That WIP Meme
Taken from spuffyduds, sdwolfpup and keerawa, all of whom have posted a number of intriguing excerpts from WIPs that I hope will grow into full-fledged stories:
When you see this, post a little weensy excerpt from as many random works-in-progress as you can find lying around. Who knows? Maybe inspiration will burst forth and do something, um, inspiration-y.
I think I've posted a bit more than the "weensy" excerpt suggested by this meme, but I've been stalled on a lot of these for over a year and now they're looking less like WiP fics and more like abandoned little orphan waifs. I think they need to absorb some love and TLC, or at least some fresh air and sunshine, before I send 'em back to the workhouse. *cackles like a Dickensian villan*
Short NC-17 Fraser/RayK fic:
The July heat wave that defeated Ray’s beloved GTO has made everyone slow and lazy, careless. The pedestrians walk at a snail's pace and bump into one another, dizzy with warmth and drunk on the sun.
Ray slips amongst them easily, dodging and weaving with his dancer’s grace. Fraser tries to follow his friend’s path through the crowd but the bodies close in around him. Ray avoids them so easily, unconsciously. He has but to lay a hand upon a stranger’s shoulder or back to guide them out of his way. It’s not rude, exactly, but more like a complicated waltz or tango whose steps Fraser never knew, never learned.
The urban foxtrot. The Chicago Shuffle. The ridiculous names spring to mind easily but Fraser is painfully aware of his own heat-induced sluggishness as he blunders into passersby and mutters, “Please excuse me,” or “Sorry,” or “My apologies.” His empty nothings sound like the hot wind.
Long Fraser/RayK casefic in which the Boys work to solve a hatecrime. The story is narrated by the young man whose murder they're attempting to solve. Yeah, I know. I was thinking of The Lovely Bones and this came out instead:
I died at sunrise on January 20th, 1998. The corner’s report would claim that I’d passed away a little earlier, at approximately 3am, but these things aren’t an exact science no matter what the Thursday night forensic shows tell you. No, I died at 6:52am, just as the sun crested the horizon and the sky shifted from the flat gray light of pre-dawn to rosy pink and gold. Illinois is pretty much as miserable as you’d think in late winter, and I died in a particularly ugly part of the wastelands surrounding Chicago. But that last sunrise of my life was beautiful; it felt like a gift, something that shone through the haze and pain of my death and carried me over into what came next.
Gen story from Fraser's grandmother's POV.:
When Benton Fraser was eleven years old his grandmother caught him peering into the warped old looking-glass that stood in the corner of her bedroom. He wasn’t making faces or blowing on the mirror as other boys might have done. Instead he was only staring intently at his own reflection, studying himself with a seriousness and a gravity that troubled Martha Fraser and made her voice too sharp.
“Benton!” She’d made him jump, and Ben blushed and turned, moving in front of the mirror as though he was protecting the small, delicately-featured child reflected in the glass.
“N-nothing,” he stammered in reply to an unasked question. Martha sighed and closed her eyes. Much as she tried, she had never been able to cure her grandson of his awkwardness, his stutter, or his insistence on secrecy. As if an eleven-year-old boy had any secrets worth keeping.
Long post-CotW kidfic, in which Ray and Fraser head south to Arizona to attend the funeral of Ray's brother:
"What time is it?”
My mom blows smoke out into the already-hazy kitchen. She must have been at it for hours already. “About three,” she says, her voice weary as the hour. I slide into one of the chairs across from her and take one of her Slims from the pack, holding it between my lips to light it just like I learned from watching her chain-smoke all those years. Amazing we both aren’t riddled with cancer by now.
“Fraser’s gonna kill me,” I sigh, leaning back in my chair to study the Surgeon General’s warning on the back of the Slims package. “He hates it when I smoke.”
My mom frowns and a little furrow appears in her forehead. She’s got a lot more wrinkles now than I remember from the last time I saw her. Dad’s stroke was real tough on her, aged her a little, shrank her down.
“I thought you’d quit.”
“Yeah, well, I thought you’d quit too.”
This makes her smile. The new wrinkles crease her face and change her smile just a little. Just enough.
“What else does he hate?” Mom asks, leaning forward to knock the ash off the tip of her cigarette. My heart beats a little faster; I don’t know why she’s suddenly so interested in Fraser. Mostly it seems like she doesn’t want to talk about him at all.
