Author's website: http://www.mindspring.com/~bluecham/

Disclaimer: I was in Pawhuska at the time.

Author's Notes: I wrote this in about an hour and a half with a bathroom break, quite some weeks ago, so I wouldn't call it great art. I gave it a fifteen-minute go-over just now. Hope you like it.

Story Notes:

WARM SPRING

"Frase."

"Ray."

"I'm telling you, it's beautiful."

"Yes, well. I liked yours, too."

"I looked like a teenager."

"You made a very attractive teenager."

"It's not good for intimidatin' the kind of guy who used to intimidate me if I didn't keep everything reasonably butch. You really want me getting trashed in alleys by teenagers, Frase? 'Cause other than gaining twenty pounds of sheer muscle, that and butch are kinda my options."

"That's just silly, Ray. And you didn't look like a teenager."

"Hold everything. I thought you said I did."

"I said you made an attractive--"

"You never saw me then."

"I've seen pictures."

"Frase!"

"Mr. Fraser? We're ready for you."

"Aw, hell. Just once?"

"Just once what?"

"Can I, uh, feel it?"

"You want to--how long have you--wanted to--"

"For about four months. Uh, I didn't figure it out 'til a little more recently, though." Ray caught the gaze of the man on the other side of Fraser and raised his voice. "What are you lookin' at?"

Fraser put a hand on his shoulder, backing him up, out of the man's line of sight. "You...oh, Ray." He shook his head a little. "Miss? Could you switch me with the gentleman who was waiting for the timeslot after me? I'll be right back."

"Um, sure. Mr. Conley?"

"Come with me, Ray."

"Where we going?"

"The alley."

"What for?"

"We need to talk, Ray." Fraser stopped, turning, as they passed the extended edge of the brick wall beside the shop door. He shook his head a little, his expression sad. "Why didn't you tell me?" he asked softly.

"That you got really pretty--"

"No. Not that."

Ray grimaced, then smacked a hand to his forehead and ran it down his face. "Blew it."

"You did indeed."

"I guess wanting to do something like that isn't a very...'buddies' thing, is it. Or maybe a little too buddies."

"On the contrary. As well as I've come to know you, it strikes me as something you'd want very much; to experience. All experience, in general. You're a very sensual man, Ray."

Ray seemed frozen a moment, then shook himself as he evidently remembered that the word sensual wasn't automatically cognate with 'sexual', and said offhandedly "Oh...yeah, I guess I went all out to experience about everything you got up there in freezerland short of being eaten by musk oxes."

Fraser folded his arms, and his smile went a little bit tolerantly disapproving. "Or anything else."

"Yeah." Ray grinned at the ground at Fraser's unexpected little dirty joke. "Um."

"So. Why didn't you tell me?"

"If it wasn't me asking for what I asked in there that let on that I...that I want, wanted...then what was it?"

"Oh, it was that. It was the cherry on the clue sundae, if you will, at any rate. But it wasn't your asking what you asked for in there, it was your asking what you asked for in there. You asked for it in front of half a dozen strangers, all of whom immediately became extremely interested in our conversation. You're a romantic, Ray, but to blurt that out when you'd never made any form of request to...ahm..."

"...touch any part of you? Short of wantin' to save somethin' that was turnin' a nonstandard color blue? Yeah, I got that, okay."

"...when my merely talking to Diefenbaker in public embarrasses you--"

"I got it, Frase, okay?!"

"Also, it was apparently that you'd wanted to for...some indeterminate but long-enough time. It was fairly obvious that you felt you would not be afforded the opportunity again, and therefore..."

"...didn't give a shit who saw, and that kinda means stuff, even though we're talking about what I asked for, yeah, okay." He sighed.

"So. Why didn't you--"

"--tell you, I got it, for God's sake." Ray stuck his hands in his jeans pockets and wandered off a couple of steps. "When you get to be my age, you figure you got a lot of your number ones picked out, right? Favorite kinda pizza, favorite sport, most embarrassing moment, best friend when you were a kid, best friend now you're grown, biggest--"

"I understand, Ray."

"Well. When we came to the caves..."

"The entrance to Heaven?" Fraser smiled, remembering what Ray had called the opening in the side of the low mountain chain.

"Uh, yeah. I ever explain that?"

"You were a bit under the weather."

"As in unconscious, right. Well, I remembered a story about a bunch of caves in the states, some state park or other, and the guy who found them thought he'd found the entrance to Hell, because the deeper he went, the warmer it got."

"Mm-hm. I believe those were Carlsbad Caverns."

