"--Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York, Quebec, Boston. And then home to Chicago again afterward, obviously."

Ray blinked, staring at Fraser. His eyes had opened again on Philadelphia, and they were really dark blue, and holy hell, he'd remembered Pittsburgh, which Ray didn't even always. He'd only played a couple of games there, while they were getting the paperwork done to send him on to Philly and complete the three-way deal. The warmth of Fraser's hand pressing down on his knuckles spread all through him, and he could feel himself smiling stupidly.

"Jesus," he said after a second, "I mean--Edmonton, Chicago, I got you too, but..."

Fraser's eyebrow arched, so what the hell, not like he had any pride left in front of this guy anyway. Ray looked down at his split knuckles, though he couldn't actually see them under Fraser's fingers pressing down and the blood seeping up through the Kleenex on his fucked-up useless hand. He shrugged and said, "Dunno why you remember where a washed-up old scrapper used to play."

Fraser laid a little shoulder on him without letting go of his hand. Ray automatically pushed back, but Fraser wouldn't quit and then they were going at it, hips and shoulders, all clean hits here aside from the totally illegal hold Fraser had on his hand, until finally Fraser slammed him solidly up against the wall and there was a throat-clearing noise from down the hall.

Ray peeked past Fraser and saw the funeral director standing there, looking well-paid yet irritated. He pulled away quickly as Fraser stepped back, jamming his own hand down on the soaked Kleenex so that Fraser had to let go of him. "Sorry," he muttered, to the suit, to the floor, not looking at Fraser and definitely not thinking about that big solid defenseman's body up against his with no pads between. "Gonna have a smoke."

The funeral director pointed, and Ray spotted the exit sign and nodded, turning quickly away and heading outside through the heavy fire door. He was hoping it was street access so he could just get the hell out of there, but it was a little garden-type thing, all walled in, just shrubs and gravel. There were some windows, but all the curtains were drawn. No escape, but at least the air smelled like Chicago instead of funeral. He could hear cars, and see the sky, and have a cigarette without scandalizing anybody.

When he stepped away from the door Fraser stepped out after him, and Ray could almost believe he was doing this on purpose. Or, hell, maybe he didn't want to go see Gardie laid out either. It had to be weird for him; Fraser had played maybe all of twenty games with these guys before their short sad playoff run ended, and it didn't sound like he'd been out golfing with them the last five months, either, but Gardie was dead and Hue was in the hospital, so Fraser had to be here, showing his team spirit like a good boy when he probably didn't even know all the fourth-stringers' names.

Fraser pulled an airsick bag out of his pocket and offered it to Ray. "It's not exactly a biohazard container, but..."

Ray shot Fraser a quick smile and took it, dumping the tissues in and flexing his hand experimentally. Knuckles were a mess, like always, but it looked nastier than it was; the bleeding was pretty much stopped. Keep the hand clean, let it scab over, fine again in a day or two, or as fine as his utterly fucked hands ever were. "Thanks," he said, quietly. Ray folded down the top of the bag and sealed it before stuffing it into his own pocket. He pulled his cigarettes out of another pocket and offered Fraser one, but of course Fraser declined. Ray would've, too, a year and a half ago, but these days he was okay with fucking up his lungs a little when he felt like it, and he definitely felt like it now.

He lit up and took a long hard drag, holding the cigarette between his teeth and staring down at his hand again, thinking about just what the hell was going on here.

Funerals, when they weren't depressing the shit out of him, made him horny, he knew that. Stella's cousin Amanda's funeral, hell, that had been one wild night, after. Stella'd taken psych classes in college, she'd explained it to him once, but he just knew that he was like one of those drooling dogs: smell funeral parlor, start thinking about getting laid. Or maybe it was just better than thinking about Gardie in a box.

Also, it'd been a long damn time since Stella's cousin's funeral, a long damn time since Stella had even bothered with him for a pity fuck or a handy guy who knew what she liked and would let her walk out in the morning without arguing, because he'd at least learned that much by now.

And Fraser was a hockey player. Played with the same team a long time, so maybe he'd gotten into a groove there, but Ray figured it was pretty much the same all over: being straight in hockey was like being straight in prison. You got around it just as fast as you could, if you possibly could, because road trips were long and lonely otherwise, and it wasn't exactly like you could jerk off in private when they jammed you in four to a room in juniors. And Fraser knew who he was, and smiled at him, kinda played with him back there, and maybe, if Ray was a hell of a lot luckier than he'd been in a long time, maybe Fraser was okay with playing. Maybe that was why he was standing here breathing Ray's smoke.

Ben stared out the window as the city rolled by at a painfully slow pace. He tugged nervously at the cuffs of his shirt, trying to ignore the sense of deja vu that washed over him like vertigo. He was wearing, from the skin out, exactly the same clothes as he had the day before; when he'd gotten to his hotel after the viewing, he had stripped it all off and turned it over to the hotel laundry. They'd returned it to him within a few hours, smelling chemical-clean and spotless but for the tiny yellowish remnant of a bloodstain on his shirt; such service was one of the little luxuries of being who he was.

He couldn't bear to look away from the window, though their plodding pace gave him altogether too much time to watch the city going about life as normal on a muggy weekday afternoon, while he was shut away behind glass in the silent confines of this limousine. The car was cool and spacious, another little luxury. Though six of them shared the passenger compartment, he had room to stretch his legs, to sit easily without drawing his shoulders in or being careful of where he laid his arms. It was also utterly, somberly, silent.

To the others he rode with, Louis had been a friend and longtime teammate, while Ben had barely known the man and, in the truth he could only speak to himself with his eyes safely averted from his teammates, hadn't even liked him much. Ben had been keeping his eyes averted all day.

All the same, the moment he'd entered the viewing and seen Louis lying still--his widow, Annemarie, one of the many wives-of-teammates Ben had met once or twice and never remembered, bracketed now by family and friends--the children, sitting silent and pale in the first row of chairs... Unspeakable truth had seemed irrelevant, and his worry at seeing Chris had vanished into nothingness and silence.

The limousine shut out all sound, and none of them spoke. All the long ride from the funeral parlor to the church, they sat wordless. If it had been his own team--his former team--he'd have drawn comfort from their simple presence, but among these near-strangers, Ben felt almost claustrophobic.

It only grew worse when the car pulled up at the church and he finally was able to open the door and step out. For a moment, until his ears caught the impossibly distant and muffled sound of traffic, Ben thought he'd gone deaf. The heavy humid air pressed down like a damp blanket, the low clouds threatening a storm that would be a relief if only it would materialize. Crowds of fans bearing flowers and signs, many of them clad in bright jerseys bearing Louis's name and number, stood to either side of the path from the curb to the doors, which had been cordoned off and was manned by uniformed police officers. They were eerily silent, and Ben's sense of claustrophobia only intensified. He'd grown up with the silence of open spaces, the stillness that came with being the only person for miles, surrounded by an endless muffling field of snow and ice. To be in the middle of the city, in the middle of a crowd, and yet hear nothing, was almost frightening. Despite the heat, he shivered as he stood on the sidewalk, waiting for the others to emerge from the car.

He glanced through the crowd, his eye catching on the pictures of Louis, cradled and clutched in a hundred hands, the news cameras, the reporters holding their microphones in dangling grips, and then he spotted Kowalski.

Ben wished he had gone deaf, then, so that he could blame some failing of his own for the fact that he couldn't hear that distinctive voice raising hell with the police officer who stood between Kowalski and the clear path up to the church. With a quick glance toward the others, all of whom were walking toward the doors now, oblivious to Kowalski's plight, Ben turned toward the spot where Kowalski stood staring in mute despair toward the church.

