Consider the Lilies of the Goddamned Field, Hanged Man

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My table

Claim: due South, Fraser/Kowalski
Title: Consider the Lilies of the Goddamned Field
Author: Nifra Idril, on LJ nifra_idril
Characters: Fraser, Ray
Prompt: 11. Character Study
Rating: PG-13
Length: short
Brief summary: This is a wonderful little peek into Ray’s mind, post-Stella. Five little vignettes about the different phases of Ray’s life, moving from his relationship with Stella, to being single, to realizing that he’s queer and that he’s attracted to Fraser. I think this is a great example of a spot on Ray voice, and I just love these little slices of Ray. Oh, and the title rocks *g*


Sexual crises are supposed to happen when you’re in your twenties. That’s what everyone tells you, that’s what all the movies are about, that’s why everyone thinks all women have some kind of hidden college-lesbian experience, right?

Except, Ray’s nearly forty, and he just had his, and truth is – it doesn’t really change a damn thing.

So, turns out, Ray likes guys. He likes women, too, because he’s not blind, and he remembers what it’s like to have sex with somebody who’s soft and round against him, but a lot of times these days when he’s jacking off, he’s jacking off to the image of a body that’s not so soft, not so round, not so womanly.

He’s queer. Big fucking surprise, right? Except it isn’t, really, because it doesn’t matter that much, because Ray is still not getting any.

He’s still not *choosing* to get any, that is.

Which makes everything pretty fucking theoretical, but all his theoretical fucking has been with men these days, and it’s not like it’s rocking his world or anything. It’s not like it makes him any less *Ray*, it’s not like he’s wearing silk shirts and hip huggers.

Link to the story: Consider the Lilies of the Goddamned Field


Claim: due South, Fraser/Kowalski
Title: Hanged Man
Author: Speranza, on LJ cesperanza
Characters: Fraser, Ray, the usual suspects
Prompt: 47. Reccer’s Choice
Rating: NC-17
Length: long
Brief summary: This is one of my favorites. First of all, it’s Speranza, so it’s well-written and wonderful. Secondly, I love watching Ray and Fraser’s very quick and sudden epiphany, and then a whole lot of them not being able to figure their shit OUT. In the meantime, they have lots of very hot sex, which makes it only a little bit easier to watch them destroy their relationship. No worries, they’ll figure it out, but it hurts a little to get there. Flawless characterization, heartbreaking and hot and wonderful, then happy.


Ray is reaching for the light switch but Fraser bats his hand away, pushes him into the room, and shoves the door closed. There's hardly room to stand in there and it's dark aside from the random streaks of neon light and suddenly Fraser's right there, way up close, and fuck, this is really going to happen. And that's the last coherent thought he has, because Fraser clutches Ray's hips and pulls their bodies together, and Ray leans in to take Fraser's mouth and--

The first time Ray ever goes into the ocean, it's in the Bahamas, with Stella, on their honeymoon, and okay, yeah, it was warm that day and the beach was hot enough to burn the soles of his feet but when he went down to jump in the water, he was shocked by how warm it was, like a bath, like the womb, like the entire ocean was an extension of his own body. It was uncanny, and he'd never felt anything like it, because Lake Michigan was never like that, not even on the hottest days of August. He felt like he could just close his eyes and drown, because this was where he belonged, in this ocean of perfectly Ray-temperatured water.

Kissing Fraser is a lot like that. Fraser's mouth just opens under his and this should be weird, this should be wrong, but it's not--it's not at all.

Link to the story: Hanged Man