WIP Amnesty Day
Feb. 6th, 2004 10:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daemonlunaIt's WIP Amnesty Day, or so I gather. And I've still got an hour or so left to pick something to post. The trouble is, I've, er, got so many. Let's see. Skipping stuff that's really just a page or so ficlet, we have..
Brother Dear Brother
* The one about Aya.
* The random contextless first time fic.
* The one where Miya-sama and Kaoru no Kimi repeatedly have claundestine not-terribly nice sex that Rei can never know about.
* The one with Fukiko and Rei and the hairbrush.
Due South
* The one where there are murders and Ray can't sleep and Fraser notices. Abandoned because it's melodramatic and kinda OOC and came out of thesis-induced sleep deprivation on my part more than anything.
* The one where Fraser keeps dreaming about Ray dying.
* The one where Ray is dead and doesn't know it. Never got past a chat log outline.
* The frickin' long journal-style WWI AU that only ever got outlined and started onr adom bits of paper.
* The Bad!Ben story with the knife-licking.
Hard Core Logo
* The Buffy crossover where roadtripping Xander meets Billy. Abandoned because Billy was being too NICE and in fact was acting an awful lot like RayK instead. Damn.
* The HCL/Murder Most Likely crossover![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
troutkitty and I wrote together about three years ago. Which could probably be counted as done and we really should post.
* The one where Joe had a sister. Operative word being had.
* The short thing where Joe's got a hole in his head but can still jerk Billy around. In more ways than one.
Utena
* The one where Akio shows Saionji something... eternal.
* The one where Anthy smells like roses and takes good care of Utena.
* The one where Anthy goes back and Akio dies.
* The one where Shiori makes Juri cry.
Other Stuff
* A Please Save My Earth fic older than this computer which is three paragraphs long, rambles a bit, and I can't remember where on earth it was going.
* Three-quarters of a short Escaflowne fic where Van really needs to get over Hitomi. No idea how it ends.
* A Dark Angel ficlet without a real ending.
Maybe I'll just pick something will probably never-ever make it off the depths of the hard drive otherwise. Poor little WIP. *sniff*
Oh yeah, and prepare to deal with my screwy non-linear writing style. Whee.
Started this in, er, probably '99. It was supposed to be half the length it is now, then it kinda grew, then it turned into an AU which opened up far too many possibilities as to what else should go in as a slightly skewed version of canon. And now I'm not happy with a lot of it and will probably never finish it. But I had a hell of a good time getting as far as I did. *g*
Letter of the Law/Following the Rules/Follow the Leader/Damn I Suck At Titles
It was the sun in his eyes that woke him.
Kee-rist, but it was early. Ray squeezed his eyes tightly shut and tried unsuccessfully to ignore the merciless brightness painting the insides of his eyelids a warm red. No go.
"All right, I'm up, I'm up," he grumbled at the unshuttered window. The sun shone back with a blithe unconcern for his opinion on the matter of mornings. [Oct-frost on the grass-sun would be coming up later, and weaker]
[watching Fraser sleep with bemused affection]
[descrip? Fraser hugging pillow or something?]
[innocent, open?]
When Fraser crashed, he crashed hard, just like he did everything else. All or nothing, that was Frase. Even more so since they'd headed north, Ray had noticed. In Chicago, Fraser was hemmed in and lost by all the temporizing, all the if's and maybes, all the muddy middle ground between Wrong and Right.
[came back from quest-Franklin's Hand already found]
" 'To seek a north-west passage at the call of many men/to find there but the road back home again,' " Fraser had quoted solemnly.
[more]
It had been almost three weeks since they'd returned to civilization-if you could call [town name], pop. 58, civilization. Ray sure as he-heck, didn't. Then again, by now, running water, indoor plumbing, and a real bed held a whole new allure no matter where they were. Especially the real bed part, Ray thought smugly, gazing fondly at Fraser spooned up beside him, for all intents and purposes dead to the world. Last night had worn him out but good, looked like.
[more?]
Ray was still officially taking an extended leave of absence.
"On account of identity crisis," Welsh had said gruffly, jerking his chin pointedly towards the real Ray Vecchio. "Safer this way. For everyone."
He had no problems with that... hell, blanket permission from TPTB to spend months paperwork-free, traipsing around after some dead guy's hand with Fraser, sharing a bedroll with Fraser... okay, maybe that last one was definitely strictly extra-curricular and not going on any of the reports back home, but time off with Frase was always a good thing in his books.
Fraser, however, was back on active duty. Constable Pearson, who'd been the one stationed here in [wherever], had slipped on the ice and fractured his leg in three places. It sounded like some sorta rookie blunder until you realized just how much ice there was lying around to slip on. So Fraser, being Fraser, had volunteered to step in. Only Frase would volunteer for work in the middle of his vacation, only Frase.
Not that Ray complained too hard once he found out about the bed and indoor plumbing part.
"It's good to be back in the saddle again-metaphorically speaking," Fraser had said cheerfully, buttoning his tunic and straightening his lanyard. "Getting the job done properly. I really should see about obtaining an official posting."
[take him a while to clean up the mess-Pearson was sloppy-dent in the piles of paperwork]
"Oh, I dunno 'bout the saddle... you want somethin' to ride, I'm sure I could arrange something strictly unofficial," Ray, sprawled across the foot of the bed and watching the proceedings with a proprietary interest, had said innocently-too innocently, of course.
Fraser's only response had been an eloquent lift of the eyebrow.
Ray's response to that, well, neither of them had the breath for talking thereafter. At least not coherently. And Frase's tunic and jodhpurs were a bit worse for the wear. (Ray still couldn't believe Fraser had made him iron them afterwards. It's not like it was his fault. Okay, not all his fault.)
But even though he was back on duty, Fraser wore his uniform less out here. When Ray has asked about the lack of shoot-me-now red in his wardrobe, after Fraser had finished lecturing on how the red serge was the dress uniform thank you very much, (and jeezus Ray wouldn't have asked if he'd known Frase was going to get so snarky about it), he'd gone on a lengthy diatribe about now simply being an officer of the law rather than a representative for his country. Ray figured what he meant is that he was home and not on polite company manners any more. Only Fraser could still be a guest in another country after living there for what, four, five years.
Fraser was different at home on his own turf. Not completely, but there was a subtle change of stance, of attitude, as if he were more comfortable in his own skin and more sure of his footing. And his authority.
Maybe it was because this was where he belonged. His world, his rules. His people. They all knew him by name, and not just as an oddity or curiosity. The Mountie. The freak. Not here. Here he was Constable Fraser (always the title) and if not that, Benton or Ben, the name alien and unfamiliar on Ray's ears.
Ray, just because that's the kind of guy he was, stuck doggedly to calling his partner Fraser, or Frase. He blithely ignored the sideways glances it got him.