Ben found he could barely speak above a whisper, unable to break the stillness. "Excuse me, officer. Mr. Kowalski is a former teammate."

The officer looked startled, but said nothing as he stepped back. Kowalski shot Ben a short smile, half grateful, half embarrassed, as he shouldered past the cop and the crush of fans standing around him--indifferently, seeming to have no idea who he was--past the orange-striped sawhorse and onto the sidewalk. Fraser automatically extended a hand, intending to guide him onto the pavement with a touch on his shoulder, his back, wherever his hand might fall. Before he made contact, though, the memory of the day before, reaching out with an entirely different intent, struck him, and with it, the memory of Kowalski's satisfied smile, his cheerful, casual lie, and his hasty departure. Suddenly uncertain--some small part of him snarlingly acknowledged that he was feeling weird in direct contravention of Kowalski's instruction--he drew back, clasping his hands behind his back as he and Kowalski fell into step.

Ben stole a single sideways glance at Kowalski--he seemed to have availed himself of a quick laundering as well, dressed as he was in a familiar-looking suit--and then turned his gaze to the church doors. They walked together up the steps and inside, where it was a little cooler, and where the hush of the day felt a little more natural. Chris was standing with Louis's widow and children, as befitted the team's captain, and Welsh was on the other side, Louis's coach standing in for his parents, who were just then slipping into the vestry with tears on their faces. A knot of other players stood around Annemarie, speaking softly before going to their seats. Ben hung back, feeling uncertain and awkward in the face of the naked grief on the widow's face, the silent shock of the children, but Kowalski stepped past him without hesitation.

As Ben watched, he went to Annemarie and hugged her tightly. "Annie, I'm sorry," he muttered as he pulled back, and Ben realized it was the first time he'd heard Kowalski speak that day. "I meant to, uh. To be there, yesterday, I just."

Ben could barely see Annemarie over Kowalski's angular shoulder, just her eyes crinkling in what might have been a sort of smile. "I understand. Your--Stella called," and Ben knew a split second of fear that yesterday might be easily explained if the man were married, before vividly recalling the absence of a ring on Ray's left hand. The little shock that seemed to travel through Kowalski only confirmed it; if he were married, Annemarie wouldn't have to tell him his wife had called. A divorce, then, recent enough for Annemarie to misspeak, and maybe that was its own sort of explanation. "She said she couldn't make it today."

Kowalski nodded, shoulders slumping slightly with relief or disappointment. He hugged Annemarie again briefly, and then crouched to hug each of the children. "Katie," he muttered, "Ry." But he seemed to be able to think of nothing more to say to the children, and they only hugged him back and then went on standing quietly at their mother's side; the boy, perhaps seven years old, hastily rubbed tears from his already-red eyes. Kowalski straightened up and shook hands with Welsh, muttering, "Hey, Coach, long time."

Welsh wrapped both his hands around Kowalski's--gingerly, in deference to the bandage that graced his knuckles--and murmured, "Wish it were a better day for it, Kowalski."

Kowalski ducked his head and nodded, then moved to shake hands with Chris, muttering, "Hey, Cheli," and getting a quiet, "Ray," in response, and then moved on through the others, nodding to those he knew--"Probie--Eddie--Hack,"--and receiving equally stoic nods in return. He extended his hand without a word to Ren, who'd been dabbing at his eyes since recovering from his most recent paroxysm of weeping, and Ren shook it firmly, looking grateful that he wasn't called upon to speak in response.

Kowalski then proceeded into the church proper without a backward glance, taking a seat only a few rows from the back. It was only when Welsh said, "Fraser, you're here, good," and reached to shake his hand that Ben realized he'd simply been standing there watching the man, oblivious to all else. He quickly shook his coach's hand, and edged toward Ren, following the others as they started up the church's long aisle to take their seats in the reserved section at the front. Ren pulled out the handkerchief again before they were halfway there, and Ben thought with some relief that no matter how weird he was feeling since his encounter with Kowalski the day before, no one would notice so long as he continued to compare favorably to his younger linemate. He glanced hastily toward the vaulted ceiling of the church, but his uncharitable thought went unpunished by lightning bolts, and then they were sliding into their seats, jammed together this morning on a different sort of bench.

When the others knelt, Ben followed suit. He folded his hands and bowed his head, and wondered what he'd pray for now, if he were a man who prayed.

Ray cruised through most of the mass on a lifetime's experience of Sunday-morning stupors. The light was familiarly yellowed by the shaded lamps and the stained-glass windows, the pew he sat in worn smooth by generations of restlessly shifting seats, vaguely uncomfortable the way they always were in every church he'd ever attended. His folded hands rested on the back of the next pew at the same angle they always had since he'd finished growing, and the old waxed wood gleamed dully and smelled like it had recently been attacked by a brigade of old ladies armed with worn-out pillowcases and Murphy's Oil Soap. He mumbled along with all the rote responses, half-hummed along with all the songs he'd never known the words to no matter how often he heard them, and it was more or less like any mass he'd ever sat through, as long as he didn't look at the draped casket in the front of the church. He'd left his contacts out and his glasses in the car, so it wasn't hard to keep from seeing.

When they got to the sermon, and the priest started talking about Gardie in the past tense, Ray did pretty much the same thing he'd always done during sermons, fidgeting with the bandage on his knuckles and staring out the window. The nearest one was propped open as a concession to the heat, not that it helped, and he could see some shrubbery through the narrow opening, and a slice of overcast sky, which seemed to be darkening.

Coach's voice yanked him back to reality, though--he'd spent too many nights listening for that voice to call his name, poised to hit the ice at a word--and there was no distraction in the world that would have let him keep from hearing the eulogy. Ray closed his eyes and pretended he was getting stitches somewhere that really hurt--eyebrow, maybe, or a finger--and breathed in and out and listened to his own heartbeat. Everything else went a little numb, the way it had to.

It was easier at the cemetery; Ray stayed toward the back of the small crowd at the graveside, sweating and listening to the high whine of insects and the distant roar of a mower. The priest droned on for a while, and there was an even-more-pathetic-than-usual attempt at singing. Ray was starting to think he was going to make it through this thing when the people in front of him shifted and he caught a glimpse of Ryan standing on the opposite side of the open grave. The kid was tall for six but still tiny next to his mom, with dull reddened eyes and his dad's curly hair, pale in his little dark suit, and the whole thing finally hit Ray like a hard blow to the gut. He had to turn away, gritting his teeth and breathing hard through his nose and trying not to think about the fact that Gardie was in a box, about to get buried under the ground. It had been a long time since he'd attended a funeral. There were grandparents and great-aunts and assorted old people from the neighborhood, when he was young, before he left for juniors, and then Stella's cousin a few years back, but he'd never known her, really. It hadn't been like this.

When he dared to open his eyes again, Ray spotted a woman standing a little way away, in the shadow of one of the big shady trees that dotted the field. She was all in black--black heels, sheer black stockings, black dress that covered her knees and elbows but showed more cleavage than Ray remembered ever seeing at a funeral. Her hair was covered with a dark scarf, and she was wearing huge dark glasses, clutching a little black bag with black-gloved hands. She looked pretty, almost elegant, vaguely familiar, and then Ray spotted the corner of a steno pad sticking out of her handbag, the tip of a pen peeping out of her scarf from where it was tucked behind her ear.

She was fucking press.

