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

Disclaimer: Boys are theirs, words are mine.

Author's Notes: Thanks to Sihaya Black for beta.

Story Notes: Written in response to the "packing" challenge at livejournal community ds_flashfiction.

Ray's apartment looked like a tornado had hit.

That's what Fraser would have said, if he could've seen it. For that matter, so would Stella. Clothes everywhere. Shirts all over the bed, pants in a pile outside the closet, socks spilling out of the dresser drawers.

The longjohns had to be somewhere, right? He couldn't have just lost them. Ray ran a jittery hand over his hair and scowled. Plane was leaving in eight hours and he couldn't find his long underwear.

It was going to be cold, and he wanted to be prepared.

His first trip back North since.

Since he'd screwed up. Since he'd pulled away from their first kiss -- their only kiss -- with his mouth tingling and his head spinning, and said, "What the hell are you thinking -- I don't swing like that!"

He'd thought it was true. And Fraser had said, "Of course, Ray, my apologies," and maybe he'd looked sad but he'd hid it pretty quick, and after that things weren't awkward, exactly, but they both knew the trip was over.

And Ray hadn't wanted to think about why he felt empty, or what he felt cheated of. And he'd been back in his apartment almost a week before he woke up from a dream about one of Fraser's weird Inuit stories, and realized he'd wanted Fraser to talk him into it. To change his mind. To show him how right they were for each other, how good it would be.

He was a jerk.

He felt weirdly lost, all the time, even though he knew most of Chicago like the back of his hand. It was like some part of him didn't want to be there, was straining to be back...North, back with Fraser, back last month before he'd ruined it. Was this how Fraser had felt, living in Chicago for so long with his heart pointing towards home?

People asked how the trip was, and why he'd come back so soon, and he got the feeling they were wondering why he'd come back at all. Frannie seemed to feel sorry for him, like she thought Fraser had dumped him, and she took him out a couple of times. Even Stella called to say she was sorry things hadn't worked out. It was sweet of her, and he felt like he ought to miss her more than he did, but he didn't.

And Fraser sent letters, but they said things like, "The full moon on snow sheds light bright enough to read by," and "I tracked an Arctic hare last week," not the things Ray wanted them to say.

For a while Ray thought he'd lost the chance, the right, to hear them. Felt sorry for himself. Pissed and moaned to the turtle a lot. Drank more than he knew he should.

And then one night he had some kind of weird hallucination. He was lying on the floor and this old Mountie stood over him and tsk'd and told him he'd been the one too chicken to kiss Benton so he'd have to be the one man enough to set things right. Woke up the next morning with a hangover something fierce, but he knew the imaginary guy was right.

He left a phone message with Fraser's boss (since Fraser had no phone), called the Lieu, and bought himself a one-way ticket. Leaving in the morning.

And he'd turned his apartment upside-down and he still couldn't find the longjohns. Must've left them up there. He'd packed kind of numb, and he'd missed them. (Seemed odd that Fraser hadn't mentioned it, though.) Had Fraser given them to Goodwill? (Did they even have Goodwill up there?) Or maybe he'd kept them. Maybe he'd slept with them, or worn them. The thought made Ray ache.

Nah. That was the kind of sentimental shit Ray would do, but Fraser wouldn't go there. Gets it into his head that he can't have something, and he just buttons it up and ignores it. (That thought made Ray ache in a different way, concentrated in the chest instead of spread all over his skin.)

Besides, they wouldn't fit him. But maybe he'd saved them, Ray decided. Maybe Fraser hoped...

Ray zipped the duffel bag and threw it on the floor, feeling strangely triumphant. He might not have his longjohns, but he knew where he was going.

Due North. At last.

(733 words)

End Due North by Kass: kass@trickster.org

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