Amnesty - Genre Challenge by ToraK
Dec. 20th, 2005 05:01 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
torakowalski.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
ds_flashfictionPairing: RayK/Fraser (implied), RayK/RayV (pre-slash)
Warning: main character death (pre-fic); ghosts
Rating: R
Length: 3500ish (flashfic's have a limit? really?)
Notes: Thanks a million to![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
threequaters for beta and for not letting me post this in its previous form... she's made it a hundred times better and should be worshipped accordingly *g*
Ghost Story by ToraK
When Ray opens the door he’s hit by a blast of cold, stale air that chills him to the bone. Of course, it’s January in Northern Canada, so that isn’t too surprising.
Ray doesn’t want to be here. He hasn’t set foot in the place since… well, for five months. It was Vecchio’s idea. Ray said no, but it was like talking to a brick wall. An Armani-clad brick wall with a receding hairline and a bad habit of calling him Stanley. Vecchio mentioned his idea to Welsh and wham suddenly here they are, back in Inuvik, back at Fraser’s cabin, back less than twenty feet from where Fraser… from where it happened.
Vecchio thinks this trip will be cathartic; Ray thinks Vecchio should go to hell. Ray doesn’t want cathartic; he wants Fraser.
The cabin looks exactly as it did when Ray left. Or actually, Ray doesn’t really remember what it looked like then. The time between Fraser’s… death and Vecchio taking him back to Chicago after the funeral is covered in a big cloud of grey that he doesn’t want to poke at too closely. To be more accurate, the cabin looks like it did before. Before Fraser decided that taking on armed men without Ray there to back him up was a good idea, decided that Ray wouldn’t mind coming home to find him motionless in the snow surrounded by a pool of frozen blood.
Everything’s painfully tidy, Ray wants to mess it all up. To yell at whatever Mrs Busybody came in and cleaned up. The place isn’t supposed to be tidy to start with. The fun is in making it really, selectively messy, so Fraser can pretend to be mad at him, so Fraser can stay up late and only come to bed when Ray is mostly asleep, so Fraser can crawl into bed beside him and pull and position and manoeuvre Ray – still too lazy to protest – however he wants him. So he can make love to Ray so damn sweetly Ray feels like his heart is breaking.
“Kowalski?”
Dammit. That was a damn nice daydream.
“What?”
“You okay?” Vecchio’s looking at him closely, looking concerned. Ray wishes people would stop looking worried about him. It makes him feel like he should smile or something. But when he does people get it into their heads that he’s “so brave”, which he totally fucking isn’t. If he was brave he would have jumped Fraser when they first met. They could have had five years together instead of three.
“I’m fine. I’m tired. I’m going to bed.” He stalks across the living room stopping in front of the bedroom – his bedroom, their bedroom – door. “There’s blankets and shit in the closet in the bathroom. The sofa’s pretty comfortable.”
Ray doesn’t turn on the lights on in the bedroom. He doesn’t want to see. He just shucks him clothes and crawls into bed. Fraser’s pillow does not still smell of him. It doesn’t. It’s a trick of Ray’s screwed up brain. Ray presses his face into the pillow and wishes like hell Fraser were here. The light touch his feels on the back of his head is all in his imagination.
*
That first night, Ray is woken by the sounds of Dief scratching the front door, wanting to go out. Ray staggers out of bed, opens the door, and staggers back to bed all without really waking up. He doesn’t remember it in the morning.
*
They don’t really have anything to do up here. Fraser’s papers have all been gone through already. Ray needs to sort through Fraser’s personal stuff, but he doesn’t want to do that with Vecchio around. They spend the day just sitting. They go chop some wood – Ray takes Vecchio the long way to the shed and doesn’t look at the patch of snow where Fraser’s body once lay. He’s already found that if he looks too close he can still see him there.
*
The second night, Ray’s already awake and staring at the ceiling when the scratching starts. He gets up and opens the door automatically. On the way back to bed, he thinks he sees something move out of the corner of his eye, but dismisses it. He’ll get his eyes checked when he gets back to Chicago.
*
It isn’t until the third night that his hand stills on the lock and he remembers that Dief’s been dead for five months – Mounties weren’t the only thing those bastards hunted. He opens the door anyway – he can still hear the scratching – and feels the soft brush of frozen fur against his bare leg.
*
That evening, Vecchio breaks another long silence with a story about him, Fraser, Thatcher, a lottery ticket and some egg throwing. Ray’s heard it before, but Vecchio has a good way of telling stories. He makes Ray laugh a couple of times, and apparently encouraged, he launches on to another one. When he finishes, Ray starts up, telling him about ice fields and turtles and partner ships. Vecchio counters with an undelivered invitation that somehow involves Fraser hiding under a wedding dress. That one’s actually new to Ray – not surprising, he can see how Fraser would balk at retelling a lady’s wedding jitters.
Somehow, by the end of the evening, Ray’s feeling pretty good. Some of his laughter morphed into tears once or twice, but Vecchio pretended not to see it and even that made Ray feel better.
