When he walked into the conference room, the facial expressions of his new colleagues made it abundantly clear that he was an ill-favored compromise, one which made nobody completely happy.

At the head of the table was the English department head, Professor Stella Allens, who had interviewed him in such a cursory fashion that he had felt she was only doing it for form's sake. "Please have a seat. I'd like to welcome Professor Benton Fraser to our department. As you may already know, he's taking over British literature for Professor Hannahran." Everyone's expressions turned somber – Albert Hannahran's debilitating stroke at the end of the semester had prompted the hurried search for a replacement. The urgency of the situation was probably the only reason Fraser had been hired at all – he couldn't believe that they had done such a rush job of it, with obviously unsatisfactory results.

"Where is it that you're from, again?" asked an older man, one of the senior professors. Fraser blanked on his name for a moment, but the man's exceedingly short stature made the connection for him. The question should have been a neutral one, but Damon Cahill had a wide reputation for being….what was the expression? Ah, yes – a prick.

"The University of Guelph," he said politely, willing himself to remain relaxed and professional. Even if they already despised him, he really could not afford to offend anyone. He certainly couldn't go back to Guelph – not now, not after what Victoria had done. He was going to have to make the best of what already seemed to be a terrible situation.

"Which is where, exactly?" Cahill asked, just this side of snide.

As if it were something to be ashamed of. But someone else beat him to his urge to give the man an impromptu geography lesson.

"Ontario. Canada. You know that great big thing north of our country? Has snow, beavers, decent beer?" The insolent response was delivered by a man with a riot of bleached blond, spiked hair, and a surprisingly fetching pair of black-framed glasses. He was leaning back in his chair, and smiling humorlessly.

"Beavers?" Cahill said, a mockery of polite inquiry. "How would you know, exactly?" Fraser didn't think he'd misheard the emphasis on you.

"Discovery channel," said a dark-skinned man to Fraser's left.

"All right, back to business," Allens said, and as she said that, it occurred to Fraser that she could have stepped in at any time, but had chosen not to. She began to pass out information for the first week of classes, and Fraser tried his best to quell his misgivings.

At least it seemed that he had one ally, and that was better than none at all. He caught the eye of the professor with the spiked hair and ventured a small smile of thanks. The man quirked his lips in response and lowered his eyelashes for a moment, as if to say, "Much good it will do you."

Gladys, the department's administrative assistant, showed him to his office. It was on the third floor, in a corridor isolated from the classrooms, giving it some degree of privacy. His door didn't have a nameplate on it – truthfully, he hadn't expected it with the hurry of his appointment. While Gladys was unlocking the door, he looked at the door next to his. It was a joyful riot of paper clippings taped pell-mell, selectively highlighted in a rather violent green. In the center of the door, he could just make out the nameplate – SR Kowalski.

He'd known Kowalski was here – he hadn't met the man during the interview process, but his name had come up, naturally. Winners of the Pinsent Award were pretty thin on the ground, and an asset to their departments.

"Professor Kowalski's office is up here?" he blurted out. Full professors were usually accorded offices on the first floor – what was the famed Kowalski doing up in the rafters with assistant professors and ABD students?

Gladys opened the door to reveal a decent sized office. "Hmm? As I recall, he asked for it specifically," she said. "Can't think of why, really. But I think he likes it up here."

Fraser nodded, distracted by his new academic home. There was a small window, which was a definite blessing. The desk had seen better years, but it seemed reasonably sturdy, and he was thankful for three large bookshelves. Not bad, all in all. He could certainly have done worse.

He hadn't really gotten formal introductions at the meeting this afternoon, and Gladys seemed as good a person to ask as any. "Which one is Professor Kowalski? There was a department meeting, but I didn't catch everybody's names."

Gladys patted him on the shoulder, and he wouldn't be surprised if, in the way of administrative assistants everywhere, she knew exactly the circumstances of his hire. "He's the one with his hair like that Billy boy."

"Billy Boy?" he repeated, confused.

"You know. That Billy Idol. Gets in nearly as much trouble, too, not that anyone ever says a word to him about it," she said, clucking her tongue and sounding disapproving and indulgent at the same time.

"Spiked blond hair, dark glasses?" Fraser asked, alarmed.

"That's the one," Gladys told him, handing him his office key. "You come on down later when you need office supplies, all right?"

He nodded, still dazed. SR Kowalski himself had come to Fraser's defense. Kowalski, who was published to Sunday and back, who'd won awards, whose office was right next to his own.

Kowalski, who looked and acted like an academic punk. Anarchy in the English department.

Fraser wondered if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

"You're not starving. I just fed you two hours ago, so I know very well that not only are you not starving, but you could also use a good run to work it off," Fraser said to his wolf.

Diefenbaker sniffed disdainfully at the suggestion, and lowered his head onto his outstretched paws in an all-too-familiar expression of martyrdom.

"Well, you didn't have to come with me," Fraser told him. "Nobody was forcing you. I just told you, I have to come to Chicago – I don't know where you got the idea that the streets were lined with donuts and attractive blondes."

Dief issued a mournful inquiry.

"Well." Fraser smoothed one eyebrow with his thumb. "I did meet one blond today, although I have my reservations as to whether he would meet your requirements."

Dief tilted his ears in curiosity.

"Yes, he. And no, I did not smell him, which I know was going to your next question. We weren't even formally introduced. But I found out who he is, though I could scarcely believe it. SR Kowalski – he wrote A Tangled Postmodernist Web and that book on Whitman, you remember?"

Dief had gone from bored curiosity to excitement in almost no time flat – although this was hardly surprising, since he showed a marked preference for contemporary authors, and a particular fondness for Kowalski's insightful and illuminating essays on 19th century American literature.

"Yes, I suppose his presence is one good thing about the department." Fraser pinched the bridge of his nose after staring at his mostly still-packed boxes in his new apartment. "To be perfectly honest, it hardly seems worth the effort to unpack. We'll have to move soon again, anyway."

A disbelieving huff.

"I don't mind telling you, today was really quite wretched. I don't know why they hired me. The department head and the senior professors didn't look pleased, except for Kowalski, who might have only supported me for the sake of perversity. Even the junior faculty seemed ambivalent. But what else could I have done? Where else could we have gone?" He sank to his knees and buried his hands in Dief's ruff. "We'll just have to stick it out. Publish more papers, try to cultivate more professional acquaintances. Maybe in a year we can try again. British Columbia, perhaps."

Dief's sudden sneeze made his opinion of Vancouver and surrounding environs perfectly clear.

"Be that as it may, it is on the other side of the country. As far away from Guelph as we can get. Though I think Chicago will serve much the same purpose for now." Or at least he hoped. He knew that, at some point, it was going to stop hurting so much. He clung to that belief firmly, although it made little or no difference to how heartbroken he felt right now.

Diefenbaker nosed his cheek sympathetically, and Fraser pondered the strange fate of having a deaf half-wolf for one's best – and only – friend.

"Okay, if you're not here for 19th century American Lit, now's your chance to escape. Okay? Good. Let's get this show on the road. Um, I have a class list, but we'll assume for the first two classes that it's totally wrong, 'cause let's face it – it usually is. I'll start taking attendance after that."

A wordless groan sounded somewhere in the classroom, and Fraser had to repress a smile. He stopped at the back door, just intending to watch for a moment.

"Hey, department policy, people. Copies of the syllabus are going around," the professor was saying, looking down and shuffling things around on his podium. Fraser could see neatly spiked blond hair and the rims of thick-framed black glasses. "So, hi everybody, welcome back to a few people – Sarah, Trevor, and – oh god, Greg, are you back for more?"

"We're committing academic stalking," a girl said, presumably the aforementioned Sarah.

"Academic stalking," Kowalski said, snorting. "That's cute, in a vaguely creepy way. Does that mean I can get a restraining order?"

"Maybe against Greg," one young man said, hooking a thumb at the student next to him. Greg was smiling good-naturedly, though, so Fraser thought it was safe to assume that this was more of a running gag than any real maliciousness.

"I'll take it under consideration. Okay, right – first things first – I'm Professor Kowalski, and you've got my contact info at the top of the syllabus. Office hours, blah blah blah, I'm going to assume you can read or at least fake it. Take a look at the books for this class – wipe that smirk off your face, Trevor – everything's available from Sandor's."

"Sandor's?" someone said, with a note of complaint.

Kowalski pushed his glasses down his nose a bit and glared, his hand gripping the podium as though he might just vault it and stalk over to whomever said that. "Yes, Sandor's, because I refuse to endorse Satan in this class. Do your part, help out the independent bookstore, score one for the little guy, okay? I know, it's a whole extra ten minutes' walk away, but it's that or support the empire of evil, you got me? And the only cool empire was in Star Wars, so let's just keep things in perspective."

The class tittered, and Fraser grinned. He didn't know what he'd expected the man to be like back when he read his work back at Guelph, but he hadn't expected this volatile whirlwind, who looked like he was going to start wrestling his podium any minute now. Also, Fraser approved of his support for independent businesses – that sort of civic-mindedness never failed to win his good favor.

"Okay, you're freaking me out – come in or don't, but quit hanging around in the doorway," Kowalski said, and Fraser realized with a start that Kowalski was speaking to him.

"Terribly sorry," he said, clearing his throat. He edged in and took a seat in the back row.

"The lurking guy is Professor Fraser, who just joined the department. He's teaching Brit Lit this quarter, so you guys will probably see him around."

Fraser smiled weakly as most of the female contingent of the classroom continued to stare at him longer than was strictly necessary.

"Hey, he's a dish, I know, eyes up front." The class laughed and Fraser felt his ears burn. Kowalski gave him a small apologetic smile, and he found himself more or less forgiving the man in a heartbeat.

"Where were we? Oh, right. So, three exam papers, and then a final research paper, more details on that later."

"Three?" someone said plaintively.

"Yes, three. You don't like it, Post-colonial Irish Lit is just down the hall – although, that shit makes me suicidal, so I can't really recommend it."

More laughter. Professor Kowalski was clearly a big hit – Fraser couldn't believe the enrollment he had for his class.

"Okay, okay – English majors, show of hands. Right. English groupies? Put your hand up, Greg." Laughter again. This wasn't an English class – this was stand-up comedy, with tuition as an admission fee. No wonder he was so popular.

Fraser watched Kowalski skillfully herd his students through an introductory class. He left a few minutes before the bell rang, returning the nod Kowalski gave him on his way out. He could only hope that some of the class's good humor would rub off on him – God knew he could use it.

After having survived his first class of the semester, a British literature survey course, he congratulated himself on a job decently done. He didn't think he'd ever achieve Kowalski's popularity, but the man was clearly a mutant of some kind. A talented scholar and teacher – clearly not from the same gene pool as the rest of them.

He had just reached the corridor on the third floor when Kowalski's door flew open, releasing a puff of smoke into the hall. Alarmed, he dropped the box of books he'd been carrying and raced forward.

He skidded to a stop outside the door, but instead of encountering fire, he saw Kowalski sitting in a desk chair, his motorcycle boot-clad feet resting on his desk, and a cigarette dangling out of his mouth. A perplexed-looking student with a shock of red hair was standing, obviously preparing to leave. Fraser stared at them for a minute, before his eyes darted to the large "No Smoking" sign posted just outside Kowalski's door.

"Terribly sorry," he said, wincing at the crack in his voice. "I thought – well, sorry to disturb you." He backed away quickly and went to retrieve his books from where they'd spilled onto the floor.

Face still warm from embarrassment, he unlocked his office door, and hauled the box to his desk. Ah, excellent. IT had been by, so there was now a computer sitting on his desk, accompanied by what he presumed to be login instructions and a user's guide.

"What's with you and doorways, anyway?" Kowalski's voice startled him as he was alphabetizing the current load of books.

"I beg your pardon?" he asked.