He looked around for the cops who were supposed to be keeping unwanted guests away from the service, but oddly enough neither of them seemed to have noticed her standing there. In fact, it kinda looked like they were being really careful not to notice her standing there. Ray gritted his teeth harder, clenched his fists until a warning twinge shot through his right hand, and then he forced them open and took a deep breath. He couldn't just storm over there and yell at her and make a scene, or he'd be the one that had to be thrown out.

Ray crossed his arms over his chest, pinning his own hands flat under his elbows, and started fading back from the other mourners. He'd put about ten feet between himself and the rest of the crowd when the reporter woman appeared at his side, bold as you please; Ray had to shut his eyes and focus on breathing to force the anger down from his mouth, his hands, to somewhere in his belly where he could use it. Finally, when he could, he feinted toward her a little with his near elbow (not a touch, because you do not touch reporters, and you especially do not touch girl reporters) and muttered, "You are not supposed to be here, miss."

He was staring off to his right, about forty-five degrees from where she stood, out at gently rolling hills of tombstones, but he saw her red lips crinkle, shifting between a smile and a frown. Finally, her voice just hinting at a quiver, she said, "I'm not actually here in my professional capacity. Just like you, huh, Ray-Kay?"

Ray-Kay, Jesus. He tried not to look surprised, by the nickname or just the fact that she knew who he was, but her lips twisted into a bit of a smirk.

"Oh, come on, Kowalski, I'm a Chicago sports reporter, and hockey's my beat. They'd fire me if I couldn't pick you out of a lineup." Her voice sounded amused in a desperate way, like she'd rather laugh than cry.

He turned his head then, so he could actually look at her, and spotted the tears on her face. Her makeup was kind of smudged, but she didn't have any mascara tracks, and the wet trails had taken longer to form than the couple of minutes since he'd spotted her. No alligator tears, then. He remembered the way Jean-Paul had joked with him across a tape recorder for three seasons in Quebec, and decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. For now.

"Sorry," he muttered, shifting his gaze down to his feet as another tear appeared on her cheek. "You're still not supposed to be here, though."

"Yeah," she muttered back, sounding rueful, "Well, I didn't get to be a sports reporter without doing a few things I wasn't supposed to." She held out one tiny gloved hand to him. "Ms. Francesca Vecchio, pleased to meet you."

He shook gingerly, and her black silk thumb touched the gauze on his hand, but she didn't ask. Not much of a story in it now that he'd hung up his skates, he realized, taking his hand back and picking idly at the tape. He glanced toward the service again. When he strained he could hear the priest's voice. He was talking about ashes and dust, and Ray quickly tuned back out.

Beside him, Ms. Vecchio said quietly, "He was best man at your wedding."

Ray smiled tightly, fighting down the memory. He'd slept the night before in a hotel room like all the other hotel rooms of those years, and Gardie had woken him with a bucket of ice water, laughing. Even as he staggered to the can, dripping and shivering, Ray had been consoling himself with the fact that in three weeks he'd have his revenge. "Yeah," he said finally, quietly, "And I was his." Stealing a sideways glance at her, he added, "And do not try to tell me you reported on that, because you were ten years old."

He couldn't tell for certain from this side of those shades, but he got the impression she was rolling her eyes. "I was fifteen, actually, but I'm flattered. And hockey reporters start out as hockey fans, so I was following your career already, although not--"

"--In a professional cavity, yeah, you said."

Her forehead wrinkled, and Ray ran that back in his head and bit down hard on the inside of his lip when he caught it. Christ, he hated talking to press. He should have just left her alone, she hadn't been causing any trouble.

Before she could say anything people started moving, forming into a rough line to file past the casket and then heading for their cars, brushing the dirt from their hands. Gardie's sisters and their husbands and his parents went first, and then the team. Ray watched them walking away, telling himself it was all nearly over, until he heard a wail from near the grave. Bully, he realized, as he spotted the lanky defenseman stumbling to his knees, grinding his handful of dirt into mud against his wet cheeks. When he looked down at Ms. Vecchio, she was straining to see, and he stepped quickly in front of her. He was tall enough to block her view and automatically protective, because honorary Blackhawk or not, former teammate or not, these guys were family.

Stealing his own glance back, he spotted Fraser bending down to take his linemate by the arm and pull him up, offering him a folded handkerchief. There was no way the sight of a piece of clean white cloth in Fraser's hand should have made his dick twitch, under the circumstances, and he turned his back on the scene quickly to focus on getting rid of Ms. Vecchio. Nothing had ever happened that involved Fraser and a handkerchief, so Ray couldn't possibly be remembering it right then.

Ms. Vecchio looked up at him, and he thought she was pissed behind those glasses--her olive cheeks were flushed a bright pink that clashed with her makeup--but he stood his ground. If he didn't know how to do anything else, he knew how to get between an opponent and their goal. "No gawking, now, Ms. Vecchio. It's just Bully, you know how he gets, that's no news. One too many blows to the head."

She was trying to edge around him, trying to see past his shoulder, but he moved easily with her, not letting her maneuver him out of position. "Actually," she snapped, trying to deke him out, "I'd pay you a year's salary if you could find video evidence that he'd ever suffered even one concussion."

"Your salary or mine? And of course he's had concussions." She couldn't be implying something about the guy, and if she was trying to Ray wasn't going to let her. "Got his brain rattled in juniors or something, everybody knows that, doesn't matter. Hell of a player."

"Given your current salary? Let's say mine. You ever find the tape, you just let me know."

Ray stopped and planted his feet, the better to glare at her, and when he glanced back, Annemarie and the kids, the whole team--nearly everybody but the priest and some funeral home people--was gone. There was Gardie's coffin, dirt piled unevenly all over it, a last few people still filing past, and Ray forgot all about reporters and concussions as his feet started carrying him forward.

Ben woke up feeling awful. His head was pounding, the light through the uncovered windows was blinding--Christ, he'd forgotten to latch the shutters--and his tongue felt like he'd been sucking on cotton so long it had begun to decompose in his mouth. He didn't remember drinking anything, but, looking around the wreckage of the cabin he'd inherited from his father, he did remember an awful dream... anxiety, probably. It had been something about having to rush down to Chicago, talking to Chris. And there had been something else, something that didn't usually feature in his anxiety dreams...

Kowalski.

Ben dragged one arm over his face as it all came crashing back, including the jet-lagged misery of the string of variously weather-delayed and turbulent flights that had brought him home to Inuvik from Chicago over the course of twenty-four wretched hours. When he finally made it out to the cabin, he'd stumbled inside and fallen straight into bed.

He was tempted to roll over and go back to sleep, but before he left Chicago--at the earliest decent opportunity, once all the funeral formalities were concluded--Chris had gotten him alone for a moment. Ben had braced for sharp words in Chris's usual rough manner, but his captain had merely sighed, and asked him whether he'd be back soon. He'd been so disconcerted that he'd assured Chris he'd be back within the week, which left him only a few days to pack up and secure the cabin for winter. Between his delayed flights and however long he'd just spent passed out, he didn't have any time to waste lazing about now.

After reminding himself of that fact several times, and pointing out to himself that he'd played through far worse pain than he was currently using as an excuse to stay in bed, Ben finally pushed up into a sitting position. From there his body took over, and he was soon standing at the refrigerator, gulping water straight from the pitcher. When his stomach began to protest the amount he'd drunk, Ben poured the rest over his head, and stood dripping a moment before he set down the pitcher and went in search of a towel.

