TEAM REALITY: Day 8, "For a Good Life We Just Might Have to Weaken"
Title: For a Good Life We Just Might Have to Weaken
Author: malnpudl
Team: Reality
Prompt: "Look at it this way -- if we don't, we're toast."
Pairing(s): Fraser/Kowalski
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 9400
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: A thousand thanks to my betas akamine_chan and nos4a2no9 for their candor, patience, persistence, cheerleading, and invaluable guidance. The title is from a Tragically Hip song. (You're so not surprised.)
Summary: Math was never Ray's strong suit in school. He got Cs if he slacked off, Bs if he worked hard, which he sometimes did, especially in pre-algebra when he had a crush on his teacher and then again in geometry when he and Stella were in the same class. He had three classes and a study hall with her that year; if anything could salvage being a high school sophomore, that was it. It was the only time Ray ever got an A minus in math.
Lately, though, Ray's whole life has turned into a numbers game, and he's starting to feel like he's almost good at it. At numbers, that is, not at the whole life thing.
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**
* * *
Math was never Ray's strong suit in school. He got Cs if he slacked off, Bs if he worked hard, which he sometimes did, especially in pre-algebra when he had a crush on his teacher and then again in geometry when he and Stella were in the same class. He had three classes and a study hall with her that year; if anything could salvage being a high school sophomore, that was it. It was the only time Ray ever got an A minus in math.
Lately, though, Ray's whole life has turned into a numbers game, and he's starting to feel like he's almost good at it. At numbers, that is, not at the whole life thing.
Like money, that's all numbers. How much he makes (decent pay, really, especially when he gets some overtime, if nothing compared to Stella's salary) and how much it costs for a single guy to live alone in Chicago (more than you'd think; two can't live as cheaply as one, it's true, but it did cut expenses by a good chunk of change). Not to mention how much he can sock into his voluntary retirement account, which is less than it used to be, and how many years it'll be until he can think about retiring, which is about five more than it used to be.
And speaking of years and counting them, as of last Tuesday it's exactly a year since his divorce was final, and as of a week from Friday it'll be exactly eight months since he and Stella last spent a night together, which also makes eight months (which is 244 days, which is 35 weeks, give or take a couple of days) since Ray last got laid. Not to mention that it's been five months, three weeks, and one day since Ray last went on a date, and four months, two weeks, and six days since he last even bothered to ask a woman out.
Which brings things around to The Mountie Factor. Ray's social life, like his every other kind of life, has come to revolve entirely around Fraser. Around, which is to say in the vicinity of, with Fraser at the center of the circle and Ray bouncing around the circumference like he's in orbit, never getting close but never getting away.
And he wants to get close.
Well, hey, so does Fraser. Ray can add one inconvenient hard-on of his own while tied up face-to-face by bad guys (which seems to happen more often than you'd think) to Fraser's matching wood and get two guys who are horny for each other. Problem is, he can also subtract things like Fraser's bright red face and tight jaw and the way neither he nor Fraser could look each other in the eye and how they both carefully avoided talking about it later and get minus six for the whole thing.
Ray's doing double-entry bookkeeping in his head, which is just plain freaky, but the numbers just keep adding up whether he likes it or not. Pluses in one column for all the times he's gotten hot for Fraser and all the times he's been sure that Fraser was hot for him. Minuses in the other column for all the ways they haven't done anything about it. As of this morning, they were seriously in the red.
It's not like he doesn't understand why. He knows all the reasons why it's a bad idea. He's had all the conversations in his head; he can do any of half a dozen variations on it, knows all his lines and all of Fraser's, too.
There's the one that starts with Fraser taking seven paragraphs and way too much punctuation that Ray can actually hear -- something that'd only happened to Ray before with Stella, when she got into her speechifying mode; all those free-flying semicolons and emdashes had always gotten Ray horny and made him want to fuck her mouth -- to tell Ray the story about how Corporal Tightass up at Depot dedicated an entire two-hour classroom session to listing all of the eight-hundred and forty-seven perils of romantic involvement with co-workers, which Ray's head translates to "Don't shit where you eat" before Fraser's even got himself warmed up.
Or the one where Fraser finally makes Ray admit that he isn't sure he could handle losing his parents again, so soon after he got them back, and Fraser's eyes go all soft and make something twist in Ray's chest because he knows that Fraser knows even better than he does how much it sucks to have that happen.
And then there's the one where they overhear another rumor about some faggot patrolman who got the crap beat out of him because backup took their sweet time reach him. They don't even talk about that one. They just look at each other with tight jaws and angry eyes and about a hundred uncrossable miles between them.
There are a whole bunch more, but they all end up the same: Yeah, they want each other -- Jesus, do they want each other -- and no, they can't have what they want.
It sucks.
* * *
They're at lunch when the call comes in, mopping up the last of the spaghetti sauce with the last two pieces of garlic bread while Fraser tells a story that Ray's already forgotten the beginning of -- not that that matters, because he's heard it before and he'll hear it again, and there's no point to the whole thing anyway except that it gives Fraser something else to do with his mouth than say "let's go to your place and fuck ourselves blind" or whatever that translates to in Canadian.
Dead rich guy at a big party, Welsh says. Take the Mountie and check it out.
Ray's grateful to have something else to think about besides how much he wants to get Fraser naked, but that only lasts until they get to the scene, which is, get this, a screening room, Hollywood style, right there in a ritzy suburban Chicago mini-mansion. There are six rows of reclining seats upholstered in a deep claret suede that matches the fabric-covered walls, six seats across, each row higher than the one in front of it. The little table things between each seat are overflowing with cocktails of all sorts, and Ray would be willing to bet a month's pay that they'll find more than a couple of lingering traces of other mood-altering substances, too, though it looks like most of the incriminating evidence was stashed somewhere out of sight before the cops arrived.
The wide screen at the front of the room is a good six feet high, and it's full of larger-than-life naked men who are kissing and groping each other and sucking and fucking and moaning and groaning and coming all over each other.
"What the fuck." Ray knows he should have put a question mark in there somewhere, but it comes out flat and hard and a little bit desperate. Fraser is standing next to him, as rigid as the corpse in the front row seat is going to be in a few hours, but a whole lot warmer; Ray can feel the heat radiating off him. Or maybe it's Ray's own blood, searing through his veins and burning through his skin, the heat reflected right back at him off Fraser's impenetrable surface.
The credit balance in Ray's head jumps ten points. The muscles in Fraser's jaw flex as he moves into parade rest and carefully stares at a blank wall; that's four in the debit column. Still in the red by better than three dozen. Or worse, depending on how you look at it.
Huey gives a nod toward the dead guy. "That's Flint Mitchell, the porno king. He threw this party to introduce his new line of gay skin flicks."
"Harder!" a husky voice begs from somewhere behind Ray. "Fuck me harder!"
Ray and Fraser turn in unison, like they're choreographed, but there's nothing there except some big black speakers hung high on the wall. By the time Ray's brain works it all out, they're pumping out the sound of a guy coming like he's dying and he can already see the gates of heaven. Porn in 3-D surround sound.
"Jesus," Ray mutters, and there's enough of the altar boy left in him to briefly wonder if God is punishing him for something. If so, it's working. Ray's ready to repent, if it'll just get him out of this room.
No such luck.
"You get this room," Huey says, stopping Ray with a raised hand when he turns back and opens his mouth to argue. "Don't think I'm getting off any easier. Dewey and I have to start interviewing the guests, several of whom you've seen on that screen --" he gestures over his shoulder with a cocked thumb "--and are currently gathered by the pool wearing...." He trails off and winces. "I don't know what they call those things, but they can't be comfortable."
In between the sex noises coming out of the speakers, Ray could swear he hears a noise coming out of Fraser, one he couldn't put a name to but it makes something squirm inside him. He's got no problem reading what it means, though, and Fraser's probably right. As bad as this room is, hours of face time with porn stars in the way-too-much flesh might be even worse.
"CSU?" His voice tries to crack, but he covers it with a cough.
"On the way," Huey says, and leaves them alone with one corpse, one uniform, and the two guys sixty-nining each other on the screen.
The uniform has his back to the screen, but he still looks like he'd rather be having his nuts waxed than stand there a minute longer. Another cop scared to death of gay cooties. Imagine that. "Can't we turn this thing off, already?" he asks, and his face works like he's trying not to upchuck.
Any rookie straight out of the academy knows better than that -- nothing gets touched until CSU has done their thing with the scene. Nothing. Ray glares at him. "You asking me to risk contaminating evidence? Is that what I just heard?"
The guy looks embarrassed -- Ray will give him that much -- though under the circumstances it's hard to say for sure whether it's over his fuck-up or the slurping sounds coming from the speakers, which are making Ray uncomfortable enough that he decides to cut the uniform a break he doesn't deserve. "Get out of here," he says, with a tilt of his head. "We've got the scene; you can watch the door as well from outside as in here."
"Oh, thank God." It explodes out of the guy, almost more air than sound, and he hauls ass in such a hurry that he shoves between Ray and Fraser, shouldering them out of his way to reach the door, which he pulls shut behind him hard enough to rattle the walls.
The noise that comes out of Fraser has Ray's head whipping around to look at him. He's never heard Fraser do that, let out his breath all shaky that way. He guesses Fraser kind of startled himself, because for once he doesn't look away immediately, and neither does Ray, and their eyes have gotten all the way through kissing and foreplay and are about to fuck before either of them figures out it's happening.
Ray wrenches his head around hard enough to make his neck crack and start up a fierce ache at the base of his skull, but that's not enough to discourage his dick, which is doing stuff it has no business doing anywhere within a hundred yards of a dead body. He's uncharitable enough to hope that Fraser's in no better shape.
The balance sheet in Ray's head practically goes ka-ching, the credits are piling up so fast. Much more of this, and the red ink's going to fade to black right in front of his eyes, which is something they can no way, no how afford. They're only safe when they're deep in the red.
Christ, they're in trouble.
There are six different guys in the series of film clips, it turns out. Ray tries not to look, but he can't help it. It's a big screen. Sort of hard to miss.
One of the guys has dark hair and blue eyes and a low, husky voice. From the sound of his moans while he's doing it, it seems he likes sucking cock. A lot. So Ray guesses it's lucky for the guy that he has full, sexy lips that look like they're meant to be wrapped around a dick, which is where they are for entirely too long for Ray's comfort. Which is not so lucky for Ray, who has to keep readjusting the crotch of his pants every time the guy lets out another of those moans that are pretty much exactly like Ray has always imagined Fraser would sound in bed.
Ray figures Fraser isn't doing a whole lot better, especially when he stands abruptly and walks to the back of the room, back rigidly straight, looking anywhere but at the screen. Ray shouldn't take satisfaction in noticing that when Fraser did that, the skinny blond guy was moaning like crazy and shooting all over his own belly. But he does.