*
That night Ray lies awake and waits for Dief to start scratching. It doesn’t come. He tries calling him softly – Dief can’t be deaf and dead, it’s too much of a tongue twister. He hears nothing, nothing comes. And that makes him so fucking sad. Cos, yeah, ghosts and shit are freaky things he doesn’t like to think about, especially not at night, but the idea of Dief and Fraser being properly dead. Gone, dead. Is a hell of a lot worse.
He tries to stay awake, but is finally drifting off when he hears a wrap at the door.
“Ben?” He asks before he’s properly awake. Then tells himself not to be so stupid. “Come in.”
Vecchio’s head pops round the door. In the moonlight, wearing sweats and a t-shirt he looks softer somehow, less like the he’s trying the protect Ray from something. Ray hates that; the way people have been treating him like some fucking damsel in distress lately.
“Hey,” Vecchio says, whispering. “Heard you in the kitchen, you okay?”
“Kitchen?” Ray repeats. “I wasn’t in the kitchen. And come in why don’t you…” He adds grumpily as Vecchio makes him self at home, perching on Fraser’s side of the bed. Ray wants to push him off. It’s Fraser’s side, not Vecchio’s.
“You were in the kitchen. About ten minutes ago. I heard you moving stuff around. You been sleepwalking, Kowalski?”
“No. I have not been sleepwalking, Vecchio. ‘Cause I haven’t been sleeping. And I was not in the fucking kitchen.” He sounds pissed, but his heart’s pounding. He wasn’t in the kitchen, and even ghost-Dief probably can’t move stuff around. So there might be someone else here after all.
Vecchio looks ready to snap back, instead his expression goes soft. “Okay.”
Ray hates that, hates the way people treat him since Fraser… went. Left. Left him like he promised he never would.
*
Ray wakes up jittery and anxious. He keeps praying he’ll see Fraser and praying he won’t at the same time. He riffles through the bedside cabinet until he finds the packet of smokes he stashed away for emergencies. He knows Vecchio will nag and rather than face the hassle he goes out onto the porch, sticks the butt into his mouth and lights a match. An inch from the tip of the cigarette the match blows out. He curses and lights another. And again it blows out. He feels a gentle breeze blow against his skin and the matchbook falls from his hand and skids across the wooden floor boards.
“Okay,” Ray bends down and scoops the book up, stuffing it and the unlit cigarette into his back pocket. “Okay,” he sighs to the wind, “You don’t want me smoking. I get it.”
Vecchio is waiting for him when he goes inside. Ray tenses expecting a confrontation though he doesn’t know why. Vecchio just smiles, a little twist of the lips and hands him a steaming mug of coffee.
“Thanks.” Ray mutters uncertainly.
Vecchio rolls his eyes, “I’m not an asshole the entire time,” he says, cuffing Ray lightly on the side of the head. A hesitant pause, then, “I was thinking we could go through some of Benny’s stuff today…”
“No!” Ray cuts him off. “No.”
“Isn’t that what we’re here for?”
Ray shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m here because you dragged me. I don’t know why you’re here.”
Vecchio gives him a funny look. “Don’t you?”
*
That night Ray does something he hasn’t done since he was a kid. Since he was thirteen and wore Coke bottle glasses and wanted Stella DuBois to love him more than he wanted to be Steve McQueen. Or at least equally as much. He wishes. He wishes he could see Ben. He’s convinced he’s here. He knows he heard Dief. Vecchio heard someone in the kitchen, so he’s not just going mad.
Ben? He pleads silently into the darkness. You here? I miss you so fucking much.
Nothing.
He squeezes his eyes shut and tells himself he will not cry, but he knows his eyelashes are getting damp. He feels a tear roll down his cheek. It tickles and he goes to wipe it away when he feels a gentle pressure on his cheek. It’s barely anything and he keeps his eyes closed, afraid it will go. Something that isn’t breath, but is more than a breeze ghosts across his lips. He moves his lips uncertainly, and now the pressure’s there. Responding. He’s kissing air, or a ghost, or his imagination. He doesn’t want to know which.
*
Ray feels happy when he wakes up. Happy is his overriding feeling anyway, and he’s not looking at the ones underneath. He smiles at Vecchio and it must be a convincing smile ‘cause Vecchio blinks at him in surprise then smiles back. His eyes are very green this morning and they glow when he smiles. It makes Ray smile more, though he’s not sure why.
*
Over the next couple of days Ray finds himself going to bed earlier and earlier. Sometimes he’ll just feel a touch to his lips or his face. Sometimes it’s a gentle pressure on his hair. In the middle of one night he dreams Fraser is going down on him and when he wakes up sweaty and sated he can’t be one hundred percent sure it didn’t happen.
So he’s got Fraser by night and Vecchio by day. Vecchio, who’s taken to being nice to him, and making him coffee, and sitting close to him when he feels down.
They don’t do much in the evenings, just sit on the sofa and hang. Ben was never that keen on buying a TV and Ray was cool with that. Being able to keep up with the Hawks would have been good, but Ben was entertainment enough that Ray never really got bored.
