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Sometimes Ray just shouldn’t be awake after midnight. It’s like that weird movie Frannie’s kids love so much. Gremlins. It’s like Gremlins. They all watched it together last Christmas and it gave him the creeps, but Fraser and Turnbull loved it. Weird Canadians. That happened, right? No food after midnight for Gizmo, no being awake at all after midnight for Ray.
Everything starts to go twirly after twelve thirty. When Ray was little, he’d strain his eyes after lights-out trying to make out shapes in the dark, and sometimes his vision would go funny and he’d see these paisley spots that moved around all slow and strange. After twelve thirty, Ray’s thoughts get spinny like that. He needs to be rested for the court case tomorrow, if tomorrow ever comes. Time is so slow. Everything has to exist in order for the case to be tomorrow, and time has to go on, and really what’s the likelihood of that?
Ray might not exist. Ray might be one of those swirly spots that aren’t really there at all. He might fade out into nothing with a blink and a rub of the eyes. Then there wouldn’t be a court case. Or maybe there would be, but he wouldn’t be there. Would anyone know he wasn’t there? Maybe he just imagined himself this whole time, and no one else can see him. Like he’s in one of those horror movies where the mental patient was imagining somebody else with them the whole time, but he’s the head case and the hallucination. Hallucination isn’t the right word, is it? No, he definitely meant something else. Did he? Maybe… The thought is gone now. Is Ray gone now?
He gets up to pace around at one. He checks the locks on the doors, just in case… something. He opens the fridge and the freezer and looks in them for answers. Nothing there, and nothing in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, and nothing under the sink…
Maybe he missed his meds. Maybe that’s all that’s wrong and he can take them and it’ll be better and—no. He hates every letter in “SUN PM,” printed where the compartment is gaping and empty. Maybe he took the pills out and left them somewhere, he thinks frantically. But no, no, when he focuses on it, he can remember filling up a glass of water. One of the camping set mugs. Damn!
He turns on the TV at one twenty seven.
He gets back in bed at one fifty two.
He calls Fraser at two, and Fraser’s groggy voice is maybe the first real thing Ray’s ever heard.
“Ray? It’s the middle of the night.”
“You can hear me, right?”
“Mmm.” Ray can almost hear his pursed lips. “Reception’s fine.”
“No, I mean you can hear me.”
“Who else?”
Anyone else. No one else. No one there.
“Dunno. Okay. Right. Okay. And you’re in Florida?”
“Yes, Ray.” And here, thank god, here’s the Fraser voice that means ‘I understand that you’re fucked in the head at this juncture, and I will handle this accordingly.’
“Okay.”
“What part of the house are you in?” Fraser asks, calm as anything. “Tell me what’s around you.”
“Bedroom.” That’s the easy part. What’s there… “Um. A lot of things.”
“Name one.”
“Dishes. There are dishes on the night table.”
In Florida, Fraser laughs: a bright, sweet noise. “The moment you get the place to yourself.”
“I can eat where I like when you’re not here to complain.” He can. He was enjoying that this morning… yesterday morning… in the morning, when he was eating toast in bed and getting crumbs all over Ring World. That happened. That definitely happened. The feeling of novel luxury is there somewhere, hidden under layers of gray tulle.
“As long as the crumbs are gone when I get home.”
“So demanding,” Ray gripes. It’s good, the back and forth between them. Natural, even now.
“It’s a reasonable request, Ray.”
Good to hear his name in Fraser’s voice.
“Nothing about you is reasonable.”
“But you love me anyway.”
Ah, there’s a feeling, love. Or maybe it’s just sadness. Or the pain of hope. Ray manages a watery smile even though Fraser isn’t there to see it.
“Yeah, I do.”
“And I love you too, Ray.”
It always amazes Ray, how Fraser can say these things, because he doesn’t say ‘I love you’ like anyone else Ray’s known. Fraser doesn’t say it in the warm, fond way Ray’s mom does, or the gruff, awkward way his dad does. He doesn’t say it with an edge of thrill like Stella did in the beginning, or like a statement of fact like she did in the middle, or with regret, like she did in the end. No, Fraser says ‘I love you’ like he’s pressing it into Ray’s hands: a solid thing for Ray to hold on to. Fraser says it like he’s writing it on Ray’s heart.
Once, in the middle of one of Ray’s worse episodes, Fraser took out a pen and wrote ‘I love you’ on Ray’s ankle. For a week, he’d write it again every morning when Ray got out of the shower.
Ray rubs the spot where the letters used to be and lets himself feel.
“Whatever happens, whether you sleep or not, tomorrow is still going to come. Tonight is going to be over in a matter of hours.”
“You’re just glad you won’t have to deal with me later today.”
“Maybe a little.”
“Jerk,” Ray says affectionately.
“Fair’s fair. I distinctly remember you telling me you’d never done anything bad enough to deserve working with a sleep-deprived Mountie.”
Ray doesn’t remember that, but it sounds right. He didn’t know the true meaning of “snippy” until he saw Fraser tired.
“I’d rather have a kick in the head.”
“Indeed. Do you feel better now?”
“A little, yeah. More real, anyway.”
“Good. See if you can sleep a little, and if not, you can always take a nap when you get home.”
“I think I’ll need one either way.”
“Probably best for all involved,” Fraser says in his best academic voice.
Ray snorts. “Definitely. And Fraser?”
“Yes?”
“Never let Frannie make me watch Gremlins again.”
“As you wish. Goodnight, Ray.”
“’Night. Sleep well.”
“You too.”
Ray hangs up and stretches out on the bed. If he doesn’t start getting tired in an hour or so, he’ll give up on the whole sleep thing and try and find something interesting to do until he wears himself out or the sun comes up. Whichever one comes first. In the meantime, he pays attention to the feeling of the mattress holding him up, the texture of the sheets, and the sound of the city around him. He’s not going to blink out of existence anytime soon.