"That's twice today I've seen you standing in a doorway. Makes me think of Ang Lee, Sense & Sensibility. All the doorway shots, people trapped in the frame." Kowalski was leaning against the doorframe himself. The cigarette was gone, but with his untucked dress shirt and rolled up sleeves, he looked more like a schoolboy playing hooky than a renowned scholar.

"An excellent film," Fraser said, when he found his voice again. Was he doomed to forever feel flustered by this man's presence? "Emma Thompson's screenplay was really quite incredible – I have a copy of it. Somewhere," he said, realizing that he still had many more boxes of books to bring up. The curse of a bibliophile was a bad back.

"We haven't been introduced," Kowalski said, a smile flirting with the corners of his lips.

"I know who you are," Fraser said. "Seeing as I haven't been living under a rock." He was fairly shocked that he'd just said that – good lord, where was his internal censor when he needed it?

Kowalski pushed off the doorframe and walked forward. "Nah, Guelph doesn't look much like a heap of rocks, at least not from the pretty pictures on the website." He was smiling in truth now, and it felt like the first honest smile that Fraser had received since he'd arrived in Chicago.

"What do I call you? I mean, do you go by 'SR'?" Fraser said, curiosity overcoming anxiety momentarily.

"Nah, that's just what I publish under. You can call me Ray."

"What does the 'S' stand for?"

Ray just looked steadily at him, and it didn't take Fraser long to think of reasons why a man with the last name "Kowalski" would publish under his initials.

"Oh no. Please tell me your parents didn't –"

"They did," Ray said grimly. "Tennessee fucking Williams. I may never forgive him." He narrowed his eyes with suspicion. "I hope we can call a moratorium on any jokes about it right now."

"Understood," Fraser said, somehow managing to keep a straight face.

"You got more of those?" Ray asked, nodding at the box of books on his desk.

Fraser rubbed one thumb over his eyebrow. "Unfortunately, yes. I've given some thought to becoming a Buddhist monk and giving up all my possessions, but I think that's just the international relocation talking."

Ray surprised him with a laugh. "I hear you, buddy. Everybody's got that point where they would just rather have nothing than haul their shit around again. How about I give you a hand?"

"I really couldn't ask you to –"

"You gonna be difficult about this? I wouldn't have offered if I didn't want to. Look, I help you move your books, and then maybe you and me can get something to eat together. You can tell me how a Canadian ends up dirty, smelly Chicago."

"And a wolf," Fraser amended, trying not to sound like he couldn't quite breathe. "Well, half-wolf, actually."

Ray slung an arm around Fraser's shoulders. "That, my friend, sounds like a story. So, books, you, me, how about Greek?"

"Greek?" Fraser repeated blankly, totally unsettled by the warm weight of Ray's arm.

"I know this great little place, just a couple of blocks from here," Ray said. "So what do you say?"

"I'd love to," Fraser said honestly.

"I first came to Chicago on the trail of documentation referencing letters that Wyndham Lewis wrote, and for reasons that, well, don't bear exploring at this juncture, I was persuaded to apply for a position."

Ray meditatively chewed a bite of lamb. "This was, what? October?"

Fraser nodded.

"Make sense. Albert wasn't doing so hot most of the last semester, but October was rough for him. The stroke happened in early November – I was pissed as hell that the doctors couldn't do more for him, what with him being in and out since August, you know?" Ray's eyes were narrowed in a display of protective outrage, but there was something tender to the set of his mouth.

"He was a friend?" Fraser asked softly.

"Yeah. We used to play chess sometimes, out on the quad. I didn't win so often, but he was a good teacher. Good person. Stella really had to scramble to find a replacement – Albert's been doing his thing for so long that there really wasn't much give in the schedule." Ray took a noisy sip of his soda. "Which brings us to you. Why'd you leave not-a-pile-of-rocks Guelph?"

Fraser had been practicing this answer in his head for a month now, and it came out smoothly. "I'm working on my second book, and many of the resources I need are available here, and at Notre Dame."

He watched Ray for any sign of suspicion or disbelief, but there was none.

"Second, huh? Ought to be tenured by now."

It was a perfectly neutral remark, a statement of fact, but Fraser flinched. "I arrived in academia by a slightly circuitous route…I finished my undergraduate studies at the University of Regina, but went home afterwards to take care of my grandmother, who had become quite ill."

Ray stilled. "Oh. I'm, um, sorry to hear that." And Fraser could tell that he was genuinely sorry, and not a little embarrassed.

Fraser shook his head. "No, it's all right. I wrote my first book while I was taking care of her. She and my grandfather were traveling librarians. I read it aloud to her as I wrote sections – there's nothing quite like your own in-house editor." He offered a small smile to Ray, who seemed to relax a little.

"Sounds like quite a lady," Ray said quietly, respectfully.

"She was," Fraser said, fighting past the lump in his throat with the ease of long practice. "After she passed away, I decided that there was no good reason not to pursue graduate studies, so I applied and was accepted at York." He felt slightly vulnerable, laying this all out in front of someone who, for all intents and purposes, was a stranger. But there was something freeing in the chance to share one's personal narrative, regardless of a little judicious editing here and there. It was like sharing bullet points of a presentation – conveying the general idea, if not the details.

Fraser knew himself well enough to know that he'd been starving for the chance to talk with someone like this.

"York," Ray repeated, smiling. "I love Canadian university names."

That steered them away from potentially dangerous conversational topics, and redirected it to safe, neutral ground. Fraser breathed a little easier and relaxed into the steady give-and-take of the conversation.

At the end of the evening, Ray picked up the check over Fraser's protestations. "Call it an office-warming present. Or you can pick up the next one, if that will make you feel better." Ray looked at Fraser out of the corner of his eye while he paid at the register.

"Next time, then," Fraser said. He licked his lips, which suddenly felt dry.

Ray smiled again, and Fraser was helpless against his own answering smile. "See you tomorrow morning?"

"Until then. Good night." Fraser would have tipped his hat if he'd had one. Perhaps he ought to invest in one.

"Gladys, the copy machine's broke," Ray said, storming into the department office.

Gladys peered suspiciously at him from her desk, where she was having Fraser fill out some leftover paperwork. "Was it broken before or after you touched it?"

Ray scrubbed at the back of his head with one hand. "I can't help it. It hates me."

She sniffed disdainfully. "Well, Professor, you seem to have a talent for unorthodox solutions – perhaps you ought to employ one of those."

"Hey, Fraser, morning," Ray said, before muttering something about kicking the copy machine in the head.

"Good morning, Ray," he said, but Ray had already turned his attention to the faculty mailboxes.

"Junk, junk, blah, don't care, don't know, don't know, huh." Ray came over and rested a hip on Gladys' desk, to her pretended annoyance. "Gladys, explain to me why the Gospel Mission is still sending newsletters to my mailbox number, addressed to you, after six years?"

"It's a mystery," Gladys said placidly.

"I think you're trying to sic them on me."

"You've got such an overactive imagination, dear."

"Fraser, are you listening to what I have to put up with?" Ray demanded, simultaneously long-suffering and affectionate.

"Perhaps Professor Fraser can help you with your copy machine problem," Gladys suggested.

Fraser thought that was being a bit optimistic, but he appreciated the vote of confidence. He handed his paperwork to Gladys and followed Ray across the hall to the copier room.

A few taps on the digital display revealed where the paper was jammed, and Fraser followed what he thought were remarkably coherent instructions as to how to deal with the problem.

Ray looked quite impressed. "Is that some kind of weird Canadian know-how? Ability to reason with psycho hose beast copy machines?"

Fraser pressed the "resume" key and let the machine get on with its work. "They're temperamental, I agree, but I find that most times, they just want someone who understands," he said, deadpan.

Ray rolled his eyes. "My hero. Wanna get some coffee from next door?"

"Isn't there coffee in the lounge?" Fraser asked. He could have sworn he'd seen it, not more than an hour ago.

"That's not coffee. That's death in a carafe."

After a quick detour to their offices to grab their coats, they set off across the quad to the student union. The coffee shop that Ray led them to was filled with students, most of them studying while absently sipping at caffeinated beverages.

"Hey, Frannie, what's shaking?" Ray said to the woman at the counter.

"Nothing much," she replied, hands already busy with the cappuccino machine. "You gonna introduce me to your friend?"

Ray paused in the act of peeling off his leather gloves. "Oh, yeah. Fraser, this is Francesca, who should probably just mainline caffeine into my system at this point. Frannie, this is Fraser. He's new at the department."

"Nice to meet you," Fraser and Francesca said simultaneously.

Francesca was still smiling at him, and actually – oh dear – leaning over the counter, until Ray coughed. "Frannie, you wanna hook the guy up with some coffee, already?"

She scowled at him, much as a younger sister might do to an older brother, and flashed a brilliant smile at Fraser. "What can I get you?"

Settled down in a booth in the corner, coffee in hand, divested of his coat, Ray was tapping at the table with one fingertip. As he had his morning coffee in front of him, Fraser deduced that his jittery behavior was due to another addiction entirely.

"I don't mind if you smoke," he said quietly.

"Thank god for that – being a polite smoker is hell." Ray pulled out a cigarette and lit up in a few smooth movements. He leaned his head back against the booth and exhaled with obvious pleasure.

Fraser looked down at his own coffee cup. "Do you always smoke in your office?"

"I could go outside, yeah, I know, but sometimes I'm working on something, or I'm talking to some kid, and it's just not worth it to interrupt and go outside. Does it bother you?" Ray asked.

Fraser shook his head. "I usually keep my window open a little."

Ray slumped in his seat and took another drag. "Fraser, it's the middle of winter, or didn't you notice?"

"I'm used to it," Fraser said, a little amused. It may be the coldest Chicago ever got, but it was nothing compared to home.

Ray acknowledged Fraser's Canadian origins with one wry smile.

"Haven't you ever been reprimanded for smoking in the building?" Fraser asked idly.

Ray snorted. "C'mon, Fraser, I'm up on the third floor for a reason – nobody gives a shit what I do. Out of sight, out of mind. Plus, realistically – what are they going to do? The tenure system is fucking bullshit – it takes away almost all accountability. Once you're tenured, you can do some seriously weird shit and everybody will pretend that it just didn't even fucking happen, you know?"

Unfortunately, Fraser was all too aware of the things that tenured faculty could do, unquestioned. "Would this have anything to do with the 'unorthodox solutions' that Gladys mentioned?"

Ray smiled slyly. "She's got a suspicious mind. She seems to think that I'm responsible for a certain incident last year."

"Oh?"

Ray lit another cigarette. "See, here's the thing. Albert's arthritis was getting pretty bad, you know? His office was on the second floor, but even that one flight of stairs was hard on his knees. But the elevator was broke, and it kept being broke - I bitched to university maintenance, I bitched to Stella - and nothing. Big fat nothing. It stays broken for weeks, and meanwhile, Albert's still having to struggle up those stairs every day."

Fraser nodded, engrossed in the story.

"So, one day, everybody comes to school, and somebody's written 'Fix this damn thing!' across the elevator doors on the first floor, across from the department office. In red spray paint. Presto change-o, the thing is fixed the next day. Fucking miraculous." Ray exhaled smoke slowly, and grinned at him. "Took 'em longer to scrub off the spray paint, though."

Fraser stared at him, incredulous. "You actually..."

Ray snickered. "I plead the fifth, man."

Fraser thought that maybe he shouldn't feel quite so much admiration for an act of vandalism, but he couldn't deny that he was moved by the efforts Ray had made to alleviate the suffering of a friend. This example of Ray's devotion and dedication wasn't one he'd soon forget – in fact, it was almost dangerous. It wasn't something Fraser felt he could afford to expect from anyone.

