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ds_flashfiction2004-03-04 05:14 pm
chesamus.livejournal.com) wrote in ds_flashfiction2004-03-04 05:14 pm
Entry tags:
Whomping Fraser Challenge: Trace Evidence
I beg forgiveness for the delay - it has been one of the wierdest weeks. Anyway, here is my response to the “Whomping Fraser” Challenge. Many of the hurts are emotional, and it does have some similarity with sihaya black’s story, but I have her permission to submit this one anyway. It’s 2173 words and kind of moody...
Prologue:
When he was six, when his mother died and his father abandoned him, Benton Fraser moved in with his fraternal grandparents. As traveling librarians, it was essential that possessions be lightweight, portable, and of some use for the three of them. Benton was left with nothing of his mother but memories, and even those were oddly shrouded.
Barely more than a man, Fraser huddled in a small outcropping with Victoria Metcalf. He gave her what little body heat he had, and when duty required him to turn her in, she left him without a word or his heart.
Victoria reentered his life years later, and it seemed afterward like a waking dream. No scarf puddled on the floor, no lipstick lay forgotten on the bedside trunk, no fingerprint was left behind to prove she had shared his bed or his life. Ray’s bullet prevented him from offering up his soul to her.
Ray Vecchio disappeared during Fraser’s vacation in the north. While he was trying to salvage what remained of his father’s possessions, Benton Fraser lost what little he owned in Chicago to a fire, and his friend to the US government. He thought it ironic that the only photograph he had of the two of them was printed in invisible ink.
Fraser’s sense of irony also served him well with his father’s ghost. Bob Fraser could not be touched, was seen by few, and often vanished without leaving so much as a Cheshire Cat-like grin behind. It was the only relationship Benton had with his father, and it came to an end when his mother led Bob away into the mists.
********
Fraser sometimes gave me the impression that he wasn’t touched by much, which is kinda strange since he needed touching worse than anybody I know. I’m not really sure why I felt that way, except that maybe it was because he said goodbye to people and things too easy.
No, that isn’t right either. It wasn’t easy for him. I could tell saying goodbye was hard. What I guess I’m trying to say is that even though it was hard, he didn’t seem to expect to say anything but goodbye. Didn’t matter if it was to Vecchio or Turnbull or Chicago, or Canada. He’d say so long, stuff everything he owned into that beat up trunk and a backpack, and head off to the next stupid place the Mounties wanted to send him.
Self-contained, that was it. He didn’t need much by way of things or people, probably because he’d never been allowed to keep any of them along the way. Well, I wasn’t going to let him say goodbye to me easy.
We’d been sharing the same sleeping bag the entire adventure, if you catch my meaning, but it was pretty much quick and quiet and zip up before you freeze something important. I never saw him totally naked until we got back to Yellowknife.
We rented a room for a couple days until we knew what we were doing next. Fraser walked over to headquarters to check in while I got reacquainted with soap and hot water. I really thought he’d want to clean up first, but even cleanliness takes second place to duty in his book. I’d barely finished whacking off the beard when he got back, carrying a box of mail and some official-looking envelopes.
“I see you shaved off the beard, Ray. I had wondered if you were going to keep it.” He shucked his boots and coat, then headed for the bathroom.
“Had to, it itched. Besides, I didn’t want to give you rug burn.” I thought it was funny, but he got all stiff for a second.
“Of course not, Ray. I’ll be out shortly and then we’ll see about dinner, shall we?”
“O --” He practically shut the door in my face. “--K.” Well that was weird. I didn’t think he’d liked the beard. I know I didn’t like his. I missed his face, and the hair hid too much of him.
I pulled on the closest thing I had to clean clothes, flopped down on the couch, and sorted through the mail in the box. Almost all of it was mine, lots of junk, a couple letters from Mom and Lieutenant Welsh and Frannie. Nothing official though, not like those legal-sized manila things with with seals and decals and red stamps that were waiting for Fraser. Yeah, I peaked, sue me. The envelopes didn’t tell me nothing except it was a pretty good bet that in addition to everything else they said, good-bye was along for the ride.
I was trying to make out Frannie’s handwriting when Fraser finally came out of the bathroom. He wasn’t in anything but a towel, his hair was slicked behind his ears and down his back, and he was bleeding just a bit on his chin. Can’t believe he cut himself shaving. He didn’t say anything - just walked over to the couch and sat down next to me.
