ds_noticeboard | Lovers In A Dangerous Time

This story starts about two weeks ago when I was thinking to myself "You know, I really haven't come across very few Due South fanmixes." Being that I'm a pretty big fan of music, I thought it might be a good idea to embark upon creating my own Due South fanmix. All gen or friendship intentions pretty much went out the window (because it's no secret that I'm a natural romantic-at-heart, and those boys are just something else.) For me, as for quite a few others I'm sure, the dynamic between Benton Fraser and Ray Kowalski is pretty iconic, and pretty darn great. Now, I won't risk going into all the reasons that I "ship" these two characters (impossible), but I will tell you that halfway through putting this together, I thought to myself "What is it that makes a fanmix great?" I thought back on the best fanmixes I've ever come across, and what made them so good was that they made connections to other aspects of the fandom -- tied everything together and further cemented the characters or subjects in my fangirl heart.

So what did I do? I picked some songs that I felt were appropriate for what is formally called "subtext" within the series. There are some seriously romantic undertones here, and if Benton/RayK isn't really your thing, simply be advised :] (though I'm sure you'd still enjoy the music!) And along with these songs, I picked excerpts from fiction that was really near and dear to my heart; excerpts that I felt went along well with the choice of music. Included with the excerpts are lyrics, artist and author names, and links so that you may enjoy the stories I have enjoyed so very much. Please read the respective warnings before reading the stories.

More importantly, I wanted to share something nice with the people that have been so kind to me these past few months since entering this fandom. Think of this as a little thank you. You all somehow manage to always brighten my day :]

(And now you're thinking "Oh my god. Quit being a schmoop, and just get ON with it, already!" :P)

Here is the tracklisting...

Please remember to change the "hxxp" to "http". Songs are uploaded individually; mp3/mp4 in the first file, zipped in the second (thanks

sadiane

hxxp://www.sendspace.com/folder/saev08

hxxp://www.sendspace.com/file/i3um65

1.) The Wrong Guy - Okkervil River/Julie Doiron (Split EP)
I close my hands around his head
Steady myself for the kiss
No one should see this

I tighten my eyes and feel the stress
Close my lips onto his
No one seems to like this

I open my eyes in horror
To see what I've done
It was the wrong guy
He was the wrong guy

"So, Fraser," Ray begins, slowly and more gently than I deserve. "What was that? Some kind of Canadian thing?"

I close my eyes for an instant, trying to provide some relief for the unusual stinging sensation that the sound of his careful words engenders. "It was a kiss, Ray."

"Yeah, I figured that much. I mean . . . like buddy breathing? Or . . . like something else?"
~ Touch and Go by Beth H.

http://beth-h.mrks.org/DS_Fiction/Touch.html




2. Search Party – Wintersleep

Are you waiting for a miracle?
Are you waiting for a lightning bolt?
Are you waiting like a paranoid little boy?
Are you ever gonna come back home?
Do you really think the sky is falling?
How you ever gonna pick up the pieces?
Do you really think that anybody will listen?
Do you really think that anybody will notice?

I used to dream about saving the world
Now i just dream about the holidays
I used to write so many songs for my girl
Now all i think about is floating away
I think I need a big vacation
I think I need a big vacation
I think I need a big vacation
Out of this place

"Then we're partners?" Fraser asked.
"Always," Ray said, "Doesn't matter where we are, or what we're doing. Partners." It was simple truth. It was the essence of things.
~True North by

http://crys.mrks.org/fic/tn/truenorth.html
  3. Goodnight Elisabeth - Counting Crows

I was wasted in the afternoon
Waiting on a train
I woke up in pieces and Elisabeth had disappeared again
I wish you were inside of me
I hope that you're ok
I hope you're resting quietly
I just wanted to say
Goodnight Elisabeth
Goodnight Elisabeth
We couldn't all be cowboys
So some of us are clowns
Some of us are dancers on the midway
We roam from town to town
I hope that everybody can find a little flame
Me, I say my prayers, then I just light myself on fire
And I walk out on the wire once again
And I say
Goodnight Elisabeth
Goodnight Elisabeth
I will wait for you in Baton Rouge
I'll miss you down in New Orleans
I'll wait for you while she slips in something comfortable
And I'll miss you when I'm slipping in between
If you wrap yourself in daffodils
I will wrap myself in pain
And if you're the queen of California
Baby I am the king of the rain
And I say
Goodnight Elisabeth
Goodnight Elisabeth

In reality Fraser is alone in his cot at the Consulate, and Ray is out with a woman named Caroline, attending a dance club in downtown Chicago. Fraser knows this because all day long Ray has been telling him about it, asking his opinion of potential restaurants and nightclubs and shirt-and-jeans combinations, laughing at his answers and insulting his sense of fashion.
http://www.crocolanthus.com/ficlet1.htm


