Interruptions by exbex
Title: Interruptions
Author: exbex
Characters: Fraser/Vecchio
Length: 1200 words
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Fraser wants to tell Ray how he feels.
I am a patient man, but my patience has begun to wear thin.
Ray was once a bit of an enigma to me. I was bewildered by him when I first came to Chicago, put off, perhaps. I cannot put my finger on the moment I first began to wonder, to hope, for something to happen between us. It may have been when he first spoke to me outside the Consulate, when he apologized to me, or perhaps, as impossible as it seems, the night he beat up Frank Zuko, aggression and fear both rolling off of him in waves, his strength and vulnerability almost palpable.
It hardly matters, I suppose. I have carried a torch for a very long time. It is difficult, to both realize the feelings that exist and to give voice to them, even to oneself. The thought of admitting my feelings to Ray is absolutely daunting.
I have blamed the interruptions. And there have been plenty of them to blame, plenty of people to blame. Criminals, Francesca, Victoria, criminals, Ray’s car, victims, criminals, my father, witnesses, criminals.
What is interrupting me now, on what has been an uninterrupted evening? Indeed, I even planned for this evening, the moment I discovered that Ray’s family would be out of town for a weekend. Ray had been delighted, almost gleeful, and I had smiled and nodded politely, and then, with my heart racing, I had, as casually as I could manage, suggested that we ought to spend one of the evenings they were away together, to watch a hockey game, perhaps. Ray had shrugged and said “sure, Benny.”
I was feeling light-headed when I knocked on his door. He answered and things only got worse. He was wearing a light blue dress shirt, unbuttoned enough to reveal his very long neck and I could see a hint of the gold cross he wore, and tan pants, and the cool night air was doing nothing to settle me. He had insisted on preparing dinner, and watching him stir the pots with rolled up sleeves was maddening. I found myself staring down at my plate instead of pointing out that he had a bit of marinara sauce on his chin, as the sight was causing me to think of things that made concentrating on the conversation virtually impossible.
When I found that I couldn’t concentrate on the hockey game, I excused myself to ruminate in front of the mirror in the Vecchio washroom. I could not continue on like this, I knew. Ignoring my feelings had done nothing to diminish them. My fear loomed in front of me, un-navigable.
Could a man like Ray Vecchio, who had risked everything to save me, who had carried me without complaint when I could not walk, be a man who would walk away from me if I admitted that I felt more than friendship for him?
“Benny?” His voice, as it so often did, interrupted my thoughts. This time it filled me with apprehension. I opened the door and tried to give him a smile, and worried that it would betray me.
“You okay?” He was knitting his eyebrows together, his eyes full of questioning, an almost suspicious look, borne almost certainly from years of being a detective.
“I’m fine, Ray.”
“Fraser,” he hesitated, then sighed. “Never mind.”
He had turned away, to walk back to the living room, and I blurted “wait“, without thinking, without cautioning, disregarding the voice of reason, the one that had been a constant interruption, but that had failed me when I needed it most. No, I had ignored it. What would happen if I ignored it now?
I had taken him by the arm, my fingers resting on the fabric of his shirt and on his skin. My breath had caught. My eyes very slowly traveled upward, resting, hesitating, on the button just below his Adam’s apple, then I forced myself to meet his gaze.
I didn’t see what I had expected to find. The questioning look was gone, replaced by his own hesitation, and a recognition. He took a step closer, and put his hand on the small of my back, then moved both hands up to cup the back of my neck. In the time that I have known Ray, I have only once seen the gentleness with which he was kissing me now. It was as unexpected then as it was this time. He had been interviewing a rape victim, his voice compassionate, his eyes never leaving hers. He had been uncharacteristically still, as he was now, kissing me softly, with no sense of intrusion, his hands resting tenderly, so that I could pull away if I chose to. The memory, incongruous to this moment, jarred me slightly, and I pulled away. “Ray…” it was almost a whisper, but it felt like a cry for help, one a long time in coming. I had longed for this, for a very long time, pictured it as I looked into his eyes, or sat beside him, or breathed in his scent. The sensation I felt now was not unlike being plunged into icy waters, then pulled out again, a certain numbness spreading throughout me, my fear interrupting once again. She had left me more damaged than I had realized, my wounds open and exposed.
“It’s okay Benny.” He brought a hand up to caress my face, then grinned as he ruffled my hair slightly.
“Ray, I…” I sighed and smiled ruefully. “Well, I suppose you know, now. I…” I couldn’t articulate how I longed for him, but how my fear, my wounds were a constant interruption to my admissions, my desires.
“It’s okay,” he repeated, and began to run his hands up and down my back. I allowed myself to return this gesture of affection. “Is it?” I asked. He shrugged. “Yeah. I’ve got the weekend, anyway. After that, we’ll have to pretend like nothing happened.”
I started, for a moment, before it occurred to me that he was joking, grinning teasingly at me. I smiled back and pulled him closer, burying my face in the crook of his neck. I felt him against me and opened my eyes in surprise, then breathed in sharply as I felt my reaction match his. “Now,” I whispered, the sense of urgency intense, making my mind and my heart race.
“Bossy,” he whispered back, but there was joy in it.
It was clumsy, fumbling with one another’s clothes, impatiently pushing back sheets, slowly exploring one another. I pushed against him, wanting his skin against mine, longing for his warmth, pulling at his lips with my own, breathing him in.
I watched him sleeping beside me, breathing steadily, bathed in the light that streamed through the window. I slipped out of bed to close the curtain against the streetlight. I stopped, seeing the moon shining down on the city. I stared up at the sky, as if seeing it for the first time. It had been so long since I felt I belonged somewhere. I slid back into bed with Ray and, feeling his arm over me, knew that I was home.