At the sound of shoes scuffling in the hallway, Fraser looked up from the pile of positively banal reflection papers he was attempting to slog though. Although her head was down and her face obscured, the blue-streaked blond hair could only belong to Lucy, one of his students from his first section. "Good afternoon, Lucy – I missed you in class yesterday," he said by way of greeting.

She jumped a little at the sound of his voice. "Oh – I, um, didn't see you there. I'm sorry about ditching class…something came up." Now that her hair was out of her face, he could see that her eyes were reddened. "Do you know…do you know if Professor K is around?"

"I think he just stepped down to the men's room," Fraser said. And then, as gently as he could: "Lucy, is there something wrong?"

Misery vied with wariness in her eyes. "Are you friends with Professor K?" she asked.

Fraser could tell this was a litmus test for something, but he didn't know what. "I'd like to consider us so," he said cautiously.

Wariness dissolved into hesitant trust, and she walked into his office. "I know what you said about late reflection papers, but is there any way I could turn mine in to you tomorrow?"

Something wasn't adding up here, Fraser thought. Surely she couldn't be this upset over an assignment. And why had she been looking for Ray?

"If you have a good excuse, I'll make an exception," he told her.

"Okay. Okay, it's just that…" She trailed off and burst into tears, and Fraser cast his eyes about wildly for a box of tissues, but saw none. He removed his handkerchief from his pocket and circled around his desk to press it into her hand. She raised it to her face and cried harder.

He didn't know what to do. Should he offer a hug? Should he let her cry until she could compose herself?

Ray saved him by returning just then. When he made eye contact, Fraser tried to convey his desperation and confusion. Ray was quick on the uptake. "Hey, Lucy girl," he said quietly, coming up next to her. "Fraser, buddy, you wanna catch the door?"

Fraser obediently shut the door, and Ray pulled Lucy into his arms. "What's this all about, huh? Am I going to have to kick someone's ass?"

Lucy hiccupped. "Kirsten broke up with me yesterday."

"Aw, man. That sucks. I'm sorry to hear that," Ray said, rubbing circles on her back. "You guys were together a long time, weren't you?"

"Almost a year," she said, in between shuddering breaths. "But she told me she met someone else during Winter Break."

"Jeez, Luce. That sucks. That sucks hard," Ray said, still in the same soothing voice.

"You said…you said we could come talk to you…"

"Whenever," Ray said firmly. "My door's open any time you need to talk."

She nodded into his shoulder. "Yeah, I just – I don't know why I came by, really. I just had to tell someone." She pulled away and made use of the handkerchief. "Oh, I got your shirt all…" she trailed off, looking at the damp spot on his shoulder.

"Hey, what's a little mucous between friends?"

Lucy actually choked out a small laugh, and then turned to Fraser. "So, is it okay?"

Fraser realized that she was talking about the reflection paper. "More than okay. Don't rush, Monday is fine. And I won't count the absence against you."

She looked almost pathetically relieved.

And Ray – Ray was looking at him with new eyes.

Lucy was contemplating the wadded up handkerchief in her hands, clearly undecided as to what to do with it.

"Keep it," he said, pre-empting her question. She nodded and stuffed it in her pocket.

"I'll see you at the meeting on Thursday?" Ray asked her.

"Yeah. Definitely. Thanks, Professor K. Thanks, Professor Fraser, for the handkerchief and everything."

"Not a problem," Ray said. "Anytime you need to talk, you know where to find me."

She nodded again, and left, shutting the door behind her.

"Well," Ray said.

Fraser had about thirty questions vying in his brain. And so of course the one that popped out was, "Are you gay?"

Ray looked startled, but recovered quickly. "You don't beat around the bush, do you? If I'm forced to label myself, I prefer 'queer.' I think labels are crappy, but I like 'queer' okay. Means you're just a little different, and isn't everybody just a little different? Not so constrictive, as far as labels go."

"Ah," Fraser said, for lack of anything else intelligent to say.

"What does that mean? What does 'Ah' mean? Are you okay with this?" Ray asked, suddenly looking worried.

Fraser blinked at him. "Ray, I'm from Canada. More to the point, I'm from Guelph."

Ray narrowed his eyes, and then he slowly started to smile. "Highest percentage of LGBT students in Ontario, huh?"

"I see you did your research," Fraser said gravely.

"Didn't I tell you that it was a pretty pile of rocks?" Ray said. He looked down at his shirt, which was indeed worse for wear. "What are you doing right now?" he asked, looking at the stack of papers on Fraser's desk

"Grading reflection papers," Fraser said, not even attempting to feign enthusiasm.

"Yuck. Look, it's four o'clock, and my shirt's got snot on it. What do you think about picking up a pizza and watching hockey at my place? We can grade during periods."

"That depends," Fraser said. "What's your apartment's policy on wolves?"

There was something dreamlike about speeding through Chicago on an early winter evening, with a genius at the wheel who was singing along softly to the music floating from the car speakers.

Diefenbaker, having since been dissuaded from examining Ray's ears, was sitting attentively in the backseat of the 1967 Gran Turismo Omologato, no doubt waiting for a chance at the pizza resting on Fraser's lap.

Fraser thought that if he only rolled down the car window and closed his eyes, he could imagine himself up North again.

"Long week, huh?" Ray said, somehow managing not to disrupt the relaxation that had taken hold of Fraser.

"I never really imagined that I'd be here," Fraser confessed, looking out over the glittering cityscape.

"Me neither," Ray said, his voice hushed into a deeper register than usual. "It's like, I walked around this corner, I took this bus, I studied this poet, and then – wham! Here I am. It feels like you should be able to make a direct link between point A and point B, but sometimes it feels all pretty circumstantial to me." He flicked a glance at Fraser. "How old do you think I am?"

"You're thirty-four," Fraser answered, without thought.

Ray frowned a bit. "How did you know that, right off the top of your head?"

Fraser raised his own eyebrows in response. "Your birthdate is listed next to your name in the library database."

He watched Ray shiver a bit, although he didn't think it was exceptionally cold in the car. "See, that's what I'm talking about. That freaks me out. Someday I'm gonna be just paper, just SR Kowalski, 1960-whatever. Somedays I feel like that already, when people write essays on my work. Gotta be more to life than being a footnote."

Diefenbaker, pack animal to the core, smugly agreed with this assessment from the backseat, with a pointed aside to Fraser about how he'd be better off if he took that sentiment to heart.

Fraser glared at him warningly, and Ray chuckled a little. "What's up with the wolf?"

"He's hungry," Fraser said, which was not, strictly speaking, a lie.

"He's in luck – we're here." Ray pulled the car smoothly into a parking space.

Minutes later, they were inside Ray's apartment. "Make yourselves at home," Ray said. "I'm just going to change real quick." He disappeared into what Fraser assumed was the bedroom, giving both Fraser and Diefenbaker the chance to examine their surroundings.

There was a large bay window, with a windowseat running the full length, spotted with books and papers and other assorted academic detritus. There seemed to be an unusually empty part of the living room, nothing but bare hardwood floor. Fraser walked over to the open kitchen and set the pizza down on the bar, with a warning glance in Diefenbaker's direction.

"Take off your coat, stay awhile," Ray said, sounding amused. Fraser turned around to see that Ray had changed into a long-sleeved t-shirt and a decrepit pair of sweatpants, which looked as though they might slide right off Ray's narrow hips any minute now. Fraser belatedly unbuttoned his coat and shrugged out of it, and folded it over a chair.

Ray crossed the living room over into the kitchen. "Let's see – plates, napkins, okay. You want a beer?"

It was on the tip of Fraser's tongue to refuse, as he normally did, but he found himself nodding instead.

"Guinness okay?" Ray asked, and Fraser nodded again.

Ray removed two bottles from the refrigerator and opened them in swift succession. He turned to hand one to Fraser and then smiled, exasperated. "What am I going to do with you?"

Before Fraser could ask him what he meant, Ray's fingers were busy with the knot of his necktie. "Can't watch hockey with a noose around your neck. It's just wrong."

"Oh?" Fraser managed. Ray's scent was really quite…distracting.

"Those are the rules that I've just made up." Ray pulled the tie loose, and his fingers went to the first button at the throat of Fraser's dress shirt. "Don't know why you wear it anyway – it's not like anybody cares," he said, popping the button free.

Fraser's breath caught, just a tiny little gasp, but it was enough that Ray suddenly looked self-conscious and his hand fell away immediately. Ray gathered up the pizza and plates and headed into the living room. After a moment, Fraser followed suit, grabbing their beers and joining Ray on the sofa.

Hockey was blessedly normal, and before long, they were embroiled in a discussion on the effectiveness of Edmonton's offense. They did indeed grade between periods, which Fraser found quite companionable. Diefenbaker dozed at their feet, having been terribly indulged by Ray during dinner.

All too soon, the game was over. Fraser helped clean up the remnants of dinner, though rather more slowly that he might have. He realized he was dragging his heels a bit, but he really didn't want the night to end just yet. He hadn't experienced this kind of social interaction in…well, if he couldn't remember, then it had certainly been too long. And he was well aware of his loneliness in this new and strange city.

He collected his coat and Ray walked him to the front door of the apartment. He remembered his manners long enough to say, "Thank you for this evening. Diefenbaker and I quite enjoyed ourselves."

Ray ducked his head. "Nothing special. Glad you guys could come over. You sure you don't want a ride home?"

"No, thank you kindly. We could both use the walk," Fraser said.

"Okay. Um, see you Monday, then," Ray said.

Fraser wondered if he should offer a handshake, when Ray crouched down to scratch at Dief's ears, before standing up again. They were too close, Fraser knew, and the sudden, strange temptation to lean forward and bury his nose behind Ray's ear and breathe him in was what finally startled him into turning the doorknob open.

"Good night," he said.

Ray looked mysterious in the evening shadows, the moonlight rendering the lenses of his glasses slightly reflective, obscuring his eyes. "Good night."

Fraser fled, Diefenbaker trailing in his wake.

Lucy's visit had handed Fraser a piece to the puzzle that was SR Kowalski. He realized, belatedly, that everyone knew Ray was queer, and so everyone had assumed that Fraser had known, as well.

It did explain so many things.

It went a long way toward explaining the curious attitude of the senior faculty, who made veiled disparaging comments but never risked outright confrontation. Ray despised their clique, their faculty wives, their whole system, really. And Ray's refusal to claim a tidy label turned his sexuality from a known quantity into a weapon. They were unbalanced by Ray's almost violent ambiguity, which in turn gave Ray a great deal of leverage.

The same alienation went a long way to explaining the junior faculty's bond with Ray, coupled with awed adoration. This went for Ray's students as well, queer or no. And Fraser found himself suddenly given a place, a designation – friend to one SR Kowalski, and therefore a person to be trusted.

And while his budding friendship with Ray was unusual for Fraser himself, who was not accustomed to relationships outside of professional acquaintances and familial ties, he was soon given to understand that it was downright unheard of for Ray. When he mentioned having spent Friday evening with Ray to Elaine Besbriss, an assistant professor of African-American literature, he feared her jaw might actually hit the floor. "You don't understand," she said, hushed. "He doesn't – I mean, he talks to people, he cares about them, but he doesn't make friends, not really. Except for Albert Hannahran, anyway. Like, you can talk to him forever, you can tell him your life story, and he'll really be on board, he'll really connect with what you're saying, but he's not exactly talkative about himself."

Fraser tried, unsuccessfully, to integrate this knowledge with what he personally had experienced of Ray. And then he realized that he was the only person in the department, aside from Stella Allens, who called Ray by his first name.

Another piece of the puzzle, perhaps, but it only seemed to make the overall picture more complicated than he'd suspected. Furthermore, it was distracting him in the middle of class.

He shuffled his notes as a cover, giving him a minute to collect his thoughts. "Following the publication of Childe Harold in 1812, Byron said, 'I awoke one morning and found myself famous.' And while his poetry was responsible for his initial entrance into the public limelight, it was arguably his scandalous behavior that kept him there. In addition to gambling debts, Byron also had numerous affairs. One of his lovers, Lady Caroline Lamb, once described him as 'mad, bad, and dangerous to know.'"

