Marking
Author: wanderingsmith
feb 2, 2015
Summary: It didn't occur to him in the
depth of January that it was becoming too much.
Rating: UST
Disclaimer: I ain't got no money, and nobody'd
be daft enough to pay me for this. As it is thought,
so let it be said; you make the toys, I play with
'em..
AN: This was written god only knows when.
Probably around 6 years ago... just found, looking
quite complete enough for me, albeit UST. And since
this year's resolution was 'Post what is complete'..
well. here you are. ..any of you that still are
around reading DS fic :)
Fraser threw himself off the edge of the roof, seeing
the dark glisten of ice where his boots were about to
land and automatically loosening and tightening muscles
to control the anticipated skid. He could hear Ray
running flat out in the alley below, shouting
imprecations at their prey. Saw the young man ahead of
him suddenly trip, and calmly shouted "Ray", knowing
without needing to think that his partner would know to
come up the fire escape to Mirandize another apprehended
miscreant.
####
No, it wasn't until the dog end of March, wet and
bone-chilly, dessicated grey hillocks a parody of snow,
that he found himself laying on his cot and fighting a
morass of grimness.
There was no point even thinking; paperwork or
statue-duty hardly made a difference. Fraser'd take
whichever Turnbull didn't.
Diefenbaker whined and he finally made himself rise,
still wondering faintly if this was all his life had
become.
####
It took another day and the whiff of scent trailing a
passing tourist to wake a sudden aching craving in his
body.
Not for the oily junk food, but for his partner.
He'd been aware, at some level, that missing Ray had to
be part of the darkness swallowing him, but the descent
into deathly mental silence had happened so quickly that
he'd had precious little time to reason.
Now that he'd become aware, though, he found the growing
hollow within him calling for the presence of his
friend. For warmth and teasing, energy forcing his own
to respond, and that flashing mind drawing his joyfully
entranced attention.
All keeping away the emptiness that was his life outside
of Ray's circle of effect.
Ray had only been gone a week; the anti-terrorism
training he was attending was scheduled to last another
week.
Another week... Fraser wasn't by nature melodramatic,
but during this year with Stanley Raymond Kowalski, he'd
found himself relaxing the tight control he hadn't
really been aware he'd always kept on himself. Enough
that he could feel self-pity attempting to take a
foothold in him, now.
He knew very well a week would be no more than a few
days of loneliness; but there was an unpleasant hollow
in his belly, a faint whisper plaintively saying that
whenever he cared about people, they always left. Ray
owed him no promise, nor would such actually keep him
safe and always at Fraser's side.
He was a strange stranger in an essentially hostile
land. The years of his life were rolling faster every
month that felt like a week when he thought back on it.
The RCMP had shown no sign of forgiving him in almost 3
years. He had only casual acquaintances and co-workers.
The Territories were terribly far away, and closed to
him for all but short visits.
All but one thing in his life was shallow and distant;
his partner, his *friend*, was the only close bond he
had.
And he had to wonder, discovering he'd built up an ever
more detailed image of Ray in his mind's eyes, how the
peace and unspoiled nature of his home would bear up
against being the focus of Ray's enthusiasm; and caring.
Dismissing the disconcerting thought of that dilemma for
a day when it was germane, he concentrated on the wiry
pollack dancing and laughing in his mind. Spinning in
place and gesticulating, his clothing changing every few
seconds as though Fraser were replaying and engraving
every single memory he had. Humour morphed to that
serious expression that made Fraser's heart lift, eager
to hear what sobering thought that quicksilver mind had
assembled from seemingly incomprehensible data. Sadness,
exhaustion; anger even. They were all part of the man
who gave Fraser's life meaning.
Feeling faintly guilty for not only having the thought,
but having it on duty and while representing Canada to
the passersby, Fraser made sure to use some of that
wandering control when the mental slideshow stopped on a
rare sight of Ray without a shirt. No doubt gleaned from
a few occasions where they had had to change after duty
made an unacceptable mess of their apparel. He forced
his attention to skim past the chest, wiry strength and
a sprinkling of almost invisible hair a pale colour that
could be whitened brown or an actual variation on
non-artificial blond. Past arms he'd felt the power of,
lifting him after falls, the skin looking smooth and
beautiful.
Instead, he allowed himself to gather every memory of
that strange tattoo. Curved and waved, and perhaps even
a little stretched, by the muscles over which it had
long ago been laid; the colours faded slightly. A mark
on his body which Ray had chosen; perhaps as a salute to
his love of cars, or even to his father, who taught it
to him. As such, a part of his mind as much as of his
physical self.
He imagined tracing it with a gentle finger; knowing
there would be nothing to feel, regardless of the
messages his mind received.
Too late, Fraser pulled his thoughts back and
deliberately clothed the man smiling serenely among his
invasive thoughts. Pulling himself back with sharp
self-recriminations. Not that that kept the memory from
replaying. In half an hour, when he got off duty, he
would rub his index fingertip against his thumb,
foolishly trying to remember the touch.
Suddenly the vision of that fingertip, resting in the
curves of the 'C' to Champion, filled his mind; isolated
and rotated and zoomed, the whorled skin of his finger
on the now-transparent ink-infused skin.
And another fingerprint replaced it, in office ink,
smudged from imprecise application on the back of a
stained requisition form.
Out of his complete confusion that day, wondering if he
was mad or if there could possibly be such a vast
conspiracy, let along set against *him*, he'd kept
copies of all his 'proof' before he'd gone to see
Lieutenant Welsh. Somehow, he still had them. Could see
them resting in that innocuous, worn, leather pouch in
his bottom left desk drawer.
No matter how intimate he were allowed, he could never
touch Ray as deeply as the man had done him that very
first day. From that first smile and hug of welcome, to
stepping in front of a gun for him, the unwilling
attraction had only made Fraser's confusion that much
more agonizing. Bad enough to lose his friend, but to
have to suspect this new Ray who touched him so easily
and deeply... No, it had not been a good day.
But there had been many good days since then, and though
he trusted his memory, still, perhaps a more concrete
link would help soothe the oft-abandoned child in him.
That fingerprint, hearkening to their meeting, to the
fingers that made it briefly touching Fraser's neck
during that hug, and a symbol of Ray's mark on his life,
his heart, his very soul.
Not on his arm, no, that would be entirely unbefitting
such an ethereal, idealistic dedication. No, there could
be only one proper placement -seeing as on his forehead,
to represent his soul, was socially unacceptable-. His
chest, over his heart, on the other hand, was entirely
private. The few people who might see him bare-chested
long enough to notice the rough half-inch of inked
ridges on his admittedly pale skin would either not
care, or be worthy of the truth. ..Couched in some form
or other.
Already Fraser could feel the gloom lifting with that
token of the anchor in his life filling his thoughts. A
week was no time at all. Soon Ray would return. Warmth
and energy would return to his life. Challenge and
reassurance, arguments and someone who touched him with
care and who accepted his touch in return.
And after tonight, he would only need touch his
breastbone to be reminded of the mark Ray had left him.
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