Ray shrugged. "Whatever. And you said these caves were warm, or at least not cold, and I thought that sounded like Heaven a lot more than Hell. When did I actually say that?"

"You were no longer unconscious, but I don't think you were really awake, either. I was with you near the fire, by the smoke chimney, at the spring."

"Huh. Odd I remember thinking that but not sayin' it. Anyway, um..." Ray took a deep breath. "So, we got washed up...think I was with it enough by that time, you were telling me the spring was warm, but that the water was really pure, and that it was a rare thing, kinda."

"Yes. Usually there are high concentrations of dissolved mineral salts in springs that are warm or hot near the surface, but these springs are just barely drinkable, if not terribly palatable. And the water is more than pure enough for washing."

"Still had to heat it."

"But it remained unfrozen all year 'round, even near the entrances."

"Yeah, guess they had to start out at least warm, deeper down, then. And you'd gotten done scrubbing me off, and dumped me by the fire with a bunch of the insulating quilts, and I was watching you."

"Do what? Wash?"

"Yeah."

"Oh." Fraser smiled, looking away, pinking up just a little.

Ray smiled too. "And yeah, I was definitely thinkin' you were pretty. And, you...you were drying off, and you got mostly dressed, boots, left off the parka and stuff though..."

"I..." Fraser pinked up even more. "I didn't think you'd remembered. You never mentioned...um."

Ray's voice had dropped, but he kept speaking. "You looked toward where the light was coming in from outside--not those little shafts that let in the light in some little corners, here and there, in that chamber, and you went around the corner down the stretch toward the entrance. That part actually kind of went down, from inside? So you had to sort of climb into the cave?"

Fraser cocked his head, cracking his neck. "Did you follow me?"

"Yeah. I got my glasses on and followed as far as I had to, to see you out at the entrance."

"I acted...quite silly, didn't I?" Fraser smiled a little, his blue eyes distant, remembering, shaking his head at himself.

Ray just shook his head, smiling. "You were great. Human. You'd been awfully cold for a long time, too."

"I was giddy with the warmth, I'm afraid."

"Will you just admit to being a primo nutjob in general?" Ray smiled and shook his head as Fraser shrugged a nolo contendere. Ray continued "You picked up a branch of the evergreens that grew around all the entrances and steam holes and stuff, and whacked at the bank of snow up over the cave entrance, and...from where I was looking, the sun was behind you, shining kinda half-through it..."

Fraser, about to speak, paused and looked thoughtful instead. "Go on."

"It fell on you, but it didn't whumph on you and bury you like I was thinking it would."

"I deliberately chose a slender branch. I didn't really want to dig my way out of an avalanche, or block the entrance."

"Yeah, I got that later. Anyway, it just kinda...showered. And you were standing there under it, knocking snow onto your head and laughing and shaking your head under it, and I was still all fulla you trying to explain to me, after this latest duuuuhhhhh episode on my part, why I shouldn't fuck around because it's dangerous out there, so I kinda wondered if you were out to catch pneumonia or something, since your hair was still a little damp...it had grown by then. But I realized you were probably just farting around, because you could, because the caves were right there and it was always warmer than freezing in there. And that western sunlight was coming through the snow, and the snow was shining all over you, and you shook your head really fast, throwing these big clouds of ice crystals, and it was flying all around, and you...you were so...you were laughin, and..." Ray was looking at the pavement, making aimless patterns with one boot toe. "You got a great laugh, Frase when you just laugh. You don't, much. Anyway, that was when I kind of started to pass out."

"You'd just been unconscious, Ray, your body was shutting down to save heat. You shouldn't have gotten up so soon."

"Nah, I don't think that was really it." Ray smiled down at his boots again, then said "Well, part of it, yeah, I guess. Anyway, I made sure I headed back for that pile of quilts before you got done and came in and woulda had to scrape me up and carry me...and you came around the corner after I'd kinda fallen back down there, and ran right up to me and plopped down in front of me, and leaned forward and said 'Ray, look!' Your face was all flushed, but I didn't know if it was from the warm inside there, or the snow...you said 'Can you see them?' and you laughed again, and shook your head real hard, made your hair fly...and the snow that fell, and the ice that formed from the damp in your hair, and...I dunno how the hell it did that exactly, but there were these icy snowflake patterns in your hair, and little icicles. They chimed. It was all melting already, but I could still see some of it, some of the crystals that fell out of your hair, these bright drops, kinda gold-colored from the fire and the sunlight through those little air shafts..."