“I don’t think Frannie had nuns in school, Frase, cause she never learned to write. She’s either pregnant or taking up polo, I can’t tell which.” I held the letter out to him. Fraser reached over, but it wasn’t for the letter. He touched my cheek with just his index finger and sighed a bit.
“You know, Ray, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you completely clean shaven before.”
“Hey, I shaved!”
“But not closely, Ray. I used to wonder how your face would feel, if I ran my hand against it, if it would it be soft like fur, or prickle my skin.” He was looking at me but not at me, if that makes sense.
“It’s stiff kinda. Stella used to make me shave before I got in bed since she didn’t want to get rubbed raw. I think I stopped shaving close just to piss her off.” I smiled, so he’d know I was over that kind of stuff. I don’t think he noticed, though.
“That wasn’t very kind of you, Ray.” He was running that one finger up and down my cheek like he didn’t even know he was doing it.
“Probably not, but she was mean to me. I got tired of being kind. She was always complaining about something. Couldn’t kiss her after she got her makeup on, couldn’t hug her after she got her suit on, couldn’t hold her hand if she just got a manicure.”
“That - that must have been difficult, Ray.”
“At first maybe, but then it got funny. At least Stella never wore taffeta.”
“I am not altogether certain I understand the reference.”
“Remind me to rent ‘Young Frankenstein’ and I’ll show you what I mean.” Fraser moved his hand to the back of my head and was fingering my hair. It was pretty long by now, longer than his. He had curls though when mine was just straight.
“Understood, Ray.” Right, like he had a clue.
“She was kinda like you that way.” He pulled away like I’d smacked him.
Ray!”
“No, no, no. Not in a bad way. All I meant was she always looked like, like once she was in her lawyer suit I couldn’t touch her. When you get all Mountie, sometimes it’s like you don’t get touched either. And I always wanted to.”
“But you don’t, Ray.” He sounded so sad, and I didn’t know why.
“What do you mean, I don’t? I do - I want to touch you all the time.”
“You touch me like I’m Stella...”
“Listen, buddy. I never touched Stella like I touch you. Trust me when I tell you that.”
“But you - you--” He started pacing. I was kinda hoping the towel would fall off.
“But I what, Frase? Finish the sentence.”
“You. Shaved. You shaved, Ray, and I wanted--” Fraser sat down on the bed.
I finally got off my ass and joined him. Man that bed felt good. I’m clean, he’s clean, we’re warm, we got a bed for the first time in months and he’s pissed off because I shaved?
“You gotta explain that, Ben. Explain to me what I did to make you mad, all right?” I reached over and grabbed one of his hands. “Talk to me, buddy.”
“You -- you’re so careful with me, Ray, and I’d rather you weren’t.” That blush could have heated a cup of coffee.
“You want - you want me to hurt you?!” I couldn’t do that, couldn’t.
“Good heavens, no. Just, you don’t - I’m not going to break, Ray, if you want to...”
See, this is what I get for thinking too hard. Even if it was quick and quiet, it was gentle. And I guess he didn’t want gentle. I leaned over and kissed him, like I always did, then I stood up and started stripping.
“Tell me what you want, Benton Fraser.” His eyes were locked on mine.
“Don’t be one of the ghosts, Ray. I need to know you’ve been here.”
I gave him my best smile. “You’ll know. You’ll know for days...” Not to put too fine a point on it, I jumped him, plain and simple. I practically spun him like a top getting the towel off, and I finally got to see Benton Fraser in all his naked glory.
The adventure had taken us down to, well in my case, not much, because I didn’t start with a lot. Benton, though, he was like a greyhound or a distance runner, nothing but muscle and bone. He was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. And I was going to make sure he knew he was mine.
“Grab the headboard, Frase. I don’t want you to use your hands.”
“Ray, I want to touch you.” He was licking his bottom lip. It was hard to resist just letting him go crazy, but I needed to prove something.
“Next time. This time I want you to just feel me touching you.”
I started at the top with his ears. He’d had them covered up for months, and just like the rest of him I’d missed them. Funny things to miss I suppose, but when you’ve spent a lot of time riding in a car with somebody, you learn what their ears look like. And I loved his. I ran my tongue along all the furls of the left one, then mapped out the right one. It had a slightly different shape to it, wasn’t a mirror image of the left one at all. The lobe was softer than any other part of him. I sucked it into my mouth, then bit down - hard. He gave out a groan that went straight to my dick. I liked that, so I did it again.