“Well, the smoking thing. And when I swear.” I think a little harder. “I guess...he said something once about leaving the empty butter dish in the fridge but we never-”
Fuck. I wasn’t going to mention that. The no-house thing. We’ve never shared a fridge because we’ve been chasing bad guys over the tundra for the three years. The past six weeks in Inuvik has been the longest we’ve ever stayed in one place, and even then it was only me holed up in Fraser’s grandparents' old cabin. No electricity there, of course, so no fridge and no butter dish.
Mom is staring at me so I swallow hard and try to think of something to say, some way to explain how it is for me and Fraser. Only one thing comes to mind.
“It’s a real short list, Ma. He mostly...there’s more things he likes about me than annoy him.”
Gen story about Bob and wee!Fraser:
Once the dogs were taken care of Bob cast a longing look back at the inviting little barn, wishing he could bed down with his team and make an early start in the morning. Later, after spring breakup, he could send a message with Buck to explain that he just hadn’t been able to make it home for Christmas. Anything to ease the tightness in his chest, to avoid entering the cabin that looked so much like the last one he’d built for Caroline. A man could only bear so much.
His mother opened the door before he even had a chance to lift the leather latch and push his way in. A blast of warm air hit him like a blow, making his face tingle after so many long hours spent in the cold wind. He staggered back a little and then straightened, pulling himself up into the stiff posture his mother expected of him.
And, because I've been talking it up so much, here's an excerpt from the rentboy AU of doom. Fraser is a rentboy, Ray is a cop, and they've been spending some time together for the past couple of weeks. Fraser has just been beated up and arrested for solicitation.
Fraser couldn’t quite determine what the expression on Ray’s face meant. He was exhausted, clearly, and confused. Concern was present as well in the tightness around his lips, the small furrow between his brow. But the blazing anger in his eyes seemed to negate all the rest. With a sinking heart Fraser heaved himself to his feet, wincing as the effort pulled at his severely abused muscles and aching joints.
“Ray,” he rasped, reaching out to take hold of the metal bars of the cell in an effort to steady himself. And, if he were honest, reaching for Ray as well. He wanted to wipe that expression of anger from his friend’s face. He had never meant for any of this to happen.
Ray turned away as though he couldn’t bear to look at Fraser’s sorry physical condition. Fraser couldn’t blame him. He certainly knew he made for one pathetic mess of a man, covered in bruises, welts and open cuts. Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise, however; his internal condition was manifest physically now, out in the open where Ray could see it. Perhaps now Ray would realize how unworthy Fraser was of his friendship, and they could end things amicably. No sense in delaying the inevitable.
“Get your stuff. They’re not gonna charge you with anything.”
Fraser blinked and dropped his hand from the cold iron bars, stunned. No prison time? None at all?
“But--”
“I swear to God and sonny Jesus.” Ray whirled, banging his fist against the bars that separated them. “If you start in on how you deserve to be in here I’m gonna ask Deputy Dodd over there to gag you.”
Fraser didn’t quite understand. Ray’s words made no sense. Was he angry? He had said Fraser didn’t deserve to be in holding but--
“You coming?” Ray asked, still not quite looking at him. The cell door slid open with a heavy metal clank and Fraser felt something ease in his chest. The weight that had settled over his heart when the bars slammed closed had lifted. He found that he could suddenly breathe again.
Ray led him out of the holding area and out to the front desk where they returned his belt and shoelaces.
“Gotta sign for anything?” Ray asked the desk sergeant. The man’s lip curled in disgust.
“Nope. Nothing on him but an old watch.”
Ray drew himself up to his full height, his fists clenched tightly. Even a simpleton would have been able to sense the anger radiating off of him. “So give him his watch back,” he ordered through tightly-clenched teeth. The desk sergeant took a hesitant step backwards.
“Kowalski, it’s just an old piece of junk. And what’s he gonna need it for, anyway? Make sure he’s on time for his cock-sucking appointments?”
Fraser caught Ray’s arm before he could take a swing. Pain flared in his shoulder where the men had kicked him repeatedly but he managed to hold Ray back. The desk sergeant’s eyes were wide with surprise as Ray struggled to break Fraser’s hold. He had underestimated Ray’s strength. The man was wiry, coiled steel ready to spring loose at a moment’s provocation. Which, apparently, included defense of Fraser. It had been so long since anyone had felt he was worth defending that Fraser didn’t quite know what to make of it.