4. Closer to You – The Wallflowers



You know there's nowhere else
I've wanted to be
Than be there when you needed me
I'm sorry too
But don't give up on me
And just remember that when you
Were asleep
I got a little bit closer to you

"Stay." Fraser's voice was quiet, and hoarse, and he was looking Ray straight in the eye, and he wasn't blinking. "Please. I can- Stay."
Ray took a deep breath, exhaled. His bag made a thump as it landed on the floor.
"What about me being ill-equipped to handle it here?" He hid his hands in his pockets.
"That isn't- that isn't true." Fraser was still barely blinking through his blue gaze. "I- that isn't true, Ray. You are."

~The Distances Between by Mrs. Ron Weasley
http://mrsronweasley.popullus.net/ds/distances.html

5.) Strange – Tori Amos (Scarlet's Walk)
Strange
Thought I knew you well
Thought I had read the sky
Thought I had read a change
in your eyes
so strange
Woke up to a world
that I am
not a part
except when I can
play it's stranger

"Stay. Stay, stay, stay..."
He laughed, and buried his face in my hair. "Took you long enough to ask."
"I—didn't think I could ask."
Ray pulled back and looked at me. "What do I got to go back for, huh? Nothing. I got nothing back there."

~Enduring Distance by Speranza
http://www.trickster.org/speranza/EDistance.html

6.) Why Can't It Be Mine? - Basia Bulat (Oh, My Darling)

I wanna believe you
you know that I try
it's just the way that you look sometimes
oh it's been hard on me
it's only a feeling
but after all this time
why can't it be mine?

Fraser almost pulls away but I grab him tight and lock him to me. I gotta make him understand. "I want to go back to before him, back to when you wanted me, Fraser. Because you did want me, you used to want me and then you didn't anymore—" Fraser's eyes are widening; he's looking shocked.
"Ray..."
"—and I couldn't get back there. And it is not like with Stella, because Stella and me were over, where you and me never started, because I was slow, I was stupid, missed my chance and—"
"Ray. Shut up."

~ Ping by Speranza
http://www.trickster.org/speranza/Ping.html

7.) Honey and the Moon – Joseph Arthur

But right now
Everything you want is wrong,
And right now
All your dreams are waking up,
And right now
I wish that I could follow you

"Partners is over," Ray said gently. "Everything we got—all this stuff that doesn't go away—is what's left. This isn't brothers, Fraser. I don't love you like that."

~Alone, Together by Secretly Brontë
http://secretlybronte.livejournal.com/52752.html

8.) Lovers In A Dangerous Time – Bruce Cockburn

Sometimes you're made to feel as if your love's a crime
Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight
Got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight
When you're lovers in a dangerous time

"It's all right," Fraser says, pushing a hand up Ray's back, and Ray laughs and tightens his fist in Fraser's sweater and he doesn't even bother calling Fraser a liar. Fraser swallows and kisses Ray's temple again, and this time Ray doesn't pretend he didn't feel it; he lifts his head from Fraser's neck and looks Fraser in the eye. Fraser blushes, but he holds Ray's gaze, and the two of them, they have this moment.
"It ain't all right," Ray says finally.
"No," Fraser agrees, and he hardly has any voice left at all, and Ray closes his eyes and presses his mouth to Fraser's, slides a hand up Fraser's neck to cup the back of Fraser's head and hold him close.
~Failsafe by Crocolanthus
http://www.crocolanthus.com/Failsafe.html

9.) You're So Dear to Me – Breathe Owl Breathe

Oh, you're so dear to me.
I ain't gonna lie, and I ain't gonna beg.
I need you more than I thought
every day.

Fraser took a step closer, relaxing out of his military at-ease posture. He didn’t touch Ray, but his shoulder brushed against the sleeve of Ray’s coat, and Ray listened to the different leather parts of Fraser’s uniform creak as Fraser shifted his weight, trying to work out what he wanted to say.

"What do you ‘get’, Ray?"

"That I love you," Ray said quietly, meeting his eyes. "That I’ve been in love with you since the night you got hurt. Longer, maybe. And now I don’t know how to stop." He put his hand on Fraser’s arm, and was relieved when Fraser didn’t flinch away. "I don’t want to stop, Fraser. Please don’t ask me to stop."

~Swimming with Sharks by Nos4a2No9
  http://fic-by-nos.livejournal.com/17263.html#cutid1

10.) Skinny Love – Bon Iver

I told you to be patient
I told you to be fine
I told you to be balanced
I told you to be kind
Now all your love is wasted?
Then who the hell was I?
Now I'm breaking at the britches
And at the end of all your lines

"Ray, I’m not sure it would be wise to label yourself based on your physical reactions to me. Particularly given how fluid your feelings seem to be."

