M/M (duh), F/K (double duh), almost NC-17

Fraser and Ray don't belong to me. If they did, I'd set 'em free.

Soundtrack: Oh What a Feeling, Junkhouse; Northwest Passage, Stan Rogers; Take My Hand, Dido; You Are the Everything, REM; Flying North, Thomas Dolby; Everything Shines, Great Big Sea ('fingerpaint the sky'); Western End of the Trail, Jay Semko

Thanks to Kellie, as usual and forever, for idea bouncing, encouragement and for the title; LaT for calling it almost to the penny ,reminding me that single POV has certain obligations, and for introducing me to Dido; Journey for phrasing; Kat for 'cognitive dissonance' metaphors; and Denise for, well, everything.

Destina and Rustler, you are *awesome* betas. My gratitude knows no bounds. Destina and Kellie worked me around to the ending, which Kellie gave me. Patient much, chicks? Thanks. Thanks too to C L Finn, who started the percolation with her story "The Easiest Choice."

Rustler, duuuude, this Bud's for you.

Likewise

© Nov 2000 AuKestrel

His hair’s grey now, silver really, at the temples, with a lot of salt and pepper scattering into the back. He keeps it short, shorter than he ever has since I’ve known him, like a longish buzz cut, and it ought to look funny, two-toned hair, because he’s only got a few silver hairs on the top of his head. But he makes it look … distinguished. Yeah. Distinguished and... hot.

Hot, that’s funny. Only he could make grey hair look hot. He makes me hot too: my dick’s forty-six going on forty-seven and still all it takes is a look sometimes, a look and a flick of his tongue and then his eyes crinkle into smile lines even before his mouth moves too and those times we don’t even try to make it up the stairs. Made it to the landing a couple of times, tested the load-bearing capacities of the footlocker we keep there, and that was fun. He keeps saying we’re too old for this. He’s right, but it doesn’t seem to have stopped us yet.

Ten years. Wow. Made it past the first seven – those are the hardest, right? Hell, made it past the first. We both deserve medals for that, tuck-in-on-the-floor-hurt-my-soul medals. Gave me a whole new perspective on the Stella, I can tell you that. Partners means sharing, how many times did he have to hear it before it sank into that thick skull? Four hundred eighty seven and a half, he says, and then he laughs. Private joke, whatever. Don’t get him started on dogsleds at the border, he’ll giggle all night.

Yeah, the first year was the hardest and the easiest, all at once, kind of how he is. Had rip roaring fights, you’d be surprised to hear the sarcasm he can pull out of his Stetson when he’s riled up, but riled is good, riled means you’re under his skin, and the sex carried us through. Not supposed to, no, Stella always said, always, sex didn’t solve anything. It might have if she’d let it because it worked for him and me, but maybe it’s different for guys. Nothing like getting laid to put a new perspective on empty butter dishes and milk cartons and the whole partnership thing. Nothing like after-lay for a few contented grunts and a word or two that made it all go away, no nasty afterbites, made it all go away for good.

And it did. Kept getting better, we still had that connection, still have that connection, and that’s how we do it, him and me, body and soul, both ways in and back again.

I took a bullet halfway into our second year. No big deal but it must have scared the shit out of him because about three weeks after I went back on duty he came home with transfer papers. Said I could get shot up by hunters in the Territories same as Chicago so if that’s what it took to make me happy, he wanted to be happy too. Helluva fight but real progress there, after all, so I took another leave without pay like I did when we went on our quest, went back up there, helped him rebuild his dad’s cabin. It’s got two rooms now, indoor plumbing too, well, if a composting toilet counts. It counts for me, beats all hell out of the outdoor facilities, and we get up there at least once a month now.

He couldn’t find a posting he thought we’d both be happy with in the Yukon so we tried Ottawa first. I took the plunge and my partial disability, enough money to convince Canada I wouldn’t be a drain on their natural resources (except for the one Mountie, but that came with the territory and they didn’t ask anyway) and decided to get to know the land that helped shape him, get to know it for real and not crowded in a tent in endless snowstorms - the tent part was fun but I don’t remember much else except a whole lot of cold and white. Ottawa didn’t work for either of us: funny how bureaucrats are the same everywhere. Then we went for a district south of Great Slave, shading over the border into Alberta.

