Disclaimer: I don't own Fraser and Ray, I only wish I did. They're
the property and copyright of Alliance/Atlantis, who know how to play
with them very well -- though I know how to play with them better.
Implied m/m desire, Fraser/Kowalski, rated PG
Do Something Soon © 1999 Surfgirl surfgirl@altavista.net
I should tell him. Tell him that I know. How he feels. I should tell him how I feel. But I cannot. I try to make myself tell him, but the words won't come. I must get a very curious expression on my face, because he usually gives me a rather quizzical look, which disappears when I then say something innocuous and neutral. Sometimes he'll glance back at me, that questioning glance that says, What were you really going to say to me? But eventually that stops as well, and his face returns to a normal conversational expression.
I don't know why I cannot bring myself to tell him that I know how he feels about me. I don't know why I cannot tell him how I myself feel about him. There's no risk involved: I already know my feelings are, or would be, reciprocated. The only risk would be in telling how I know how he feels. And for how long I have known... and done nothing.
That might make him angry. But even that is not the reason why I don't tell him. Ray doesn't stay angry very long. He may get furious, but it is a storm in a teacup - it is wild, but contained within a certain proximity, and over quickly. He certainly does not leave a path of destruction in the wake of his anger.
So in reality, even facing anger he might feel when he finds out how I knew how he felt, or how long I've known, is not the real reason I can not tell him. I can face his anger. I have before.
So, why, then? Or, rather, why not?
There is a comfort in knowing about it and doing nothing. That I must admit. I know that he loves me, that he wants me, "that way". And I'm glad and content to just know it is there. And since he does not know that I know, we go on as we have been, and it is a comfort. Nothing changes. There are no sudden, swift escalations in speech or behavior, no need to draw aside the curtain between my expression and my real feelings. No sudden awkwardness or avoidance.
(Even though I know that would be unlikely to happen if I did reveal to Ray that I know how he feels... more likely, things would become more comfortable and he would want to spend more, not less, time with me. So awkwardness or avoidance are unwarranted expectations on my part. But I can not seem to shake the fear that he would begin to feel awkward and avoid me).
No, there is really nothing to fear. So, why not, then? Why not tell him?
I remember when I first sensed it: that morning in the crypt when he was waiting for Marcus Ellery. I was probably aware of it before he was. I think he honestly believed that day, when he asked me if I found him attractive, that he really was only asking if I thought women would find him an attractive man.
So had I had the courage to confront him about his feelings then, he might even have denied them. Not that I had the courage then. Nor do I now.
But it was palpable. Something changed in the air when he asked me that. People think that's a term of wishful thinking, or a cliche - "the air changed" - but it is not. Such changes do occur. I have no doubt that in the next century, science will be able to detect and explain those subtle changes, which no doubt occur on a molecular - perhaps even subatomic - level. Because they are not detectable now, does not mean that they are not there. After all, earlier this century, no one could detect DNA, or the specific chromosomes and genes that make it up. But it was still there.
No, the air definitely changed. And, being adept at picking up this sort of thing - it was certainly a necessary skill earlier in my life - I picked it up immediately. I don't think anyone else there - the widow, the two criminals - noticed it. Only I did.
It would be interesting if, someday, I could be tested like a scent dog. I am willing to bet - not money, of course, but I am willing to bet - that I can detect subtle changes in scent that only animals are capable of detecting. I wonder how close I'd be to the level of detection Dief has.
At any rate, it was palpable. Something changed in the air between us - despite our distance in the crypt - and when he asked, that was when I first realized he wanted to know if I found him attractive, as myself - not as a woman. But, as I've said, I doubt he was even aware of it himself. He would probably have vigorously denied it.
There was a sudden slight change in his body chemistry. As if suddenly his Ph balance had shifted more toward the acidic side of the scale.
But there was an unmistakable scent change too. He suddenly became much muskier smelling.
No doubt this is a natural - involuntary - change.
Nevertheless, he obviously had no idea he was suddenly giving off an obvious message of more-than-platonic interest in me.
And obviously he continues to think I am, as he would say, utterly "clueless" about the depth of his feelings for me. But that is my own fault - for never saying otherwise. Now it is almost a deception - a lie of omission - and makes me even more reluctant to say anything. I've gone this far without mentioning it; to mention it now might upset him very much.
Yet I long to mention it. To tell him. That I can sense - that I can smell - the way his body scent changes when he is alone with me. It is very subtle but it is detectable. Never more so than when we are with another person or persons. He stays his usual Ray-smelling self. And I think nothing of it. But the minute all the other people are gone, and we are alone - often in his car - his scent changes. As if the circumstance of being alone with me opens up possibilities to his body, whether his conscious mind denies it or not.