Vecchio’s sitting against one arm of the sofa, legs curled under him, reading a book he found on one of Ben’s dozens of bookshelves. Ray’s been off in his head for a while, but now he’s feeling… strange. Like he needs some human contact.
“Vecchio?” Ray nudges him with his foot.
Vecchio turns the page and doesn’t look up.
“Vecchio!”
Ray jabs him harder, but only succeeds in stubbing his toe. Who would have guessed Vecchio has such hand kneecaps?
“Vecchio!”
Finally, Vecchio looks up. His expression is bland, but the way his lip twist at the corner convinces Ray he’s being screwed with. “Yeah?”
“What ya doin’?”
Vecchio rolls his eyes, “Painting my toe nails and dancing the cha cha cha.”
Ray laughs, it’s strange after so many weeks of feeling numb, and he kicks him harder.
Vecchio scowls and rubs his knee, “Seriously, stop doing that.”
But Ray’s feeling strangely good, there’s a little bubble of something like happiness just below his breastbone. He crawls across the sofa and prods at the book on Vecchio’s lap until Vecchio gives up and tips the cover up for him to see.
And just like that, Ray’s happy feeling is gone.
Something roars in Ray’s ears and he feels sick. He forgot. For five minutes, maybe less, but he forgot.
“Ray?” Vecchio’s voice is scarily gentle, “Hey, what’s wrong?”
Ray shakes his head. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“Kowalski,” Vecchio snaps, but he doesn’t sound convincingly pissed, “You’ve been doing good, don’t fall apart, okay?”
A warm, strong arm slips around Ray’s shoulder and he finds himself pressed into Vecchio’s cashmere sweater – seriously, who the fuck wears cashmere in the Frozen North? It feels good to be held, to be close to someone warm and solid, someone he knows still exists and Ray feel himself relax.
“Was it the book?” Vecchio’s voice rumbles through his chest.
“Yeah. Paradise Fucking Lost. Ben could… Ben learned it off by heart when he was kid. God knows why, I guess he’d run out of mud to lick. I used to get… angsty sometimes when we’d get storms and the power’d go out; Ben used to read it to me, out of his brain like, to keep me sane.”
Ray realises Vecchio’s fingers are combing through his hair, but he doesn’t ask him to stop.
“Sorry,” Vecchio says quietly, which is ridiculous. Even though Ray would really, really like to have someone to blame, Vecchio is not that person. He’s about to say that, or something like it, when he sees a tiny flurry of red and tries to focus on it without moving his head. If he looks directly at it, it always goes.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” Ray asks instead, softly, not looking Vecchio in the eye.
He feels Vecchio stiffen, but his voice is calm, “Kowalski, don’t go there.” Ray doesn’t say anything, and after a beat, Vecchio, sounding a weird mix of hurt and angry and just plain fucking tired, says, “He’s gone. Kowalski. He’s not coming back.”
Ray can’t hear this, he can’t. As much as the idea of Fraser’s ghost freaks him out, the idea that Fraser’s not there, that’s he’s really gone, scares him a thousand times more. He pushes away. “Vecchio. Fuck. Don’t.”
“Why? Are you afraid Benny will hear me?”
For a second, Ray can’t breath, “God, Vecchio.”
“What? You think I haven’t heard you talking to him? You need to let go, Kowalski. It’s not healthy.” Suddenly, inexplicably, Vecchio sounds really, really angry, “It’s not that I don’t believe in ghosts, Kowalski, believe me, I do. But even if he is here, he’s still dead. He’s still… he’s not back. He’s dead, Ray.”
Ray tunes out Vecchio’s ranting, concentrating on the flickering colours he can see in the corner. As he watches, and doesn’t listen, Fraser – and it is Fraser. There’s no doubt – slowly takes form.
“Vecchio,” Ray hisses.
Fraser’s face comes into focus and he smiles softly at Ray.
“Vecchio,” A little louder.
Fraser’s hand is resting on the top of the floor lamp. On, not going through, and that gives Ray hope.
“Vecchio, look!”
Vecchio stops talking, there’s a pause then Ray hears him swear softly.
Ray wants to feel relieved. He wants to sing. Fraser’s there. He might be dead, but he’s there. He jumps up and takes a step forward, but Vecchio is suddenly beside him, gripping his arm.
“Wait.”
Ray is about to jerk away, ‘cause seriously, Fraser is right there. Then he gets what Vecchio means. Something doesn’t feel right. Fraser’s always made him feel safe. The vibes coming from this ghost… this appa… apparition aren’t safe. They’re cold; Fraser’s cold.
Then the lights flicker. Go out. The fire roars as a gust of wind blows down the chimney, then it dies out too. Ray can still see Fraser in the corner, illuminated by the flicker of candles Ray can’t see.
Between one beat and the next something flies through the air and skims past Vecchio an inch from his face.