He changed into clean, dry clothes, thought about shaving and decided not to bother, and then came to a standstill in the middle of the cabin. Packing wouldn't take too long--left to his own devices, Ben didn't accumulate many possessions, and his father had been even less materially-minded. The moveable contents of the cabin would fit into a trunk and a few crates, and could be tucked into the jeep for the ride back into town and the airstrip. He'd meant to stay here till the last possible second before training camp started in September, though, and had a number of projects planned: mostly added weatherproofing for the cabin, to keep it secure through the winter, as he wouldn't be able to get away to visit. He'd wanted to make a batch of pemmican to take back with him, as well, and to play a few more pick-up games with the kids down at the rink in town, and...

He was staring at the stove, mentally shuffling his priorities against the time remaining, when he saw a familiar motion at knee-height in the corner of the room. He turned automatically toward it, mouth opening to speak once he made sure he was facing--but it had been some illusion, and when he turned and looked straight on, the corner was empty. His lips shaped a name he'd hardly spoken in years, but he was still alone. Of course.

He stood still until he couldn't deny to himself that he was shaking, and went to the cupboard, his hands reaching for chair-backs and the table and counter as he made his unsteady way. The only food he found was a box of crackers, doubtless stale, and some jerky, but Ben took it and went to sit at the kitchen table. He kept his eyes on its surface and ate mechanically, telling himself that whatever he thought he'd seen, the shaking that still unsettled his stomach, all of it was brought on by low blood sugar. He was still telling himself that when the click of toenails and a light nudge against his knee caused him to drop the last half of his piece of jerky under the table, and then he stopped cold.

When he bent over, the jerky was still there, of course. There was no one but him here, and no one was sitting under the table waiting for dropped food. He picked it up, but couldn't bear the thought of eating it. After a moment Ben realized that he was just sitting there, staring at a half-eaten piece of jerky, and he went to the door and threw it as hard as he could out into the grass.

Ben leaned against the doorframe for a moment, listening to the silence. A week ago, he'd been enjoying it, but now he was straining for sound--impossible sounds, any sounds. No matter how long he waited, he heard nothing but his own uneven breathing.

Ben headed back inside, and knelt before his father's trunk, opening it up and lifting out the top tray, digging inside till he found the carefully wrapped bottle of whisky. It was nearly full. He and his father had toasted with it the first time Ben saw him after being drafted by the Oilers, and his father had said once he'd never found another occasion fit for drinking the stuff. Ben sent up a heartfelt apology for the disrespect he was about to commit and pulled the bottle out, holding it to his heart as he went to the phone. He meant to pick it up and then sit at the table again, but found himsels sinking to the floor right there instead.

He pressed redial and listened to the beeping, and then a single ring.

"Lo?"

Ben looked at the light outside, and realized the arithmetic required to work out the approximate time from the angle of the arctic sunshine and the date was well beyond him, let alone remembering the day of the week. "Mark? Did I wake you?"

"Hey, Bent." Mark made an unperturbed waking-up noise. It sounded like he was still in bed; Ben could faintly hear the slide of his body against the sheets as he stretched. "What is it?"

Ben closed his eyes and swallowed hard, and, with Mark's sleepy voice in his ear, began to feel the ridiculousness of his behavior. Nonetheless, he couldn't seem to loosen his white-knuckle grip on the phone. He thought about saying I think I'm going crazy, but when Ben opened his mouth it was to say, "I miss Dief."

For a couple of beats all was silence again; down the wires, thousands of miles away in Winnipeg, Mark didn't even seem to be breathing, and Ben knew he wasn't himself. Then, in his ear, a heartfelt and wide-awake, "Shit. You're up home?"

Ben let his head fall back against the wall, closed his eyes, and said, quietly, "Yeah."

"You gonna have a drink?"

Ben's hand on the bottle was damp with sweat, and he let go and wiped it on his pants. "I was thinking about it, yes."

Mark blew out a noisy breath. "Well, do it. Drink for poor Gardie, for the wolf, your dad, the queen, but just get your ass trashed, okay?"

Ben braced the bottle between his knees and pulled the stopper free. The shrook noise and the smell hit him with all the weight of memories nearly sixteen years gone. He could see his father pouring the fine liquor into hotel water glasses, and his throat tightened up almost unbearably. Ben raised the bottle in a silent formless toast, and then put it to his lips and knocked it back, swallowing fast. He lost a trickle of liquid out of the corner of his mouth, and when he set the bottle down, he wiped his chin with one hand and licked his palm clean. Waste not, want not.

"Okay," Mark said in his ear, "that sounded like a good start." Ben heard Mark moving again, the slide of skin on sheets, covers moving around. He was getting comfortable, settling in for the long haul. "Okay. So, you just do your thing, and I'll be right here."

Nothing scared him more than the gentleness in Mark's voice; he'd never, ever been the gentle sort, even when Ben might have wished he would. Still, Mark had known how to handle things every other time he'd needed him to, so Ben swallowed his fear and took another long drink. He could feel the warmth of it now, glowing in his stomach, weighing down his limbs, easing the tightness in his chest. After another irreverent gulp, he didn't even mind the sound of a furry weight settling on the floor by the stove. There was nothing there when he lazily parted his eyelids and peered in that direction, as he knew there wouldn't and couldn't be. "Mark," he said, easily, "I think I'm going crazy."

Mark's snort of laughter brought a smile to Ben's face. "Going, Northie?"

"Who you calling Northie, Smithbauer?" It was an old argument, worn as smooth as the whisky sliding down his throat.

"Hey, I was born in an actual hospital, in Yellowknife, unlike some frigging hick Eskimo wannabes I could name."

"Inuit."

"Whatever."

Ben took another drink--the heavier his arms felt, the lighter the bottle got, which seemed a fair tradeoff--and listened to Mark moving around in the bed again. He wondered what Mark was doing on his end, to keep himself awake, and then realized that was a stupid question, and his mind's eye flashed on the slide and grip of Mark's hand, and then Kowalski's hand on him. Once he started remembering, he couldn't stop: Kowalski's even white teeth digging into one bony knuckle, Kowalski with his wolfish grin, Kowalski silent and subdued, Kowalski, walking away and away and away. He hadn't even shown up at that goddamn awful luncheon, and Ben had been watching for him, like a lovesick boy.

God, he was definitely going crazy; he'd been making do for far too long if the first friendly hand he met turned him into a stalker. He snickered, and realized he'd already drunk more than he had in years when he heard himself say, "Fucking Kowalski."

Not quite silence on Mark's end, and after a moment, Ben realized he was muffling his laughter in a pillow, and began to laugh along with him. Mark finally said, "Ray Kowalski? What've you been up to with Kowie, Bent? ‘Cause I'll grant you he's enough to drive anybody crazy."

"No, it was nothing," Ben said, distantly aware that he was giggling. He paused only to take another sip of the whisky to wet his throat, reminding himself that he'd promised Kowalski. Nothing had happened. "Nothing. He has nice hands, though."

"Not as nice as yours."

Ben carefully reached up and set the bottle on the counter above him, bracing the phone between his shoulder and ear. The leer in Mark's voice was plain; he never had been much for beating around the bush. "What are you doing, Mark?"

A snicker, and Ben knew Mark knew he knew the score. Ben shifted a little where he was sitting, letting his knees sag apart, the bones of his ankles touching the wood floor. He wiggled his toes as Mark said, "I was thinking about jerking off, actually. You?"

"Yeah," Ben agreed, running the palms of his hands up and down his thighs, relishing the friction heat. "That sounds good."

Mark's breath hitched in the middle of his chuckle, and Ben knew he had himself in hand already. Slow, for now, a light touch. Unhurried. "Now, see," Mark said, voice gone low and rough, "here I am in bed, not a stitch on, and I bet you're sitting on the damn floor up there with all your buttons buttoned, aren't you?"