That was, yeah, seven years ago. We’re still here; bought a house even though the RCMP has quarters. Roots he wants, roots we got, and I’m learning to fix planes, been flying ‘em for about three years now, they’re almost as much fun as cars. He’s been making noises lately about Inuvik again. Said the new constable posting in was looking for a house to rent. I know what that means. Got my eye on a Piper Cub. I figure what the hell, up there we might as well live at the cabin, fly into work, that could be fun. Bush pilots are like taxicabs up there anyway and he makes enough money to float us both for a few months until I get it down.

Dief lifts his head and whines at the door. He’s late tonight, but it’s payday, he’s talking people out of bar fights. Dief stretches, whines again, gets up and limps to the door, means Fraser’s on his way. Vet says he needs a hip replacement. Fraser says Dief says there’s no such thing as plastic hips in the wild, especially for fourteen-plus year old wolves. Eric sends some pretty foul tasting stuff every couple weeks that’s supposed to help with the pain. I told them both that last time I checked there were no cheese puffs to be found in the wild either but they pretended they didn’t hear that. Well, Fraser pretended he didn’t hear, and Dief wouldn’t look at me when I tried to talk sense into him. Dr. Bates x-rayed him again yesterday; I left the cheese puffs out on the table all day, all night. We’re not going to Inuvik until Dief’s all recuperated and stuff so they might as well get it over with.

I made a bigos about a week ago, stuck it in the back of the freezer like I forgot about it. He didn’t say anything. Likes to let me think it’s a surprise. Nice thing about this climate, it’s almost always cold enough to justify a bigos. Spring’s here, which in Canadian means we only got a few inches of snow last night. Made cerveny kapusta today, old Wincenc family recipe handed down for God knows how many generations. I had to call Mom, couldn’t remember how much caraway she used to put in and she was no help: “Enough to fit in the hollow of my palm.” Yeah, whatever, and then I got the lecture about how it was always best on the third day. Well, Fraser’ll have to suck it up. He’s pretty good at that. Of course I didn’t tell her that. And she’s tickled about the whole soup thing: I’m beyond good at bean soup and potato soup and if I get a few shots in me I’ll even say their names in Polish, which tickles Fraser, so we all win.

Wasn’t able to get any vodka though: plane landed a little rough last time and broke every damn bottle in the case. Tried the stores, even a couple of bars, but all they carry’s Russian stuff, ain’t gonna happen on my watch, not for this, not for tonight, so I went the beer route.

Dief grumbles low in his throat and then raises his head to sniff. He’s already had a sample. The wolf’s shameless about begging, always has been, always will be. He licks his chops. He’s about as subtle as Fraser once he gets a thought fixed in his head. I shake my head at him and he grumbles again and looks at the door. Past year or two he’s spent more and more time with me, less and less out and about with Fraser. It’s been tough on both of ‘em, tougher on Fraser. He takes me with when he can but there was never any question about Dief, no one ever thought twice about Dief-and-Fraser.

Dief’s got two or three generations running around here now. Couple people have mentioned pups. Fraser gets all tightlipped about that, makes me want to dig out the old motorcycle boots and polish up my head kicking, because some people just aren’t born with a whole lot of sense. Wolves aren’t any more interchangeable than people. Dief’s no snowmobile part and he’s got a few good years left in him, Dr. Bates and Eric both agree on that.

Dief feels me watching him and turns to look at me and I swear he rolls his eyes. Buttering me up: he knows I got an extra bone stashed for him in the back of the fridge. Then his head whips back around and he whines again, different this time, eager. He’s deafer than I’m blind, I have to wear my glasses full-time now, so I’ve decided he’s psychic or he’s tuned into magnetic lines or something. Sure enough, about thirty seconds later I hear the crunch of Fraser’s boots on the front walk and then the thud, thud up the stairs to the porch.

He comes inside, a swirl of snow with him, parka and boots covered in snow, and his ruck too, slung over one shoulder. He breathes in deep and nods at Dief, who moans, butts up against him, then heads back to his sheepskin in front of the pot-bellied stove. Then he grins at me. “I smelled it all the way from the corner.”

“I hope so. Wouldn’t be the real thing if you couldn’t.”