[gentle w/ the innocent, implacable w/ the lawbreakers]
It was if the cold made everything sharper. The snow, grainy and squeaking underfoot. The air, like a lungful of knives. And Fraser, who had been scrupulously polite in Chicago, here had the same unfailing courtesy but with a core of iron.
Even, and Ray admitted it with more than a slight flush of embarassment, even the sex was different.
Before that night, Fraser had been in sex much like he was in everything else. Thorough. Considerate. Meticulous attention to detail. And... talented. Very talented.
But then, something had changed.
It had happened their first week in [name of town], when they'd rediscovered the advantages of a real bed with a real mattress and no fear of frostbite. Fraser had taken full advantage of the situation and, Ray swore, was determined to drive him nuts.
Fraser trailed a languid tongue down the sharp ridge of Ray's hipbone. Ray arced beneath him and begged shamelessly, eager hands urging him to hasten the pace. At that, Fraser's patience had finally worn thin. With one strong hand he pinned Ray's wrists firmly out of the way above his head.
Ray pushed back experimentally.
Fraser growled and tightened his grip.
Ray gasped and shuddered. This was... ohgod.
Fraser stopped. "You're shaking, Ray," he said with every evidence of concern.
"No... no Frase, this is good shaking," he managed finally.
"Ah," Fraser said, comprehension dawning. "I see... wait here."
Ray waited as Fraser rummaged through his packs. What else could he do but wait and watch? Was there less air in the room or was it just him? Maybe he was hyperventilating, couldn't take a deep breath, short gasping shallow sounds and Fraser was turning around and-
The handcuffs glinted brightly in the firelight.
"Yes," Ray said hoarsely.
"Manners, Ray. Say please," Fraser said smoothly, stalking closer.
Ray swallowed hard, struck by a sudden flush of heat. So this was how it was going to go.
If Fraser's crazy lessons on manners were going to have this effect on him from now on, he reflected in a dizzy flash of insight, he'd never make it through the day without jumping him at least once.
Fraser was at the foot of the bed now, watching Ray with a dark intensity that rose goosebumps.
Or getting jumped, Ray amended. Definitely getting jumped.
"Please," he said, dry-mouthed.
And then the cuffs were on his wrists and the metal was cold and Fraser's hands lips skin were fever-hot and he was dizzy with it and nothing was enough all at the same time that it was all too much and-
Things were different after that night. Just a bit.
"Fraser," Ray had asked afterwards, voice gravelly and hoarse from the screaming, "are you okay with this?"
"You asked me for it," he'd said simply.
"Yeah, but do you want it?"
Fraser just smiled uncomprehendingly and hugged his knees in a surprisingly childlike gesture.
"Frase," Ray said warningly, "you gotta tell me you want this too, or we stop. You get it? We stop." One narrow hand cutting down sharply in illustration.
"Ah. I see."
"You see what? C'mon Frase, don't play this game. Not here. Not now."
"Yes Ray."
"Yes what?"
"Yes, I want it."
Ray swallowed. "Right. Good," he said finally, not sure if he was reassuring Fraser or himself-or both of them.
It was good for Fraser to be in charge, he told himself. Good for the Mountie to let loose. After all, he obviously enjoyed it. And it was good for Ray, too. For once, let it all go. Nothing was his responsibility, or more importantly, his fault. Just put it all in Fraser's strong, capable, maddening hands.
And it wasn't just that he couldn't move, couldn't touch, could only writhe and beg for more. Or that Fraser was taking for once, taking not asking. Or that Fraser could just take whatever he wanted him and Ray wouldn't, couldn't bring himself to stop him, that it had nothing to do with physical strength and everything to do with control. It was all that and more. And if that made him a sick, twisted fuck, it's not like it wasn't anything he didn't know already.
All this was was how he'd ended up kneeling in the middle of the floor last night, shivering and naked, hands cuffed behind his back, eyes fixed resolutely, submissively on the grain of the wood in the floorboards.
Which, directly or indirectly, was why he ached this morning. But it was a good, deep-down, satisfied sort of ache. He'd earned it, after all.
The insistent shrill of the phone shook him out of his reverie.
"Hold your horses-or sled dogs, or whatever," Ray grumbled, surrendering his warm cocoon of clinging blankets and Mountie.
Oh, cold. Cold air, cold floor, cold Ray...
He pulled on a crumpled pair of jeans, and snagged a shirt from the pile of discarded clothing at the foot of the bed. Fraser's shirt, soft worn flannel, easy on abraded skin. Last night had been rough. Fun, but rough. The lingering warmth of sleep was all but gone. The early-morning chill in the air had hit as soon as he'd crawled out of bed, a shock like a bucket of ice water in the face. He shrugged the shirt on hastily. Fraser's scent clung to it, clean sweat, fresh snow, and woodsmoke.
The phone was still ringing.
"All right already!" he whispered harshly at it, and tiptoed hastily across the room. Ouch. Yeah, last night was definitely making itself felt.
"Yeah, what can I do you for?"
Brief pause.
"Ah yes, this is Inspector [Mackenzie], calling from headquarters in Edmonton. Is this the senior officer on the premises?"
"N-" Ray stopped. Fraser was still dead to the world, and it was either him or the wolf. And somehow, he just didn't think Dief would appreciate the call.
"Yeah, that'd be me," he fibbed, juggling the phone on one shoulder. He was a law enforcement officer, just not a Mountie per se. And he was the only one on, er, active duty this morning, so to speak. What with Frase all comatose after the night before and all, it was practically his duty to take over. "C'n I take a message or something?" Paper, pen, they had to be somewhere here. Only Fraser could keep a desk so neat you couldn't find anything.
"It's about Constable Fraser's request for a transfer," continued the voice on the other end of the line.
"Oh, hang on, I'll go wake-uh, get him-"
"It's been denied."
"What-but, why... why's that?" Ray stuttered blankly.
There was a long pause. "Are you his commanding officer?"
"Yeah, absolutely," Ray lied with conviction.
"We've decided that to assign him to his previous posting, or to an equally remote area, would be tantamount to disaster."
"What, remote, y'mean because there'd be no people around him? I mean, Fraser's not exactly Mr. Extrovert here, and I think he likes the whole alone thing, so you don't have to worry-"
"Yes. Well. Therein lies the problem."
"-and I mean I'm pretty sure he wouldn't crack up or anything because of it, hell, he'd probably love it, and-"
"At this time, it would be most beneficial if Benton Fraser were placed back in a more controlled environment," the voice continued in tones of utmost reason and logic.
"Controlled? Whadda you mean controlled? It's not like he's some sorta indigenous-endangered-whatever-wildlife or something!"
"The truth of the matter is," came the ruthlessly reasonable and oh so concerned reply, "the fact that he is Robert Fraser's son is no longer adequate compensation for the increasing number of... irregularities in his permanent record."
"Irregularities? Like what, missing paperwork or something?" Ray was floundering; he was drowning. None of this made any sort of sense at all, not even in a polite, messed-up, Canadian sort of way.