Ray ran that back in his head. Fluid. And physical reactions. What the hell was Fraser saying?

"Fraser," he said, and then stopped short. "Benton." And that was much better. "Ben. This was about you and me. And I didn’t get that until today."

~Swimming with Sharks by Nos4a2No9
http://fic-by-nos.livejournal.com/17263.html#cutid1

11.) To Build A Home – The Cinematic Orchestra

By the cracks of the skin I climbed to the top
I climbed the tree to see the world
When the gusts came around to blow me down
I held on as tightly as you held onto me
I held on as tightly as you held onto me......

Ray lifts his head, startled by the emotion he can feel in Fraser’s aging, tired body. It runs through him like a current; Ray can feel it in Fraser’s hand, his grip strong but gentle, too.

That’s what you came here for, something inside him says.

~ In Another Place, Not Here by Nos4a2No9
http://fic-by-nos.livejournal.com/16894.html

12.) Strangers In A Car – Marc Cohn

You don't know where you're goin'
You don't know what you're doin'
Hell it might be the highway to heaven
And it might be the road to ruin
But this is a song
For strangers in a car
Baby maybe that's all
We really are

The rational part of his brain knows that these dreams are part hazy childhood memory, inspired perhaps by the way his mother used to hold him and sing to him in the long darkness of the northern nights, and part wishful thinking. Touch and death, blissful connection and then the inevitable splintering. He wishes the two weren't so intertwined in his mind, loss wrapped up in warmth. His experience with intimacy is so limited. What little he has known of physical love has shown him that tenderness is unlikely, affection even more so. There is need and want and pain. The bullet in his back has shown him all he needs to know of love.
~Two Solitudes by Nos4a2no9
http://wasbeautiful.com/Fanfiction/twosolitudes.html

13.) Peppermint – Lovers

We're gonna be healing for a long time
But we won't be sleepless, it will get better each night
'Cause we're not afraid of dying,
we're afraid of wanting never to die.

He kisses Benton Fraser again, in the little boat on the edge of the vast arctic sea. Around them, the ice cracks and the waves rock.

Ray thinks about carving his name into the land, just to prove that he’s finally here.

~In Another Place, Not Here by Nos4a2no9
http://fic-by-nos.livejournal.com/16894.html

14.) Why We Cry At Movies – As Tall As Lions (Lafcadio)

you see, I fall so slowly like leaves in the air
it's tearing me to bitter end
I guess there's no way to make love
and not break our hearts

And you're fueled on failure
The mistakes we've made
and regrets we've saved
have all scarred
too deep to heal your wounds

Fraser’s lips are chapped and his mouth is dry and his kiss is unsure and tentative. But Ray doesn’t care. He kisses Fraser because they’ve been idiots, and he kisses Fraser because Ray hurt him, and he kisses Fraser because Fraser hurt him. Mostly, Ray kisses Fraser because Fraser is a goddamn stubborn bastard who talks all the time but never says anything. And because when he does, Fraser always says "goodbye" instead of "stay."

~ In Another Place, Not Here by Nos4a2No9
http://fic-by-nos.livejournal.com/16894.html

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

This looks beautiful - thank you!

Thank you for your kind words! Please enjoy :]

here via

nos4a2no9

Oh, this looks awesome! We get so few mixes for these two.

Since I'm snatching all the tracks, you like a .zip file up somewhere or other? I have a fast connection and a lazy afternoon....

ETA: zip file, just in case:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=L4K4GO3V

Edited 2009-07-19 20:31 (UTC)

Oh, you're a dear. I should've uploaded both the individual and the zipped, but I wasn't really using the old noggin. Thank you for the zip; I'm going to upload the zipped file to my server and provide the link here (don't want to bog down your server :])

Oh, it's okay to just paste in the link - it's on megaupload, so I'm not paying for bandwidth or anything!

I just know that some people's connections don't like grabbing 14 separate tracks :D But then, other computers don't like making zip folders...

Thanks for letting me know!

Haha, definitely. It's better this way, with both options. Thanks so much for your help! Please enjoy the mix :]

Eep! I love fanmixes, and this list looks fantastic. Yey, you made my day :D

I'm glad to hear it! Thank you so much, I tried to form an appropriate list here, but we'll see.

Awww, I'm glad to help :D

I am completely addicted to this mix. I squeed when I heard Honey and the Moon for the first time. Do you know the song "If the World Ends" by Guillemots? I think you'd like it.

Oh! I'm so glad to hear that! ♥

"Honey and the Moon" is just...mmmm. So good. And yes, I'm familiar! It's quite good :D

Lovers In A Dangerous Time - A RayK/Fraser Mix

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