He laughs, inhales again while he takes off his coat. “Perfect for the weather. It’s snowing hard again.”

“Springtime in the Canadian Rockies. Who’d’ve thought?”

He opens his mouth and I hold up a hand. “I know, I know, they’re further west. Figure of speech, Fraser, just go with it. I hope the parts I ordered for Terry’s Dodge make it in okay.”

“They will. It’s just snow.”

“‘Just’ snow? Better not let ‘em hear you be so disrespectful.” Still and all I walk over to the front window to stand next to him, watch the snow for a few seconds. He smells like snow and cold and a little bit like horse: he rides a lot here, especially in the winter, and the house we found is pretty convenient to the stable. Some people buy houses that are close to, say, highways. Us, we have to be close to the horses. He leans over, bumps our shoulders together, then backs up to drop into his chair and starts unlacing his boots, humming along with the music: Junkhouse just kicked into high gear and I had it cranked.

“Bars full tonight?” I ask, crossing over to turn the music down a little. I know the answer but this is one of those little things we do, one of our things.

“Variously,” he says. “There was talk of moonlight sledding. Naturally I encouraged it. Perhaps after dinner -”

“If we can move, sure.”

I watch him a few seconds, look out the window at the snow again, and then go to the fridge to get a beer. “You want one?” I call.

“Later, perhaps,” he says, heading up the stairs in his stocking feet and pumpkin pants and suspenders, way too glorious of an ass still for a guy coming up on fifty. He says it’s the hockey. I think it’s the horseback riding. Either or both, no one in this house’s complaining.

Dief gets up and goes to the foot of the stairs, watches for a few seconds, decides not to make the climb because Fraser’s going to come right back down, and heads to his water bowl.

I stir the stew, stir the cabbage too, take a swig of beer. Fraser comes back down in jeans and his henley, moccasins instead of socks tonight. Heh. He forgot to do laundry. So’d I. Too cold for commando but what the hell, Christmas only comes once a year and this is waaaay more important than that, and these flannel-lined khakis work pretty well.

One arm slides around me and he covers my hand on the beer bottle with his own, leans over my shoulder to take a quick swallow. It’s taken him a few years to get this down but he’s learned. Living with a Pole, he’s got no choice, really, and he found out pretty early on that he liked the taste of vodka on me, good vodka, and that real vodka, Polish rye vodka, is better than tolerable and so he’s loosened up a little, we don’t have to toast the Queen thirteen times now for him to have the occasional beer or even more occasional shot with me.

“Open one for yourself,” I say, reaching for the handle of the fridge door.

“No, just a beer chaser,” he says. “I know there must be vodka lurking somewhere with bigos in the offing.”

“No, no can do tonight, buddy. So I went with this.” I nod at the bottle, a decent microbrew, kind of local (‘local’ in Canada’s got a whole different meaning than ‘local’ in Chicago).

“Yes, yes can do,” he says into my ear, and gives my shoulder another squeeze and heads over to his ruck, still by the door. Well, damn. Okay. All right. As long as it’s Stoli we’ll be okay.

“Constable Irons assures me that this was chilled to three degrees Celsius most of the day,” he’s saying, digging around. “And that, as well, it wouldn’t warm to more than seven degrees on the journey home. He really does remind me of Turnbull from time to time.”

“He’s a bundle of knowledge. What’s that in real temperatures? You know, Fahrenheit’s more accurate than Celsius. More gradations.”

“And completely illogical,” he says, still digging.

“No more so than any other arbitrary system of measurement. What’s a foot? What’s a mile? What’s a metre?”

He pulls out a loaf of black bread and my mouth starts watering. “The metric system -”

“Did Jilly bake today? This isn’t her day for-”

“The metric system,” he says again, voice louder, “is based on an objective - ah. Here we are. Shot glasses, Ray?”

I turn back to the fridge, open the freezer for the glasses, froze some just in case and forgot to take ‘em out.

“Ah, sorry, no.” He plunks a bag of ice down on the table next to the bread and follows it with a tub of butter - Jilly sells her own butter too, fresh, unsalted. “Wrong package.”

I bring the shot glasses over to the table and lean over to look in his ruck. He looks up at me, a shit-eating grin on his face, and pulls out a bottle of - Wybo. Jesus …

“Holy - Fraser, where’d you get that?”

