fic: "Coup de foudre" by belmanoir (F/V, PG)
Title: Coup de foudre
Author: belmanoir
Pairing: Fraser/Vecchio
Rating: PG
Word count: 1928
Summary: Two cops, one motel bed with really annoying satin sheets.
Author's Notes: Every "Starman" ep-tag owes an enormous debt to brynnmck's " Sight of the Stars", and this one is no exception. Beta'd by sionnain.
Ray yanks the satin comforter off the motel bed and drops it on the floor.
"Thank you, Ray." Fraser picks it up and begins folding it into a makeshift bedroll.
"Fraser! You can't sleep on that. I dated a girl who worked in a hotel once, and she said never to touch one if I could help it. They don't wash them. You really want to sleep on the accumulated dead skin flakes and dried bodily fluids of the last thousand X-Files fans who stayed here?"
"There's only one bed."
Ray looks murderous for a second. "I don't have cooties, Fraser." He hasn't said "Benny" since before Ian's arrival.
Fraser pretends not to understand. "Cooties, Ray?"
But Fraser doesn't understand. Ray has been extraordinarily impatient with him all day, and yet he sounds angrier about Fraser offering him the bed than about anything else. Does he want to share the bed? Fraser, of course, would like nothing better. His extensive reading of paperback romances in his grandmothers' library has familiarized him with the narrative conventions surrounding the serendipitous sharing of a double bed.
He doubts that Ray would be pleased if he woke to find that they had shifted in the night so Fraser was pressed up close against him, an arm across his chest. He takes a moment to imagine it anyway.
Ray dumps his outer clothes on a chair covered in glow-in-the-dark stars and collapses onto the blue satin sheets. Fraser is painfully tempted.
He remembers something that gave him pause, earlier. Now, you're not the best-looking guy in the joint, but compared to the locals, you're Brad Pitt. She bats her eyelids at you, she gets you into bed, and after your fifteen minutes are up, she takes your ring on the way out the door as a souvenir. It happens. We've both been there. We all know the drill.
Only last year Ray could wax rhapsodic about love at first sight in a manner that made Ian sound about as passionate as a boiled potato. Now the very idea seems to gall him. When Ray said that, Fraser wondered, for a moment, with an unpleasant jolt of hope and corrosive guilt--
"Ray," he asks without really wanting to, "when you said 'we all know the drill,' did you have anything in particular in mind?"
Ray flings his arms wide in an exaggerated gesture of incredulity. "Gee, Fraser," he says, eyes wide and green, and Fraser winces. He can hear the next words clearly before they're spoken, hear the malice in Ray's voice. Why would you think I had anything in mind? Evidently Ray can hear it too, because an expression of pain crosses his face and he doesn't say it. He doesn't force Fraser to lie. "Nah," he says tiredly instead. "I didn't have anything in mind."
Fraser is grateful and disappointed.
###
He can't sleep. His position on the floor is comfortable enough, and the light from the glow-in-the-dark stars has long since faded--that isn't the problem. He can hear Ray tossing and turning; his friend isn't sleeping either.
"Ray--"
Ray turns over with a slippery sound. "Yeah, Fraser?"
His mouth opens and his mind goes blank. "I'm sorry. Go back to sleep."
"I can't. I feel like I'm gonna slide right off the bed." He sighs. "Welsh is gonna have my ass tomorrow."
Fraser had forgotten. "I'm sorry, Ray."
"No you're not," Ray says, almost fondly. "If you had it to do over again, you'd do it exactly the same."
This is what Ray has never understood--perhaps because Fraser has never explained it. He can't explain it now. "I can't let my personal feelings interfere with my duty."
"Yeah." Ray sounds tired again. He prods restlessly at his pillow.
The dark helps Fraser say quietly, "But I do have them."
"Well, I know you have feelings, Fraser--" Ray stops. "Are you telling me that every time you mess things up for me, you actually feel sorry?"
"Of course I do. I don't want to cause trouble for you, Ray."
"You must spend a lot of time feeling sorry."