Ben moved a bit, getting more comfortable, and less. He was hard in his jeans, his cock throbbing against the constriction. "Yeah," he said, running one hand over his erection, feeling himself hot through the layers of fabric, pressing hard and noticing again, as if he'd never noticed before, how the ache of it didn't lessen the pleasure. "Good kind of hurt," he muttered, pressing hard with the heel of his hand, stroking lightly with his fingertips.

Mark's unsteady breath caught, held a moment, then escaped in a shaky sigh. "You--you always liked that, huh, Bent? You and your good hurt."

Ben pressed harder, rocking his hips. His eyes fluttered shut, opened, closed again. He could hear his own breath, loud and fast, but he knew Mark was waiting for an answer, and managed a "Yes," through gritted teeth. There was a wet spot on his jeans, now, and he circled it with his thumb, his breath catching in his throat, emerging as a broken whine.

Another breathless laugh from Mark. "Jesus--Quit playing, Bent. Just--unzip--before you kill yourself."

Ben nodded, and the beeps of the random buttons he'd hit cut across Mark's quick, harsh breathing. His hands were shaking, and he had to try twice to get the button, but internal pressure pushed the zipper down almost without his help. Getting his pants down seemed beyond his capabilities, so Ben popped the button on his boxers and pulled himself free that way.

The release of pressure nearly finished him, and his hips arched up as he finally closed his fingers around his cock. He stroked himself roughly, once and twice and then he was just holding on, spurting hot on his own fingers.

Ben sagged sideways to the floor, and pulled the phone out from under himself with his left hand as he raised his right to his mouth. With Mark's distant post-coital gasping in his left ear--sounded like he'd dropped the phone, too--Ben licked idly across his palm, and then slipped two fingers into his mouth. The familiar salt taste of himself was gone by the time he heard Mark fumbling the phone to his ear again. When Mark said, "Bent? You good?" he finally remembered to stop sucking, and pulled his fingers free with a last regretful lick.

"Yeah," Ben mumbled against his hand and the phone, "I'm good."

"Yeah, you sound good," Mark rumbled, sounding barely more awake than Ben felt. "Now get your clothes off and go back to bed."

"Will do," Ben agreed, getting comfortable.

"Benton."

Maybe it was the sharp tone of Mark's voice, the one that always preceded him doing something for Ben's own good whether he liked it or not. Maybe it was the teeth that closed gently around his wrist and tugged. Either way, Ben rolled up to his knees and shoved his jeans and boxers off as he got unsteadily to his feet. The room wavered around him, and he reminded himself to be careful not to trip on Dief, and then Ben clicked the off button on the phone and dropped it on top of his pants. By some good fortune, when he pushed off from the wall toward the bed, he remained more or less upright until he hit it, and fell down on the covers again, already asleep.

On the third night after Gardie's funeral, Ray knew he had to get the hell out of his apartment. There was only so much solitary drinking he could do, partly because unlike bars, he didn't have scheduled deliveries from malt beverage distributors and tended to run out of things. Also, the stuff that hadn't happened with Fraser a few days before had reminded him of how long it'd been since anything had happened with anybody. At some point he'd gotten more or less used to the idea that Stella really wasn't coming around anymore, but he'd never quite gotten around to going out looking for someone else. He was still playing a lot of hockey, even if it was just beer leagues, and it kept him off the streets at night.

No games on Thursdays, though, so he got dressed--clean jeans, loose enough to move in, a faded blue t-shirt, boots and leather jacket, fresh condom in his pocket and a backup in his wallet--and hit the sidewalk, leaving his apartment behind for anyplace brighter, louder, and better stocked.

He picked a bar he'd been to a few times before, and by the time he'd made his way through the crowd--decent, for a weeknight--to the bar, he was pretty sure he'd picked the right place. He wasn't the oldest person there, two or three chicks had already checked him out, the music made him want to dance more than it made him want to scream, and they had Canadian beer on tap. He grabbed a seat and started in on his drink, letting the beer loosen him up a little before he tried hitting the floor. He studied the women already dancing, trying his best not to feel like a scout in the stands at a minor league game. It was late enough that people were starting to get serious about finding somebody to go home with. A lot of the women were already paired off with guys, oblivious to everything else, and he didn't really feel up to the effort of prying anybody away from their date. His knuckles had only just healed, the thin new skin still all pink and tight. He didn't need even the off-chance of a bar fight, not with a game to play tomorrow.

Still, there were lots of pretty women on the floor who were clearly still looking around, two of them dancing together in what was either a really well-thought-out bid to get the attention of just about every guy in the place, or, well, or one of the hottest things Ray had seen in a while. They were hanging all over each other.

Neither of them individually really turned his crank, though, and he had a sneaking suspicion that he wasn't actually a lucky enough guy to get both of them to go anywhere with him, so he looked elsewhere. The slender blondes, the ones who knew how to move, always caught his eye, but tonight they reminded him too much of Stella; they were nice to watch, but the idea of taking one home put a bad taste in his mouth. He washed it down with beer, ordered another, and looked elsewhere again.

Ray was idly calculating his odds with the redhead in the corner, wondering whether her glances in his direction meant she was interested, or just a hockey fan--a fan, these days, would probably mean a truly disheartening pity fuck--when a dark head caught his eye.

It was a guy, his own height but broader through the shoulders, with neat hair, dark and sleek, wearing jeans and a t-shirt and battered hiking boots. He had his back turned to Ray, talking to someone with body language that said something more like "giving directions to the library" than "picking up a date for the evening." Ray squinted briefly at him, wishing he'd turn around.

He'd tried to call Fraser, in the early afternoon after each of his two nights of solo drinking, and gotten his answering machine each time. He'd left a message the first time, saying he knew Fraser was still sort of new in town and wondering if he wanted to hang out or something. The second time, he'd just hung up. It had been pretty obvious at the funeral that Fraser was freaked out--he'd flinched from even touching Ray's arm--and in Ray's experience the thing to do when guys freaked out, after nothing whatsoever happened, was to believe even harder than usual that nothing had happened, so they could just fake being okay until they really were. Fraser really was pretty new in town, though, what with spending his summer up north, and Ray suspected that even leaving aside stuff that hadn't actually happened, he'd really like the guy, just as a guy, and as much hockey as he played these days he was still pretty short on actual friends.

And now Fraser was either avoiding him personally, or had fled Chicago for the Arctic fucking Circle, or maybe something else that had nothing to do with Ray. Maybe he just spent all his time reading to orphans and forgot to check his messages at the end of the day. Maybe at the end of the day he came here.

Ray didn't stare at the guy--he wasn't sure he was Fraser, and in fact he was pretty sure he wasn't, because this dive didn't really seem like Fraser's scene--but the women on the floor quickly became nothing more than distractions to keep him from sliding his eyes sideways for another look at the dark-haired guy. Pretty soon he did feel like he had a clipboard in hand, ticking off the prospects' faults in his mind: they were all too much like Stella or just not his type. The faux lesbians retired back to a table with three other women, giggling over brightly-colored mixed drinks.

The dark-haired guy came up to the bar, and Ray happened to be looking in his direction as he turned, and met his eye. Not Fraser, of course. Ray nodded slightly to the guy, and looked away, studying the women, as he realized that tonight was going to be a total wash; he was just going to go home, jerk off, sleep into the afternoon, and probably call Fraser again, like an idiot. At least he had a game tomorrow night. It'd been a week since he'd played, because he'd blown off a couple of games to drink Gardie to Valhalla--or, better, the Hall of Fame--and he was getting antsy for some action.