“Two-Eyed Jack -”

“I knew you were going to bring him into it.”

He laughs. “Despite your antipathy towards him, he’s really quite efficient -”

“My antipathy is for his stupid name, stupider than One-Eared Ralph, because Ralph only has one ear, got it?”

“And Jack has two eyes,” Fraser says mildly, trying to keep a straight face. I doubt Two-Eyed Jack had anything to do with the vodka at all, Fraser just likes to get me going. “And a substantial liquour collection.”

“Because he’s got his own still. Which is illegal as hell, even in East Bufu, Canada.”

“Well, no one’s found it yet, Ray.”

“No one’s looking all that hard, Fraser.”

“Ah, well. True. Still, there’s a long tradition in the Northwest Territories, Ray, of self-sufficiency and thrift -”

“Thrift?” There’s a jar in the bag of ice he plunked onto the table. A familiar-looking jar, even though I haven’t seen one like it in almost eleven years. “Thrift, Fraser? Thrift? You stand there with a jar of-”

“Osetra,” he says helpfully, getting to his feet, twisting the top off the vodka. “I believe that’s your preferred-”

“How the hell did you - what the hell did you-” I’m fumbling with the bag, trying to get it open: it’s cold and slippery. “I can’t believe you -”

“After all this time, Ray, do you think I’m unaware of what constitutes a Polish celebration?” He pours the vodka into the glasses with a little flourish of his wrist and I want to strip him down, pour the vodka all over him and lick it off with bites of caviar in between.

“Celebration? For bigos?” I say, gruff. Got the bag open and the jar out finally “Jesus. Where the hell you been all my life, Mountie?”

He hands me my glass, raises his own. “Na zdrowie.”

“Na zdrowie,” I echo, automatic, and tilt it down my throat. He matches me, pours two more shots.

“Caviar too, Fraser, don’t let it go to waste.” I’m in the kitchen scrabbling for a plastic spoon. My mom has a horn one, brought all the way from Poland by my great-grandmother, but it’s not like I ever thought about needing one.

“Never,” he says solemnly, and I look over my shoulder to see him trying not to grin at me, eyes shining, so damn happy about his surprise, not as happy as me, and I forget the spoon, the caviar, and the vodka, two long strides and I’m there in his space, in his face, and Wybo tastes even better on him than he says it tastes on me.

“You’re welcome,” he says when I let him go.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. C’mon, Fraser, tear off that bread and let’s have at.” I plop down on the bench and reach for the butter, forgot the knife, whoops, back up and into the kitchen for it. He’s got the caviar open by the time I get back and we both look at it and then at each other for a few seconds.

“Eat,” I say, and shove a piece of bread, piled with caviar, at him. “Drink.”

“Loosen your belt,” he finishes.

“Now you’re talking. So stop. Eat instead.”

Caviar’s everything I remember and then some; Jilly’s bread’s better than my grandmother’s, can’t say that out loud, of course. Died and gone to my own personal Kowalski heaven: cold Canada snow, iced Polish vodka, and Russian caviar to spare for Fraser and me.

We down a couple more shots before the caviar’s finished off. I stare at the bottle for a few seconds, black and silver label, pleasant little buzz starting in my brain, and then I feel his hand cover mine on the table. I turn my hand over, squeeze his a little, get squeezed back. That’s a ‘love you’ in Fraserspeak. Took him a long time to work up to the words, freaked in a big way the first time I let ‘em out. They’d been bugging me for weeks, months maybe at that point, but I wasn’t sure because with Stella and all it’d just been automatic after a while, something you said a long time, maybe, even after you stopped feeling it, just because you were used to saying it or you were supposed to say it or something. So I didn’t know if they still meant what they used to mean or something else completely, but they wanted out anyway.

And then one day we were just sitting eating dinner and he was bitching (for him) about some Consulate thing and I looked at him and he went in and out of focus and he smiled at me, kind of the way he is right now, and I smiled at him, and I felt them coming and didn’t try to stop ‘em, only way to know if they were any different from the Stella words was to listen to ‘em, and out they popped. “I love you.”

