First Frost	  First Frost
 by Ophelia Coelridge

  Fraser had lit the candles that surrounded them solemnly, with the air
of one performing a ritual. Ray, kneeling on the bare floor, had watched
in bemusement but held his peace. For all he knew, it could very well be
some sort of bizarre Inuit custom. And when Fraser had reached out slowly,
and traced the stubbled line of his partner's jaw, Ray had turned into the
tentative caress, and leaned forward to capture his lips in a long, slow
kiss.

 Now, the candles have burned low, and Fraser sighs softly in his sleep.
Ray, head pillowed on his chest, loses himself in the gentle rise and fall
of each breath, the reassuring steady rhythm of the heartbeat beneath his
cheek, the warmth that wraps itself around him.

 In the background, some sweet-voiced Canadian woman sings softly about
heaven. Ray muses sleepily that if this isn't it, it's as damn close as
he's gonna get without dying first. Eventually, the CD cycles through and
spins to a halt. The room is silent but for the even, muted counterpoint
of their mingled breath.

 It would be perfect if it weren't for the snow. It drifts down in fat,
wet flakes like feathers, blanketing the floor, the bed, the lovers. The
last candle flickers, and sputters out. 

 It's gotten colder. Ray moves closer to the solid, reassuring weight of
the Mountie next to him, and pulls up the striped wool blanket. It rasps
scratchily against bare skin. He shivers. Why is he still so cold? 

 With a slowly-dawning horror, he realizes that the rhythmic rise and fall
of the chest beneath him has ceased. The steady heartbeat has been
replaced by silence. Fraser's sleeping features are schooled into a chill
remoteness, the planes of his face as perfect and pale as if he were
carved from ivory or ice. His lips are blue. Ray swipes away the
steadily-accumulating snow, fingers burningly numb, to find the broadly
muscled chest icy and still beneath his frantic hands. 

 "Fraser! Frase, c'mon, you got to wake up, snap out of it!" But the body
beneath him is frozen and unresponsive. And cold, far too cold.

 A warm hand shaking his shoulder, and he snaps awake with a jolt, sending
papers cascading to the floor, and damn near falling out of his chair in
the process. What the hell was that about? 

 He rubs at gritty eyes and grimaces. Stiff back, stiffer neck, and a
taste in his mouth like something crawled in there and died. 

 "Ray. Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray..." The steady repetition of his name like a
litany finally penetrates, and he looks up blearily. Fraser meets his eyes
with a look of honest concern. "When you said you were staying late to
catch up on your paperwork, I had no idea that you meant you were going to
stay the night."

 "Nah, just drifted off," Ray mutters, trying to shake off the lingering
disorientation of that weird-ass dream. The station is next to deserted
and the hum of the overhead lights is intrusively loud. 

 (Snow like feathers and cold ice beneath his questing fingertips.) 

 "Shit, Frase, it's after one. What, you were just gonna sit there and let
me sleep?"

 "Language, Ray," he says repressively. "You did appear to need the rest,
and you were sleeping quite peacefully until--" He frowns.

 "Yeah, yeah, must've been dreaming," Ray mumbles self-consicously, still
trying to rub the crick out of his neck. "You ready to go? C'mon, Dief."
The wolf stretches, yawns, and hops down off the chair where he'd been
curled. Frannie's gonna have a fit about the wolf hair in the morning, Ray
notes absently. That's it. Focus on the details, the little things.

 He can't decide what unsettles him more, the memory of that heated kiss,
or the icy stillness that followed.

 "Are you sure you'll be all right to drive?"

 Definitely the ice.

 "I said I'd drop you off, and I meant it," Ray retorts gulping down the
dregs of a cup of coffee. Ugh. Stone-cold and sickly sweet.

 "Really Ray, I'm more concerned with the safety of--" Fraser begins.

 "I'm fine, I'm fine." Ray grabs coat and keys. "Let's go already." 

 Fraser opens his mouth, and then stops. "If you say so, Ray," he sighs.
He looks tired. Of course he does, ya dope, Ray berates himself. He wasn't
the one playing sleeping beauty. He flushes, looks away, and heads for the
door, trusting the Mountie to follow.

 Fraser is silent all the way back to the Consulate, and Ray isn't going
to be the one to open his mouth and say something stupid this time. 

 He can still feel the imagined warmth on his lips; his fingertips are
blistered with the pain of phantom frostbite.

 "Well. Good night Ray, and thank you for the ride."

 (The slow, steady spread of light as each candle was lit. The wavering
dance of shadows across taut planes and angles of bare back and
shoulders.)

 "Yeah, no prob, Frase."

 (Solid strength and heat beneath him, around him, the slickness of parted
lips and tongue against his own.) 

 "Are you..." The Mountie stops, ducks his head back into the car, hat in
hand. "Are you all right?" The first few feathery flakes of snow begin to
drift down. They catch in Fraser's hair and bead into droplets dewing his
eyelashes.

 (The guttering death of that last candle flame.)

 "Yeah, I'll be fine," he says, passing a hand over his face wearily.
"Just need s'more sleep, y'know?"

 (That awful moment of panic when he heard nothing but silence beneath
him.)

 Fraser frowns, but doesn't press the point. "If you say so, Ray," he says
doubtfully. The snow drifts across the windshield in a powdery dusting.

 (Chill flesh like icy marble beneath his frantic hands.)

 "Don' worry about it. 'night, Frase."

 "Good night, Ray. Come along, Diefenbaker."

 Ray starts the car again, and waits. Watches that broad red-clad back
vanish into the Consulate, wolf at his heels. And shudders, an icy shiver
of superstitious fear. 

 All of a sudden, why is he so cold?

  END

 

 For the curious, the song playing in the dream was "Elsewhere" by Sarah
MacLachlan from Fumbling Towards Ecstacy. The lines go: I believe there is
a distance I have wandered
 To touch upon the years of reaching out
 Reaching in holding out holding in
 I believe this is heaven to no-one else but me
 And I'll defend it as long as I can be
 Left here to linger in silence if I choose to (Does this mean I've
written a songfic? Scary thought!) Oh, and the blanket on the bed is a
Hudson's Bay blanket. Just so's you know.

 As always, betaed by Galadriel, in the middle of class if I remember
correctly, 'cause she's just that cool, and will always help me pick it
apart and put it back together line by line. Big-time thanks because this
fic would be much worse off without her around, as would I.  Direct any
and all feedback to ophelia@thepurplebuffalo.net, thank you kindly. More
of my fanfic can be found at http://www.thepurplebuffalo.net/~ophelia.