ds_flashfiction | Refusal challenge by mojokid

Title: Last Wishes
Author: mojokid
Pairing: Fraser/Kowalski
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 1458
Summary: ‘Fraser, we’re both going to be dead in about five minutes. What does it matter?'

‘No? You’re saying no?’

‘Yes. I’m afraid I have to.’

‘Fraser, we’re both going to be dead in about five minutes. What does it matter? What, you got something else you want to do?’ Ray wiped his hand across his mouth and it came away bloody. He didn’t know if it was from his nose or his mouth or what.

‘Are you alright?’ Fraser said. He reached his own hand out and his fingers brushed Ray’s jaw. Found a cut on Ray’s bottom lip and pressed his thumb against it. It was a weird, tender gesture, and Ray couldn’t square it with what Fraser was saying.

‘Ow,’ he said, and wanted to cry. He didn’t want to die today. Maybe tomorrow, but probably not then, either. He didn’t want to die at all, but if he had to, he just wanted this one thing.

They both jumped at the sound of another explosion, and the beam they were crouched under rattled, raining dust down on their heads. Ray pushed Fraser’s hand away from his face and spat blood out onto the splintering floor.

‘I think I lost a tooth,’ he said, half to himself, incredulous and dizzy. Then he looked straight at Fraser. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘This whole building is rigged with explosives, we got like – we have no time here, Fraser. This is my dying wish. You tried to do it last week and I stopped you, which was stupid, and now I’m saying—fuck.’ He broke off as another explosion rocked the building, somewhere close above them, maybe the next floor up.

‘Ray, listen—’

‘Please, Fraser. Just fucking kiss me. We probably don’t have time for anything else, but we can still—’

‘I’m saying no, Ray.’

‘I’m a good kisser! I’m good at everything, I’ve been told, I can get you references—’

‘I can only imagine, Ray. But listen—’

Another blast threw Ray into Fraser’s side, and brought another beam down over them. It was kind of like a fort, Ray thought wildly, scrambling for a grip on Fraser’s arm and coughing dust out of his lungs.

‘You’re only asking me because you think you’re about to die,’ said Fraser, his voice weirdly calm in all the chaos.

‘So? So?’ Ray’s own voice was starting to crack, panic bleeding everywhere. ‘That’s a good reason! I’m about to die!’

‘You’re not.’

‘What?’

‘I’m reasonably certain that only the top five floors of the building are rigged, and with relatively low-grade explosives, so—’

‘Low-grade? The first blast threw me down the fucking stairs, Fraser, it didn’t feel very low-grade.’

‘Well, no, but the very fact that you’re alive when you were standing right next to—’

‘I don’t want to die.’

‘I don’t want you to die either, but you won’t. You were, however, briefly unconscious while I was dragging you to safety—’

‘Safety? You call this fucking safety?’

‘—so I’m fairly sure that you have a concussion, which is another reason why my answer to your request is no. No.’

It had gone quiet, just an ominous creaking in the woodwork, and the sound of sirens somewhere far away, getting closer. Ray listened to the harsh sound of his own breathing for a moment. He felt like he’d been run over by a building. Blood was still pooling in his mouth, but he could feel the gap with his tongue now, a missing tooth near the back, the gum raw and sensitive. Nothing internal. Just a tooth.

‘That’s a stupid reason to say no,’ he whispered.

‘I don’t want you to do something you might regret lat—’

The next explosion was definitely above them, bringing large chunks of the ceiling down with it. It left a ringing in Ray’s ears, his brain rattling his skull.

Fraser’s mouth was very close to Ray’s face. ‘I think that was the last one,’ he said. He was either whispering or Ray had gone deaf.

‘Fraser, seriously,’ Ray said. ‘I’ve been thinking about it all week, and – well, longer, actually, way longer, but I just didn’t know I was thinking about it until you—’

‘I think we should talk about this later.’