“Ray, Ray, it’s all right,” he whispered, his hold on Ray forcing him to speak almost into the other man’s ear. Ray smelled like coffee and cigarettes, and a deliciously warm, musky flavour that seemed to be unique to Ray himself. Fraser closed his eyes and resisted the urge to bury his nose in Ray’s hair.
“It’s not worth it,” Fraser murmured, adding a silent I’m not worth it. The watch had belonged to his father and its loss would be incalculable, but it did not merit the sacrifice of Ray’s reputation or career. “Let it go.”
“Give him his watch,” Ray repeated, calmer now. He was still humming with angry energy, his entire body taut, but he no longer looked like he would take a swing at the sergeant. “Give him his watch back, Macavoy, or I’ll tell everyone about your nasty little habit of filching from the evidence room. Brass might not care when you steal from the drunks and homeless guys, but I’m damn sure they’ll listen when I tell them about missing coke and small bills.”
Ray had been speaking quietly, his voice lower and much more threatening than Fraser had ever heard it. He almost sounded like a different person. He looked it, too--Ray’s thin frame seemed to radiate menace. Fraser nearly took a step back, the contrast was so chilling.
The desk sergeant seemed to be close to surrender. With a stiff nod and a glare he shrugged at Ray, returning with the contents of Fraser’s pockets. The sergeant seemed to take perverse delight in laying everything out and naming each item on the list of Fraser’s personal effects.
“Twelve Durex condoms,” he announced loudly enough to carry to the far side of Central Processing. “Alcohol wipes. Listerine. Personal lubricant--” and here the sergeant handled the bottle gingerly, although the item was clean and neatly packaged. “And one analog wristwatch.”
The man smirked, his eyes remote and filled with cold distaste. Fraser watched as he set his father’s watch on the scarred brown counter. And just as Fraser reached for it, the sergeant swept the watch onto the hard linoleum floor and stamped on it with the heel of his boot. Fraser heard the crack of glass and the smashing of the tiny, precise gears that had kept perfect time since 1952. Something deep inside of him broke open. This too, this final piece of his father, was gone.
“Oops,” the sergeant said nastily, right before Ray punched him.
There. And I've got about eleventy million more. My poor betas just winced and crossed themselves.
When you see this, post a little weensy excerpt from as many random works-in-progress as you can find lying around. Who knows? Maybe inspiration will burst forth and do something, um, inspiration-y.
I think I've posted a bit more than the "weensy" excerpt suggested by this meme, but I've been stalled on a lot of these for over a year and now they're looking less like WiP fics and more like abandoned little orphan waifs. I think they need to absorb some love and TLC, or at least some fresh air and sunshine, before I send 'em back to the workhouse. *cackles like a Dickensian villan*
Short NC-17 Fraser/RayK fic:
The July heat wave that defeated Ray’s beloved GTO has made everyone slow and lazy, careless. The pedestrians walk at a snail's pace and bump into one another, dizzy with warmth and drunk on the sun.
Ray slips amongst them easily, dodging and weaving with his dancer’s grace. Fraser tries to follow his friend’s path through the crowd but the bodies close in around him. Ray avoids them so easily, unconsciously. He has but to lay a hand upon a stranger’s shoulder or back to guide them out of his way. It’s not rude, exactly, but more like a complicated waltz or tango whose steps Fraser never knew, never learned.
The urban foxtrot. The Chicago Shuffle. The ridiculous names spring to mind easily but Fraser is painfully aware of his own heat-induced sluggishness as he blunders into passersby and mutters, “Please excuse me,” or “Sorry,” or “My apologies.” His empty nothings sound like the hot wind.
Long Fraser/RayK casefic in which the Boys work to solve a hatecrime. The story is narrated by the young man whose murder they're attempting to solve. Yeah, I know. I was thinking of The Lovely Bones and this came out instead:
I died at sunrise on January 20th, 1998. The corner’s report would claim that I’d passed away a little earlier, at approximately 3am, but these things aren’t an exact science no matter what the Thursday night forensic shows tell you. No, I died at 6:52am, just as the sun crested the horizon and the sky shifted from the flat gray light of pre-dawn to rosy pink and gold. Illinois is pretty much as miserable as you’d think in late winter, and I died in a particularly ugly part of the wastelands surrounding Chicago. But that last sunrise of my life was beautiful; it felt like a gift, something that shone through the haze and pain of my death and carried me over into what came next.
