window challenge by rose
Mar. 6th, 2007 01:58 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
rosekay.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
ds_flashfictionApothanein
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rosekay
Fraser/RayK, NC-17.
Fraser thinks that Ray was made to be framed.
1,415 words.
Fraser thinks that Ray was made to be framed.
When he was a child, his grandfather gave him Thucyides. It was an old translation, full of Victorian mores and impassioned speech making, but it was all he had. He wept for the near massacre at Melos, cheered when the ships turned back, scorned Nicias as young men do, and above all, he couldn't stop imagining Alcibiades.
Fraser never forgave him for his lack of faith, the empty foundation of all his beauty and brilliance, but he couldn't stop looking. They were always moving, he and his grandparents, generally given to discipline and austerity, a fleeting and papery warmth in their touch, but the dusty chaos and hot blood of the Athenians couldn't be further from the white expanses he gazed at every day. They were always moving, but Fraser only learned to be still, to see the same landscape no matter how many miles removed it was, to search out the universal things so he could keep them in his heart.
Alcibiades was perhaps a traitor, rare beauty and military genius laid waste by his fickle nature and inborn arrogance, but he was always, always a creature of motion. He was controlled only by his own will, and when those older and wiser cut his legs from under him, he simply went on, faster than ever, leaving them all the dust of his passing. Fraser would have taken his bitter end if only to breathe the air, clean and sweet and dangerous, that he must have breathed.
The first time he sees Ray, it's with an alien fascination, framed by the old familiarity of the station, wide shoulders and narrow waist, a casual wink while he never lets go of the phone. Glasses on, then glasses off, long hands wrapped around Fraser's neck, then back to his shoulder. He never stops moving, changeable face, an undercover operative. Fraser's stillness is shaken. He recovers with measurements and false bites, the dry reassurance of his father, but inside, he's spinning.
He read The Symposium against his grandfather's wishes, his grandfather who frowned at the Greek vice, and the frivolous nature of a debate about love. There was no room for love in stillness. But there he was again, Alcibiades, framed in the door, the broken crown of flowers upon his head, rambling and drunken, an injection of something real and raw into the high minded theory that spun around the party. He was different than the flighty general, a steady burn of something torn apart. To have charmed Socrates, Fraser's hands tightened on the book at that, until he thought his prints must have been sealed into the pages, a loving, desperate shape around Alcibiades' sad, strange entrance.
When he and Quinn are in the warehouse, he looks up just as Ray comes in through the window, the sunlight and splintered silver glass surrounding him perfectly, as if frozen for a moment in the air, wild and desperate, Fraser's stilted attempts to snap out of his own suspense made real. His hair makes a golden crown.
He thought Victoria was the one, weak in her pale, fluttering throat and the impossible softness of her dark hair, but she'd been strong enough to want, to crawl, to thirst for motion. She never let the stillness of the North quell her fire. Her eyes, her sodden hair, made dark and exotic by the perfect white that surrounded her, the perfect cold. She had the sort of beauty he thought must have struck the Greeks so dumb, strong features and a fierceness that caught the eye. She whispered, and he answered, helpless.
When Ray hits him, Fraser thinks, ah, betrayed. He was waiting for it all along. But there's only the dip of the golden head, long throat pale, and hands tense. Ray doesn't leave. And Fraser should have remembered that. Ray, who still loved Stella, whose face still softened in small and rare wonder when she swept through the building, who was still a boy in his thick glasses. Ray didn't leave. People left him. It's a bitter, familiar hum in his heart.
He's still surprised at the thrill of anger on The Bounty, when he thinks he's lost him, and the pounding of his heart to see Ray surrounded by metal, still struggling, strong enough to want, to crawl, to thirst for motion, even as the gray waters close on him.
Ray is a thing of the sunlight, everything about him a faintly tarnished gold. He stands, framed by his dingy apartment window, the heavy late afternoon sun drenching him with color that slides about his shifting features, gilds his long, long fingers, the prominent bone at his wrist, the curve of his back and the length of his legs, strong beneath him. His hands are curled around a mug of coffee, and he smiles at Fraser, soft.
Fraser always thought the most beautiful Alcibiades was the drunken, broken man who stumbled into a den of philosophers, guileless and full of want, the doorway his support, and his crown only an illusion.
