DS Fic: Must Needs, by kuonji (NC-17)
Er. For the record, I am capable of writing happy slashfic. Honest! It just hasn't happened in this fandom yet...
Title: Must Needs
Author: kuonji
Fandom: Due South
Characters: Benton Fraser, Ray Kowalski
Pairings: Fraser/RayK
Category: angst, h/c, dark
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: *highlight for spoilers: bdsm, reference to non-con
Words: ~1710
Summary: "He must nedys go that the deuell dryves." (John Lydgate’s Assembly of Gods, circa 1420)
Must Needs
by kuonji
The room was soundproof and windowless, void of personal features.
Ray stood next to the bed with his blond head bowed, his hair lying flat and his feet bare. His hands were clenched in fists, nervous, anticipatory. Fraser, as always, stared at him for far too long, unnecessarily dragging out Ray's discomfort. Finally, he forced himself to move. Ray's muscles tensed a fraction of a second before, perhaps seeing the movement through shifts in the light behind his closed eyelids, or sensing the whisper of displaced air.
The first blow whipped Ray's head to the side and staggered him toward the bed. The second crumpled him across the stark white sheets. He made no sound, but he was shaking already. Good.
With decisive movements, Fraser yanked Ray's T-shirt up over his head. The trembling man made no protest, even lifting his arms to help. He squeezed his eyes fast as Fraser unfastened his worn jeans and hauled them unceremoniously down along with his boxer briefs. His clenched jaw was probably the only thing preventing his teeth from chattering. As soon as Fraser shoved him to his stomach, he took fistfuls of the sheets and buried his face between his rigid arms.
It was a small mercy that Fraser no longer needed to tie him.
The bed had no footboard, which gave Fraser clear access to Ray's slim, muscled back and long, slightly bowed legs, laid out horizontally to him, his shins hanging without support, over the edge. Grimly, he removed his belt, making sure the jingle of the buckle and the rough slide of it against his jeans would carry. He watched as Ray flinched and hunched tightly.
Slowly, his hand around the buckle to muffle sound, Fraser bent to place the belt on the floor. He picked up the short length of heavy silk he had placed there instead and stood.
Taking a deep breath, he started.
Ray moaned at the very first strike, and Fraser felt a leap of triumph. So soon! But then, perversely, Ray refused to make any sound after the second and third and fourth. Tossing his head wildly, he clutched the sheets and did not open his mouth. Frustrated, Fraser landed the fifth strike hard across Ray's right shoulder (left-handed, probable height of one hundred sixty-five centimeters, above average in physical strength, age undetermined, features undetermined, sex: male), where a nest of faint scars already populated the delicate skin.
As if, having hoarded his sound, he had to let it out all together -- Ray screamed.
Fraser let out a breath, lightheaded with relief. Yes. Yes.
It was quick, then. Ray did not stay silent again. Or still. He thrashed and yelled, each time blessedly full-throated, until even the lightest stroke across the meaty back of his thighs caused Ray to shout strangled curses.
"You fucking bastard. You fucking, fucking son of a bitch--!"
But it still wasn't enough. Fraser felt that familiar dying sensation in the back of his throat. Dropping the silk, he went to the side of the bed where Ray's head was. Not letting himself hesitate, he yanked Ray's head up and used the other to--
Ray's soft whines were thankfully too low to penetrate the earplugs Fraser wore, but that hardly helped as Fraser could easily see the indrawn breaths followed by the tense vibrations in Ray's outstretched throat.
His penis was soft (thankgodthankgod), but that was no obstacle to verisimilitude (recurring impotence possibly psychosomatic and linked to repressed childhood abuse). Ray tried to flinch away from him as he pressed his naked organ against Ray's cheek and chin, but avoiding his nostrils. Ray's eyes remained screwed shut. No blindfolds, ever. The momentary blackness of pulling on a sweater or a shirt was the most he would willingly take. Even sunglasses discomfited him on the wrong days. Fraser twisted his hands in Ray's hair and handled him as roughly as he knew how, but Ray would not-- He would not!
"Let me go! Who the hell are you?" (profile not matching any known enemy of either Ray Vecchio or Ray Kowalski)
His voice was louder now and high-pitched enough that Fraser's ears had no trouble hearing them even through the foam. Fraser wrenched away. He put his clothes back to rights with unsteady hands before moving to reposition Ray's sluggishly stiff but cooperating body.
"N-No more. Please, stop. I'll give you anything. Just, just don't..."
Ruthlessly ignoring Ray's pleas, he kneed his way onto the bed. Ray felt the dip in the mattress and froze. His protests grew more pronounced and less coherent. When Fraser placed his open hands on Ray's buttocks, he felt shudders coursing through his fear-chilled flesh. Glancing up, daring to hope, he saw Ray's back rise and fall with trembling breaths.
Not enough.
"What do you want?"
Not enough.
