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Language:
English
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Published:
2024-12-06
Words:
418
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
4
Kudos:
13
Hits:
69

Falling

Summary:

Sometimes you want to fall

Work Text:

Sometimes you *want* to fall.

Ray doesn't know when he learned this, but he did. He sure as hell knows he did not know this when he was thirteen years old, pissing himself in a bank.

Back then, Ray knew that they were screwed. He knew that Stella, the pretty blonde girl, was scared. Hell, he knew the grown-ups were scared. Ray was scared too, scared to die, scared to do nothing, but more scared to do something. He looked over the edge, and he was so scared, and he fell.

Suddenly, Ray was Stella's hero. He saved her, he saved everybody, and Stella loved Ray for it. And the edge got sharper, higher, scarier. And Ray, well, he had to walk closer to that edge. And falling? Well, falling got to be something that Ray avoided every day. He tried to stick with loving Stella and hoping for the best.

One day, Ray realized that instead of just loving Stella, he could be in love with her. That day, Ray thought about wanting to fall. Looking back, Ray thinks maybe he thought he knew about wanting to fall then. But he didn't, not really, not then. So, instead of falling, he jumped. Ray leaped in with both feet, and he never looked back, except when he did.

Ray never fell with Stella, not so it mattered. He only knew this after. The loving was easy, it wasn't falling, it just was. The falling came later. And it was just as scary as the bank, and the hero, and the being loved. The falling with Stella was the falling apart, and Ray didn't want to fall.

Ray Vecchio knew about falling. There was falling out of cars, and falling off buildings, and falling through windows. And, yeah, sometimes, he wanted to do those things for Fraser, but Ray knew he didn't really want to fall. To be Ray Vecchio, he had to fall.

Then, Ray Vecchio came back. And Fraser and Ray Kowalski fell off a plane. And they fell down a mountain. And they fell into a crevasse. And Fraser fell down a mineshaft with Muldoon. And, sitting around a campfire, Ray fell into Fraser. And Ray Kowalski didn't have to fall.

When Ray settled himself into the sled with the tallow and the tack and an old map, he knew. When he watched Fraser salute Buck Frobisher, he knew. When they slid across the snow field, falling into adventure, he knew.

Sometimes you *want* to fall.