Impressions
by lamardeuse
Rated: PG-13
due South Flashfiction challenge: Scars
Thanks to luvhandlz, who suggested an important plot element.
Ray looked out the window of the plane and suddenly realized he was a couple of thousand feet up in the air. The last few hours had been a hazy blur, but now it was finally sinking in.
He was going home.
The sun was so bright it made his eyes water, and he blinked rapidly in annoyance. Looking down, he saw the ground was blindingly white in spots, with patches of brown mixed in now that spring was beginning to take hold. The exposed places looked like huge moles, cancerous growths on the pristine skin of the tundra.
It’s going to be a beautiful summer, Fraser said yesterday as they looked out over the valley that held his new posting, a town that was home to fewer people than Ray’s apartment building. Color everywhere, the whole country carpeted with flowers. I wish—
But he never finished that sentence, only smiled self-consciously at Ray and returned to his contemplation of the landscape.
To Fraser, the melting snow was a beginning. To Ray, it was the end of everything.
He looked down again and saw what had to be the Dempster Highway slicing its way southwards, crossing the broader swath of the Peel River at nearly a ninety-degree angle. X marks the spot. Ray could’ve gone by road, hitched a ride with one of the trucks before the thaw really hit, but he opted for this flight because the guy was heading for Juneau, and from there he could get on a real plane. Customs at O’Hare were a real bitch; Alaska, he hoped, would be easier.
Easier. It would get easier. That’s what he told himself, anyway.
“It doesn’t, though, son. That’s the problem.”
Ray twisted in his seat to stare at the source of the voice, the plane’s only other passenger, an old white man in a fur parka. Ray didn’t remember seeing him board the plane, but then Ray didn’t remember a lot about the past couple of hours. Like saying goodbye to Fraser.
Holy shit. He panicked for a moment as he realized he couldn’t remember what they’d done, what they’d said. Nothing. Nada. Like the whole thing had been carved out of his head.
“You awake over there, son?”
“Hm? Yeah, yeah. What did you mean? What doesn’t…what?”
“It doesn’t get easier.” The old man’s eyes bored into Ray’s skull. “Being separated from the person you love.”
“How—” Ray skidded to a stop, his mouth hanging open. What the hell? Had he been napping already, talking in his sleep?
The old man shrugged. “Call it intuition if you like. But you could do well to bow to experience on this one.”
Ray studied the angry gash of the highway for a moment, trying to figure out how he’d gotten into this conversation. He tried to imagine the landscape covered in flowers, like that moment in the Wizard of Oz when the black and white yields to Technicolor splendor, but the vision kept eluding him.
“I, uh, it’s not that simple,” he said finally.
“Yes it is.” The other man’s tone was firm, indicating the speaker was convinced of his absolute certainty.
God, that pissed him off.
“No, it isn’t!” Ray snapped. “We’re not—I mean, we don’t—and there’s—” He took a deep breath. “It’s complicated, okay?”
The old man regarded him steadily, gaze cutting into him with the precision of a laser. “He’s alive. You’re alive. That’s all that matters. That’s everything, son. Believe me.”
Ray opened his mouth, then closed it with a snap.
“And if you throw that away,” the other man said quietly, “you might as well be dead.”
Ray stared at him.
“Or in Chicago, which is worse,” the old man added with a shudder.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The light was dying when Ray walked up the path to the cabin, but it was still bright enough for him to make out the impressions of footprints in the mud, temporarily preserved, frozen by a cold snap that had settled in this morning.
He placed his foot in one, gingerly. It was his, left over from yesterday or the day before.
Ray searched for footprints leading away from the cabin but found none. He took that as some kind of sign, though it wasn’t his habit to believe in them.
It wasn’t his habit to believe in much of anything.
So what the hell are you doing here? Ray asked himself, hand in mid-air, hovering inches from the door.
Before he could decide whether to knock or turn and run, the door swung open.
“Dief—Ray!” The shout turned into a shocked exclamation. “You’re—are you all right? Did the plane have engine trouble?” Hands gripped his shoulders. “Are you injured?”
Thrown off-balance by the barrage of questions, Ray could only stare at Fraser in stunned silence, which led Fraser to believe he’d survived not only a plane crash, but also some form of head injury. The next thing he knew, he was being hustled into the warm cabin and dragged bodily over to the couch. This made his body react in several ways, most of them inappropriate and all of them impossible for a severely injured plane crash survivor.
“You need to rest—I’ll call the doctor—” Fraser was pushing at him, trying to get him to sit.
“Frase. Frase. Frase.”
“Ray, you’re not well—just—let me—” And then his fingers were prodding at Ray’s scalp, desperately searching for cuts, bumps, bruises, and Ray thought fuck it all and leaned sideways into Fraser’s hand, then forwards into his mouth.
“So where’s Dief?” Ray husked, after they parted and Fraser did his own impression of a stunned plane crash victim.
“Out in the woods,” Fraser husked back. “He’s found a female wolf who for some odd reason finds him attractive.”
“‘Sno accounting for taste,” Ray said, risking another brief sample of Fraser’s lips.
“No,” Fraser agreed, kissing him back with intent to leave marks.
“I want to see what the summer looks like,” Ray whispered, burying his nose against Fraser’s neck. “I want the whole Technicolor experience, Frase. That okay?”
He felt Fraser smile into his hair. “I was hoping you would,” he whispered back.
End
July 2004
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