Fic: The Sight of the Stars (due South)
Title: The Sight of the Stars
Pairing: Vecchio/Fraser
Rating: R
Summary: The bad news was that the room was small, cold, and looked like it had been decorated by a ten-year-old kid who had wet dreams about warp cores. The good news was that it had a fully-stocked mini bar. The really bad news was that it only had one bed, but Ray had high hopes that the good news was going to help him forget about that.
Spoilers: Through "Starman"
Disclaimer: I am but mad north-northwest, and as the wind is southerly, I know characters that are mine from characters that are not mine. These are the latter.
A/N: So this story starts, as most of my dS stories do, with sdwolfpup, who told me in an email a couple of weeks ago, "You know what you should write? When they have to stay at the hotel overnight after 'Starman.' They can't get the bus until the next morning! There's only one room at the inn! What are two men to do?" And then SDW had kind of a rough weekend, so I thought some cheering-up might be in order. And voila! Fic was born.
The Sight of the Stars
For my part I know nothing with certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream. - Vincent Van Gogh
"Well, we just have the one room left," the white-haired woman behind the desk told Ray with a shrug.
He gaped. "What? How can you only have one room left? There's not a car in that parking lot. I know, 'cause if there was, I'd be seriously considering stealing it." He muttered the last part under his breath to Fraser, taking perverse pleasure in the Mountie's disapproving and slightly horrified look.
"Well, of course there aren't any cars," she replied, like he was a particularly slow five-year-old. "All of the guests are part of Ian's tour, and right now they're all out at the Sky Watch. They'll be along later, the dears."
"And there's no bus till tomorrow morning."
"No."
"And no taxi service?"
"Not on Star Watch nights."
"So," Ray gritted, "you're telling me that not only are we stuck here, but we have to share a room?"
He was sure her smile had an evil glint to it. "I'm afraid so."
Ray closed his eyes, praying for patience, or at least the will to keep from running screaming out the door, begging the aliens to take him away. Spending a night in an enclosed space with Fraser was pretty near the bottom of the list of things he wanted to do right now, right above jabbing an icepick into his ear or letting Frannie give him a makeover again like she'd done when she was sixteen and determined to go to beauty school, but he figured the lady behind the desk had a quick hand with the panic button and he'd already been arrested enough for one day, so. "OK," he said finally, carefully. "Can I have the key, please?"
"Certainly." She reached under the desk and came up with a silver key dangling from a large plastic spaceship. But as Ray grabbed for it, she snatched it out of his reach. "That'll be one hundred and thirty-two dollars and seventeen cents, with tax."
"One hundred and-" Ray could have sworn he could actually feel his heart being torn from his chest. "What do you think this is, the Taj Mahal?"
"Ray," Fraser said quietly from behind him.
Ray rounded on him. "Don't 'Ray' me, Fraser, this is highway robbery. We should be arresting this woman for grand larceny."
Fraser just pulled off his Stetson, producing a brightly-colored bill from inside the brim. "Will you accept this, ma'am?"
"Why is it-" Desk Lady started, and Ray just groaned.
"It's Monopoly money; that's what they use in Canada. Here," he said, yanking bills out of his wallet and handing them over before he could change his mind. "Keep the change, you greedy, blood-sucking, UFO-faking-"
"Let's just go find our room, shall we, Ray?" Fraser interrupted him, holding an arm out toward the door. Ray glared, but followed his friend's suggestion, primarily because it meant turning his back on the woman who'd just robbed him blind.
"Will you be needing this, sir?" Desk Lady called after them. Ray turned to see that she was holding out the damn dull spoon again, smiling sweetly at him as she did.
Oh, that is- Ray growled and started back toward the desk, but Fraser grabbed his arm and, with a hasty, "That won't be necessary, ma'am, thank you kindly," half-dragged him out the door.
*****
The bad news was that the room was small, cold, and looked like it had been decorated by a ten-year-old kid who had wet dreams about warp cores. The good news was that it had a fully-stocked mini bar.
