IMPACT, DUE SOUTH, RAYK/FRASER.
Title: Impact.
Pairing: Fraser/Kowalski
Rating: PG15.
Summary: They were thrown together, and crashed; here are some pieces that broke off.
AN: The first foray into dS fic, and I hope you enjoy it.
crash [n] [v.i]
to fall.
It happened in-between, through the snow and after stone; but it happened before then, even, while Ray wasn’t looking. Fraser could have told him, straight up, [Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray. We’re in love,] but Fraser enjoyed seeing Ray fight his own battles. Throw his own punches.
Over bark tea and Fraser’s humming, Ray says, “I love you, Fraser,” and Fraser tells him, “I know, Ray” as if Ray had said, “It’s raining, Fraser,” or, “You’re wearing blue, Fraser.”
“Yeah, okay. But, why? I mean, you know, we’re …” Ray stutters, a sudden interest in the back of his hands. “We work, and I don’t know how. I can’t, do the sum, you know, I can’t …”
“Everything has reason, Ray.”
“Except me.” Ray takes a fist full of Fraser’s hair and tugs, gentle, and anchors. “You got all mine.”
*
sudden, loud noise.
They’re fighting.
[Fraser would say no, Ray, this is arguing.]
They’re ten feet and two-hundred designer shoes apart and they’re yelling. Ray’s yelling, Fraser’s trying to be reasonable and half the women in Chicago - a few of the men - are on their hands and knees, scavenging. Frannie finds a yellow pump and throws it over her shoulder. For luck.
“Ray - ”
“Yeah Fraser, I know.” Ray shakes his hands out, giving them something to do besides punching Fraser in the face. “You’re sorry you have an inhab - inherit - a really annoying habit of being right.”
“I wouldn’t say I was ‘right’, Ray.” They Foxtrot around an old lady - not all there - and Fraser touches his face a few times, for effect. Ray jitters. “In this case there appeared to be many shades of grey. I was just looking for the, uh, darkest, if you will.”
“That’s great." Ray punches fingers against his temple. "Clever. What was I looking at then? Huh? Goldfish?”
“I don’t recall seeing Goldfish Ray.”
Jackman, Paul’s files flutter up in the air and Ray roars, “It’s an expression!”
The crowds stills, quietens, and Fraser gulps. “I apologise, I’m not familiar with it.” Fraser’s dropped an octave, moving closer to Ray, neck bunching. “Perhaps you can explain it to me over a meal. Or a game of sport?”
Ray can see it, the white flag, fluttering in the air. This is surrender, Ray knows, Ray gets it. It’s having to give a damn, that’s the part he has trouble with.
“I don’t want no doughnuts, or no pizza,” he says, spitting it, right into Fraser’s face. “I don’t want baseball or curling or any stories from any foreign people telling me I’m a slob without actually using the word slob. Okay?”
“Well, then, what would you like?”
Ray smiles, crooked like this partnership. “World Peace, an end to hunger, and for you to get out of my goddamn way.”
When Fraser leaves, the crowd regroups and Ray’s left standing alone.
*
to collide.
It starts high speed and messy, to keep with tradition. It starts in the quiet, creaky hallway outside Ray’s front door. The shuffle kick of Fraser’s boots and the splinter of Ray’s voice, “You could - you know - just - come inside. Sit there and look all proper and whatever.”
Fraser kisses Ray like he’s never been proper in his life. It’s real this time, no undercover and no breathing air; it’s a real, honest to God kiss and it’s funny. Ray feels like he’s drowning. He claws to Fraser like he’s always done, closer and closest, because he can now and because he’d better get a move on. The rest of his lifetime isn’t enough.
In the darkness of the hallway and through the door and toward Ray’s room: they evolve. For Ray, everything - time and space and all that, everything - blurs. Fraser pushes him around [a nice change], pushes back and under and over until Ray’s lying on his bed with his dick in the air. “Is this alright?” Fraser asks, still fully clothed, still on his feet. A gentleman, to the end.
Ray says, “Yeah, Fraser,” and that’s all it takes, and there’s a Mountie crawling up over him, skin to skin to skin until he reaches the top. For a moment that stretches out forever, Fraser watches. Stares, as if he doesn’t believe. Ray - who wears his heart, the blood and valves and beat, on his sleeve - feels naked. Exposed. He makes a sound he didn’t know he had.
“It’s more than alright.”
They undress and unravel and the clock begins to tick, again. Ray’s apartment [the records and the coffee mugs and the photos from his wedding day] shakes, trembles and sheds its old skin. Admist the chaos of their love making there’s rebirth. Ray finds himself, different from the last.
*
cardiac arrest.
Ray died.
