blank.  "You don't get to just decide for both people, you know?" 
 
Fraser stubborns his face up, says "But--" 
 
"Excuse me, which of us has been married before?  Stella would have had my ass for that, deciding what was best for her without even asking." 
 
Fraser looks like he could argue forever.  Which is pretty much how he usually looks, but Ray dodges the rest of it by bussing the table and getting started on the dishes; Fraser cooked, it's only fair.  Also he figures if he leaves the two of them alone for a little while Fraser might manage to talk at the problem from a different angle, get Oz to come up with some detail Ray hasn't spotted yet, something that will let them help him, keep him safe. 
 
Fraser and Oz do get a low murmured conversation going, but when Ray comes back to the table, he's guessing not much got accomplished; Oz looks half-asleep, sagging sideways on his chair, eyelids fluttering. 
 
"Sleep in your--other, uh, shape doesn't do much for you?" Ray says. 
 
"Never does," Oz says.  "Which is weird, because when I get a good meal on those nights, I'm not hungry for days." 
 
There is a long silence that's loud with the sound of Ray and Fraser Not Asking 
 
"Whyn'tcha grab a nap?" Ray says, finally. "We'll be trying to figure out a plan.  And, hey, maybe we don't even need one--if we can keep you safe through tonight, you're good to travel, right? Got a few weeks to hook back up with one of your yogis or something, get it back under control?" 
 
"Probably.  But hey, I don't wanna kick you guys out of your bed," Oz says. 
 
There's a silence that's even louder, and longer, and then Ray and Fraser are both talking at once, saying, "We're not," and "You've got this all," and "I don't live here" and "He doesn't," and then their words trip on each other and fall over in a heap and they're both standing there just breathing. 
 
Oz blinks at them.  "I thought--I mean, both you guys want--you smell like you--"  He stops, sighs, says, "Awkward.  Uh, yeah, hitting the bed now." 
 
Oz practically sprints down the hall to the bedroom, and Ray has to bite his tongue not to yell after him, "No, wait, stay!" because once he's gone there's just Ray and Fraser, and Fraser is frozen in place but turning so red he's radiating heat, like he's a statue carved out of a blush, and what the hell can Ray possibly say to him?  
 
Then Fraser's moving again, standing up and edging for the door and babbling, "I find myself somewhat tired as well, Ray, perhaps I should--"  And all Ray's own fear is suddenly washed away by a wave of rage because, goddammit, Fraser is running, Fraser is running away again, and Oz said both. 
 
Ray stands up, whacking the table with his hip, and somewhere way off in the rage he can feel the sharp pain of that, and hear his coffee cup hitting the floor and smashing but he doesn't care, he grabs Fraser's shirt with one hand and shakes him, hard.  The shirt's so soft bunched in his hand, ancient flannel, and Fraser somehow smells like clean cotton and Ivory soap after spending the night on the floor of a police station, and Ray doesn't care, he's so fucking angry, he could just kill Fraser, because Oz said both. 
 
"He said both," Ray says. 
 
"What?" 
 
"Don't," Ray says, and Fraser closes his eyes and shivers.  "Don't fucking lie to me.  Again.  You know what I'm talking about.  You knew what he was talking about, because he said you smelled like it too, you wanted it too, and goddammit, what's wrong with you, Fraser?  If you wanted it--what--why the hell didn't you just take it?  You had to know I wanted it, you had to, I fucking followed you into the wilderness, Fraser, did you think that was the kind of thing I just do all the time?" 
 
"Ray," Fraser says, just that, but he says it so miserably, Ray's never heard him so miserable and it just makes Ray want to do something, anything, to make him feel better, but goddammit, no, Fraser has a lot to fucking explain here before Ray lets go of being seriously pissed off.  So Ray just shakes him some more. 
 
"I couldn't," Fraser says, and Ray stops shaking him but Fraser's still shaking, God, he's shaking, and that's all it takes, Ray has never been able to hang onto a mad around Fraser, dammit. Ray lets go of Fraser's shirt, raises both hands to--what?  hug him?--drops them to his sides again. 
 
Fraser keeps shaking and keeps talking, "I couldn't, Ray, apparently I can't, I'm incapable of retaining any--judgment, any sense when I'm in, when I.  When I'm in love, when I'm doing anything about it." 
 
"When you're.  What?"  Ray says, but Fraser keeps going.  "The last time--I was irresponsible, I couldn't take proper care, any care of my friends, my honor, my duty, myself.  This time, Ray, I couldn't--I didn't take care of you.  I knew, Ray, on some level I knew when we set out that something was wrong with you, that it wasn't just exhaustion and recent hypothermia, which God knows should have been enough to make me enforce a delay in our plans to begin with.  But I knew you were ill.  I kept telling myself that you weren't, that you were just tired and disoriented, because I wanted so much to be alone with you, to find out finally if you were--with me.  And you almost died, Ray, I almost killed you. I can't let myself become...incapable of looking out for you."  He stops, finally, and looks at Ray, and blinks.  
 
"Ray?" he says.  "You're...why are you smiling?" 
 
Ray is smiling because, somewhere in that big torrent of stupid, Fraser said love. 
 
"Look," Ray says, "later on we are having a long talk about how I am way over twenty-one and you are not my mother and it's really kind of insulting that you think you need to be.  And about how when you are stupid in love you get a lot less stupid after you actually get your rocks off a few times, you big dumbass.  But right now--" 
 
Right now Ray grabs Fraser's shirt with both hands again, hauls him in and kisses him. 
 
Fraser says, "Don't," and puts both arms around Ray and holds on tight, and then he says, "This is an extraordinarily bad idea, Ray," but he's opening his mouth to Ray's tongue while he says it so it sounds more like "stronry bad idea," and then he says "I can't I just can't" while he's pulling Ray backwards and falling onto the couch with Ray on top of him. 
 
"Shut up, Fraser," Ray says, and Fraser does, which is some kind of miracle. 
 
Ray kisses him for a long time, licking at the rasp of stubble around his lips, nibbling at his tongue.  He's trying not to go too fast, here, because he has no idea whether Fraser has done this before.   
 
Ray has, a few times, with a few different guys.  After they got back from the quest-that-wasn't, he thought maybe actually doing it with a guy would get it out of his system or something, would help him be okay with the fact that Fraser was suddenly a friend who stood normal friend distance away. 
 