The really bad news was that it only had one bed, but Ray had high hopes that the good news was going to help him forget about that.
"Now I'm starting to understand how Ian got that Audrey girl to give him the time of day," he observed, inspecting the surprisingly impressive selection in the small chrome refrigerator.
"I don't know why you insist on being so cynical," Fraser replied from across the room-which, in this particular room, translated to about fifteen feet away.
"I'm not being cynical, I'm being realistic. The truth is that-" Ray looked over to find that Fraser was unfastening his collar, and the rest of his sentence disappeared abruptly into an unmarked grave. There was something about all that pressed red serge and miles of polished brass dots that had always made Ray's fingers itch a little, and lately, it was becoming less of an itch and more of an obsession. In fact, it was getting to the point where he was pretty sure he'd never wanted to unbutton something so badly in his entire life, and watching Fraser do it… He grabbed the nearest handful of bottles from the refrigerator and slammed it shut so hard he almost scared himself.
"The truth is what, Ray?" Fraser was looking at him oddly.
"Forget it." He snatched a glass off the top of the refrigerator, tossed in some ice from the ice bucket, and dumped in some Jack Daniels. He was really more of a scotch man under ordinary circumstances, or even a nice bottle of chianti, but guys who wanted to unbutton their partners couldn't be choosers and he gulped the alcohol gratefully.
"Is everything all right?" Fraser was hanging the serge in the closet now, carefully smoothing out nonexistent wrinkles.
Ray wiped his mouth as the whiskey slid warm into his stomach. "Yeah, Benny, everything's great. I answered a hypothetical question, gave up my lunch hour, and ended up stranded in the middle of nowhere"-with my partner, about whom I keep having really inappropriate thoughts-"so that a pathological liar could have a chance at eternal bliss with a woman he'd known for forty-two minutes, and there may or may not have been aliens involved. This is exactly how I wanted my day to go."
"I am sorry, Ray."
And he looked it, too, which he always did, and just because it never seemed to stop him didn't mean he didn't mean it. Ray sighed. "It's OK, Benny. I just wanna relax and watch some TV, OK?"
Fraser nodded, smiling now. "That sounds like an excellent plan."
"Good." Ray sacrificed another tiny bottle of whiskey to the crappy motel gods and grabbed the remote control, planning to collapse on the bed for some good old-fashioned American self-indulgence. But when he turned around, Fraser was already there, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his back ramrod-straight against the headboard and the sleeves of his white shirt pulled up a little, exposing muscled forearms. Ray swallowed hard, suddenly thinking fondly of tracking the crazy granola guy through a tomato-can minefield.
"Uh," he managed. "I'll just, ah… I'll take the chair."
"Nonsense, Ray," Fraser objected, and there was something weird about the way he said it, but Ray was too busy trying to ignore his own weirdness to start examining Fraser's. Besides, Fraser's weirdness was a long and winding road and Ray wasn't sure he'd ever find the end of it. "That chair is much too close to the television. An officer's eyesight is one of his most valuable assets."
"Yeah, but-"
"You know, in Inuit culture, the practice of sharing a bed between friends is quite common. The people have a name for it, which, translated roughly, means-"
"You know what?" Ray interrupted, wishing he had an Inuit handy so he could punch him in the nose. "Forget I said anything. Scoot over."
Fraser held both hands out in front of him, palm-up. "It's not a particularly large bed, Ray, and there's only so much-"
"Fraser."
"Scooting."
Even post-scooting, though, Ray's shoulder still ended up pressed against his friend's, despite Ray himself being as far over on his side of the bed as he could possibly be without falling off. In fact, Ray was cursing Fraser's broad shoulders for a variety of reasons right about now, and the second glass of whiskey seemed like not just a good idea, but possibly the best idea anyone had ever had.
"Are you sure you're all right, Ray?"
"I'm fine, just watch the TV," he muttered, keeping his eyes straight ahead as he dumped a third bottle of Jack-who was fast becoming his closest friend in the world-into his glass. He thought he heard Fraser sniff, but no way was he turning his head to confirm that.