"Like Professor Kowalski," he heard one girl murmur to another.

Fraser froze for a moment, and then said dryly, "While he might appreciate the sentiment, I'm not sure he would thank you for comparing him to a Romantic poet."

The class chuckled, and the girls in question flushed red.

"The poem I asked you to read for today was 'The Prisoner of Chillon.' The narrator, as you've seen, is a 'dynamic' character, or one who undergoes change in the course of the poem. The last lines are:

My very chains and I grew friends
So much a long communion tends
To make us what we are: – even I
Regain'd my freedom with a sigh.

So, let me ask you: is this a sigh of relief, or regret?"

"Regret," said the girl who had earlier voiced Ray's name. Kate, if he wasn't mistaken.

"Why regret?" he said, perching on the table at the front of the room.

She looked down at her paper. "Because – because the prison had become his home. 'These heavy walls to me had grown / a hermitage – and all my own!'"

Fraser nodded. "From line 300, we know that change is theoretically possible for the prisoner – so why doesn't he leave?"

The class was quiet for a moment, and Fraser cleared his throat. "Let's think about this another way. The prison is a metaphor. What other kinds of things do we find ourselves trapped in?"

"Jobs you hate," said one student. "Bad relationships," said another.

"All right," Fraser said. "Let's take relationships for a minute. Theoretically, you can walk at any time. Why do people stay in abusive or unhealthy relationships? Why does the prisoner stay in his prison, even though 'my broken chain / with links unfasten'd did remain'?"

He wasn't actually expecting a response from a male student – in his experience, young women were far more aware of the dangers of domestic abuse. But from the second row, Jason said softly, "Maybe you think it's all you've got. Maybe you think it's better than nothing. It's what you know, and leaving that can be hard. 'And the whole earth would henceforth be / a wider prison unto me.'"

Fraser wished suddenly that he hadn't picked this poem for today.

He'd trusted Victoria. He could picture her perfectly, shaking her beautiful, beautiful head. Oh, Ben, you're not really going to publish that, are you? You ought to be thinking about our future, not wasting your time on a side project.

At the time, he thought she was discouraging him from publication because she honestly knew better. She'd gone straight up the academic ladder, no detours along the way, so that she was already tenured at Guelph when he was offered his first position there. He could have taken an offer from Calgary, but he couldn't leave her behind.

"Yes," he said out loud, finally. "Sometimes we think that's all we've got. Or we think that's all we're ever going to get. It's not easy to walk away from that."

But walk, he had. He'd headed due south, into another country entirely. He wasn't sure if that was far enough.

"Fraser, I got a bone to pick with you," Ray said.

Fraser frowned at his computer screen. "Sounds painful."

"I'll show you painful. Painful is comparing me to Byron. In public. That's not buddies." Ray parked a hip on Fraser's desk, leading Fraser to wonder about Ray's seeming inability to actually sit in chairs. Even when Ray was sitting down, it wasn't sitting so much as slouching, leaning, or otherwise taking up more room than one might have thought possible.

Fraser made an effort to continue frowning as he looked up at Ray, although he was secretly enjoying the teasing nature of their conversation. "You should fire your intelligence operatives, Professor Kowalski. If they were worth their salt, they would have reported that I merely indicated that you would be displeased with such a comparison."

Ray grinned. "That's me. Spies everywhere." He pulled out a pack of cigarettes before scanning the room.

Fraser thought he knew what Ray was looking for, and rummaged through a drawer before withdrawing a white elephant gift. "Here," he said, plunking it down on his desk.

Ray squinted at it. "Is that a paperweight, or an ashtray?" He hefted it experimentally.

"As I've never been able to tell, you're welcome to use it as you like," Fraser said dryly.

Ray shrugged, and lit up. He moved from merely leaning on the desk to actually sitting on it, and Fraser commended his foresight in keeping that corner of the desk free from academic debris. It was probably best not to dwell on the fact that he was essentially keeping it clean for Ray to sit on.

"So, who do we have in common?" Fraser asked.

Ray quirked a grin, and exhaled slowly. "Jason. He's in your morning section, right?"

Ah, yes, Jason – the young man whose observation about "The Prisoner of Chillon" had so disconcerted him. Fraser nodded.

"He's one to keep an eye on. Grad school material, I think, if last semester was any indication."

"Do you know him well?" Fraser asked softly, thinking about the look in Jason's eyes.

Ray tapped off ash into the paperweight/ashtray, before going to shut Fraser's door firmly. After he sat down on Fraser's desk again, he said, "I talked to him some last semester. Sometimes you just know – you just know something's not right. He's not much with specifics, but I think his home life was pretty shitty. You know something I don't?"

Fraser thought about it. "He said something in class. But I didn't get the impression that his difficulties were parental in nature – he framed it specifically in the context of a romantic relationship."

"Huh. Parent trouble, relationship trouble – could be related. God knows mine always was," Ray said, a self-depreciating smile on his face.

Fraser felt sorrow sink through him. "Mine too," he said.

"Man, my parents - retired now, but they worked factory jobs all their lives. They wanted me to get some education, make something of myself, you know? So I do, I go for the whole enchilada, never mind that I was probably ADHD until I got out of puberty. The kicker, of course, is that I did what they wanted, more than they wanted, and they're proud of me, right? But, um...we don't speak the same language anymore."

Ray's knee was right there, anyway, so Fraser clasped it once in what he hoped was a reassuring gesture.

"What about you?" Ray asked, carefully nonchalant.

Fraser could hear Elaine's words echoing in his head. He's not exactly talkative about himself. It was only fair to respond to Ray's candor with his own. "My father was a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and he hoped that I would follow in his footsteps."

Ray raised his eyebrows in curiosity. "So why didn't you?"

Fraser leaned back in his chair slightly. "My father was often away, so my grandparents raised me. By the time it occurred to him that I wasn't going to be a child forever, I'd already become far too attached to the written word."

Ray shifted slightly on the desk, so that his calf was resting against Fraser's knee. It was oddly comforting. "What about your mom?" he asked.

"I'd like to think she would have been supportive, but I suppose I'll never know. She passed away when I was quite young."

Ray looked visibly upset. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring up memories."

"It happened quite a long time ago, Ray. Please don't concern yourself," Fraser said, squeezing Ray's knee again.

"Sometimes I think talking to you is like wandering through a minefield – never know what I'm going to find. Your dad, though – wait. Wait. Past tense. Fraser?" Ray asked, a peculiar mixture of pleading and dread.

Fraser found that he couldn't look at Ray. He hadn't said it out loud in so long - he hadn't wanted to think about it, not really. "He died shortly before I received my doctorate. He was...he was..."

The warmth of Ray's hand on his shoulder gave him the strength to give the event voice. "He was murdered." He heard his voice crack, and he heard Ray gasp.

And that was how he got a lapful of Ray Kowalski.

At first, he sat rigid in his chair, uncertain of what to do in the face of this unexpected embrace. But gradually, the warmth of Ray's arms around his shoulders, and the warmth of the back of his thighs against Fraser's lap, led him to bring his arms around Ray. First tentatively, and then when Ray did not object, he held him tight.

"Jesus Christ," Ray said in his ear, sounding stunned. "Jesus, Fraser, it's okay. It's okay to need this."

Fraser wanted to say, no, no, it wasn't – no, this is how he had ended up with Victoria. He'd never have been so dependent on her if she hadn't appeared in his life a month after the murder.

He stiffened in his seat, but Ray made fists in the back of Fraser's dress shirt, and held him all the tighter. "I listen to kids tell me things they can't tell anybody else every day of the week – what makes you think I wouldn't do the same for you? Listen to me, Fraser – it's okay. I won't tell anyone. It's okay."

He slowly relaxed again. He had this feeling of being surrounded, of being protected, as though Ray would be perfectly willing to hide him from public view until he was ready to come out again.

Of course, eventually his legs began to fall asleep, which was a pretty obvious consequence of having a man of Ray's lanky height on his lap. "Ray," he said softly.

Ray pulled back to look him in the eye, his glasses having slipped down his nose so that there was no barrier between their gazes. Apparently, he was satisfied by what he saw, because he eased off of Fraser's lap. Not too fast, Fraser was pleased to see – not as though he were embarrassed by Fraser's sudden lapse.

Victoria had hated this kind of weakness.

Fraser wished suddenly that he could ask Ray to hold him again, although the prospect was as unsettling as it was fiercely desired. He didn't have the words he needed – he didn't know how to say, I feel broken, I feel empty, I feel alienated, except when I'm with you.

But he should have known that Ray, who was so gifted with the written word, had an equal understanding of the unspoken and unspeakable. "Come on," Ray said. "It's supposed to snow tonight. Let's get the wolf and get some dinner, huh?"

Fraser stood and retrieved his coat, sliding it on as he tried to think of way to decline. He felt too exposed. "Perhaps I just ought to go home, Ray. After all – "

"Fraser," Ray interrupted. He opened his mouth to say something else, but then a strange look came over his face. "Why am I still calling you by your last name?"

Fraser blinked. "I'm not sure. Because you never asked for my given name?"

"Because I never asked," Ray repeated under his breath, the very picture of annoyed outrage. "What the hell is this, an Austen novel?" He retrieved Fraser's scarf and wound it around Fraser's neck, the gentleness of the act belying his irritation.

"It's Benton," Fraser offered quietly.

"I know," Ray said, equally softly. "So like I said, Benton – you, me, wolf, dinner. The rest of the world can take care of itself for awhile." He flicked the end of Fraser's scarf over his shoulder, before retrieving his own coat from his office.

"I like Austen," Fraser said abruptly, as they clattered down the stairs together.

"Well, so do I – epistolary romance really turns my crank, but didn't keeping track of which 'Miss Bennet' anybody was talking about give you a headache?" Ray asked, waving his arms around as if to demonstrate his confusion. He unlocked the car door for Fraser, and they argued all the way to the restaurant.

Feeling slightly self-conscious, Fraser ordered their meal in careful Cantonese.

Joy Fong was only a short distance from his apartment, and he'd become a regular visitor there, taking late-night tea with the owner and his wife when he'd needed a break from working and a chance to stretch his legs. So when Ray asked him where they should go for dinner, Fraser hesitantly suggested this place, wanting to share a little bit of his new home. Additionally, Diefenbaker was welcome on the premises, having long since won over Mrs. Wei.

Ray was staring at him with unabashed fascination. "That's so cool," he said. "I can't do foreign language at all – my brain is English-only."

Fraser felt his ears warm. "For that, I think anyone would forgive you."

It was Ray's turn to redden a bit, a slight flush staining his cheekbones. "I still think it's cool. Where'd you pick it up?"

Fraser carefully poured them both tea, and handed one delicate cup to Ray. "My grandparents did a fair bit of traveling, and we spent a few summers near a predominantly Chinese immigrant neighborhood. I took formal lessons for a short time, although I picked up most of it from a bookstore owner."

When Ray mimicked Fraser's handling of his own tea cup, his long fingers almost completely obscured the china from view. He looked graceful doing it – such a change from the frenetic energy he normally exhibited.

Diefenbaker whuffled under the table, a put-upon reminder that he could possibly starve to death if crab-meat rangoons didn't appear in the near future.

"You'll just have to be patient," Fraser said absentmindedly.

Ray seemed to take his exchange with Diefenbaker in stride, and fiddled with the paper his chopsticks had been wrapped at while he looked around the room. "I like it here," he said finally. "Kinda homey. Feels like my aunts' kitchen."

Fraser nodded, pleased with the sight of Ray slouching slightly in his chair, and absurdly delighted that Ray approved of his choice of venue.