Fraser is silent.
Ray isn't fidgeting anymore. "Well, that's stupid," he says finally. "Why don't you ever just apologize?"
Fraser rubs at his eyebrow, searching for words. "I suppose it's as you say, Ray. I would do it again. In light of that, an apology seems self-indulgent."
"Because it would make you feel better."
Fraser nods, even though Ray can't see him.
Ray sits up. "That's not nothing, Fraser."
In that moment, he loves Ray so much it's like a blanket of snow over his face.
"It would make me feel better too. Did you ever think of that?"
Fraser blinks. "I can't ask you to forgive me, Ray."
Ray thumps the satin-covered mattress. "But I do forgive you, Fraser!"
"You do?"
"Have I ever not forgiven you? It'd be nice to know you wanted me to sometimes, that's all."
It shouldn't shock him, but it does. "Of course I want you to. You're--my best friend."
"I know." Ray does sound happier. "Look, what I said earlier, about knowing the drill--it was stupid, okay? Just forget it."
Then--? "I thought you didn't mean anything by it, Ray."
There's a brief silence. "We're having a nice talk, Fraser. Don't ruin it."
Fraser shouldn't push it, and for twenty-three seconds he doesn't. Then, because he has to know, and because he has always taken unconscionable advantage of Ray's kindness, he says, "Please." His voice cracks.
Ray breathes in sharply. "You really want to know?"
"Yes."
"I'm not paying for a separate cab for you tomorrow if you don't want to ride with me," he warns.
Fraser waits.
As always, Ray eventually gives in. "I was talking about you," he says heavily, slumping back down against his pillow. "I was talking about how I thought we had something. I thought that eventually we would have something, but then it turned out you were just killing time until something better came along." He sighs. "I told you you didn't want to know."
"V--" He can't say her name anymore. He's never said her name again after the train platform. Ray's said it a few times. It always startles Fraser. It startles him now.
"Victoria. Yeah."
"She wasn't better." He presses his lips together against the weight of that truth.
"You sure seemed to think so."
Fraser wants to defend himself. He had no idea how Ray felt. He never promised Ray anything.
Are you going to skip on me? he hears Ray ask. At the time, it was a rhetorical question. Ray will never sound that confident and trusting again.
He could bring up Irene Zuko. He could mention Suzanne Chapin. But it would be dishonest as well as unkind. Ray has been thoughtless to him, certainly, and cruel. He's ignored Fraser and talked about women he loved until Fraser wanted to kill something, or die. But it never mattered. Victoria wouldn't matter either, if Fraser hadn't tried to leave. "I'm sorry."
"Yeah, I know."
"Is it--" He swallows, taking his courage into his hands. "Is it too late?"
Ray stops breathing. "It's never too late, Fraser. Not if it's really right." But he doesn't sound very hopeful.
"Do you think it's really right?" Fraser asks slowly.
"You tell me."
The air feels thin, or Fraser's throat is constricted; he tugs at his collar. "Yes."
"And you've felt this way for how long?" The sarcasm is bluster now. Ray is afraid. Fraser has to offer him something real.
"I don't know," he says honestly. "I think I felt this way before I realized it."
"And when did you realize it?"
"I--" Fraser coughs. "I was waiting in the car while you talked to Frank Zuko."
Ray turns his head sharply to peer at Fraser in the darkness. "That long ago?"
"Yes. I was waiting, and I was afraid."
"So was I."
Fraser remembers how he felt when Ray got into the car: how their shared fear was an unbreakable intimacy. "I suppose it's a well-documented phenomenon that the mind focuses on trivialities in moments of stress." He's blushing in the dark. He can only find the presence of mind to continue because he can't believe that he and Ray are having this conversation at all. Happiness isn't really waiting if he can find his way to the heart of the maze. "It occurred to me that Zuko might very well--that he might--"
"Beat the crap out of me?"
"In this instance my fears were more specific. I was concerned that he might injure your nose."
"My nose?" Ray asks blankly. "He could hardly make it worse than it is already, Fraser."
