Falling Star
by lamardeuse
Rated: PG for language
due South Flashfiction challenge: darkest before dawn (not posted)
Author's note: For all you young’uns, Doris Day starred in a movie called On Moonlight Bay.
August 20, 2004
This whole thing had been a big mistake.
Sure, they kept in touch. E-mail, birthday presents, Christmas cards full of the joy of the season and ho-ho-ho and pictures of fat-cheeked kids eagerly waiting for Santa, like they needed any more fucking chocolate in their lives. Okay, so he and Fraser had once worked and fought and eaten and laughed together, been willing to die for one another; that didn’t mean they couldn’t eventually become strangers to one another, too. Hey, they could do normal, and that was what normal people did, right?
They got over it. They got on with it. And they didn’t look back except for the occasional Hallmark card, which only cost two bucks and a stamp and didn’t ask you to rip out your heart and stick it, still beating, in the goddamned envelope.
He’d tried that, once or twice, bleeding onto the plain white paper, but as soon as he’d sobered up the envelope always ended up in the trash.
Seeing Fraser again after all this time…it was beyond weird. Beyond weird the way it had come about, because Fraser practically never called any more, and then suddenly last Sunday he’d called Ray at two in the morning to tell him Dief had been killed. A hero to the end, that was the wolf; he’d gone down snarling and biting, defending a small child from a polar bear that had strayed into town looking for food. Before Fraser’d been able to get the 30-30 out of the back of the Rover, it’d been too late for Dief, but the girl had been saved.
What was even weirder was that this had happened in March. Fraser didn’t tell him why he was suddenly calling then, why he’d kept it bottled inside for so long that it was pouring out of him in the middle of the night almost six months later. Why he sounded so tired and worn out and just plain old on the phone that Ray, acting on instinct, had told him to get his ass on a plane and come back to the big bad south as fast as he could. Just for a visit, right? Hey, when was the last time he’d been on vacation, anyway? God knew they could both use a break; the world was getting crazy, everything was upside down and fucking sideways these days.
When he got off the phone, he wondered if he’d sounded as pathetic begging Stella to come back.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
This whole thing had been a huge mistake.
Ray at the airport was jovial to such an extent that Fraser found himself sniffing the air around him for traces of illegal substances. But of course he was being ridiculous, just as he’d been early Monday morning.
Well. Considering that within twenty-four hours he’d arranged for a temporary replacement, booked his flight, and approximately fifty-six hours after that was standing at baggage claim at O’Hare waiting for his battered duffel bag, one could argue that he was still being ridiculous. But with Ray’s restless, comforting, painfully familiar presence at his side, he couldn’t summon the strength to care.
He’d held the urn containing Dief’s remains in his lap the entire way. Mike Nanogak, the pilot who flew out of Davis Inlet, was used to him by now, but the stewardess on the Air Canada flight out of Edmonton hadn’t been as understanding. She’d spent the whole flight casting sidelong glances his way every time she walked up or down the aisle.
When he related this to Ray, he just laughed. “You look about as much like a terrorist as my mom,” he said. “What kind of crack was she on?”
“Doubtless she’s been trained to watch for…erratic behaviour,” Fraser replied, feeling the need to defend her even though at the time he’d wanted nothing so much as to scream his pain at her like the madman he was.
“Yeah, well,” Ray said, rubbing the back of his neck, “remind me not to fly the friendly skies anytime soon.”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Well, once you’d dug yourself deep enough, crazy started to look like the morons peering down at you from the top of the hole.
When Fraser had told him what he wanted, he felt weird about doing it in Chicago, because the water was—well, eccchh was the best adjective he could come up with. Not that anyplace in the Lake they call Michigan was pristine, but it was a hell of a lot cleaner up near his uncle’s fishing cabin in Wisconsin, so they drove straight from O’Hare to Moonlight Bay. Uncle Taddie had bought a piece of mosquito heaven there because he loved Doris Day way too much, and the land had been a steal back in the Sixties, and he really, really loved muskie.
So they sat on the dock and drank whiskey and when Fraser finished his third glass he opened the urn and Ray said, “Waittaminute,” and reached in his pocket for a Ziploc bag full of gray powder.
“I, uh, burned a box of donuts on the fire escape yesterday,” he explained, holding the bag out. “Landlady was pissed, but, uh, I figured he’d appreciate ‘em.”
Fraser blinked at him for a few seconds, then took the bag. Opening it slowly, he carefully poured the contents into the urn, then sprinkled his best friend—and the remains of a dozen crullers—over the gently rippling water.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
“Remind me why we’re lying here on my Uncle Taddie’s dock while the mosquitoes eat me alive, Frase?” Ray asked, swatting at his left ear vehemently.
“Shhh,” Fraser said. “You’ll scare the meteors.”
He was quite drunk, which was no surprise to him, but he was surprised at how little it bothered him. Usually the irrational fear that he was becoming an alcoholic dulled any pleasure he might derive from the experience, but he had to admit it was exhilarating to feel this kind of…freedom.
