Dreams Challenge entry by xenocrate
Title: When soft voices die
Pairing: BF/RK
Rating: R (?)
Beta: laylee - thank you!
Note: About 1900 words, slight non-con warning
He surfaces, gasping, as though he has escaped from drowning. The dream clutches at him, broken tendrils spinning into obscurity.
Ray takes stock of his surroundings. Ordinary. The shapes of familiar furniture protrude through the chocolate darkness, tangy-sweet scents of tea leaves and laundry.
"Ray?" Uncertain tone and half-naked Fraser in the doorway, limned with soft lamplight from behind him. It hits Ray hard with memory.
" 'm okay, just a bad dream."
Fraser prowls up to the bed, graceful as a lynx. Ray watches from under his lashes, hoping the darkness and his half-closed eyes will conceal his admiring gaze.
"Well, Ray, that certainly didn't sound like a bad dream to me," Fraser's voice drips dark sweetness, settling over Ray's bones like treacle, fixing him in place. "It sounded... better."
Ray kind of wants to move, wants to say this is wrong, wants to remind Fraser he's leaving in the morning, not staying here, that's why you're not in the same bed with me, Fraser. The despair tires him.
He manages to whisper, "I don't want to," tone high and querulous and miserable. Ray has never wanted anyone not to touch him as much as he wants Fraser not to touch him here and now. He sends up fluttery, frantic prayers to a long-ignored deity, a pleading please God, please God with every painful, hammering heartbeat.
The treacle of Fraser's voice holds him fast, pinioned and helpless on the bed as strong arms fix him tight in the blankets and breath scented with sweet tea and whiskey trails over his mouth. He struggles, unable to move, panicking.
He screams and is suddenly aware that he was dreaming. Just a dream. He looks around and starts to calm as familiar furniture takes shape through the chocolate darkness, darkness suffused with the tangy-sweet scents of tea leaves and laundry.
"Ray? Are you all right?" Concerned tone and dressing-gowned Fraser in the doorway, hair slightly wild from sleep and limned with soft lamplight. Ray is filled with relief.
"Thank god, Fraser, thank god."
"It's normal to have some anxiety when your life undergoes such change," Fraser murmurs comfortingly, voice warm as bathwater, sweet and heavy as molasses. Soothing.
Ray relaxes, his limbs becoming heavy and lax with sleep. "Yeah. I know. Kind of wishing it wasn't almost tomorrow."
"May I come in?"
He smiles at the familiar request and pats the side of the bed gently. Fraser pads up to him, curls himself down next to Ray, shifting to make himself a space like a dog turning and turning to make a basket his own. The blankets tighten around Ray as the body next to him moves. Fraser turns towards him, blankets holding fast around Ray's arms, until sweet breath, tangy with something salt and unknown, is hot against Ray's nose and mouth, pretty eyes way too close. A hand tangles gently in his hair, stroking.
Just a bit too close for not-together, Ray thinks uncomfortably, and he gears up to pull away a little. A heavy arm falls across him as though it were waiting for that move.
"Quiet, Ray. I'm going to help you get back to sleep," breathes Fraser. "It's cold out. Shush, I have a poem for you. I remember your mother liked it."
Ray is not as educated as Fraser and is sure he will not know the poem, does not know when Fraser ever spent time with his mother enough to know her tastes in poetry anyway. He is staggered by recalling his mother's death. It's such a shock, like being shot in the chest, like first grief, sudden and devastating. Fraser is murmuring about sweet violets sickening and rose leaves being heaped on beds. Ray lies under him, shaken and motionless, barely listening.
He does not have the energy to resist when firm lips tease at his, when a tongue slithers wetly inside. He feels neither desire nor humiliation as he is manhandled efficiently onto his front, feels no curiosity over Fraser's sudden nakedness against him, smooth and warm and sweetly, lazily demanding. He feels empty at the recollection of Barbara Kowalski's death, her murder, he remembers, empty and hollowed out. He is not filled by the hard flesh pressing insistently inside him. He recalls that in another life the heaviness of the hot body, the pressure and movement and harsh breaths, might have meant something to him.
