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Another challenge has (almost) passed me by. About 900 words. And please: Do not panic. Keep your hands and feet inside the ride until it has come to a full and complete stop.

Fall from Grace
by lamardeuse

“Asshole. You’re such an asshole.”

The nurse looked up at him, startled. Yeah, so this was not the type of conversation she was used to hearing. She’d just have to get over it, was all, because no way was he going to sit there clutching Fraser’s hand and crying over him. That wasn’t the way to get to him anyway.

“When you wake up, you are going to pay, Frase. You fucked up. You did not take thirty seconds to put on the goddamned Kevlar in the back of the Rover before you took off after that nut case. Hence when you tried to stop a .38 slug with your body, it went right through you. Hence missing your heart by inches and shattering two of your ribs. Hence causing several doctors to be flown in from Whitehorse, and hence causing the biggest commotion this buttfuck town has ever seen.”

He gestured at the room’s contents, indicating the piles of flowers, gifts and various nauseatingly cute stuffed animals that had been donated by the residents of Mader River, expressions of heartfelt gratitude from a populace that had been fooled by Fraser’s Superman act. He’d let them down, too, because no matter how this played out, his career was over, unless he took a training post at Depot, maybe. Yeah, that sounded good; tomorrow, Ray’d go in to the station and talk with Thomson about getting the paperwork started. He needed plans, he needed to construct a future, even if it was only in his head for now.

Because if he kept planning for the future, maybe he could convince them both that there was going to be one.

“You see this stuff? Oh, yeah, you can’t, because you’re in a fucking coma. Anyway. When you wake up, the entire goddamned town is going to want to bake you cakes and fluff your pillows and wipe your ass, but you know something? I’m not going to join them. You’re not getting any sympathy from me, buddy. I see right through you—always have. I know your secrets, I know this is an act to keep you safe. Well, you’re not keeping me away. I’ll be like Crazy Glue; you won’t get to be a martyr with me. Stanley Raymond Kowalski does not fluff, sweetheart.

“And if you croak—” he heard the nurse suck in a breath, but he couldn’t stop, he had to keep going “—I’m not gonna give you the fucking hero’s burial, Frase. You’re not a hero, because it says right in the Mountie handbook that if you croak because you fuck up, you’re not allowed to be a hero. Even if you get your man. So don’t even think about it, ‘cause I know how much you want that twenty-one gun salute.”

And then, against his better judgment, he reached out for Fraser’s hand, because he couldn’t not reach out for it. “I can feel you in there,” Ray said after a moment, past caring that his voice was now a hoarse whisper. “You can’t fool me. I can feel your blood moving around in there—you lost a lot of it, but they put it back in you, everyone was here donating blood, for chrissakes—so you got pieces of this town in you, just like they got pieces of you. And—” a choking breath stopped his throat for a second “—you got a piece of me, God, Fraser, you got the most important piece of me, okay? Okay? Is that what you been waiting to hear? You been waiting for me to beg you to give it back? Well, forget it. If you’re not gonna hang on to it, I don’t want it back. So fucking keep it, take it with you, I don’t need it—”

Ray felt a tickling sensation on his cheeks and angrily wiped away the wetness he found there. He couldn’t cry, dammit. You only cried over people who were dying.

“Ray. Ray.”

Ray’s head snapped up. Fraser’s eyes were open. Not all the way open, but still. They were. Open.

Ray felt fresh tears start from his own eyes. “Yeah,” he said, squeezing Fraser’s hand a little harder. “Yeah.”

“You’re…reading…RCMP…handbook?”

Ray brushed back a lock of Fraser’s sweat-damp hair. “Yeah. It’s the only way I can get to sleep.”

Fraser closed his eyes briefly, as though summoning strength. “Then you should know…only three guns…”

The nurse was in full fuss mode now, checking the monitors, scribbling notes on a small pad. She opened her mouth to speak, thought better of it, and scurried from the room, probably to fetch one of the herd of doctors.

“Ray…” Fraser croaked.

Ray’s fingers strayed to Fraser’s cheek now, where the oxygen tubes stretched. “Hey. Slow down, okay?”

“No,” Fraser said, more firmly. “Want you…to know…”

“What?” Ray said, trying to maintain a normal tone even though his heart was trying to pound its way out of his chest.

“‘M keeping it,” Fraser said, and there was the ghost of a smile there, a smile that Ray had missed so damn much it nearly broke him wide open to see it. “You’re not…getting it back. Got…plans for it.”

Ray blinked, then blinked again. And then he released a grin to answer Fraser’s weak one.

“Okay,” Ray murmured, fingertips mapping his lover’s warm, living flesh, “you go right ahead, Frase. Plan your head off.”

End

Current Mood: drained

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