“Fuck!” They both hiss at once. Ray takes a step back from Fraser and something else comes toward them. It hits Vecchio square in the chest and he doubles over. The missile falls to the floor with a muted thud and Ray recognises one of the candles sticks from the mantle piece.
“Shit.” Ray gets an arm round Vecchio and pulls him down to the floor, stepping forward just as something else comes flying at them. It hits him solidly in the back, he stumbles and ends up half on top of Vecchio. The lights flicker on for a second.
Ray risks a glance back over his shoulder. The remains of the thing that hit him cover the carpet. He recognises the blue and white shards no problem at all. “Ben!” He yells, “That was your grandmother’s vase. What the fuck are you doing?!”
Ray doesn’t understand. This isn’t Fraser. Fraser wouldn’t hurt him. Although, even as he thinks it, he realises Fraser’s isn’t aiming for him, he’s just in the way. Fraser is aiming for Vecchio, which makes even less sense.
“I’m sorry.” Ray whispers, looking down to where Vecchio is pinned under him, Vecchio’s face is pale beneath his tan and he’s panting hard. “I don’t know what’s going on.”
Vecchio surprises him by reaching up, touching his cheek. “I think I do.” Then he rolls away and sits up. “Benny, stop it. I’m not trying to take your place, or turn him against you, or whatever you think I’m doing. I’m just trying to help. You left him alone, Benny, and alone is a fucked-up place to be. He needs… he needs a friend, that’s all I’m being.”
Ray feels his mouth fall open. That isn’t what this is about. It can’t be. But Vecchio’s looking at Fraser and Fraser’s looking at Vecchio and Ray realises with a jolt that makes him dizzy that that is what this is about. Fraser’s… Fraser’s jealous? Fraser’s gone and Vecchio isn’t and sometime when Ray wasn’t paying attention, Vecchio snuck in and filled a tiny corner of the gaping hole Fraser left.
The lights go back on suddenly and Ray blinks at the brightness. When he opens his eyes Fraser is fading away. “Ben…” He starts, but it’s too late. Fraser’s gone. An older Mountie flickers into his place, smiles kindly down at Ray.
“Don’t worry son, his mother and I will make him understand. He doesn’t like losing people, you know. My fault, of course.” He looks between him and Vecchio. “Interesting. Never would have predicted that one…”
Then he’s gone too.
Ray is left kneeling amongst the shards of broken china. Vecchio shuffles forward carefully, mindful of the mess. He puts an arm around Ray’s shoulder and squeezes hard once, before letting go. Vecchio’s voice is worried, “You’re shaking.”
Ray lets himself be helped to his feet and feels Vecchio’s fingers brush his hand as he lets go. It’s too soon and he’s too tired to think about what that might mean, but it doesn’t feel bad.
“I’m good. I’ll be okay.”
“Go to bed; it’s late.”
Ray wants to argue, he really doesn’t like to be babied, but he truly is exhausted. “In a minute. Will you… d’you mind…” There’s no way of asking this that isn’t mortifying, but he is kind of freaked.
Vecchio quirks a smile at him, “I’ll clean up out here then come check on you before I go to bed, okay?”
Ray nods and manages a smile of his own. He turns around, meaning to head to his room – and it is just his room and Ray is maybe heading toward being able to deal with that – but he catches sight of the wrecked living room and it’s like he’s seeing it with new eyes. It looks familiar, but it doesn’t look like home. Not any more. Fraser’s… Fraser’s dead. He can say it now and not feel he’s making it true. Fraser’s dead and Ray misses him like hell, will maybe always miss him like hell, but he’s got somewhere else to be, he’s got Chicago, he’s got friends. And, though he’s no idea how it happened, he seems to have Vecchio now too.
Warning: main character death (pre-fic); ghosts
Rating: R
Length: 3500ish (flashfic's have a limit? really?)
Notes: Thanks a million to
threequaters for beta and for not letting me post this in its previous form... she's made it a hundred times better and should be worshipped accordingly *g*Ghost Story by ToraK
When Ray opens the door he’s hit by a blast of cold, stale air that chills him to the bone. Of course, it’s January in Northern Canada, so that isn’t too surprising.
Ray doesn’t want to be here. He hasn’t set foot in the place since… well, for five months. It was Vecchio’s idea. Ray said no, but it was like talking to a brick wall. An Armani-clad brick wall with a receding hairline and a bad habit of calling him Stanley. Vecchio mentioned his idea to Welsh and wham suddenly here they are, back in Inuvik, back at Fraser’s cabin, back less than twenty feet from where Fraser… from where it happened.
Vecchio thinks this trip will be cathartic; Ray thinks Vecchio should go to hell. Ray doesn’t want cathartic; he wants Fraser.
The cabin looks exactly as it did when Ray left. Or actually, Ray doesn’t really remember what it looked like then. The time between Fraser’s… death and Vecchio taking him back to Chicago after the funeral is covered in a big cloud of grey that he doesn’t want to poke at too closely. To be more accurate, the cabin looks like it did before. Before Fraser decided that taking on armed men without Ray there to back him up was a good idea, decided that Ray wouldn’t mind coming home to find him motionless in the snow surrounded by a pool of frozen blood.
