GoTR Challenge by Alex51324
Jun. 9th, 2008 02:05 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
alex51324.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
ds_flashfictionTitle: On the Seizing of a Low Moment
Author: Alex51324
Pairing: F/K
Rating: PG-13, language
Length: about 1700 words
Summary: Following the events of “Bounty Hunter,” Fraser’s forces are at a low ebb.
Author: Alex51324
Pairing: F/K
Rating: PG-13, language
Length: about 1700 words
Summary: Following the events of “Bounty Hunter,” Fraser’s forces are at a low ebb.
**
“So, uh, you wanna get something to eat, or what?” Ray’s insides were kind of twisting around with shame, or--well, or something--over how relieved he was to see the back of Janet Morse. Because she was--face it--pretty much perfect for Fraser. Except for the ex-husband, but what the hell, Fraser had an ex he wasn’t exactly proud of, either. Fraser could’ve gone off to Montana to rope dogies or whatever they did for fun there, and had an instant family--sure, the kids were brats, but maybe that had something to do with how they were living in a truck and more or less raising themselves while their mom traced skips. Give them a little stability, they might settle down and act human. That’s how Fraser would see it, anyway. The kids needed stability, and he was as stable as--as something really stable.
Only problem with that happy ending was that it would leave him standing there in the dust, watching them go.
That always bugged him, about movies. The main guy always had a buddy, but at the end of the movie, the main guy hooked up with the main girl, and buddy was left there with his dick in his hand. Sometimes there was a quirky girl for the buddy--and in this particular case, both the main guy and the main girl were pretty quirky themselves--but most of the time, the best friend got the shaft. He’d always kind of wished sometimes the main guy would say, “Sorry, but I have this friend, and we’ve got stuff to do, so I’ll see you when I see you, okay?”
Only this time that had sort of happened, and he didn’t like it, because Fraser looked just gutted. Hollowed out, sitting there in the passenger seat like he didn’t know what was supposed to happen next.
“What, Ray,” he said now, picking up his head a little, sounding like he didn’t even have the energy to make it a real question.
“I said--”
“I heard. I meant--I’m not very hungry.” He rubbed his forehead. “I want to go home,” he said, almost inaudibly.
“Okay. Okay, uh, maybe we’ll go back to the Consulate, get some delivery, have a nice wallow?” He didn’t like the idea of leaving Fraser all by himself in that big empty place.
He said something, even quieter, that might have been, “Not the Consulate,” or maybe, “Hate the Consulate.”
“Okay.” Where, then? Canada, he had to mean Canada, except, “I don’t think we can make it across the border and be back in time for work in the morning.” Maybe this was it, then. Maybe Fraser was going to tell the RCMP to go fuck themselves--something he probably ought to have done a long time ago--and get back to the big white empty where he belonged.
“I meant--I don’t know what I meant.” He stared bleakly out the window. “My--” He laughed bitterly. “My forces are at a low ebb.”
“Yeah? What’s that mean?” But as soon as he asked, Ray figured he knew. After Stella left, his forces had been pretty much stuck at low tide for months, stinking of dead fish. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”
Fraser glanced over at him. “I expect you do.”
He started driving towards his place. It wasn’t Fraser’s home--he wasn’t even sure it was really his--but it was all they had, so that’s where he went. “It ain’t right. Guy like Torrance, he’s basically a waste of skin, right? But he’s got a family--kids, ex-wife who can stand to look at him--and two upstanding guys like us, bupkis. We’ve got a wolf and a turtle, and sometimes I think the turtle would rather be somewhere else.”
“Oh, I think your turtle is very loyal, Ray.”
“Maybe. But, my point is, there is no justice to, to this kind of stuff. People don’t get what they deserve.”
Fraser didn’t say anything, and Ray wondered if maybe he’d somehow made things worse--a move that would not exactly be completely unprecedented, but after a while he said, “That’s certainly true.”
#
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” He really should make the effort to be a better guest, Fraser scolded himself. Ray had taken him to his apartment and ordered pizza, and so far, Fraser had repaid his hospitality by sitting on the sofa staring vaguely at the coffee table. So far, he’d responded to everything Ray had said with either, “Hm,” or “That sounds fine.”
“I said, if you were that crazy about her, why did you go making excuses for her husband?” Ray pressed a cold beer into his hand; he took a polite sip and put it on the coffee table.
“It isn’t her, really. I mean, she lied to us from the beginning.” That was something of a pattern, with him and women. “Just--the road not taken.”
“Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I get that.” Ray had left his jacket and boots by the door when they came inside, and now he propped his bare feet up on the table, pushing aside some of the books and papers piled there with his calves.
Maybe Dad had been right, about the foundation. He had nothing with that woman--he’d never even seen her bare feet. In her undershirt, yes. Bare feet, no. Most likely he’d been seduced by the thought of a cabin by a waterfall, and a companion who could ride and shoot and track, and--well. His imagination had gotten the better of him, that was all.
The thing was, his mother had been a wonderful woman, but she and his father had led almost entirely separate lives. Dad had spent more time with Buck Frobisher than with his own wife and son--even before Mom had died--and more time with his dog team than with Buck, for that matter. He didn’t want that for himself. As a boy, he’d made up his mind never to marry, seeing no way to follow his father’s footsteps into the RCMP without also abandoning his family. Later, he’d seen that other men managed to be good policemen and decent husbands and fathers at the same time, but he wasn’t sure exactly how.
A woman like Janet Morse, though--her very existence suggested a way of cutting the Gordian knot. A fellow officer of the law--sort of--she could have been--in slightly different circumstance--a helpmeet. Someone he could share the struggles of the day with.
A partner.
There was a knock at the door, and Ray got up to answer it. Dief, with his unerring instinct for the imminence of pizza, jumped up into the spot Ray had just vacated. “Nice try,” Fraser said, pointing at the floor. In response, Dief panted happily in his face.
Ray, carrying two boxes, started back toward the sofa, but when he saw Dief, made a detour into the kitchen for the old plate he used as a dog dish when Dief was visiting. He put two pizza slices on it and set it on the floor. “Yours is over here, buddy.”
Dief considered his options for a moment, then hopped down and made for his plate.
Fraser sat up and made himself useful clearing a space for the pizza boxes on the coffee table. Once he had a slice in his hand, he was mildly surprised to realize that he was ravenous. Perhaps a great deal of what he’d taken for existential angst was merely low blood sugar. He polished off two slices nearly as quickly as Diefenbaker, before settling back to eat a third more slowly.
“--can’t believe I let those kids lock me up in my own handcuffs. I’ve been in that room with real, you know, real dangerous guys. And three dumb kids get the jump on me.”
“Well, I imagine you’d be more on your guard with actual criminals,” Fraser pointed out.
“True that. Yeah, I guess not being around kids much, I forget what little sneaks they can be.”
Fraser nodded. “They do seem to be an unusually, ah, challenging group of children. And Turnbull found himself in a similar predicament--he was actually tied up in Inspector Thatcher’s office all night--”
“Yeah, comparing me to Turnbull, not exactly comforting, there, Fraser.”
Fraser considered that. “Understood. But Constable Turnbull does have certain--” Exactly what it was that Turnbull had fled from his mind as Ray licked at a stray drop of pizza sauce that had become stuck to his lip. Failing to dislodge the sauce with his tongue, he swiped at it with his thumb, then licked at his thumb. Time seemed to dilate as he stared at Ray’s mouth, and certain thoughts fell into place with the inevitability of the tumblers of a picked lock.
What he wanted in a--well, a partner--was a partner.
And he already had a partner.
He might never have to chose between his work and his family, if they were one and the same, if Ray was--
“Fraser?”
“Yes. I--you were saying?” Blinking rapidly, he attempted to pull himself together.
“Is, uh--” Ray was staring at him with a certain heavy-lidded fixity. “Is it just me, or did we kinda have a moment, right there?”
“Yes. Ah--” Moment, what did he mean by moment? Had he noticed? “Do you, ah--”
“Wanna have another one?”
“Yes.”
They fell toward each other, half-eaten pizza slices tumbling into his lap, and Ray’s mouth tasted of tomatoes and garlic and oregano, and his tongue--
Fraser had been kissed, now, twice in one day, which was really quite remarkable given his previous statistics in that area, but this was Ray, Ray who didn’t need to be told that he could trust him, and vice-versa, definitely, Ray hadn’t lied to him since that first day, and even then, he’d thought that Fraser already knew, so--
Ray pulled back slightly, keeping their foreheads pressed together. “Your, uh, forces?”
He barely had to consider for a moment before answering, “Much improved.”
“Thought so,” Ray said, before falling on his mouth again.
And maybe Ray was right, that there was no natural justice when it came to the human heart, but maybe--maybe--they could make some.
Justice was, after all, their duty.
