Ways to Fall
by Livia
04/09/99

There was this special kind of snow, when Ray was a kid. Or maybe not. 
Maybe the snow then was just like snow now-- bitter stinging grains of 
ice that infiltrate the spaces between coat and skin with a precision 
that suggests an almost malevolent intelligence. Maybe.

But back when Ray was a kid, snow seemed to come in big blurry lacy
flakes that didn't fall so much as drift, swirl and tumble down out of 
the sky. It was the kind of snow you could catch on your tongue, and as 
a child Ray always thought it might taste sweet. Like sugar.

But you can't catch snowflakes, not really. And when you grow up 
nothing's ever as sweet as you expect, and Fraser... Fraser is gone.

Time passes. Ray lies defiantly in bed. He's just fucking going to stay 
here. World's not gonna come to an end if Stanley Ray Kowalski takes a 
pass on throwing himself on fists, on bullets, on broken glass today. 

He lies in bed. He does the math. From the day he first kissed Stella, 
to the day she put her ring on the kitchen table and walked out was 
twenty-two years, eight months, and seventeen days. It's been just 
nineteen short days since Ray kissed Fraser for the first time-- two 
weeks and change. And now it's over. 

Four hundred fifty-something hours. He's worked cases that have lasted 
longer than that. He's had colds that lasted longer than that.

Nineteen days. Oh, nineteen nights. And it's over.

He gets up eventually. Gets the coffeemaker going, turns the radio on to 
kill the silence. Surfs the stations till he hears Tori Amos doing her 
thing, crying out loud for everyone's sins. 

why do we
crucify ourselves

why do we
crucify ourselves

The song's almost over but Ray stands there and listens anyway. She 
sounds like he feels. 

why-- 
do-- 
we--

Oh boy does she sound like he feels... Ray rubs a hand across his 
stubbled, dry face and heads for the shower, 'cause unlike Fraser he 
fucking looks it the next day when he gets no sleep, so there. 

You can't catch snowflakes, he reminds himself. You can't catch 
snowflakes, though as a child Ray tried till his hands stung and burned 
cold. Snowflakes melt and disappear and all you ever get is ice water on 
your face. 

Fraser was like that. He'd talk at night sometimes. His words would 
spill slow across the white expanse of rumpled sheets like snowflakes 
over a windswept field. Untouchable, untastable, all French or Inuit. 
Never English, so Ray never got a word of it.

Sometimes he heard his name. It almost didn't sound like his, not with 
the accent on it, the way Fraser's voice slides when he's speaking 
French. Maybe it is the language of love like they say. Ray never really 
had a thing for French girls, but if they all talk like that-- oh, yeah. 
A guy could fall for that. Fall hard.

Even if he was never there for breakfast. 

Ray couldn't ask for that, either. 

---

The first night Ray woke up and Fraser was talking French he almost 
rolled over and kissed that clever mouth. But something about Fraser's 
tone made him lie low and listen. He doesn't parlay-vous Francais, 
but he could still tell the Mountie wasn't reciting the Mountie 
handbook, or rehearsing a lecture on the proper way to gut a caribou. 
There was emotion in his voice. Urgency. Not worry, but a sense of 
importance. Like it was important for Ray to understand.

Which is kind of a dumb interpretation, Ray knows, considering Fraser 
was yammering on in French which he knows Ray doesn't speak, not to 
mention he was supposed to be asleep. But maybe there's some things, 
hard to say maybe, that Fraser could only tell him in foreign lingo in 
the middle of the night. Maybe. 

And hell, Ray could understand that. 'Cause there's stuff he wanted to 
say but didn't, stuff he wanted to know but never asked. Like why Fraser 
was always so quiet. Does he think making noise during is undignified or 
some shit? Or is it Ray, is he not good? It could be. Not like he had 
experience with guys.

He wishes Fraser would say something, because Ray can't ask. He knows 
it's goddamn unfair to the Mountie-- case in point, he'd been fucking 
him for three weeks before he finally had the balls to give Fraser head. 
He made himself do it, driven half by curiosity and half by a nagging 
sense of fair play; Fraser'd go down on him at the drop of a Stetson, 
and it didn't feel kosher to always be taking. And it was... It wasn't 
bad. Fraser fucking loved it, that was for sure. Or at least he seemed 
to. He'd take it when Ray offered happily enough, but he never 
asked...

Still, a lot of the old lines are still there, dark and unerasable. And 
even if he truly, cross-my-heart wants the answer-- there's no way in 
hell the phrase 'Fraser, am I good at sucking cock' is gonna cross Ray 
Kowalski's lips. Not any time soon. 

The actions came a hell of a lot easier than the words. In truth, they 
always have. Ray knows himself. Knows if he had managed to say 
something, it'd probably have come out something like-- hey, why 
doncha fucking moan once in a while, ferChrissake. Lemme know I'm not
alone in the goddamn bed fer fuck's sake. 

Even if he could say that, he wouldn't. Who is he to make the Mountie 
self-conscious? Why make him think Ray's comparing him to other lovers? 
'Cause he isn't. There's no one like Fraser, man or woman, in or out of 
bed. 

Sometimes Ray wants to ask him about his other lovers-- who they were, 
what they were like. If there were any guys. There probably were; Fraser 
seemed to know what he was doing the first time they tumbled. But then 
again, it's Fraser. Super Mountie. He always knows what he's doing.

All this worrying about words is moot, anyway, Ray figures as he walks 
out the door. He managed to fuck it all up without any at all.