By the time the guy who obviously wasn't Fraser got to the bar, Ray had finished his drink, and was fishing his wallet out of his back pocket. He pulled out a few bills, gave the condom a rueful look--Jesus, that had been a little overly optimistic, hadn't it?--and tossed the money on the bar. The guy was almost but not quite in his personal space, and Ray gave him another quick polite nod as he sidled past him and headed out. Halfway to the door, he passed the table full of chicks, and breathed in their clashing perfumes and the smell of their drinks and, Jesus, one of them had puked at some point or something, because that sour smell underlaid all the sticky-sweetness. His stomach turned, and he changed direction and headed to the mens' room.

The place was empty, and Ray went to the sink to splash some water on his face, breathing shallowly through his mouth. He was just straightening up when the door opened, and the dark-haired guy walked in, and once again their eyes met. Ray looked away quickly--basic mens' room etiquette--but the guy said, "Hey, you okay?" His voice wasn't anything like Fraser's, all rough Chicago, startling even though Ray knew, obviously, that the guy wasn't Fraser. There was no reason to expect him to be Canadian, either, although Ray felt like he'd spent most of his adult life talking to Canadians.

Ray was so thrown, by the voice and by the fact that the guy was talking in the fucking mens' room, that he didn't immediately respond, just stood there looking down at his hands. Finally he said, "Yeah," and stepped to one side, so the guy could get past him without coming within two feet, but he didn't move away from the door, and finally Ray looked up at him, because what the fuck was this guy's problem?

He was smiling a little, in a way that made Ray's stomach twist again. "You wanna go someplace quieter?"

Ray blinked, and then shook his head quickly. "You got the wrong guy, buddy."

But the guy still didn't move, and he was still between Ray and the door, and finally Ray took a step toward him, dropping his shoulder, clenching his teeth, ready to just push past and get the hell out of here and get this night over with. Just when Ray was undeniably in his personal space, the guy arched one eyebrow and said, "You were checking me out, buddy. I couldn't help noticing." Ray had just enough time to register the alcohol stink on his breath, and then one of his hands was on Ray's chest and the other was on his jeans, making the condom in his pocket crinkle, sliding toward his fly, and Ray shoved him, hard, back against the door.

He hit with a satisfying thud, his eyes going wide, and yelled, "What the hell is your problem?"

Ray had stumbled back a step from the shove, but got his feet planted, and bounced on the balls of his feet, ready and steady. His fist was clenched tight, cocked back, his blood was pounding in his ears, and he was going to fucking murder this guy if he didn't step away from the fucking door. "What part of ‘I'm not a fucking fairy' did you not understand?"

The guy's startled look turned to something like disgust, and Ray nearly growled as he raised his fist higher, but the guy opened the door and slipped out. Ray saw, as it opened, the cute redhead, standing by the door of the ladies room. She glanced toward the dark-haired guy as he stepped through, and then looked at Ray like he was the one who'd been fucking assaulting somebody in the bathroom. He bared his teeth at her, too, and then the door swung shut again.

He turned away and aimed a hard kick at the corner of the stall, which made the whole thing shake, and then he just paced for a minute. He was spoiling for a fight now, vibrating with fury, but the door stayed shut. After a minute or two Ray knew that was probably for the best; he still didn't need to get into a fucking bar fight, after all. When he didn't have to force his hands to stay open anymore, he stalked out of the bathroom and straight to the door, taking off down the sidewalk.

He was walking fast, in long stiff-legged strides, head up and chin out, his hands stuffed in his pockets to keep him from slugging the first person who slowed his pace. His night had been fucking wrecked already, but then that fucking queer had fucking--

Ray stopped short. Somebody ran into him from behind, muttered something he'd have taken offense to on another day, and shoved past, but Ray stayed stock-still on the sidewalk, staring blindly ahead of him. That queer at the bar--that deceptively normal-looking, Fraser-looking guy--had thought Ray--

Ray bolted for the nearest alley, a bit of dark quiet space where he could lean against a wall while his guts squirmed like cats in a sack. He wrapped his arms tight around his stomach, swallowing convulsively until his mouth flooded with saliva and then he dropped to his knees, one hand on the ground and one against the wall, as he coughed and then gagged.

The path was well worn and easy to navigate, even though Ben carried a white pasteboard box in one hand and a pouch of freshly-made pemmican in the other. He didn't come up here as often as he should, nor as often as he was tempted to, but he was leaving shortly and this was not a visit he could fail to make, especially not now.

The spot was marked with a cairn of stones, a formless jumble with a perfect miniature inuksuk at the top end. From the top of the stone formation hung a chain with vaccination and ID tags, all made of stainless steel and impervious to rusting despite years of exposure to the elements.

Ben laid his offerings at the foot of the inuksuk, among the piled stones. "I should have brought these sooner," he said, quietly. "The cookies are from Chicago. Chris recommended a very nice Greek bakery. And don't worry, there's no chocolate. I checked carefully, I know it makes you sick. The pemmican is fresh. I know you never quite agreed with me that it wasn't good until it'd cured for a few months, so there you go."

He half expected Dief to materialize here, now, with these temptations offered, but of course he didn't. He was dead; Ben knew that. He reached out and fingered the cold tags. There was no blood on them anymore and hadn't been for years, but he still expected to see it every time he looked. The chain was the same one he'd hung around Dief's neck when he brought the half-grown half-wolf back from the wilds of the Northwest to his home in Edmonton. Dief had hated the tags, and Ben had chosen a chain long enough that he could slip it free any time he liked, but every time he came home, Dief was still there, still wearing those tags.

"I don't know why you stayed," he said softly. "I always expected you to be gone. You shouldn't have had to endure that." Endure her. He swallowed hard, touched the finger on his left hand that was no longer circled with metal, any more than Dief's neck was laden with tags. "You deserved better, Dief. I'm sorry." He blinked hard, but not quickly enough, and turned his face away, covering his mouth with one hand, even though he was surely perfectly alone up here. Not even Dief would see him now. "I'm sorry," he whispered again, when he could. "You should have gone, I told you you could. I wasn't worth staying for."

But Dief had stayed. Dief had always been waiting for him whenever he came home. Ben had never quite understood that, but he'd always been grateful, until the end--but he wouldn't think about that, not now, in the sunshine. This was about him and Dief, and no one else.

"Rest easy now, old friend," he said, and told himself he wasn't counting on the fact that Dief had never obeyed a direct command if he could possibly help it. He ran his fingers over the stones, and said again, "Rest easy," and then he just sat a while, in the long sunlight, as close to his best friend as he could be in this life.

Ray liked his Friday night league. Unlike Mondays and Tuesdays, Friday nights he didn't have to drive up to Milwaukee or down to Indy to find people psychotic enough to start a hockey season in July. On Friday nights he played in Chicago, a late night beer league stocked with youngsters looking to get an edge before their junior teams started training camp, a handful of stubborn old bastards like himself who just wouldn't let the game go, and a bunch of guys in between who just loved hockey too much to switch to golf. He'd go out for drinks with them after games, and it was like being on a real team again, where the other games felt like pick up hockey no matter how many times he went.

Friday nights he could get into the games, lose himself in skating hard, hitting hard, shooting and passing and sometimes just fucking around with the guys. He could feel for a little while like it was real.

