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

Disclaimer: Boys are theirs, words are mine.

Author's Notes: In response to the telephone challenge at the livejournal community ds_flashfiction. Thanks to Sihaya Black for beta.

Story Notes:

This story is a sequel to: Communication

The phone startles me half out of my chair. I can feel the hair on my arms and the back of my neck standing on end. Maybe it's dad, calling to say mom is worse again. Maybe it's a prank call, or a wrong number.

"Yeah?"

"Ray."

It's him. Holy shit. How did I do that? How the fuck did I do that?

I don't realize I've said anything else aloud until it processes that he's talking again: "I'm not sure I understand what you mean."

His phrasing is so proper it couldn't be anyone else; I'm so relieved I'm almost laughing. "Never mind. I just--" I stop and take a deep breath. I feel like I can breathe again. "It's good to hear your voice."

Cradling the phone, in my dark apartment, I close my eyes. Even though I know he's a million miles away, it's almost like he's here.

Maybe knowing that he's that far away but he still somehow knew I needed the call will give me the balls to say what I never said before.

"It's good to hear yours, too." Like he means it.

I've got the phone pinned between my shoulder and my ear, and both arms wrapped around myself.

"How is your mother?"

"She's gonna be okay, it was a stroke, the doctors said there's a ninety-something percent chance she'll get all her muscles back." It's rushing out of my mouth, and it's a relief, but it's not what I really want to say. "Fraser, I --"

There's silence, like he knows this is important. Maybe he does.

"There's things I should've said. When we were together." I swallow hard: my throat is dry. "I never..." Wait, that won't work. "I mean, I always..." Damn it. "Promise me you're not going to hang up."

"I wouldn't dream of it, Ray."

Of course he wouldn't; he probably hiked eleven miles to make this phone call.

There's a silence.

"Say whatever you need." His voice is gentle, and it almost breaks my heart, because if what I'm about to say ruins this, I don't think I can take it.

But not saying it damn near broke my heart, too. I press my eyes shut and plunge in. "What would you say if I told you I think I love you?"

"Thank God."

"Not like you're maybe thinking," I rush on. "Not like brothers. Not like, um, buddies." My face is heating up, I can feel it.

"Thank God." He sounds even more fervent now.

Holy shit. I think he gets it. And I think he's glad.

I'm grinning a little now, tentatively. "You mean it?"

"Would I joke about this?" He sounds a little amused, like he knows what everybody thinks of his sense of humor, and it makes my whole face break out in a smile so wide it hurts.

"No, I guess not. Oh my God." It's sinking in.

"Ray?"

"I can't believe it. I wish I were in Canada."

"Why's that?"

Isn't it obvious? "Because you are."

"But I'm not," he says, surprised, like he thought he'd already mentioned that part. "I'm at O'Hare."

I know the taxi ride takes somewhere between twenty-five and fifty-one minutes, generally speaking. Given that it's late and there's next to no traffic on 190, it's shorter than usual tonight.

It feels like an eternity.

The driver is listening to talk radio, turned low enough that he must presume I can't hear it. He's wrong, but I don't care. The sound doesn't bother me; the musty smell emanating from the cracked leatherette seat doesn't bother me. Nothing could.

As I walk up the steps to Ray's door, my hands are shaking.

He meets me in the doorway. The instant I'm inside, we are hugging like two people who haven't seen each other in years. Maybe we haven't, for all that we parted company barely 72 hours ago.

His arms are strong around me. His shoulderblades feel thin beneath the cotton of his tee-shirt. The sudden awareness of what we are doing jolts through me and I feel like I am flying.

He pulls back first, and looks at me. His face is shadowed in the dim light of the one lamp, and he isn't quite smiling, but there's something like joy in his eyes.

The kiss starts out gentle, but soon his tongue is in my mouth and both of our heartbeats are ratcheting up. Under other circumstances I might have preferred to discuss this first -- how long have these feelings been present? Are we really talking about the same thing? -- but I don't want to stop. God help me, I don't want to stop.

I leave my bag by the door, my jacket atop it, my clothes in a heap on his bedroom floor.

We intertwine on his bed, hands mapping each others' bodies. He seems particularly enamored of the small of my back, where he can skate a hand down and tease almost at the cleft of my buttocks, which makes me shiver. I am drunk on the way he moves beneath my hands, erection stiffening even as his body language loosens, when I bite at his neck.

And then our motions become more frenzied, our slip-slide against each other more desperate, and he gasps as climax overtakes him. The feel and the sound and the smell of him are too much: I spill my seed against his hip.

We settle into a new configuration of limbs, his back against my chest, and he tugs a blanket up over us.

We will talk in the morning. I find I don't know exactly what he will say, and I know that should unnerve me, but somehow it doesn't. Whatever it is, we won't need a telephone to communicate it. Maybe not ever again.

(972 words)

End Communication II by Kass: kass@trickster.org

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