Soup came, and Ray enthused over the hot-and-sour, while Diefenbaker snapped up a rangoon under the table. Fraser's wonton soup, a rather pedestrian choice, was soothing in its familiarity.

Mr. Wei came out a bit later, with his specialty crispy chicken. The spicy sweetness converted Ray almost immediately, who demanded to know why Fraser hadn't taken him here earlier. Fraser felt warm again at the thought of taking Ray anywhere, properly.

After having made commendable inroads on the main dish, Ray dithered between the options of vanilla ice cream or sherbert for dessert. Fraser solved the dilemma by ordering one of each.

"I can't eat them both," Ray protested after Mrs. Wei disappeared into the kitchen again. "I'm pretty full – no way it'll all fit."

"I thought we'd share – I've had them both, and like them equally well, so you're welcome to whatever takes your fancy." Fraser said, aiming for casual.

Dessert came, topped by fortune cookies. Ray broke his cookie, read the message and snorted, and then commenced to dip the remains of the cookie in his heavily sugared tea.

It had never occurred to Fraser to dip his fortune cookie in his tea, and his expression must have said as much.

"You should try it. It's good," Ray said.

It was only after Fraser dipped a bit of cookie in Ray's cup that he realized that Ray had probably meant Fraser's own tea. Oolong and almond, warm and sweet in his mouth – it was good.

"Better with sugar, isn't it?" Ray asked, looking satisfied.

Better with you, Fraser wanted to say.

"Aww, crap. We have that dumb-ass meeting tomorrow, with Stella and the rest of the guys who teach undergrad," Ray said.

Ray had apparently decided that being in two separate rooms was not going to prevent him from talking to Fraser. They just left their doors wide open now, and raised their voices to be heard sufficiently. Since there was rarely anyone wandering about their third floor corridor, Fraser had given up attempting to persuade Ray that they oughtn't be so potentially disruptive.

"I saw," he said, having just read the same email. "You know – " he started, and stopped. Because there were some things that one really shouldn't be saying in the hallways. He got up from his desk and walked into Ray's office, pulling the door closed behind him.

Ray was looking at his computer suspiciously, eyes narrowed behind the lenses of his glasses. "I swear to god, this spam filter doesn't work for shit. Did you just get an email about spazz monkeys?"

"That's a campus improvisational comedy group, and it's a forward from Turnbull, and so does not officially qualify as spam. Although I sometimes find it difficult to tell the difference."

"Huh. You were saying something?"

Fraser sat down, and then almost stood up again so that he could pace. "Ray, I don't think Professor Allens likes me very much."

Ray's brow crinkled in confusion for a moment, and then smoothed. "Oh, that. It's not personal, really. She wanted another guy for the job."

Fraser stiffened. He knew he couldn't have been her preferred choice, but to hear it as fact…. "Do you know who?"

Ray snorted. "Her fiancι. Like I said, don't worry about it. She's looking around – I think she'll be gone by summer."

Her fiancι. It made Fraser cold all over. To think he'd just stepped in without knowing any of this – hadn't Guelph taught him a damn thing?

"You seem to know her quite well," Fraser said cautiously. The more he knew, the better.

"I should. She's my ex-wife."

If Fraser hadn't been sitting, he would have collapsed into the chair. "You – she – what?"

Ray turned away from his computer, facing Fraser. He looked as serious as Fraser had ever seen. "We were damn stupid. Got married when we were eighteen, which is so goddamned dumb – what do you know about yourself when you're eighteen?" He leaned back and put his feet up on his desk with a thump. "We went to undergrad together, and then we went through grad school – different schools, but close. And Stella – even then, she knew where she was headed. Stella wanted to go places. Not necessarily with me."

The unspoken censure in that phrase was so strong that it was almost a palpable presence in the room.

"By the time we were twenty-eight, we were so far from eighteen that we didn't even know who we'd married anymore. We'd been so busy writing our theses, we weren't hardly spending any time together. Not really even paying any attention to each other. Stella was spending time with some other guys, and I just got to the point where I thought, if this doesn't matter to her anymore, I got places I'd rather be. People – guys – I'd rather be with."

Fraser didn't know quite how to respond, but he supposed the best thing to do was to nod and show he was paying attention. Because he was – personal information usually came in dribs and drabs, not in torrents like this.

"Like I said, she wanted to go places. Stell's good at what she does, there's no arguing with that. But I didn't want to shut up and play nice, not at school, not at home. I didn't want all to follow all those fucking rules – I wanted a riot. I wanted anger, not the coma in the department, not the cold shoulder at home. I wanted real feelings. So I told her I wanted a divorce."

Ray looked fierce, and it occurred to Fraser that for Ray, this was not a moment of defeat – it was victory.

"So I defended my thesis, divorced Stella, and accepted the offer here."

"You were hired to the same department?" Fraser asked, aghast.

Ray shook his head. "Stell's only been here for three years as head. I've been tenured here longer than that. She asked me if I minded, but she's basically fair – except when she's in love," he said, nodding at Fraser.

"A common ailment," Fraser said softly.

"Yeah. So like I said – don't lose sleep over it. She's been going to interviews since the beginning of the school year, which is why Cahill et al. are getting a little mouthy. Stella can normally grind the old boys under her heel, but she's not really paying that much attention."

Fraser had the feeling that it shouldn't matter – it shouldn't matter that he hadn't known such a crucial piece of information about the department, about Ray. It wasn't as if he'd accepted the position with the intention to stay. But it hit him with an anguished rush that he really couldn't afford this dangerous fascination – Ray, in all of his complexity, exerted a pull that threatened to bring Fraser into an orbit that he could not possibly maintain.

"Benton."

Fraser looked up, startled.

“I know this doesn't look good to you.” Ray looked unnaturally motionless, still leaning back in his chair. "And it shouldn't – it's a shitty situation. But I'm not going to leave you for the wolves, you got me?"

It was just too close to before, too close to another promise. "As they've already had me once, I wonder how much a second time could really hurt," Fraser said, feeling raw. "I have some things to do." He got up and left Ray's office, and heard Ray call after him.

Fraser shut his office door firmly behind him, and turned the lock.

Fraser was drinking tea, although he felt as if something stronger wouldn't go amiss.

He was at Joy Fong again, sitting at a table with Mrs. Wei, who seemed content to pour him more tea and take carry-out orders from the telephone. His Cantonese could be termed at least conversational, and Mrs. Wei didn't seem to mind when he reached for a certain verb and was left wanting.

He'd spent hours now trying to determine just what his problem was. It was the height of foolishness to become attached to Chicago or any of the people in it – his appointment to the department had been emergency and short-term, and there was just no sense in getting comfortable. If he had just kept to himself, he wouldn't be feeling as though there were some sort of gaping hole in his chest. He'd come to Chicago to lick his wounds, to retreat from disaster and recover in quiet solitude.

He just hadn't counted on meeting Ray.

He absently broke open a fortune cookie and unfolded the paper. "Just like dead trees bloom flowers when spring comes, everything will be prosperous," he read out loud.

Mrs. Wei looked up, curious, and he hesitantly translated it back to her, though it had been somewhat garbled to begin with. She smiled, satisfied, and patted his hand.

It's not my fortune, he wanted to say. But it was cruel to burden a friendly acquaintance with one's private turmoil. Instead, he morosely dipped the remains of his cookie in his tea, briefly longing for sugar.

"Glad to see you're learning a few of my bad habits," Ray said quietly. Fraser was startled enough that his cup rattled against his saucer.

"Ray, I – "

"Mind if I sit?" Ray asked. It took Fraser a moment to process that his question had actually been directed toward Mrs. Wei, who was already pouring a cup of tea for Ray and pushing a plate of cookies toward them both. She patted his shoulder as if he were a particularly pleasing son, and disappeared into the kitchen.

Ray made no immediate move to speak, and instead concerned himself with sweetening his tea, and fussing with the placement of his cup and saucer. He plucked a cookie from the plate and cracked it open. "'You will have a successful business deal.' Man, that sucks. Even adding 'in bed' doesn't make it funny."

Fraser reached for another cookie, for lack of anything else better to do. "'Alas! The spring onion you are eating is someone else's water lily.'"

"Say what?" Ray asked, pulling the paper from his hand. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and read the fortune again. "I think that's profound on some level. Like the sound of one hand clapping, or something. I don't know what the hell it means, but I'm sure it means something."

They lapsed into silence. Fraser searched for something to say, anything at all. "How did you know where I'd be?" he asked. "A lucky guess?"

"A quick deduction," Ray corrected. He was looking at Fraser with narrowed eyes – no, that wasn't quite it. Ray was studying Fraser, as though he were some particularly recalcitrant bit of prose that resisted instantaneous analysis.

"I upset you," Ray said, as though venturing a hypothesis, still studying Fraser carefully.

"You did nothing of the sort," Fraser denied automatically.

It clearly held no water with Ray. He gave a sharp shrug of his shoulders, shaking off Fraser's lie like a boxer getting ready to go another round. "You were really surprised."

Fraser hesitated, and then nodded.

"You and me – it's like we're dancing, but we keep missing the same goddamned step. Sometimes I just forget that…"

"You forget what?" Fraser said, feeling slightly apprehensive.

Ray looked up from his tea cup, and assayed a surprisingly shy, self-deprecating smile. "I forget that you haven't always been here with me."

Fraser felt shocked again, although in a completely different way than he'd been after the bombshell Ray had delivered earlier. He felt unseated, as if all of his thoughts were butterflies – and the minute he pinned and named one, the others overwhelmed him.

He was certain of one thing, though – despite his intentions, he'd forged a connection with this man. Ray had tracked him here on a snowy evening, to do…to do what?

He covered his confusion by pouring Ray another cup of tea. Ray watched him, long fingers resting against his chin, still thoughtful.

Ray's fingers brushed his where they still held the handle on the teapot. "Do you same favor?"

Fraser met his eyes, still troubled, but knowing there was more than tea at stake here.

Ray pulled the teapot from his grasp and poured carefully, not spilling a drop. "Almost gone," he remarked quietly.

"We…we can get more," Fraser offered, nerves slowly settling. "In fact, if you're hungry, we could have dinner. I'd like to hear about your time at graduate school, if you're so inclined."

Ray smiled slowly at him, devastatingly beautiful in this moment, amid the shadows and scents of a homely restaurant-turned-sanctuary.

And Fraser knew that the achingness he was carrying around was no longer that of loneliness or betrayal.

He lost his heart to a brilliant man that night, over tea and not-quite apologies. And part of him wanted to weep for finally knowing that the feeling his beloved poets and authors had written of was real after all.

The next day, Fraser took the draft of his book out of the box he'd put it in before shoving it in the back of the closet.

He hadn't looked at it since Guelph, sick to his very soul at his misplaced trust. He took it to his desk, and Diefenbaker perked his ears up at his spirit of determination.

"We're not in Canada anymore," Fraser said, mostly to himself, staring down at the first page. "We're not running anymore, and I'm not going to hide."

Diefenbaker gave him a, well, wolfish grin.

"You want what?" Ray said, his eyebrows arching in surprise.

"I know you're busy," Fraser said. "And I know it's not your field, but I was hoping for an objective opinion."

Ray looked confused. "I thought you came here to work on this book. When did you finish?"

"It's been finished since last summer," Fraser said, feeling paradoxically tense even as he felt freer for having confessed it.

Ray looked at him hard. "This has something to do with it. This has something to do with why you left Guelph."

"There was another professor," Fraser said, feeling more like a conspirator than a would-be lover. "I trusted her, and she told me not to publish. It was only after her new book was published that I realized that I realized that my book would have instantaneously rendered hers irrelevant and inaccurate."

"Fucking bitch," Ray said distinctly, fiercely.