---

He promises himself he'll get over it. He'll get over it because there's 
no other fucking alternative-- Ray is not going to stalk Fraser. Frase 
deserves better than that. Mountie wants it over, then it's over. 
Finito. The fat lady has sung, so just deal with it. When he goes for 
lunch at noon he even leaves the GTO's car radio off. Because he's not 
going to go. He's just not going to go there. 

But he's not hungry so he just drives, he's not hungry but he's empty, 
empty deep inside, and then he's parked at the edge of a lot full of 
Christmas trees and he's getting out of the car. The sound of his boots 
crunches through the grainy snow in the gutter like the rough broken 
beats of his heart, and he is going. He's going to do it. He's going to 
stand on the goddamn corner and stare at the Consulate, stare at 
Fraser's window for who knows how long, until his ears freeze and his 
nose runs and the cold is squeezing cruelly at his bladder but fuck it, 
he's going to stand there till--

"Andy, out of the way!" There's a brunette in a camel coat blocking the 
sidewalk, trying to single-handedly drag an eight-foot Christmas tree 
over to a rusty station wagon without crushing any of what looks like 
about nine kids, none as tall as a yardstick. "Cammie, watch out for 
your brother, please!" 

The kids are bundled up in what looks like an entire Goodwill's worth of 
riotously colored earmuffs and mittens and scarves and boots. The mom is 
small like the kids, with a bright green scarf failing to restrain all 
of her windblown hair. The Christmas tree is perfect, huge and round and 
full, and entirely uncooperative. Momma looks like she's losing a fight 
with a big green grizzly bear.

Ray steps in, grabs the trunk to steady it. "Hey there. You, uh, need a 
hand?" 

She stops, clutching the tree, nostrils flared with effort. She has dark 
brown eyes and a few wet pine needles stuck to her cheek. Apparently Ray 
doesn't set off any of her Mom Alarms, 'cause she flashes him a warm 
smile. "Sure."

"'Kay." Ray bends his knees, clutches at a few good-sized branches near 
the base, and the woman readjusts her grip. They lift together, and she 
leads him, walking backwards, to the station wagon, the kids jumping up 
and down and chattering, each one running in its own elliptical orbit 
around the tree like small, warmly dressed asteroids. 

Ray and the brown-eyed lady set the tree down next to the car, and 
breathe. The lady digs the car keys out of her pocket, and a small voice 
announces, "Momma I'm cold!" 

"Then get in the car, hon." Momma says tolerantly, opening the door. 

"Momma can we have hot chocolate?" The group of what turns out to be 
only three kids scrambles into the front seat with much pushing and 
scrambling and excitement-- "I get to do the star!" and falling over 
each other like puppies. "Momma, Harry's pushing me!" 

Ray laughs, and looks back at Momma, who's unlocking the back of the 
station wagon. "Cute kids."

"They're a handful." she grins. "A couple handfuls."

As they drag the tree around to the back, Ray barely avoids stepping on 
one more kid, smaller than the others. The littlest little one has two 
brown ponytails, a purple raincoat and big eyes. She hangs onto Momma's 
coat as Momma and Ray wrestle the tree into the back as far as it will 
go, then tie it in securely with brown twine. 

"That should do it." Ray brushes a hand across his forehead, sweating 
slightly even in the chill.

"Yeah." Momma offers Ray her hand. "Thanks. I really appreciate it, ya 
know?"

"No problem." Ray smiles. If Momma wasn't wearing gloves, he'd be 
checking for a ring. She knows he's looking, and she's not giving him 
the cold shoulder, either. Sure, she's probably married-- but everybody 
likes to know they've still got it. He holds onto her hand just a little 
longer, then feels a tug on his jeans and looks down. 

The littlest one tilts up her cherub face and says something, but Ray 
can't hear her little voice over the traffic and her siblings' muffled 
shouts. He goes down on one knee, looking her in the eye. "What was that 
there, honey?"

"I saw Santa's house." Littlest informs him in a delighted whisper.

"Oh, wow." Ray raises his eyebrows and grins. Yeah, that sounds like a 
day in the city. Sit on Santa's lap, then get a tree. "The real Mr. 
Santa Claus, huh?" he continues, then hears a burst of stifled laughter. 
He glances up at Momma, who's trying to hide her grin behind her 
mittens. She beckons Ray, who stands again.

Momma puts a gloved hand on his shoulder and leans in close over 
Littlest's head. She smells like woman-sweat, and wet, fresh pine tree. 
Nice. Festive. Sexy. "Hey, I don't have the time or the inclination to
shlep four kids through Macy's toy department, y'know?" Ray nods, and 
Momma continues. "But we came past-- I guess it's the Canadian Embassy, 
or somethin'?" She gestures down the street with her chin. "And Sherri 
saw a Mountie." A burst of giggles warm Ray's frozen ear, and then Momma 
continues, familiar delight creeping into her voice. "In the red coat-- 
and now she thinks she saw Santa's house." 

"Oh," says Ray, and manages to paste a smile on his face before Momma 
pulls back, grinning. "That's... that's cute." And it is. It's cute. He 
even laughs-- and almost, almost doesn't stumble when he steps back up 
onto the curb. "Well-- Merry Christmas."

"Yeah! Thanks again!" She waves, tossing her head a little as he backs 
away. "Merry Christmas to you too!"

Ray is walking blindly now. It's a sign, is what it is.

He's fucking doomed.

[end]