“Dear god, Ray!”
“Don’t get too excited, Benton Fraser, we’ve got a long way to go yet.” I dragged my tongue down his neck. He already had a salty tang to him. I straddled his hips and sat up a bit - far enough up that I wasn’t riding with his cock against my ass. I didn’t want him to come because I was touching his dick.
I combed his hair out with my fingers until it spread over the pillow. Ben looked like some fallen angel the nuns used to go on about. I leaned back over him and nibbled around his shoulder. He started shaking. Somehow I didn’t think it was going to take much to set him off. Well, if I couldn’t go for one long wicked tease, maybe I could go for quantity instead. How many times could I get him off tonight?
“I bet if I bit you hard, just right here,” I mouthed the vampire spot, “I could make you come without touching anything else. Could I make you come, Ben?”
“Ray, please--” It just stunned me the way he wanted it.
“Tell me, Ben, tell me I can make you come!” I clamped down just a bit harder. “Tell me!”
“Yes! Ray, I -- Ray!”
I bit him. And Ben screamed my name, and shook from head to toe, and almost threw me off he bucked so hard.
I didn’t know I was close, didn’t know about what I was feeling much at all, but when I felt him come, felt him splash on my back, I stopped thinking about anything but coming all over him, too. He shook and moaned and screamed my name and I forgot I was biting him. By then we were both ripe with sweat and sex.
Ben, I think, was close to passing out, or at least hyperventilating. I didn’t know whether to get him a drink, a towel, or a band aid. I touched the bite mark on his shoulder, wiped away the small spot of blood with my finger, licked it off.
I glanced up. He laid his right hand over the bite mark. Ben looked - I don’t know - radiant, like that angel I was thinking about.
“It’s gonna leave a scar, Benton.”
“I know.”
Prologue:
When he was six, when his mother died and his father abandoned him, Benton Fraser moved in with his fraternal grandparents. As traveling librarians, it was essential that possessions be lightweight, portable, and of some use for the three of them. Benton was left with nothing of his mother but memories, and even those were oddly shrouded.
Barely more than a man, Fraser huddled in a small outcropping with Victoria Metcalf. He gave her what little body heat he had, and when duty required him to turn her in, she left him without a word or his heart.
Victoria reentered his life years later, and it seemed afterward like a waking dream. No scarf puddled on the floor, no lipstick lay forgotten on the bedside trunk, no fingerprint was left behind to prove she had shared his bed or his life. Ray’s bullet prevented him from offering up his soul to her.
Ray Vecchio disappeared during Fraser’s vacation in the north. While he was trying to salvage what remained of his father’s possessions, Benton Fraser lost what little he owned in Chicago to a fire, and his friend to the US government. He thought it ironic that the only photograph he had of the two of them was printed in invisible ink.
Fraser’s sense of irony also served him well with his father’s ghost. Bob Fraser could not be touched, was seen by few, and often vanished without leaving so much as a Cheshire Cat-like grin behind. It was the only relationship Benton had with his father, and it came to an end when his mother led Bob away into the mists.
********
Fraser sometimes gave me the impression that he wasn’t touched by much, which is kinda strange since he needed touching worse than anybody I know. I’m not really sure why I felt that way, except that maybe it was because he said goodbye to people and things too easy.
No, that isn’t right either. It wasn’t easy for him. I could tell saying goodbye was hard. What I guess I’m trying to say is that even though it was hard, he didn’t seem to expect to say anything but goodbye. Didn’t matter if it was to Vecchio or Turnbull or Chicago, or Canada. He’d say so long, stuff everything he owned into that beat up trunk and a backpack, and head off to the next stupid place the Mounties wanted to send him.
Self-contained, that was it. He didn’t need much by way of things or people, probably because he’d never been allowed to keep any of them along the way. Well, I wasn’t going to let him say goodbye to me easy.
We’d been sharing the same sleeping bag the entire adventure, if you catch my meaning, but it was pretty much quick and quiet and zip up before you freeze something important. I never saw him totally naked until we got back to Yellowknife.