‘There might not be a later, that’s what I’m trying to say. I’m talking about carpe the day, Fraser, seizing the diem, I don’t want to get blown up without ever having—’

‘Ray,’ said Fraser, like he knew what was about to happen, which was another blast, from where Ray couldn’t even tell because it sent glass and concrete flying through the air and a sound kind of like a wall caving in was really loud in Ray’s ear. Then Fraser was trying to drag him away, because it was their wall, the back wall of their fort. Another, smaller blast, more like a firecracker, and Ray twisted the wrong way, saw a flash of light through a window and then something black coming at his face, thought he heard Fraser yell his name, and then nothing for a long time.

*

The sky was huge and clear and bright, and Ray was lying on his back on the sidewalk. There were voices everywhere, and a serious face looking down at him.

‘Hi, Ray,’ it said.

‘Fraser,’ he said. His voice sounded like he’d swallowed rocks. ‘Am I dead?’

‘No,’ said Fraser. ‘You’re alive.’

‘Oh.’ Ray screwed up his eyes against the light, and then Fraser moved, so he was sitting cross-legged next to Ray and blocking the sun, which was way better. ‘What happened?’

‘My estimate about the number of explosives in the building was slightly conservative,’ he said, and then he touched the back of his hand against Ray’s forehead, which was weird because it wasn’t like Ray had a fever, but whatever.

‘Oh.’ Ray flexed his hands and wiggled his toes to make sure he hadn’t lost any limbs. His back hurt, and he could tell he still had blood all over his face, a split lip, a missing tooth, probably a broken nose. ‘Are you okay?’

Fraser smiled slightly. He looked okay. Kind of dusty. ‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘But you took another significant blow to the head, which as you know, with a concussion, is about the worst—’

‘But I’m not dead.’

‘No. Not that I can see. But some medical professionals are going to have to confirm that.’

‘Okay,’ said Ray, and closed his eyes again. ‘So I’m still concussed, I guess.’

‘Almost certainly.’

‘So if I ask you to kiss me again you’ll still say no.’

‘Yes,’ said Fraser. ‘For that, and a number of other compelling reasons.’

‘Such as?’

‘Detective,’ said a tough, tired voice above him, and Ray’s eyes snapped back open.

‘Lieutenant Welsh,’ he said, suddenly feeling totally weird that he was lying in the middle of the road. He tried to sit up, but Welsh pushed him back down.

‘Just lie there for a minute, Kowalski. You got knocked out pretty good.’

Real name, and everything. He must look as bad as he felt.

Except he didn’t feel that bad, not really, having been certain he was going to die about ten minutes ago, and now discovering that he wasn’t, and that he had more time to do all kinds of things. Like drive his car around some more, and watch TV, and kiss Fraser, maybe do a whole lot more than kiss Fraser – if Fraser would let him.

It wasn’t his first brush with death and wasn’t gonna be his last, but Ray always kind of forgot how good it felt.

Welsh patted Ray’s shoulder and walked away, and Ray managed to sit up, sort of. Fraser helped. He looked across the road at the abandoned apartment block they’d been in, the top of which had caved in on itself, leaving only the lower floors standing.

‘I can’t believe you said no to me in our dying moments. You’re one of those guys who doesn’t go home with drunk girls, aren’t you?’

Fraser looked at him blankly, because, duh. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I just didn’t want it to be something you’d regret.’

‘You couldn’t have applied that logic when I said hey, Fraser, let’s check out this abandoned building?’

‘In retrospect, that would have been more helpful, yes.’

Ray licked his lips, winced. ‘My head hurts,’ he said.

Fraser looked very serious. ‘An ambulance is coming,’ he said.

‘So if I ask you later,’ Ray said. ‘When my pupils are the same size and everything.’

‘Yes,’ said Fraser.

‘And maybe like, if we’re in a building that isn’t exploding. Like my apartment, which never explodes.’

‘Yes.’

‘Will you say yes?’

Ray held his breath.

Fraser’s eyes were big and clear. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes.’