Fraser waited, silently. Ray looked up again after a moment. "It was so...Jesus, Frase."

"I only meant..." Fraser looked away. "When I said 'Can you see them'. The snow I was shaking out of my hair, I thought it would look, oh, like a rainshower or something. As I said, I was feeling a bit flighty."

"You were bein' you, Frase. That's you, too, you know. Just comes out easier when you're on your home turf."

Fraser didn't argue. He only said, a little helplessly, "I didn't know you saw...all that."

"Well, you couldn't really see it, it was on your head, idiot--"

"And you were semiconscious, and likely hallucinating just a little, Ray," Fraser reminded him, his voice soft and warm. "I didn't hear any chiming."

Ray sighed, and added, in a distant, almost wistful tone, "And then you...kinda fell on me."

"Ah. Yes, sorry about that. Something about your expression...and I was feeling quite uncharacteristically exuberant at that moment."

"Only thing that pissed me off was that you just squeezed me once and got up. Didn't want you to leave..."

"But I was getting you wet..."

"I didn't care," Ray said, just as soft. "And anyway, you told me yourself it was nearly fifty degrees in there, and I was right by the fire, y'know."

Fraser nodded, not looking right at Ray.

"So anyway...I was thinking about that one day, we were out there...and this weird high moved in, and the clouds cleared off for a few hours. The wind was down, and the ice was getting too wet with the light shining on it, so we stopped to wait until the sun was over farther in the west. I pried my frozen ass out of the sled to help you set up a break camp, and you asked me to give the dogs an extra half-ration since we were pulling heavy anyway. Then you turned around and looked up toward the sun, and pulled off your hood and scarves and goggles and stuff, and shook your head a couple of times to get your hair loose from your parka, and just stood there for a minute with your eyes closed and your head up and let the sun shine on your face. And... you were shiny. Pale, and pink, and, um, the sunblock and the windburn ointment."

Fraser blinked. "Actually, I think I might remember that day."

Ray smiled. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. I think so." Fraser smiled back.

"Well, I saw that, and I remembered the first day at the springs, and one of my First Best Most things got just shot to hell--I thought I knew what my number one most beautiful thing I'd ever seen was always going to be. Thought I'd seen it and knew what it was. But I realized right then--I hadn't seen shit 'til I saw you like that, at the spring."

There was a pause as they didn't look at each other, and finally Fraser said hesitantly "Ray...I think those two days were about two and a half months apart."

"I didn't say I hadn't been thinkin' about it. Some, anyway. Specially at night, zipped in with you, in the warm, with your breath on my neck, feelin' damp, just like that warm in the cave...it's just...I hadn't realized that about it. Not until I saw you face-up to the sun, that day. Wind...blowing your hair around, soft, shiny curls..." Ray looked like he wanted to go on, but he couldn't make himself.

Fraser was quiet.

Ray took a deep breath. "To answer your question...when something like that happens, a lot of the other things that were attached to it--attached to whatever your most beautiful thing was before you realized how full of kark you were--get mowed down, too. And I kind of imploded there for a while. You didn't notice, because it was never hard to just say I was tired and not talk much. So I realized...I wasn't who I thought I was. That much stuff, finally, after everything got knocked out and bounced around, was different. And that freaked me out. I'm still dealing with it, Frase. I didn't know what I should say, how much, whether I should say anything. And sure as hell not how to put it, or how to bring it up, because...I wasn't sure what any of it really meant..."

"And that's why you never told me."

"That's the story, Frase." Ray made a brief blowing-a-kiss gesture. "The whole deal. Now, do I get to...?" He lifted a hand, more hesitantly.

"Of course," Fraser said softly. He stood still while Ray slowly, carefully ran his fingers through the thick, gleaming curls that fell in loose cascades around Fraser's shoulders, pushing them gently back from his face.

Finally Ray let both his hands fall. "Thanks."

"No trouble at all." Fraser smiled shyly, his eyes crinkling at the corners with the laugh lines he only got when he really couldn't help smiling.

"I still think you look kinda like Romeo like that."

Fraser rolled his eyes. "I'd make a big Romeo. He was fourteen years old."

"But you got the look. That's the important thing."

Fraser grinned back at him, then said "You know, Ray...I do have to get this cut off again before I go back on duty..."

Ray's grin softened. "But you could wait a few more days?"

Fraser nodded.

"Thanks. Again."

"I suppose...with your hands as dried out as they sometimes were, there wouldn't have been much point asking to...to touch, before we were...back, would there?"