They're racking up a major credit balance. Crap.
It's almost thirty minutes before CSU gets there -- which is only about five minutes longer than Ray's had this ache in his groin -- and by that time Ray has gone over four rows of seats and Fraser has done two, including the one with the corpse, the guys on the screen have (collectively) come eight times, and the film loop has started over again from the beginning.
He and Fraser had both been so relieved when the credits started rolling that it was like a kick in the balls when it looped right back into the action. Ray was so tired of fighting it, he didn't even argue when his knees wanted to buckle; he just dropped into a crouch and let his face fall into his gloved hands, which failed to muffle the string of mumbled curse words that tumbled from his lips.
Fraser's tentative "Ray" was nothing more than concern, but Ray felt it in his skin, gentle enough to break him.
"Don't," he said, not lifting his face from his hands.
It both helped and it didn't that Fraser read him like a book (another deposit on the credit side of the ledger, and damn Fraser for knowing him so well) and just turned and walked as far away as the room allowed, and he stayed there until Ray pulled his shit together enough to stand up and shake it off, or at least fake it well enough to keep working.
That was maybe five minutes ago, during which time the action on the screen moved from kissing and stripping off clothes to hand jobs, and Ray figures they've still got at least a quarter hour before CSU is even likely to start on this room.
He hears Fraser's footsteps behind him, crossing the room and coming closer with each step, but he doesn't turn to look. Slow he may be, but Ray is a man who can learn from his mistakes.
"Ray," Fraser says.
This time Ray's braced for it, and he's ready for the hit. He still feels it, but at least this time it doesn't send him reeling. Not much, anyway. He wonders if for the rest of his life he's going to feel Fraser's voice like a hand on his bare skin. "Yeah, what?" he says to the wall in front of him.
"Do you think we might take a break?" Fraser sounds like his throat is sore, like he's spent the last half hour choking on something and it's still stuck in there somewhere.
The sound of it hurts Ray. This is going to break them, he thinks, if they're not careful, and just the thought of that is enough to put a couple of cracks into Ray. "Yeah," he says, still not turning around. "Look at it this way -- if we don't, we're toast." He's across the room and hauling the door open before Fraser even has a chance to reply. He sends the uniform back into the room with nothing more than a jerk of his head. Fraser, no less eager for escape than Ray, is hot on his heels.
Fifteen minutes out of the room helps -- fifteen minutes in which they're careful not to be in the same room with each other, and Ray actually ducks into the men's room to see if he can get away with jerking off, but there are too many cops and witnesses and nearly naked porn stars coming and going all the time -- but then they're back in there and it's another twenty endless minutes before the gods who watch over crime fighters everywhere are finally merciful. Ray's so grateful when the speakers go silent and the screen goes blank that he could kiss every single one of the CSU techs right on the mouth, and he's so goddamn horny that it almost seems like a good idea.
But then Fraser clears his throat behind Ray -- so much for the blessed silence -- and says "I think you should see this" and while Ray's ears and his brain hear it loud and clear, Ray's cock seems to think that Fraser said "Please bend me over this chair and fuck me, Ray." And when Ray follows him over to the corpse and Fraser kneels down to point out something Ray should probably give a shit about, he has to focus really hard on the dead fat guy with his tongue hanging out just to keep himself from popping a giant woody and busting his zipper at the sight of Fraser on his knees in front of him.
It's a really long freaking afternoon.
If Ray were the praying type, he'd sing praises to God on high that this is the Duck Boys' case, which means that it's still a couple of hours shy of dinner time when he and Fraser at last are able to leave and go back to the Two-Seven, where Fraser types up their notes so fast that Ray's surprised he doesn't see smoke coming up off the computer keyboard.
By Ray's estimation, it's almost four hours since they've said a single word to each other that wasn't absolutely required in order to work the case, and that doesn't change as they head for the parking lot. The silence would be comforting, what with Ray's dick automatically translating every word Fraser says into something X-rated, except that it leaves Ray with nothing to think about except how much he wants to drop to his knees and suck Fraser's cock until he screams. Or maybe just kiss him. For a few hours. That'd do for a start.
He doesn't ask if Fraser wants a ride to the Consulate; he just unlocks the passenger door and opens it, leaving Fraser standing there unmoving, and walks around to let himself in on the driver's side. He's behind the wheel and belted in by the time Fraser makes up his mind and slides into the passenger seat, taking a long time to place his hat just so on the dashboard in front of him before he fastens his seat belt and sits back, spine straight, his hands on his thighs.
Finally Ray reaches out and sticks the key in the ignition. Before he can turn it, Fraser reaches out and puts his hand over Ray's.
"Ray," he says, his voice threatening to crack. "I can't..."
Ray waits for more, but apparently that's all Fraser's got, except for the touch of his fingers on Ray's palm, big and warm and softer than Ray would have guessed, and his thumb resting on the back of Ray's hand. He turns his head and looks directly at Fraser for the first time since that moment in the screening room.
Fraser turns and looks back at Ray, and his eyes... Jesus. He's stripped naked, nothing held back, nothing hidden. Not any more.
Ray's chest goes hot, and the heat spreads up into his head and down into his belly, down and down. "So we're doing this, then," he says.
Fraser doesn't need to answer; he just drops his hand as Ray turns the key. He doesn't say a word through the whole drive to Ray's apartment. Ray steals a glance to his right a couple of times, and Fraser's got his back straight and his eyes front like his next breath depended on it.
Probably just as well. Ray would hate to crash the GTO and die with Fraser in a flaming wreck just when he's got that big "JACKPOT" sign flashing all over the balance sheet in his head.
* * *
What Ray hadn't figured on was how hard it would be, after all those months and months of carefully keeping their hands off each other, to actually start... whatever it is they're going to do. Doing it. Doing each other. Doing things to each other.
They've made it to the apartment and Fraser is methodically stripping off his lanyard and Sam Browne belt and unbuttoning the tunic, but the day was warm and Ray has nothing to take off but his shirt and pants, and that seems a little premature, so he just sort of stands there watching for a few seconds until that feels weird, so he turns and takes a couple of steps toward the kitchen, like maybe he should do something about offering Fraser food because it's close to dinner time, but that's incredibly stupid -- it's not like Ray could eat anything, with his stomach feeling this way, and he's willing to bet Fraser's in pretty much the same condition -- so he turns back around and just sort of stands there feeling like an idiot. An idiot with half a hard-on.
Fraser rescues him, thank God, hanging his tunic over the back of a chair and then taking one, two, three steps toward Ray until he's standing right in front of him, wide-eyed and breathing like a race horse at the starting gate.
Ray's heart is about to explode in his chest, and though he'd really like to keep his eyes open because Fraser is just about the most beautiful thing that he's ever seen, they drift closed of their own accord as he reaches up to take Fraser's face in his hands and leans in to kiss him.
Fraser's hands find Ray's face and he leans in, too, slowly, so slowly, and his soft lips find Ray's and pull a broken little sound up from down deep inside him.
Ray's lost, he's gone, he's flying and dying. Nothing has felt like this since the first time he kissed Stella, and this is even better than that because he knows just how much more is still ahead of them. Like touching more than lips, more than Fraser's hands on his face. He brings his hands up to Fraser's waist -- Jesus, he's warm and solid and so much more real than all the times Ray has imagined this -- and steps in to close the last few inches between them, except his foot comes down on top of Fraser's toes. Fraser's grunt of pain doesn't make it out of Ray's hungry mouth, though, because neither of them can stop kissing while they shuffle around, sorting out feet and hands until they're plastered against each other from chest to groin, each with one thigh between the other's legs.
They kiss for a year or two, soft lips and tongues dancing to a soundtrack of really sexy noises that slip up and out from down deep in their throats, until Ray's high from it, drunk on it, plastered, twelve times over the limit and Ray figures if he ever has to die, this wouldn't be such a bad time. Until, that is, Fraser's hand drops to his ass and pulls Ray's crotch tight against his groin, and suddenly Ray remembers all the other things he still wants to do with Fraser. At least, he's pretty sure he does. There are a bunch of them he's never tried, the whole sex with guys thing being strictly (very attractive) theory in Ray's life to date, though all of the things on his ways to get it on with Fraser list make him come like a freight train when he thinks about them while jacking himself in the shower, or lying in bed late at night, so he's pretty sure they're all a good idea.
He's ready to try them out for real, more than ready, but even though Ray learned a few things from the porno guys on the screen today, Fraser's going to have to take the lead in this dance. He can't bear to let his lips leave Fraser's, so he whispers against them, "You gotta help me, Fraser. I don't know what to do."
Fraser takes his time wrapping up one more lingering kiss, and when he finally draws his head back a few reluctant inches, his heavy-lidded eyes are dark and hot and his lips are wet and swollen, and it's all Ray can do not to dive right back in and kiss him senseless for another month or two. Fraser tries to say something, but it comes out as a hoarse and hungry sound, so he clears his throat and tries again. "Do?" he manages at last.
"You know," Ray says. "Do. Next. Us. More." His face, still warm from kissing, flames hot again. "I want this. I really do. A lot. But I've never really actually done the whole..." This would be easier if Fraser weren't ever so slowly, rhythmically rubbing his hard-on against the crease of Ray's hip and thigh. Ray's brain shorts out, and he gives up the whole talking thing as more trouble than it's worth.
Fraser leans in with great deliberation and carefully bites Ray's neck, murmuring throaty appreciation when Ray babbles things like "Oh, God" and "Oh, fuck." It's about a week or two later when he moves up to nuzzle Ray's earlobe and says, "The whole what, Ray?"
"Um," Ray says. He groans, long and low, and grinds his cock into Fraser's thigh. "Fuck."
"Oh," Fraser whispers, and his head tips back, exposing his pale throat. It would take a much stronger man than Ray is not to lick and nibble it from shirt collar all the way up to that tiny little dent in Fraser's chin. So he does.
By the time Fraser remembers his question and asks again, "The whole what?" Ray has forgotten where the whole conversation started. He has to tuck his face into Fraser's neck and breathe for a while before it comes back to him.
"Oh," he says finally. "Yeah. You know, the... the guy thing." His chest and Fraser's are plastered together, just two layers of thin, damp cotton between them. He'd forgotten how much he loves feeling someone else's heart beating against his own chest, feeling the rise and fall as they breathe, making that rhythm quicken with his mouth and his hands. He'd forgotten how quickly he can fall in love. Which he supposes is understandable, since he's only done it the one time before, and that was an awfully long time ago.
Fraser's hands roam over his back, make a leisurely trip down to his ass and back up. "You mean," he says against Ray's temple, pausing to brush soft kisses over it, "you haven't...? Before?"
Ray couldn't open his eyes if his life depended on it. He shakes his head very slightly, careful of Fraser's tender mouth skating over his skin. "No. Always thought about it. More since you. Lots more. But I've never..." He drops his mouth to the juncture of Fraser's neck and shoulder and bites the tendon that slopes up that elegant curve.