He looked Ray in the eye, and the connection he found there emboldened him. "She was close to the department head. She promised me that my position was going to be changed to tenure-track, so that there was no need for me to publish yet. And I trusted her, until I was informed that my contract was not going to be renewed, and found out that she'd been having an affair with the department head behind my back."

Ray launched himself upright, his chair skittering behind him. "Where is it?" he demanded.

Fraser extended the box toward him, and Ray took it in his hands, so that they were holding it at the same time. "I know people. Thatcher, Frobisher – they'll look at it. I will, too. And then we're going to get this fucker published, you hear me?" Ray said, as grimly determined as a warrior going to battle, for whom victory is the only option.

"Yes," Fraser said, not looking away from Ray's eyes for an instant.

They were so close that Fraser could have leaned forward and sealed the pact with a hard kiss.

Instead, Ray gave him a cocky grin, the academic punk ready to go rattle some cages. He closed the space between them, so that they were nose to nose. He shook the box in their grasp. "Benton Fraser, I am gonna rip you a new one. And then you're going to edit. And then we're gonna prove an old Klingon proverb true."

"Oh?" Fraser asked, an answering grin cracking across on his own face.

"Revenge is a dish best served cold. When we're done, karma is going to bite that duplicitous bitch right in the ass, and you're going to get some of your own back."

It was probably just as well that he hadn't kissed Ray. If he started now, Fraser knew he would never stop. Besides, they had work to do.

Fraser was about to start his lecture when he took a good look at his class. "Good lord, you all look terrible," he said, appalled by the rows of obviously sleep-deprived faces. He looked down at his notes for today's lecture, and sighed softly. "People who are in science-related disciplines, raise your hands," he said.

Almost two-thirds of the class raised their hands.

"Let me guess – you've just finished your third round of exams."

Tired nods confirmed his suspicion.

"Let me ask another question – who actually did the assigned reading for today?" he asked, not feeling extraordinarily hopeful.

Three hands. Bother. Nothing for it, apparently.

"Very well, here's what we're going to do. This weekend, you're all going to get some sleep, and you're going to catch up on your reading for Monday. In the meantime, today's class will be a decidedly quick and dirty intro to Gothic literature. I only require that you take notes and attempt to stay awake. Do we have a deal?"

He took the exhausted silence as a yes, and turned to the chalkboard.

Fifteen minutes before class was about to end, he could see Ray sticking his head inside the door at the back of the room. Amazingly, his unexpected appearance didn't interrupt the flow of Fraser's lecture – apparently, his brain was more than capable of continuing to discourse on the Gothic novel even while he was distracted by the sight of Ray almost bouncing on his heels with excitement.

He wound up his lecture. "I think that's enough for today. Get some rest – it's never been a particular aspiration of mine to teach the undead. Please take the opportunity to catch up on your reading for Monday – this is a kindness on my part, and not something you ought to take for granted."

They packed up and shuffled out. Ray walked up to the front of the room. "Did I just see you let students out early? Somebody's been a bad influence on you," he said slyly.

Fraser began to erase the chalkboard. "I can't imagine who that could be," he said.

Ray started to erase the other side of the board. "They've all been tired today. Post-exam slump. They'll probably all get wasted tonight and spend the weekend sleeping it off."

"Was there something you wanted?" Fraser asked curiously, packing up his things.

"What, can't a guy just want to watch you teach zombies?" Ray said, grinning impudently.

"You're hilarious."

"Don't I know it. C'mon upstairs, I got something to show you."

Fraser couldn't resist. "Your etchings?"

Ray looked over his shoulder, and gave him a startlingly flirtatious smile. "How about a really sexy call for papers?"

"How could I resist?" Fraser said, gamely following Ray up to their offices.

Ray pulled a paper off his desk. "Here's my idea. You take your third chapter, revise it into an independent paper. You and Turnbull and another friend of mine can submit a panel proposal for the conference."

"Are you going?" Fraser asked, scanning the conference announcement.

Ray made a rude noise. "I got talked into being a chair for one of the sessions. If you come, you can keep me company. We can room together, get up to mischief. It'll be fun."

"Secretly, you just want someone to play hangman with," Fraser said dryly.

"Got it in one," Ray said. "Seriously, though, this will be good for you. Good way to get buzz for your book, get to know some people, and it lets me nose around for good publishers for you."

Fraser looked up sharply. "Ray, I didn't expect – that is to say, you've gone above and beyond – I wouldn't want to take advantage of your contacts-"

This was evidently not quite the right thing to say. Ray leaned into his space aggressively. "They're my contacts, and I'll use them if I want to. I got this fucking reputation – at least let me do something good with it. I want to help, Benton."

He felt somewhat taken aback by Ray's sudden fierceness. He didn't know what made him put a calming hand on Ray's arm, but Ray's posture relaxed slowly, like an alley cat losing its defensiveness after a kind touch.

Fraser felt like he was working on his thesis all over again.

He woke up early every morning, and went on a run with Diefenbaker. He came back to his apartment for a shower and his first cup of coffee for the day. He walked to campus, prepared for class, taught class, and came back to his office. Ray dragged him out after returning from his class, for more coffee and breakfast and camaraderie of a sweetness that Fraser never thought he'd find. Ray smoked and made pithy comments, and sometimes handed Fraser pages of his newest draft, marked in a rather alarming green (Ray claimed to be morally opposed to the tyranny of red ink). Then it was back to their offices, so that Fraser could grade papers and Ray could do whatever it was that Ray did, although it usually involved broadening Fraser's musical horizons through the connecting wall.

Then there was lunch, and sometimes there were meetings. Students came and went, and Fraser worked on lesson plans and student papers and the most recent draft of his book. Then another class, and more office work until Ray declared that they were going to remove themselves from the building before they became a permanent part of it. Some nights, Fraser went home by himself and did more work until he couldn't do anymore, and took exhausted, silent baths before dragging himself to bed.

But more often, Ray would escort him to the GTO, and from thence to a familiar restaurant, or to the grocery store to pick up things for dinner. Ray's knowledge of food preparation was eclectic and unpredictable, so that Fraser sometimes found himself running a quiet commentary while he cooked, giving Ray various tasks and instructions that Ray obeyed without comment. There was something companionable about slicing up acorn squash under Ray's watchful gaze, idly talking about things as they occurred to them. There were sports on television, and biographies and documentaries that they watched with the assessing eyes of academics, trained to deconstruct and question (and, frequently, heckle).

Actually, it was really nothing at all like when Fraser was writing his thesis. He'd been busy then, yes, but he'd been alone and grieving, first for his grandmother, and then for his father. And even when Victoria had entered his life, he'd been powerfully drawn to her, but still so horribly alone.

Before Fraser knew it, his draft was finalized, and went off to the publisher. Then it was finals week, and he was crazy, and Ray was manic, and they drank entirely too much coffee. They pulled late nights while grading, eating take-out (Mrs. Wei seemed to think they were in immediate danger of starving to death, and prepared accordingly) and reading aloud to each other some of the wild things that desperate students came up with.

Unlike many of the other teachers in the department, Fraser was teaching summer classes. The period following spring finals would not be one of rest so much as less work, but he was grateful for the continued employment. His final manuscript had been sent off to the publisher and the rest of the process was out of his hands, so he resolved not to dwell on it, and instead enjoy a quiet summer.

He was in the departmental office checking his mail, when his quiet musings was disturbed.

"So what will you be doing this summer, Professor Fraser, what with Professor Kowalski being out of town?" Gladys asked, sounding slightly distracted as she tapped away at her keyboard.

He froze. "Out of town?"

"Professor Kowalski's in the habit of going to New York every summer – didn't you know that? Old Columbia friends, I think." Gladys sounded almost pitying.

He unclenched his jaw. Surely Ray wouldn't leave without telling him. "I'm afraid this is the first I've heard about it," he said, trying to remain relaxed.

"Well, I'm sure you'll have plenty of things to do," Gladys said.

He collected his mail and barely refrained from running up the stairs.

Ray was right where he left him, smoking and checking his email in his office.

"Ray? Are you going to New York this summer?" Fraser asked, feeling as though he should just get it out of the way.

Ray paused once, but then went back to clicking his mouse. "Nope."

Fraser frowned in puzzlement at this development. "Gladys says you go every summer."

If he didn't know better, he'd swear that Ray was trying not to have this conversation. "Not this summer," he said tersely.

"Ah," he said. And then – "Are you going someplace else, perhaps?"

"Nope."

"Ah," he said again. He was still baffled by the turn of events, but decided to go back to his own office.

"Hey, Benton," Ray said, just as he was about to leave.

"Yes?"

"There's a thing. Next weekend, at the Art Institute. Wanna go?"

Ray was not going to New York. Ray was staying in Chicago. Ray wanted to go to an exhibit. Together.

"A thing, you say?" he asked, and Ray nodded. "Well," Fraser said briskly, "with an invitation like that, who could refuse?"

Ray threw a crumpled ball of paper at him on his way out, but he could swear he saw a little smile on Ray's face.

"It's a nice suit," Fraser said, fingering the charcoal wool coat.

Ray looked over from his sock drawer. "It was one of those first-job buys. You know, that whole, 'Oh my god, I'm employed' thing? And me just divorced, too. New school, new colleagues, new apartment – figured I could use some new clothes, while I was at it." He aimed several pairs of dark socks toward the suitcase lying open on his bed.

Fraser tried to picture Ray wearing the suit. It would be probably be rather attractive on him. Oddly, Fraser thought formal business attire would serve to accentuate the wild eccentricity of Ray's appearance – its very statement of supposed normality only highlighting Ray's deviations.

"You all packed?" Ray asked, frowning at a pair of ties. "What am I thinking – you've probably been packed for days."

"Only since last night," Fraser said mildly.

"I always leave these things for the last minute," Ray confessed, shoving both ties in the suitcase. "You nervous?"

"About the conference?" Fraser asked, and Ray nodded. He took a deep breath and tried to organize his thoughts. "Well. It's hardly the first time I've given a paper. But I think that, before, I had a certain sense of safety. I don't think I ever really understood before how much I had to lose." He let his fingers trail down the jacket arm to touch the cuff. "So I suppose I'm more sensitive to the insecurity of my position. In that context, I'd admit to a certain amount of…trepidation."

"Trepidation, huh." Ray was distracted by Diefenbaker's jump on to the bed. "Hey, Dief, get down – no wolf hair in the luggage, okay?"

Fraser crossed the room to shoo Dief off the bed, and Ray caught his arm. "Look – I know I can't make you feel safe again. Just – I want you to know I think this can go good for you. You've got a solid paper, and Frobisher tells me it's good stuff. Thatcher's looking forward to meeting you. I know you've gotten used to disappointment, but I think things are starting to look up." Ray's eyes were full of an optimism that Fraser hadn't even known that he was hungry for. "So, I just – don't worry, okay? I think you're gonna knock 'em dead."

Fraser didn't really know what to say, but he wanted so desperately to believe. He settled for clasping Ray's bicep warmly, before Ray gently disengaged to retrieve a pair of dress shoes from his closet.

Their flight left O'Hare early the next morning. Fraser had thought that Ray would be a horrible plane traveler, as restless as he was. Instead, Ray put in a pair of earphones and shut his eyes, one finger tapping changing rhythms on his leg. Fraser enjoyed the opportunity to watch a Ray not in perpetual motion, which led to a brief daydream about other ways one might see Ray in repose. He squelched that line of thought firmly and concentrated on the dark fan of Ray's eyelashes against his cheeks, and the contrast between the heavy black earpieces of his glasses and the bleached blond riot of his hair.

Ray was listening to The Specials again. Better think of your future. Fraser wondered what Ray was thinking about, before pulling out his presentation outline.

Ray tipped himself backward onto the hotel bed. "Mmm. Cushy. I love writing this stuff off on my taxes."

Fraser looked over from where he was hanging up his suit in the closet. "You do your own taxes?"