We rented a room for a couple days until we knew what we were doing next. Fraser walked over to headquarters to check in while I got reacquainted with soap and hot water. I really thought he’d want to clean up first, but even cleanliness takes second place to duty in his book. I’d barely finished whacking off the beard when he got back, carrying a box of mail and some official-looking envelopes.
“I see you shaved off the beard, Ray. I had wondered if you were going to keep it.” He shucked his boots and coat, then headed for the bathroom.
“Had to, it itched. Besides, I didn’t want to give you rug burn.” I thought it was funny, but he got all stiff for a second.
“Of course not, Ray. I’ll be out shortly and then we’ll see about dinner, shall we?”
“O --” He practically shut the door in my face. “--K.” Well that was weird. I didn’t think he’d liked the beard. I know I didn’t like his. I missed his face, and the hair hid too much of him.
I pulled on the closest thing I had to clean clothes, flopped down on the couch, and sorted through the mail in the box. Almost all of it was mine, lots of junk, a couple letters from Mom and Lieutenant Welsh and Frannie. Nothing official though, not like those legal-sized manila things with with seals and decals and red stamps that were waiting for Fraser. Yeah, I peaked, sue me. The envelopes didn’t tell me nothing except it was a pretty good bet that in addition to everything else they said, good-bye was along for the ride.
I was trying to make out Frannie’s handwriting when Fraser finally came out of the bathroom. He wasn’t in anything but a towel, his hair was slicked behind his ears and down his back, and he was bleeding just a bit on his chin. Can’t believe he cut himself shaving. He didn’t say anything - just walked over to the couch and sat down next to me.
“I don’t think Frannie had nuns in school, Frase, cause she never learned to write. She’s either pregnant or taking up polo, I can’t tell which.” I held the letter out to him. Fraser reached over, but it wasn’t for the letter. He touched my cheek with just his index finger and sighed a bit.
“You know, Ray, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you completely clean shaven before.”
“Hey, I shaved!”
“But not closely, Ray. I used to wonder how your face would feel, if I ran my hand against it, if it would it be soft like fur, or prickle my skin.” He was looking at me but not at me, if that makes sense.
“It’s stiff kinda. Stella used to make me shave before I got in bed since she didn’t want to get rubbed raw. I think I stopped shaving close just to piss her off.” I smiled, so he’d know I was over that kind of stuff. I don’t think he noticed, though.
“That wasn’t very kind of you, Ray.” He was running that one finger up and down my cheek like he didn’t even know he was doing it.
“Probably not, but she was mean to me. I got tired of being kind. She was always complaining about something. Couldn’t kiss her after she got her makeup on, couldn’t hug her after she got her suit on, couldn’t hold her hand if she just got a manicure.”
“That - that must have been difficult, Ray.”
“At first maybe, but then it got funny. At least Stella never wore taffeta.”
“I am not altogether certain I understand the reference.”
“Remind me to rent ‘Young Frankenstein’ and I’ll show you what I mean.” Fraser moved his hand to the back of my head and was fingering my hair. It was pretty long by now, longer than his. He had curls though when mine was just straight.
“Understood, Ray.” Right, like he had a clue.
“She was kinda like you that way.” He pulled away like I’d smacked him.
Ray!”
“No, no, no. Not in a bad way. All I meant was she always looked like, like once she was in her lawyer suit I couldn’t touch her. When you get all Mountie, sometimes it’s like you don’t get touched either. And I always wanted to.”
“But you don’t, Ray.” He sounded so sad, and I didn’t know why.
“What do you mean, I don’t? I do - I want to touch you all the time.”
“You touch me like I’m Stella...”
“Listen, buddy. I never touched Stella like I touch you. Trust me when I tell you that.”
“But you - you--” He started pacing. I was kinda hoping the towel would fall off.
“But I what, Frase? Finish the sentence.”
“You. Shaved. You shaved, Ray, and I wanted--” Fraser sat down on the bed.
I finally got off my ass and joined him. Man that bed felt good. I’m clean, he’s clean, we’re warm, we got a bed for the first time in months and he’s pissed off because I shaved?
“You gotta explain that, Ben. Explain to me what I did to make you mad, all right?” I reached over and grabbed one of his hands. “Talk to me, buddy.”
“You -- you’re so careful with me, Ray, and I’d rather you weren’t.” That blush could have heated a cup of coffee.