Gen story from Fraser's grandmother's POV.:
When Benton Fraser was eleven years old his grandmother caught him peering into the warped old looking-glass that stood in the corner of her bedroom. He wasn’t making faces or blowing on the mirror as other boys might have done. Instead he was only staring intently at his own reflection, studying himself with a seriousness and a gravity that troubled Martha Fraser and made her voice too sharp.
“Benton!” She’d made him jump, and Ben blushed and turned, moving in front of the mirror as though he was protecting the small, delicately-featured child reflected in the glass.
“N-nothing,” he stammered in reply to an unasked question. Martha sighed and closed her eyes. Much as she tried, she had never been able to cure her grandson of his awkwardness, his stutter, or his insistence on secrecy. As if an eleven-year-old boy had any secrets worth keeping.
Long post-CotW kidfic, in which Ray and Fraser head south to Arizona to attend the funeral of Ray's brother:
"What time is it?”
My mom blows smoke out into the already-hazy kitchen. She must have been at it for hours already. “About three,” she says, her voice weary as the hour. I slide into one of the chairs across from her and take one of her Slims from the pack, holding it between my lips to light it just like I learned from watching her chain-smoke all those years. Amazing we both aren’t riddled with cancer by now.
“Fraser’s gonna kill me,” I sigh, leaning back in my chair to study the Surgeon General’s warning on the back of the Slims package. “He hates it when I smoke.”
My mom frowns and a little furrow appears in her forehead. She’s got a lot more wrinkles now than I remember from the last time I saw her. Dad’s stroke was real tough on her, aged her a little, shrank her down.
“I thought you’d quit.”
“Yeah, well, I thought you’d quit too.”
This makes her smile. The new wrinkles crease her face and change her smile just a little. Just enough.
“What else does he hate?” Mom asks, leaning forward to knock the ash off the tip of her cigarette. My heart beats a little faster; I don’t know why she’s suddenly so interested in Fraser. Mostly it seems like she doesn’t want to talk about him at all.
“Well, the smoking thing. And when I swear.” I think a little harder. “I guess...he said something once about leaving the empty butter dish in the fridge but we never-”
Fuck. I wasn’t going to mention that. The no-house thing. We’ve never shared a fridge because we’ve been chasing bad guys over the tundra for the three years. The past six weeks in Inuvik has been the longest we’ve ever stayed in one place, and even then it was only me holed up in Fraser’s grandparents' old cabin. No electricity there, of course, so no fridge and no butter dish.
Mom is staring at me so I swallow hard and try to think of something to say, some way to explain how it is for me and Fraser. Only one thing comes to mind.
“It’s a real short list, Ma. He mostly...there’s more things he likes about me than annoy him.”
Gen story about Bob and wee!Fraser:
Once the dogs were taken care of Bob cast a longing look back at the inviting little barn, wishing he could bed down with his team and make an early start in the morning. Later, after spring breakup, he could send a message with Buck to explain that he just hadn’t been able to make it home for Christmas. Anything to ease the tightness in his chest, to avoid entering the cabin that looked so much like the last one he’d built for Caroline. A man could only bear so much.
His mother opened the door before he even had a chance to lift the leather latch and push his way in. A blast of warm air hit him like a blow, making his face tingle after so many long hours spent in the cold wind. He staggered back a little and then straightened, pulling himself up into the stiff posture his mother expected of him.
And, because I've been talking it up so much, here's an excerpt from the rentboy AU of doom. Fraser is a rentboy, Ray is a cop, and they've been spending some time together for the past couple of weeks. Fraser has just been beated up and arrested for solicitation.
Fraser couldn’t quite determine what the expression on Ray’s face meant. He was exhausted, clearly, and confused. Concern was present as well in the tightness around his lips, the small furrow between his brow. But the blazing anger in his eyes seemed to negate all the rest. With a sinking heart Fraser heaved himself to his feet, wincing as the effort pulled at his severely abused muscles and aching joints.
“Ray,” he rasped, reaching out to take hold of the metal bars of the cell in an effort to steady himself. And, if he were honest, reaching for Ray as well. He wanted to wipe that expression of anger from his friend’s face. He had never meant for any of this to happen.