And yet I am fairly certain that those possibilities are in the forefront of his mind. It's noticeable in the change in his behavior with me. He becomes much more solicitous towards me, more demonstrative, more open.
Of course, a cynic would say that's merely friendship. And they would be partly right. We do have that. That is one of the things holding me back from saying anything, I realize now. I am so afraid to change the wonderful thing that we have now, and wind up farther along the road not only without his love, but without his friendship as well. I do not think I could take that. So by comparison, it seems smarter to say nothing to jeopardize our friendship and partnership, than to say I know he loves me and move us into dangerous, unpredictable waters.
The next time I noticed it was after Janet the bounty hunter left. My emotions were uncharacteristically close to the surface; I could not control them. I am sure my loneliness was writ plainly on my face; and my father's presence did not help. And Janet seemed a possibility only because I sensed that Ray was not even aware of his own feelings for me. And I certainly would do nothing to change that.
And Ray noticed my distress. And wanted to take me out to dinner. And he put his arm about my shoulders in a gesture that comforted me and soothed me, even though I could sense that he wanted more, so much more, and was holding himself back from anything else because he was just trying to be there for me. Not for himself or his own "agenda" as they call it. Just to put his arm about me to make me feel better.
But, once again, that telltale muskiness and the increased tang to his scent gave him entirely away.
He is a gentleman, though. Never has he in any way tried to touch me or otherwise initiate physical contact with me while using something else as a pretext, with a deceitful intention to use it to his advantage. I would have known if he were trying to do this. It would have been plainly smellable. But that never happened. So I know that he truly is a gentleman, even though he seems to think he has not got the breeding to be a truly "high class" person, as he puts it.
But sometimes I wish he weren't such a gentleman. I wish he would lose control as he did at the lakefront that day before our involvement with the Henry Allen. Of course I don't want him to lose control of his anger... I wish he would lose control of his rein on his emotions. Wish he would lose control of the way he contains his desire for me. And touch me again - this time with meaning, with intention.
But true to his gentlemanly side, true to his hesitant heart - he rarely, if ever, loses control of his feelings for me; and if he does, it is never in a way that initiates a physical contact between us.
And I do not have it in my capacity to lose control that way. I probably am less capable of it than he is.
Except of course for the buddy breathing on the Henry Allen. I know it was necessary; I know he needed the air; to not have done the buddy breathing would have been a crime, whether or not it resulted in his death or injury.
But it was also the perfect opportunity. And as hair-raising as it was, as desperately terrified as I was that I would be the cause of his death, because he could barely swim - I could not help but enjoy his mouth. Putting my mouth on his. Engulfing his mouth with mine.
How perverse can someone be - how perverse can I be - to need a life-and-death situation to completely let go of my control of my emotions and desires? Of all the times, that was the worst time.
And of course I bungled the opportunity that followed, when he asked me whether anything had changed between us. I could have said something then. But, again, I was afraid. Of what? He had given me the perfect opening. I already knew how he felt about me. There was nothing to lose. So, why not, then?
I am a coward. I know that so many people - Ray included - think of me as stalwart, courageous, and forthright. And I am - in areas other than matters of the heart.
But where matters of the heart are concerned, I am timid as a mouse. Cowardly. Afraid. Even in the face of certain acceptance and reciprocation, I can not stop my fears, can not break away from the sense that to move forward in the direction of love will spell my doom. It almost was once before. One would think that I could look at the difference between circumstances with Victoria, and the present situation with Ray, and see the obvious differences, see the lack of manipulation or coercion - and realize that it is all right. That there is no danger of being hurt.
But I can not accept that it is all right, that it will be all right. I know damn well it would change things. And even though intellectually I can tell myself it would change things for the better - my heart can not believe that. My heart can not believe that change can be positive, that change can be for the better. Even if my head can believe it.
And, so, we go on. Dancing around each other at times. The scent of his desire wafting through the air, the scent of his love and need tearing at my heart, but not tearing down my reserve.
Completely guilelessly, on Ray's part. No, he has never once tried to take advantage of any required physical contact between us. At most he held my hand too long once, but even that did not smell like opportunism on his part; it simply smelled of partnership and care. And he was helping me up from the ground.
My inability to express my feelings for Ray is directly proportional to the intensity and frequency of his appearance in my insomniac thoughts, my drowsy morning fantasies, my dreams... my internal picture shows, on those occasions when I permit myself to indulge in self-pleasure. He is in all of them. He is in various stages of undress or nakedness, various stages of arousal or post-coital flush, various stages of pleasuring me or himself, various positions or scenarios.
And I smell his desire for me every day when he is alone with me. And say nothing. And do nothing.
Oh, Ray. Do something soon. Because I can not.