It didn't, though--it made it worse.  The guys themselves were fine--Ray made damn sure to cruise the bars that weren't getting officers called out to beatings in the parking lot and shit like that.  He was kind of freaked out anyway, he was sure he was going to hook up with a psycho or an undercover cop or something, but the guys were fine, they were sane and friendly and Jesus, yes, he liked it, he liked it a lot, but it still made things worse.  Because before he'd been able to imagine stuff in a kind of an abstract way, like, he knew that was how it worked but it seemed sort of ...unlikely?  But after.  After, man, he'd look over at Fraser in the station, and Fraser would be doing something perfectly innocent like bitching at Ray about his to-be-filed heap.  And Ray's brain would just--slot Fraser into the place of last night's guy.  Would replace the red-headed accountant who'd gone on his knees in the men's room with Fraser Fraser Fraser, with Fraser moaning and licking and digging his fingertips into the back of Ray's thighs, with Fraser sucking and swallowing and looking up at Ray, with Fraser standing up after and leaning into Ray, biting at his neck. 
 
This did not do much for the process of getting Ray's paperwork filed. 
 
It drove him fucking crazy, in fact, so much so that he gave up the cruising after just a few weeks.  Because it was starting to screw up his friendship with Fraser--Ray being distracted and horny and cranky--and if the friendship was all he had left he was damn well keeping it. 
 
So, yeah, most of the past year it's been Ray and Ray's Talented Hand, welcome back to high school, whee. 
 
Ray learned plenty of stuff though, and he hasn't forgotten it. It's all coming back to him nice and clear with Fraser moving and moaning under him. 
 
Ray kisses and kisses and kisses, not doing a damn thing else, until the pitch of Fraser's moaning goes up and starts to sound just the tiniest bit annoyed.  It's 
kind of like the engine sound that lets you know you need to shift gears, Ray thinks, and laughs a little into Fraser's neck while he's unbuttoning his shirt. Ray wiggles down, running his lips down Fraser's sternum and getting maximum body contact everywhere else, and Fraser arches his hips up so hard he lifts Ray up a little.  Heh. 
 
Fraser's chest is smooth and smells good and Ray just rubs his stubble on the soft skin for a while, mmm, and then licks experimentally across a nipple.  Ray loves that, himself, but he found out in his cruising weeks that some guys were totally unimpressed, "Hey get to my dick already" about it, but some were--well, this one guy liked it so much he kind of convulsed and bucked Ray off him and completely off the guy's bed and into a pile of dirty laundry.  It took a while to get back in the mood after that. 
 
Fraser turns out to be more like option B, yes please very much, but Ray learns from experience and has fingers hooked through Fraser's belt loops so he doesn't land on the floor when Fraser yelps and bucks. 
 
"Oh, really?" Ray says, and goes back to licking, and then to sucking a little, and Fraser shudders under him and makes little whimpery noises, which Jesus that is doing happy things to Ray's dick.  Such happy things that Ray can't help starting to grind, pushing down into Fraser over and over and faster and faster, and then Fraser starts grinding up into him and it's a weird combination of so good, the heat and the hard of Fraser, and oh shit ow zippers, really OW, and if that doesn't stop Ray's either going to come or cry and he doesn't want to do either just yet. He slides off Fraser, onto his knees on the hardwood floor and that's gonna hurt tomorrow but right now Ray would kneel on broken glass for this, for easing Fraser's zipper down with a shaking hand and breathing in his smell. He thinks this might freak Fraser out a little, he might have to talk him through this step, and breaks out laughing when instead Fraser frantically shoves his pants and underwear down to his knees and grabs Ray by the back of his head and pulls.
 
"You sure?" Ray says, tilting his head to look up at Fraser, pulling against the tug to his hair. "Because, you know, we could discuss it.  For a long time.  If you're not sure." 
 
"Shut up, Ray," Fraser says, and Ray grins at him and gets back to work. 
 
He nuzzles and noses at Fraser's cock, his balls, all around; not really trying to tease, just wallowing, just playing where he finally, finally gets to play.  Fraser makes grumpy sounds and keeps tugging at him at first, but after a while gets quiet and relaxes under him, just lets Ray explore and enjoy. 
 
"Mmmm," Ray says, and suddenly can't stand to wait any more, takes Fraser in his mouth. 
 
"Ah!" Fraser says, and it's not his usual deep thought ah, it's a high-pitched little yelp of an ah, like a puppy. 
 
Ray licks a little, just learning his taste, starts sucking while he strokes at Fraser's balls with his fingertips.  And Fraser keeps on being loud, yelps and whimpers and growls.  Somehow in most of Ray's fantasies Fraser was always just too tightly wrapped for that, was a "clenching his hands until the knuckles go white and being grimly silent" kind of blow-job-receiver, but it turns out Fraser's a whole fucking dogsled team up there. 
 
Ray laughs around Fraser's cock.  Fraser's hand tightens in Ray's hair and Fraser arches up and ahhhhhhs again, loud, and fills Ray's mouth. 
 
Ray swallows, licks a little more, rests his forehead against Fraser's belly for a few seconds.  And then before Fraser has a chance to think and grow stupid again, he climbs up on Fraser and starts kissing him some more. 
 
Fraser kisses back hard, doesn't feel like he's panicking, but then he pulls away.  Fuck. 
 
Ray waits to hear again how this is a dumb idea, how they need to stop it for Ray's own fucking good, and seriously if Fraser pulls that shit Ray is going to throw him out of the apartment with his pants around his ankles. 
 
But apparently Fraser was just pulling back so he could look at Ray, because he does that for a long time, with this wide-open kind of stunned expression, then reaches out and runs the back of his curled fingers down Ray's cheek and really softly just says "Ray," as if that explained anything, which actually the way he says it, it kind of does.
 
"Yeah," Ray says, "me too," and goes back to kissing.  Fraser starts getting Ray's pants off, which is a one-hundred-percent okay with Ray plan. 
 
He's gotten so worked up with the kissing and the humping and the licking and the sucking and the way Fraser said Ray that it only takes about fifteen seconds of Fraser's hand on him before he's coming, but goddamnit he's been waiting for a year and he is not going to feel bad about that, in fact he is just going to lie here in a sticky sweaty slump on Fraser and feel really fucking good about it. 
 
He's figuring on doing that for a few minutes and then figuring out other ways to feel really fucking good, but instead he falls asleep. 
 