Everything’s painfully tidy, Ray wants to mess it all up. To yell at whatever Mrs Busybody came in and cleaned up. The place isn’t supposed to be tidy to start with. The fun is in making it really, selectively messy, so Fraser can pretend to be mad at him, so Fraser can stay up late and only come to bed when Ray is mostly asleep, so Fraser can crawl into bed beside him and pull and position and manoeuvre Ray – still too lazy to protest – however he wants him. So he can make love to Ray so damn sweetly Ray feels like his heart is breaking.
“Kowalski?”
Dammit. That was a damn nice daydream.
“What?”
“You okay?” Vecchio’s looking at him closely, looking concerned. Ray wishes people would stop looking worried about him. It makes him feel like he should smile or something. But when he does people get it into their heads that he’s “so brave”, which he totally fucking isn’t. If he was brave he would have jumped Fraser when they first met. They could have had five years together instead of three.
“I’m fine. I’m tired. I’m going to bed.” He stalks across the living room stopping in front of the bedroom – his bedroom, their bedroom – door. “There’s blankets and shit in the closet in the bathroom. The sofa’s pretty comfortable.”
Ray doesn’t turn on the lights on in the bedroom. He doesn’t want to see. He just shucks him clothes and crawls into bed. Fraser’s pillow does not still smell of him. It doesn’t. It’s a trick of Ray’s screwed up brain. Ray presses his face into the pillow and wishes like hell Fraser were here. The light touch his feels on the back of his head is all in his imagination.
*
That first night, Ray is woken by the sounds of Dief scratching the front door, wanting to go out. Ray staggers out of bed, opens the door, and staggers back to bed all without really waking up. He doesn’t remember it in the morning.
*
They don’t really have anything to do up here. Fraser’s papers have all been gone through already. Ray needs to sort through Fraser’s personal stuff, but he doesn’t want to do that with Vecchio around. They spend the day just sitting. They go chop some wood – Ray takes Vecchio the long way to the shed and doesn’t look at the patch of snow where Fraser’s body once lay. He’s already found that if he looks too close he can still see him there.
*
The second night, Ray’s already awake and staring at the ceiling when the scratching starts. He gets up and opens the door automatically. On the way back to bed, he thinks he sees something move out of the corner of his eye, but dismisses it. He’ll get his eyes checked when he gets back to Chicago.
*
It isn’t until the third night that his hand stills on the lock and he remembers that Dief’s been dead for five months – Mounties weren’t the only thing those bastards hunted. He opens the door anyway – he can still hear the scratching – and feels the soft brush of frozen fur against his bare leg.
*
That evening, Vecchio breaks another long silence with a story about him, Fraser, Thatcher, a lottery ticket and some egg throwing. Ray’s heard it before, but Vecchio has a good way of telling stories. He makes Ray laugh a couple of times, and apparently encouraged, he launches on to another one. When he finishes, Ray starts up, telling him about ice fields and turtles and partner ships. Vecchio counters with an undelivered invitation that somehow involves Fraser hiding under a wedding dress. That one’s actually new to Ray – not surprising, he can see how Fraser would balk at retelling a lady’s wedding jitters.
Somehow, by the end of the evening, Ray’s feeling pretty good. Some of his laughter morphed into tears once or twice, but Vecchio pretended not to see it and even that made Ray feel better.
*
That night Ray lies awake and waits for Dief to start scratching. It doesn’t come. He tries calling him softly – Dief can’t be deaf and dead, it’s too much of a tongue twister. He hears nothing, nothing comes. And that makes him so fucking sad. Cos, yeah, ghosts and shit are freaky things he doesn’t like to think about, especially not at night, but the idea of Dief and Fraser being properly dead. Gone, dead. Is a hell of a lot worse.
He tries to stay awake, but is finally drifting off when he hears a wrap at the door.
“Ben?” He asks before he’s properly awake. Then tells himself not to be so stupid. “Come in.”
Vecchio’s head pops round the door. In the moonlight, wearing sweats and a t-shirt he looks softer somehow, less like the he’s trying the protect Ray from something. Ray hates that; the way people have been treating him like some fucking damsel in distress lately.
“Hey,” Vecchio says, whispering. “Heard you in the kitchen, you okay?”
“Kitchen?” Ray repeats. “I wasn’t in the kitchen. And come in why don’t you…” He adds grumpily as Vecchio makes him self at home, perching on Fraser’s side of the bed. Ray wants to push him off. It’s Fraser’s side, not Vecchio’s.
“You were in the kitchen. About ten minutes ago. I heard you moving stuff around. You been sleepwalking, Kowalski?”
“No. I have not been sleepwalking, Vecchio. ‘Cause I haven’t been sleeping. And I was not in the fucking kitchen.” He sounds pissed, but his heart’s pounding. He wasn’t in the kitchen, and even ghost-Dief probably can’t move stuff around. So there might be someone else here after all.
Vecchio looks ready to snap back, instead his expression goes soft. “Okay.”