He sees now that Ray's beauty isn't a perfect one. Perhaps the Greeks would have overlooked him in a crowd. He makes himself unseen, hunches his long legs, and spins banal things of his words so the eye goes elsewhere. The fierceness has faded from his face, not Alcibiades' eternal youth, but a worn, broken thing, a canvas of smiles and heartbreak and loneliness. He needs the window behind him, that flood of liquid gold, to stand out, but Fraser doesn't need them to see.
Ray's mouth is soft and surprised beneath his. The heat of his sides warm Fraser's cold fingers, even as he feels Ray's own shivers at the touch. He goes on, unheeded, wild with that air, clean and sweet and dangerous in his mouth, damn whatever bitter end may come. Ray surges against him, unwilling to yield, his stubble rough and raw on Fraser's cheek.
"Fraser, Jesus," he says, garbled, a boy's high nervousness and a man's desire, nothing like the smooth oratory Fraser imagined for his Greek statues.
Then Ray stops speaking, his mouth going to Fraser's throat, a flood of wet heat there, gold drifting beneath the snow of his own skin. He's a tough thing, sharp, pearly teeth catching at Fraser's pulse, his square hands drifting between Fraser's legs to cup the heat that's gathered there.
Ray laughs against his neck, unguarded, and Fraser bucks into his hands. He aches with it, and grabs the back of Ray's loose shirt, the thin cotton still thrumming with warmth, dragging Ray closer, a struggling, warm thing, golden in his hands.
Ray's lashes sweep down when he kisses, and Fraser stares, fascinated, at the glint of pale gold, the half lidded desire beneath him that dries his mouth before he can speak.
The sweat pants hardly catch at all on the narrow hips, corded with muscle, pale. Ray isn't wearing anything underneath, so his long cock just blushes into Fraser's hand, already slick with desire even as Ray swears and clutches hard at his shoulder.
He's even hotter between his legs, the thin crease of hip and long thigh a delicate thing that makes Ray shiver at a stroke.
Fraser likes to see him undone, growling and worn. He opens as if he's born to do it, legs coming around Fraser's own, and he closes his eyes when Fraser sinks into the catching heat, everything still gilded gold, a painting, the strokes paler and more beautiful with age.
It's easy to forget about the old stillness with Ray, who's alway swearing, grasping, pushing back against Fraser like a wild thing. He thinks Ray might have charmed the Spartans, the old generals, maybe even Socrates.
When he comes, it's with a sigh, something that had been in him a long time spilling out easily, vanishing against Ray's skin, sweat and salt for Fraser to taste. Their limbs are tangled, awkward angles and skin catching. Ray leans into him, silent, a dark sweaty curl of hair at the back of his neck.
Fraser thinks that Ray was made to be framed, so he closes his eyes, heedless of where he might go, but going at last, and drags Ray deeper into his embrace.
*
end
A/N: This is a...semi-Gary Stu? Since Alcibiades is in fact my secret historical lover. Title from the Greek, "to die." Edit: someone emailed about it, so here's the expanded pretentious dick explanation from the title. You might recognize it from the epigraph that opens The Wasteland. The children ask the Sybil of Cumae, an oracle trapped into stillness, hanging in her jar, never aging, "Sybilla, ti theleis? Sybil, what do you want?," to which she replies, "Apothanein thelw. I want to die." So Ray is Fraser's death, and what a death. *g*
by
rosekayFraser/RayK, NC-17.
Fraser thinks that Ray was made to be framed.
1,415 words.
Fraser thinks that Ray was made to be framed.
When he was a child, his grandfather gave him Thucyides. It was an old translation, full of Victorian mores and impassioned speech making, but it was all he had. He wept for the near massacre at Melos, cheered when the ships turned back, scorned Nicias as young men do, and above all, he couldn't stop imagining Alcibiades.
Fraser never forgave him for his lack of faith, the empty foundation of all his beauty and brilliance, but he couldn't stop looking. They were always moving, he and his grandparents, generally given to discipline and austerity, a fleeting and papery warmth in their touch, but the dusty chaos and hot blood of the Athenians couldn't be further from the white expanses he gazed at every day. They were always moving, but Fraser only learned to be still, to see the same landscape no matter how many miles removed it was, to search out the universal things so he could keep them in his heart.
Alcibiades was perhaps a traitor, rare beauty and military genius laid waste by his fickle nature and inborn arrogance, but he was always, always a creature of motion. He was controlled only by his own will, and when those older and wiser cut his legs from under him, he simply went on, faster than ever, leaving them all the dust of his passing. Fraser would have taken his bitter end if only to breathe the air, clean and sweet and dangerous, that he must have breathed.