And his smile faded, slow, and his face got white, slow, and then red, fast, and he swallowed and pushed his chair back. His hand was shaking, I can still see that to this day, shaking as it slid out of the end of his sleeve when he pulled on his jacket. And I waited for the panic and I waited for the sadness but nothing bad happened inside me, I felt good, I felt relieved, and it was all okay. So I said it again when he reached for his hat, and he looked at me, and his eyes were sad and scared.

I got up and pulled a carton of milk out of the fridge and poured two glasses. He stood there, holding his hat. I put both glasses on the table and sat down. “I won’t say it again,” I remember saying, and I was surprised that I sounded so together because I was ecstatic and terrified: knew what I had was real, knew what I wanted was in front of me, but didn’t know what to do next, how to keep it. “Won’t say it. But I had to say it now to see if it was real.”

He swallowed hard, I could hear it, and cracked his neck. He opened his mouth and started to say something and had to clear his throat before he could get it out. What he said wasn’t what I thought he would. “W - was it?”

And I smiled at him, let it all show from inside me for a few seconds, and told him the truth. “Yeah. We’re good. Okay?”

“No,” he said, strained whispery voice. I pushed the other glass of milk towards him and he took it, kind of mechanically. “There are - there will be certain - expectations and I - I don’t - can’t -”

“You can do what you want, I said we’re good, I meant it. I had to - I wanted to test it, see if the -”

“Testing me,” he said harshly, and drained the glass of milk in one gulp, like he was doing a shot.

“Not you, me, damn it!” I was on my feet and in his face. “You’re not the only one in this - in this thing. I told you, we’re good, but I’m not going to say I’m sorry because that would be a huge fucking lie.”

He kept staring at me but he didn’t put his hat on, meant we still had a fighting chance to get this on the table.

“Testing me, testing the words, seeing if they’re different now than they were before,” I said, and I said them quiet, so he had to lean in to listen.

After a long time he lifted his head up and looked at me and asked, “Are they?”

And I looked right back at him and said, really slow, really deliberate, “Very much so. Yes.”

He swallowed again and said, “How so? How can you - it’s - Ray, it’s not - it’s like - it’s like falling backwards with no one to catch you, I can’t -”

“Yeah, you can.” I took his Stetson, put it on his chair, turned him around. “Hell, yeah. Do this, Fraser, trust me, we’ve been there, done this already. Fall. Go ahead. Let go.”

He looked over his shoulder, tried to turn around, but I stopped him. “Do it this way. Listen to me. Fall. I got you.”

One last look over his shoulder, disbelieving, halfway to terrified, and his shoulders so tense mine started to hurt out of sympathy, and then he sighed and just... dropped. And I caught him and we went down together, him on top of me, and then I started laughing and he choked and choked again, and then laughed too. Then he twisted around so we were face to face, had me naked in under two minutes, him too, and he did me right there on the kitchen floor, him kneeling behind me, his arms tight and hard around me, his shoulder warm and solid under my head, and I’ve had a lot of mind-blowing sex, one way or the other, with Fraser, but that particular memory’s near the top of the Ways to Warm Ray when Fraser’s on Patrol list.

“Say it in Polish,” Fraser says, and squeezes my hand again.

“What? I - oh. What?” I feel myself blink a couple of times and flush a little.

“Eat, drink, loosen your belt,” he says. “Say it.”

He gets the biggest kick out of that. I can’t learn Inuktitut, but I can speak enough of a language that seems to consist mostly of vowels and two (okay, three, maybe) consonants to make it sound impressive.

“Jedzcie, pijcie i popuszczajcie pasa.“

He raises his glass in a toast and drains it. I watch him swallow, watch his tongue come out to lick his lips. He’s got a few lines around his eyes now, couple around his mouth, funny how they’re there now and I never saw them coming, and it’s not like they weren’t there one day and then were there the next. Mine either, got more than he does now.

“Ready for soup?” he asks, getting to his feet. “Stew?”

I lean around, look up at him, craning my neck. Smile; he smiles back and brushes my mouth with his thumb, light, soft. “Whatever.”

We’re finishing up second helpings each, and the bread’s almost gone and I finally think to ask him where the hell he got the caviar.

“I have my methods.”

“Do not even bring Two-Eyed -”

“No, Ray, it’s an old-fashioned invention: the Internet. It arrived almost a week ago. Constable Irons was rather worried.”

