Title: Cigarettes
Fandom: Due South
Rating: G
Length: 803 words
Characters/Pairings: Ray Kowalski
Author Notes: Another quickie.
Disclaimer: I didn't create these characters, I don't own them, I derive no profit from their use.
Summary: After two months in the Arctic, Chicago is like sticking his head in a pinball machine, or maybe an ashtray.

After two months in the Arctic, Chicago is like sticking his head in a pinball machine, or maybe an ashtray: loud, bright, fast; smoky, smelly, dirty.  Ray wanders around streets he’s known all his life, with his ears ringing and his head spinning and his fingers beating out nervous drum riffs in the air.  There are people all over the goddamned place: everywhere he looks are a dozen lives playing out in flashes in front of him; the air full of their random chatter and their yelling at each other.  Some of them want something from him; most of them want nothing to do with him. 

One punk kid—can’t be more than sixteen—actually tries to lift Ray’s wallet.  Doesn’t just try; he has the damn thing in his hand before Ray wakes up and remembers he’s supposed to do something about that, people aren’t supposed to just take your stuff without asking.  The kid’s just started to move when Ray grabs him by the shoulders, fingers digging into flesh like maybe he’s going to rip him apart.  They just freeze like that, staring at each other, while Ray realizes Right, arrest him, that’s what you do when you catch a perp, and then I’m not on duty, this isn’t even my district, hell, I’m not even sure who I work for right now, and I could be this kid’s father, almost.

He plucks his wallet from the kid’s fingers and tells him to get lost.  His voice sounds soft and so tired; he’s a little surprised the kid even hears him.  But the kid runs, losing himself in the crowd in a second.

Shoving his wallet back in his pocket, Ray walks down the block to the nearest convenience store.  He buys a pack of Marlboros and is out of the store before he realizes he doesn’t have a lighter on him.  Hasn’t carried one for a year and a half; not since he started the Vecchio gig.  (Not since the first day with Fraser, to be precise, and yeah, let’s be precise.)  Goes back and buys a disposable plastic one.

The first drag nearly chokes him.  He bends over, coughing and spluttering like he’s thirteen again, out behind the bleachers with Jimmy Polanski.  The second drag warms his blood like he’s been smoking all his life.  A year and a half of clean living, gone, just like that.

He smokes it, walking, not thinking about where he’s going.  Not thinking about much of anything but the acrid, comforting taste, and the layer of calm the nicotine lays down on top of his buzzing nerves.  Aware of his surroundings without paying real attention: tuning out the details of traffic and people and signs while alert to movement behind him or violation of his personal space.  Alert for danger, hands ready for action, even the one holding the cigarette.

He finds himself in the park where Fraser liked to camp (totally illegal, especially that outdoor fire, but Ray never pointed that out because then Fraser would have felt compelled to stop doing it, and maybe to haul himself in to the station to be booked and fined).  The burned-bare spot is still there, or at least, Ray’s pretty sure this one is Fraser’s and not damage from one of the million other things that people do in parks, off the path where they’re supposed to be going easy on the grass.

The daylight is going, but not gone, and it’s not like the city gets all that dark even at night.  The trees are just starting to bud out leaves, and the ground is squelchy with what Ray hopes is just mud.  He leans against a tree and squints up through the branches, to where the stars would be coming out in an hour or two, if you could see them through the light pollution and the pollution-pollution.  The white noise of the city rushes in the background like the sound of a river, but somewhere nearby a couple of birds are calling to each other, first one, then the other. 

Hey, where are you?

I’m over here, where are you? 

I’m right here, come on over! 

Nah, I’m good where I am, but you could join me, if you felt like it. 

I don’t know, it’s a long flap all the way over there, and it’s getting dark. 

Maybe tomorrow, then. 

Yeah, give me a call. 

Good night. 

Sleep well, now.

Ray cracks a smile, listening to the birds carrying on like a couple of teenagers who just can’t stand to hang up the phone.  He lights another cigarette, breathes deep, and blows a stream of smoke up at the tree branches.  Adding his own little contribution to the atmosphere of home.  One more smudge to blot out the stars.