Ray hates that, hates the way people treat him since Fraser… went. Left. Left him like he promised he never would.
*
Ray wakes up jittery and anxious. He keeps praying he’ll see Fraser and praying he won’t at the same time. He riffles through the bedside cabinet until he finds the packet of smokes he stashed away for emergencies. He knows Vecchio will nag and rather than face the hassle he goes out onto the porch, sticks the butt into his mouth and lights a match. An inch from the tip of the cigarette the match blows out. He curses and lights another. And again it blows out. He feels a gentle breeze blow against his skin and the matchbook falls from his hand and skids across the wooden floor boards.
“Okay,” Ray bends down and scoops the book up, stuffing it and the unlit cigarette into his back pocket. “Okay,” he sighs to the wind, “You don’t want me smoking. I get it.”
Vecchio is waiting for him when he goes inside. Ray tenses expecting a confrontation though he doesn’t know why. Vecchio just smiles, a little twist of the lips and hands him a steaming mug of coffee.
“Thanks.” Ray mutters uncertainly.
Vecchio rolls his eyes, “I’m not an asshole the entire time,” he says, cuffing Ray lightly on the side of the head. A hesitant pause, then, “I was thinking we could go through some of Benny’s stuff today…”
“No!” Ray cuts him off. “No.”
“Isn’t that what we’re here for?”
Ray shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m here because you dragged me. I don’t know why you’re here.”
Vecchio gives him a funny look. “Don’t you?”
*
That night Ray does something he hasn’t done since he was a kid. Since he was thirteen and wore Coke bottle glasses and wanted Stella DuBois to love him more than he wanted to be Steve McQueen. Or at least equally as much. He wishes. He wishes he could see Ben. He’s convinced he’s here. He knows he heard Dief. Vecchio heard someone in the kitchen, so he’s not just going mad.
Ben? He pleads silently into the darkness. You here? I miss you so fucking much.
Nothing.
He squeezes his eyes shut and tells himself he will not cry, but he knows his eyelashes are getting damp. He feels a tear roll down his cheek. It tickles and he goes to wipe it away when he feels a gentle pressure on his cheek. It’s barely anything and he keeps his eyes closed, afraid it will go. Something that isn’t breath, but is more than a breeze ghosts across his lips. He moves his lips uncertainly, and now the pressure’s there. Responding. He’s kissing air, or a ghost, or his imagination. He doesn’t want to know which.
*
Ray feels happy when he wakes up. Happy is his overriding feeling anyway, and he’s not looking at the ones underneath. He smiles at Vecchio and it must be a convincing smile ‘cause Vecchio blinks at him in surprise then smiles back. His eyes are very green this morning and they glow when he smiles. It makes Ray smile more, though he’s not sure why.
*
Over the next couple of days Ray finds himself going to bed earlier and earlier. Sometimes he’ll just feel a touch to his lips or his face. Sometimes it’s a gentle pressure on his hair. In the middle of one night he dreams Fraser is going down on him and when he wakes up sweaty and sated he can’t be one hundred percent sure it didn’t happen.
So he’s got Fraser by night and Vecchio by day. Vecchio, who’s taken to being nice to him, and making him coffee, and sitting close to him when he feels down.
They don’t do much in the evenings, just sit on the sofa and hang. Ben was never that keen on buying a TV and Ray was cool with that. Being able to keep up with the Hawks would have been good, but Ben was entertainment enough that Ray never really got bored.
Vecchio’s sitting against one arm of the sofa, legs curled under him, reading a book he found on one of Ben’s dozens of bookshelves. Ray’s been off in his head for a while, but now he’s feeling… strange. Like he needs some human contact.
“Vecchio?” Ray nudges him with his foot.
Vecchio turns the page and doesn’t look up.
“Vecchio!”
Ray jabs him harder, but only succeeds in stubbing his toe. Who would have guessed Vecchio has such hand kneecaps?
“Vecchio!”
Finally, Vecchio looks up. His expression is bland, but the way his lip twist at the corner convinces Ray he’s being screwed with. “Yeah?”
“What ya doin’?”
Vecchio rolls his eyes, “Painting my toe nails and dancing the cha cha cha.”
Ray laughs, it’s strange after so many weeks of feeling numb, and he kicks him harder.
Vecchio scowls and rubs his knee, “Seriously, stop doing that.”
But Ray’s feeling strangely good, there’s a little bubble of something like happiness just below his breastbone. He crawls across the sofa and prods at the book on Vecchio’s lap until Vecchio gives up and tips the cover up for him to see.
And just like that, Ray’s happy feeling is gone.
Something roars in Ray’s ears and he feels sick. He forgot. For five minutes, maybe less, but he forgot.
“Ray?” Vecchio’s voice is scarily gentle, “Hey, what’s wrong?”
Ray shakes his head. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“Kowalski,” Vecchio snaps, but he doesn’t sound convincingly pissed, “You’ve been doing good, don’t fall apart, okay?”