Apparently Fraser does too, because when Ray startles awake from the huge loud "that can't be good" noise, Fraser does the same kind of full-body wake-up jerk under him.  And then somebody's grabbing Ray, big hands in the back of his shirt yanking him up into the air, whoever it is has got to be huge, and that time-spread thing that happens in a fight starts up, that thing where in a slice of a second you have time to run through eight or nine plans and a bunch of oh God I'm gonna die.  The best plan that zooms through Ray's brain at first is a backwards head-butt, and he's ready to go for it as soon as Giant Ray-Lifting Goon slows his upward momentum because that should mean Ray's head is getting close to his face.  But he changes plans because just as he's about to slam his head back, another goon runs into the edge of his vision, and this goon has a fucking baseball bat and is rushing the couch, coming at the back of the couch with the bat up and Fraser sees the guy, yeah, and usually Fraser's got the reflexes of something really fast but he's half awake and probably a little stupid from coming, and trying to roll off the couch out of bat range and pull his pants up at the same time but it's not working very well and the look on his face is the closest to "oh shit" that Ray's ever seen there. 
 
So Ray bails on Plan A and goes with Plan 2, which is actually using the upwards momentum Goon One's giving him, kicking up high and hard and swinging sideways at the waist so that he gets a boot right into Goon Two's face before the bat comes down, and thank God Ray and Fraser were both so eager they never even got their boots off.
 
There's a wet crunch when Ray connects, and usually no matter how many fights he's been in Ray hates that nose-breaking noise, it makes him a little sick.  But right now he would like to make that sound with every bone in the guy's body, because, Jesus, baseball bat, Fraser. 
 
Fraser finishes yanking his pants up as he rolls to the floor and, being Fraser, somehow manages to roll right from slamming onto his knees on the hardwood into springing up to a stand.  Broken-nose guy starts screaming and spouting blood, but that's the last thing Ray sees in front of him because the guy with his hands in Ray's shirt finishes yanking him up--Ray gets a really intimate two-inches-away look at the ceiling for a second--and then fucking throws him. 
 
Ray's can't get an exact count in midair but his apartment is full of big pissed-off looking guys, really a lot of them, but flying by them he doesn't recognize any local mobsters. Probably whoever wants to kill him and Fraser this time is from out of town. Then Ray starts heading downward and gets a good look at his front door, which isn't so much actually there anymore--that must have been the noise that woke them up--and he has a fraction of a second to think, stupidly, "Geez, I'm never getting my security deposit back now," before his head hits the wall and he doesn't think anything for a while. 
 
He comes to again in the back of a car--he's sitting up but tilted with his head against somebody's shoulder.  He keeps his eyes closed and stays slumped for a minute, then just barely cracks his eyes open and looks through his lashes, because maybe he can surprise somebody who doesn't know he's awake. He was pretty sure the guy he was leaning on wasn't Fraser or Oz, and he was right; it's a big goon, and the one to the right of him is too.  He makes a grumbly sleep-noise and shifts slightly to look, still through just-slitted eyes, straight ahead; he's expecting the back of front-seat heads but there are a couple of people facing him--oh, it's a limo.  And oh, shit, one of the people facing him is Oz, tied up and knocked out; and oh, shit, one of them is a smiling Ethan Rayne. 
 
"Good morning, sunshine," Rayne says.  "What a fascinating in flagrante delicto we found you in; hated to interrupt, really.  How do your colleagues feel about this intriguing relationship? Although it must be losing a bit of its intrigue if you had to bring home fresh meat like this," and he shakes Oz by the hair.  "Were you going to break him in later tonight?  Bit young, don't you think?" 
 
Ray tries really hard to get up and kill Rayne, but he's tied at wrists and ankles and seat-belted in.  
 
"Touchy," Rayne says and smiles at him, and then suddenly Ray finishes remembering what "in flagrante delicto" means and, fuck, he was unzipped and only halfway pantsed, and he looks down quickly.  Apparently one of the bad guys put him back together and zipped him up, which when he thinks about it is a little better than sitting in a limo full of goons with his dick hanging out, but only a little. And his fucking head hurts, and Fraser, what happened to Fraser? 
 
Fraser's not in the limo, which is very good, means he got out, unless it's very bad and means he's dead.   
 
Ray must look like he feels right then, seriously worried, because Rayne looks even happier and says, "Wondering about your, ah, partner? He made quite a swift departure out the window.  Would have thought he'd stick around after an exchange of bodily fluids.  Didn't seem too concerned about your safety." 
 
And Ray can't fucking help it, he laughs. Because Rayne looked so sure that was gonna shake Ray up, and--not even a little.  Even before the whole bodily fluids thing?  If Fraser disappeared, bailed out in mid-fight it was because he counted the attackers, noted their weight and build and weaponry, and, hell, probably their IQ and shoe sizes, and did some kind of instant Canadian calculus that told him the best thing he could do for Ray was get reinforcements in the form of Dief and maybe the rest of the 2-7 and, being Fraser, possibly a submarine, a WWII tank and the French Foreign Legion.  Ditched Ray?  Hell no. 
 
So, yeah, Ray laughs.  
 
Which turns out to be a bad move because Rayne stops smiling, gives Ray a chilly dark look and leans over toward him, reaches out a hand.  Ray jerks forward in his seat and tries to bite him, but the goons on either side grab his arms, and Rayne touches Ray's forehead.  His fingertips are cold and when they start moving around, making little designs on Ray's skin, it feels like they leave a trail of cold behind, like Ray's skin is going numb and the numbness is seeping into his brain.  
 
Rayne keeps moving his fingertips slowly, and starts muttering something about Janus and chaos and annoying policemen, and Ray's mind just kind of...empties out.  All his thoughts drift away in the cold and the muttering, and all that's left is a chilly gray fog.  
 
So when Rayne slides out of his seat, kneels in front of Ray and leans to whisper in his ear, "He left you," then that is the only thing in Ray's brain.  
"He fucking left me," Ray whimpers. That is the saddest thing that has ever happened to him, and he leans his face into the goon shoulder next to him and sobs.  The goon pats his head and says, "There, there," and then laughs for a long time.  
 
They ride for quite a while after that, Rayne and the henchmen talking around Ray. But all he can really hear is that one thought gonging around in his head and the other thoughts that one thought starts up, like how totally worthless Ray is if even Fraser, who cares about everybody, ditched him without a look back, and what is the point of even trying?  Ray can't help Oz; Ray can't help anybody, Ray is a big chunk of useless.  
When they finally stop, the goons lift Ray by the elbows and frogmarch him into a warehouse, and he doesn't even struggle or complain, because why bother?  
 