Fraser feels affronted. "I like your nose."
"Huh." Ray puts a hand to his face--feeling his nose, presumably. "I guess great big honkers are about the only thing Victoria and I have in common."
Fraser isn't entirely sure that's true, but he knows better than to disagree. "I was angry. The idea that the shape of your nose might be altered in any way was repugnant to me."
"And that's when you knew." Ray sounds bemused.
"Yes."
"I knew a lot earlier. I caught the signs." Ray sounds smug now, a sure sign that he's happy. Fraser waits, breathing shallowly. "It was when we went to see that dentist."
Fraser blinks. "What dentist?"
"Oh, come on, Fraser. We went to see that dentist about Francis Drake and he had that stuffed beaver."
"That soon?"
"Yep. I always knew I was a better detective than you, Benny."
Benny. Happiness washes over him.
"I mean, I had the hots for you from the minute I saw you--you were kinda va-va-voom, if you know what I mean. But you were coming on strong with the Mountie stuff, all stiff-necked and Canadian. I figured it would never work, 'cause you were the kind of guy that liked stuffed beavers. But no, you gave me this funny little big-eyed look like you thought he was nutso too, and I knew we were made for each other."
Made for each other, Fraser repeats to himself. He can't remember the stuffed beaver, which seems unfair.
"So are you coming up here or not?"
"I--" His heart pounds. "I'm not sure I can stand up."
"I'm not coming down there, Fraser."
Fraser does stand up. He's a little lightheaded, but the bed is close. Ray slides over, and Fraser slowly gets in next to him. He reaches out for Ray and slips uncomfortably. "Oh."
"I told you the sheets were weird."
"You were right, Ray."
"I'm always right."
"Of course." He calculates carefully and flips himself so that he's lying on top of Ray instead of the slippery sheets. He opens his mouth to say much better but emotion stops his throat. He's lying on top of Ray, and Ray is smiling up at him in the dark. It feels like magic, like summer lightning.
"You planning on kissing me any time soon?"
Fraser grins. "As a matter of fact, I am."
Author: belmanoir
Pairing: Fraser/Vecchio
Rating: PG
Word count: 1928
Summary: Two cops, one motel bed with really annoying satin sheets.
Author's Notes: Every "Starman" ep-tag owes an enormous debt to brynnmck's " Sight of the Stars", and this one is no exception. Beta'd by sionnain.
Ray yanks the satin comforter off the motel bed and drops it on the floor.
"Thank you, Ray." Fraser picks it up and begins folding it into a makeshift bedroll.
"Fraser! You can't sleep on that. I dated a girl who worked in a hotel once, and she said never to touch one if I could help it. They don't wash them. You really want to sleep on the accumulated dead skin flakes and dried bodily fluids of the last thousand X-Files fans who stayed here?"
"There's only one bed."
Ray looks murderous for a second. "I don't have cooties, Fraser." He hasn't said "Benny" since before Ian's arrival.
Fraser pretends not to understand. "Cooties, Ray?"
But Fraser doesn't understand. Ray has been extraordinarily impatient with him all day, and yet he sounds angrier about Fraser offering him the bed than about anything else. Does he want to share the bed? Fraser, of course, would like nothing better. His extensive reading of paperback romances in his grandmothers' library has familiarized him with the narrative conventions surrounding the serendipitous sharing of a double bed.
He doubts that Ray would be pleased if he woke to find that they had shifted in the night so Fraser was pressed up close against him, an arm across his chest. He takes a moment to imagine it anyway.
Ray dumps his outer clothes on a chair covered in glow-in-the-dark stars and collapses onto the blue satin sheets. Fraser is painfully tempted.
He remembers something that gave him pause, earlier. Now, you're not the best-looking guy in the joint, but compared to the locals, you're Brad Pitt. She bats her eyelids at you, she gets you into bed, and after your fifteen minutes are up, she takes your ring on the way out the door as a souvenir. It happens. We've both been there. We all know the drill.