“So, uh, you wanna get something to eat, or what?” Ray’s insides were kind of twisting around with shame, or--well, or something--over how relieved he was to see the back of Janet Morse. Because she was--face it--pretty much perfect for Fraser. Except for the ex-husband, but what the hell, Fraser had an ex he wasn’t exactly proud of, either. Fraser could’ve gone off to Montana to rope dogies or whatever they did for fun there, and had an instant family--sure, the kids were brats, but maybe that had something to do with how they were living in a truck and more or less raising themselves while their mom traced skips. Give them a little stability, they might settle down and act human. That’s how Fraser would see it, anyway. The kids needed stability, and he was as stable as--as something really stable.
Only problem with that happy ending was that it would leave him standing there in the dust, watching them go.
That always bugged him, about movies. The main guy always had a buddy, but at the end of the movie, the main guy hooked up with the main girl, and buddy was left there with his dick in his hand. Sometimes there was a quirky girl for the buddy--and in this particular case, both the main guy and the main girl were pretty quirky themselves--but most of the time, the best friend got the shaft. He’d always kind of wished sometimes the main guy would say, “Sorry, but I have this friend, and we’ve got stuff to do, so I’ll see you when I see you, okay?”
Only this time that had sort of happened, and he didn’t like it, because Fraser looked just gutted. Hollowed out, sitting there in the passenger seat like he didn’t know what was supposed to happen next.
“What, Ray,” he said now, picking up his head a little, sounding like he didn’t even have the energy to make it a real question.
“I said--”
“I heard. I meant--I’m not very hungry.” He rubbed his forehead. “I want to go home,” he said, almost inaudibly.
“Okay. Okay, uh, maybe we’ll go back to the Consulate, get some delivery, have a nice wallow?” He didn’t like the idea of leaving Fraser all by himself in that big empty place.
He said something, even quieter, that might have been, “Not the Consulate,” or maybe, “Hate the Consulate.”
“Okay.” Where, then? Canada, he had to mean Canada, except, “I don’t think we can make it across the border and be back in time for work in the morning.” Maybe this was it, then. Maybe Fraser was going to tell the RCMP to go fuck themselves--something he probably ought to have done a long time ago--and get back to the big white empty where he belonged.
“I meant--I don’t know what I meant.” He stared bleakly out the window. “My--” He laughed bitterly. “My forces are at a low ebb.”
“Yeah? What’s that mean?” But as soon as he asked, Ray figured he knew. After Stella left, his forces had been pretty much stuck at low tide for months, stinking of dead fish. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”
Fraser glanced over at him. “I expect you do.”
He started driving towards his place. It wasn’t Fraser’s home--he wasn’t even sure it was really his--but it was all they had, so that’s where he went. “It ain’t right. Guy like Torrance, he’s basically a waste of skin, right? But he’s got a family--kids, ex-wife who can stand to look at him--and two upstanding guys like us, bupkis. We’ve got a wolf and a turtle, and sometimes I think the turtle would rather be somewhere else.”
“Oh, I think your turtle is very loyal, Ray.”
“Maybe. But, my point is, there is no justice to, to this kind of stuff. People don’t get what they deserve.”
Fraser didn’t say anything, and Ray wondered if maybe he’d somehow made things worse--a move that would not exactly be completely unprecedented, but after a while he said, “That’s certainly true.”
#
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” He really should make the effort to be a better guest, Fraser scolded himself. Ray had taken him to his apartment and ordered pizza, and so far, Fraser had repaid his hospitality by sitting on the sofa staring vaguely at the coffee table. So far, he’d responded to everything Ray had said with either, “Hm,” or “That sounds fine.”
“I said, if you were that crazy about her, why did you go making excuses for her husband?” Ray pressed a cold beer into his hand; he took a polite sip and put it on the coffee table.
“It isn’t her, really. I mean, she lied to us from the beginning.” That was something of a pattern, with him and women. “Just--the road not taken.”
“Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I get that.” Ray had left his jacket and boots by the door when they came inside, and now he propped his bare feet up on the table, pushing aside some of the books and papers piled there with his calves.
Maybe Dad had been right, about the foundation. He had nothing with that woman--he’d never even seen her bare feet. In her undershirt, yes. Bare feet, no. Most likely he’d been seduced by the thought of a cabin by a waterfall, and a companion who could ride and shoot and track, and--well. His imagination had gotten the better of him, that was all.