"I think it's best if I fax you the files, and you see for yourself," came the gentle reply.
"Uh, yeah, sure," Ray said blankly. "Except I'm gonna have to hang up 'cause we've only got the one line here and-"
"Understood," the voice said crisply, and hung up.
"Hunh," said Ray, staring at the reciever. He set it gingerly back into the cradle, and eyed the fax machine warily.
One minute.
Two.
There. Incoming transmission.
He snatched the flimsy paper out hastily, and started to read.
Rough floorboards beneath his feet, soft flannel against his skin, Fraser's scent wrapped around him like a blanket, and his fingers were numb and clumsy shuffling through the improbable, impossible, unbelievable pages.
"Shit," he breathed, leafing through the records.
"What is it, Ray?" Fraser stood in the doorway, tousled, barefoot, and sweetly flushed with sleep.
"Your, uh, transfer," Ray said awkwardly. "They, they called. They said no. Your record-" He waved the handful of paper. "I didn't mean to snoop or nothin-anything."
Fraser watched him expressionlessly, eyes gone flat and shallow.
Ray swallowed painfully. "Your record," he repeated. "Shit, Frase, reprimanded, use of unnecessary force…" Latent violent tendencies. Dangerously charismatic and competent. Possibly delusional. Close supervision recommended. Hell, it looked like they'd jumped at the chance to install him under Thatcher's watchful-and bitchy, Ray reminded himself, oh so bitchy-eye at the Consulate in Chicago.
Fraser's eyes on him were steady and unwavering. Did he see the jump of Ray's pulse, the hitch of his breath? Scent the acrid fear that choked him suddenly?
"My superiors have never understood, Ray," he said finally, gently.
"No, I get it, Frase," Ray countered, bile rising at the back of his throat. "Your dad was some kind of Mountie bigshot so they couldn't get you out without kicking up a fuss, so they just covered it up and covered it up and sent you off to someplace far away. Which was a bad thing, wasn't it?"
If it had been anyone, anyone else at all, he'd have shouted, and sworn, and ultimately, forgiven. But this was Fraser, this was his best friend and partner, this was the man he trusted more than he trusted himself.
It wasn't that he wasn't the perfect Mountie any more. Hell, Ray'd give up the perfect Mountie part of him in a heartbeat if it meant he got to keep the Fraser who got all snarky over wrinkled uniforms, sang [what?] in the shower when he thought no-one was listening, and knew when to bring out the cuffs and [when to stop?]. The Fraser he knew. No, it wasn't about perfection. It was that he'd lied and left things out and most importantly, pretended to be someone he wasn't. (Hadn't he?) And that felt far too much like betrayal.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Ray repeated helplessly. His voice sounded oddly distant in his ears, as if it were someone else speaking. Maybe it was. Maybe none of this was actually happening to him. The paper in his hand, the floor beneath his feet, the sun slanting obliquely across the unnaturally tidy desk in a dusty, yellow bar of light. Fraser standing in front of him, a smiling, tolerant stranger with the watchful eyes of a wolf. It was all happening to someone else.
"The truth of the matter is, Ray," Fraser continued in the logical, lecturing tone of voice that was all too familiar, "In the far north, I am often the only representative of order there is. It's up to me to uphold the law."
"Frase, you hurt people."
"No-one is above the law, Ray."
Right. Fraser always followed the rules. The question was, whose rules was he following?
[Fraser has to be the one to enforce the rules himself]
And Ray realized with a shock that felt like falling that the man standing before him was the same as he'd always been. All this time, the stranger beneath his skin had been there. And Ray had never known, never known him. Maybe he still didn't.
He could have reminded Fraser of any number of things. Expediency. Justice tempered by mercy. Common sense. He didn't. Fraser would have an answer to all of them. Fraser always had an answer. The trouble was, Ray wasn't sure if he wanted to hear the answers Fraser had to give.
"Pearson's broken leg, did you have anything to do with that?" he asked abruptly in a flash of insight.
"The footing on a glacier is treacherous at the best of times, you know that, Ray," was the oblique reply.
"Dammit Fraser, do not do this, don't play these games with me," Ray snapped, raking one hand through his hair in frustration.
"Do what, Ray?"
"That… that thing. You know. That not answering thing."
Fraser just looked at him, face gone blank with a carefully-shuttered veneer of remote politeness.
"When I was a child, my father taught me something I've never forgotten," he said contemplatively.
"Fraser, this is not the time or place for one of your stupid Inuit stories!" For once, Ray positively welcomed the vague twinge of irritation at his partner's whatchamacallits, anecdotes. At least that was familiar.
"As you know, my mother died when I was quite young," Fraser continued as if Ray hadn't spoken, [as if-what?]
"Yeah, so what?"
"My mother was murdered," Fraser said flatly. "By a man named Holloway Muldoon. A man my father had admired and trusted. A man he had called friend and welcomed into our home."
"Frase," Ray said carefully, "I knew that. But it's over, right? Over. It was over six months ago when you brought Muldoon in."
"I brought him to justice, yes."
"Frase?"
"Yes, Ray?"
"Uh, never mind." Ray didn't want to know. He really didn't want to know. He shouldn't even have to ask.
"Anyways. What was I saying? Ah yes, my father. He taught me something as a child, Ray. Well, actually, he taught me many things, but this one lesson I'll never forget." Fraser paused contemplatively, hands linked behind his back. "And to think, if he'd had his way, I still wouldn't know." He chuckled and shook his head in disbelief.
Ray closed his eyes in frustration. "Would you mind getting to the point sometime today, Frase?"
"If I hadn't gotten out of bed that night to-well, at any rate, if I'd stayed in bed, I never would have overheard my father and my grandparents. Talking."
"Yeah, sure, you heard 'em talking. People do that sometimes. They talk, y'know?"
"Holloway Muldoon did not fall into Six-Mile Canyon."
"Considering he's kind of not dead, yeah, I'd say that was, oh, what's the word, blindingly obvious."
"My father pushed him."
"Yeah, sure, he-wait a minute. Waitaminute here." All of a sudden the pieces were starting to fit together. And Ray did not like the picture they were forming, nosiree, he did not. "You're saying your father killed him?"
"Well, yes, at the time it was a, what was the phrase you used, blindingly obvious conclusion."
"And you found this out when you were a kid?"
"I believe that was what I just said, Ray. Really, some days I don't think you listen at all. I mean you do hear me, yes, but hearing and listening are two completely different concepts. You should work on that."
"So your dad killed this Muldoon guy. Because he killed your mom. And this taught you a lesson?"
"It did indeed. Justice must be served, Ray. Occasionally, the system fails. And when the system fails, it is up to me, as an officer of the law, to remedy its failings."
"So what you're saying is that what your dad did was okay? That it was right?"
"It was justice."