Ray turned away as though he couldn’t bear to look at Fraser’s sorry physical condition. Fraser couldn’t blame him. He certainly knew he made for one pathetic mess of a man, covered in bruises, welts and open cuts. Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise, however; his internal condition was manifest physically now, out in the open where Ray could see it. Perhaps now Ray would realize how unworthy Fraser was of his friendship, and they could end things amicably. No sense in delaying the inevitable.
“Get your stuff. They’re not gonna charge you with anything.”
Fraser blinked and dropped his hand from the cold iron bars, stunned. No prison time? None at all?
“But--”
“I swear to God and sonny Jesus.” Ray whirled, banging his fist against the bars that separated them. “If you start in on how you deserve to be in here I’m gonna ask Deputy Dodd over there to gag you.”
Fraser didn’t quite understand. Ray’s words made no sense. Was he angry? He had said Fraser didn’t deserve to be in holding but--
“You coming?” Ray asked, still not quite looking at him. The cell door slid open with a heavy metal clank and Fraser felt something ease in his chest. The weight that had settled over his heart when the bars slammed closed had lifted. He found that he could suddenly breathe again.
Ray led him out of the holding area and out to the front desk where they returned his belt and shoelaces.
“Gotta sign for anything?” Ray asked the desk sergeant. The man’s lip curled in disgust.
“Nope. Nothing on him but an old watch.”
Ray drew himself up to his full height, his fists clenched tightly. Even a simpleton would have been able to sense the anger radiating off of him. “So give him his watch back,” he ordered through tightly-clenched teeth. The desk sergeant took a hesitant step backwards.
“Kowalski, it’s just an old piece of junk. And what’s he gonna need it for, anyway? Make sure he’s on time for his cock-sucking appointments?”
Fraser caught Ray’s arm before he could take a swing. Pain flared in his shoulder where the men had kicked him repeatedly but he managed to hold Ray back. The desk sergeant’s eyes were wide with surprise as Ray struggled to break Fraser’s hold. He had underestimated Ray’s strength. The man was wiry, coiled steel ready to spring loose at a moment’s provocation. Which, apparently, included defense of Fraser. It had been so long since anyone had felt he was worth defending that Fraser didn’t quite know what to make of it.
“Ray, Ray, it’s all right,” he whispered, his hold on Ray forcing him to speak almost into the other man’s ear. Ray smelled like coffee and cigarettes, and a deliciously warm, musky flavour that seemed to be unique to Ray himself. Fraser closed his eyes and resisted the urge to bury his nose in Ray’s hair.
“It’s not worth it,” Fraser murmured, adding a silent I’m not worth it. The watch had belonged to his father and its loss would be incalculable, but it did not merit the sacrifice of Ray’s reputation or career. “Let it go.”
“Give him his watch,” Ray repeated, calmer now. He was still humming with angry energy, his entire body taut, but he no longer looked like he would take a swing at the sergeant. “Give him his watch back, Macavoy, or I’ll tell everyone about your nasty little habit of filching from the evidence room. Brass might not care when you steal from the drunks and homeless guys, but I’m damn sure they’ll listen when I tell them about missing coke and small bills.”
Ray had been speaking quietly, his voice lower and much more threatening than Fraser had ever heard it. He almost sounded like a different person. He looked it, too--Ray’s thin frame seemed to radiate menace. Fraser nearly took a step back, the contrast was so chilling.
The desk sergeant seemed to be close to surrender. With a stiff nod and a glare he shrugged at Ray, returning with the contents of Fraser’s pockets. The sergeant seemed to take perverse delight in laying everything out and naming each item on the list of Fraser’s personal effects.
“Twelve Durex condoms,” he announced loudly enough to carry to the far side of Central Processing. “Alcohol wipes. Listerine. Personal lubricant--” and here the sergeant handled the bottle gingerly, although the item was clean and neatly packaged. “And one analog wristwatch.”
The man smirked, his eyes remote and filled with cold distaste. Fraser watched as he set his father’s watch on the scarred brown counter. And just as Fraser reached for it, the sergeant swept the watch onto the hard linoleum floor and stamped on it with the heel of his boot. Fraser heard the crack of glass and the smashing of the tiny, precise gears that had kept perfect time since 1952. Something deep inside of him broke open. This too, this final piece of his father, was gone.
“Oops,” the sergeant said nastily, right before Ray punched him.
There. And I've got about eleventy million more. My poor betas just winced and crossed themselves.