by lamardeuse
A short ficlet for Sprat based on an icon by Zoetrope.
“Don’t.”
Leaning as he was, his arms stiff at his sides, his body as tense as
a steel bridge cable, he nearly loses his balance at the short syllable,
nearly topples into Fraser like—like the biggest dick in the history of
the world. At the last moment he shoves his left foot forward a couple
of inches, a dancing move made on instinct, just enough to keep him upright.
But inside he’s still falling, falling, and Christ, why did he ever think
he and Fraser were on the same page about this, how could he have been
so fucking stupid, he’s gone from fucking up with women to guys and now
the only thing left is barnyard animals and he really doesn’t want
to go there—
“Ray. Ray. Ray.”
“What. What. What.” And it takes the third what before he clues
in that Fraser’s still close, that Fraser hasn’t pulled away from him,
because he can feel the puff of breath from his words bouncing back against
his face, which means they’re rebounding off some part of Fraser, which
he would know if he—
“Open your eyes.”
Ray opens his eyes and Fraser is standing there in the half-dark of Ray’s
apartment, his pupils huge and wary like a cornered wolf’s.
“Listen,” Fraser begins. “I meant to say—”
“Look, I’m sorry, all right,” Ray interrupts, his mouth going on autopilot,
“let’s just, can we—”
“—I didn’t mean to—that is, you caught me off—”
“—just forget about it, and you don’t have to worry, it’s not like I’m
gonna hump your leg in public places—” JesusfuckingChrist what is
he saying “—I’m—can we just forget about it—”
“—guard, though to be honest it’s not that the thought hasn’t crossed
my mind with increasing frequency in the past—”
“—please Fraser, you gotta promise we can just go back to the way it
was, because I—”
“—few months, and while there are obvious problems and risks involved,
I’ve been coming to believe that the potential benefits outweigh the risks,
and I was—”
“—don’t wanna lose what we got already, whatever the hell that is, sometimes
I wonder, y’know, but that’s not the point, I—”
“—that is, I suppose when it comes down to it I envy you your forthrightness.
I’ve been agonizing over this for weeks, and then you simply come right
out and—Ray, are you listening to me?”
“—can’t lose you now, all right? I admit I’m pathetic—”
“You’re not listening to me, are you?”
“—but I’ll take whatever I can get, okay? I’ll take anything—”
“Oh, for heaven’s—” Fraser huffs, and then his mouth is on Ray’s, holy
shit his mouth and Ray knows he wasn’t the one to put it there.
Fraser’s mouth is warm and his lips are tickling the corner of Ray’s—no,
God, that’s his tongue, oh—
“Wait a minute. Hold up.” Ray can’t believe he’s doing this, he’s stopping
Benton Fraser from tonguefucking him, and if he thought he was stupid before
he’s won the prize now, but he has to know. “What was that ‘don’t’ for?”
Fraser stares at him with a combination of affection and exasperation
and a few other things Ray can’t believe are real yet. “It doesn’t need
exploring at this juncture,” Fraser says, and then his mouth is being put
to much better use, and Ray decides to let Fraser have the last word.
For now.
End
April 2005