Oz is getting marched alongside him and yelling a lot, some of it at Ray, about spells and sorcery and mind control and Ray doesn't care, Ray sags in the grip of the guys who have him and doesn't say anything when the two of them get thrown into a cage.  
 
"Ray.  Snap out of it.  Goddamnit.  Ray! Ray! Ray!" Oz says, and he sounds just like Fraser, Fraser who isn't here. Ray curls up in a ball in a corner of the cage and goes to sleep.  
 
When he wakes up again he feels like it's been a long time, and Oz is sitting against the opposite corner of the cage, as far away as he can get.  "Ray, wake up," he's saying.  
 
"I'm awake," Ray says.  He doesn't get up, doesn't move, keeps his face pressed to the cold concrete floor that smells like motor oil.    
 
"Ray, please, come out of it," Oz says. "He's a warlock, he's bad news, whatever he planted in your head it's not real, please, Ray, fuck, it's almost moonrise."  
 
"Doesn't matter," Ray says.  If Fraser were here he could probably lick the motor-oil stains and tell you what brand it was. He isn't here, though--why would he be?  
 
"I can't hold it, there's no way I can hold it, you've been a good guy, Ray, I'm so sorry," Oz says, and Ray shrugs against the concrete.  
Rayne walks over and hunkers down outside the corner of the cage right next to Ray.  "Amusing as this is, I do regret that this spell robs me of the fun of you screaming and begging. Won't wear off for hours, either, by which time you'll already have long been an evening meal.  Pity." 
 
He reaches in and pets Ray's hair, lightly.  Oz snarls from the opposite corner, and Rayne chuckles, says, "I'm not going to hurt him, dear boy.  You'll take care of that for me." 
 
"Bastard," Oz says.  "Why are you doing this? The usual kind of end-the-world plot?  What have I got to do with it?" 
 
"Oh, goodness, nothing that grandiose...your little tribe of children, you do go straight for the melodrama, don't you?  Strictly a business proposition, I assure you.  Some person or faction called, no doubt highly inaccurately, the First Evil, wanted to weaken the Slayer, and put out what I believe you would call a "contract" on beloved friends and associates, delivered up dead or alive. Contemporaneously I found myself in need of an infusion of cash.  Rogue government agencies tend to get rather snippy and freeze one's accounts after one escapes their clutches.  So I tracked you down with a finder spell. Sorry to disappoint--economic motives rather lessen the bwah-hah-hah factor, don't they?"
 
"Let Ray out then," Oz says.  He's starting to breathe a little funny, more like panting. Not long now, Ray thinks, and really, it's kind of a relief. "He's got nothing to do with Buffy," Oz gasps. "Why's he even here?" 
 
"He pissed me off," Rayne says. "Bwah-hah-hah."
 
Rayne reaches in further, cups a hand under Ray's head and lifts a little so Ray's looking at him. "I was planning just to watch you be a snack," he says, "a rather stringy one, no doubt.  But now I'm considering using the trank gun on our lupine friend here after he gets just a bite or two.  It would be amusing leaving you for your handsome partner to find.  Knowing what would have to happen eventually.  Perhaps I'll even leave a few silver bullets as a hint.  I wonder who he'd get to do the honors?" 
 
And something in Ray's cold foggy brain just snaps and heat and light come rushing in, because if Rayne says that, he doesn't understand Fraser at all. He doesn't understand Fraser and honor and duty. 
 
Because Fraser?  Fraser would insist on being the one to shoot Ray. 
 
Ray can think again, and what he's mainly thinking is oh shit because Oz is starting to shake over there in his corner, starting to mutter, "Not gonna change not gonna change," but he is definitely going to change.  
 
Ray stays still, keeps the blank stoned "kill me I don't care" look on his face until Rayne starts to pull his cold hand out from under Ray's head, and then Ray grabs his wrist hard and yanks, bashes Rayne's head into the cage bars. 
 
He stands up fast, yanking Rayne up with him, and keeps pulling him into the bars hard but Rayne is yelling for his henchmen--fucker actually yells, "Henchmen!"--and Ray is trying to grab for Rayne's neck with his other hand but Rayne's a fast wiry guy, is dancing out of reach as much as he can, and Ray's sure he's not enjoying getting repeatedly bashed but it's not enough pain to make him call the henchmen off and they're running over, pulling guns out, and Ray's fucking unarmed here and son of a bitch he's going to die before he ever gets a chance for Fraser to suck him off, dammit dammit dammit. 
 
Wait.  Ray is not totally unarmed.  
 
He sticks his free hand, the one that's not hanging on to Rayne's wrist like crazy, in his pocket, and yes, thank you every saint ever, his little Maglite is still in there.  And in addition to all the saints he's thanking the Academy instructor who was a complete fucking sadist and demonstrated "how to make someone want to die with just your cute little flashlight" repeatedly on all the mouthy baby officers, of which Ray was unsurprisingly the mouthiest.
 
Ray yanks the flashlight out, pins Rayne's wrist against a cage bar, and then slams the flashlight against the other side of the wrist where the bone's right next to the skin, leans all his weight against it, grinds the wristbones together between the two pieces of metal. 
 
"FUCK!" Rayne screams. 
 
"Call 'em OFF!" Ray yells, and leans even harder, because Oz's running mutter of "not gonna change not gonna change" is starting to get snarls mixed in with it. 
 
"Stop!" Rayne yells, waving his other hand frantically at his goons, and they stop. 
 
"Ammunition out, throw the guns," Ray says, and Rayne says, "Yes, yes, Jesus, stop!" 
 
Bullets are hitting the floor, and then guns are getting flung into the shadows of the warehouse, and Ray says, "ALL the fucking guns!" and the guys pull extras out of belts and boots and God knows where else, empty and throw them. 
 
"Keys," Ray says.  "Open the fucking cage," and behind him Oz has stopped talking altogether, it's just panting and whining and Ray is pretty sure he can hear some clothes starting to rip, and Ray is not turning around not turning around.  Rayne looks over Ray's shoulder and suddenly looks even more unhappy, which considering Ray has been slowly breaking his wrist is pretty fucking unhappy. 

Rayne scrambles in a pocket, pulls out a key and unlocks the cage--he has to stretch some to do it because no way is Ray unpinning his wrist.  When the door starts to swing open Ray's trying to figure out how to keep hanging onto Rayne and get out the door and close it behind him before Oz follows him out, and avoid all the henchfucks who are going to go straight for him.

Then he stops trying to figure that out because Rayne starts screaming even louder, and the henchmen look behind Ray and scatter, hauling serious ass, and fuck there's a huge howl behind him, Oz is gone.

