Rating : PG. Fraser/Ray K
Disclaimer: Sadly, they don't belong to me.
Feedback: Always welcome at lumpj@hotmail.com
There's no light here but the cones of the headlights, showing me the white line ribboning out before us into the night. The trees by the side of the road are just darker shapes against the dark sky, and the noise of the engine and the radio playing staticky oldies makes a soft cushion of sound around us. Fraser is quiet beside me, staring out the window in some kind of road trance, miles away inside his head. And I know that if I start thinking about it, it'll scare me, how quiet he is. So I try not to think about it, and concentrate on the road.
I've always liked road trips. You pack up what you want, you leave the rest behind, and you take off towards -- well, whatever it is you want to take off towards. And as long as you're in the car, that could be anything. There's nothing but the road and infinite possibilities in front of you.
Of course, that only lasts until the car stops. Once you actually get somewhere, you realise that there's only so much you can leave behind, that you're still the same old person with the same old troubles, and that where you're headed has already been half decided by where you've been.
But as long as you're in motion you can forget that. Sometimes I wish that there was some way you could just keep going. That this drive could last forever, just him and me and the road reeling out before us. All the other stuff left behind.
'Cause it's the other stuff that's killing us.
I thought I could leave my past behind. But I've found out it's not so easy. I want this with him. But I can't stop thinking about how hard it's going to be for the rest of our lives, and he just doesn't understand. He doesn't get the way that other people think. The things that the other guys in the squadroom would say if they knew, the things I know they'd say, 'cause I would have said them too, once. What Frannie would think, or Stella, or, oh God, my father, how it would kill him, just kill him if he knew about us -- I never was the man he wanted me to be, and now to turn out queer on top of everything else....
And I know that none of that stuff should matter, but it all gets tangled up inside my head until I don't know anything anymore. Sometimes at the station I'll look up and see him looking at me, and when I meet his eyes there's just so much there that I have to look away. And then I feel bad for looking away, so I look back, and I can see that he's trying to reassure me, silently, and that makes me feel... well, I'm afraid that it's written all over my face, how that makes me feel, as clearly as it is on his, out there for everyone to see and know and judge. So I have to look away again. And then when I look back there's this look in his eyes, kind of hurt and --
And I can't stand to see it there, and know I caused it. And then I can't look at him at all, or even be near him, so I jitter out of the room and try to find something else to do.
Then I get to thinking, what if I looked at him one day and that thing, that thing he feels for me, wasn't there in his eyes any more. And when I think about that, I have to go find him again, and look into his eyes, and it all starts all over again. And by the time we get home I'm tied in knots inside from it, tied so tight it hurts, and all I want is to drag him into bed and climb on top of him until we've fucked that feeling away and I can go to sleep with my arms around him, but I don't deserve that, do I? Not after I've been goddamn looking away from him all day.
So I shrug his touch off and stare out the window at the dark while he sleeps beside me. And sometimes the night and the sound of his breathing are enough to loosen the knots a little and I'll reach out under the blankets and he'll come awake under my hands and it's all like it should be. But other times he'll catch my wrists and stop me. Say, "Not now, Ray." Or something like that. Not angry. Just.... ok, well, a little angry. I can't blame him. I'd be going crazy if someone was doing this to me. But I just can't help it. Last time he said, "Does this really make you so unhappy, Ray?" and I could have cried. He does make me happy. It's just everything else…
The car crests a hill and I can see the faint glow of city lights in the distance, and it makes me feel like I've swallowed a stone. And suddenly, like they belong to someone else, my hands are spinning the wheel and pulling us over onto the shoulder of the road, jarring Fraser from his road-trance.
"What is it, Ray?" he asks, "Is something wrong with the vehicle?"
I shake my head and turn to him. I'm suddenly full of crazy ideas -- "Let's never go back!" I want to say to him, "Let's go to Canada and build one of those, those snow things, up where no one will ever find us, and we can live there forever!" But when I open my mouth all that comes out is, "You know, don't you, Fraser? Know that I -- how much I -- I love you. Right?"
He just looks at me for a moment, all serious, and for the first time I see how tired he looks, how much older than the picture I have of him in my head.
"Thank you, Ray," he finally says. And then, "But I wish it made you happier. I don’t know if I can continue like this."
And I lose it. Put my head down on the wheel and start to cry. And then his arms are pulling me over, holding me to him, stroking my hair while I cry like the coward I am. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," is all I can say, and he just holds me tighter and doesn't say a word.