A warm, strong arm slips around Ray’s shoulder and he finds himself pressed into Vecchio’s cashmere sweater – seriously, who the fuck wears cashmere in the Frozen North? It feels good to be held, to be close to someone warm and solid, someone he knows still exists and Ray feel himself relax.
“Was it the book?” Vecchio’s voice rumbles through his chest.
“Yeah. Paradise Fucking Lost. Ben could… Ben learned it off by heart when he was kid. God knows why, I guess he’d run out of mud to lick. I used to get… angsty sometimes when we’d get storms and the power’d go out; Ben used to read it to me, out of his brain like, to keep me sane.”
Ray realises Vecchio’s fingers are combing through his hair, but he doesn’t ask him to stop.
“Sorry,” Vecchio says quietly, which is ridiculous. Even though Ray would really, really like to have someone to blame, Vecchio is not that person. He’s about to say that, or something like it, when he sees a tiny flurry of red and tries to focus on it without moving his head. If he looks directly at it, it always goes.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” Ray asks instead, softly, not looking Vecchio in the eye.
He feels Vecchio stiffen, but his voice is calm, “Kowalski, don’t go there.” Ray doesn’t say anything, and after a beat, Vecchio, sounding a weird mix of hurt and angry and just plain fucking tired, says, “He’s gone. Kowalski. He’s not coming back.”
Ray can’t hear this, he can’t. As much as the idea of Fraser’s ghost freaks him out, the idea that Fraser’s not there, that’s he’s really gone, scares him a thousand times more. He pushes away. “Vecchio. Fuck. Don’t.”
“Why? Are you afraid Benny will hear me?”
For a second, Ray can’t breath, “God, Vecchio.”
“What? You think I haven’t heard you talking to him? You need to let go, Kowalski. It’s not healthy.” Suddenly, inexplicably, Vecchio sounds really, really angry, “It’s not that I don’t believe in ghosts, Kowalski, believe me, I do. But even if he is here, he’s still dead. He’s still… he’s not back. He’s dead, Ray.”
Ray tunes out Vecchio’s ranting, concentrating on the flickering colours he can see in the corner. As he watches, and doesn’t listen, Fraser – and it is Fraser. There’s no doubt – slowly takes form.
“Vecchio,” Ray hisses.
Fraser’s face comes into focus and he smiles softly at Ray.
“Vecchio,” A little louder.
Fraser’s hand is resting on the top of the floor lamp. On, not going through, and that gives Ray hope.
“Vecchio, look!”
Vecchio stops talking, there’s a pause then Ray hears him swear softly.
Ray wants to feel relieved. He wants to sing. Fraser’s there. He might be dead, but he’s there. He jumps up and takes a step forward, but Vecchio is suddenly beside him, gripping his arm.
“Wait.”
Ray is about to jerk away, ‘cause seriously, Fraser is right there. Then he gets what Vecchio means. Something doesn’t feel right. Fraser’s always made him feel safe. The vibes coming from this ghost… this appa… apparition aren’t safe. They’re cold; Fraser’s cold.
Then the lights flicker. Go out. The fire roars as a gust of wind blows down the chimney, then it dies out too. Ray can still see Fraser in the corner, illuminated by the flicker of candles Ray can’t see.
Between one beat and the next something flies through the air and skims past Vecchio an inch from his face.
“Fuck!” They both hiss at once. Ray takes a step back from Fraser and something else comes toward them. It hits Vecchio square in the chest and he doubles over. The missile falls to the floor with a muted thud and Ray recognises one of the candles sticks from the mantle piece.
“Shit.” Ray gets an arm round Vecchio and pulls him down to the floor, stepping forward just as something else comes flying at them. It hits him solidly in the back, he stumbles and ends up half on top of Vecchio. The lights flicker on for a second.
Ray risks a glance back over his shoulder. The remains of the thing that hit him cover the carpet. He recognises the blue and white shards no problem at all. “Ben!” He yells, “That was your grandmother’s vase. What the fuck are you doing?!”
Ray doesn’t understand. This isn’t Fraser. Fraser wouldn’t hurt him. Although, even as he thinks it, he realises Fraser’s isn’t aiming for him, he’s just in the way. Fraser is aiming for Vecchio, which makes even less sense.
“I’m sorry.” Ray whispers, looking down to where Vecchio is pinned under him, Vecchio’s face is pale beneath his tan and he’s panting hard. “I don’t know what’s going on.”
Vecchio surprises him by reaching up, touching his cheek. “I think I do.” Then he rolls away and sits up. “Benny, stop it. I’m not trying to take your place, or turn him against you, or whatever you think I’m doing. I’m just trying to help. You left him alone, Benny, and alone is a fucked-up place to be. He needs… he needs a friend, that’s all I’m being.”
Ray feels his mouth fall open. That isn’t what this is about. It can’t be. But Vecchio’s looking at Fraser and Fraser’s looking at Vecchio and Ray realises with a jolt that makes him dizzy that that is what this is about. Fraser’s… Fraser’s jealous? Fraser’s gone and Vecchio isn’t and sometime when Ray wasn’t paying attention, Vecchio snuck in and filled a tiny corner of the gaping hole Fraser left.