Only last year Ray could wax rhapsodic about love at first sight in a manner that made Ian sound about as passionate as a boiled potato. Now the very idea seems to gall him. When Ray said that, Fraser wondered, for a moment, with an unpleasant jolt of hope and corrosive guilt--
"Ray," he asks without really wanting to, "when you said 'we all know the drill,' did you have anything in particular in mind?"
Ray flings his arms wide in an exaggerated gesture of incredulity. "Gee, Fraser," he says, eyes wide and green, and Fraser winces. He can hear the next words clearly before they're spoken, hear the malice in Ray's voice. Why would you think I had anything in mind? Evidently Ray can hear it too, because an expression of pain crosses his face and he doesn't say it. He doesn't force Fraser to lie. "Nah," he says tiredly instead. "I didn't have anything in mind."
Fraser is grateful and disappointed.
###
He can't sleep. His position on the floor is comfortable enough, and the light from the glow-in-the-dark stars has long since faded--that isn't the problem. He can hear Ray tossing and turning; his friend isn't sleeping either.
"Ray--"
Ray turns over with a slippery sound. "Yeah, Fraser?"
His mouth opens and his mind goes blank. "I'm sorry. Go back to sleep."
"I can't. I feel like I'm gonna slide right off the bed." He sighs. "Welsh is gonna have my ass tomorrow."
Fraser had forgotten. "I'm sorry, Ray."
"No you're not," Ray says, almost fondly. "If you had it to do over again, you'd do it exactly the same."
This is what Ray has never understood--perhaps because Fraser has never explained it. He can't explain it now. "I can't let my personal feelings interfere with my duty."
"Yeah." Ray sounds tired again. He prods restlessly at his pillow.
The dark helps Fraser say quietly, "But I do have them."
"Well, I know you have feelings, Fraser--" Ray stops. "Are you telling me that every time you mess things up for me, you actually feel sorry?"
"Of course I do. I don't want to cause trouble for you, Ray."
"You must spend a lot of time feeling sorry."
Fraser is silent.
Ray isn't fidgeting anymore. "Well, that's stupid," he says finally. "Why don't you ever just apologize?"
Fraser rubs at his eyebrow, searching for words. "I suppose it's as you say, Ray. I would do it again. In light of that, an apology seems self-indulgent."
"Because it would make you feel better."
Fraser nods, even though Ray can't see him.
Ray sits up. "That's not nothing, Fraser."
In that moment, he loves Ray so much it's like a blanket of snow over his face.
"It would make me feel better too. Did you ever think of that?"
Fraser blinks. "I can't ask you to forgive me, Ray."
Ray thumps the satin-covered mattress. "But I do forgive you, Fraser!"
"You do?"
"Have I ever not forgiven you? It'd be nice to know you wanted me to sometimes, that's all."
It shouldn't shock him, but it does. "Of course I want you to. You're--my best friend."
"I know." Ray does sound happier. "Look, what I said earlier, about knowing the drill--it was stupid, okay? Just forget it."
Then--? "I thought you didn't mean anything by it, Ray."
There's a brief silence. "We're having a nice talk, Fraser. Don't ruin it."
Fraser shouldn't push it, and for twenty-three seconds he doesn't. Then, because he has to know, and because he has always taken unconscionable advantage of Ray's kindness, he says, "Please." His voice cracks.
Ray breathes in sharply. "You really want to know?"
"Yes."
"I'm not paying for a separate cab for you tomorrow if you don't want to ride with me," he warns.
Fraser waits.
As always, Ray eventually gives in. "I was talking about you," he says heavily, slumping back down against his pillow. "I was talking about how I thought we had something. I thought that eventually we would have something, but then it turned out you were just killing time until something better came along." He sighs. "I told you you didn't want to know."
"V--" He can't say her name anymore. He's never said her name again after the train platform. Ray's said it a few times. It always startles Fraser. It startles him now.
"Victoria. Yeah."
"She wasn't better." He presses his lips together against the weight of that truth.
"You sure seemed to think so."