Ray lies still and passive until he feels hot spurts inside him and as the body tenses above him his wrists are pinioned and the tone that whispered poetry whispers, "I killed her, you know."
And then there is the shocked realization of truth, the hammering heart, the desperate attempt to fight off the motionlessness, the sting of anguished tears.
He thrashes and gasps, salt-water drying cold and accusing on his cheeks. How could he ever have forgotten?
He is alone in the bed. He calms slightly. It must have been a dream, and he has escaped. He glances around and takes in the comforting, familiar furniture just visible through the chocolate darkness, sniffs at the tangy-sweet scents of tea leaves and laundry. He wishes that his mother's murder was also a dream and that dream-Fraser's admission of guilt didn't make so much sense. Who else would have had the chance?
He feels dirty somehow, betrayed and tainted by his rebellious subconscious. Now that he is no longer dreaming, he knows better than to trust Fraser.
Ray can't quite remember why he is up here, isolated in this cabin with his mother's murderer. He knows he has been sleeping with the man, sharing his bed. Now he knows this is part of his plan, he is here to find the evidence. Something has happened, though - has Fraser realized that he knows?
A body shifts beside him in the bed. "I hope your nightmare was about me," purrs Fraser.
Sorry, Ray thinks. No way. Remembering my mother.
"I see. I do think you should be dreaming about me, don't you agree, Ray? Let me try to do something about that."
He wants to pull himself out of the bed and escape. He knows why I'm here. Ray struggles, aware with increasing hopelessness that his muscles are not obeying, that he is still and compliant beside Fraser.
"There's no point in struggling. You won't be able to move. Its an interesting little paralytic - do you remember the plants I brought in yesterday? I distilled it from those. Just a little dab on your lips as you sleep and here we are. I hope you appreciate the trouble I've gone to."
Fraser's voice is dark chocolate and honey, sweet and seductive and very, very unhealthy. His smile through the darkness is like sin itself. Ray can't even close his eyes to escape that smile. Horror bubbles through his veins. He feels his heart pumping hard, his breath light and fast, his skin prickling with antipathy the closer Fraser comes.
Ray wants to puke with every touch of Fraser's skin on his. Somehow it was all right doing this when the plan was working, when he was undercover, fooling his brand-new lover into complacency. Now he has no choice this is completely different.
Gagging, choking, panicking, Ray pulls away even harder when Fraser looms over him, maneuvers his jaw open and starts thrusting a violent cock down his unresisting throat. He struggles and pulls without managing to move at all and cries out soundlessly, trying harder and harder to escape.
He forces his eyes open to the sound of a quiet, pitiful mew coming from his own throat, which is raw and aching, as though he has been screaming for hours. He is face down in his pillow and his lips are cracked and dry.
He turns his head to the side and blinks, slowly, taking in the all too familiar surroundings.
Fraser appears in the doorway and Ray flinches with dread. But this Fraser doesn't seem to catch that movement through the darkness. The lights are full on in the other room and Fraser is just a silhouette.
"I couldn't sleep," he says quietly. "I wondered if you might like to talk for a while?"
"Was I screaming?"
"I... have you had a nightmare, Ray? I could make us some tea."
Ray nods, slowly, and hitches himself up in the bed, pulling pillows towards him and propping them up behind his back to make sitting more comfortable. He finds the traces of tears on his cheeks and dashes them away, ashamed. The Mountie silhouette has left the doorway and he can hear Fraser clattering around in the cramped kitchen, hears the sounds of the kettle and the chink of mugs and spoons. Kind of homely and nice.