Ray lets go of Rayne's wrist and runs like hell.  Out the cage door, and then he immediately takes a hard left, sending up a prayer that the thing that was Oz will just bust out in a straight line, at least for a few seconds.

Ray makes it to the side of the warehouse where there are crates and shit piled up, and scrambles madly up a heap.  Doesn't turn around until he gets to the top, because if Oz is right there Ray doesn't wanna see, doesn't wanna know.

When he turns around he sees that he's safe for at least a few seconds, but for a really horrible reason, which is that Oz has taken a henchguy down and is on him, clawing and biting and--pulling things out, God.

Ray scrambles around for a loose board or something, anything to defend himself with if Oz gets full or bored, and bonks his head against the ceiling, looks up.  No, not the ceiling exactly, some sort of a rigging system or a sprinkler system or both combined, a grid of metal bars and pipes a couple of feet below the ceiling.  He wrenches a board from a crate quickly, swings himself up into the grid, and starts scrambling across it--gets as close as he can to the middle of the big space, far from any climbable piles,  without crossing directly over Oz and drawing his attention.  He's pretty sure that the whole claws-and-paws thing is going to make it impossible for Oz to get up into the grid.  Now Ray just has to hope Oz can't jump ten feet straight up.  If he can, whacking him in the nose with a board is probably not going to be enough.

Now that he's gotten as safe as he can, given the circumstances, Ray takes a minute to assess the situation.  The guy under Oz is a goner, obviously, but it looks like the other henches have made it out various doors.  Pretty soon Ray's gonna have to start figuring out what he can do to keep Oz from heading out one of the doors.  And, yeah, Jesus, if he thought it was going to keep Oz from ripping out a dozen Chicago throats tonight he'd drop down and risk his own damn self, but he can't see how he could do shit--he'd just end up number two on a long list of dead people.

Oz slows down his ripping at the dead guy, and raises his head to sniff.  Ray isn't liking that at all, and, fuck, where's Rayne?  Ray scans the floor again, looking more carefully in the dark places, and Rayne's pressed against the wall in the shadows to the right of the warehouse--apparently he bolted right when Ray fled left.  He's not trying to get up a pile or out a door, though, why?

Ray scrambles over as quietly and quickly as he can till he's right over Rayne.  And Rayne's not trying to get away because, while Oz is busy doing horrible things, he's--casting a spell, Ray guesses.  Doing something that involves mumbling and stroking his hands around a ball of light that's slowly growing between them.

And he's smiling over at oblivious, sniffing Oz.  That can't be good.

Later on, it occurs to Ray that this maybe wasn't the best, the smartest choice.  Because Rayne is probably planning to explode Oz or freeze him dead or something and then bwah-hah-hah off into the sunset--or, well, moonrise.  But Rayne would probably just get the hell out of Chicago then, and Oz wouldn't go ripping out any throats tonight, so from Ray's law-enforcement perspective that really ought to seem like an overall good thing.

But it just doesn't work that way.  Because when Ray looks over at Oz, even covered in--Jesus, Ray's not gonna think about what he's covered in--even now, he keeps seeing Oz leaning against the bars of the jail cell, wearing that fucking Power Puff girls shirt, telling Ray to be careful.  Telling Ray thank you. And when he looks down at Rayne, all he sees is bad guy.

Ray hooks his ankles firmly under one pipe and his knees firmly over the next one.  Gets a good grip on his board, takes a deep breath, swings down and planks Rayne really hard in the face.

Ray likes the noise it makes.

The next second is not so fun, though, because the ball of light that Rayne was growing between his hands hits the floor and bounces.  Goes through Rayne's chest as he's falling forward, and smacks right up into Ray's head.

Ray's head feels for a second like something way bigger than his head is trying to hack its way out, like he's got a whole army of pissed-off guys with swords in there.  And then the pain leaves, which is good because if that had gone on for a few seconds more Ray would have been seriously hoping for death, but then when it leaves he tries to turn his head to watch the light ball bouncing away.  And realizes he's lost all muscle control.  He can't move his head; the plank slides out of his fingers and his arms dangle uselessly.  He hopes for a second that just the positioning of his legs will hold him in place, but he can't keep his ankles hooked.  His legs slither out from under one bar, over the next one, and he's falling straight down completely limp and fuck, this is gonna hurt. 

It's not as bad as he expects, though, because he lands on Rayne.  Rayne who's lying there completely limp himself.  Ray smacks into his chest and bounces a little, ends up draped over him with his cheekbone grinding down into Rayne's.  Ray's pretty sure he's drooling into Rayne's mouth, which is just wrong.

And then, fuck, then Ray hears claws clicking across the warehouse floor. And he can't move one damn muscle. He's about to get paid back for saving Oz's life by ending up like that poor henchguy in pieces.  Or maybe Oz is full and will just bite him.  And Fraser will have to kill Ray.  Which will kill Fraser.

Oz leans his sharp, furred face down close to Ray and pants on him.  Ray tries to close his eyes but it doesn't work.  They're gonna dry out and feel horrible in a minute since he can't even seem to blink, but he's not too worried about it since he'll be dead or monstered by then.

Oz snuffles at Ray.  He has really terrible breath right now, no surprise.  And Ray can't do a fucking thing, can't move or hit him or scream for Fraser or try to call Dief; for the first time in his life, Ray is really excellent at waiting.  Hey ma, all it took was magic paralysis!

Oz pushes his cold nose up under Ray's shirt, which tickles his stomach.  It feels very strange to be tickled without being able to wiggle, and Ray tries to concentrate on the weird of that instead of his rapidly upcoming death.  But then Oz shoves his nose under Ray, onto Rayne--and then he starts to growl.

So, okay, even in this state Oz is capable of figuring out that he likes some people better than others.  Which is great and all, and Ray really appreciates that he is maybe possibly not going to get eaten or monstered right now, but no matter how he feels about Rayne he is not especially excited about the idea of Rayne getting chewed out from under him.  One, gross, and two, Ray might get chomped on in collateral damage.  And three, if Oz just gnaws on Rayne a little bit--Ray isn't sure, maybe Rayne would have to wait for the next full moon to turn, but maybe not, and Ray is really, really not excited about the idea of finding himself sandwiched between two werewolves who don't like each other.