The thing was, his mother had been a wonderful woman, but she and his father had led almost entirely separate lives. Dad had spent more time with Buck Frobisher than with his own wife and son--even before Mom had died--and more time with his dog team than with Buck, for that matter. He didn’t want that for himself. As a boy, he’d made up his mind never to marry, seeing no way to follow his father’s footsteps into the RCMP without also abandoning his family. Later, he’d seen that other men managed to be good policemen and decent husbands and fathers at the same time, but he wasn’t sure exactly how.
A woman like Janet Morse, though--her very existence suggested a way of cutting the Gordian knot. A fellow officer of the law--sort of--she could have been--in slightly different circumstance--a helpmeet. Someone he could share the struggles of the day with.
A partner.
There was a knock at the door, and Ray got up to answer it. Dief, with his unerring instinct for the imminence of pizza, jumped up into the spot Ray had just vacated. “Nice try,” Fraser said, pointing at the floor. In response, Dief panted happily in his face.
Ray, carrying two boxes, started back toward the sofa, but when he saw Dief, made a detour into the kitchen for the old plate he used as a dog dish when Dief was visiting. He put two pizza slices on it and set it on the floor. “Yours is over here, buddy.”
Dief considered his options for a moment, then hopped down and made for his plate.
Fraser sat up and made himself useful clearing a space for the pizza boxes on the coffee table. Once he had a slice in his hand, he was mildly surprised to realize that he was ravenous. Perhaps a great deal of what he’d taken for existential angst was merely low blood sugar. He polished off two slices nearly as quickly as Diefenbaker, before settling back to eat a third more slowly.
“--can’t believe I let those kids lock me up in my own handcuffs. I’ve been in that room with real, you know, real dangerous guys. And three dumb kids get the jump on me.”
“Well, I imagine you’d be more on your guard with actual criminals,” Fraser pointed out.
“True that. Yeah, I guess not being around kids much, I forget what little sneaks they can be.”
Fraser nodded. “They do seem to be an unusually, ah, challenging group of children. And Turnbull found himself in a similar predicament--he was actually tied up in Inspector Thatcher’s office all night--”
“Yeah, comparing me to Turnbull, not exactly comforting, there, Fraser.”
Fraser considered that. “Understood. But Constable Turnbull does have certain--” Exactly what it was that Turnbull had fled from his mind as Ray licked at a stray drop of pizza sauce that had become stuck to his lip. Failing to dislodge the sauce with his tongue, he swiped at it with his thumb, then licked at his thumb. Time seemed to dilate as he stared at Ray’s mouth, and certain thoughts fell into place with the inevitability of the tumblers of a picked lock.
What he wanted in a--well, a partner--was a partner.
And he already had a partner.
He might never have to chose between his work and his family, if they were one and the same, if Ray was--
“Fraser?”
“Yes. I--you were saying?” Blinking rapidly, he attempted to pull himself together.
“Is, uh--” Ray was staring at him with a certain heavy-lidded fixity. “Is it just me, or did we kinda have a moment, right there?”
“Yes. Ah--” Moment, what did he mean by moment? Had he noticed? “Do you, ah--”
“Wanna have another one?”
“Yes.”
They fell toward each other, half-eaten pizza slices tumbling into his lap, and Ray’s mouth tasted of tomatoes and garlic and oregano, and his tongue--
Fraser had been kissed, now, twice in one day, which was really quite remarkable given his previous statistics in that area, but this was Ray, Ray who didn’t need to be told that he could trust him, and vice-versa, definitely, Ray hadn’t lied to him since that first day, and even then, he’d thought that Fraser already knew, so--
Ray pulled back slightly, keeping their foreheads pressed together. “Your, uh, forces?”
He barely had to consider for a moment before answering, “Much improved.”
“Thought so,” Ray said, before falling on his mouth again.
And maybe Ray was right, that there was no natural justice when it came to the human heart, but maybe--maybe--they could make some.
Justice was, after all, their duty.
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Date: 2010-07-07 12:53 am (UTC)Perhaps a great deal of what he’d taken for existential angst was merely low blood sugar.
are wonderfully amusing but also so very much what I see going on in Fraser's mind: he has that terribly practical streak all mixed up with a ludicrously romantic one :) I also loved the way this could have been incredibly overwritten, and yet at every point you pull back from that: they have open, honest, very adult conversation; Fraser's depressed but doesn't fetishize this woman he really doesn't know very well (a lesson finally learnt from the Victoria debacle); Ray's a little self-deprecating and a lot concerned, but very believable. An elegant little piece.