As it turned out, Fraser didn't need to be worried about Ray's eyesight, because Ray couldn't focus on the damn TV anyway, between the whiskey and the way Fraser smelled, like fresh air and starch and good, clean sweat. Ray knew that smell like the leather of the Riv's upholstery, like his ma cooking pasta fagioli, and up close, it was killing him.
"Where's Dief?" he blurted out. The wolf was always good for distraction, smelly and otherwise.
"At the Star Watch, I believe," Fraser answered, his voice relaxed and low and entirely too close to Ray's ear. "No doubt gorging himself on junk food."
Ray chuckled at that, and if it had an edge of panic to it, who was to know? "No doubt."
Fraser shifted a little, and when he settled, his left knee was just brushing the material of Ray's pants along his right thigh. Ray gritted his teeth. He wouldn't have pegged the Mountie for a touchy-feely guy, but apparently all you had to do was get to know him well enough, because the past couple of months, it had been nothing but a hand on his shoulder here and a mouth practically touching his ear there until Ray was repeating to himself on pretty much an hourly basis that Fraser was his best friend and his partner and jumping him would be a very, very bad idea. Fraser was just being Fraser, and if Ray couldn't keep his mind out of the gutter, he could sure as hell at least keep his hands to himself.
Speaking of hands, Fraser had nice ones. Really nice ones. Which was a funny thing to notice about another guy, but with the way Fraser was always waving them around, it was pretty hard to miss. At the moment, one of them was resting half-open on his leg, and Ray had a brief, vivid image of that hand sliding over just a few inches, those strong, capable fingers wrapping-
Ray half-flung himself off the bed. "I can't do this."
Fraser looked up at him, his blue eyes wide and startled. "Do what?"
"This." Ray waved a frantic hand in front of him. "This, you, the bed, I just-I can't, OK?"
Fraser watched him for a few seconds, and then something shifted in his face, like he'd put on a mask. He stood up. "Understood. I'm sure I can request some spare sheets from the night watch, and-"
Aw, crap. "Wait, Benny, no. You don't have to do that."
"I apologize if I made you uncomfortable, Ray," his friend said, his shoulders tense and something Ray couldn't read in his eyes. "I simply thought that-but if I've been-if you're not attracted to me, I-" Those hands were gesturing helplessly now.
"Attracted to you?" Ray was so stunned that his mouth was moving before his brain had time to catch up. "Of course I'm attracted to you! Everyone's attracted to you! Kids love you, animals want you to raise their young, you've left a trail of swooning women halfway across Chicago. And those are just the ones that've only met you once. Me, I spend half my waking hours with you-how the hell am I supposed to be immune?" As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wanted to swallow his own tongue, but it was too late.
Fraser just looked at him. "You may have noticed, Ray, that I also spend half of my waking hours with you."
"Yeah, so?" Ray said, wondering if an alien abduction might actually be the best-case scenario at this point.
"Have you ever stopped to consider why that might be?" Fraser asked.
"Because I have a car?"
"Ray."
Ray threw his arms wide. "Well, I don't know, Benny! I was the first person you met in Chicago; I'm not sure whether that makes me the luckiest or unluckiest guy in the world, but that's how it worked out. And after that, I always figured you just sort of…" He shrugged. "Stuck around, I guess."
"Stuck around," Fraser repeated slowly.
Ray shrugged again, feeling more awkward by the second. "Yeah."
"Because of your car."
Fraser was looking a little hurt, now, and there wasn't much that made Ray feel lower than that. "Look, I just-" He grimaced, rubbed his hand across his head. "What's going on here, Benny?"
