If a tree grows in this post, how many hearts will be carved in its bark?

[slidellra.livejournal.com]

The prompts will be available on Monday, so we have a nice little handful of days left to play around and get ourselves in fighting/loving trim. How's about we start off with one of those drabble trees, eh?

1. I'll kick it off with a little bit o' writing.
2. You guys can reply to that with your own little bit o' writing that plays with something from the first (a line, a phrase, a scene, mood).
3. The next drabblers can reply to any of the above comments, and so on. Until we have a lovely, sturdy, romantic tree, with many ficcish branches all growing out of the first comment.

Have fun! Despite the name, for this drabble tree any length goes. Comment two, four, as many times as you like. Feel the romance, baby.

Comments

[slidellra.livejournal.com]

Fraser woke up slowly, struggling through cloudy layers of dream and memory to find himself, blinking and sleep-dazed, alone in Ray's bed. The room was dull dark, Ray's window blinds closed tight, but behind them the light was bright, and flow of traffic and the hum of the apartment building said midday, or perhaps early afternoon.

He stretched and listened, hoping for the familiar rustling, muttering, tapping, the music Ray generated wherever he went, but it was absent. Ray was out, then, probably back at the station dealing with loose ends from last night and this morning's arrests.

He should join him; Ray was just as exhausted as he, and far less careful with either paperwork or interrogations. He should return to the Consulate, where he imagined his desk had long disappeared under the overgrown pile of unprocessed forms and the Inspector's furious notes of complaint.

But the bed was impossibly comfortable, and he'd been sleeping on Ray's side, with Ray's pillow and the faint indentation of Ray's body on the mattress. Despite the late hour and the responsibilities waiting for him, he felt a powerful urge to stay, stay and nap and wallow as he might if Ray were here with him.

But Ray wasn't here. Steeling himself, Fraser sat up with a groan, his ribs protesting yesterday's fall, and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

On the bedside table sat his Stetson and a neon yellow takeout menu scrawled over with Ray's handwriting. He picked it up and read: Back soon. Until then, you're stuck. Sleep.

Frowning in confusion, Fraser glanced around the room, trying to make sense of the message, before returning his attention to the bedside table. He'd been stumbling, bone-tired and sore, but surely he remembered leaving his hat in the other room?

Ah. He grasped the crown and lifted, and the weight confirmed his suspicion well before the expected tug. One of Ray's handcuffs was fastened securely around his hat band, the other to the reading lamp. Very clever.

He considered the situation, devised six different strategies for freeing his hat from its false imprisonment without damage to hat, lamp, or cuffs, then eased himself back down on Ray's side of the bed. Perhaps he'd flip the mattress later, but, for the moment, he'd enjoy the feel of Ray around him, and try his hand at wallowing.

[sage]

eeeeee, subject line!! ♥ ♥ ♥