Fraser tightened his fingers, and Ray moaned. He slid his thumbs inside the crevice, but Ray merely shuddered and fell silent. Fraser let his head fall forward in defeat.
Mechanically, he took his hands away and picked up the objects on the dresser.
Ray convulsed at the first slick touch. "No. Nonononono... God, at least tell me why?" (sociopathic personality, probable issues with male authority figures, most likely not his first victim) "Fraser! Benton, help me!"
As always, the sound of his name caused his hand to stutter, but he set his jaw and forged onward. Once. Once, he had answered that call, and he had seen the consequences as Ray fell apart in front of him.
He forced himself to keep his eyes on his task instead of turning away as he wished. He needed to watch, to make sure he was not causing injury or undue pain. The earplugs were useless. He could hear every wail and call, every agonized entreaty. They only deadened the sensation, reminding him how far away he had been (useless). The one indirect point of physical contact between them burned his hand like fire.
--and suddenly--
His eyes jerked up. Ray had gone loose and pliant. His fingers were slack on the sheets now, his face turned on one cheek. He took one ragged breath -- and let it out in a sob. Tears painted his long lashes and his splotched cheeks.
Carefully, carefully, Fraser drew out the wretched instrument and hurled it into the corner. He took out his ear plugs and threw them after it, praying fervently that he would not need to purchase another pair. He climbed up next to Ray, trying not to jostle him, though he knew Ray was momentarily quite unaware of his environs. He lay down a vigilant distance away.
Ray wound himself into a fetal position, facing Fraser, whether by design or accident. Long, howling releases of terror and suffering wracked his thin body. He pounded the mattress over and over, wild with uncontainable, inexpressible emotion. It was Fraser now who clenched his fingers in the wrinkled sheets, watching as Ray rocked back and forth in pained solitude.
It had been five months this time.
Would there come a day when Ray would never grow irritable and frightened and needy again? When Fraser would never again be compelled to give Ray what he needed, in order to spare his breathtakingly brave lover from asking him for it? At these moments, it seemed so impossible. And yet... And yet, five months was longer than four, was longer than three, was longer than one.
Relaxing by miniscule degrees, Ray finally began to breathe at a calmer rate. For the first time, he opened his eyes, red-veined and swollen. Fraser had to fight down an urge to speak when the first thing Ray did was to seek out Fraser's face. Childlike in his unerring confidence, Ray uncurled his hands and slid the top one across the bed toward him.
It was only with practice that Fraser had learned to stop seeing Ray's wrists and body as perpetually raw and wounded, to stop seeing Ray's face as dehydrated and fevered, his eyes blinded and his mouth sealed with ugly gray tape. Silently screaming. Even ripping off the tape had brought only single, sharp gasps from him.
In the here and now, Ray was reaching for him with both hands and burrowing into his embrace like he was his savior. Fraser heard it doubled in his head then, one voice tear-stained and whimpering, the other dry and whisper-soft, barely even audible:
"You found me. You found me. I knew you'd find me. I knew you would, Fraser. I knew it."
Now-- Now was the most difficult part he had to play. Now, he gathered Ray's shivering form in his arms (cold, no, overheated). He kissed Ray's hair (lank, no, only sweat-soaked), Ray's neck (sour, no, clean and sweet and healthy), Ray's mouth (anxious, begging, restless) and told him, in a voice hoarse with paralyzed disuse,
"Yes, I found you. You're safe, Ray. You're safe." He murmured the words, twining them with Ray's own continued litany, forming a duet of comfort that soothed Ray's racing heart and gradually settled his agitated limbs. "I found you, Ray. (You found me.) You're safe now."
A complete and utter lie. He had done absolutely nothing of worth. He had found Ray -- too late. He had cared for his lover -- not enough. He tried his best to heal Ray -- by hurting him, over and over. Fraser was the one who wanted to sob now. To curse. To rage.
But this was not for him. Not today.
So he closed his eyes tight to stop the tears. And he moved his lips only to shape what Ray needed to hear, hiding his own words deeply silent within himself.
Tomorrow, Ray would return to the energetic, challenging, generous lover of before. He would kiss Fraser with untainted passion. He would tell Fraser how lucky he was and how much he loved him, with no reservations and with fierce, brutal honesty. He would hold Fraser as Fraser let out his own poisonous torrent of grief, and afterwards, he would wash Fraser clean.
Someday, maybe, this room could become just another nightmare to be forgotten.
But until then, Fraser would be here, to find Ray again and again. As many times as he had to.
END.
If you enjoyed this story, you might try these:
All's Fair (Stargate SG-1), by kuonji
Not Quite, But Nearly (Starsky & Hutch), by kuonji
Raison D'Etre (Due South), by TAE
Just Deserveds (Due South), by mikes_grrl
Used To Think I Knew You (Due South), by spuffyduds
Date With The Night, by rispacooper