"It's just that…" Fraser hesitated, then took a deep breath. "It's just that Ian was willing to risk his heart, and his mother's ring, on a woman he'd known for less than an hour. Not so long ago, I was willing to risk mine on a woman I'd known less than a week. And today, it occurred to me that, loathe as I am to do anything to jeopardize our friendship, if I could hazard so much based on so little, perhaps I owed it to myself to trust that the potential benefits of being honest with you might outweigh any discomfort or awkwardness that might arise from said honesty." He lifted a shoulder, his eyes going slightly unfocused as he warmed to his topic. "After all, as Shakespeare tells us, 'the fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings,' and though of course in that particular case, Cassius was trying to incite someone to murder, the sentiment remains valid. So it seemed that, given the situation, my best, if not necessarily wisest, course of action would be-"
"Benny." Ray's head was kind of fuzzy, and there was a warmth bursting in his chest, and he wasn't sure how much of it was due to the whiskey. He wanted to find out.
Fraser blinked. "Yes?"
"It's been a long day, and I'm a little drunk. You wanna give me a quick translation, here?"
"A quick translation." Fraser tilted his head to the side.
Ray nodded, his heart starting to flop around like the fish he'd caught on their last ill-fated trip to Canada. "Yeah. That'd be good."
"OK," Fraser said, and the next thing Ray knew, he was pressed against the wall with Fraser's mouth plastered to his.
And if Fraser smelled good, he tasted even better, his lips soft and his tongue greedy as Ray opened his mouth for more. Ray could have sworn that every nerve he had was exploding in a shower of sparks, lighting him up, leaving him bright and hot and happy. Fraser's hands were sliding over Ray's chest, his hips pinning Ray's against the wall. Ray pushed back a little and Fraser groaned into his mouth.
When Fraser finally pulled away, his chest was heaving like he'd just chased some bad guy across a dozen or so rooftops. "I hope," he breathed, "I hope that makes things somewhat clearer."
"I dunno, Benny," Ray replied. He suddenly found himself grinning so hard he was afraid his face was going to stick that way. "I didn't quite hear you that time, maybe you should-"
"Understood," Fraser said immediately, and yanked him back into the kiss.
After that, it was a tangle of tongues and hands and gasped encouragement and discarded clothes, and the bed was still too small but that didn't matter so much when Fraser was lying on top of him, rubbing against him in a way that set off starbursts behind Ray's eyes. It was a little strange and it was the last thing he'd expected but it was Fraser, and he had wanted this for so long, and finally getting it was like someone handing him the universe on a silver platter. When Fraser came, chanting Ray's name hoarsely into the skin just below his earlobe, spilling warm over Ray's stomach, Ray felt his own orgasm shoot through him and in that moment, he was pretty sure he could have put a supernova to shame.
Afterwards, they stumbled to their feet just long enough to clean themselves up before collapsing into bed again. When they turned out the lights, they discovered a scattering of glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the ceiling at random, and it turned out that the pathetic excuse for a bed was a lot more comfortable when Ray had Fraser draped over him like a warm, sleepy blanket. Ray ran his fingers idly through the Mountie's thick hair, smiling when Fraser made a sound eerily similar to Dief when he was being petted.
"I have a confession to make, Ray," Fraser murmured after a while, the words slurred against Ray's shoulder.
"What's that, Benny?" Right now Ray didn't think he'd much care what Fraser confessed to, as long as it didn't require either one of them to get dressed. Or stand up. Or move at all, actually.
"The Inuit don't make a habit of sharing beds with friends. I mean, occasionally they do, for warmth. But there's no term for it, Inuit or otherwise."
"You lied?" Ray shifted until he was sure Fraser could see his flabbergasted expression. "Constable Benton Fraser of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police lied? To another officer? To get him into bed? Oh, my God, I'm calling Canada right now. What's the Prime Minister's phone number?"
Even in the dim light, Fraser's ears were as red as his uniform. "I wouldn't say lied, Ray. I may have exaggerated. Slightly."
"OK, that's it. You are not allowed to go on any more road trips with Ian," Ray told him firmly, and Fraser's embarrassed grin was so endearing that Ray couldn't resist kissing it.
"You must admit, though, my strategy was effective," Fraser insisted when they came up for air.