Fraser makes a helpless sound, full of need, and suddenly Ray can't wait any longer.
"Bed," he says, and snakes a hand between them to tug at Fraser's shirt. "Naked. Now."
"Yes," Fraser answers, and tangles his own fingers with Ray's, fumbling over his shirt buttons and down toward his fly.
It's Ray's turn to lead, because this is one step he's good at. He grabs Fraser's hands and wraps them around his own neck, then with one arm around Fraser's waist and the other at his shoulder, he dances them into the bedroom. It's a slow dance, one-two shuffle steps syncopated by kisses and the thrust of hips, and when he stops them next to the bed, Fraser opens his eyes and looks surprised to see the new scenery. The smile that blooms on his face is so sweet it takes Ray's knees out from under him, and he's on his ass on the bed with Fraser's crotch in front of his face before he knows how he got there. It's a good place to be, though, so he reaches out and gets to work on Fraser's pants.
They're doing pretty good -- Ray getting Fraser's pants open, and Fraser tugging Ray's shirt off over his head, the hell with the last few buttons -- until Ray bends to work on the laces of Fraser's boots. He tugs and fumbles and tugs some more, distracted by the hard-on in front of his face and the other one in his own pants, and he straightens up abruptly without his brain registering that Fraser's saying, "Ray, let me do it," until it's too late and the top of his skull coming up meets Fraser's face on the way down, and then it's all yelps and flailing and apologies. Ray reaches up and manages to peel Fraser's hand away from his eye so he can inspect the damage; it looks like he may have a mouse under it by morning, but there's no serious harm done.
All in all, it could have been worse. At least he missed Fraser's nose. Nosebleeds are a bitch to stop.
Seems Fraser's got his mind on only one thing, though, and doesn't mean to be distracted, because Fraser has his own boots and everything else off almost before Ray has stopped blushing, and the second he's naked he reaches for the snap on Ray's jeans. Ray lifts Fraser's hands up to cradle his own face, since it feels really good and Fraser seems to like them there, and he leans in for a kiss while he toes off his boots and shimmies out of his own pants. Safer that way, he figures; faster, too, and that's starting to seem really urgent again, what with the way Fraser is nibbling on Ray's lips and running his hands down Ray's chest and all over his bare skin and making the sexiest noises Ray has ever heard in his life -- and Stella was kind of a screamer, which Ray loved, so that's really saying a lot.
Ray breaks away from the kiss and tumbles down onto the bed, tugging Fraser down beside him until they're skin to skin from head to shins (Ray forgot to take his socks off and he's damned if he's going to stop and do anything about that now), and the glory of that much bare flesh against his own flips every single circuit breaker in Ray's brain in one great shock of pleasure. So it's maybe another week or month or so that goes by while he and Fraser touch and kiss and touch and rub and kiss and touch some more. When Ray's brain finally resets and he can sort of think again, he figures it makes sense that Fraser would be even more starved for skin than Ray. Gluttons, both of them, gotta be fat and gorged by now, but it still doesn't feel like enough.
"So how do we do this?" Ray mumbles into the hollow of Fraser's neck, which has pretty much become his favorite place to put his face, though he's open to negotiation on this later on, once he's had a chance to put it a few other places.
"Do what?" Fraser seems to have become fascinated with the curves of Ray's ass, minimal though they are; his hands are following them over and over, stroking and squeezing. Ray can appreciate that; he spent a lot of time doing pretty much the same thing with Fraser's ass, though frankly he thinks he got the better end of that bargain. Fraser's ass is better than Stella's. Fraser's ass is better than any ass that Ray has ever even hoped to get his hands on. That is one world-class ass.
"You know," Ray says. "Do it."
Fraser's hands still. "Oh," he says. "Well, in theory --"
Which gets Rays attention, and he interrupts. Sex is no time for politeness. "Wait. What do you mean, in theory? Haven't you done this before?" He draws his head back so he can look at Fraser, who is managing to look anywhere except directly back at Ray.
"Well, if by this you mean intercourse with another man --"
"Fucking a guy," Ray interjects. "Yeah. That."
"Well, no. Not... not as such."
"Jesus." Ray's face cracks open in a grin. "Blind leading the blind, here, aren't we?"
Fraser's smile is melting sweet, or at least it's melting Ray. "I'm sure we can figure it out," he says, and kisses Ray again, which means that Ray loses another amount of time that he's decided to stop trying to count because as far as he's concerned, time stopped meaning anything a while back, and he's just going to wallow here outside the space-time continuum as long as he can get away with it. Outside the space-time continuum. He heard that on the Discovery Channel the other day, or maybe it was PBS, and he still doesn't know what the fuck it's supposed to mean, but he liked the sound of it and it sure sounds like where he is right now, so he figures that's as good a name for it as any.
"So how do you want to do this?" Ray says when the latest round of kissing finally winds down.
"By which you mean...?" Fraser nuzzles into the hollow of Ray's throat and makes a contented little humming sound.
"Who's gonna do who?"
Fraser lifts his head. "Ah." The light is a little too dim to be sure, but Ray thinks that looks like a blush climbing up Fraser's chest and his neck and spreading over his face. It's a nice look on him. "Well. I've often... that is... when I've thought..."
"Spit it out, Fraser."
Fraser takes Ray's hand and guides it to that world-class ass.
Heat shoots straight down to Ray's cock, which is pretty sure it knows what Fraser means, and likes the idea a whole lot. "You want me to...?"
Fraser nods. "Inside me," he says, and the husky rasp of his voice sends another bolt of heat lightning down to Ray's groin.
"Jesus God." Ray has to grab Fraser hard and hold him still, because those were the hottest two words he's ever heard. "Yeah, okay," he says. "I can do that. Stay there. Don't move." And then he's up and out of the bed before he can come all over Fraser's belly, digging around in the nightstand for that bottle of slick he keeps for when he wants to take his time over a long, slow jerk-off session. It's only half full, so he pulls out the spare bottle, too, just in case, and sets them both within easy reach.
Fraser's lying sprawled out on the bed, the living, breathing image of every debauched dream Ray's ever had, all pale naked skin and parted lips and hot, hard cock just waiting for Ray's touch. "Jesus God," he says again, and lowers himself to lie beside Fraser, carefully not touching him with too much of his own skin, just a knee here, a hand there, because he doesn't trust himself not to end this too soon.
Fraser almost ruins it all by raising up on one elbow and draping himself all over Ray's body, reaching for the slick. He settles back down on the bed, spreading his legs wide, his cock and balls on display like an offering, and silently hands the bottle to Ray.
"Yeah," Ray says. "Okay." He squirts some slick on his finger, takes a deep breath, and reaches his finger between Fraser's spread thighs. "Ready?"
"Oh, yes," Fraser breathes, looking and sounding like this is the only thing he's ever wanted, and if Ray will just do this for him he can die happy, which means Ray has to close his eyes so he doesn't go squirting a big load of spunk into empty air.
His hand is already in the right place, so he goes in blind, slick finger reaching, searching, as Fraser spreads his legs even wider. He touches soft skin, hot and moist with a dusting of hair, and then his hand is grabbed and Fraser guides his finger straight in to the target, groaning like a dying man when it slides inside up to the second knuckle.
"Ray!" Fraser rasps. "Oh, Ray!"
Ray's eyes fly open; Fraser's have gone closed, and his head is tipped back, his chest arched up and his breathing fast and shallow. "Good?" is all Ray can choke out.
"Oh, yes." Fraser looks like a painting of a saint who's just seen the face of God. "Please, Ray. Now."
"Oh, God," Ray whispers, and squirts slick all over his hard-on with shaking hands. "Jesus. Hang on." And he moves between Fraser's wide-spread thighs. "Are you sure?" he asks, and his voice is shaking now to match his hands.
"Please," is all Fraser says.
Ray takes his cock in hand and guides himself in. There? It feels right... maybe... no; Fraser's lifting his ass to meet Ray's cock. There, okay; he can feel it now, and he lets his weight take him forward just a little, pushing in maybe an inch, as slow as he can go.
Fraser sucks in a deep breath and holds it, his spine snapping rigid. "Oh," he whispers, but it doesn't sound the same this time.
Ray has never felt more torn. He's worried about Fraser, but the head of his cock feels like it's in the place it was meant to be all Ray's life, except for how the other five inches want to follow, too, and the sooner the better. "Fraser? You okay?"
"Yes, well, that is, I think so. Just... give me a minute." Ray can feel Fraser trying to relax around the head of his cock, and by now Ray's arms are shaking, too, to match the rest of him. Little by little the tightness eases, just a bit, and finally Fraser lets out a bigger lungful of breath than Ray would have thought he could hold.
"All right," Fraser says, sounding determined, but his cock is only half hard now.
"You sure?" Ray's earning his halo for sure, holding off when all he wants to do is sink deep into the slick, tight gates of heaven. Who knew it was right there inside Fraser's ass, all this time? There was nothing about that in any catechism class Ray ever attended.
Fraser nods, and Ray pushes in, slow and steady, half inch by careful half inch, watching Fraser's face with its deeply furrowed brow, watching his chest as he breathes so deliberately, in and out, in and out, until Ray's cock is buried to the hilt and he knows with deep conviction that no place his cock could possibly go could ever be better than this. This is where Ray's cock was born to be.
Fraser, though, doesn't look so sure. Ray's pretty certain that nobody should have to be concentrating that hard while they're fucking. Not if they're having a good time. "Fraser?" he says. He doesn't ask if Fraser is okay, because he's pretty sure he knows the answer to that one already.
"Maybe if you try..." Fraser says, and he moves his hips just a little, giving Ray a demonstration that has his cock singing loud hosannas.
Ray is not a strong man, not in the face of this kind of temptation. Put him on the streets of Chicago, offer him bribes or drop a hundred thousand in drug money in front of his nose, and he'll do the right thing every time. But this is something else altogether, the kind of temptation that led Adam and Eve astray, and Ray is weak enough to fall right along with them. He pulls out -- and he's slow; he's a good enough man to be that careful -- he pulls out an inch, two inches, three, then just as slowly pushes back into to that glorious tight heat.
Tongues of fire are licking up his spine, and he's not sure anything but Fraser's voice could bring him back from the edge. But Fraser's thigh muscles are trembling and he's breathing really fast and shallow now, and his voice is tight and his cock is soft and limp when he grates out, "I think we must not be doing it right. This doesn't feel..." He shifts on the bed, an uneasy sequence, first left, then right, and his tight jaw doesn't relax. "It's supposed to feel better than this. It should; I know it should." He looks up into Ray's eyes, and his face looks about half determined and half desperate. "A million gay men can't be wrong."