He figured that was why he didn't notice the stocky man standing at the glass until halfway through the second. When he did--in the process of going over the boards and onto the bench after a killer shift, gasping for breath and mentally promising to give up smoking forever if he could just make it through the rest of the game without collapsing on the ice--he thought for a second that he was hallucinating. Oxygen deprivation, maybe. He half-fell onto the bench, his stick swinging close enough to Jacky's face to make him lean back and glare. Ray grimaced an apology as he shook his head to clear it, and didn't look over again until he'd caught his breath.

When he returned from Canada, Ben found three messages on his machine. The first was from Kowalski, and though it was perfectly intelligible, after listening to it perhaps a dozen times he was still not at all certain of what it actually meant. The second was just a hang-up click. The third was from Chris, mentioning that they'd be able to skate at United starting Monday, and that Jack was home from the hospital and would appreciate visitors. Ben elected to focus on the first part of that message.

Sunday night, the prospect of being able to skate the next morning meant he had something to focus on other than wondering what kind of game Kowalski was playing, and he put that problem firmly out of his mind.

He woke early, with the sun, and headed to the rink right away. "Hey, Mr. Fraser," the guard greeted him as he flashed his player pass. "Not quite the first one in this morning. Hope you don't mind sharing the ice."

Ben smiled at the man's small witticism even as he wondered who else had already arrived at barely six in the morning on the first day the ice was available, hoping the early arrival wasn't just one of his teammates. If there were several, he could simply be part of the group, but if there were only one...

They're your teammates, he scolded himself as he shouldered his bag through the locker room door, You could make an effort. He claimed the locker that had been his the previous season, though they weren't yet marked, and noticed as he got dressed that there was only one pile of street clothes on the bench, at an end locker that wasn't regularly assigned to anyone. He was briefly tempted to go check the empty equipment bag and see if he could find out who he'd be skating with, but tamped down on that impulse, laced his skates and headed for the ice.

Ben hesitated at the top of the tunnel before moving out onto the bench, looking up at the expanse of empty seats, the banners hanging perfectly still from the rafters, and beneath the half-lit fluorescent lamps, a single skater on the ice, the shuss of his blades the only sound in the enormous space. The new ice was perfectly smooth except for the tracks of that one man's skates, marking a path up to each line on the ice and back down.

Ray kept a discreet eye on Fraser as they stripped out of their gear--Fraser hanging his in his locker, Ray packing it all back into his bag--and headed for the showers. If that look on the ice had been anything but clinical, if Fraser was thinking about starting something, now would be the obvious time. Ray went ahead of him into the showers, listening, but Fraser kept a polite distance, and took the shower two down from his; not really avoiding him, but not making a move either.

Ray soaped up, stealing only quick careful glances over at Fraser, who, every time he looked, had his head down, eyes on the tile, washing quickly but not carelessly. Ray was soaping his hair, head tilted back to keep the suds out of his eyes, when a flash of motion drew his gaze.

Fraser had turned half away, standing with his head down so the spray hit right on the back of his neck, flexing his left shoulder to work the muscle under the hot water. His dark hair was black with water, plastered to his head, shifting at the nape of his neck where the water ran, contrasting sharply with his pale skin. Ray guessed he didn't spend much time working on the car with his shirt off, up there in North Whateverthefuck, because the back of his neck was as pale as... well, as everything else. Ray kept watching the motion of muscle shifting under skin for a few seconds longer, jealous like he'd often been of any guy with so much there there; he himself was all bones and gristle. Stella had always teased him that he exaggerated his weight as much as she lowballed hers, so between them they evened out.

He looked away quickly at that thought, squeezing his eyes shut and turning his face into the spray as he rinsed his hair with quick rough motions. The hell with Stella, anyway, and the hell with remembering. What he really needed was breakfast. Ray shut off the water and grabbed a towel from the stack by the door on his way out, toweling off as he walked, leaving puddles on the rubber-matted floor. He listened behind him, but the other shower stayed on, and Fraser didn't follow.

Ray was kind of relieved, really. He'd pushed hard this morning, and Fraser had pushed him harder, so he was kind of beat. They were making some headway on the playing well together thing, which Welsh had all but told him was his real ticket onto this team. It would have made things trickier if they'd been doing the other kind of playing around on top of it.

But Fraser hadn't started anything, and now Ray was getting dressed, so, okay, they weren't doing the sex thing. Whatever Fraser had been looking at him for out on the ice, that was Fraser's business. Fine. Ray was buttoning the fly of his jeans with clumsy fingers, wondering why the hell he bought these things when he could never get them fucking done up after he'd had his hands in gloves for any length of time, when Fraser came out of the showers, with a towel around his waist. His hair couldn't be any more than finger-combed--Ray knew he hadn't taken a hairbrush in there with him--but it looked almost perfect anyway. Ray knew his own was sticking up all over the place, not so much in a cool way as in a "I just rubbed a towel all over my head" way, and shot Fraser a tight little smile as he dug through his bag, looking for the clean shirt he knew he'd brought with him. Somewhere.

He heard Fraser toss his towel down, the heavy damp thump of it against the floor, and kept his eyes down on his bag. The sound of boxers--fabric sliding over skin, the soft slight snap of elastic--and then blue jeans, a heavier fabric friction, the minute noises of necessary adjustments, and then a zip. Ray exhaled and reached down to the bottom of his bag, yanking out the neatly rolled t-shirt stashed there. He allowed himself to steal a glance at Fraser once he'd gotten the shirt over his head, and caught Fraser pulling down his own t-shirt, a glimpse of pale skin disappearing behind blue cotton knit. Something like disappointment shuddered in his gut, but Ray pushed that down--breakfast, right, he just needed some goddamn breakfast was all--as he jammed his gear into place and zipped his bag, shoving his feet without socks into a pair of beat-up tennies.

Ray looked over at Fraser again as he swung his bag onto his shoulder and grabbed his stick. Fraser was just standing at his locker, socks in one hand, the other hand raised to the empty space where his nameplate would be, soon. Ray didn't look over at the locker he'd left carefully empty, and choked back the nasty mood his hunger had put him in. "Hey, Fraser, uh..." Fraser looked up quickly, meeting Ray's eyes with a direct look that caught him off guard. Ray cleared his throat and pushed on quickly. "You wanna go get something to eat with me?"

Fraser looked down at his bare feet, and said, "Why--yes, I just need to--"

Ray was nodding as soon as he heard the yes. "Tell you what, get your shoes on, meet me up at my car, okay?"

Fraser nodded as he sat down, lifting one foot to pull a sock on, and Ray only watched for an instant before he turned away, hoisting his bag and shoving the door open ahead of him with his stick.

Kowalski took one look at Ben's truck and rolled his eyes. "Fraser, you know they pay you millions of dollars a year, right? That's US dollars, y'know. Enough to buy a car, for instance."

"Ah," Ben said, running an eye over the small black sports car whose trunk Kowalski had been perched on. "Perhaps I've been doing the exchange rate backward?"

Kowalski flashed him a short grin, shaking his head, and moved toward the driver's side of his car. "Come on, hop in, I know where we're going anyway." Ben hesitated for an instant, but Kowalski beckoned impatiently as he slid into the driver's seat, and he hurried quickly to the passenger side, noting as he did the make and model of the car.

When they'd reached the street and Kowalski still hadn't offered any small talk, tapping the steering wheel in a rhythm only he could follow, Ben ran one hand lightly across the dash, and said, "A GTO, isn't it? Sixty-seven?"

Kowalski glanced over at him, looking impressed. "Yeah. I wouldn't've thought you knew much about cars."

"Ah--" Ben considered prevaricating, but knew he wouldn't get very far with no more relevant knowledge than what the three letters stood for. "I don't, actually. I'd just always wondered why you chose that number."