“He worries about everything. I can’t believe you -” I stop, my voice’s getting gruff, and I down another shot of vodka instead. He glances at me, frowns a little, has a wrinkle there too now in between his eyes, and gets up, shifts over, and slides next to me on the bench, pushing me down a little to make room. He puts his hand in mine and rubs his thumb back and forth across my knuckles.

“It seems like yesterday,” he says, so quiet I almost can’t hear him. Under the table Dief whines and then exhales, a satisfied sound: he had a bowl of stew and a plate of cabbage.

“Yeah,” I say, quiet too, not looking at him. Fraser. Buddy. You have a good time up there in those Northwest Areas? And here I am in those Areas, eleven years down the road, ten to the day we stood and watched the sun rise over the mountains, my hand in his just like now. Karmic chi love thing, oh yeah. I’m all over that.

“Like something off a Christmas tree,” he whispers, and turns his head, buries his face in my hair, knocking my glasses cockeyed. “Duets, indeed.”

“You called me Ray,” I say, under my breath, pushing my glasses back up on my nose.

“So I did,” he says into my hair, still quiet.

“You called me Ray before the docks. You called me that in Greta’s place.”

“So I did,” he says again, a little louder, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “I was unhinged.”

“Was?”

“You could have had plastic surgery.”

“Freak.”

He sighs and then shifts so he’s straddling the bench, turns me around and pulls me against him, my back to his front, and kisses my neck. “Definitely unhinged.”

“Yeah, well, it has been weird but it’s been a pleasure.”

He hugs me so tight I hear a rib creak. “Likewise,” he says into my neck, kind of husky. “You don’t have a big hat. Are you sure you’re Canadian?”

“I don’t lick electrical sockets either.” Oops, wrong-wrong-right thing to say, that ‘L’ word. He chuckles into my neck and pushes his pelvis up against me. I let my head fall back so I can see him and he runs his hands down my stomach, straight down, down…

“You gonna touch my inner thigh or calf?”

“Oh, yeah,” he says against my skin. “All over.” He pops the button on my fly, one-handed, and at the same time I lean up to kiss him he leans down to kiss me. He grins big against my mouth when he burrows down inside my pants a few seconds later and the kiss goes ballistic right about then.

“Upstairs,” I say after three breathless minutes.

He takes my steamed-up glasses off, folds them up, puts them down. “I’ve always wanted to break in the kitchen table,” he says, the devil in his eyes. Well. Live and learn. What the hell.

*

I lift my head, shift the pillow a little under Fraser’s arm. He murmurs something, pulls me in closer. Not really asleep, not really awake, we’re both just zoning. Kitchen table was interesting, tried it a couple of ways, but the way he wanted, I wanted, we ended up in bed after all, our loads locked in spite of a near miss (near splatter) on the landing. Christ, his tongue ought to be outlawed.

Nice thing about ten years with Fraser, well, one of the nice things, is we got it down. We can fuck for five minutes or twenty-five minutes when the mood hits, and it hit tonight. He sucked me, I sucked him, fucked him, and then he fucked me, grand finale, Jesus, with him all backed up against the headboard and piled pillows, me on top, his dick long and hard and perfect inside me, and Christ, it felt like yesterday, felt like five years ago, felt like tomorrow. This is the part I keep waiting for to be over, this roller coaster ride in my stomach, and it keeps going, Space Mountain Mountie-style, and it’s finally starting to sink into my damaged but not stupid head that not only are we for keeps, which I knew, but the whole enchilada’s for keeps too.

He leans up on an elbow and turns my face. He stares at me for a long twenty seconds or so and then leans into kiss me, way soft, way sweet, and I tell him, say it right into his mouth, breathing the words in, and he inhales and then breathes out, moves his mouth around to my ear. He says it, quiet, back to me and kisses me again. Partner. Friend.

“Moon’s out,” I say after a while. Dreamcatcher in the window moves a little, like it’s trying to get his attention.

“Mmm,” he says into my neck, tries to pull me closer, which is pretty much impossible but it’s the thought that counts.

“Stopped snowing,” I say after a few more minutes.

“Mmmhmm.”

“Toboggan’s on the porch.”