Ray's cock is throbbing inside Fraser's ass. He didn't know cocks really did that. He thought that was just in bad porno books. "Maybe if we roll over?" he says. "With you on top? So you could, you know...?"
Fraser nods, looking relieved, like Ray's got the answer just like Fraser knew he would, and all they've got to do is do what Ray said and everything will work just like it's supposed to.
Ray's heart swells about three sizes and he swears on all the saints he doesn't believe in that he'll make this good for Fraser or die trying. They grapple for a minute, grabbing hold of body parts, moving arms here and legs there. When Ray says, "Ready?" Fraser nods, and they go for it, Ray rolling back onto his ass and hauling Fraser up and over the top of him, and there's an awkward moment when one of Fraser's feet gets trapped under Ray's back and there's a weird noise and Fraser gets this really startled look on his face, but then there's a brief scramble and it's all sorted out, and Ray's stretched out on his back with Fraser perched on top of him like a jockey riding an angel hell bent for leather, and the look of revelation on Fraser's face when he breathes a low, hoarse "Ohhhhh!" is enough to convince Ray that he must have the pearly gates in sight.
"Good?" Ray manages, though it's getting hard to remember how to make words, his cock is so overjoyed with this new position.
"Oh, yes!" Fraser whispers. "Oh! Ray! Yes!"
Ray looks up at the ecstasy on Fraser's face, and down at Fraser's fast stiffening cock, and he doesn't even have time to tell Fraser to stop, don't move, don't move, because his back has arched up and his heels have dug themselves into the bed and he's making these loud gasping sounds he can't control and he's coming, he's coming, he's found his way to heaven and Ray is coming home.
"Sorry, sorry," he chokes out when he can find his words again, aware that he should feel guilty for leaving Fraser high and dry but that'll have to wait, because this is the best Ray has ever felt in his life, and he's going to ride that high for as long as he can.
"You're so beautiful." Fraser's words are a husky whisper, so startling that Ray's eyes fly open, and Fraser must be looking in a mirror, because his face is the most beautiful thing that Ray's ever seen. Fraser's always handsome, and often he's downright pretty, but this, Ray thinks, if there are really angels, this must be how their faces look. He wants to tell Fraser this, but his words have gone missing again, and all he can do is shake his head. But he guesses the message got through anyway, because the look in Fraser's eyes makes Ray want to babble things about love and hearts and souls and forever.
Ray would be happy to stay just like that for about half an eternity, however long one of those is, but his cock is already getting soft and when Fraser shifts a little to one side, wincing a little as he rearranges his left leg, Ray's cock slips out of heaven. Should have known it was too good to last forever. "Okay," he says, "hang on a sec and I'll do you."
Now that he's over the urgency, Ray would love to spend an hour or two just looking at Fraser lying there on his back, all naked and flushed and wanting, but all he can seem to focus on is Fraser's cock, still standing rigidly at attention, or maybe just begging for attention. Either way, it's pretty impressive, as well as just plain pretty.
Ray's mouth is suddenly watering, and he just as suddenly remembers that he's been dying to suck Fraser's cock for about half a lifetime now, and it seems like the right thing to do to tell Fraser so. "Remember that day in the cemetery?" he says, and he has to clear his throat, because his voice has gone all hoarse for some reason. "You know, with Marcus Ellery and all that? And then the party?"
Fraser nods.
"I wanted to take you home with me that night after the party and suck you off, and I've thought about it pretty much every day since then."
Fraser's breath quickens, and he lets out this little whimper that sends heat shooting straight down to Ray's groin, just when he'd thought that fire was out.
"I'm gonna do that now."
"Yes," Fraser says, his voice again doing that husky thing that makes Ray wish he could fuck him all over again, right here and right now. "Please."
Instead, he flips himself around in a remarkably smooth move, all things considered, and resettles himself between Fraser's legs. Fraser's crotch smells as good as his ass felt, and Ray's already drunk on the scent of it by the time his tongue touches the very tip of Fraser's cock.
Fraser whimpers again.
Ray decides that's his new favorite sound, and he's going to make Fraser do it some more, preferably about a hundred times, or maybe a thousand. He licks a stripe up the underside of Fraser's cock; that's one. A tickle with the tip of his tongue on that spot just below the head, and Fraser's deep, ragged moan knocks the whimper out of the top spot, TKO. Clearly, it can only get better, so Ray goes for the gold -- that deep-throat thing that Stella used to do when she wanted to show Ray that she was the boss of him and besides that, he liked it that way. Worked every time. He licks his lips to get them good and slick, then slides them down over Fraser's cock, working his tongue against the underside all the way down. It's a lot trickier than it looked from the other side, but he takes a deep breath and sinks down, down until it feels like the head of Fraser's cock is making a break for Ray's stomach, and Fraser lets out a cry that'd make the angels weep. Bingo. Ray slides back up, gives himself a few seconds to let his lungs clear out and refill once or twice, then takes a deep breath and heads back down.
"Oh, God!" Fraser wails, and grabs hold of Ray's hair, thrusting helplessly up into his throat. "Ah! God!"
Ray's flailing just a little, but he still thinks he can handle it, just needs to back off now so he can take another breath.
That's when Fraser's fingers tighten in Ray's hair and pull down hard, impaling Ray's throat with his pulsing cock and shouting something incomprehensible so loud that the damn deaf wolf can probably hear him at the Consulate six miles away. Ray's flailing for real now, partly because Fraser's so far down his throat that he's not getting to taste his come, but mostly because he really, seriously needs to breathe now, so he pulls back hard and manages to back off just enough to suck in a whole lot of air right along with the next spurt of Fraser's spunk, about half of which manages to go down his windpipe.
Fraser's grip finally loosens and Ray slips free, flopping onto his side next to Fraser, choking and hacking and gasping for breath. Fraser is gasping, too, so it takes him a minute or two to register that all is not right in his world. His head flops to the side and he gazes at Ray with a dopey, smitten look that slowly changes to befuddled concern. "Ray?" he says. "Are you all right?"
In between coughing and hocking up the last of Fraser's come from where it doesn't belong, Ray manages to nod and wave his hand in what he hopes is a convincing manner. "Yeah," he chokes out in a raspy voice that doesn't sound like his. "Fine."
In about half a heartbeat, Fraser is up on his elbow, reaching out to take pull Ray close to him and rub his back, stammering out apologies. "I'm so sorry, Ray. I was... I didn't..."
Ray drops his head down somewhere near Fraser's armpit and coughs about three or four or eight more times and waves his hand again, this time dismissively. "Forget it," he manages at last, when his lungs are working right again. "It was worth it." He looks up at Fraser; his forehead is wrinkled with concern and a bruise is starting to appear under one eye, but his pretty mouth is still smiling, all stupid happy from sex, and his hair, which is probably in violation of about a dozen RCMP regulations at the moment, is sticking up at angles Ray's hair would envy, if it could be bothered to give a shit right now. Before Ray can hold it back, a snort of laughter sneaks out through his nose.
Fraser stops in mid-apology and stares at him. His smile widens, stretching the corners of his mouth, deepening the crinkles of his eyes, and at first he tries to hold it back, but then he giggles, a ridiculously undignified noise that makes another, equally undignified snort of laughter explode out of Ray's nose, and about half a nanosecond later they're both flopping around on their backs, helpless with laughter, an unmusical counterpoint of giggles, chortles, snorts, howls, and brays that goes through verse, chorus, and two codas before it finally winds to a discordant halt when Fraser suddenly freezes and gets this really distracted look.
"Um," Fraser says, "if you'll pardon me, I think I need to go to the bathroom."
Huh, Ray thinks. The perfect Mountie hair may be defying gravity, but apparently everywhere else, what went up must eventually come down. He collapses into giggles again, and then nearly falls off the bed scrambling quickly to his feet when Fraser barely saves himself from doing a faceplant immediately upon standing.
"Oh," Fraser says, holding his left foot carefully off the ground and reaching for Ray's shoulder to steady himself. "I'd forgotten."
"What?"
"I think we may have broken my ankle," Fraser says, looking down and frowning with vague disapproval at the body part in question.
"What?" Ray knows he's repeating himself, and he knows he sounds kind of stupid, but he figures Fraser's a guy and should know not to expect better from him when he just got laid.
"My ankle," Fraser says, still looking down at it. He moves his foot a little bit and lets out a grunt; his hand tightens on Ray's shoulder. "Yes, I'm afraid so. When we...." He trails off, doing a sort of wavy, rolling thing with his hand that looks like he's been studying Ray's moves but could use more practice.
"We broke your ankle?" Ray barely manages to choke back the snort of laughter than tries to sneak out his nose. "When we rolled over?"
Fraser nods, sneaking a sidelong glance at Ray and looking quickly away.
"And you didn't say anything? Or, like, stop?"
"Well," Fraser says, and the corners of his mouth are twitching now, "I thought it would keep. Other things seemed more important at the time."
Then Fraser's face goes all distracted and his back goes straight and Ray remembers why he stood up in the first place, so he inserts himself under Fraser's arm, struggling manfully to smother the snickers that still try to escape as they hobble together to the bathroom. He manages to get Fraser seated on the john before his self-restraint fails, then he bolts out the door laughing like a hyena, pursued by Fraser's faint, "Really, Ray."
While the chuckles wind down, he throws on the same clothes he was wearing all day; he figures the Emergency Room staff has ignored smellier things than him so often they won't even notice if he and Fraser are a little funky. Venturing back to the bathroom, which has gone suspiciously silent, he peers cautiously around the door jamb, unable to wipe the grin from his face even for the sake of courtesy.
Fraser, still seated on the toilet but now as presentable as a recently fucked naked guy can reasonably hope to be, looks up at him with incongruous formality. "Do you suppose," he says, "that you could help me into the other room? I think I can dress myself."
Ray eyes his left ankle, which is half again the size of the other and turning purple on one side, a match for the spreading bruise under his left eye. "Sure thing, Fraser," he says, "let's get you to the hospital and get that looked at," and the two of them make their slow, uneven way into the other room. Fraser is warm and naked against Ray's side, and if Ray is sure of anything in this life, it's that he'll never as long as he lives get tired of that feeling.
Fraser doesn't have much to say while they're getting dressed, but he finds excuses to reach out and touch Ray every once in a while as he's getting dressed, and if Ray hadn't fallen in love with him already, that would have done it, right there.
As they finally head for the door, arms around each other, Fraser says ruefully, "We don't seem to be very good at this." He looks at Ray sidelong, up through his lashes, and Ray thinks he last saw that look on Dief's face after he ate the contents of about half a dumpster. His heart melts. He's a sucker for a sad puppy, Ray is, but he figures there are worse things to be.
"Yeah," he says, and grins at Fraser. "But hey, we'll get it right next time."
The sun comes out on Fraser's face, and it lights up all of Chicago. "Next time," he says, and there's nothing on this earth Ray wouldn't do to keep that happiness on his face. "Yes. Right."
