Seven Years Later
by Nos4a2no9
Author's Notes: Lamentables asked for a sequel to Price of Distance (and its slightly sappy sequel Something Borrowed). She wanted to see where the boys are seven years after the conclusion of the story. Written in a couple of hours, unbeta'd, and lacking in porn. You're welcome! *g*
Story Notes: Sequel to "Price of Distance" and "Something Borrowed".
SequelTo: Price of Distance
Seven Years Later
They stopped to make love on the side of the highway, next to a river whose name Fraser could never remember. The sounds they made together--low-pitched moans, frantic instructions, wordless pleas--drowned out the sound of the water, and it was only afterwards, lying in the back of the pickup truck with Ray sprawled next to him, that Fraser could hear the rush of the current.
A bee droned somewhere, busy pollinating the bright purple alpine flowers that would only bloom for a week. And faintly, distant but clear enough to be audible over the rushing water and the buzz of insects, he heard the distinct sound of metal-on-metal, the soft, reverberating tang of his wedding band clinking against Ray's as he knit their fingers together.
"How far'd we make it?"
"About two hundred kilometers."
"Huh." Ray stretched and flexed, then yawned. "Not too bad." He scooted closer and settled into Fraser's arms with a soft sight, resting his head on Fraser's shoulder.
Fraser smiled, and slid down a little further to lie flat in the pickup. Ray snuggled even closer. His hair, soft and slightly crunchy with gel, felt good where it brushed Fraser's cheek.
"We won't make it to Chetwynd before nightfall if we continue at this pace," he said softly, knowing Ray would hear the humour in his voice. What they had just done was worth any number of delays.
Ray yawned again, and squeezed Fraser's hand. "Hey, it's our anniversary. You really that eager to get back on the road? Wouldn't you rather spend the night out here?"
Fraser closed his eyes and listened to the sound of the wind brushing through the short grass near the riverbank, and the soft cry of an eagle circling overhead. He caressed Ray's bare shoulder. Ray's skin was warm from the sun, and still slightly sweaty from their lovemaking. "That sounds very nice, actually."
"Thought so," Ray mumbled. He closed his eyes, rubbing his thumb gently across the back of Fraser's hand. "I ever tell you how much I like the summer?"
"You tell me that every summer."
He felt Ray's smile against his chest. "Yeah, I know."
They fell silent, and the sounds of insects and wind and water seemed louder in the stillness. Fraser watched clouds drift above in the clear blue summer sky. He was far too relaxed and sated to bother looking for shapes in the wispy cirrus formations, even if one did look distinctly like a ship under full sail. He could swear another bore a resemblance to the antlers of an adult bull moose, but Ray would probably say it looked more like a Pontiac hood ornament.
He smiled at the thought, and closed his eyes against the heat and light of the sun.
Seven years. They'd almost forgotten to mark the occasion last year, due to an unforeseen incident involving illegal poachers and a flare gun. The year before that, Fraser had been in hospital for back surgery. Ray had insisted that this time they make more of an effort to take a trip and celebrate their wedding anniversary without the distraction of health problems or miscreants. He'd suggested a drive south to Prince George, back to the place where it had all begun.
Fraser hadn't entirely understood Ray's choice. He'd proposed in a small hotel room in Prince George, yes, but nothing had truly started there. The beginning of his life with Ray were much harder to pinpoint on a map. Hadn't it started, after all, in Chicago? On that day so long ago, in the bullpen of the 2-7, when Fraser had called out a friend's name and met a stranger in his place? Or had it begun on a lonely mountain slope a thousand miles north, with the crack of the single gunshot that had brought him to the United States?
Their beginnings were scattered over the continent: the first time they had kissed, exchanging air in a submerged ship in the depths of Lake Superior. The first time they had made love, in the backseat of Ray's car an hour outside of Sault St. Marie. The first time they had realized they'd have to part, perhaps indefinitely, at a post office in Fort Nelson when the denial of Ray's request for citizenship had arrived.
So many points of connection and digression. He could map them all, perhaps, but the routes of their life together were more fluid than abstract locations on an atlas.
He sometimes felt as if the path that had divided them from one another for so many years, that path of duty, of distance, of devotion to less worthy people...it felt as though that path was littered with ghosts.
Ghosts of himself, old versions of Benton Fraser that he had to slay in order to be here, now, half-sprawled in this dilapidated old pickup truck parked next to a nameless river, his hand on the bare skin of Ray's back, keeping watch as Ray slept.
He brushed his lips through Ray's hair, and drew him close. In the warm summer light, those old ghosts and the pang of distance seemed very far away.
THE END
End Seven Years Later by Nos4a2no9
Author and story notes above.
Please post a comment on this story.