Ray made a rude noise. "You could sound a little less surprised there. Just because you saw me calculating grades at the end of the semester…"

Fraser hid a grin.

"I see you smirking, don't think I don't." Ray felt blindly for the remote control on the nightstand between the two beds before capturing it and turning on the television with a contented sigh. "My feeling is, we rest a bit," he explained over the low murmur of ESPN. "Then I have to go to some completely lame board meeting where I will be utterly bored, and be reduced to critiquing people's grammar as they open their mouths to send me into an even deeper coma. After that is the opening banquet, where the food will hopefully be good, and the wine will not resemble any of my childhood memories of Holy Communion."

"You're Catholic?" Fraser asked, a little startled. Religion had never quite come up before.

Ray turned his head to look at him, and said, "I'm Catholic in the same way that I'm Polish – on the holidays, and around my mother. And in any case, that wine is not something I'd want to drink recreationally."

"You know, Ray, if I'm not mistaken, Church theology holds that the wine is actually transubstantiated before you drink it," Fraser said, just to tease, and reveling in the freedom to have the permission to do so.

Ray picked up the conversational gauntlet with a wicked look in his eyes, and in the end, they didn't rest very much before Ray had to take himself off to his meeting.

Fraser came to the abrupt conclusion that he'd been around Ray so much that he'd completely forgotten what SR Kowalski was like. And there was absolutely no question in his mind that it was SR Kowalski, not Ray, who was leading him around the banquet room. Something in Ray had closed up when they entered the room, his eyes shuttering away their familiar gaze. Dressed in his impeccable suit, looking remote and coolly appraising, he made Fraser feel like a debutante being led around by a society matron – if matrons were queer male academics, that is.

"Relax," Ray said quietly, as they retrieved wine for themselves.

"It's like you're another person," Fraser observed softly, reluctantly.

Ray looked at him over the rim of his glass. "Have to be. Have to be, Benton. They admire me, but they hate me, too. My kind of success is rare, and they'd tear me down just as soon as trumpet me." He took a careful sip of wine.

"Communal?" Fraser asked solicitously.

Ray almost spit his mouthful back out, but managed to swallow at the last minute. "No, thank god. No pun intended. I – oh, someone coming this way. Look charming."

Fraser was about to protest the last, but obediently pasted a polite smile on his face and turned around.

Unless he very much missed his guess, Professor Margaret Thatcher was heading toward them. He'd seen her picture on her webpage, but it did little to prepare him for her sense of presence.

"Professor Kowalski," she said, her voice low and authoritative. "It's good to see you again," she said, and did look genuinely pleased.

Ray inclined his head politely, a slight challenging smile on his lips. "Professor Thatcher. This is Benton Fraser, whose book you've been editing."

Thatcher actually seized his hand. "It's very nice to meet you, Professor Fraser. When do you anticipate your book coming out?"

Fraser felt a bit dazed. She had a strong grip. "Erm. Mid-August."

"Excellent. We'll be seeing a great deal more of each other." She gave him a final, proprietary glance before excusing herself.

"She's, um, a bit – " Fraser began.

"Closeted?" Ray said, his tone just this side of sly.

It was Fraser's turn to nearly choke on his wine. "That's not what I was going to say. And how would you know?" he demanded.

Ray looked at him penetratingly. "I know all about closet cases, Benton."

Fraser thought he felt his heart stop. And then stutter to life again, with the babble of the crowd in the room roaring in his ears. "What – what did she mean, she'd see more of me soon?"

"Ah," Ray said, with a wicked little smile. "I just found out at the meeting before – she's replacing Stella as department head."

"You're joking," Fraser said blankly.

"Nuh-uh. And I'll bet you that as soon as her nameplate's up on the department head door, she's going to introduce her lovely partner at the next faculty dinner."

"What would you bet me?" Fraser said, hearing his words as if they came from someone else entirely. He sounded a bit husky, actually.

Ray flicked a speck of dust off the shoulder of Fraser's suit, and gave him a look that was positively smoldering. "Air. I'd bet you air. Now, come on – I want to introduce you to Frobisher and Mackenzie."

They stumbled back into their hotel room, after a brief argument with the keycard. Fraser was feeling flushed from all the wine, and vaguely triumphant from the way Ray had kept close all night. Fraser hadn't missed some of the speculative looks people had cast in their direction. Ray's directive touches to Fraser's elbow burned in his memory; his words played over in Fraser's mind.

I know all about closet cases.

"I'm not, you know," Fraser said.

Ray blinked owlishly at him. "Not what?"

It occurred to Fraser that this might be an odd conversation to be having in front of the bathroom. "Closeted. Not per se. That is, I don't think I'm particularly hiding my…" he trailed off, distracted by the sudden intensity of Ray's gaze.

"Your what?" Ray asked softly.

"Desire," Fraser whispered, his throat dry.

Ray's fingers drifted over the knot of Fraser's tie, and Fraser instantly remembered the first time Ray had done that, in the kitchen of his apartment, and thought, Oh god, even then –

Ray grasped Fraser's tie and gave a gentle tug, and he needn't have, because Fraser would have come under his own steam.

Fraser thought that he should have known this was coming, because you couldn't orbit the sun without eventually crashing into it. Their lips touched, and Ray had one hand on the back of Fraser's neck, holding him close, and the other still holding Fraser's tie. Perhaps the kiss should have been tentative, but instead it was quietly confident. Maybe practice in thought led to skill in deed. In any case, Ray tasted of wine and honest desire, and he kissed Fraser slowly, like they'd been doing this for months and he could afford to take his time.

No desperation. No fear. Just, I've got you, I understand, it's okay.

Ray pulled back slowly, although he made no effort to escape the circle of Fraser's arms. "Tomorrow's your big day."

Fraser closed his eyes for a moment. He'd nearly managed to forget.

"We're tired. We're a little drunk. And I think there's some sort of superstition against nookie before game day."

Fraser opened his eyes. "I think you're making that up."

Ray laughed softly. "Maybe. But you should get some rest. I'm not going anywhere, Benton."

"I don't…" he stopped and swallowed once. "I don't want to go anywhere, either."

Ray smiled at him, beautiful and brilliant. "So take a shower, get a good night's sleep. I'll even come down with you to breakfast so you can eat oatmeal or something else revoltingly wholesome. And then you're going to hit this one out of the ballpark."

"You're sure?" Fraser asked.

"I'm sure," Ray said, and gave him a little push toward the bathroom.

It was the 8:30 a.m. session, which generally meant that there would be partial or late attendance. Many people still looked half-asleep, clutching caffeinated beverages like a lifeline.

The oatmeal was sitting like a lump in Fraser's stomach, and he straightened his notes again. There were many more people here than he'd expected. Thatcher was sitting in the front row, and Fraser felt an acute pang of anxiety. This had to be a good first impression – he was already indebted to her for her work on his book, and now she was going to be the new department head. Ray was sitting in the second row in the middle, Frobisher at his side. From the podium, Ray would be directly in his line of sight, which Fraser was sure was deliberate.

The session began in short order, with Turnbull taking the podium first. Turnbull had a pleasant speaking voice, and was so passionately invested in his topic that it wasn't very difficult to pay some semblance of attention. The audience of professors and graduate students applauded politely at the end, and then the second speaker – a friend of Ray's, named Harding Welsh – delivered a serious, somber talk that Fraser found oddly soothing in tone and rhythm.

And at last, it was his turn. He stepped up to the podium, straightened his paper one last time, and began.

He was reading a shortened version of his paper, a chapter of his book that he already knew backwards and forwards. And so he had no difficulty looking up at the audience and connecting with them as he spoke.

And they liked him. They were smiling at him, and laughed periodically – they thought he was funny.

Ray watched him with a triumphant little smile from the second row, and even the thought of He kissed me last night didn't break the flow of Fraser's speech.

He was almost done, almost there. The audience tittered again at one of his little jokes, and he looked up…

And saw Victoria standing in the back of the room, her mouth twisted with fury.

He almost stopped in sheer surprise, but he finished his talk, accepted the gratifying applause, and took his seat.

A short question and answer period remained before the session would be over. Fraser felt dread in stomach, so cold he thought he'd freeze from the inside out. He could see Ray giving him a penetrating, concerned look, but he did his best to answer the questions that came his way.

But Victoria, contrary to his fears, did not speak up in public. And he realized, with a flash of insight, that she had as much to lose as he by making their former association public.

And besides which, public confrontation was never Victoria's style. She much preferred the private ambush, with twisted, stinging words and attacks that he could never quite shake off.

So when she walked up to the front of the room after the session, he had some reasonable expectation of what was coming.

He'd once thought her incomparably lovely, but ugliness in her eyes was something he could no longer dismiss or remain blind to. "Ben," she said, voice cold and eyes measuring. She touched his nametag. "So you've run to Chicago. I'm surprised they took you on."

"Lucky, I suppose," he said, clinging to an even-temperedness that he didn't truly feel.

"Lucky," she echoed. "I suppose I should have remembered that you were willing to sleep your way to the top. Though I confess that I never imagined that you would bend over for another man. But I suppose SR Kowalski's been very good to you, hasn't he? Made it worth your while?"

"I'm not – I didn't – " he started, and then took a deep breath. "I loved you. I didn't – I wasn't with you so I could get promoted."

"That's not how it would look to anybody else, Ben," she said, her voice a mockery of a sweetness. "Maybe Kowalski ought to know about what you do to the work of people you claim to love."

"I wrote my book before you wrote yours," he retorted, unable to tamp his anger down.

"But I published first," she said smoothly. "And that's what really matters, doesn't it?"

"I've already told him what happened," he said, and was pleased to see the look of shock on her face. "So unless there's something else, Victoria, I'd like to get to the next session."

She grabbed his arm, her fingernails digging in. "Don't think people didn't notice last night. You'll never be respectable – you'll always be the man who got a leg up the professional ladder by letting SR Kowalski get a leg over."

He'd endured her saying any number of nasty things to him before, but he couldn't take the slight to Ray. "Don't you dare talk about him like that. He's got more professional integrity than you could ever dream of."

He could see her winding up for another vicious volley, and so righteous anger made him add, "And besides which, he doesn't need to offer professional favors for private ones that he can have for free."

"There you are, Benton," Ray broke in, suddenly appearing next to him. He looked hard at Victoria. "I don't believe we've met."

Victoria tried to revert to civil professionalism, but failed miserably. "Victoria Metcalf, University of Guelph."

"Nice to meet you," Ray said politely. He didn't offer his own name in return. "I read your book, Professor Metcalf."

Her expression went from sour to flattered in seconds. "You did?" she asked, looking pleased.

"Yes. It's an intriguing premise, albeit based on faulty research and sloppily done. If you'd like to see it done right, I suggest you refer to Professor Fraser's book. Solid scholarly work doesn't need any…professional favors to get published. If you'll excuse us." Ray pried her hand off Fraser's arm and led him out of the room.

Once in the hall, Ray muttered, "Psycho hose beast. Out of her tree. Fucking manipulative bitch."

"You heard all of that?" Fraser asked faintly.

"I heard enough," Ray said, his lips pressed into a thin, angry line.

"Ray, you're still holding my arm," Fraser pointed out, somewhat unwillingly.

"Damn straight," Ray said. "Metaphorically speaking," he amended.

Even the aftermath of his dissertation defense hadn't felt like this.

He felt shocky, like riding in an elevator with Ray wasn't a perfectly normal, real thing happening right now. He felt like it was happening to someone else, while he, the real Fraser, felt his heart still beating too fast, his throat dry like he'd taught four classes in a row without so much as a drop of water. Next to him, Ray was a banked fire, quiet for the moment but still burning, and flaring a little when their eyes met. He felt entirely unsettled, the victory of his presentation and Ray's defense like a sweetness warring with the sour aftertaste of Victoria.