Lewd and licentious, Fraser thought, giggling for no reason.
“Milky Way’s bright tonight,” Ray observed, and Fraser felt a burst of pride, for Ray had never seen the broad gash of the Milky Way until they’d gone on their adventure. Even after all this time, he could still find the constellations and planets Fraser had taught him with ease.
All this time. All this time. All this—
“Hey.”
“Hmm?”
“You okay?”
“Yes,” Fraser said, turning his attention to Ray.
“‘Cause if you’re not we can—”
“I’m fine, Ray!”
“—uh. Build a fire or something.” Ray rolled to face Fraser and propped himself on one elbow.
“We can’t build a fire on the dock,” Fraser observed, pleased that he was still speaking clearly. “Wood’s wet,” he deadpanned, then dissolved into giddy laughter again.
“Yeah,” Ray said, sighing. “Listen, you—”
“Oh! There’s one!” exclaimed Fraser
“Where?” Ray demanded, turning his attention back to the sky.
Fraser pointed up, arm as straight as he could manage. “Just north of Perseus.”
“Oh, yeah, yeah, I forgot.” Fraser noticed that Ray had moved closer to him, so that their heads were parallel to one another. If he moved slightly to the left, he would feel the solidity of Ray’s shoulder against his.
“Whoo! I saw it that time!”
Fraser blinked, realizing he had completely forgotten about the meteor shower, even though he was staring up at the sky.
“Jesus! That was a helluva fireball, huh?”
“Yes, it was—impressive,” Fraser lied. Well, it wasn’t precisely a lie, since it no doubt was—
“Fraser, why’d you come?”
Fraser blinked again, startled. “You—you asked me to.”
“Not that, I mean—why now? Why’d you decide to call me after so long?”
Another meteor streaked across the sky and died, and Fraser closed his eyes.
“Because—” I couldn’t stand another night in an empty cabin.
Because I can’t seem to stop loving you.
Because if I can’t find a way to speak any of this aloud, I’m going to end up like Uncle Tiberius. And I hate cabbage.
“Ray, did I ever tell you the Inuit legend of the hunter and the children?”
A soft sigh. “No, Frase. Promise me it’s short.”
“Yes, of course. There was once an old man, a powerful shaman, who was hunting for seals. He was a very dedicated hunter who took his job seriously—”
“You promised, Frase.”
“—and so one day he spent many hours on the ice by the breathing hole of the seal with his harpoon, poised to attack. There were some children playing nearby, and when they would not quiet down, they frightened away a seal who was nearly within the reach of his harpoon. Furious, he called upon his shamanistic powers, and the children were buried under an avalanche. Their cries were heard for some time as they suffocated.”
Fraser ran a hand over his eyes. “When the parents of the children came after the hunter seeking revenge, the old man transformed himself into a shooting star. To this day, you can still see him fleeing across the heavens.”
There was a short silence punctuated only by the sound of the water and the late summer breeze stirring the poplar leaves in the trees near the cabin.
“Fraser,” Ray said finally, “that story sucks even worse than the Lou Skagnetti one. Which, I might add, is really saying something.”
“Yes, I believe you’re right,” Fraser admitted.
“Care to tell me what your point was? ‘Cause I’m too drunk and too dumb to figure it out.”
“You’re not—” Fraser began, then was shocked when a sob stopped his breathing, lodged in his throat and choked him.
Ray’s hand touched his arm, his chest, his cheek. “Frase, what—”
“I’m so—filled—with regrets,” he rasped. “Some nights they—I don’t know how I can breathe with them pressing down on my—oh, Christ.” Unshed tears leaked past his tightly shut eyelids.
“Frase. Fraser. Ben.” Ray’s hand was stroking Fraser’s hair gently, so gently it made him weep even more freely, because he was a stranger to this tenderness, and he really was quite drunk.
“Shh,” Ray was saying. “I get it. I get it.”
“Do you?” Fraser whispered.
“Yeah.” Ray’s lips brushed over his wet cheeks. “Got a few of those myself.”
“What do you do about them?” Fraser breathed, annoyed that the alcohol was creating an illusion of hope.
“I invite ‘em to have a wolf wake and watch shooting stars in the middle of Nowhere, Wisconsin,” Ray murmured.
“You—” Fraser gasped. “You mean I’m—”
“Yeah,” Ray said. “Guess we’re both pretty dumb, huh?”
Suddenly, Fraser’s lungs flooded with air. He gulped in lifegiving oxygen and felt oddly as though he were floating. When he opened his eyes again he saw the brilliant path of the old man’s flight, and smiled for the first time in months.
“Take it slow,” Ray said, breath warm and reassuring against Fraser’s face. “You’re not used to it, is all.”
End
Fraser relates an actual Inuit legend entitled “The Hunter and the Children” taken from Tales from the Igloo, Maurice Metayer, ed. (Edmonton, 1972).
August 2004
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