Cave-in challenge: Burrow, by llassah

[llassah.livejournal.com]

Title: Burrow
Author: llassah
Pairing: Fraser/RayK
Rating: PG-13
Length: 430 words
Notes: More of a vignette than an actual fic. Ray Kowalski, two beds, a sleeping bag, and a Mountie

When he was a kid, he’d play under the sheets in his parents’ bed, sometimes tunnelling through from pillows to foot, an explorer, intrepid, sometimes making himself as small as possibly, burying himself in the clean-smelling warmth and pretending he was waiting to be born, or didn’t exist. That bed was used for turtle-hunting, plane-flying, as a cave during his brief but passionate fascination with sabre toothed tigers (ending when his mother started wondering where all the celery sticks were going, why Ray kept refusing any food but meat, and wouldn't stop growling at the neighbour’s dog)- the possibilities were endless, dizzying. Usually, he did remember to take off his shoes before playing.

**

When Stella left, he stayed in bed. He stayed there when the door clicked shut for the last time, listening to her walking out of his new apartment and into the brave new world. He would have signed anything, would have signed away his soul, his life, just so that she left and he didn’t have to see her and hope, or try one more time. He stayed in bed for days, curled up so tightly his knees were nearly touching his chin, and breathing was a wrenching ache. He retreated into himself, burrowing until he was safe, warm and invulnerable and tried not to think of the world outside, the too-bright lights, the jarring sounds and the air that seemed to cut into his skin. A world where everything would remind him of her, even if there was no trace of her there.

**

The sleeping bag is hard to burrow in, but Ray tries. In the daytime, there is the sheer vastness of the sky and the snow, the feeling of skywalking, the way the whole world seemed to be in this frozen wasteland. At nights, restriction and limits take away the insignificance of being a speck on a page of white and make him the world, cocooned in softness and warmth.

“What are you doing, Ray?”

Fraser’s voice sounds warm and amused- out here, he has no standards to uphold, and it has taken all the starch out of his spine. The smile he had been wearing after landing from the plane is his normal smile now.

“I’m, uh, I’m snuggling, Frase. You mind?”

“No, not at all.”

Ray takes him at his word, wrapping himself around Fraser, then wrapping the sleeping bag around both of them, drawing him into his world, just as Fraser invited him into his with a beautiful smile and a conversation by firelight. Here, there’s room enough for two.