“You want - you want me to hurt you?!” I couldn’t do that, couldn’t.
“Good heavens, no. Just, you don’t - I’m not going to break, Ray, if you want to...”
See, this is what I get for thinking too hard. Even if it was quick and quiet, it was gentle. And I guess he didn’t want gentle. I leaned over and kissed him, like I always did, then I stood up and started stripping.
“Tell me what you want, Benton Fraser.” His eyes were locked on mine.
“Don’t be one of the ghosts, Ray. I need to know you’ve been here.”
I gave him my best smile. “You’ll know. You’ll know for days...” Not to put too fine a point on it, I jumped him, plain and simple. I practically spun him like a top getting the towel off, and I finally got to see Benton Fraser in all his naked glory.
The adventure had taken us down to, well in my case, not much, because I didn’t start with a lot. Benton, though, he was like a greyhound or a distance runner, nothing but muscle and bone. He was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. And I was going to make sure he knew he was mine.
“Grab the headboard, Frase. I don’t want you to use your hands.”
“Ray, I want to touch you.” He was licking his bottom lip. It was hard to resist just letting him go crazy, but I needed to prove something.
“Next time. This time I want you to just feel me touching you.”
I started at the top with his ears. He’d had them covered up for months, and just like the rest of him I’d missed them. Funny things to miss I suppose, but when you’ve spent a lot of time riding in a car with somebody, you learn what their ears look like. And I loved his. I ran my tongue along all the furls of the left one, then mapped out the right one. It had a slightly different shape to it, wasn’t a mirror image of the left one at all. The lobe was softer than any other part of him. I sucked it into my mouth, then bit down - hard. He gave out a groan that went straight to my dick. I liked that, so I did it again.
“Dear god, Ray!”
“Don’t get too excited, Benton Fraser, we’ve got a long way to go yet.” I dragged my tongue down his neck. He already had a salty tang to him. I straddled his hips and sat up a bit - far enough up that I wasn’t riding with his cock against my ass. I didn’t want him to come because I was touching his dick.
I combed his hair out with my fingers until it spread over the pillow. Ben looked like some fallen angel the nuns used to go on about. I leaned back over him and nibbled around his shoulder. He started shaking. Somehow I didn’t think it was going to take much to set him off. Well, if I couldn’t go for one long wicked tease, maybe I could go for quantity instead. How many times could I get him off tonight?
“I bet if I bit you hard, just right here,” I mouthed the vampire spot, “I could make you come without touching anything else. Could I make you come, Ben?”
“Ray, please--” It just stunned me the way he wanted it.
“Tell me, Ben, tell me I can make you come!” I clamped down just a bit harder. “Tell me!”
“Yes! Ray, I -- Ray!”
I bit him. And Ben screamed my name, and shook from head to toe, and almost threw me off he bucked so hard.
I didn’t know I was close, didn’t know about what I was feeling much at all, but when I felt him come, felt him splash on my back, I stopped thinking about anything but coming all over him, too. He shook and moaned and screamed my name and I forgot I was biting him. By then we were both ripe with sweat and sex.
Ben, I think, was close to passing out, or at least hyperventilating. I didn’t know whether to get him a drink, a towel, or a band aid. I touched the bite mark on his shoulder, wiped away the small spot of blood with my finger, licked it off.
I glanced up. He laid his right hand over the bite mark. Ben looked - I don’t know - radiant, like that angel I was thinking about.
“It’s gonna leave a scar, Benton.”
“I know.”
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Wonderful, wonderful!
Love the concept, and you executed it beautifully.
::beaming::
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::beaming back::
ches
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This line just freaking slays me. I could sit and carry on thinking for hours on end about the past loves and losses of Benton Fraser, and this story handles them perfectly.
What a beautiful, beautiful job!
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uhhm, loss and love and heat all wrapped up in a lovely package. thanks.
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I loved it, but.....
Re: I loved it, but.....
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And--
“Next time. This time I want you to just feel me touching you.”
May I say: guhguhguh. :)
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Seriously, glad you enjoyed it. The POV kept tripping me up.
OMG
Yeah, we're all angels, the real Ray Vecchio once said. He was right. :)
J S
Re: OMG
Re: OMG
More important, though, it's probably not as bad as you think it is, and there will be plenty of readers who will enjoy it.
J S