A snapshot by Anam
"Have you ever wished you go can back in time and take back all the wrong you have done, to stop yourself from making that one stupid mistake?"
Ray asked this question aloud as he touched the scar on Fraser’s back with his fingertips, but softly enough to not wake the sleeping man by his side. Fraser was lying on his stomach, displaying a smooth, bare back that was flawed only by a single bullet’s impact.
Ray’s mistake naked in this bed.
"I think about it all the time, Benny, of going back and taking back everything."
Time traveling and turning back clocks. Ray saw the absurdity of it, the impossibility of having something like that. Fraser would have pointed out Ray’s irrationality too, in that practical, logical way of his and the inevitable bickering would soon follow with each man firmly standing his ground.
Ray laughed to himself.
He knew he couldn’t go back. There was no way he could. Wish for the impossible and you’ll get burned. Ray knew all too well.
Maybe he became hopeful.
Didn’t he wish to have Benny love him for the longest time? Didn’t he finally get what he wished for?
It was like heaven.
It was *heaven* until Ray saw the mark, the wound he had inflicted upon the man.
Things will never be the same again, not like they use to be. Ray now couldn’t ignore what he had done, the mistake he had made that night on the train station platform. It will always be there, like a stain on his soul, as permanent as Benny’s scar.
He had ruined something beautiful.
Ray imagined a scarlet letter burned into his chest: ‘A’ for Adulterer.
‘A’ for Asshole.
He really fucked up this time and he can’t take it back.
Ray sat up in bed and buttoned his silk shirt. He was running late for work again. The detective had to pull an extra shift this morning at the precinct. His heavy caseload demanded it.
Fraser was going to have to walk the streets to the Consulate today, faulty spine and all.
"Nah, you’ll do all right, Benny. I’ve done enough already, believe me."
Ray tiptoed around the dark apartment, silently collecting his things and putting himself together. A gray Armani jacket on his back and a Sulka tie around his throat. Ray was all set.
He was ready to leave.
Ray looked back at the sleeping form on the bed, but only once.
"I’ve loved you for so long that I would’ve forgiven you if you had ran away, but I don’t love enough to forgive myself. You need more than that, Benny."
The door closed quietly behind the cop. Benny turned away from his pillow with a sigh, feeling Ray’s touch vanishing from his body, and then it was gone.
"God, Ray."
The Mountie jumped up from bed and quickly pulled on his jeans and threw on a shirt.
Benny ran out the door to chase Ray down, to catch him before he made another mistake.
-The End-