"Nice doggie," Ray thinks, hard, and hey, his lips actually move a little.  He's possibly coming back to life.  No shifting from Rayne under him; maybe the spell-ball hit him harder because it hit him first, maybe it matters what part of the body it hits; Ray has no idea but he frantically tries blinking and it works, and then a finger-wiggle does too, yeah.  Oz keeps poking his snout under Ray and snarling, and the snarling is getting pissier and pissier.  "Hold on," Ray tries to say, and actually manages to come out with something like, "Haaaaraaaaahn."

"Jessaminutemoooaaar," Ray garbles, and then he manages to fumble one elbow and one knee under him and do the world's clumsiest sideways roll.  He can't manage to get his hands involved at all and just smacks his face right into the concrete.  He can taste blood and he's betting he looks like he just lost a fight with a belt sander, but he is completely off Rayne now.

Oz's little ongoing snarl doubles and triples and stretches out into a long scary-ass howl, and Oz leaps on Rayne, claws digging in and teeth ripping at Rayne's shoulder.

And then Oz goes still and falls sideways off Rayne, lands deadweight on top of Ray.

"Zhafuck?" Ray says, with his mouth full of werewolf fur.

Oz leaps off him then--or, no, Oz gets yanked off him, because there's Fraser, just fucking tossing Oz's limp body aside.  Ray blinks at him, because that's a hell of an adrenaline rush there--Oz in this state is a lot heavier than when he's a weedy little human guy, and Ray is not thinking about how the physics of that works--but also because Ray's never seen Fraser just unconcerned about...anybody, really.  Now, though, he just flings Oz away, not even looking at him, and he's pulling Ray up to his feet, asking a million questions and not giving Ray a chance to answer any of them. "Ray, are you all right?  Did he bite you?  Did he scratch you?  Did Rayne hurt you?  Are you all right?"

"Mmmm' fine," Ray says, but his whole body feels like his arm does when he sleeps on it funny, and when Fraser loosens his grip Ray's knees go blubbery and he almost falls over.  Fraser grabs on hard again, eases him down until he's sitting against the wall.  Ray hears a little whimper and looks over to see Dief fidgeting around, about twenty feet away.  Still not wanting to get really close to Oz.

"You're sure," Fraser says.  "No scratches, no bites..."

"A-okay," Ray says, and his lips and tongue are finally starting to work right.  "One hundred percent."  He notices the little purple dart sticking out of Oz's side, then, and the trank gun lying at Fraser's feet, and the knapsack on Fraser's back that's probably full of every piece of magic and voodoo and religion in Chicago, and Ray laughs.  Go, Fraser.  "Where's the French Foreign Legion?" Ray says.  "And, hey, did you notice a ball of light bouncing around when you came in?"

"Ray, are you sure you're all right?"

Ray waves dismissively at him, leans forward and scopes the warehouse out hard for the glowy spell.  "Guess it wore off," he says.  "And, really, I'm fine.  Rayne, though--Oz got to him."

"Mmm, yes. That complicates things," Fraser says.  "Right now, though, I suppose we should be worried about Rayne's abilities in this form, in case he wakes up.  You said, in the station, you thought he was casting spells?"

"He definitely casts spells."

"Did all his spells have a verbal component?"

"Did they have--oh, yeah, talking, right. Yeah, I think there were words with all of them."

Fraser slides the backpack off and starts scrambling though it, and Ray waits to see if he comes up with a dead chicken or a spellbook or a crystal ball.

Fraser pulls out a big roll of duct tape and a knife, cuts a piece off and tapes Rayne's mouth shut.

"Hah," Ray says.  "Nice."

Ray scrambles up and helps Fraser tape the guy at wrists and ankles too.  Then Fraser checks Oz's limp furry body over for injuries, looking like he feels kinda guilty for tossing him, and Ray and Fraser catch each other up on what happened.  Ray kinda skims over the whole "Fraser left me to diiieeeee spell" portion of the evening--he's a little embarrassed.  Of course Fraser was getting Dief for help with tracking, and getting advice from magic practitioners, and getting a trank gun.

And getting some silver bullets.  Fraser doesn't look at Ray when he says that part.

"You did good, buddy," Ray says.  He reaches over and squeezes Fraser's shoulder, and Fraser smiles.

"What are we gonna do with these guys?"  Ray says. 

"Hmm," Fraser says.  "Dief and I proceeded on foot, the better to keep on your trail.  There are a few cars outside, belonging to Rayne and his associates no doubt, but of course we can't legally..."

Ray puts a finger gently over Fraser's lips, and then walks outside and hotwires a car. Fraser makes a couple of grumpy faces but doesn't say a damn word.  He's learning.

Ray's exhausted and shaky and has had way too much new information thrown at him the past couple of days, but as soon as he's behind the wheel he can think a lot better.

"Let's head back to the station," he says.  "From what Oz told us, he should be okay when he wakes up in the morning, but meanwhile we can put him in the cell.  Rayne too, I guess, for now.  Fuck if I know what to do with him, we can't keep his mouth taped forever."

"Tempting though it may be," Fraser says.  "And I feel sure Lieutenant Welsh will have a few questions.  I, ah, ignored several calls from him while I was prepping for the rescue mission."

"Rescue?" Ray says.  "Mission?  Not that I don't appreciate the hell out of it, Frase, but I had things under control."

"Ray, you were semi-paralyzed in a heap next to a werewolf and an evil wizard."

"I'd gotten out from between them," Ray says.  "Oz was working on Rayne, he wasn't gonna mess with me."

"He was probably saving you for dessert," Fraser says.  Dief pokes his head up from the floorboards at Fraser's feet--he completely balked at getting in the backseat with Oz and Rayne--and gives Ray a look, and Ray's head is suddenly filled with images of his cousin Gene when they were kids together.

Gene's a perfectly nice deli-owner now, but when he was a kid he was a rotten little shit.  He used to spend a week at Ray's every summer, and anytime Ray won an argument or a street-hockey game Gene couldn't stand it.  He'd wait until Ray was asleep and sneak into his room with a pitcher and pour root beer on his head.

Ray laughs, hits the brakes at a stoplight and reaches over to scratch Dief's head.  "Yeah," he said.  "He's just got to have the last word every time, huh?"

"You two are ganging up on me now?"  Fraser says.  "Oh, lovely," but he's smiling.

When they get to the station they bundle Oz and Rayne up in some tarps from the trunk.

"Probably these were intended for your, ah, remains," Fraser says grimly, and Ray nods and steps on Rayne a couple of times while he's wrapping him.