He forgets where, exactly, despite being there; and Fraser tells the story better, anyway. He died, in the Northwest Territories, in Fraser’s dry clothes, with Fraser at his neck and chest and skin trying to revive him. Ray died, and Fraser gave him life back when Fraser didn’t have all that much left to give.
“You make it sound as if I had a choice, Ray,” Fraser says tightly, his tongue touching his lip, a flush touching his cheeks.
“You make it sound like you didn’t.”
It’s during his 24th recount - to a pretty blonde girl, at the precinct, bailing out her boyfriend - that Fraser snaps. He pulls Ray into the Men’s Room by the scruff of his neck, ignoring the protests, “Hey, what’s with the hands! I was getting to the fancy bit, with the defibrill whats it.”
Fraser locks the toilet stall behind them. “I know it was a good thing I did,” he says, without being prompted. He’s talking in a violent hush, an arm over Ray’s shoulder, hand splayed out. “But it wasn’t noble. It certainly wasn’t selfless.”
Ray folds his arms and smirks. “You know this, this modesty thing? It’s a really ugly colour on you.”
“I was dying too, Ray,” Fraser says, and it sounds like an awful confession.
“You’ve lost me.”
“If you had died, where would I go?” he says gravely, and the distress is like a lump in Ray’s throat. “Chicago had lost you and Canada had taken you away.”
Fraser looks up and looks done. “If you’d died I would have dug two holes.”
*
to join, without invitation.
He knows every angle of this shindig; he knows every name and face and obstruction of justice. What he does not know - not until he’s knee deep in it, wading in the truth - is that Benton Fraser, RCMP [one father short and blackballed] does not want this. Beneath the bright red sheen of acceptance is resentment, ugly and real. When he says, “I understand,” he really means, “I don’t want this,” which wasn’t part of the deal.
“This is the deal,” Welsh had said. “You get the gig, you get Vecchio and all the trimmings - but you also get the funny guy in the hat.”
“Yes, sir,” Ray had said, cricking his neck. “This is the works, the Mountie’s a wrench. I’m good with those.”
“You mean the Mountie’s a spanner?”
“I’m good with those, too.”
This is the deal, Welsh had said because he didn’t know: Fraser had changed it.
Ray, he was fighting for Vecchio[knuckles bare and teeth bared and sole bearing], sure; but he was also fighting for Fraser.
Which turned out to be the same thing, really. In the end.
Pairing: Fraser/Kowalski
Rating: PG15.
Summary: They were thrown together, and crashed; here are some pieces that broke off.
AN: The first foray into dS fic, and I hope you enjoy it.
crash [n] [v.i]
to fall.
It happened in-between, through the snow and after stone; but it happened before then, even, while Ray wasn’t looking. Fraser could have told him, straight up, [Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray. We’re in love,] but Fraser enjoyed seeing Ray fight his own battles. Throw his own punches.
Over bark tea and Fraser’s humming, Ray says, “I love you, Fraser,” and Fraser tells him, “I know, Ray” as if Ray had said, “It’s raining, Fraser,” or, “You’re wearing blue, Fraser.”
“Yeah, okay. But, why? I mean, you know, we’re …” Ray stutters, a sudden interest in the back of his hands. “We work, and I don’t know how. I can’t, do the sum, you know, I can’t …”
“Everything has reason, Ray.”
“Except me.” Ray takes a fist full of Fraser’s hair and tugs, gentle, and anchors. “You got all mine.”
*
sudden, loud noise.
They’re fighting.
[Fraser would say no, Ray, this is arguing.]
They’re ten feet and two-hundred designer shoes apart and they’re yelling. Ray’s yelling, Fraser’s trying to be reasonable and half the women in Chicago - a few of the men - are on their hands and knees, scavenging. Frannie finds a yellow pump and throws it over her shoulder. For luck.
“Ray - ”
“Yeah Fraser, I know.” Ray shakes his hands out, giving them something to do besides punching Fraser in the face. “You’re sorry you have an inhab - inherit - a really annoying habit of being right.”
“I wouldn’t say I was ‘right’, Ray.” They Foxtrot around an old lady - not all there - and Fraser touches his face a few times, for effect. Ray jitters. “In this case there appeared to be many shades of grey. I was just looking for the, uh, darkest, if you will.”
“That’s great." Ray punches fingers against his temple. "Clever. What was I looking at then? Huh? Goldfish?”
“I don’t recall seeing Goldfish Ray.”
Jackman, Paul’s files flutter up in the air and Ray roars, “It’s an expression!”
The crowds stills, quietens, and Fraser gulps. “I apologise, I’m not familiar with it.” Fraser’s dropped an octave, moving closer to Ray, neck bunching. “Perhaps you can explain it to me over a meal. Or a game of sport?”