"Newsflash, Fraser, but it does not work that way. It just does not work that way. You think that because you're a cop, you don't have to follow the law? Well, you are wrong, Benton-buddy, wrong with a capital.... Wrong."
"That wasn't what I said, Ray."
"And everything in your record here, was that justice too, Frase? All these... irregularities, are they justice?"
"Really, I don't see what there is to get so worked up about."
"You don't see..." Ray let the file drop onto the burnished wood of the desk with an audible thud. "No, you wouldn't, would you? Your record, Pearson, the transfer... I just do not believe this. Any of it."
"Ah, yes, the transfer," Fraser said off-handedly. "I'll have to deal with it later. But that's not important right now."
"I can't believe this. I can't believe you. You're just standing there-" In nothing but a faded pair of jeans. With no shirt. Rumpled from sleep, and looking throughly... it was sick, sick and twisted, Ray told himself, to be thinking this now. "-as if nothing's changed," he concluded lamely.
"Nothing has changed, Ray," Fraser said mildly. "I hardly think the fact that I'm going to have to reapply for a transfer is-"
"Reapply?" Ray interrupted, knees gone weak with relief.
"Yes, reapply. What did you think I meant to do?"
"Oh, nothing. Nothing at all." Ray looked away, rubbing nervously at his wrists.
"Ray, your wrists." Fraser frowned in concern. "The abrasions, are they infected? I thought we'd been careful enough that-"
"No, no Frase, I'm fine," Ray reassured him, feeling more than a little bit reassured himself. So Fraser was screwed up as a kid, no surprise there. So he was a bit more willing to... bend the rules than Ray'd thought.
Like that should be this much of a shock after that first stunt with the handcuffs. There went the conservative mountie image out the window, then and there. Ray'd taken a flying leap at some pretty wild conclusions, he told himself. Come on, this was Fraser here. Who had currently wrapped warm fingers around Ray's wrists, and was carefully inspecting the red welts he found there.
"Okay, so maybe we got a bit carried away last night," Ray said sheepishly.
"You should have said something at the time," Fraser frowned.
"I, uh, was kind of distracted, Frase. It was all feeling pretty..."
"Overwhelming?"
"Good."
"Well, I don't see any signs of infection here. It doesn't look like you broke the skin."
"Uh, about your dad, Frase..."
"What about him?"
"F-Fraser, what are you doing?" Ray said hoarsely. Fraser had brought Ray's hand up to his mouth and, oh he wouldn't-yes, yes he was, licking the red marks circling Ray's wrist.
"Do you want me to stop?" Fraser's voice was smooth and sweet as honey, and as dark as sin.
"Now you're going to-oh, shit-try to... try to... tell me that spit's some sort of... no, no don't stop... kinda cure for adhesion-abrasion..."
"No, Ray." Fraser ran his tongue lingeringly over the pulse-point, and let Ray's wrist fall to his side again.
Ray tried very hard to pretend that his heart wasn't tripping rapidly in his chest and he wasn't sucking in air like a drowning man. "But what about-"
Fraser ignored him.
"Come," he commanded casually, as if Ray were Dief or something. But with Dief, he cajolled, coaxed, and argued. Now, he issued the order with an innate confidence that Ray would just... obey. No questions, no arguments, just complete and total capitulation.
Ray came.
"Kneel there."
Ray hesitated, a split-second's reluctance.
"That wasn't a request, Ray."
Ray knelt. And waited, knees starting to ache, thighs starting to cramp, the sun falling across the back of his neck like a warm hand.
Cold steel pulled down the line of his jaw in a proprietary caress. Down the exposed stretch of his neck. There, across his throat... the sharp edge of a blade?
He'd been so focused on what he hadn't seen before in Fraser's eyes that he'd missed seeing the hunting knife in his hand.
Fraser held the knife with the casual familiarity of long-time use, smiling with affectionate tolerance.
Ray held his breath, waiting for the blood and the pain and the end of it all. He didn't realize the skin had been broken until he felt a slow trickle of wet warmth sliding down his exposed neck.
Fraser frowned contemplatively and wiped the blood away with the gentle, deliberate brush of a calloused thumb. Ray shivered, and then shivered again as Fraser brought hand to mouth and absently licked his thumb clean.
And then the knife was back at his neck again.
The blade skimmed down the exposed plane of his collarbone, pushing aside the flannel shirt that hung loosely open, and came to rest over his heart. He could feel the accelerating throb of his pulse, as if the cold, sharp steel slowly warming to his skin was a trigger.
When the skin parted and the blood rose in a line of brilliant red beads, all he felt was the chill of the blade, the heat of Fraser's breath against his chest, and the wet swipe of his tongue licking the cut clean.
"Mine," he said possessively, lips grazing the shallow wound.
Ray shuddered, a convulsive, electric jolt.
Fraser kissed him, a slow but thorough claiming of teeth and lips and tongue. The blood on his lips-Ray tasted metal like the blade of the knife. The flat of blade was at his throat again, an insistent, steady pressure against his windpipe.
When Fraser pulled away, and let the knife rest against Ray's lips, metal flush with heat stolen from his body, Ray realized that if this was ever a game, it wasn't any more. And if it wasn't a game, that meant there weren't really any rules.
If there were, they were pretty much Do Not Speak Out Of Turn and Do As You're Told, and apparently, Don't Cut Your Partner Up With A Fucking Big Knife wasn't one of them. It wasn't that he'd objected, Ray realized in another one of those stomach-knotting revelations, but that more he hadn't.
And he had to wonder, did this game that wasn't a game, at least not one you could stop playing, include the rule Thou Shalt Not Kill? Was that one still in Fraser's rule book? He'd thought it was, was sure it was at the top of the list, just like it was at the top of his list, but now nothing was certain. And if it wasn't, would he even say a word?
He had to, he decided. Had to know, had to say something.
Ray didn't Speak Out of Turn, just tried to put the question into his eyes.
"Is there something you want to say, Ray?" Reassuring warmth of a hand cupping his face.
"Frase, you ever-" His voice caught. He swallowed, dry-mouthed. "I gotta know. Have you ever killed anyone?"
The polite, bemused smile he got in response was just so inherently Fraser, the old Fraser, that in the warm rush of relief he could forget the phone call, forget the knife, forget that he was kneeling on the floor with his throat bared of his own free will.
"Of course I have, Ray," Fraser said matter-of-factly. Still smiling.
And he kept smiling as he raised the knife and gently, carefully, slit Ray's throat.
Ray jerked awake with a heart-stopping jolt. The sun was in his eyes.
Kee-rist, but it was early. Ray squeezed his eyes tightly shut and tried unsuccessfully to ignore the merciless brightness painting the insides of his eyelids a warm red. No go.
"All right, I'm up, I'm up," he grumbled at the unshuttered window. The sun shone back with a blithe unconcern for his opinion on the matter of mornings. [Oct-frost on the grass]
[watching Fraser sleep, chill in the pit of his stomach]
[descrip? Fraser hugging pillow or something?]
In the next room, the phone started to ring...
END
Brother Dear Brother
* The one about Aya.
* The random contextless first time fic.
* The one where Miya-sama and Kaoru no Kimi repeatedly have claundestine not-terribly nice sex that Rei can never know about.
* The one with Fukiko and Rei and the hairbrush.
Due South
* The one where there are murders and Ray can't sleep and Fraser notices. Abandoned because it's melodramatic and kinda OOC and came out of thesis-induced sleep deprivation on my part more than anything.
* The one where Fraser keeps dreaming about Ray dying.
* The one where Ray is dead and doesn't know it. Never got past a chat log outline.
* The frickin' long journal-style WWI AU that only ever got outlined and started onr adom bits of paper.
* The Bad!Ben story with the knife-licking.
Hard Core Logo
* The Buffy crossover where roadtripping Xander meets Billy. Abandoned because Billy was being too NICE and in fact was acting an awful lot like RayK instead. Damn.
* The HCL/Murder Most Likely crossover
troutkitty and I wrote together about three years ago. Which could probably be counted as done and we really should post.* The one where Joe had a sister. Operative word being had.
* The short thing where Joe's got a hole in his head but can still jerk Billy around. In more ways than one.
Utena
* The one where Akio shows Saionji something... eternal.
* The one where Anthy smells like roses and takes good care of Utena.
* The one where Anthy goes back and Akio dies.
* The one where Shiori makes Juri cry.
Other Stuff
* A Please Save My Earth fic older than this computer which is three paragraphs long, rambles a bit, and I can't remember where on earth it was going.
* Three-quarters of a short Escaflowne fic where Van really needs to get over Hitomi. No idea how it ends.
* A Dark Angel ficlet without a real ending.
Maybe I'll just pick something will probably never-ever make it off the depths of the hard drive otherwise. Poor little WIP. *sniff*
Oh yeah, and prepare to deal with my screwy non-linear writing style. Whee.
Started this in, er, probably '99. It was supposed to be half the length it is now, then it kinda grew, then it turned into an AU which opened up far too many possibilities as to what else should go in as a slightly skewed version of canon. And now I'm not happy with a lot of it and will probably never finish it. But I had a hell of a good time getting as far as I did. *g*
Letter of the Law/Following the Rules/Follow the Leader/Damn I Suck At Titles
It was the sun in his eyes that woke him.
Kee-rist, but it was early. Ray squeezed his eyes tightly shut and tried unsuccessfully to ignore the merciless brightness painting the insides of his eyelids a warm red. No go.
"All right, I'm up, I'm up," he grumbled at the unshuttered window. The sun shone back with a blithe unconcern for his opinion on the matter of mornings. [Oct-frost on the grass-sun would be coming up later, and weaker]
[watching Fraser sleep with bemused affection]
[descrip? Fraser hugging pillow or something?]
[innocent, open?]
When Fraser crashed, he crashed hard, just like he did everything else. All or nothing, that was Frase. Even more so since they'd headed north, Ray had noticed. In Chicago, Fraser was hemmed in and lost by all the temporizing, all the if's and maybes, all the muddy middle ground between Wrong and Right.
[came back from quest-Franklin's Hand already found]
" 'To seek a north-west passage at the call of many men/to find there but the road back home again,' " Fraser had quoted solemnly.
[more]
It had been almost three weeks since they'd returned to civilization-if you could call [town name], pop. 58, civilization. Ray sure as he-heck, didn't. Then again, by now, running water, indoor plumbing, and a real bed held a whole new allure no matter where they were. Especially the real bed part, Ray thought smugly, gazing fondly at Fraser spooned up beside him, for all intents and purposes dead to the world. Last night had worn him out but good, looked like.
[more?]
Ray was still officially taking an extended leave of absence.
"On account of identity crisis," Welsh had said gruffly, jerking his chin pointedly towards the real Ray Vecchio. "Safer this way. For everyone."
He had no problems with that... hell, blanket permission from TPTB to spend months paperwork-free, traipsing around after some dead guy's hand with Fraser, sharing a bedroll with Fraser... okay, maybe that last one was definitely strictly extra-curricular and not going on any of the reports back home, but time off with Frase was always a good thing in his books.
Fraser, however, was back on active duty. Constable Pearson, who'd been the one stationed here in [wherever], had slipped on the ice and fractured his leg in three places. It sounded like some sorta rookie blunder until you realized just how much ice there was lying around to slip on. So Fraser, being Fraser, had volunteered to step in. Only Frase would volunteer for work in the middle of his vacation, only Frase.
Not that Ray complained too hard once he found out about the bed and indoor plumbing part.
"It's good to be back in the saddle again-metaphorically speaking," Fraser had said cheerfully, buttoning his tunic and straightening his lanyard. "Getting the job done properly. I really should see about obtaining an official posting."
[take him a while to clean up the mess-Pearson was sloppy-dent in the piles of paperwork]
"Oh, I dunno 'bout the saddle... you want somethin' to ride, I'm sure I could arrange something strictly unofficial," Ray, sprawled across the foot of the bed and watching the proceedings with a proprietary interest, had said innocently-too innocently, of course.
Fraser's only response had been an eloquent lift of the eyebrow.
Ray's response to that, well, neither of them had the breath for talking thereafter. At least not coherently. And Frase's tunic and jodhpurs were a bit worse for the wear. (Ray still couldn't believe Fraser had made him iron them afterwards. It's not like it was his fault. Okay, not all his fault.)
But even though he was back on duty, Fraser wore his uniform less out here. When Ray has asked about the lack of shoot-me-now red in his wardrobe, after Fraser had finished lecturing on how the red serge was the dress uniform thank you very much, (and jeezus Ray wouldn't have asked if he'd known Frase was going to get so snarky about it), he'd gone on a lengthy diatribe about now simply being an officer of the law rather than a representative for his country. Ray figured what he meant is that he was home and not on polite company manners any more. Only Fraser could still be a guest in another country after living there for what, four, five years.
Fraser was different at home on his own turf. Not completely, but there was a subtle change of stance, of attitude, as if he were more comfortable in his own skin and more sure of his footing. And his authority.
Maybe it was because this was where he belonged. His world, his rules. His people. They all knew him by name, and not just as an oddity or curiosity. The Mountie. The freak. Not here. Here he was Constable Fraser (always the title) and if not that, Benton or Ben, the name alien and unfamiliar on Ray's ears.
Ray, just because that's the kind of guy he was, stuck doggedly to calling his partner Fraser, or Frase. He blithely ignored the sideways glances it got him.
[gentle w/ the innocent, implacable w/ the lawbreakers]
It was if the cold made everything sharper. The snow, grainy and squeaking underfoot. The air, like a lungful of knives. And Fraser, who had been scrupulously polite in Chicago, here had the same unfailing courtesy but with a core of iron.
Even, and Ray admitted it with more than a slight flush of embarassment, even the sex was different.
Before that night, Fraser had been in sex much like he was in everything else. Thorough. Considerate. Meticulous attention to detail. And... talented. Very talented.
But then, something had changed.
It had happened their first week in [name of town], when they'd rediscovered the advantages of a real bed with a real mattress and no fear of frostbite. Fraser had taken full advantage of the situation and, Ray swore, was determined to drive him nuts.
Fraser trailed a languid tongue down the sharp ridge of Ray's hipbone. Ray arced beneath him and begged shamelessly, eager hands urging him to hasten the pace. At that, Fraser's patience had finally worn thin. With one strong hand he pinned Ray's wrists firmly out of the way above his head.
Ray pushed back experimentally.
Fraser growled and tightened his grip.
Ray gasped and shuddered. This was... ohgod.
Fraser stopped. "You're shaking, Ray," he said with every evidence of concern.
"No... no Frase, this is good shaking," he managed finally.
"Ah," Fraser said, comprehension dawning. "I see... wait here."
Ray waited as Fraser rummaged through his packs. What else could he do but wait and watch? Was there less air in the room or was it just him? Maybe he was hyperventilating, couldn't take a deep breath, short gasping shallow sounds and Fraser was turning around and-
The handcuffs glinted brightly in the firelight.
"Yes," Ray said hoarsely.
"Manners, Ray. Say please," Fraser said smoothly, stalking closer.
Ray swallowed hard, struck by a sudden flush of heat. So this was how it was going to go.
If Fraser's crazy lessons on manners were going to have this effect on him from now on, he reflected in a dizzy flash of insight, he'd never make it through the day without jumping him at least once.
Fraser was at the foot of the bed now, watching Ray with a dark intensity that rose goosebumps.
Or getting jumped, Ray amended. Definitely getting jumped.
"Please," he said, dry-mouthed.
And then the cuffs were on his wrists and the metal was cold and Fraser's hands lips skin were fever-hot and he was dizzy with it and nothing was enough all at the same time that it was all too much and-
Things were different after that night. Just a bit.
"Fraser," Ray had asked afterwards, voice gravelly and hoarse from the screaming, "are you okay with this?"
"You asked me for it," he'd said simply.
"Yeah, but do you want it?"
Fraser just smiled uncomprehendingly and hugged his knees in a surprisingly childlike gesture.
"Frase," Ray said warningly, "you gotta tell me you want this too, or we stop. You get it? We stop." One narrow hand cutting down sharply in illustration.
"Ah. I see."
"You see what? C'mon Frase, don't play this game. Not here. Not now."
"Yes Ray."
"Yes what?"
"Yes, I want it."
Ray swallowed. "Right. Good," he said finally, not sure if he was reassuring Fraser or himself-or both of them.
It was good for Fraser to be in charge, he told himself. Good for the Mountie to let loose. After all, he obviously enjoyed it. And it was good for Ray, too. For once, let it all go. Nothing was his responsibility, or more importantly, his fault. Just put it all in Fraser's strong, capable, maddening hands.
And it wasn't just that he couldn't move, couldn't touch, could only writhe and beg for more. Or that Fraser was taking for once, taking not asking. Or that Fraser could just take whatever he wanted him and Ray wouldn't, couldn't bring himself to stop him, that it had nothing to do with physical strength and everything to do with control. It was all that and more. And if that made him a sick, twisted fuck, it's not like it wasn't anything he didn't know already.
All this was was how he'd ended up kneeling in the middle of the floor last night, shivering and naked, hands cuffed behind his back, eyes fixed resolutely, submissively on the grain of the wood in the floorboards.
Which, directly or indirectly, was why he ached this morning. But it was a good, deep-down, satisfied sort of ache. He'd earned it, after all.
The insistent shrill of the phone shook him out of his reverie.
"Hold your horses-or sled dogs, or whatever," Ray grumbled, surrendering his warm cocoon of clinging blankets and Mountie.
Oh, cold. Cold air, cold floor, cold Ray...
He pulled on a crumpled pair of jeans, and snagged a shirt from the pile of discarded clothing at the foot of the bed. Fraser's shirt, soft worn flannel, easy on abraded skin. Last night had been rough. Fun, but rough. The lingering warmth of sleep was all but gone. The early-morning chill in the air had hit as soon as he'd crawled out of bed, a shock like a bucket of ice water in the face. He shrugged the shirt on hastily. Fraser's scent clung to it, clean sweat, fresh snow, and woodsmoke.
The phone was still ringing.
"All right already!" he whispered harshly at it, and tiptoed hastily across the room. Ouch. Yeah, last night was definitely making itself felt.
"Yeah, what can I do you for?"
Brief pause.
"Ah yes, this is Inspector [Mackenzie], calling from headquarters in Edmonton. Is this the senior officer on the premises?"
"N-" Ray stopped. Fraser was still dead to the world, and it was either him or the wolf. And somehow, he just didn't think Dief would appreciate the call.
"Yeah, that'd be me," he fibbed, juggling the phone on one shoulder. He was a law enforcement officer, just not a Mountie per se. And he was the only one on, er, active duty this morning, so to speak. What with Frase all comatose after the night before and all, it was practically his duty to take over. "C'n I take a message or something?" Paper, pen, they had to be somewhere here. Only Fraser could keep a desk so neat you couldn't find anything.
"It's about Constable Fraser's request for a transfer," continued the voice on the other end of the line.
"Oh, hang on, I'll go wake-uh, get him-"
"It's been denied."
"What-but, why... why's that?" Ray stuttered blankly.
There was a long pause. "Are you his commanding officer?"
"Yeah, absolutely," Ray lied with conviction.
"We've decided that to assign him to his previous posting, or to an equally remote area, would be tantamount to disaster."
"What, remote, y'mean because there'd be no people around him? I mean, Fraser's not exactly Mr. Extrovert here, and I think he likes the whole alone thing, so you don't have to worry-"
"Yes. Well. Therein lies the problem."
"-and I mean I'm pretty sure he wouldn't crack up or anything because of it, hell, he'd probably love it, and-"
"At this time, it would be most beneficial if Benton Fraser were placed back in a more controlled environment," the voice continued in tones of utmost reason and logic.
"Controlled? Whadda you mean controlled? It's not like he's some sorta indigenous-endangered-whatever-wildlife or something!"
"The truth of the matter is," came the ruthlessly reasonable and oh so concerned reply, "the fact that he is Robert Fraser's son is no longer adequate compensation for the increasing number of... irregularities in his permanent record."
"Irregularities? Like what, missing paperwork or something?" Ray was floundering; he was drowning. None of this made any sort of sense at all, not even in a polite, messed-up, Canadian sort of way.
"I think it's best if I fax you the files, and you see for yourself," came the gentle reply.
"Uh, yeah, sure," Ray said blankly. "Except I'm gonna have to hang up 'cause we've only got the one line here and-"
"Understood," the voice said crisply, and hung up.
"Hunh," said Ray, staring at the reciever. He set it gingerly back into the cradle, and eyed the fax machine warily.
One minute.
Two.
There. Incoming transmission.
He snatched the flimsy paper out hastily, and started to read.
Rough floorboards beneath his feet, soft flannel against his skin, Fraser's scent wrapped around him like a blanket, and his fingers were numb and clumsy shuffling through the improbable, impossible, unbelievable pages.
"Shit," he breathed, leafing through the records.
"What is it, Ray?" Fraser stood in the doorway, tousled, barefoot, and sweetly flushed with sleep.
"Your, uh, transfer," Ray said awkwardly. "They, they called. They said no. Your record-" He waved the handful of paper. "I didn't mean to snoop or nothin-anything."
Fraser watched him expressionlessly, eyes gone flat and shallow.
Ray swallowed painfully. "Your record," he repeated. "Shit, Frase, reprimanded, use of unnecessary force…" Latent violent tendencies. Dangerously charismatic and competent. Possibly delusional. Close supervision recommended. Hell, it looked like they'd jumped at the chance to install him under Thatcher's watchful-and bitchy, Ray reminded himself, oh so bitchy-eye at the Consulate in Chicago.
Fraser's eyes on him were steady and unwavering. Did he see the jump of Ray's pulse, the hitch of his breath? Scent the acrid fear that choked him suddenly?
"My superiors have never understood, Ray," he said finally, gently.
"No, I get it, Frase," Ray countered, bile rising at the back of his throat. "Your dad was some kind of Mountie bigshot so they couldn't get you out without kicking up a fuss, so they just covered it up and covered it up and sent you off to someplace far away. Which was a bad thing, wasn't it?"
If it had been anyone, anyone else at all, he'd have shouted, and sworn, and ultimately, forgiven. But this was Fraser, this was his best friend and partner, this was the man he trusted more than he trusted himself.
It wasn't that he wasn't the perfect Mountie any more. Hell, Ray'd give up the perfect Mountie part of him in a heartbeat if it meant he got to keep the Fraser who got all snarky over wrinkled uniforms, sang [what?] in the shower when he thought no-one was listening, and knew when to bring out the cuffs and [when to stop?]. The Fraser he knew. No, it wasn't about perfection. It was that he'd lied and left things out and most importantly, pretended to be someone he wasn't. (Hadn't he?) And that felt far too much like betrayal.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Ray repeated helplessly. His voice sounded oddly distant in his ears, as if it were someone else speaking. Maybe it was. Maybe none of this was actually happening to him. The paper in his hand, the floor beneath his feet, the sun slanting obliquely across the unnaturally tidy desk in a dusty, yellow bar of light. Fraser standing in front of him, a smiling, tolerant stranger with the watchful eyes of a wolf. It was all happening to someone else.
"The truth of the matter is, Ray," Fraser continued in the logical, lecturing tone of voice that was all too familiar, "In the far north, I am often the only representative of order there is. It's up to me to uphold the law."
"Frase, you hurt people."
"No-one is above the law, Ray."
Right. Fraser always followed the rules. The question was, whose rules was he following?
[Fraser has to be the one to enforce the rules himself]
And Ray realized with a shock that felt like falling that the man standing before him was the same as he'd always been. All this time, the stranger beneath his skin had been there. And Ray had never known, never known him. Maybe he still didn't.
He could have reminded Fraser of any number of things. Expediency. Justice tempered by mercy. Common sense. He didn't. Fraser would have an answer to all of them. Fraser always had an answer. The trouble was, Ray wasn't sure if he wanted to hear the answers Fraser had to give.
"Pearson's broken leg, did you have anything to do with that?" he asked abruptly in a flash of insight.
"The footing on a glacier is treacherous at the best of times, you know that, Ray," was the oblique reply.
"Dammit Fraser, do not do this, don't play these games with me," Ray snapped, raking one hand through his hair in frustration.
"Do what, Ray?"
"That… that thing. You know. That not answering thing."
Fraser just looked at him, face gone blank with a carefully-shuttered veneer of remote politeness.
"When I was a child, my father taught me something I've never forgotten," he said contemplatively.
"Fraser, this is not the time or place for one of your stupid Inuit stories!" For once, Ray positively welcomed the vague twinge of irritation at his partner's whatchamacallits, anecdotes. At least that was familiar.
"As you know, my mother died when I was quite young," Fraser continued as if Ray hadn't spoken, [as if-what?]
"Yeah, so what?"
"My mother was murdered," Fraser said flatly. "By a man named Holloway Muldoon. A man my father had admired and trusted. A man he had called friend and welcomed into our home."
"Frase," Ray said carefully, "I knew that. But it's over, right? Over. It was over six months ago when you brought Muldoon in."
"I brought him to justice, yes."
"Frase?"
"Yes, Ray?"
"Uh, never mind." Ray didn't want to know. He really didn't want to know. He shouldn't even have to ask.
"Anyways. What was I saying? Ah yes, my father. He taught me something as a child, Ray. Well, actually, he taught me many things, but this one lesson I'll never forget." Fraser paused contemplatively, hands linked behind his back. "And to think, if he'd had his way, I still wouldn't know." He chuckled and shook his head in disbelief.
Ray closed his eyes in frustration. "Would you mind getting to the point sometime today, Frase?"
"If I hadn't gotten out of bed that night to-well, at any rate, if I'd stayed in bed, I never would have overheard my father and my grandparents. Talking."
"Yeah, sure, you heard 'em talking. People do that sometimes. They talk, y'know?"
"Holloway Muldoon did not fall into Six-Mile Canyon."
"Considering he's kind of not dead, yeah, I'd say that was, oh, what's the word, blindingly obvious."
"My father pushed him."
"Yeah, sure, he-wait a minute. Waitaminute here." All of a sudden the pieces were starting to fit together. And Ray did not like the picture they were forming, nosiree, he did not. "You're saying your father killed him?"
"Well, yes, at the time it was a, what was the phrase you used, blindingly obvious conclusion."
"And you found this out when you were a kid?"
"I believe that was what I just said, Ray. Really, some days I don't think you listen at all. I mean you do hear me, yes, but hearing and listening are two completely different concepts. You should work on that."
"So your dad killed this Muldoon guy. Because he killed your mom. And this taught you a lesson?"
"It did indeed. Justice must be served, Ray. Occasionally, the system fails. And when the system fails, it is up to me, as an officer of the law, to remedy its failings."
"So what you're saying is that what your dad did was okay? That it was right?"
"It was justice."
"Newsflash, Fraser, but it does not work that way. It just does not work that way. You think that because you're a cop, you don't have to follow the law? Well, you are wrong, Benton-buddy, wrong with a capital.... Wrong."
"That wasn't what I said, Ray."