Fraser comes back with two mugs of steaming, sweet-smelling tea. He comes towards the bed, passes Ray one mug and pulls a chair towards the bed with his free hand, sitting close to Ray and warming his hands on the mug. He is almost fully dressed. Ray suspects that he has been outside, perhaps for a walk. Yeah, you hone those sharp detective instincts, Kowalski. He is very glad that Fraser doesn't touch him.
"I was... I don't want you to believe you're not welcome, Ray. You can stay here as long as you want to."
Ray shrugs, scanning Fraser's serious face for traces of the man who forced him and killed his mother. Says something about his subconscious, the way it casts one of the best men he's ever known as the worst monster. Ray sips slowly at his tea, then puts the mug down on the little table next to the bed.
"Ray? You shouldn't feel that our relationship is a condition of you staying here. Well, other than the relationship of friendship, of course, because I would rather share living space with someone I can treat as a friend. In fact, if I say so myself, I'm very good at that. Diefenbaker has rarely had cause to complain about my habits, and you know how critical he is."
"Uh... sorry, buddy, still not all the way awake." Ray shakes his head to clear it and then asks, almost casually, "What do you think of my mom?"
A puzzled response. "She has always struck me as a very pleasant woman, Ray. Why do you..." His tone darkens. "Oh. I see."
"What's that poem, Fraser, the one about music, and memories, and violets?"
He wants Fraser to lie down next to him and hold him, wants the solidity and warmth of a real body to drive away the wispy memories of his nightmares. He wants Fraser somehow to know that Ray is available, right now, yearning for Fraser to kiss him, to touch him, to be inside him, clearing the tendrils of humiliation and leaving him clean and new. If he could bring himself to say something, he is almost certain that Fraser would do that for him.
A pity fuck, he tells himself. A goodbye fuck. You're leaving tomorrow. Why would he want you now?
"Well, you've clearly not woken up properly, despite the tea. I should let you get back to sleep. Early start tomorrow."
Ray lies back down and closes his eyes to wait for morning, hoping he doesn't fall asleep, listening to Fraser walk away and gently close the door behind him.
Pairing: BF/RK
Rating: R (?)
Beta: laylee - thank you!
Note: About 1900 words, slight non-con warning
He surfaces, gasping, as though he has escaped from drowning. The dream clutches at him, broken tendrils spinning into obscurity.
Ray takes stock of his surroundings. Ordinary. The shapes of familiar furniture protrude through the chocolate darkness, tangy-sweet scents of tea leaves and laundry.
"Ray?" Uncertain tone and half-naked Fraser in the doorway, limned with soft lamplight from behind him. It hits Ray hard with memory.
" 'm okay, just a bad dream."
Fraser prowls up to the bed, graceful as a lynx. Ray watches from under his lashes, hoping the darkness and his half-closed eyes will conceal his admiring gaze.
"Well, Ray, that certainly didn't sound like a bad dream to me," Fraser's voice drips dark sweetness, settling over Ray's bones like treacle, fixing him in place. "It sounded... better."
Ray kind of wants to move, wants to say this is wrong, wants to remind Fraser he's leaving in the morning, not staying here, that's why you're not in the same bed with me, Fraser. The despair tires him.
He manages to whisper, "I don't want to," tone high and querulous and miserable. Ray has never wanted anyone not to touch him as much as he wants Fraser not to touch him here and now. He sends up fluttery, frantic prayers to a long-ignored deity, a pleading please God, please God with every painful, hammering heartbeat.
The treacle of Fraser's voice holds him fast, pinioned and helpless on the bed as strong arms fix him tight in the blankets and breath scented with sweet tea and whiskey trails over his mouth. He struggles, unable to move, panicking.
He screams and is suddenly aware that he was dreaming. Just a dream. He looks around and starts to calm as familiar furniture takes shape through the chocolate darkness, darkness suffused with the tangy-sweet scents of tea leaves and laundry.
"Ray? Are you all right?" Concerned tone and dressing-gowned Fraser in the doorway, hair slightly wild from sleep and limned with soft lamplight. Ray is filled with relief.