The first time he sees Ray, it's with an alien fascination, framed by the old familiarity of the station, wide shoulders and narrow waist, a casual wink while he never lets go of the phone. Glasses on, then glasses off, long hands wrapped around Fraser's neck, then back to his shoulder. He never stops moving, changeable face, an undercover operative. Fraser's stillness is shaken. He recovers with measurements and false bites, the dry reassurance of his father, but inside, he's spinning.
He read The Symposium against his grandfather's wishes, his grandfather who frowned at the Greek vice, and the frivolous nature of a debate about love. There was no room for love in stillness. But there he was again, Alcibiades, framed in the door, the broken crown of flowers upon his head, rambling and drunken, an injection of something real and raw into the high minded theory that spun around the party. He was different than the flighty general, a steady burn of something torn apart. To have charmed Socrates, Fraser's hands tightened on the book at that, until he thought his prints must have been sealed into the pages, a loving, desperate shape around Alcibiades' sad, strange entrance.
When he and Quinn are in the warehouse, he looks up just as Ray comes in through the window, the sunlight and splintered silver glass surrounding him perfectly, as if frozen for a moment in the air, wild and desperate, Fraser's stilted attempts to snap out of his own suspense made real. His hair makes a golden crown.
He thought Victoria was the one, weak in her pale, fluttering throat and the impossible softness of her dark hair, but she'd been strong enough to want, to crawl, to thirst for motion. She never let the stillness of the North quell her fire. Her eyes, her sodden hair, made dark and exotic by the perfect white that surrounded her, the perfect cold. She had the sort of beauty he thought must have struck the Greeks so dumb, strong features and a fierceness that caught the eye. She whispered, and he answered, helpless.
When Ray hits him, Fraser thinks, ah, betrayed. He was waiting for it all along. But there's only the dip of the golden head, long throat pale, and hands tense. Ray doesn't leave. And Fraser should have remembered that. Ray, who still loved Stella, whose face still softened in small and rare wonder when she swept through the building, who was still a boy in his thick glasses. Ray didn't leave. People left him. It's a bitter, familiar hum in his heart.
He's still surprised at the thrill of anger on The Bounty, when he thinks he's lost him, and the pounding of his heart to see Ray surrounded by metal, still struggling, strong enough to want, to crawl, to thirst for motion, even as the gray waters close on him.
Ray is a thing of the sunlight, everything about him a faintly tarnished gold. He stands, framed by his dingy apartment window, the heavy late afternoon sun drenching him with color that slides about his shifting features, gilds his long, long fingers, the prominent bone at his wrist, the curve of his back and the length of his legs, strong beneath him. His hands are curled around a mug of coffee, and he smiles at Fraser, soft.
Fraser always thought the most beautiful Alcibiades was the drunken, broken man who stumbled into a den of philosophers, guileless and full of want, the doorway his support, and his crown only an illusion.
He sees now that Ray's beauty isn't a perfect one. Perhaps the Greeks would have overlooked him in a crowd. He makes himself unseen, hunches his long legs, and spins banal things of his words so the eye goes elsewhere. The fierceness has faded from his face, not Alcibiades' eternal youth, but a worn, broken thing, a canvas of smiles and heartbreak and loneliness. He needs the window behind him, that flood of liquid gold, to stand out, but Fraser doesn't need them to see.
Ray's mouth is soft and surprised beneath his. The heat of his sides warm Fraser's cold fingers, even as he feels Ray's own shivers at the touch. He goes on, unheeded, wild with that air, clean and sweet and dangerous in his mouth, damn whatever bitter end may come. Ray surges against him, unwilling to yield, his stubble rough and raw on Fraser's cheek.
"Fraser, Jesus," he says, garbled, a boy's high nervousness and a man's desire, nothing like the smooth oratory Fraser imagined for his Greek statues.
Then Ray stops speaking, his mouth going to Fraser's throat, a flood of wet heat there, gold drifting beneath the snow of his own skin. He's a tough thing, sharp, pearly teeth catching at Fraser's pulse, his square hands drifting between Fraser's legs to cup the heat that's gathered there.
Ray laughs against his neck, unguarded, and Fraser bucks into his hands. He aches with it, and grabs the back of Ray's loose shirt, the thin cotton still thrumming with warmth, dragging Ray closer, a struggling, warm thing, golden in his hands.