END
**
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Author: malnpudl
Team: Reality
Prompt: "Look at it this way -- if we don't, we're toast."
Pairing(s): Fraser/Kowalski
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 9400
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: A thousand thanks to my betas akamine_chan and nos4a2no9 for their candor, patience, persistence, cheerleading, and invaluable guidance. The title is from a Tragically Hip song. (You're so not surprised.)
Summary: Math was never Ray's strong suit in school. He got Cs if he slacked off, Bs if he worked hard, which he sometimes did, especially in pre-algebra when he had a crush on his teacher and then again in geometry when he and Stella were in the same class. He had three classes and a study hall with her that year; if anything could salvage being a high school sophomore, that was it. It was the only time Ray ever got an A minus in math.
Lately, though, Ray's whole life has turned into a numbers game, and he's starting to feel like he's almost good at it. At numbers, that is, not at the whole life thing.
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**
* * *
Math was never Ray's strong suit in school. He got Cs if he slacked off, Bs if he worked hard, which he sometimes did, especially in pre-algebra when he had a crush on his teacher and then again in geometry when he and Stella were in the same class. He had three classes and a study hall with her that year; if anything could salvage being a high school sophomore, that was it. It was the only time Ray ever got an A minus in math.
Lately, though, Ray's whole life has turned into a numbers game, and he's starting to feel like he's almost good at it. At numbers, that is, not at the whole life thing.
Like money, that's all numbers. How much he makes (decent pay, really, especially when he gets some overtime, if nothing compared to Stella's salary) and how much it costs for a single guy to live alone in Chicago (more than you'd think; two can't live as cheaply as one, it's true, but it did cut expenses by a good chunk of change). Not to mention how much he can sock into his voluntary retirement account, which is less than it used to be, and how many years it'll be until he can think about retiring, which is about five more than it used to be.
And speaking of years and counting them, as of last Tuesday it's exactly a year since his divorce was final, and as of a week from Friday it'll be exactly eight months since he and Stella last spent a night together, which also makes eight months (which is 244 days, which is 35 weeks, give or take a couple of days) since Ray last got laid. Not to mention that it's been five months, three weeks, and one day since Ray last went on a date, and four months, two weeks, and six days since he last even bothered to ask a woman out.
Which brings things around to The Mountie Factor. Ray's social life, like his every other kind of life, has come to revolve entirely around Fraser. Around, which is to say in the vicinity of, with Fraser at the center of the circle and Ray bouncing around the circumference like he's in orbit, never getting close but never getting away.
And he wants to get close.
Well, hey, so does Fraser. Ray can add one inconvenient hard-on of his own while tied up face-to-face by bad guys (which seems to happen more often than you'd think) to Fraser's matching wood and get two guys who are horny for each other. Problem is, he can also subtract things like Fraser's bright red face and tight jaw and the way neither he nor Fraser could look each other in the eye and how they both carefully avoided talking about it later and get minus six for the whole thing.
Ray's doing double-entry bookkeeping in his head, which is just plain freaky, but the numbers just keep adding up whether he likes it or not. Pluses in one column for all the times he's gotten hot for Fraser and all the times he's been sure that Fraser was hot for him. Minuses in the other column for all the ways they haven't done anything about it. As of this morning, they were seriously in the red.
It's not like he doesn't understand why. He knows all the reasons why it's a bad idea. He's had all the conversations in his head; he can do any of half a dozen variations on it, knows all his lines and all of Fraser's, too.
There's the one that starts with Fraser taking seven paragraphs and way too much punctuation that Ray can actually hear -- something that'd only happened to Ray before with Stella, when she got into her speechifying mode; all those free-flying semicolons and emdashes had always gotten Ray horny and made him want to fuck her mouth -- to tell Ray the story about how Corporal Tightass up at Depot dedicated an entire two-hour classroom session to listing all of the eight-hundred and forty-seven perils of romantic involvement with co-workers, which Ray's head translates to "Don't shit where you eat" before Fraser's even got himself warmed up.
Or the one where Fraser finally makes Ray admit that he isn't sure he could handle losing his parents again, so soon after he got them back, and Fraser's eyes go all soft and make something twist in Ray's chest because he knows that Fraser knows even better than he does how much it sucks to have that happen.
And then there's the one where they overhear another rumor about some faggot patrolman who got the crap beat out of him because backup took their sweet time reach him. They don't even talk about that one. They just look at each other with tight jaws and angry eyes and about a hundred uncrossable miles between them.
There are a whole bunch more, but they all end up the same: Yeah, they want each other -- Jesus, do they want each other -- and no, they can't have what they want.
It sucks.
* * *
They're at lunch when the call comes in, mopping up the last of the spaghetti sauce with the last two pieces of garlic bread while Fraser tells a story that Ray's already forgotten the beginning of -- not that that matters, because he's heard it before and he'll hear it again, and there's no point to the whole thing anyway except that it gives Fraser something else to do with his mouth than say "let's go to your place and fuck ourselves blind" or whatever that translates to in Canadian.
Dead rich guy at a big party, Welsh says. Take the Mountie and check it out.
Ray's grateful to have something else to think about besides how much he wants to get Fraser naked, but that only lasts until they get to the scene, which is, get this, a screening room, Hollywood style, right there in a ritzy suburban Chicago mini-mansion. There are six rows of reclining seats upholstered in a deep claret suede that matches the fabric-covered walls, six seats across, each row higher than the one in front of it. The little table things between each seat are overflowing with cocktails of all sorts, and Ray would be willing to bet a month's pay that they'll find more than a couple of lingering traces of other mood-altering substances, too, though it looks like most of the incriminating evidence was stashed somewhere out of sight before the cops arrived.
The wide screen at the front of the room is a good six feet high, and it's full of larger-than-life naked men who are kissing and groping each other and sucking and fucking and moaning and groaning and coming all over each other.
"What the fuck." Ray knows he should have put a question mark in there somewhere, but it comes out flat and hard and a little bit desperate. Fraser is standing next to him, as rigid as the corpse in the front row seat is going to be in a few hours, but a whole lot warmer; Ray can feel the heat radiating off him. Or maybe it's Ray's own blood, searing through his veins and burning through his skin, the heat reflected right back at him off Fraser's impenetrable surface.
The credit balance in Ray's head jumps ten points. The muscles in Fraser's jaw flex as he moves into parade rest and carefully stares at a blank wall; that's four in the debit column. Still in the red by better than three dozen. Or worse, depending on how you look at it.
Huey gives a nod toward the dead guy. "That's Flint Mitchell, the porno king. He threw this party to introduce his new line of gay skin flicks."
"Harder!" a husky voice begs from somewhere behind Ray. "Fuck me harder!"
Ray and Fraser turn in unison, like they're choreographed, but there's nothing there except some big black speakers hung high on the wall. By the time Ray's brain works it all out, they're pumping out the sound of a guy coming like he's dying and he can already see the gates of heaven. Porn in 3-D surround sound.
"Jesus," Ray mutters, and there's enough of the altar boy left in him to briefly wonder if God is punishing him for something. If so, it's working. Ray's ready to repent, if it'll just get him out of this room.
No such luck.
"You get this room," Huey says, stopping Ray with a raised hand when he turns back and opens his mouth to argue. "Don't think I'm getting off any easier. Dewey and I have to start interviewing the guests, several of whom you've seen on that screen --" he gestures over his shoulder with a cocked thumb "--and are currently gathered by the pool wearing...." He trails off and winces. "I don't know what they call those things, but they can't be comfortable."
In between the sex noises coming out of the speakers, Ray could swear he hears a noise coming out of Fraser, one he couldn't put a name to but it makes something squirm inside him. He's got no problem reading what it means, though, and Fraser's probably right. As bad as this room is, hours of face time with porn stars in the way-too-much flesh might be even worse.
"CSU?" His voice tries to crack, but he covers it with a cough.
"On the way," Huey says, and leaves them alone with one corpse, one uniform, and the two guys sixty-nining each other on the screen.
The uniform has his back to the screen, but he still looks like he'd rather be having his nuts waxed than stand there a minute longer. Another cop scared to death of gay cooties. Imagine that. "Can't we turn this thing off, already?" he asks, and his face works like he's trying not to upchuck.
Any rookie straight out of the academy knows better than that -- nothing gets touched until CSU has done their thing with the scene. Nothing. Ray glares at him. "You asking me to risk contaminating evidence? Is that what I just heard?"
The guy looks embarrassed -- Ray will give him that much -- though under the circumstances it's hard to say for sure whether it's over his fuck-up or the slurping sounds coming from the speakers, which are making Ray uncomfortable enough that he decides to cut the uniform a break he doesn't deserve. "Get out of here," he says, with a tilt of his head. "We've got the scene; you can watch the door as well from outside as in here."
"Oh, thank God." It explodes out of the guy, almost more air than sound, and he hauls ass in such a hurry that he shoves between Ray and Fraser, shouldering them out of his way to reach the door, which he pulls shut behind him hard enough to rattle the walls.
The noise that comes out of Fraser has Ray's head whipping around to look at him. He's never heard Fraser do that, let out his breath all shaky that way. He guesses Fraser kind of startled himself, because for once he doesn't look away immediately, and neither does Ray, and their eyes have gotten all the way through kissing and foreplay and are about to fuck before either of them figures out it's happening.
Ray wrenches his head around hard enough to make his neck crack and start up a fierce ache at the base of his skull, but that's not enough to discourage his dick, which is doing stuff it has no business doing anywhere within a hundred yards of a dead body. He's uncharitable enough to hope that Fraser's in no better shape.
The balance sheet in Ray's head practically goes ka-ching, the credits are piling up so fast. Much more of this, and the red ink's going to fade to black right in front of his eyes, which is something they can no way, no how afford. They're only safe when they're deep in the red.
Christ, they're in trouble.
There are six different guys in the series of film clips, it turns out. Ray tries not to look, but he can't help it. It's a big screen. Sort of hard to miss.
One of the guys has dark hair and blue eyes and a low, husky voice. From the sound of his moans while he's doing it, it seems he likes sucking cock. A lot. So Ray guesses it's lucky for the guy that he has full, sexy lips that look like they're meant to be wrapped around a dick, which is where they are for entirely too long for Ray's comfort. Which is not so lucky for Ray, who has to keep readjusting the crotch of his pants every time the guy lets out another of those moans that are pretty much exactly like Ray has always imagined Fraser would sound in bed.
Ray figures Fraser isn't doing a whole lot better, especially when he stands abruptly and walks to the back of the room, back rigidly straight, looking anywhere but at the screen. Ray shouldn't take satisfaction in noticing that when Fraser did that, the skinny blond guy was moaning like crazy and shooting all over his own belly. But he does.
They're racking up a major credit balance. Crap.
