It's been coming for a while. It's not like it crept up on him or anything. He's watched it grow steadily closer on the Calvin and Hobbes calendar that his Mom bought him for Christmas. And it was at Christmas that he'd decided that February 14th was the day. THE day. Now that it's here, he thinks he must have had some kind of stroke or something - Fraser would say he'd lost all his marbles and the bag with the hole in it.

Dief, who'd chosen to come along when he said he'd be going into the store, makes a whimsical growl that sounds a lot like sarcasm.

"Can it, dog-breath," Ray mutters to him, glancing down at a distinctly amused looking wolf. "You're in a hurry, go pay for your own Jujubes."

Dief snorts and pointedly takes a seat.

There are ones with animals on. Fraser likes animals - maybe that would be cool. There's three different penguin pictures, but Ray's pretty sure that he heard Fraser tell someone that penguins do not live at the North Pole, so that's a bust. There's none with polar bears. Or moose. Or beavers. And Ray wouldn't know a musk ox if he saw one, so no joy there.

Maybe a funny one would be good. Nothing crude though. Ray flicks through the humorous cards and rolls his eyes. Lame. Lame. Funny, but risqué. Lame. Doesn't get that one. Lame.

Well that leaves cartoon bunnies, fat kids with wings, artsy-fartsy black-and-white photos or ones with poems on. "Roses are red, Mounties are too, let's go to bed, I've got something for you."

Fuck this. Ray wipes his hands over his face and stares at the wolf - all that red and pink is making him feel nauseous.

He was stupid to give himself a deadline - and it's not like it was written in stone or anything. But this has gone on long enough. He's pathetic. He's like a lovesick teen, trying to get the attention of the object of his obsession. He's always available when Fraser asks him to do something: he's showing off whenever he can (although Fraser can do almost everything better than him with the exception of lying, swearing and dancing): he gets a warm dose of the fuzzies whenever Fraser smiles at him. Pathetic.

And Ray has a sneaking suspicion that he was hoping his crush would have faded by now. He'd given himself until Independence Day. Then his birthday. Then Thanksgiving, then Fraser's birthday, then Christmas. When he'd finally had to face up to it - wandering around the office party with Fraser's hat on his head, how he undoubtedly had the hots for his partner and it wasn't just a lack of other options or a bad lo-mein - he'd given himself a month and a half to finally put a lid on it or to do something about it and stop acting like a fucking head-case. Valentine's Day. Most romantic day of the year. Put up or shut up.

So here he is. Eight p.m. on February 14th. Standing in front of a seriously depleted card rack in a Southside mini-mart with an amused, deaf, half-wolf as an audience, trying to find a card that says, "Hey, I think I love you and your freakish ways. So, you like guys or what?" Bet Hallmark hasn't done that one yet.

It never used to be this hard.

Ray turns away from the cards and comes face to face with several buckets of flowers. Nature. Fraser's an outdoorsy sort of guy. But it's overpriced, tired-looking roses, bargain mixed bunches wrapped in heart-covered cellophane with something that looks like spray-painted lawn clippings. No lichen. No moss.

Next to the flowers is a temporary stand of seasonal items. Pink candy. Sparkly, red marshmallows. Ray picks up the Valentine's Peeps and wonders how Fraser feels about fat-free but sugar-laden candies. Helium-filled heart balloons. Fluffy, pink handcuffs. Valentine's Pez dispensers. Bubble bath. Fuzzy teddies with "I 'heart' you" sweaters. Chocolates. The whole damn store is mocking him. Ray drops the Peeps, grabs a bag of chips, a bottle of water for Fraser and a can of soda for himself, and stamps over to the counter.

"Anything else?" the guy asks with slight leer. He leans to one side so Ray can see the shelf where they keep the condoms and the lube. Ray wants to say, "Yeah, your latest Health Department Certificate so I can see where your wolf dispensation is," but he just shakes his head and mutters, "Just whatever he wants." He nods in Dief's direction and the guy rings up the stuff on the till.

Ray pays him and hits the street. Fraser has gotten bored of waiting for him and is standing beside the goat, passing the time with some old guy sitting outside his front door. Fraser's telling some 'amusing' anecdote; you can tell because he's at parade rest and the old guy is frowning and muttering at him in something that definitely isn't English, only Fraser's in full flow and nothing short of a spontaneous thermonuclear explosion is going to derail him.

"Fraser! Yo! Fraser." Ray bangs on the roof of the goat and Fraser turns to him, a slight smile on his face.

"Hello, Ray. I was just talking to..."

The old guy has seen his opportunity, and the door bangs shut behind him with a mood-shattering finality.

"Ah!' Fraser says, unoffended. He takes a deep, cleansing breath and cranks his smile up a notch. "Shall we?"

Fraser puts the seat forward for Dief while Ray climbs in, starting the engine before Fraser has time to sit down.

"Is everything all right, Ray?" Fraser asks as Ray pulls away from the kerb more sharply than he needs to.

"Yeah, peachy," Ray says with a sigh.

Dief makes a grumbling noise from the back seat.

Fraser turns to look at him sharply, almost dislodging the Stetson.

"What's furface say?"