Ray shifts Rayne up onto his shoulders--Rayne's starting to stir and groan a little bit, and Ray hopes his werewolf-bite hurts like hell--and Fraser picks up Oz.  They fireman's-carry them through the station, with Ray glaring "Ask a question, I dare you" looks at all the night-shift guys.

Fraser and Ray get them both in the cell--Oz curled up snoring and twitching his paws on a makeshift dog bed they rigged out of the tarps and a bunch of the crazy-size unreturned uniforms, and Rayne fully awake now, grunting and giving them murderous looks but apparently unable to make anything happen.  He's lying on the cold floor and Ray wedged his head into the worst-smelling cell corner.  Once that's done Ray and Fraser sit on the floor and don't talk for a while, and just as that's about to cross over from "exhausted not-talking" into "awkward and uncomfortable not-talking," Fraser takes Ray's hand and squeezes it, and Ray squeezes back and falls asleep.

He wakes up to find he missed Oz re-humanizing.  Which Ray was a little curious about, but it's probably a good thing not to have stuck in his head forever.  Oz is lying naked in a drift of fur, whimpering, and then he opens his eyes and says, "God, I need a toothbrush."

Fraser makes a quick supply run, and they get Oz out of the cell, dressed and toothbrushed and caught up on last night's events.

"Fuck, Ray, I'm sorry," Oz says.

Ray shrugs.  "No blood, no foul."

"Oz, would you have any suggestions on what to do with Mr. Rayne?"  Fraser says

"I know exactly where he needs to go.  Where he deserves to go," Oz says. "You guys got a phone?"

Ray's got taken from him sometime last night, so Fraser hands his over, and Oz punches in some numbers and starts grinning at Rayne.  Ray gets a little shiver up his spine, because that's the first time he's seen any of the werewolf in the daytime.

And Oz says, "Riley?  Hey.  You still know some guys?"

After the call Oz says he needs to make himself scarce for a while, and he's disappeared by the time the station suddenly fills up with what looks like a combination of a SWAT team and a squad of lawyers.  Unfortunately Welsh shows up at about the same time, and they all end up crammed in the little basement hallway yelling while Rayne thrashes around and glares at all of them.  First of all Welsh tears Ray a new one for not calling in, because Welsh had gotten a frantic call yesterday from Ray's landlady about big angry men and a missing door.

"Shit," Ray says, "Did not even cross my mind.  I'm sorry."

"Well, you buy that woman some flowers, Detective, because she paid for a guy to come out last night and replace your door so all your stuff didn't walk off, plus she was worried about you."

"Will do," Ray says, and then Welsh starts a long screaming argument with the guys Oz called in, about how Welsh doesn't fucking care what level of government they are or what id's they're flashing, nobody is just waltzing in here and taking a prisoner away when Welsh hasn't even heard what he did yet.

Eventually the best-suited lawyer type leads Welsh a little way off and talks to him intently for a while, and Welsh slowly goes from arms-crossed rage to listening-face to a smile and a nod.

The SWAT-ish guys cut Rayne's ankle and wrist tape, just to immediately chain and cuff him.

"You wanna leave the mouth tape on," Ray says.

"Believe me, we know," one of them says, and they haul him off.

Welsh studies Ray and Fraser for a while, says, "You two?  Go get some sleep.  But by the end of the week, I want a stunningly detailed report on whatever it is that just happened.  A lush level of detail, gentlemen.  A poetic level of detail."

"Understood," Fraser says.

"Hey, Lieu," Ray says, "what did they--forget it, none of my business, never mind."  Because he's actually a little freaked out and, well, disappointed. Whatever just went on with the lawyery guys and Welsh--it didn't look like they threatened him, and up until right this second Ray would have bet his pension that you couldn't bribe Welsh.

"High-tech bulletproof vests that haven't even hit the market yet, Detective Kowalski," Welsh says.  "Handheld radios that actually work.  Et cetera.  Keeping my detectives safe."

"Gotcha," Ray says, and stops with the disappointment.

He and Fraser pile into one of the squad cars and head for Ray's apartment, and Fraser says, "I suppose we should report the car you, ah, we stole and left here.  And--oh dear lord, Ray, we never told anyone about the eviscerated man at the warehouse."

"Shit," Ray says. He grabs Fraser's phone and Fraser glares at him, so Ray hands it back and drives with exaggerated total concentration while Fraser calls Welsh.  Ray can hear Welsh expanding on the level of detail he's expecting in that report.  The word "sub-atomic" is in there somewhere.

When they get to the apartment Oz is sitting on the hallway floor, leaning against the shiny new door.  "Hey," he says.

"Hello," Fraser says.  "Are you feeling well?  No ill effects?"

"Doing okay."

Ray goes downstairs and apologizes to the landlady, who swats his head and hugs him like she was his mom, and gets the new set of keys.

When he gets back up to the apartment and lets them all in Oz hesitates just in the door, says, "I should be safe now, you know, non-grrr.  Mind if I get cleaned up, maybe crash here tonight?"

"Sure," Ray says, and Oz says "Thanks," but then he shifts around some and doesn't look done.

"What?" Ray says.

"I was just thinking," Oz says.  "I just--you get in this little bubble of weird, you know?  You hang out with slayers and witches and vampires, and then global road trip with shamans and priests and minor gods, and you start to think that nobody else would get it.  That no normals would, you know.  Not run lab tests on you.  So. Thank you."

"Certainly," Fraser says.

"Yeah," Ray says, "Come by anytime, we'll be glad to not run lab tests on you."

Oz grins at him, says, "Actually, I gotta hit the road to talk with some more shamans and warlocks, try and get it under control again.  But every twenty-eight days, for a while at least..." He shrugs.  "Trying to eat the ex's girlfriend makes things a little awkward with the old gang right now, and my parents, I was never really high on their lists of interests. And you guys got this perfectly good jail cell going to waste..."

"We'd be privileged to imprison you," Fraser says, in this totally sincere voice, and Oz and Ray crack up.

"Ah," Fraser says, and just one corner of his mouth quirks up.  "Abuse. Thank you."

Oz showers and heads off for the guest bedroom.  Ray cleans himself up as well and lets Fraser smear revolting stuff on his cuts and bruises.

When Fraser takes his shower Ray crawls into bed.  He tries to figure out whether to leave his boxer shorts on or not, and finally just decides on naked.  He lies there for a while thinking of entertaining things to try when Fraser climbs in beside him, but he's so fucking tired he passes out before that happens.

*****************************************************************

When he wakes up the light is wrong for afternoon, and Ray's lost for a minute until he checks the bedside clock and figures out that he slept right around the clock, it's the next morning, geez.  He's stiff and sore and his various bruises are talking to him loudly, but when he groans and rolls over Fraser's right there, looking at him.

Fraser doesn't look like he's looking at a scruffy, cranky, beat-up cop.  Fraser looks like he's looking at something beautiful.

Ray just blinks at him for a second, because--it's not fair to get hit with that look when he just woke up. It makes him not even able to talk.

Ray waves vaguely at the bathroom, staggers over to it.

When he comes back--and yeah, he brushed his teeth--Fraser grabs him the second he's under the covers, just pulls Ray up against him so tight he can barely breathe.  Kisses Ray's neck and his ears and shoulders, frantically, digs his fingers into Ray's back like Ray's gonna try to get  away or something.

"Hey," Ray says.  "Not going anywhere.  Do I look stupid?"

"You look," Fraser says, and pulls away a little, flips the covers down, takes a gander.  "You look wonderful."

Ray closes his eyes and shivers.  The hard-on he woke up with is still around and getting more enthusiastic by the second.

"Ray, can I--"

"Yeah," Ray says.  "Anything."

"Oh," Fraser says, and just looks at him for a minute.

"Any day now, Fraser," Ray says, and Fraser comes back to life and practically dives for the bedside table. "Do you have--oh, good," he says, rolling back with the lube bottle Ray kept around to help out his talented hand for the past lonely year.

He lands on Ray and kisses him fiercely for a long time.  Ray was a little startled at the sight of the lube because, hey, skipping a few steps here, rushing a bit, yeah? He'd been hoping for a blow job, but what the hell, they'd be getting to this eventually anyway, and he'd said anything and he meant it.  Any fucking thing Fraser wanted.

So Ray kisses back, and wraps his legs around Fraser's hips, and as soon as Fraser lets him breathe he whispers, "Okay, go ahead," in Fraser's ear.

"Hmmm, not yet," Fraser says, and kisses down Ray's chest, and takes Ray's cock in his mouth.

Okay, Ray can wait on the getting fucked part.

Fraser gets really into it, sucking hard and swirling his tonguetip around the crown.

"Fuuuuuuuck," Ray says.  His hips rock up all by themselves and his thighs fall even further open.  "Fuck fuck fuck, that's good, Fraser, keep doing that just like that yeah."

Fraser stops.

Ray closes his eyes and fights off the urge to yell, "You contrary bastard!" at him, and manages to say really calmly, "It'll work better, you know, if you get me off first.  I'll be more, uh.  Relaxed.  For you."  He feels a little weird explaining that but he's got no idea if Fraser's ever fucked a guy before and he's sure as hell not asking right now.

"Ray, no, that's not what I--" and then Fraser is stroking lube onto Ray's cock, huh?  And then kneeling up over him.  Oh.

"Hey, Frase, you sure?" Ray says.  He can't quite believe he's trying to talk Fraser out of this, but it feels important to check. "It's okay if you--I don't mind getting--"

Fraser leans down, puts his mouth to Ray's ear.  His hard-on is brushing Ray's belly. "A year, Ray, of holding myself back from you," he says, breathing heat.  "A year of being an idiot, of watching you and wanting you, and then you put an end to the idiocy, you were brave enough to fix it, and then you were gone and I thought you might be, I thought I might have to--"

He's shaking, and Ray tries to pull Fraser's head up, to look at his face, but Fraser's got it tucked down hard.

"It's okay, buddy, you had to bring bullets, it's okay, I get it," Ray says into his hair.

Fraser's shaking slacks off a little and he whispers, "I need to feel you right now and right here and alive and in me.”

"Yeah," Ray says.  "Yes."  He gets some of the slick on his own fingers, presses them into Fraser, and Fraser raises his face enough to look at Ray while he's doing it.  He looks--he looks just--god.

Fraser lowers himself onto Ray, slowly, so incredibly slowly.  Inch by inch, no, slower than that, Canadian slow, centimeter by centimeter.  It takes about twelve years, and Ray is seriously considering dying before Fraser gets all the way down, it is the best goddamn thing ever and it is killing him.

Finally finally he's all the way there, skin to skin with Ray, grounded.  Ray wants to grab his hips and buck up into him and sit up and kiss him and yank him down and kiss him and say crazy things to him, all the crazy things, so Ray just lies there shivering.

Fraser stares at him for a while, reaches a hand out and strokes Ray's bruised cheekbone, and then starts moving again, slowly, of course slowly.  Up and down, and Ray gets his hands coordinated and moving and strokes Fraser's sides, hips to ribs. Fraser moans and pulls one of Ray's hands to his mouth and kisses his fingers, just lightly, on the tips, shy little kisses while he's sliding up and down on Ray's cock.  God.

Ray moves his other hand around to Fraser's cock, which has softened up a little.  Ray cups it gently and Fraser's eyelids flutter.

Ray starts squeezing, lets Fraser's movements on him set the pace, and Fraser's hardening up in his hand nicely.

"I'm gonna ride you tomorrow, Frase," he says, and Fraser gasps, twitches in Ray's hand, moves a little faster.  That's so good, so good, Ray's starting to get that fizzy lit-up feeling at the base of his spine that means he's gonna come soon, so he needs to bring Fraser with him.

"Or you can bend me over the table," he says, and gets another little gaspy noise, another speeding up.  "I'll suck you off, I'll tie you up, I'll get you right on that edge and keep you there for an hour, for a day maybe, I'll do everything you've ever thought about and I've ever thought about and we'll come up with some stuff nobody's ever thought about, fuck, Fraser, we'll do everything, I'll do everything to you," and Fraser makes a strangled noise and comes all over Ray's stomach.

Ray hangs on long enough to watch Fraser's face through it, that is his new hobby, Ray is gonna do that every goddamn day forever, and then Ray shudders and moans and comes inside Fraser for a long time.

Fraser curls down onto Ray's chest, tucks his face into Ray's neck, and Ray just breathes, takes in the smell of him, gets his hands up and petting Fraser's back.  They lie in a heap like that for a while; Fraser slowly pulls up off of Ray, hissing a little, but then they stay all tangled together and sticky.

There's a knock on the bedroom door and Ray flinches under Fraser, because he forgot that there was anybody else in the apartment or Chicago or the universe.

"Hey, guys," Oz says through the door.  "I made coffee. And, uh--" his voice is getting amused, Ray bets his sense of smell is working overtime, "gooood morning."

"Yeah," Ray says, because it is.