It didn't happen the way I expected. Not that I'd expected it, exactly, but if I had, I wouldn't have expected it the way it went down. The way we went down. The way he went down.
That, I'd had a thought or two about. Plenty. The good kind of going down. The kind where I'd be sitting on my couch with my legs spread open, all dressed, my boots still on, and he'd be kneeling on the floor unbuttoning my fly. The kind where I'd be lying on my back on the bed, naked and half-asleep and twisted up in the blankets, and he'd untangle the sheet like he was unwrapping a present, licking his lips. The kind where I'd be leaning against the wall, and he'd be braced over me with one arm, the other hand skirting my ribs to slip two fingers inside my jeans.
I'd thought about it six ways from Sunday. I'd thought about it every way I could think of.
I'd thought about the bad kind of going down, too. The kind where I'd be frozen, watching him take a bullet in the thigh, the arm, the hip, the chest. The kind where he'd bite his lip to keep from screaming, he'd crumple to the ground, he'd struggle to tie a bandanna around the wound to slow the bleeding, and I'd ride with him in the ambulance to the hospital and park myself in one of those ass-numbing plastic waiting-room chairs, waiting to know if he'd be okay.
Lying in bed before I fell asleep I'd think about my life like it was a detective movie. It made me feel like less of a loser, alone, divorced, with only the turtle to talk to. I'd see pan shots of Chicago streets at night, gutters and grates steaming like there was something living down there, and I'd hear the voiceover. "Detective Ray Kowalski never expected the way it went down..." And that was where the fantasies would kick in. The good ones, if I was lucky. The bad ones, if I wasn't.
And in the light of day I knew the fantasies behind door number one weren't gonna happen without some work, like convincing Fraser he wasn't actually straight. And the fantasies behind door number two, well, shit, maybe I'd get lucky and the fact that I'd imagined them would keep them away.
But what I never expected, what never happened in any of the fantasies or voiceovers or movie scenes, was anything as stupid and ordinary as tripping over a broken grate and spraining my ankle. Having Fraser drive me to the E-R, and limping out with crutches and a prescription for painkillers. Going home and wrapping myself in the afghan Stella's grandma knitted when we got married and which I never gave back when we split.
Feeling sorry for myself until I heard the polite knock at the door which could only be Fraser. Who had brought Dief and a rented movie and some takeout, and who if he noticed how pathetically grateful I was for the company, was nice enough not to say.
It was like a normal night, for a while. We ate dinner in front of the TV, and I asked Fraser to get me a beer even though I knew he wouldn't ("Given the Percocet, Ray, I don't think that's advisable,"), and we watched the movie, which was pretty good. There's this scene near the end where Mac gets drunk and kind of weepy and tells Gordon all the things he never said when he was sober. Like how he wishes he could trade lives with the guy, stay in Scotland and run the inn and marry the guy's wife, who's named Stella, of all things, and Gordon could go back to Houston and have the apartment and the Porsche and the stereo.
I felt kind of like Mac, just then. I wanted to be Gordon, but I didn't want Stella, not mine, not his. I wanted to be Gordon and Fraser to be Stella and the two of us to dig each other so much all we could think of wanting for Christmas would be a new mattress because we were wearing the old one out already.
And instead I was me, and when Fraser and Dief went home I'd be the nobody with the turtle again, only now I'd be the nobody with the turtle and the crutches.
The tape was rewinding when Fraser cleared his throat.
"Every time I watch this movie, I find myself thinking about things I wish I had...said differently. Or timed differently, perhaps."
The first thing I thought was, should've figured he'd seen this one a few times before. The second thing I thought was, he's about to say something important.
My own private voiceover picked up again in my head. "Ray didn't see it coming, the day that everything changed." Please, please, don't let this be bad, whatever it is.
"Yeah?" I tried to sound encouraging. And like I wasn't nervous about whatever was about to come out of his mouth.
He still had a paper towel in his lap from dinner and he was fiddling with it between his fingers. He didn't say anything else.
Okay, so maybe some direct pushing was in order. "Like what?"
Fraser darted a glance in my direction. "Well, shortly before my last trip home, I told your —" Fraser paused. "Well, I told the first Ray Vecchio, that I...wasn't as heterosexual as he'd probably been assuming."
Holy shit. If I'd been Dief, my ears would've perked up. Not straight? Did he just say, 'not straight'?
"He assured me that it wouldn't come between us, wouldn't...diminish our friendship." He was twisting the paper towel to shreds and didn't seem to notice. "I left the next morning. When I came back, he was gone."
Oh. Jeez. No wonder he'd been so shellshocked to find me instead of the Vecchio he was expecting. "That must've been rough," I offered, still reeling a little.
"It was." Quietly.
There was a pause while I tried to figure out how to answer. None of the scenarios I'd imagined had gone this way. The way I pictured it, I was always trying to talk him into it. Suddenly we'd leapfrogged right over the whole "c'mon, Fraser, give guys a try" conversation.
After a few minutes I just opened my mouth and let the words out. "You won't hold it against me that I'm not exactly straight either, right?"
Fraser stopped with the paper-shredding, looking slightly startled, either at my statement or at the wrecked napkin in his hands. "Hm? No, no, of course not." It was his turn to chew on a response. "Is your...bisexuality...kinetic, or potential?"
He was obviously choosing words very carefully, which didn't change the fact that I didn't know what the hell he ... oh. Oh. "Uh, potential, I guess. Although I'd like it to be more kinetic."
I was going for suggestive, somewhere between a come-on and a leer, but Fraser looked right at me and my breath stopped. We'd turned out the lamps to see the movie better, and the light from the hall lit one side of his face. God, he was hot. And his eyes... Like Mac looking at Gordon and Stella, like a kid looking at somebody else's Christmas presents.
"There's someone in particular you're interested in." He translated what I'd just said, his voice low.
I nodded.
He waited.
I took a deep breath and jumped. "Fraser. Isn't it obvious?"
An instant of freefall, as terrifying as any leap I've ever taken.
And then he smiled and I swear to God it lit the room. "Now that you mention it, I suppose it is. But I'd still like to hear you say it."
We were both grinning now, like idiots, like idiots who've just stumbled on the best minute of their lives. Like idiots who know they're about to get laid. Like idiots who maybe never figured this would go down the way it just did.
I shrugged a little, as suavely as I could. "It's you."
I never expected him to kneel on the floor next to the couch, being careful not to bump my foot where it was propped up on a pair of pillows, and lean in to kiss me like that, like he was finally giving in to a world of longing.
Never expected he'd help me limp down the hall to my own bedroom, would help me undress, would strip off his own clothes while I lay there naked, my body throbbing in at least two places, one of which felt really fucking good.
Felt even better when he slid alongside, made the blackness behind my eyelids sparkle with another one of those kisses, and took my dick in a firm hand to suck just at the very tip.
I came in his mouth, he came rubbing against my hip, and as I drifted off to sleep the detective-movie voiceover was, thank God, silent.
No use in guessing, now I finally knew how things had gone down.
The End