"Thank god, Fraser, thank god."
"It's normal to have some anxiety when your life undergoes such change," Fraser murmurs comfortingly, voice warm as bathwater, sweet and heavy as molasses. Soothing.
Ray relaxes, his limbs becoming heavy and lax with sleep. "Yeah. I know. Kind of wishing it wasn't almost tomorrow."
"May I come in?"
He smiles at the familiar request and pats the side of the bed gently. Fraser pads up to him, curls himself down next to Ray, shifting to make himself a space like a dog turning and turning to make a basket his own. The blankets tighten around Ray as the body next to him moves. Fraser turns towards him, blankets holding fast around Ray's arms, until sweet breath, tangy with something salt and unknown, is hot against Ray's nose and mouth, pretty eyes way too close. A hand tangles gently in his hair, stroking.
Just a bit too close for not-together, Ray thinks uncomfortably, and he gears up to pull away a little. A heavy arm falls across him as though it were waiting for that move.
"Quiet, Ray. I'm going to help you get back to sleep," breathes Fraser. "It's cold out. Shush, I have a poem for you. I remember your mother liked it."
Ray is not as educated as Fraser and is sure he will not know the poem, does not know when Fraser ever spent time with his mother enough to know her tastes in poetry anyway. He is staggered by recalling his mother's death. It's such a shock, like being shot in the chest, like first grief, sudden and devastating. Fraser is murmuring about sweet violets sickening and rose leaves being heaped on beds. Ray lies under him, shaken and motionless, barely listening.
He does not have the energy to resist when firm lips tease at his, when a tongue slithers wetly inside. He feels neither desire nor humiliation as he is manhandled efficiently onto his front, feels no curiosity over Fraser's sudden nakedness against him, smooth and warm and sweetly, lazily demanding. He feels empty at the recollection of Barbara Kowalski's death, her murder, he remembers, empty and hollowed out. He is not filled by the hard flesh pressing insistently inside him. He recalls that in another life the heaviness of the hot body, the pressure and movement and harsh breaths, might have meant something to him.
Ray lies still and passive until he feels hot spurts inside him and as the body tenses above him his wrists are pinioned and the tone that whispered poetry whispers, "I killed her, you know."
And then there is the shocked realization of truth, the hammering heart, the desperate attempt to fight off the motionlessness, the sting of anguished tears.
He thrashes and gasps, salt-water drying cold and accusing on his cheeks. How could he ever have forgotten?
He is alone in the bed. He calms slightly. It must have been a dream, and he has escaped. He glances around and takes in the comforting, familiar furniture just visible through the chocolate darkness, sniffs at the tangy-sweet scents of tea leaves and laundry. He wishes that his mother's murder was also a dream and that dream-Fraser's admission of guilt didn't make so much sense. Who else would have had the chance?
He feels dirty somehow, betrayed and tainted by his rebellious subconscious. Now that he is no longer dreaming, he knows better than to trust Fraser.
Ray can't quite remember why he is up here, isolated in this cabin with his mother's murderer. He knows he has been sleeping with the man, sharing his bed. Now he knows this is part of his plan, he is here to find the evidence. Something has happened, though - has Fraser realized that he knows?
A body shifts beside him in the bed. "I hope your nightmare was about me," purrs Fraser.
Sorry, Ray thinks. No way. Remembering my mother.
"I see. I do think you should be dreaming about me, don't you agree, Ray? Let me try to do something about that."
He wants to pull himself out of the bed and escape. He knows why I'm here. Ray struggles, aware with increasing hopelessness that his muscles are not obeying, that he is still and compliant beside Fraser.
"There's no point in struggling. You won't be able to move. Its an interesting little paralytic - do you remember the plants I brought in yesterday? I distilled it from those. Just a little dab on your lips as you sleep and here we are. I hope you appreciate the trouble I've gone to."