"Nothing that bears repeating, Ray," Fraser says in a stern voice.

But the wolf is unrepentant and gives a series of yips and a rowl.

"Diefenbaker, your misinformed speculations are not only unwelcome, but positively slanderous. It would behove you to..."

Ray glances into the rearview mirror and meets the challenging gaze of the half-wolf who has something red and shiny in his teeth. No. He wouldn't. Even Dief wouldn't stoop so low as to...

Dief sticks his muzzle between the seats and drops the packet of Peeps on Fraser's lap.

Fraser looks down at them as if he's expecting them to explode at any given moment.

Dief snuffs, yawns and turns around to lie down, pointedly turning his back on them.

Ray drives to the next set of lights and stops. He watches the traffic. He watches the pedestrians. He watches his fingers tap out an SOS on his steering wheel.

"I'm never sure how well Dief comprehends human interactions, Ray," Fraser says, running a cautious finger over the plastic-wrapped marshmallows.

"Well, he's a wolf, so you can't really expect him to understand much," Ray says as lightly as he can, watching the light. "C'mon. C'mon."

"Nevertheless his observations have proved startlingly insightful in the past."

Green. Finally. Ray pulls away and turns left toward the Consulate.

"Yeah?" Ray says in his most discouraging voice. He takes a right, avoiding slow-moving traffic and more time to talk.

"And wolves have surprisingly sophisticated interpersonal relationships, which might give him a certain understanding of..."

"Here we are," Ray says heartily, turning into Fraser's street and flooring it for the last three hundred yards.

Ray jerks to a stop and finally looks across at Fraser. His eyes are cautious and it's a second before he looks away and picks up his hat. He nods to himself.

"Thank you, Ray," he says quietly, getting out of the car and leaving the Peeps on the dash. He puts the seat forward and the wolf stops pretending to be asleep and jumps out. Fraser closes the door and leans down to the open window. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Ray can't believe that a year of wanting and dreaming and hoping has come to this. It ends here. He had his chance, courtesy of the wolf, and he botched it.

"Yeah, see you tomorrow, Frase," he echoes hollowly, hoping he isn't going to snivel right there.

Dief bounds up the steps to the Consulate, then turns and bounds back down, knocks Fraser's hat out of his hand and starts to attack it on the sidewalk, right underneath the Maple Leaf, in behaviour so uncharacteristic, so un-Canadian that Fraser is momentarily at a loss for words.

"Diefenbaker!" he shouts finally. But the wolf has moved on, leaving the savaged Stetson on the ground. Instead he jumps up at the goat, probably scratching the paintwork to hell, and sticks his head in through the open window. As Fraser comes to grab him, Dief drops a piece of paper onto the passenger seat.

Fraser is chewing Dief out in front of God and Canada, questioning his sanity and his patriotism, but Ray's not really paying attention. He can see that what Dief has brought him is a photograph. As he unfolds it, Ray can see that it's a picture of himself in the Stetson at the Christmas party, smiling, with the hat too far back on his head to look anything but dorky.

And Fraser's been carrying this around? In the band of his hat along with his funny money?

Ray looks up directly into Fraser's shocked face at the window.

"I'm terribly sorry, I don't know what possessed him," Fraser says reaching across to take the picture, but Ray holds it closer and Fraser's hand closes on thin air.

"What's this?" Ray asks more sharply than he'd intended.

"What's that?" Fraser retorts in kind, gesturing at the Peeps.

Dief barks a long and complicated sequence, which makes Fraser wince.

"He calling us a couple of morons?" Ray asks.

"I wish I could answer in the affirmative, Ray. Sadly it's nothing quite so polite," Fraser replies.

Having said his piece, Diefenbaker turns and trots off down the street, his tail waving proudly and a disgruntled primness to his step.

"So?" Ray prompts when the wolf disappears around the corner. He waves the photo under Fraser's nose.

"After you," Fraser grates, picking up the marshmallows from the dash.

"Right, well... they're fat-free, and I thought that.... When did you get this?"

"December, and you're changing the subject."

"Which was?"

"When you were going to tell me you were... that you're...?" Fraser seems unable to say it, and between them and the words that they find it so hard to say, they could be there all night, and still be no further on when the sun came up. So Ray makes it easy for him, leans over and stops his lips with a kiss.

Instead of leaning away and being scandalised, Fraser softens his mouth and kisses Ray back.

When they pull apart Fraser looks as wary as Ray feels. A flicker of recognition passes between them and Ray smiles. Fraser looks up and down the dark street, then opens the door again and gets in.

"I guess we owe the furball," Ray murmurs, turning the key in the ignition. He can't believe it was that easy - and that he could have been driving Fraser home since at least December.

"He'll be unbearably smug for days; weeks possibly."

"Maybe we should get him something?"

"Like what, Ray?" Fraser asks, regarding the battered remains of his hat sadly.

Ray pulls out and heads for the apartment. "I dunno. Kennel cough shots?"

Ray catches the small smile on Fraser's face, then adds, "And a trip out of the city this weekend? Fresh air? Wildlife to chase? Nobody else for miles and miles?"

Fraser's smile becomes a laugh. "Perfect, Ray."

Your email:

Comment: