Author's website: http://www.trickster.org/kass/

Disclaimer: Boys are theirs, words are mine.

Author's Notes: Thanks to Sihaya Black for the beta-read. This one was written in response to the curtains challenge at ds_flashfiction (the livejournal flashfic community).

Story Notes:

It always seemed unfair to get sick during summertime. Finally it was warm, finally the days were long, and Ray was stuck shivering and aching like some little old lady with arthritis. Happened at least once a year, and he always managed to convince himself it wasn't coming before it hit him.

Ray wished he were a kid again, because even if he was sick the first week after school let out, his mom would take care of him. She'd wrap him in a blanket and let him watch daytime TV and bring him orange juice to drink through a straw, and boxes of ultra-thick Kleenex, and pull the curtains halfway closed so the bright city sunlight didn't hurt his feverish eyes.

Ray wished he were in Chicago again, because even if Welsh gave him a hard time every time he took a sick day, he could take care of himself. He'd put on old ratty sweatpants and watch black and white romance on the Turner Classic Movies channel and call for pizza with Canadian bacon and pineapple, and creak the blinds shut so the sun and then the strobes of passing ambulances didn't make his head hurt.

But instead Ray was wrapped in one of Fraser's dad's old Army blankets, watching a whole lot of nothing because he couldn't make his eyes focus long enough to read. And there was no ultra-thick Kleenex and there was no ginger ale and there sure as hell wasn't any delivery pizza. The weird part was, there wasn't any Fraser, either.

Ray was pretty sure he'd kept them both up last night, trying to breathe through the rocks that had apparently grown in his sinuses, sniffing and snorting like a herd of bull moose. And obviously he'd been in Canada too long when he was able to even think of anything being like a herd of bull moose. Because last year he wouldn't have known how to tell the difference between a bull and a cow, not by sound, and the sounds he was making were not feminine.

Thing was, there wasn't hardly any dark anymore. Maybe four hours a night, tops, and Fraser had assured him even that would be gone well before the solstice. Which was all fine and dandy, as an idea, but the angle and intensity of the light hurt his eyes and his head and made the fever spells feel worse.

Breathing with the wool blanket over his head was even harder than trying to breathe, period, but it kept the light out of his eyes.

Then again, it was hot. And kind of scratchy on his face. He shoved it back down.

"Jesus," he said out loud, just to hear something, and winced at the way his voice cracked. Diefenbaker raised his nose from his paw, like he was considering getting up to check on Ray, but put it back down and went back to sleep instead. Ray followed him.

When Ray opened his eyes again, the cabin was dark. Somehow, amazingly, blessedly dark. At least by the bed. At the far end of the small room, Fraser sat in the rocking chair with a pile of cloth in his lap. The window beside him was uncovered, and Fraser looked the way ghosts sometimes do in movies, blurry outlines and too-bright skin. Ray blinked a few times to wet his eyes.

"Where were you?" He still sounded rusty.

"You wanted curtains." Fraser was still looking down at the cloth in his lap, making a repeated motion with one hand.

He groped for his glasses and the image focused. Sewing.

Ray sat up, sighed at the inevitable change in head pressure, and blew his nose loudly. Suddenly he smelled...food. Chicken soup. On the stove.

His stomach rumbled.

"Fraser, I --"

Maybe it was the head cold, maybe the aftereffects of the truly ancient decongestants he'd found in Fraser's first aid kit, but he was weak with a wash of gratitude. Fraser must've picked the word "curtains" out of his incoherent half-asleep ramblings, gotten the truck started, and headed off to town: not an easy task in mud season, when what passed for truck tracks around here were likely to be sloughs of icy mud.

Fraser was looking at him expectantly. Ray felt his heart -- and this was definitely the cold medicine talking -- expanding to fill his entire chest.

"I feel better," he said.

What he meant was, "I feel home."

(745 words)

End Better by Kass: kass@trickster.org

Author and story notes above.