Fraser's voice is dark chocolate and honey, sweet and seductive and very, very unhealthy. His smile through the darkness is like sin itself. Ray can't even close his eyes to escape that smile. Horror bubbles through his veins. He feels his heart pumping hard, his breath light and fast, his skin prickling with antipathy the closer Fraser comes.
Ray wants to puke with every touch of Fraser's skin on his. Somehow it was all right doing this when the plan was working, when he was undercover, fooling his brand-new lover into complacency. Now he has no choice this is completely different.
Gagging, choking, panicking, Ray pulls away even harder when Fraser looms over him, maneuvers his jaw open and starts thrusting a violent cock down his unresisting throat. He struggles and pulls without managing to move at all and cries out soundlessly, trying harder and harder to escape.
He forces his eyes open to the sound of a quiet, pitiful mew coming from his own throat, which is raw and aching, as though he has been screaming for hours. He is face down in his pillow and his lips are cracked and dry.
He turns his head to the side and blinks, slowly, taking in the all too familiar surroundings.
Fraser appears in the doorway and Ray flinches with dread. But this Fraser doesn't seem to catch that movement through the darkness. The lights are full on in the other room and Fraser is just a silhouette.
"I couldn't sleep," he says quietly. "I wondered if you might like to talk for a while?"
"Was I screaming?"
"I... have you had a nightmare, Ray? I could make us some tea."
Ray nods, slowly, and hitches himself up in the bed, pulling pillows towards him and propping them up behind his back to make sitting more comfortable. He finds the traces of tears on his cheeks and dashes them away, ashamed. The Mountie silhouette has left the doorway and he can hear Fraser clattering around in the cramped kitchen, hears the sounds of the kettle and the chink of mugs and spoons. Kind of homely and nice.
Fraser comes back with two mugs of steaming, sweet-smelling tea. He comes towards the bed, passes Ray one mug and pulls a chair towards the bed with his free hand, sitting close to Ray and warming his hands on the mug. He is almost fully dressed. Ray suspects that he has been outside, perhaps for a walk. Yeah, you hone those sharp detective instincts, Kowalski. He is very glad that Fraser doesn't touch him.
"I was... I don't want you to believe you're not welcome, Ray. You can stay here as long as you want to."
Ray shrugs, scanning Fraser's serious face for traces of the man who forced him and killed his mother. Says something about his subconscious, the way it casts one of the best men he's ever known as the worst monster. Ray sips slowly at his tea, then puts the mug down on the little table next to the bed.
"Ray? You shouldn't feel that our relationship is a condition of you staying here. Well, other than the relationship of friendship, of course, because I would rather share living space with someone I can treat as a friend. In fact, if I say so myself, I'm very good at that. Diefenbaker has rarely had cause to complain about my habits, and you know how critical he is."
"Uh... sorry, buddy, still not all the way awake." Ray shakes his head to clear it and then asks, almost casually, "What do you think of my mom?"
A puzzled response. "She has always struck me as a very pleasant woman, Ray. Why do you..." His tone darkens. "Oh. I see."
"What's that poem, Fraser, the one about music, and memories, and violets?"
He wants Fraser to lie down next to him and hold him, wants the solidity and warmth of a real body to drive away the wispy memories of his nightmares. He wants Fraser somehow to know that Ray is available, right now, yearning for Fraser to kiss him, to touch him, to be inside him, clearing the tendrils of humiliation and leaving him clean and new. If he could bring himself to say something, he is almost certain that Fraser would do that for him.
A pity fuck, he tells himself. A goodbye fuck. You're leaving tomorrow. Why would he want you now?
"Well, you've clearly not woken up properly, despite the tea. I should let you get back to sleep. Early start tomorrow."
Ray lies back down and closes his eyes to wait for morning, hoping he doesn't fall asleep, listening to Fraser walk away and gently close the door behind him.