It's almost thirty minutes before CSU gets there -- which is only about five minutes longer than Ray's had this ache in his groin -- and by that time Ray has gone over four rows of seats and Fraser has done two, including the one with the corpse, the guys on the screen have (collectively) come eight times, and the film loop has started over again from the beginning.
He and Fraser had both been so relieved when the credits started rolling that it was like a kick in the balls when it looped right back into the action. Ray was so tired of fighting it, he didn't even argue when his knees wanted to buckle; he just dropped into a crouch and let his face fall into his gloved hands, which failed to muffle the string of mumbled curse words that tumbled from his lips.
Fraser's tentative "Ray" was nothing more than concern, but Ray felt it in his skin, gentle enough to break him.
"Don't," he said, not lifting his face from his hands.
It both helped and it didn't that Fraser read him like a book (another deposit on the credit side of the ledger, and damn Fraser for knowing him so well) and just turned and walked as far away as the room allowed, and he stayed there until Ray pulled his shit together enough to stand up and shake it off, or at least fake it well enough to keep working.
That was maybe five minutes ago, during which time the action on the screen moved from kissing and stripping off clothes to hand jobs, and Ray figures they've still got at least a quarter hour before CSU is even likely to start on this room.
He hears Fraser's footsteps behind him, crossing the room and coming closer with each step, but he doesn't turn to look. Slow he may be, but Ray is a man who can learn from his mistakes.
"Ray," Fraser says.
This time Ray's braced for it, and he's ready for the hit. He still feels it, but at least this time it doesn't send him reeling. Not much, anyway. He wonders if for the rest of his life he's going to feel Fraser's voice like a hand on his bare skin. "Yeah, what?" he says to the wall in front of him.
"Do you think we might take a break?" Fraser sounds like his throat is sore, like he's spent the last half hour choking on something and it's still stuck in there somewhere.
The sound of it hurts Ray. This is going to break them, he thinks, if they're not careful, and just the thought of that is enough to put a couple of cracks into Ray. "Yeah," he says, still not turning around. "Look at it this way -- if we don't, we're toast." He's across the room and hauling the door open before Fraser even has a chance to reply. He sends the uniform back into the room with nothing more than a jerk of his head. Fraser, no less eager for escape than Ray, is hot on his heels.
Fifteen minutes out of the room helps -- fifteen minutes in which they're careful not to be in the same room with each other, and Ray actually ducks into the men's room to see if he can get away with jerking off, but there are too many cops and witnesses and nearly naked porn stars coming and going all the time -- but then they're back in there and it's another twenty endless minutes before the gods who watch over crime fighters everywhere are finally merciful. Ray's so grateful when the speakers go silent and the screen goes blank that he could kiss every single one of the CSU techs right on the mouth, and he's so goddamn horny that it almost seems like a good idea.
But then Fraser clears his throat behind Ray -- so much for the blessed silence -- and says "I think you should see this" and while Ray's ears and his brain hear it loud and clear, Ray's cock seems to think that Fraser said "Please bend me over this chair and fuck me, Ray." And when Ray follows him over to the corpse and Fraser kneels down to point out something Ray should probably give a shit about, he has to focus really hard on the dead fat guy with his tongue hanging out just to keep himself from popping a giant woody and busting his zipper at the sight of Fraser on his knees in front of him.
It's a really long freaking afternoon.
If Ray were the praying type, he'd sing praises to God on high that this is the Duck Boys' case, which means that it's still a couple of hours shy of dinner time when he and Fraser at last are able to leave and go back to the Two-Seven, where Fraser types up their notes so fast that Ray's surprised he doesn't see smoke coming up off the computer keyboard.
By Ray's estimation, it's almost four hours since they've said a single word to each other that wasn't absolutely required in order to work the case, and that doesn't change as they head for the parking lot. The silence would be comforting, what with Ray's dick automatically translating every word Fraser says into something X-rated, except that it leaves Ray with nothing to think about except how much he wants to drop to his knees and suck Fraser's cock until he screams. Or maybe just kiss him. For a few hours. That'd do for a start.
He doesn't ask if Fraser wants a ride to the Consulate; he just unlocks the passenger door and opens it, leaving Fraser standing there unmoving, and walks around to let himself in on the driver's side. He's behind the wheel and belted in by the time Fraser makes up his mind and slides into the passenger seat, taking a long time to place his hat just so on the dashboard in front of him before he fastens his seat belt and sits back, spine straight, his hands on his thighs.
Finally Ray reaches out and sticks the key in the ignition. Before he can turn it, Fraser reaches out and puts his hand over Ray's.
"Ray," he says, his voice threatening to crack. "I can't..."
Ray waits for more, but apparently that's all Fraser's got, except for the touch of his fingers on Ray's palm, big and warm and softer than Ray would have guessed, and his thumb resting on the back of Ray's hand. He turns his head and looks directly at Fraser for the first time since that moment in the screening room.
Fraser turns and looks back at Ray, and his eyes... Jesus. He's stripped naked, nothing held back, nothing hidden. Not any more.
Ray's chest goes hot, and the heat spreads up into his head and down into his belly, down and down. "So we're doing this, then," he says.
Fraser doesn't need to answer; he just drops his hand as Ray turns the key. He doesn't say a word through the whole drive to Ray's apartment. Ray steals a glance to his right a couple of times, and Fraser's got his back straight and his eyes front like his next breath depended on it.
Probably just as well. Ray would hate to crash the GTO and die with Fraser in a flaming wreck just when he's got that big "JACKPOT" sign flashing all over the balance sheet in his head.
* * *
What Ray hadn't figured on was how hard it would be, after all those months and months of carefully keeping their hands off each other, to actually start... whatever it is they're going to do. Doing it. Doing each other. Doing things to each other.
They've made it to the apartment and Fraser is methodically stripping off his lanyard and Sam Browne belt and unbuttoning the tunic, but the day was warm and Ray has nothing to take off but his shirt and pants, and that seems a little premature, so he just sort of stands there watching for a few seconds until that feels weird, so he turns and takes a couple of steps toward the kitchen, like maybe he should do something about offering Fraser food because it's close to dinner time, but that's incredibly stupid -- it's not like Ray could eat anything, with his stomach feeling this way, and he's willing to bet Fraser's in pretty much the same condition -- so he turns back around and just sort of stands there feeling like an idiot. An idiot with half a hard-on.
Fraser rescues him, thank God, hanging his tunic over the back of a chair and then taking one, two, three steps toward Ray until he's standing right in front of him, wide-eyed and breathing like a race horse at the starting gate.
Ray's heart is about to explode in his chest, and though he'd really like to keep his eyes open because Fraser is just about the most beautiful thing that he's ever seen, they drift closed of their own accord as he reaches up to take Fraser's face in his hands and leans in to kiss him.
Fraser's hands find Ray's face and he leans in, too, slowly, so slowly, and his soft lips find Ray's and pull a broken little sound up from down deep inside him.
Ray's lost, he's gone, he's flying and dying. Nothing has felt like this since the first time he kissed Stella, and this is even better than that because he knows just how much more is still ahead of them. Like touching more than lips, more than Fraser's hands on his face. He brings his hands up to Fraser's waist -- Jesus, he's warm and solid and so much more real than all the times Ray has imagined this -- and steps in to close the last few inches between them, except his foot comes down on top of Fraser's toes. Fraser's grunt of pain doesn't make it out of Ray's hungry mouth, though, because neither of them can stop kissing while they shuffle around, sorting out feet and hands until they're plastered against each other from chest to groin, each with one thigh between the other's legs.
They kiss for a year or two, soft lips and tongues dancing to a soundtrack of really sexy noises that slip up and out from down deep in their throats, until Ray's high from it, drunk on it, plastered, twelve times over the limit and Ray figures if he ever has to die, this wouldn't be such a bad time. Until, that is, Fraser's hand drops to his ass and pulls Ray's crotch tight against his groin, and suddenly Ray remembers all the other things he still wants to do with Fraser. At least, he's pretty sure he does. There are a bunch of them he's never tried, the whole sex with guys thing being strictly (very attractive) theory in Ray's life to date, though all of the things on his ways to get it on with Fraser list make him come like a freight train when he thinks about them while jacking himself in the shower, or lying in bed late at night, so he's pretty sure they're all a good idea.
He's ready to try them out for real, more than ready, but even though Ray learned a few things from the porno guys on the screen today, Fraser's going to have to take the lead in this dance. He can't bear to let his lips leave Fraser's, so he whispers against them, "You gotta help me, Fraser. I don't know what to do."
Fraser takes his time wrapping up one more lingering kiss, and when he finally draws his head back a few reluctant inches, his heavy-lidded eyes are dark and hot and his lips are wet and swollen, and it's all Ray can do not to dive right back in and kiss him senseless for another month or two. Fraser tries to say something, but it comes out as a hoarse and hungry sound, so he clears his throat and tries again. "Do?" he manages at last.
"You know," Ray says. "Do. Next. Us. More." His face, still warm from kissing, flames hot again. "I want this. I really do. A lot. But I've never really actually done the whole..." This would be easier if Fraser weren't ever so slowly, rhythmically rubbing his hard-on against the crease of Ray's hip and thigh. Ray's brain shorts out, and he gives up the whole talking thing as more trouble than it's worth.
Fraser leans in with great deliberation and carefully bites Ray's neck, murmuring throaty appreciation when Ray babbles things like "Oh, God" and "Oh, fuck." It's about a week or two later when he moves up to nuzzle Ray's earlobe and says, "The whole what, Ray?"
"Um," Ray says. He groans, long and low, and grinds his cock into Fraser's thigh. "Fuck."
"Oh," Fraser whispers, and his head tips back, exposing his pale throat. It would take a much stronger man than Ray is not to lick and nibble it from shirt collar all the way up to that tiny little dent in Fraser's chin. So he does.
By the time Fraser remembers his question and asks again, "The whole what?" Ray has forgotten where the whole conversation started. He has to tuck his face into Fraser's neck and breathe for a while before it comes back to him.
"Oh," he says finally. "Yeah. You know, the... the guy thing." His chest and Fraser's are plastered together, just two layers of thin, damp cotton between them. He'd forgotten how much he loves feeling someone else's heart beating against his own chest, feeling the rise and fall as they breathe, making that rhythm quicken with his mouth and his hands. He'd forgotten how quickly he can fall in love. Which he supposes is understandable, since he's only done it the one time before, and that was an awfully long time ago.
Fraser's hands roam over his back, make a leisurely trip down to his ass and back up. "You mean," he says against Ray's temple, pausing to brush soft kisses over it, "you haven't...? Before?"
Ray couldn't open his eyes if his life depended on it. He shakes his head very slightly, careful of Fraser's tender mouth skating over his skin. "No. Always thought about it. More since you. Lots more. But I've never..." He drops his mouth to the juncture of Fraser's neck and shoulder and bites the tendon that slopes up that elegant curve.
