The longer version was to go on from there, with their courtship, and Ray wanting to court Fraser, because Fraser deserved it, and just because Ray hadn't been on board at first and was still a little iffy about the whole range of sexual behavior thing didn't mean that he wasn't going to treat Fraser right. So he takes him out for steak on their first date, and then buys him special fancy tea to keep at Ray's apartment, and a book, and so on. He basically charms the shit out of Fraser, and they slowly ramp up the level of sexual involvement until eventually they're Really Doing It. And on the night that they finally cross some specific sexual threshold that Ray feels is The Totally Queer Line (and I hadn't worked out exactly what that would be), after they fall asleep Ray has a dream about exactly what happened to both him and Fraser in the alternate time line. So the story bookends with the Bad Time Line. Ray had a rookie detective partner and wasn't careful enough because he was used to Fraser watching his back and had gotten careless besides. The rookie makes a mistake, doesn't anticipate something that Ray thought she would, and he gets shot and dies. A few years later, Fraser basically commits suicide out of grief and guilt by not being careful enough out in the trackless wilds, getting caught in a storm and freezing to death.

I think the bookending would make a more complete story, but the second part was almost completely without conflict. I would have had to try to generate conflict via Ray's discomfort with the sex, but at the earlier part he's not really that uncomfortable, and I don't see how this Ray would be that uncomfortable. So it would have been difficult and flabby and pointless, with some nice moments of schmoop and a "aren't we glad that didn't happen" angst-lite ending. I decided I'd be better off spending time working on the longer due south story I've been working on for a while. Also, I think this story is still a little undercooked, so I just decided that I was throwing good words after bad, and I wasn't willing to spend the time on it to make it at least twice as long when the first part just didn't quite gel the way I wanted it to. There were enough good phrases and a few whole paragraphs that I liked enough to convince me to post it, but it seemed like making it longer was only going to make the existing problems worse, and I was too lazy to spend weeks and weeks really fixing it.

I'm really pleased that you enjoyed it, especially since I had my reservations at first about it. I've been meaning to drop you a comment because I recently came across a bunch of your stories and really enjoyed them a lot, enough that I marked them on my fic rec del.ic.ious. So I'm even more pleased than usual to hear that a story of mine provided some enjoyment. Thanks for the kind words!