Fraser wants to defend himself. He had no idea how Ray felt. He never promised Ray anything.
Are you going to skip on me? he hears Ray ask. At the time, it was a rhetorical question. Ray will never sound that confident and trusting again.
He could bring up Irene Zuko. He could mention Suzanne Chapin. But it would be dishonest as well as unkind. Ray has been thoughtless to him, certainly, and cruel. He's ignored Fraser and talked about women he loved until Fraser wanted to kill something, or die. But it never mattered. Victoria wouldn't matter either, if Fraser hadn't tried to leave. "I'm sorry."
"Yeah, I know."
"Is it--" He swallows, taking his courage into his hands. "Is it too late?"
Ray stops breathing. "It's never too late, Fraser. Not if it's really right." But he doesn't sound very hopeful.
"Do you think it's really right?" Fraser asks slowly.
"You tell me."
The air feels thin, or Fraser's throat is constricted; he tugs at his collar. "Yes."
"And you've felt this way for how long?" The sarcasm is bluster now. Ray is afraid. Fraser has to offer him something real.
"I don't know," he says honestly. "I think I felt this way before I realized it."
"And when did you realize it?"
"I--" Fraser coughs. "I was waiting in the car while you talked to Frank Zuko."
Ray turns his head sharply to peer at Fraser in the darkness. "That long ago?"
"Yes. I was waiting, and I was afraid."
"So was I."
Fraser remembers how he felt when Ray got into the car: how their shared fear was an unbreakable intimacy. "I suppose it's a well-documented phenomenon that the mind focuses on trivialities in moments of stress." He's blushing in the dark. He can only find the presence of mind to continue because he can't believe that he and Ray are having this conversation at all. Happiness isn't really waiting if he can find his way to the heart of the maze. "It occurred to me that Zuko might very well--that he might--"
"Beat the crap out of me?"
"In this instance my fears were more specific. I was concerned that he might injure your nose."
"My nose?" Ray asks blankly. "He could hardly make it worse than it is already, Fraser."
Fraser feels affronted. "I like your nose."
"Huh." Ray puts a hand to his face--feeling his nose, presumably. "I guess great big honkers are about the only thing Victoria and I have in common."
Fraser isn't entirely sure that's true, but he knows better than to disagree. "I was angry. The idea that the shape of your nose might be altered in any way was repugnant to me."
"And that's when you knew." Ray sounds bemused.
"Yes."
"I knew a lot earlier. I caught the signs." Ray sounds smug now, a sure sign that he's happy. Fraser waits, breathing shallowly. "It was when we went to see that dentist."
Fraser blinks. "What dentist?"
"Oh, come on, Fraser. We went to see that dentist about Francis Drake and he had that stuffed beaver."
"That soon?"
"Yep. I always knew I was a better detective than you, Benny."
Benny. Happiness washes over him.
"I mean, I had the hots for you from the minute I saw you--you were kinda va-va-voom, if you know what I mean. But you were coming on strong with the Mountie stuff, all stiff-necked and Canadian. I figured it would never work, 'cause you were the kind of guy that liked stuffed beavers. But no, you gave me this funny little big-eyed look like you thought he was nutso too, and I knew we were made for each other."
Made for each other, Fraser repeats to himself. He can't remember the stuffed beaver, which seems unfair.
"So are you coming up here or not?"
"I--" His heart pounds. "I'm not sure I can stand up."
"I'm not coming down there, Fraser."
Fraser does stand up. He's a little lightheaded, but the bed is close. Ray slides over, and Fraser slowly gets in next to him. He reaches out for Ray and slips uncomfortably. "Oh."
"I told you the sheets were weird."
"You were right, Ray."
"I'm always right."
"Of course." He calculates carefully and flips himself so that he's lying on top of Ray instead of the slippery sheets. He opens his mouth to say much better but emotion stops his throat. He's lying on top of Ray, and Ray is smiling up at him in the dark. It feels like magic, like summer lightning.
"You planning on kissing me any time soon?"
Fraser grins. "As a matter of fact, I am."