Fraser makes a helpless sound, full of need, and suddenly Ray can't wait any longer.
"Bed," he says, and snakes a hand between them to tug at Fraser's shirt. "Naked. Now."
"Yes," Fraser answers, and tangles his own fingers with Ray's, fumbling over his shirt buttons and down toward his fly.
It's Ray's turn to lead, because this is one step he's good at. He grabs Fraser's hands and wraps them around his own neck, then with one arm around Fraser's waist and the other at his shoulder, he dances them into the bedroom. It's a slow dance, one-two shuffle steps syncopated by kisses and the thrust of hips, and when he stops them next to the bed, Fraser opens his eyes and looks surprised to see the new scenery. The smile that blooms on his face is so sweet it takes Ray's knees out from under him, and he's on his ass on the bed with Fraser's crotch in front of his face before he knows how he got there. It's a good place to be, though, so he reaches out and gets to work on Fraser's pants.
They're doing pretty good -- Ray getting Fraser's pants open, and Fraser tugging Ray's shirt off over his head, the hell with the last few buttons -- until Ray bends to work on the laces of Fraser's boots. He tugs and fumbles and tugs some more, distracted by the hard-on in front of his face and the other one in his own pants, and he straightens up abruptly without his brain registering that Fraser's saying, "Ray, let me do it," until it's too late and the top of his skull coming up meets Fraser's face on the way down, and then it's all yelps and flailing and apologies. Ray reaches up and manages to peel Fraser's hand away from his eye so he can inspect the damage; it looks like he may have a mouse under it by morning, but there's no serious harm done.
All in all, it could have been worse. At least he missed Fraser's nose. Nosebleeds are a bitch to stop.
Seems Fraser's got his mind on only one thing, though, and doesn't mean to be distracted, because Fraser has his own boots and everything else off almost before Ray has stopped blushing, and the second he's naked he reaches for the snap on Ray's jeans. Ray lifts Fraser's hands up to cradle his own face, since it feels really good and Fraser seems to like them there, and he leans in for a kiss while he toes off his boots and shimmies out of his own pants. Safer that way, he figures; faster, too, and that's starting to seem really urgent again, what with the way Fraser is nibbling on Ray's lips and running his hands down Ray's chest and all over his bare skin and making the sexiest noises Ray has ever heard in his life -- and Stella was kind of a screamer, which Ray loved, so that's really saying a lot.
Ray breaks away from the kiss and tumbles down onto the bed, tugging Fraser down beside him until they're skin to skin from head to shins (Ray forgot to take his socks off and he's damned if he's going to stop and do anything about that now), and the glory of that much bare flesh against his own flips every single circuit breaker in Ray's brain in one great shock of pleasure. So it's maybe another week or month or so that goes by while he and Fraser touch and kiss and touch and rub and kiss and touch some more. When Ray's brain finally resets and he can sort of think again, he figures it makes sense that Fraser would be even more starved for skin than Ray. Gluttons, both of them, gotta be fat and gorged by now, but it still doesn't feel like enough.
"So how do we do this?" Ray mumbles into the hollow of Fraser's neck, which has pretty much become his favorite place to put his face, though he's open to negotiation on this later on, once he's had a chance to put it a few other places.
"Do what?" Fraser seems to have become fascinated with the curves of Ray's ass, minimal though they are; his hands are following them over and over, stroking and squeezing. Ray can appreciate that; he spent a lot of time doing pretty much the same thing with Fraser's ass, though frankly he thinks he got the better end of that bargain. Fraser's ass is better than Stella's. Fraser's ass is better than any ass that Ray has ever even hoped to get his hands on. That is one world-class ass.
"You know," Ray says. "Do it."
Fraser's hands still. "Oh," he says. "Well, in theory --"
Which gets Rays attention, and he interrupts. Sex is no time for politeness. "Wait. What do you mean, in theory? Haven't you done this before?" He draws his head back so he can look at Fraser, who is managing to look anywhere except directly back at Ray.
"Well, if by this you mean intercourse with another man --"
"Fucking a guy," Ray interjects. "Yeah. That."
"Well, no. Not... not as such."
"Jesus." Ray's face cracks open in a grin. "Blind leading the blind, here, aren't we?"
Fraser's smile is melting sweet, or at least it's melting Ray. "I'm sure we can figure it out," he says, and kisses Ray again, which means that Ray loses another amount of time that he's decided to stop trying to count because as far as he's concerned, time stopped meaning anything a while back, and he's just going to wallow here outside the space-time continuum as long as he can get away with it. Outside the space-time continuum. He heard that on the Discovery Channel the other day, or maybe it was PBS, and he still doesn't know what the fuck it's supposed to mean, but he liked the sound of it and it sure sounds like where he is right now, so he figures that's as good a name for it as any.
"So how do you want to do this?" Ray says when the latest round of kissing finally winds down.
"By which you mean...?" Fraser nuzzles into the hollow of Ray's throat and makes a contented little humming sound.
"Who's gonna do who?"
Fraser lifts his head. "Ah." The light is a little too dim to be sure, but Ray thinks that looks like a blush climbing up Fraser's chest and his neck and spreading over his face. It's a nice look on him. "Well. I've often... that is... when I've thought..."
"Spit it out, Fraser."
Fraser takes Ray's hand and guides it to that world-class ass.
Heat shoots straight down to Ray's cock, which is pretty sure it knows what Fraser means, and likes the idea a whole lot. "You want me to...?"
Fraser nods. "Inside me," he says, and the husky rasp of his voice sends another bolt of heat lightning down to Ray's groin.
"Jesus God." Ray has to grab Fraser hard and hold him still, because those were the hottest two words he's ever heard. "Yeah, okay," he says. "I can do that. Stay there. Don't move." And then he's up and out of the bed before he can come all over Fraser's belly, digging around in the nightstand for that bottle of slick he keeps for when he wants to take his time over a long, slow jerk-off session. It's only half full, so he pulls out the spare bottle, too, just in case, and sets them both within easy reach.
Fraser's lying sprawled out on the bed, the living, breathing image of every debauched dream Ray's ever had, all pale naked skin and parted lips and hot, hard cock just waiting for Ray's touch. "Jesus God," he says again, and lowers himself to lie beside Fraser, carefully not touching him with too much of his own skin, just a knee here, a hand there, because he doesn't trust himself not to end this too soon.
Fraser almost ruins it all by raising up on one elbow and draping himself all over Ray's body, reaching for the slick. He settles back down on the bed, spreading his legs wide, his cock and balls on display like an offering, and silently hands the bottle to Ray.
"Yeah," Ray says. "Okay." He squirts some slick on his finger, takes a deep breath, and reaches his finger between Fraser's spread thighs. "Ready?"
"Oh, yes," Fraser breathes, looking and sounding like this is the only thing he's ever wanted, and if Ray will just do this for him he can die happy, which means Ray has to close his eyes so he doesn't go squirting a big load of spunk into empty air.
His hand is already in the right place, so he goes in blind, slick finger reaching, searching, as Fraser spreads his legs even wider. He touches soft skin, hot and moist with a dusting of hair, and then his hand is grabbed and Fraser guides his finger straight in to the target, groaning like a dying man when it slides inside up to the second knuckle.
"Ray!" Fraser rasps. "Oh, Ray!"
Ray's eyes fly open; Fraser's have gone closed, and his head is tipped back, his chest arched up and his breathing fast and shallow. "Good?" is all Ray can choke out.
"Oh, yes." Fraser looks like a painting of a saint who's just seen the face of God. "Please, Ray. Now."
"Oh, God," Ray whispers, and squirts slick all over his hard-on with shaking hands. "Jesus. Hang on." And he moves between Fraser's wide-spread thighs. "Are you sure?" he asks, and his voice is shaking now to match his hands.
"Please," is all Fraser says.
Ray takes his cock in hand and guides himself in. There? It feels right... maybe... no; Fraser's lifting his ass to meet Ray's cock. There, okay; he can feel it now, and he lets his weight take him forward just a little, pushing in maybe an inch, as slow as he can go.
Fraser sucks in a deep breath and holds it, his spine snapping rigid. "Oh," he whispers, but it doesn't sound the same this time.
Ray has never felt more torn. He's worried about Fraser, but the head of his cock feels like it's in the place it was meant to be all Ray's life, except for how the other five inches want to follow, too, and the sooner the better. "Fraser? You okay?"
"Yes, well, that is, I think so. Just... give me a minute." Ray can feel Fraser trying to relax around the head of his cock, and by now Ray's arms are shaking, too, to match the rest of him. Little by little the tightness eases, just a bit, and finally Fraser lets out a bigger lungful of breath than Ray would have thought he could hold.
"All right," Fraser says, sounding determined, but his cock is only half hard now.
"You sure?" Ray's earning his halo for sure, holding off when all he wants to do is sink deep into the slick, tight gates of heaven. Who knew it was right there inside Fraser's ass, all this time? There was nothing about that in any catechism class Ray ever attended.
Fraser nods, and Ray pushes in, slow and steady, half inch by careful half inch, watching Fraser's face with its deeply furrowed brow, watching his chest as he breathes so deliberately, in and out, in and out, until Ray's cock is buried to the hilt and he knows with deep conviction that no place his cock could possibly go could ever be better than this. This is where Ray's cock was born to be.
Fraser, though, doesn't look so sure. Ray's pretty certain that nobody should have to be concentrating that hard while they're fucking. Not if they're having a good time. "Fraser?" he says. He doesn't ask if Fraser is okay, because he's pretty sure he knows the answer to that one already.
"Maybe if you try..." Fraser says, and he moves his hips just a little, giving Ray a demonstration that has his cock singing loud hosannas.
Ray is not a strong man, not in the face of this kind of temptation. Put him on the streets of Chicago, offer him bribes or drop a hundred thousand in drug money in front of his nose, and he'll do the right thing every time. But this is something else altogether, the kind of temptation that led Adam and Eve astray, and Ray is weak enough to fall right along with them. He pulls out -- and he's slow; he's a good enough man to be that careful -- he pulls out an inch, two inches, three, then just as slowly pushes back into to that glorious tight heat.
Tongues of fire are licking up his spine, and he's not sure anything but Fraser's voice could bring him back from the edge. But Fraser's thigh muscles are trembling and he's breathing really fast and shallow now, and his voice is tight and his cock is soft and limp when he grates out, "I think we must not be doing it right. This doesn't feel..." He shifts on the bed, an uneasy sequence, first left, then right, and his tight jaw doesn't relax. "It's supposed to feel better than this. It should; I know it should." He looks up into Ray's eyes, and his face looks about half determined and half desperate. "A million gay men can't be wrong."
Ray's cock is throbbing inside Fraser's ass. He didn't know cocks really did that. He thought that was just in bad porno books. "Maybe if we roll over?" he says. "With you on top? So you could, you know...?"