Ray's lashes sweep down when he kisses, and Fraser stares, fascinated, at the glint of pale gold, the half lidded desire beneath him that dries his mouth before he can speak.
The sweat pants hardly catch at all on the narrow hips, corded with muscle, pale. Ray isn't wearing anything underneath, so his long cock just blushes into Fraser's hand, already slick with desire even as Ray swears and clutches hard at his shoulder.
He's even hotter between his legs, the thin crease of hip and long thigh a delicate thing that makes Ray shiver at a stroke.
Fraser likes to see him undone, growling and worn. He opens as if he's born to do it, legs coming around Fraser's own, and he closes his eyes when Fraser sinks into the catching heat, everything still gilded gold, a painting, the strokes paler and more beautiful with age.
It's easy to forget about the old stillness with Ray, who's alway swearing, grasping, pushing back against Fraser like a wild thing. He thinks Ray might have charmed the Spartans, the old generals, maybe even Socrates.
When he comes, it's with a sigh, something that had been in him a long time spilling out easily, vanishing against Ray's skin, sweat and salt for Fraser to taste. Their limbs are tangled, awkward angles and skin catching. Ray leans into him, silent, a dark sweaty curl of hair at the back of his neck.
Fraser thinks that Ray was made to be framed, so he closes his eyes, heedless of where he might go, but going at last, and drags Ray deeper into his embrace.
*
end
A/N: This is a...semi-Gary Stu? Since Alcibiades is in fact my secret historical lover. Title from the Greek, "to die." Edit: someone emailed about it, so here's the expanded pretentious dick explanation from the title. You might recognize it from the epigraph that opens The Wasteland. The children ask the Sybil of Cumae, an oracle trapped into stillness, hanging in her jar, never aging, "Sybilla, ti theleis? Sybil, what do you want?," to which she replies, "Apothanein thelw. I want to die." So Ray is Fraser's death, and what a death. *g*
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Date: 2007-03-07 02:29 am (UTC)...which came out COMPLETELY wrong. But you get the idea. *g* Thanks!
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Date: 2007-03-07 09:19 am (UTC)This just makes me melt:
He thinks Ray might have charmed the Spartans, the old generals, maybe even Socrates.
Because no, Fraser was right the first time, and the stuffy old Greeks would have taken no notice of Ray, but that Fraser thinks Ray could have charmed Socrates? That says so much about Fraser. It's just...perfect. God, I love that line.
The entire piece is so gorgeously written. The imagery is just a gift to Ray-o-philes like me. :) I savored virtually every word.
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Date: 2007-03-07 04:28 pm (UTC)Ray's lashes sweep down when he kisses, and Fraser stares, fascinated, at the glint of pale gold, the half lidded desire beneath him that dries his mouth before he can speak.
Such a beautiful image!
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Date: 2007-03-09 08:46 pm (UTC)I sort of jumped ship on the actual Classics thing, but the lingering affection filters through many things - glad this worked for you. Thank you. :)
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Date: 2007-03-10 04:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-10 08:53 am (UTC)Here are 2 of my favorite moments:
"When Ray hits him, Fraser thinks, ah, betrayed. He was waiting for it all along." I am working on a vid right now that lives right there.
"The fierceness has faded from his face, not Alcibiades' eternal youth, but a worn, broken thing, a canvas of smiles and heartbreak and loneliness."
This one is still echoing around in my mind. Smooth-faced youth can't hold a candle to the true beauty of a man or woman with a face that shows the life they've lived.
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Date: 2007-03-17 04:55 am (UTC)Oh, this totally made me all fuzzy and warm and turned on and just... happy. I love this totally, mmm. Yes. Alcibades. I had fun writing Satan/Beelzebub slash (Paradise Lost fanfic) and referrencing Alcibades and Socrates in my poems, so I completely understand where you are coming from with the classical references and Love for Alcibades.
"Fraser, Jesus," he says, garbled, a boy's high nervousness and a man's desire, nothing like the smooth oratory Fraser imagined for his Greek statues.
The whole thing rings so true--but this part in partiuclar just hit the spot and made me stop, re-read and nod a lot and sigh happily.
Amazing. Amaaaaazing. *makes a big mess as she gushes all over you*
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Date: 2007-04-07 02:10 am (UTC)