Better	Better

 by Kass

  

 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.