FIC: Mourning Dress (Ray Levoi/Walter Crow Horse, PG-13)
Mourning Dress, PG-13, for myhappyface
Thunderheart, Ray Levoi/Walter Crow Horse, haircut
Walter was a cop, and the rez was a hard place to live, and if he’d shorn his hair every time someone he knew died, he would have spent his whole life bald. Still, the old ways meant something, and sometimes the dead needed you to show your grief, so when his grandfather died, he cut off his hair. He explained things to Ray beforehand, so as not to spook him, but Ray didn’t really understand, and said something about taking him to the barber. Walter shook his head and shook Ray off, and went into the bathroom with a pair of scissors. Ray didn’t understand, but he stood outside the door waiting until Walter came out in his suit and short hair.
Ray swallowed, his mouth dry.
“You . . . you look good,” he said.
Walter shook his head; Ray didn’t understand yet. “Don’t matter how I look.”
Beyond the door, out in the body of the house, the wake went on. The muffled noises of singing and soft words seeped in through the cracks in the door. Walter wanted to slough his skin and emerge new, like a lizard, ready to deal with this.
Ray’s mouth turned down, and he lowered his eyes. He fussed with the lapel of his black jacket. Walter sighed; he hadn’t meant to be sharp with him. He started to the door, but some strange gravity pulled him back; Ray looked up.
“Hey,” he said.
Walter waited for the pat reassurance that he could shrug off, something he could say, I’m fine, now quit to, but it didn’t come. Ray didn’t say anything else; he just walked forward til they met, and kissed him so softly it might have been a dream. And Walter put his hands on him, and Ray was a gentleman so he didn’t say word one about how Walter’s hands were shaking. What he did was kiss Walter again, and hold him, one hand on the back of Walter’s neck and the other feathering up through his newly shorn hair, both of them holding him in place so that when Ray kissed him it was the only sensation in the world. Walter felt himself quiver, but Ray was a gentleman so he didn’t say word one about that, and when Walter pushed the starched wool of Ray’s jacket from his shoulders and to the floor, and whispered please, please, Ray drove them back to the bed and laid Walter down.
Walter felt calmer afterwards, and he had stopped shaking. Ray was languid against him, pressing lazy kisses to Walter’s skin, his fingers teasing the borderland where Walter’s hair stopped and his neck bared.
“Why do people do that?” Ray asked, his voice sleep soft.
“Do what?”
“Have sex at funerals.”
Walter shrugged, his fingers ghosting over the knuckles of Ray’s spine.
“Dunno,” he said. “Guess it has something to do with remembering things worth living for.”
Ray snuggled against him. “We could just stay here. You and me, holed up here. We don’t have to go out there.”
Walter knew he was right, and he knew Ray would stay with him if he asked. But sometimes the dead needed you to show your grief, so Walter would get dressed, and he would go out to the wake.
But not right this second. He held Ray fast, and kissed him, a kiss so soft it might have been a dream.