DS drabble, songfic challenge

[exeterlinden]

I started writing this for the songfic challenge and kept expecting something more to come of it,  but no…

 

Unbetaed. No warnings. 600 words.

 

It wasn't until three weeks into the trip that Ray figured out what had made him realise that him and Fraser wasn't gonna happen.

When they started out he had had hopes, you know. Thinking that, yeah, maybe he could live in Canada and freeze his forty year old butt off, and start over with all the relationship stuff. With Fraser.

But ever since they started out on the expedition, he'd had this sinking feeling. It wasn't anything Fraser'd said or done, it was just this… Hunch. Just this growing certainty, so that by now he was perfectly, painfully aware that it wasn't gonna happen.

He'd wondered why, how he could be so sure. It wasn't that Fraser was homophobic. It wasn't that he didn't love Ray; he did, he loved Ray, and maybe even in that way.

But on the twentyfirst day on the trip, at nine o'clock in the morning, Ray sat shivering in his parka and drank coffee that was turning cold while he drank it and watched Fraser pack up the tent, and for once didn't focus only on Fraser's body, and his own want.

He noticed how Fraser hummed under his breath, and sometimes stopped working just to look at the white, almost invisible horizon. He noticed how focused Fraser was, and how efficiently he moved, wasting no energy or time. He noticed how Fraser paused to look at the dogs, the snow, the sky – and that he didn't look at Ray. He was lost in himself, in his daily doings.

So comfortable being alone, being his own man.

Ray had thought that this trip would bring them closer together, but it hadn't. It had only demonstrated to him just where he ended and Fraser began. He realised now that Fraser had already extended all that he was capable of to Ray. And there was no use in flinging himself against those doors because they weren't gonna give in.

Fraser was a one man guy. And Ray had been wrong thinking that he was that guy.

 

---- 

One Man Guy

People will know when they see this show
The kind of a guy I am
They'll recognize just what I stand for and what I just can't stand
They'll perceive what I believe in
And what I know is true
And they'll recognize I'm a one man guy
Always was through and through

People meditate
Hey that's just great
Trying to find the inner you
People depend on family and friends
And other folks to pull them through

I don't know why I'm a one man guy
Or why I'm a one man show
But these three cubic feet of bone and blood and meat are all I love and know

'Cause I'm a one man guy in the morning
Same in the afternoon
One man guy when the sun goes down
I whistle me a one man tune

One man guy a one man guy
Only kind of guy to be
I'm a one man guy
I'm a one man guy
I'm a one man guy is me

I'm gonna bathe and shave
And dress myself and eat solo every night
Unplug the phone, sleep alone
Stay way out of sight
Sure it's kind of lonely
Yeah it's sort of sick
Being your own one and only
Is a dirty selfish trick

'Cause I'm a one man guy in the morning
Same in the afternoon
One man guy when the sun goes down
I whistle me a one man tune
One man guy a one man guy
Only kind of guy to be
I'm a one man guy
I'm a one man guy
I'm a one man guy is me

 

Written by Loudon Wainwright, performed by Rufus Wainwright

 

 

Comments

[shayheyred.livejournal.com]

Wow. Fascinating observation. Sad, really, but I think accurate.

[exeterlinden.livejournal.com]

Thanks :) I wanted to make a long, poetic story out of it but it just. Wouldn't. Happen. Bleh.

[luzula]

Read this in order to read Nos' remix of the story.

It's funny, because I like that song, but I've never listened properly to the lyrics--I always thought he was a one man guy in the sense of only of only loving one (other) guy. But no.

Wow, your story is kind of depressing, but Ray has kind of the same realization I just had in reading the lyrics of the song. Ow, I really feel for him.

[exeterlinden.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Yes, I feel for Ray in this story, too :) But when I heard the song it just called out Fraser to me - he seems so self-reliant, so caught up in his personal stories and his sense of obligations. I could just see him, not being unwilling, but unable - after all these years of solitude - to open up to another person.