Kowalski turned his attention back to traffic, still smiling, and nodded. "Yeah, that's it, sixty-seven. Me and my dad used to fix up cars, and this was the last one we did together before I went off to juniors. We worked on it day and night that summer. Six coats of jet black. When I got to Montreal there were four of us who wanted to be number nine--" Ben nodded his understanding; he himself had switched from his habitual number ten, when he joined the Blackhawks, to eight, in deference to a new teammate's prior claim. "And about the only thing I missed from home was the goat, so I picked sixty-seven. Plus I figured no matter where I played, nobody else would want that one."

Ben nodded, and refrained from remarking on the great variety of places Kowalski had played, choosing another tack instead. "You didn't miss anything else?" His own first year playing away from home had been a misery, but for Mark's company; he had missed the north so desperately, and felt so lost in the cities.

Kowalski was shaking his head. "Nah. Well, I missed Stella, but I couldn't really put that on the back of my jersey, right? And then she came out to McGill the next year and things were good, we were..."

Ben glanced over at Kowalski, who was now staring at traffic with a forbidding intensity, and held his peace, looking out the window and watching the city go by at a hectic pace. Within a few moments Kowalski was maneuvering the GTO into a street space, reversing at a breakneck speed, then coming to a hard stop. Ben sat still for a moment after he'd turned the car off, catching his breath, and to his surprise Kowalski said, quietly, "Sorry," and offered him a small shy smile.

Ben smiled tentatively back, and they got out of the car and set off down the sidewalk to the diner Kowalski had had in mind, a short distance away. They were soon settled at a table, gulping down tumblers of water in companionable silence. Kowalski switched immediately to heavily-sugared coffee, which he drank with as much alacrity as the water; Ben requested orange juice, and refrained from pointing out the counterproductivity of his tablemate's beverage choices. Kowalski seemed to perceive some censure nonetheless, and when he set down his empty coffee mug, said, "Yeah, I know, coffee's bad for me, smoking's bad for me." His right hand opened and closed, flexing habitually, drawing Ben's eye to his knuckles, marked by bright patches of often-broken skin. "Hockey's probably bad for me, come to that. Doesn't mean I'm going to stop, right?"

"Well," Ben offered, "if you've indeed chosen hockey as your particular self-destructive vice, you might consider that the others actually interfere with its efficacy."

Ray's lips moved slightly for a few seconds after Ben stopped speaking, as though he were repeating the words over to himself; after an excruciating pause in which Ben braced himself to admit that yes, actually, he had been raised in a library, and furthermore had finished college, with satisfactory grades and a major in English, Kowalski said, "Yeah, well, I like my coffee," and retreated into his menu. Ben followed suit, gladly.

They remained in silence until the waitress returned to take their orders. Ben made his selection and then listened as Kowalski rattled off two different breakfast specials worth' of selections, "And bacon. Did I say bacon? On the side." The waitress scratched something down on her pad, refilled Kowalski's coffee, and headed to the kitchen.

Ben sipped his orange juice, and looked across the table at Kowalski, who, robbed of the distraction of a menu, was again tapping out some unheard beat. Hoping to distract him before he started using the silverware, Ben said, "You know, it isn't actually possible to get up to game weight in a single meal."

Kowalski gave him a smile, and said, "What, you think I gotta gain weight?" He spread his arms, putting himself on display, and said, "This doesn't look like six foot, one-ninety to you?"

Ben very nearly choked on his orange juice. "Do they permit you to be weighed in your skates and pads?"

"Yeah, dripping wet, too, with my pockets full of pucks," Kowalski agreed, sipping more coffee. "Sounds good, though, you know."

Ben nodded agreeably, and they fell silent again, Kowalski leaning back from the table and sprawling a bit in his seat, clearly more at ease. Ben stared idly out the windows, watching people go past, not really seeing anything, until, across the street, a low loping flash of white sped by. He sat straight up, staring, only faintly aware of Kowalski bolting upright in response, but the shape was gone, and there was no way of knowing whether he'd really seen anything at all. He tore his eyes away from the window to find Kowalski looking, not at him, but out at the street, searching the scene. "It's nothing," Ben said, quietly, "I just--" But what could he say?

Kowalski looked back at him, with a small frown, and then over his shoulder, and the waitress was there with their food. It took her a few minutes of maneuvering to arrange all of Kowalski's breakfast in a reasonable manner, and when she left they settled into the natural silence of eating. Ben alternated attention to his own breakfast with moments spent watching Kowalski work through plates of eggs and potatoes and toast and pancakes and, of course, bacon. He ate quickly, with his head down, intent on enjoying his food. At one point, when Ben looked up, Kowalski was drawing his fork from between closed lips, syrup smeared on the corner of his mouth.

Ben didn't realize he was staring until Kowalski caught him at it, raising his eyebrows. "What, I got something on my face?"

"Ah." Ben looked away quickly, then back. "Yes, actually," and he tapped at the corner of his mouth, mirroring.

Kowalski stuck his tongue out, licking diligently at the spot, and Ben had to look away again, till he said, "Did I get it?"

He glanced up quickly. The corner of Kowalski's clean mouth was now sheened with saliva, and Ben turned his gaze down to his food. "Yes, that was it."

He only nodded when Kowalski said, "Thanks," and after that Ben didn't look up again until he heard the metal and porcelain clatter of Kowalski setting his silverware down. He was leaning back in his seat again, one hand resting almost protectively over his stomach, the other holding a strip of bacon which he seemed to be considering very carefully. "So, Benton Fraser," Kowalski said, in a thoughtful voice that Ben couldn't help leaning forward into, "tell me, what was it really like, playing with Wayne Gretzky?"

Ben opened his mouth, queuing up the rote answer to that question, which he'd been asked virtually every time he'd been interviewed for the entire duration of his NHL career, sparing half a thought to be disappointed that Kowalski cared, and then caught sight of the teasing glint in the other man's eye and smiled. "Oh, well, you know, about as miserable as you'd expect. It was completely impossible to get any credit for anything; all our success was attributed to the offense and nobody could spare any attention at all for the efforts of the defensemen."

The fourth morning Ray skated with Fraser at United, Hack showed up about halfway through. They were fighting for the puck--a drill had degenerated into a dogfight, for about the tenth time that day--when Fraser just suddenly went still. Ray stole the puck, skated up far enough to get the angle and put it neatly into the net, and only then looked up to see why Fraser was standing frozen at the boards.

Hack was letting himself out through the bench door, holding his catching glove under one arm, big goalie helmet and stick balanced on top of the boards. Ray skated toward Fraser, but he shook himself out of his freeze and headed over to Hack with a smile that didn't look quite right compared to the ones Ray had been seeing for the last three days. Ray followed him.

Fraser pulled one glove off, and shook Hack's hand, with a smile and a, "Hello there, Jeff."

Jeff grinned, and said, "Hey, Fraser," and then turned toward Ray, just in time for Ray to reach over, hand still gloved, and rough up his hair. Jeff grinned and ducked out from under Ray's hand, whacking him on the arm with his blocker. "Hey, Ray-Kay. I heard you were gonna be here babysitting Fraser."

Ray glanced quickly over at Fraser, but Fraser was looking out across the ice like he hadn't even heard. "Yeah, well, gotta be sharp for camp, right?" Fraser had heard Hack step onto the bench; there was no way on earth he'd missed what Hack said.

When Ray looked back at him, Hack snorted. "You wanna try taking shots on a net with a goalie in it, then? Makes it a little more challenging."