"And everything in your record here, was that justice too, Frase? All these... irregularities, are they justice?"
"Really, I don't see what there is to get so worked up about."
"You don't see..." Ray let the file drop onto the burnished wood of the desk with an audible thud. "No, you wouldn't, would you? Your record, Pearson, the transfer... I just do not believe this. Any of it."
"Ah, yes, the transfer," Fraser said off-handedly. "I'll have to deal with it later. But that's not important right now."
"I can't believe this. I can't believe you. You're just standing there-" In nothing but a faded pair of jeans. With no shirt. Rumpled from sleep, and looking throughly... it was sick, sick and twisted, Ray told himself, to be thinking this now. "-as if nothing's changed," he concluded lamely.
"Nothing has changed, Ray," Fraser said mildly. "I hardly think the fact that I'm going to have to reapply for a transfer is-"
"Reapply?" Ray interrupted, knees gone weak with relief.
"Yes, reapply. What did you think I meant to do?"
"Oh, nothing. Nothing at all." Ray looked away, rubbing nervously at his wrists.
"Ray, your wrists." Fraser frowned in concern. "The abrasions, are they infected? I thought we'd been careful enough that-"
"No, no Frase, I'm fine," Ray reassured him, feeling more than a little bit reassured himself. So Fraser was screwed up as a kid, no surprise there. So he was a bit more willing to... bend the rules than Ray'd thought.
Like that should be this much of a shock after that first stunt with the handcuffs. There went the conservative mountie image out the window, then and there. Ray'd taken a flying leap at some pretty wild conclusions, he told himself. Come on, this was Fraser here. Who had currently wrapped warm fingers around Ray's wrists, and was carefully inspecting the red welts he found there.
"Okay, so maybe we got a bit carried away last night," Ray said sheepishly.
"You should have said something at the time," Fraser frowned.
"I, uh, was kind of distracted, Frase. It was all feeling pretty..."
"Overwhelming?"
"Good."
"Well, I don't see any signs of infection here. It doesn't look like you broke the skin."
"Uh, about your dad, Frase..."
"What about him?"
"F-Fraser, what are you doing?" Ray said hoarsely. Fraser had brought Ray's hand up to his mouth and, oh he wouldn't-yes, yes he was, licking the red marks circling Ray's wrist.
"Do you want me to stop?" Fraser's voice was smooth and sweet as honey, and as dark as sin.
"Now you're going to-oh, shit-try to... try to... tell me that spit's some sort of... no, no don't stop... kinda cure for adhesion-abrasion..."
"No, Ray." Fraser ran his tongue lingeringly over the pulse-point, and let Ray's wrist fall to his side again.
Ray tried very hard to pretend that his heart wasn't tripping rapidly in his chest and he wasn't sucking in air like a drowning man. "But what about-"
Fraser ignored him.
"Come," he commanded casually, as if Ray were Dief or something. But with Dief, he cajolled, coaxed, and argued. Now, he issued the order with an innate confidence that Ray would just... obey. No questions, no arguments, just complete and total capitulation.
Ray came.
"Kneel there."
Ray hesitated, a split-second's reluctance.
"That wasn't a request, Ray."
Ray knelt. And waited, knees starting to ache, thighs starting to cramp, the sun falling across the back of his neck like a warm hand.
Cold steel pulled down the line of his jaw in a proprietary caress. Down the exposed stretch of his neck. There, across his throat... the sharp edge of a blade?
He'd been so focused on what he hadn't seen before in Fraser's eyes that he'd missed seeing the hunting knife in his hand.
Fraser held the knife with the casual familiarity of long-time use, smiling with affectionate tolerance.
Ray held his breath, waiting for the blood and the pain and the end of it all. He didn't realize the skin had been broken until he felt a slow trickle of wet warmth sliding down his exposed neck.
Fraser frowned contemplatively and wiped the blood away with the gentle, deliberate brush of a calloused thumb. Ray shivered, and then shivered again as Fraser brought hand to mouth and absently licked his thumb clean.
And then the knife was back at his neck again.
The blade skimmed down the exposed plane of his collarbone, pushing aside the flannel shirt that hung loosely open, and came to rest over his heart. He could feel the accelerating throb of his pulse, as if the cold, sharp steel slowly warming to his skin was a trigger.
When the skin parted and the blood rose in a line of brilliant red beads, all he felt was the chill of the blade, the heat of Fraser's breath against his chest, and the wet swipe of his tongue licking the cut clean.
"Mine," he said possessively, lips grazing the shallow wound.
Ray shuddered, a convulsive, electric jolt.
Fraser kissed him, a slow but thorough claiming of teeth and lips and tongue. The blood on his lips-Ray tasted metal like the blade of the knife. The flat of blade was at his throat again, an insistent, steady pressure against his windpipe.
When Fraser pulled away, and let the knife rest against Ray's lips, metal flush with heat stolen from his body, Ray realized that if this was ever a game, it wasn't any more. And if it wasn't a game, that meant there weren't really any rules.
If there were, they were pretty much Do Not Speak Out Of Turn and Do As You're Told, and apparently, Don't Cut Your Partner Up With A Fucking Big Knife wasn't one of them. It wasn't that he'd objected, Ray realized in another one of those stomach-knotting revelations, but that more he hadn't.
And he had to wonder, did this game that wasn't a game, at least not one you could stop playing, include the rule Thou Shalt Not Kill? Was that one still in Fraser's rule book? He'd thought it was, was sure it was at the top of the list, just like it was at the top of his list, but now nothing was certain. And if it wasn't, would he even say a word?
He had to, he decided. Had to know, had to say something.
Ray didn't Speak Out of Turn, just tried to put the question into his eyes.
"Is there something you want to say, Ray?" Reassuring warmth of a hand cupping his face.
"Frase, you ever-" His voice caught. He swallowed, dry-mouthed. "I gotta know. Have you ever killed anyone?"
The polite, bemused smile he got in response was just so inherently Fraser, the old Fraser, that in the warm rush of relief he could forget the phone call, forget the knife, forget that he was kneeling on the floor with his throat bared of his own free will.
"Of course I have, Ray," Fraser said matter-of-factly. Still smiling.
And he kept smiling as he raised the knife and gently, carefully, slit Ray's throat.
Ray jerked awake with a heart-stopping jolt. The sun was in his eyes.
Kee-rist, but it was early. Ray squeezed his eyes tightly shut and tried unsuccessfully to ignore the merciless brightness painting the insides of his eyelids a warm red. No go.
"All right, I'm up, I'm up," he grumbled at the unshuttered window. The sun shone back with a blithe unconcern for his opinion on the matter of mornings. [Oct-frost on the grass]
[watching Fraser sleep, chill in the pit of his stomach]
[descrip? Fraser hugging pillow or something?]
In the next room, the phone started to ring...
END
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Re:
Date: 2004-02-06 10:50 pm (UTC)