"Also I wouldn't have gotten that water-in-oil gook we had on under the glove sleeve in your hair, for pete's sake." He ran a hand down the back of Fraser's head again, slowly, fingers moving gently, then let it drop.

Fraser looked off toward the other end of the alley. "I apologize for not realizing that any of this was happening, all that time. It's...a rather embarrassing thing to miss."

"It wasn't happening all over the place where you could see it. It was percolating. Deep, like the spring. It needed time. Not me concentratin' or anything, it just happened. Up there, in all that...openness, emptiness--workin' our asses off, calculating like crazy--maps and compass and sextant, how many hours before that snow front hits against how tired the dogs had to be, like that--but still, in a way, we were just...being. Right there, right then, no before, no after, just...now. I needed that, so I could look at everything, or maybe just see everything, without a lot of damn context screwing things up."

Fraser licked his lips, inhaled to speak, stopped to lick his lower lip again and asked "Were...were you ever going to tell me?"

"Yeah. It scared me shitless, the idea, I mean, but I was, after that second day I mentioned. I was just...waiting for the right time."

They looked around, and both of them broke out laughing.

"Okay, I coulda done better than an alley," Ray sighed as they calmed down. "I wasn't expecting this, obviously, so blame yourself if you don't think it's the greatest venue for an announcement like that. Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

Ray's voice softened. "Got anything to tell me? I don't mean--it doesn't have to be like what I said, and we don't have to do it in an alley. I just kinda wondered."

Fraser gazed at him a moment. He was backlit by the sun, the reddish and golden gleams in his dark, dark brown hair brought out by the golden light, and to Ray, the city sounds faded for just a heartbeat. But then Fraser spoke, and they came back. "I think I do," he said. "And I think...I've got some quiet time of my own to have, one way or another. But yeah." He nodded, and smiled a little. Then he looked around them again. "Have you ever noticed that we seem to conduct a lot of our business in alleys? Work-related or otherwise?"

"We needed a change of scenery, for sure."

"Can I have my clip back?"

"Oh, come on..."

"Unless you want to defend my honor half a dozen times on our way back, I've got to do something with this." He waved a tendril of gleaming dark curl in demonstration.

"Wait, wouldn't defending your honor make me Romeo?"

"Give me my goddamn hair clip, Romeo." Fraser smirked.

As always, Ray pretended great fear at the sound of profanity out of Fraser's mouth. "Shit. Here." He chuckled, holding the clip out, but then he snatched it back. "Wait. Let me do it."

"Ray..."

"Turn around."

"In an alley?"

"Some things transcend alleys."

"I've noticed your vocabulary is perfectly functional when you want it to--"

"Turn around." Ray grabbed a shoulder and turned him. Fraser shut up and turned around, snickering. Ray carefully finger-combed and gathered the dark mass, then fastened it with a matte black clamp. "There."

Fraser lifted the back of his leather jacket and dropped the spiral-curling ponytail under his collar. "Thank you. We'd better tell them to reschedule me."

"Yeah. On our way home. My place."

They turned and started for the sidewalk.

"So...while you were watching me at the spring..."

"Yeah?"

"What were you thinking?"

"Before or after you got dressed?"

"Before."

"That you looked like you'd been attacked by a roll of duct tape. I can see why you insist on shaving, even up at the ass end of nowhere."

Fraser banged into Ray with one shoulder, knocking him off balance and making him go into his high-hooting snicker. Then Fraser said "Okay, after the shave but before I got dressed."

Ray thought. "You looked like ice cream."

"Like what?"

"Ice cream. Vanilla Bean. The light from the fire under the natural chimney, and the light from all those little shafts through the rock in that one section of wall, puddling up on the floor there by you. And the water on your skin. You were gleaming, that soft. Sweet."

Fraser was quiet a moment, then said "I think I'm going to have a lot to tell you."

"I got a real nice talking spot back at the apartment. Good for relaxing. Eating dinner, if you're not formal."

"Sex."

Ray banged into Fraser with his shoulder, knocking him off balance and making him peal with laughter.

"Now I didn't say that, Frase," Ray pointed out, grinning.

"No, now I did, I suppose, you--"

"You don't laugh enough," Ray said, laughing.

Fraser was smiling at him as they kept walking. "So you said."

"You got a great laugh."

"So you said, Ray. Oh, Ray." And his eyes were so warm Ray felt the warmth in himself, soft, and deeper than the slowly westering sunlight.

End Warm Spring by Blue Champagne: bluecham@mindspring.com

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