Dief, over on the rug by the fireplace, lifts his head up and looks at us and moans.

“Hmmm.”

“We got vodka left.”

He laughs at that, hugs me, and then sighs from his toes. “It was my idea, wasn’t it.”

“‘Fraid so.”

“It’s late. It’s bed time.”

“It’s Friday night.”

“I haven’t got any clean socks.”

“You can borrow some of mine.”

He yawns, loud, ostentatious.

“Routine’s the silent killer, Fraser.”

“I thought that was heart disease.”

“Nah, they changed that.”

“When?”

“You were on patrol.”

“Ah.”

The snow’s a fresh, deep powder. We think about the skis for a second but decide that’s a little counterproductive, what with the sled and all. Dief whines at us from the porch and I turn and look at him. Fraser opens his mouth but before he says anything Dief hops sideways down the steps and jumps onto the toboggan. Fraser looks at me; I look at him. We roll our eyes and I take the other side of the rope.

“You pay and you pay and you pay,” Fraser mutters. A whine that can only be called smug floats up into the crisp air behind us. Wood smoke’s smelling so good and the moon is bright white light reflecting off the snow, just past full and riding high in the sky.

Never thought I’d ever get warm in this place. The quest was a good break in but that damned tent was warm and I had Fraser 24-7 when it stormed and stuff and I don’t remember the cold. Jesus, I spent my first winter up here in fourteen layers huddled by the stove. Fraser said it was that seasonal afflictive disorder, affective, the light one, not enough daylight. I think I was just damn cold. I made it all the way, though, didn’t break, even though he told me to go to Chicago for Christmas, see my parents. Chicago weather’s not much better than the Territories so I gritted my teeth, got a ham radio licence, and jumped Fraser’s bones every damn time he stuck his nose in the door. Discovered the miracle of wool socks and full-spectrum light bulbs, and learned to snowshoe but good and after that it was clear sailing. Sledding. Best part of that winter was when Fraser started coming home a little early every night, a little early and a lot hard. Between that and the nooners, I was good to go.

We picked up a used snowmobile the next year - Fraser didn’t want to move far enough out of town to have a sled team, and I branched out from helping Johnny at the garage fix trucks to helping Pierre fix snowmobiles. He’s tight with Judy at the airfield and she and me did some barter for flying lessons that summer.

Now look at me - I got this down, I’m cold but not cold, wind feels good, air smells good, nothing smells better than this, and pretty soon I’m going to be snugged up between Fraser and Dief on a long damn toboggan ride all the way to the lake. Lake’s not safe for skating now, they say, but it’ll be pretty tonight anyhow. Has to be, because the haul back up the hill’s not fun, not with a wolf to go on with, so you have to have something to look at, think about.

Of course, there’s always Fraser. I look at him now. He’s got his mouth buried in his scarf and he’s puffing warm steam into the air through his nose - you don’t breathe through your mouth out here unless you have to, condensation freezes in deep winter, blocks up the scarf, it’s pretty yucky. He sees me looking, looks at me sideways, and I wink at him.

We make the top of the hill in about twenty minutes, pass the vodka back and forth. There are a couple of sleds on their way back up but not a whole lot of people out here. Kind of late, kind of cold but the moonlight on the snow’s one of those Clement C. Moore moments. I put the flask back in my coat and climb on the toboggan, snug Dief up tight against my chest. He whines but he doesn’t pull away. Fraser climbs on behind, arms around me tight, and I lean back, try to smell him through the cold air. He squeezes me, grabs the rope - just to hold it, no steering here, we have to lean into that curve at the bottom or we go straight into the trees and Dief gets pissed and won’t ride with us any more - and off we go.

Wind whistles, sharp and cold, shading into bitter as we pick up speed. I lean back, Dief leans with me, and Fraser’s arms tighten. It’s the best damn ride, long long hill. We’re halfway down and we have to start leaning right, Fraser squeezes my arm a little, and we shift together, instinct and logic in one smooth move, and we get around the curve, miss the trees by a long shot and shoot that last bit right down to the field by the lake. Second best part is tumbling off at the bottom in the snow, a big pile of me and Fraser and a Dief paw here and there. Fraser pulls his muffler off his face one-handed, seals our lips together a half-breath later and, oh God, yeah, smell of snow, wood smoke, and Fraser, and the feel of Fraser’s mouth on mine, taste of his tongue licking mine, perfect night.

