[identity profile] wildmachinery.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] ds_flashfiction
Teeny, tiny little lie in this one ... bonus points if you're actually able to find it. This was written in about half an hour, I don't usually write from Fraser's POV, and I didn't edit it at all, so blame the weirdness on all those factors.

Weighing in at 365 words:


Frostbite

"I just ... I get nervous sometimes, y'know?"

He's curled around Ray in the darkness, warm sheets tangled between his legs, listening to Ray's husky voice, soft in the stillness. He can feel Ray's heart beating beneath his hand.

"I mean, we're doin' so good here with everything ... we're ok, the job's ok ... nothing's going wrong. We're great, we're amazingly great ... It's weird, I just feel like it's ... like it's too good to be true or something."

Yes. He glances out the window at a patch of white on the roof across the street. He can't tell what it is from here, but if he squints, it almost looks like snow.

"You're gonna tell me I'm paranoid. I probably am ... but I just can't help feeling like it's all gonna fall apart eventually."

The summer heat is making him sluggish. It weighs down on him when he's outside. Wearing the uniform now makes about as much logical sense as sitting in a sweatlodge wrapped in cling film, but he wears it anyway. It's his duty, after all.

"I know you don't like it here too much."

He craves cold now, as he would imagine an addict craving a hit.

"I don't want to keep you here if you don't want to be here ... but I don't want you to leave, neither."

All his dreams are cloaked in white, soft blue shadows.

"I dunno. I might miss you or something, if you go off without me ... Am I just talking bullshit here, Fraser? You getting what I'm saying?"

He wants to see his breath hanging frozen in the air again. "Not a bit of it, Ray."

"You're lying to me, Fraser."

"Yes, Ray."

There is silence for a small eternity. Ray sighs, a small, tired-sounding exhalation. He welcomes it, tightens his embrace.

"We'll leave soon, ok? Don't know for how long. I want to go with you."

"Thank you."

"'S'ok, Fraser. Go to sleep."

He kisses the back of Ray's neck, clean salt sweat and clean light taste of Ray on his lips. "Yes, Ray."

Ray's breathing slows, evens. Fraser imagines him on snowshoes and smiles in the darkness.

-end-

Date: 2003-08-25 11:57 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sihayab.livejournal.com
Oh, delicate as a snowflake, and as ephemeral. Lovely.

Date: 2003-08-25 11:57 am (UTC)
ext_1175: (safe)
From: [identity profile] lamardeuse.livejournal.com
This is sheer poetry. Lovely, the way you punctuate Ray's speech with Fraser's images of cold. And the ending was perfect.

Date: 2003-08-25 12:29 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ajinamoto.livejournal.com
[livejournal.com profile] sihayeb said it perfectly.

(What's the lie? The duty to wear the uniform, because he doesn't have to wear the serge?)

Date: 2003-08-25 12:46 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] stinkybubbles.livejournal.com
This left me content and nicely tingly.

Date: 2003-08-25 12:51 pm (UTC)
ext_12411: (Default)
From: [identity profile] theodosia.livejournal.com
Loved it -- teeny and perfect.

Date: 2003-08-25 01:04 pm (UTC)
ext_3579: I'm still not watching supernatural. (TYK)
From: [identity profile] the-star-fish.livejournal.com
Perfect and beautiful.

Date: 2003-08-25 01:21 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] xsmoonshine.livejournal.com
What weirdness? =) This is very nice!
(deleted comment) (Show 1 comment)

Date: 2003-08-25 02:31 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] justacat.livejournal.com
Beautiful. Captured both voices perfectly. I'm glad Ray is going with him :)

Date: 2003-08-25 03:15 pm (UTC)
ext_12460: acquired from fanpop.com (Default)
From: [identity profile] akite.livejournal.com
::sigh:: Yes, lovely.

Date: 2003-08-25 03:20 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ozsaur.livejournal.com
Lovely like gossamer. More complicated than it looks at first glance. Wonderful!

Date: 2003-08-25 03:41 pm (UTC)
ext_3548: (Default)
From: [identity profile] shayheyred.livejournal.com
Jeez, if you wrote this a half hour, I can but wonder what fantastic result you'd get with a free afternoon. But maybe that's the joy of flashfic, eh?

The fascinating thing to me is how intimate this seems, and yet how distracted Fraser actually is. He's there, but he's not. I don't mean he doesn't want to be there, but I don't really think he's paying attention to what Ray says until "I want to go with you." So perhaps the lie is not that he is lying to Ray, but that he's not:

"You getting what I'm saying?"
"Not a bit of it, Ray."
"You're lying to me, Fraser."
"Yes, Ray."


:shrug:: Or maybe I just have worms.

Date: 2003-08-25 07:40 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] byob-kenobi.livejournal.com
This was so lovely. I'm really glad it had a happy ending- I wasn't expecting that.

Date: 2003-08-25 08:27 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] chesamus.livejournal.com
my thesaurus can't come up w an appropriate substitute for lovely, either, so i'll add mine to the list. it was lovely - tender without a hint of smarminess to it. congrats.

I found -- I think-- a different lie

Date: 2003-08-26 07:37 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
"We'll leave soon, ok? Don't know for how long. I want to go with you."

In my head, Ray is dying and Fraser is comforting him with this lie.

(I'm reading today Armistead Maupin's _The Night Listener_ -- not a Tales of the City book, but has real references to them-- which is all about health & sickness and lies, so it's very likely this has colored my perceptions.)

Julia

Date: 2003-08-27 07:18 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] brooklinegirl.livejournal.com
First of all, your subject line made me grin (as any reference to HCL usually does). So, yay.

The story: gorgeously woven. I love the mood, the picture, the feeling you create. I love Fraser's thoughts, so keenly off-set by Ray's words, Ray's gentle worries.

So many wonderful lines, but this one stuck with me:

All his dreams are cloaked in white, soft blue shadows.

Beautiful.

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