The lights go back on suddenly and Ray blinks at the brightness. When he opens his eyes Fraser is fading away. “Ben…” He starts, but it’s too late. Fraser’s gone. An older Mountie flickers into his place, smiles kindly down at Ray.
“Don’t worry son, his mother and I will make him understand. He doesn’t like losing people, you know. My fault, of course.” He looks between him and Vecchio. “Interesting. Never would have predicted that one…”
Then he’s gone too.
Ray is left kneeling amongst the shards of broken china. Vecchio shuffles forward carefully, mindful of the mess. He puts an arm around Ray’s shoulder and squeezes hard once, before letting go. Vecchio’s voice is worried, “You’re shaking.”
Ray lets himself be helped to his feet and feels Vecchio’s fingers brush his hand as he lets go. It’s too soon and he’s too tired to think about what that might mean, but it doesn’t feel bad.
“I’m good. I’ll be okay.”
“Go to bed; it’s late.”
Ray wants to argue, he really doesn’t like to be babied, but he truly is exhausted. “In a minute. Will you… d’you mind…” There’s no way of asking this that isn’t mortifying, but he is kind of freaked.
Vecchio quirks a smile at him, “I’ll clean up out here then come check on you before I go to bed, okay?”
Ray nods and manages a smile of his own. He turns around, meaning to head to his room – and it is just his room and Ray is maybe heading toward being able to deal with that – but he catches sight of the wrecked living room and it’s like he’s seeing it with new eyes. It looks familiar, but it doesn’t look like home. Not any more. Fraser’s… Fraser’s dead. He can say it now and not feel he’s making it true. Fraser’s dead and Ray misses him like hell, will maybe always miss him like hell, but he’s got somewhere else to be, he’s got Chicago, he’s got friends. And, though he’s no idea how it happened, he seems to have Vecchio now too.
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Date: 2005-12-20 05:25 pm (UTC)Wonderful, wonderful work.
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Date: 2005-12-21 09:57 pm (UTC)Sorry about breaking your heart... imagine what mine went through to be able to write this!
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Date: 2005-12-20 05:59 pm (UTC)Seriously, this is achy and good. You've alluded to the ache of trying to let go and not wanting to at the same time that comes with grief, and how you second-guess yourself, etc.
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Date: 2005-12-21 09:58 pm (UTC)shiftyinnocent* I think I'm fairly restrained on the killing people front... and you know, he's dead, but he's not exactly gone :)no subject
Date: 2005-12-20 06:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 10:00 pm (UTC)Thank you so much for reading though :)
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Date: 2005-12-20 06:30 pm (UTC)oh, god, i wanted ben to be all... happy ghosty... and he just wasn't.
that was great...
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Date: 2005-12-21 10:01 pm (UTC)I wanted him to be a happy ghost... but well, what kind of life would Ray have, tied to a ghost?
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Date: 2005-12-20 08:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 10:02 pm (UTC)Thanks for reading :)
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Date: 2005-12-20 09:01 pm (UTC)I am so glad you finally posted this. I'd quote all my favorite bits, but I'm sure you know them already :)
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Date: 2005-12-21 10:04 pm (UTC)Seriously, it wouldn't be half what it is without you. There'd be more potential sex... but it wouldn't feel anything like as right *g*
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Date: 2005-12-20 09:07 pm (UTC)I'm not sure that I ought to thank you for making me cry, but this was very well done... so thank you. Lots.
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Date: 2005-12-21 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-20 09:35 pm (UTC)*tears*
Hurts good.
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Date: 2005-12-21 10:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 10:25 pm (UTC)Such good hurt!
*sniffles*
*wibbly smile*
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Date: 2005-12-20 11:29 pm (UTC)Tora, if you start writing death fic professionally, you are going to break the world.
I think that just about all of dS thinks that if Ben dies -- which he never will - he's going to come back as a ghost; and then when he comes back as a ghost, he is definitely a benevolent ghost, because all the ghosts in dS canon are. Thing is, Ben is so much more fucked up than Bob or Caroline or Martha, and it's just so believable that he'll be jealous -- because it's not fair that he has to let Ray move on, because he'll never be able to himself.
*sniffles*
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Date: 2005-12-21 10:12 pm (UTC)YES! See, I was scared people wouldn't get that. So many people see Ben as this completely good person. But he's totally not. Eps like GftS show that he can be selfish and him not wanting Ray to move on was meant to be an example of that...
PS It was totally my turn to make you cry :P
Beautifully done
Date: 2005-12-24 04:46 am (UTC)Re: Beautifully done
Date: 2005-12-24 07:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-24 09:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-24 07:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-01 11:10 pm (UTC)Can you tell how much I am behind with reading fic? *g*
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Date: 2006-01-02 12:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-11 11:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-12 12:22 am (UTC)But look... I wrote deathfic!
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Date: 2006-01-12 09:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-30 01:03 pm (UTC)