It’s a long haul back up the hill, deserted now. Ought to be cold but I’m sweating halfway up, warm/cold tingles, all those confused nerves blowing hot and cold. Fraser grunts and hefts and I move with him, in step.

“Against all the laws of gravity that he gets heavier the closer we get to the top,” I say. Behind us, Dief grumbles contemptuously. Yeah, if he had a hip replacement he’d have to walk up the hill, the whole damned thing’s all about sledding, I get it now.

Top of the hill, whoof, and we both collapse into the snow. Fraser reaches for the flask almost before I get it out, takes a mouth of snow like I taught him and then a swig. No sound for a while then, just our breathing, slowing down, sounds fading and smoothing out like our breath frosting away in the air.

Fraser turns his head, nods at the horizon. “Lights tonight,” he says. “Not very active but there was a flash of green.” As soon as the words are out of his mouth, a veil of green shading into yellow at the bottom shimmers across the sky.

I reach for his leg and squeeze it; he covers my mitten with his. I scoop a mouthful of snow with my other mitten and take another swallow of vodka, taste the ice and snow and then vodka cutting through it like the colour cutting through the night sky, changing all of it into more than it was before. Vodka burns my throat, stings my eyelids, a sharp evanescent bite, smoothing away into snow again. The curtain of colour fades away, little shivery shimmer at the end. Reality fades into illusion pretty fast. Fraser’s leg under my hand is still there, rock steady and warm even through the mitten.

He shifts a little, digs a hand inside his pocket, pulls out a tube of Vaseline. He offers it to me first, puts some on his own mouth after I’m done, shoves it back in his pocket.

Few more breaths fade away in the cold air before he says, “Shall we?”

“Bring it on, I’m good.”

Pile on the toboggan again. Dief goes down on his chest this time so I stretch my legs out around him, brace my feet against the curved front to steady him. Fraser gives us a start and thuds on behind.

I close my eyes going down, cold cold wind, long long slide, so much fucking snow, just like that first ride we ever took, crazy Fraser, right down the side of that mountain and into the Mountie camp. Feels like yesterday, yeah, Fraser, I’m all over that. Here we are, back where we started, all over again. The memories are racing past as fast as the wind: that look on his face when he said “Homesick,” that look on his face when he stood up in the middle of that freaking ice field, that look on his face on the top of that mountain he dragged us up . . . that look on his face when I said I’d go on his quest. Our quest.

His body tenses and I feel it, lean into the curve with him before he even squeezes my arm. “Home stretch,” he says, warm breath in my ear. “Open your eyes, Ray.”

I open my eyes in time to see another curtain of colour, dancing on the snow. Fraser’s got his arms wrapped around me tight, solid and warm, and we’re flying in the wind, almost as fast as the colours shimmer across the sky, almost like we could go right into them if we go fast enough.

“Second or third star to the right?” Fraser says, still in that low voice right up against the side of my head.

“That one up there.” I lift my hand and point.

Sled’s slowing down; ride levels out a little at the bottom, in the field. Fraser shifts, drops his heels for a second to brake us, puts them back on the sled, and we glide to a silent stop, absolute stillness, so quiet I think I can hear his heartbeat. I can feel it, anyway, same difference, maybe even better.

We watch the lights fade. Dief sits up on the sled and for once doesn’t make a smart-ass moan, just looks up at the sky with us.

“Walking in the sky,” Fraser whispers, carries just past my ear.

“Sledding beats walking any day.” I try to match his whisper but my voice’s gone all cracked again.

“Ready for more?” he says, and there’s a funny note in his voice.

I twist a little, squint at him. He’s got the damnedest eyes, grey-blue, smart as a whip and deeper than night, and tonight they’re really bright. While I’m looking at him the lights start up again, shining off the snow, all around us, under us, like we really are in the sky.

“Freak,” I say and shove him with my shoulder. “Let’s fly.”

All you hear is time stand still in travel
Feel such peace and absolute stillness still
That doesn't end but slowly drifts into sleep
The stars are the greatest thing you've ever seen
And they're there for you
For you alone you are the everything

"You Are the Everything," Green, REM