He was exhausted by the time they entered their hotel room. Still, he stepped toward Ray, intending to kiss him with everything he had left.

But Ray put his hands on Fraser's chest and stepped back.

Fraser blinked in confusion. "I thought…" Could he have misunderstood Ray, somehow? Hadn't everything been leading straight to this?

Ray took in a deep, unhappy breath. "I don't think we should do this yet," he said, looking at the wall.

"Well, why not?" Fraser said, a little embarrassed at how petulant he sounded.

"Because that Victoria may be a rotten bitch, but she's right about one thing. Nobody will believe you got promoted on your own merit if it's public knowledge that we're together."

"I don't care," Fraser said fiercely.

Ray's head snapped around. "Well, you should care about it, because god knows you deserve it. And I won't…I won't do that to you, Benton. I won't start something that will take down everything you've worked for."

"So what am I to do? Publish papers, curry favor with senior professors? Forget that I – " Fraser took in a deep, shuddering breath. He didn't know, now, if he should even say it.

"I love you so fucking much," Ray said, the sincere, uncontested belief in his gaze piercing Fraser where he stood. "I love you so fucking much that I won't make promises that I might not be able to keep. I love you so much that I want you to have everything you've worked for." He strode forward and gripped Fraser by the biceps, looking like a soldier delivering the gospel. "I love you so much, that if I have to wait a little while first, then I'll wait."

Fraser stared at him, shock robbing him of his voice.

Ray mistook his silence, and elaborated, "I'm not talking about forever. Just a week. At the end of the week, we'll have the answers we need."

It was as if Stella Allens had never been there at all.

Margaret Thatcher looked so ensconced in her office that it seemed as though she'd always been there.

Frankly, there was something about her that made Fraser feel like an unruly schoolboy called in to the principal's office. Fraser stood up a little straighter and sat down in the chair she waved him into.

She picked up a sheet of paper on her desk, and then peered at him over the rims of her stylish oval glasses. "It's good to see you again, Professor Fraser. I was impressed with your paper at the conference. Now, as I understand it, you were hired on an emergency, short-term basis."

"Yes, that's correct," Fraser said. He only narrowly resisted adding, "ma'am."

"I suspect you weren't well-received when you arrived," she continued.

He didn't know quite how to respond to that, but it was okay, because she didn't actually seem to be having a conversation so much as thinking aloud.

"No, you wouldn't have, would you? This department has a dismal track record for hiring of women and minorities, let alone anyone with even vaguely feminist leanings. You've published in women's studies journals several times – why, I dare say that makes you almost as threatening as Professor Kowalski. Tell me, Professor Fraser, if you were in my position, which of the junior faculty would recommend to be tenured?"

"Elaine Besbriss," he said immediately. "She's a fine scholar, ma'am, and if she doesn't get tenure, she'll move on. Her classes are quite popular and make a deep impression on her students. It would be a shame for the department to lose her."

Thatcher flicked her eyes at him once before returning to the paper. "You wouldn't recommend yourself?"

He licked his lips. "I wasn't even aware it would be an option for me to continue here. I was hired for short-term, after all."

"Hmmm. And if it were an option?"

"I would be more than pleased to stay here."

"I see. Well, Professor Fraser, I don't mind telling you that it is my firm intention to bring some much-needed change to this department. I will take your opinion on Professor Besbriss under consideration. As for yourself, I'm going to recommend that your position be changed to tenure-track, on grounds of your newly published book and your evaluations from the past year."

"Ma'am?" he said, hardly able to believe.

"You heard me. And quit calling me 'ma'am'." She set down the paper, stood and offered her hand. In mid-shake she said, "After all, we're almost…family, aren't we?"

He almost called her "ma'am" again in his shock.

"Go on, get out, I have work to do," she said. "Gladys!" she hollered.

Gladys passed him as he left the office, and patted his arm. She looked very happy for him, and not for the first time, Fraser thought she really did know everything that was happening in the department.

He took the stairs two at a time up to the third floor. He strode down the hall to Ray's office, stepped in, and locked the door behind him.

Ray looked up from his computer in surprise. "Something wrong?" he asked.

"I," Fraser said, "had a most intriguing conversation today."

"Oh?" Ray said. Fraser didn't miss the nervous twitching of his fingers.

"Thatcher told me she was changing my position to tenure-track," Fraser said.

Ray, he noticed, didn't look particularly surprised. "Congratulations!" he said, smiling brilliantly at Fraser.

"You knew," Fraser accused. "You told me to wait a week. I thought you – I thought you were going to let me do this on my own – I thought that was the point!"

Ray stood up, looking a little angry. "You did do this on your own. I swear to you, I didn't speak to Thatcher on your behalf. She made the decision all by herself. Christ, Benton, she read your book – she wanted you before she even knew she had the job."

"Then how did you know what would happen this week?"

"Because she told me she was going to do some housecleaning her first week here, and I knew she'd rehire you because that's what I would have done in her position – hell, that's what anyone with half a brain would do. You’re here, you’ve done well, so there’s no reason to go looking for outside talent." Ray stuck his chin out slightly, as if challenging Fraser to debate his reasoning.

Fraser had no intention of doing any such thing. Instead, he leaned over the desk, grasped Ray by the front of his shirt, and pulled him into a hard, triumphant kiss.

Ray stood up, and tried to pull Fraser closer. They kissed frantically for a few minutes, before Ray pulled back and snarled. "Stupid desk! God, Fraser, this is my office, we should go – "

"We should go home," Fraser said. "And you should drive very fast to get there."

Ray looked like he was reconsidering the desk option, before decisively grabbing his car keys and hustling Fraser out the door.

Perhaps, Fraser thought, sex and thinking didn't really mix.

Were he a witless undergraduate, prone to attending social events at fraternity houses and the like, sex would likely be immediately proceeded by egregious amounts of alcohol, which would let his body do the thinking and probably result in sloppy, indifferent physical satisfaction.

Since Fraser was neither young nor drunk, he was reduced to working himself up into a state of near-panic while Ray drove them to Ray's apartment.

No matter that everything had been heading toward this, Fraser was fairly certain that there were fundamental differences between his oh-so-fevered imaginings and actual, practical experience. Quite frankly, he was making himself nervous.

He looked at Ray out of the corner of his eye. He could only hope that Ray's talent for teaching extended to the bedroom as well, or they'd likely end up staring at each other over tea, as Fraser tried to figure out how the hell one got from desperately wanting to actually having.

As it turned out, he needn't have worried.

In retrospect, how foolish he was to forget that Ray spoke physicality like a second, well-loved language. How foolish to think that Ray wouldn't have seen Fraser's white knuckles and tense jaw, wouldn't have known that the correct response was not soothing reassurance, but impassioned action.

Once inside the apartment, Ray locked the door and grabbed Fraser by the tie, all in one smooth motion. Fraser heard the jangle of keys hitting the floor as Ray pressed his lips against Fraser's own, stubble rasping against Fraser's chin as soft, dry lips coaxed him to recall days when one kissed more than talked. Ray's leather jacket was smooth under his fingertips where his hands clutched at Ray's back, and he remembered a day – a lifetime ago – when a mysterious Professor Kowalski had sat in his lap without so much as a by-your-leave.

Ray's hands knew no bounds of propriety now, his fingers dipping into Fraser's back pockets and then pressing one hand hard on Fraser's thigh before groping him swiftly, as if for affirmation. Fraser gasped at the sensation, and Ray pulled back and grinned at him, cocky and just a little challenging, before leaning back in for a hard kiss and a nip at Fraser's lower lip.

This, Fraser understood. This was every maddening conversation, every back-and-forth debate they'd ever had, moved to a new playing field. And he suddenly realized that just as he could meet every verbal volley, so could he accrue points in this competition. Ray, he thought, would be just as susceptible to the right caress as he was to a witty rejoinder.

He slid one hand up Ray's forearm, as he'd been longing to do ever since he'd first seen Ray lounging insouciantly, his dress sleeves rolled up like a truant schoolboy's. Fraser's other hand gripped Ray's slim hip before skimming down over his bottom, grabbing him and pulling him closer. Ray let out a surprised exhalation into his mouth, and Fraser knew that that had been right, that everything was going to be better than fine.

It was easier – so much easier! – with clothes off, and with Ray tutoring him in the nuances of touch: kisses and licking like colloquialisms suddenly rendered comprehensible, nipping and hard touches like verb endings made sensible. It was like thinking you knew a language, only to be completely retaught by total immersion. When Ray pinned his hips and sucked his cock down that slim throat, Fraser felt wonderfully, startlingly fluent.

He tried not to thrust up into Ray's mouth, dimly remembering that to be somehow not good, but Ray's same challenging grin was still in his eyes. So Fraser gave in and let his hips move, let soft groans escape his lips without restraint, until Ray gave one last, hard suck and Fraser blissfully ceded the battle.

When he caught his breath, Ray was leaning over him, looking quietly triumphant. The hardness against Fraser's hip reminded him that not everyone in bed had just had a startlingly good orgasm, and that situation ought to be rectified immediately.

Still, the question remained – what should he do? What was Ray, surely of extensive experience with other men, expecting?

His concern must have shown, because Ray quirked a smile. "Relax – you don't give new students Foucault, do you? You start them out on something easy, something familiar."

Fraser found himself reflexively smiling at that, while reaching down to grasp Ray's erection. "Mm. Thoreau?"

"Whitman," Ray gasped, as Fraser sucked on his neck below the jaw.

"Twain," Fraser suggested, having settled into an easy rhythm of stroking.

Ray was breathing hard above him, his arms trembling with the effort of keeping himself held upright over Fraser. "W-Wilde."

"You'd give Wilde to first years?" Fraser asked in a concerned tone of voice, before dragging his thumb over the head of Ray's cock and marking the juncture of Ray's shoulder and neck with a bite. Ray came with a helpless, inarticulate cry, and Fraser watched his beautiful face contort just for him, because of him.

He hadn't ever known before that this meeting of bodies could be so joyful.

Ray had collapsed on top of him, utterly limp, before half-heartedly hitting Fraser in the shoulder. "And what's wrong with Wilde, Mr. Don't Coddle the Undergrads?"

"Oh, nothing," Fraser assured him. "I'm a firm believer in art for art's sake," he added, cupping Ray's bottom with both hands.

Ray patted Fraser on the shoulder. "Don't take it so hard. Getting skewered by Lewis is like a right of passage."

Fraser narrowed his eyes at him. "So what did he do to you?"

Ray didn't even have the good grace to look embarrassed. "Actually, he loved me. I think he gets off on subversion."

Fraser rolled his eyes and went back to frowning at the computer screen. They were in his office, Fraser seated at his desk, Ray leaning against him and looking over his shoulder.

Ray poked him in the arm. "Quit it. Everybody else loved you. Your book's accessible, it's popular, and it's cheap – never underestimate that, the amount of bitching that goes on in book review over pricing is really pretty insane. You're a hit, and you have the hellish road to tenure to look forward to."

"You have this really fascinating bedside manner," Fraser observed dryly. "Somehow, I'm not comforted."

They were startled out of the easy flow of their argument by a knock on the door. It was Lucy, blue hair framing her smiling face, accompanied by another girl.

Fraser thought for a moment that Ray would undrape himself, but evidently, Ray was comfortable right where he was. Ray squeezed Fraser's shoulder once.

"Heya, Lucy," Ray said. "What's up? And who's this?"

The new girl looked apprehensive, but Lucy took her hand and gave her a reassuring smile. "It's okay," she said. "This is Professor Kowalski and Professor Fraser – they're cool."

"True, but relative," Ray said. "I think Professor Fraser here prefers Kate Bush over Joe Strummer, which is so weird I can't even get there."

The new girl was startled into laughter, and Fraser happily watched Ray banter, and thought that Chicago was finally, exactly, where he wanted to be.