Fraser nods, looking relieved, like Ray's got the answer just like Fraser knew he would, and all they've got to do is do what Ray said and everything will work just like it's supposed to.
Ray's heart swells about three sizes and he swears on all the saints he doesn't believe in that he'll make this good for Fraser or die trying. They grapple for a minute, grabbing hold of body parts, moving arms here and legs there. When Ray says, "Ready?" Fraser nods, and they go for it, Ray rolling back onto his ass and hauling Fraser up and over the top of him, and there's an awkward moment when one of Fraser's feet gets trapped under Ray's back and there's a weird noise and Fraser gets this really startled look on his face, but then there's a brief scramble and it's all sorted out, and Ray's stretched out on his back with Fraser perched on top of him like a jockey riding an angel hell bent for leather, and the look of revelation on Fraser's face when he breathes a low, hoarse "Ohhhhh!" is enough to convince Ray that he must have the pearly gates in sight.
"Good?" Ray manages, though it's getting hard to remember how to make words, his cock is so overjoyed with this new position.
"Oh, yes!" Fraser whispers. "Oh! Ray! Yes!"
Ray looks up at the ecstasy on Fraser's face, and down at Fraser's fast stiffening cock, and he doesn't even have time to tell Fraser to stop, don't move, don't move, because his back has arched up and his heels have dug themselves into the bed and he's making these loud gasping sounds he can't control and he's coming, he's coming, he's found his way to heaven and Ray is coming home.
"Sorry, sorry," he chokes out when he can find his words again, aware that he should feel guilty for leaving Fraser high and dry but that'll have to wait, because this is the best Ray has ever felt in his life, and he's going to ride that high for as long as he can.
"You're so beautiful." Fraser's words are a husky whisper, so startling that Ray's eyes fly open, and Fraser must be looking in a mirror, because his face is the most beautiful thing that Ray's ever seen. Fraser's always handsome, and often he's downright pretty, but this, Ray thinks, if there are really angels, this must be how their faces look. He wants to tell Fraser this, but his words have gone missing again, and all he can do is shake his head. But he guesses the message got through anyway, because the look in Fraser's eyes makes Ray want to babble things about love and hearts and souls and forever.
Ray would be happy to stay just like that for about half an eternity, however long one of those is, but his cock is already getting soft and when Fraser shifts a little to one side, wincing a little as he rearranges his left leg, Ray's cock slips out of heaven. Should have known it was too good to last forever. "Okay," he says, "hang on a sec and I'll do you."
Now that he's over the urgency, Ray would love to spend an hour or two just looking at Fraser lying there on his back, all naked and flushed and wanting, but all he can seem to focus on is Fraser's cock, still standing rigidly at attention, or maybe just begging for attention. Either way, it's pretty impressive, as well as just plain pretty.
Ray's mouth is suddenly watering, and he just as suddenly remembers that he's been dying to suck Fraser's cock for about half a lifetime now, and it seems like the right thing to do to tell Fraser so. "Remember that day in the cemetery?" he says, and he has to clear his throat, because his voice has gone all hoarse for some reason. "You know, with Marcus Ellery and all that? And then the party?"
Fraser nods.
"I wanted to take you home with me that night after the party and suck you off, and I've thought about it pretty much every day since then."
Fraser's breath quickens, and he lets out this little whimper that sends heat shooting straight down to Ray's groin, just when he'd thought that fire was out.
"I'm gonna do that now."
"Yes," Fraser says, his voice again doing that husky thing that makes Ray wish he could fuck him all over again, right here and right now. "Please."
Instead, he flips himself around in a remarkably smooth move, all things considered, and resettles himself between Fraser's legs. Fraser's crotch smells as good as his ass felt, and Ray's already drunk on the scent of it by the time his tongue touches the very tip of Fraser's cock.
Fraser whimpers again.
Ray decides that's his new favorite sound, and he's going to make Fraser do it some more, preferably about a hundred times, or maybe a thousand. He licks a stripe up the underside of Fraser's cock; that's one. A tickle with the tip of his tongue on that spot just below the head, and Fraser's deep, ragged moan knocks the whimper out of the top spot, TKO. Clearly, it can only get better, so Ray goes for the gold -- that deep-throat thing that Stella used to do when she wanted to show Ray that she was the boss of him and besides that, he liked it that way. Worked every time. He licks his lips to get them good and slick, then slides them down over Fraser's cock, working his tongue against the underside all the way down. It's a lot trickier than it looked from the other side, but he takes a deep breath and sinks down, down until it feels like the head of Fraser's cock is making a break for Ray's stomach, and Fraser lets out a cry that'd make the angels weep. Bingo. Ray slides back up, gives himself a few seconds to let his lungs clear out and refill once or twice, then takes a deep breath and heads back down.
"Oh, God!" Fraser wails, and grabs hold of Ray's hair, thrusting helplessly up into his throat. "Ah! God!"
Ray's flailing just a little, but he still thinks he can handle it, just needs to back off now so he can take another breath.
That's when Fraser's fingers tighten in Ray's hair and pull down hard, impaling Ray's throat with his pulsing cock and shouting something incomprehensible so loud that the damn deaf wolf can probably hear him at the Consulate six miles away. Ray's flailing for real now, partly because Fraser's so far down his throat that he's not getting to taste his come, but mostly because he really, seriously needs to breathe now, so he pulls back hard and manages to back off just enough to suck in a whole lot of air right along with the next spurt of Fraser's spunk, about half of which manages to go down his windpipe.
Fraser's grip finally loosens and Ray slips free, flopping onto his side next to Fraser, choking and hacking and gasping for breath. Fraser is gasping, too, so it takes him a minute or two to register that all is not right in his world. His head flops to the side and he gazes at Ray with a dopey, smitten look that slowly changes to befuddled concern. "Ray?" he says. "Are you all right?"
In between coughing and hocking up the last of Fraser's come from where it doesn't belong, Ray manages to nod and wave his hand in what he hopes is a convincing manner. "Yeah," he chokes out in a raspy voice that doesn't sound like his. "Fine."
In about half a heartbeat, Fraser is up on his elbow, reaching out to take pull Ray close to him and rub his back, stammering out apologies. "I'm so sorry, Ray. I was... I didn't..."
Ray drops his head down somewhere near Fraser's armpit and coughs about three or four or eight more times and waves his hand again, this time dismissively. "Forget it," he manages at last, when his lungs are working right again. "It was worth it." He looks up at Fraser; his forehead is wrinkled with concern and a bruise is starting to appear under one eye, but his pretty mouth is still smiling, all stupid happy from sex, and his hair, which is probably in violation of about a dozen RCMP regulations at the moment, is sticking up at angles Ray's hair would envy, if it could be bothered to give a shit right now. Before Ray can hold it back, a snort of laughter sneaks out through his nose.
Fraser stops in mid-apology and stares at him. His smile widens, stretching the corners of his mouth, deepening the crinkles of his eyes, and at first he tries to hold it back, but then he giggles, a ridiculously undignified noise that makes another, equally undignified snort of laughter explode out of Ray's nose, and about half a nanosecond later they're both flopping around on their backs, helpless with laughter, an unmusical counterpoint of giggles, chortles, snorts, howls, and brays that goes through verse, chorus, and two codas before it finally winds to a discordant halt when Fraser suddenly freezes and gets this really distracted look.
"Um," Fraser says, "if you'll pardon me, I think I need to go to the bathroom."
Huh, Ray thinks. The perfect Mountie hair may be defying gravity, but apparently everywhere else, what went up must eventually come down. He collapses into giggles again, and then nearly falls off the bed scrambling quickly to his feet when Fraser barely saves himself from doing a faceplant immediately upon standing.
"Oh," Fraser says, holding his left foot carefully off the ground and reaching for Ray's shoulder to steady himself. "I'd forgotten."
"What?"
"I think we may have broken my ankle," Fraser says, looking down and frowning with vague disapproval at the body part in question.
"What?" Ray knows he's repeating himself, and he knows he sounds kind of stupid, but he figures Fraser's a guy and should know not to expect better from him when he just got laid.
"My ankle," Fraser says, still looking down at it. He moves his foot a little bit and lets out a grunt; his hand tightens on Ray's shoulder. "Yes, I'm afraid so. When we...." He trails off, doing a sort of wavy, rolling thing with his hand that looks like he's been studying Ray's moves but could use more practice.
"We broke your ankle?" Ray barely manages to choke back the snort of laughter than tries to sneak out his nose. "When we rolled over?"
Fraser nods, sneaking a sidelong glance at Ray and looking quickly away.
"And you didn't say anything? Or, like, stop?"
"Well," Fraser says, and the corners of his mouth are twitching now, "I thought it would keep. Other things seemed more important at the time."
Then Fraser's face goes all distracted and his back goes straight and Ray remembers why he stood up in the first place, so he inserts himself under Fraser's arm, struggling manfully to smother the snickers that still try to escape as they hobble together to the bathroom. He manages to get Fraser seated on the john before his self-restraint fails, then he bolts out the door laughing like a hyena, pursued by Fraser's faint, "Really, Ray."
While the chuckles wind down, he throws on the same clothes he was wearing all day; he figures the Emergency Room staff has ignored smellier things than him so often they won't even notice if he and Fraser are a little funky. Venturing back to the bathroom, which has gone suspiciously silent, he peers cautiously around the door jamb, unable to wipe the grin from his face even for the sake of courtesy.
Fraser, still seated on the toilet but now as presentable as a recently fucked naked guy can reasonably hope to be, looks up at him with incongruous formality. "Do you suppose," he says, "that you could help me into the other room? I think I can dress myself."
Ray eyes his left ankle, which is half again the size of the other and turning purple on one side, a match for the spreading bruise under his left eye. "Sure thing, Fraser," he says, "let's get you to the hospital and get that looked at," and the two of them make their slow, uneven way into the other room. Fraser is warm and naked against Ray's side, and if Ray is sure of anything in this life, it's that he'll never as long as he lives get tired of that feeling.
Fraser doesn't have much to say while they're getting dressed, but he finds excuses to reach out and touch Ray every once in a while as he's getting dressed, and if Ray hadn't fallen in love with him already, that would have done it, right there.
As they finally head for the door, arms around each other, Fraser says ruefully, "We don't seem to be very good at this." He looks at Ray sidelong, up through his lashes, and Ray thinks he last saw that look on Dief's face after he ate the contents of about half a dumpster. His heart melts. He's a sucker for a sad puppy, Ray is, but he figures there are worse things to be.
"Yeah," he says, and grins at Fraser. "But hey, we'll get it right next time."
The sun comes out on Fraser's face, and it lights up all of Chicago. "Next time," he says, and there's nothing on this earth Ray wouldn't do to keep that happiness on his face. "Yes. Right."
END
**
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