Story Notes: Written in August 2007 for the ds_snippets prompt of "sideways." Apocalyptic, so--all that that implies. Viciouscats' very lovely DS apocalypse ficlist got me in this mood. Uh, thanks?

All the canned, boxed, bottled food ran out, within a couple of years after the blast.

Some crops still grow wild. But they're all poison.

The trick is figuring out which poisons are the slowest.

Some of them are beautiful, though. The sweet potatoes like cupped hands, the corncobs that grow in a spiral.

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When it became clear, so tortuously slowly, that there was no getting out of this, Ray, like many people, worried about...after. About up or down. Fraser told him that in fact it seemed to be sideways, just a step across an invisible line. Told him about his father, and---why not? About everything. And Ray nodded, like he'd known, and kissed him, said yes to everything and asked for more. So that was one thing to be grateful for.

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The other thing. The other thing Fraser is thankful for, as everything winds down, is that Ray. Ray is much sicker. Going downhill, no, sideways, much faster, and that's good, Fraser tells himself that's good, because he can't bear the thought of Ray being alone. Fraser's had much more practice.