Ray can see it, the white flag, fluttering in the air. This is surrender, Ray knows, Ray gets it. It’s having to give a damn, that’s the part he has trouble with.
“I don’t want no doughnuts, or no pizza,” he says, spitting it, right into Fraser’s face. “I don’t want baseball or curling or any stories from any foreign people telling me I’m a slob without actually using the word slob. Okay?”
“Well, then, what would you like?”
Ray smiles, crooked like this partnership. “World Peace, an end to hunger, and for you to get out of my goddamn way.”
When Fraser leaves, the crowd regroups and Ray’s left standing alone.
*
to collide.
It starts high speed and messy, to keep with tradition. It starts in the quiet, creaky hallway outside Ray’s front door. The shuffle kick of Fraser’s boots and the splinter of Ray’s voice, “You could - you know - just - come inside. Sit there and look all proper and whatever.”
Fraser kisses Ray like he’s never been proper in his life. It’s real this time, no undercover and no breathing air; it’s a real, honest to God kiss and it’s funny. Ray feels like he’s drowning. He claws to Fraser like he’s always done, closer and closest, because he can now and because he’d better get a move on. The rest of his lifetime isn’t enough.
In the darkness of the hallway and through the door and toward Ray’s room: they evolve. For Ray, everything - time and space and all that, everything - blurs. Fraser pushes him around [a nice change], pushes back and under and over until Ray’s lying on his bed with his dick in the air. “Is this alright?” Fraser asks, still fully clothed, still on his feet. A gentleman, to the end.
Ray says, “Yeah, Fraser,” and that’s all it takes, and there’s a Mountie crawling up over him, skin to skin to skin until he reaches the top. For a moment that stretches out forever, Fraser watches. Stares, as if he doesn’t believe. Ray - who wears his heart, the blood and valves and beat, on his sleeve - feels naked. Exposed. He makes a sound he didn’t know he had.
“It’s more than alright.”
They undress and unravel and the clock begins to tick, again. Ray’s apartment [the records and the coffee mugs and the photos from his wedding day] shakes, trembles and sheds its old skin. Admist the chaos of their love making there’s rebirth. Ray finds himself, different from the last.
*
cardiac arrest.
Ray died.
He forgets where, exactly, despite being there; and Fraser tells the story better, anyway. He died, in the Northwest Territories, in Fraser’s dry clothes, with Fraser at his neck and chest and skin trying to revive him. Ray died, and Fraser gave him life back when Fraser didn’t have all that much left to give.
“You make it sound as if I had a choice, Ray,” Fraser says tightly, his tongue touching his lip, a flush touching his cheeks.
“You make it sound like you didn’t.”
It’s during his 24th recount - to a pretty blonde girl, at the precinct, bailing out her boyfriend - that Fraser snaps. He pulls Ray into the Men’s Room by the scruff of his neck, ignoring the protests, “Hey, what’s with the hands! I was getting to the fancy bit, with the defibrill whats it.”
Fraser locks the toilet stall behind them. “I know it was a good thing I did,” he says, without being prompted. He’s talking in a violent hush, an arm over Ray’s shoulder, hand splayed out. “But it wasn’t noble. It certainly wasn’t selfless.”
Ray folds his arms and smirks. “You know this, this modesty thing? It’s a really ugly colour on you.”
“I was dying too, Ray,” Fraser says, and it sounds like an awful confession.
“You’ve lost me.”
“If you had died, where would I go?” he says gravely, and the distress is like a lump in Ray’s throat. “Chicago had lost you and Canada had taken you away.”
Fraser looks up and looks done. “If you’d died I would have dug two holes.”
*
to join, without invitation.
He knows every angle of this shindig; he knows every name and face and obstruction of justice. What he does not know - not until he’s knee deep in it, wading in the truth - is that Benton Fraser, RCMP [one father short and blackballed] does not want this. Beneath the bright red sheen of acceptance is resentment, ugly and real. When he says, “I understand,” he really means, “I don’t want this,” which wasn’t part of the deal.
“This is the deal,” Welsh had said. “You get the gig, you get Vecchio and all the trimmings - but you also get the funny guy in the hat.”
“Yes, sir,” Ray had said, cricking his neck. “This is the works, the Mountie’s a wrench. I’m good with those.”
“You mean the Mountie’s a spanner?”
“I’m good with those, too.”
This is the deal, Welsh had said because he didn’t know: Fraser had changed it.
Ray, he was fighting for Vecchio[knuckles bare and teeth bared and sole bearing], sure; but he was also fighting for Fraser.
Which turned out to be the same thing, really. In the end.