ds_flashfiction | I love these challenges...

lamardeuse.livejournal.com posting in

...because they're a wonderful workout for your brain. I started thinking, "shoes, shoes, shoes", then came up with "baby shoes", then went on from there. (Don't worry, no pregnant men in this fic!) About 1150 words.

Expecting
by lamardeuse

Fraser returned home from his shift at six-twenty, as he always did. And as always, he was looking forward to the best part of his workday, the chance to spend time with Ray and Clyde once more.

Today, he was also looking forward to getting these damned boots off. The ceremony marking his Inspector's retirement had lasted longer than expected, and now his arches felt as though they were on fire. He wondered how he'd ever managed to wear them every day.

Because you were thirty-five, not forty-five, a small voice inside him needled, and now your entire body is deteriorating.

Fraser remembered last night, and smiled wickedly. Ray would certainly not agree with that assessment.

He took the steps two at a time, wincing as he did so.

Then he heard the shouting.

"--I always knew you never really wanted me--" Clyde yelled, his voice cracking with emotion and the onset of puberty.

"You gonna let me get a word in edgewise here?"

Fraser paused outside the screen door. Clyde had come to them two and a half years ago after his mother had been killed by his father, in front of the boy. The road over which the three of them had travelled was a rocky one, and was still not smooth and level. It never would be. But Fraser had thought they'd gotten past the stage where Clyde doubted their love for him.

For despite his initial fears that he would not be equal to the role of father, Fraser knew that he loved Clyde unconditionally, would do anything to protect him. The feeling, as instinctive and powerful as Dief's wolfish emotions, frightened him occasionally. And that same fierce love was reflected in Ray's eyes whenever he looked at the boy. Surely Clyde had to feel that, understand that.

"All right, then," he heard the boy growl. "Talk all you want."

Fraser snuck a peek through the screen door, then retreated once more. The two of them were standing about four feet apart in the middle of the kitchen, Ray tense and jittery, Clyde defiant and hurt. The boy was clutching a small yellow object in one fist, but it was unclear--

Ray's voice was low and calm when he spoke. "Frannie sent those to us when we first told her we were together. She knitted them herself, crocheted, whatever."

Oh. Oh. Now Fraser knew what the object--objects--were: a pair of baby booties, tiny and delicately made, sized for a newborn. He thought they were long gone, but obviously Ray must have kept them for some reason.

"She'd just popped out her third kid, I think, and she was convinced everybody should have babies. I don't know if she imagined me or Frase would carry them, or if we'd trade off. After all, for her, miracles happened every damned day." He snorted. "Anyway, at the time we laughed about it, and that was that.

"I suppose I could've given them to Sarah down at the school when she had her first, but I didn't. I kept them, stuck them in the back of my sock drawer." A pause. "But then you know that, don't you?"

"I was just puttin' away the laundry," muttered Clyde.

"Yeah, you go to your church, I'll go to mine. But that doesn't matter. You found them, and I think you're entitled to an explanation. I kept them because deep down in my gut, I wanted kids. Always did. Stella never wanted them, so we didn't, and then when me and Fraser--well, I figured game over, right? I didn't know those crazy Canucks were going to change the adoption laws, make it possible for us to actually live that dream."

"But you didn't dream of some fucked up half-Innuit kid, did you?" snapped Clyde, and Fraser's heart twisted in his chest. "You wanted some perfect, cute baby to fit into these."

"First of all," Ray said, his voice intense and dangerous now, "you are not ‘fucked up'. You are Clyde Fraser Kowalski, and you are beautiful, and you are our son. And when you came to us, my fucking life finally made sense." Fraser heard him draw a choking breath. "So don't tell me what I wanted."

"Then why did you keep these?" Clyde keened. Fraser could tell the boy was crying. "Did you just forget about them?"

"No, I didn't. I've taken them out of that drawer and looked at them every day since the day you got here. But not for the reason you think."

Ray paused, and in the silence, Fraser could hear the boy's hitching breaths. He touched his fingertips to his own cheek; they came away wet.

"I look at them every day because I like to remember that my life now isn't anything I ever expected when I was younger. If you'd come to me ten years ago and told me that I would be here in June of 2006, I wouldn't have known whether to shit or wind my watch. I expected that I'd have the white picket fence and the two point four kids and the smiling blonde wife who worshipped me. But none of that happened. And I'm glad it didn't."

The sobbing breaths slowed. "Wh-what?" stammered Clyde.

"Expectations are bullshit," Ray said baldly. "You know that better than anybody. This isn't the life you were expecting to have, either. And that expectation is still with you, always will be. What happened to you is so goddamned unfair, and that unfairness could eat you alive, from the inside out, if you let it.

"I could do the same thing. I could cry and moan that my dad will never get the chance to know you, or that I left pieces of myself behind when I moved here, or that I should have had that white picket fence life. But I don't want it anymore, because I have something that's better. I have Fraser, and I have you, and I love you both more than my life. I would do anything for you, anything you wanted, except for one thing. I will not tell you you're not worth it, no matter how much you want to believe it. Because you're worth my soul, Clyde. You're worth everything."

There was a moment of absolute quiet, in which the world seemed to stop spinning. And then Fraser heard Clyde howl his pain, his doubt, his anger, his fear, like a wolf cub whose mother lay dying from a poacher's bullet.

"Shh, shh," Ray soothed, and Fraser knew the boy was wrapped in the cocoon of Ray's strong arms. Protected. Loved. Safe.

"Fraser," Ray called after a few moments. "Come inside, willya, and get those boots off. I know your feet must be killing you."

Wiping his face with the back of his hand, Fraser moved to obey.

End