Ray grinned back at him. "I didn't think that was what they meant when they said that the Mounties always get their man."
"Well, technically, our motto is 'maintain the right,'" Fraser answered, his right hand drifting in a very interesting direction, "but I suppose that could be applied in this situation, as well…"
Ray laughed, a little breathlessly. "Give me a little while, and I'll take you up on that. But geez. First a lie, now a dirty joke-it's a slippery slope, ain't it, Benny?"
"It would appear that it is," Fraser agreed happily, and settled himself more comfortably on Ray's shoulder.
Ray just let himself drift on the sound of Fraser's steady breathing, and he was almost asleep when he heard his friend's voice again.
"Ray?"
"Yeah?"
"It's not because of the car."
Ray had to squeeze his eyes shut. He didn't know how to do this, didn't know how to be so happy. It was like staring into the sun. "I know, Benny. But thanks for saying it."
"Sleep well, Ray," Fraser mumbled, pressing a kiss into his shoulder.
"You too, Benny," Ray answered. He fell asleep watching the stars.
END
It's like I'm making up for all the gen I wrote last year. Hee.
Pairing: Vecchio/Fraser
Rating: R
Summary: The bad news was that the room was small, cold, and looked like it had been decorated by a ten-year-old kid who had wet dreams about warp cores. The good news was that it had a fully-stocked mini bar. The really bad news was that it only had one bed, but Ray had high hopes that the good news was going to help him forget about that.
Spoilers: Through "Starman"
Disclaimer: I am but mad north-northwest, and as the wind is southerly, I know characters that are mine from characters that are not mine. These are the latter.
A/N: So this story starts, as most of my dS stories do, with sdwolfpup, who told me in an email a couple of weeks ago, "You know what you should write? When they have to stay at the hotel overnight after 'Starman.' They can't get the bus until the next morning! There's only one room at the inn! What are two men to do?" And then SDW had kind of a rough weekend, so I thought some cheering-up might be in order. And voila! Fic was born.
The Sight of the Stars
For my part I know nothing with certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream. - Vincent Van Gogh
"Well, we just have the one room left," the white-haired woman behind the desk told Ray with a shrug.
He gaped. "What? How can you only have one room left? There's not a car in that parking lot. I know, 'cause if there was, I'd be seriously considering stealing it." He muttered the last part under his breath to Fraser, taking perverse pleasure in the Mountie's disapproving and slightly horrified look.
"Well, of course there aren't any cars," she replied, like he was a particularly slow five-year-old. "All of the guests are part of Ian's tour, and right now they're all out at the Sky Watch. They'll be along later, the dears."
"And there's no bus till tomorrow morning."
"No."
"And no taxi service?"
"Not on Star Watch nights."
"So," Ray gritted, "you're telling me that not only are we stuck here, but we have to share a room?"
He was sure her smile had an evil glint to it. "I'm afraid so."
Ray closed his eyes, praying for patience, or at least the will to keep from running screaming out the door, begging the aliens to take him away. Spending a night in an enclosed space with Fraser was pretty near the bottom of the list of things he wanted to do right now, right above jabbing an icepick into his ear or letting Frannie give him a makeover again like she'd done when she was sixteen and determined to go to beauty school, but he figured the lady behind the desk had a quick hand with the panic button and he'd already been arrested enough for one day, so. "OK," he said finally, carefully. "Can I have the key, please?"
"Certainly." She reached under the desk and came up with a silver key dangling from a large plastic spaceship. But as Ray grabbed for it, she snatched it out of his reach. "That'll be one hundred and thirty-two dollars and seventeen cents, with tax."
"One hundred and-" Ray could have sworn he could actually feel his heart being torn from his chest. "What do you think this is, the Taj Mahal?"
"Ray," Fraser said quietly from behind him.
Ray rounded on him. "Don't 'Ray' me, Fraser, this is highway robbery. We should be arresting this woman for grand larceny."
Fraser just pulled off his Stetson, producing a brightly-colored bill from inside the brim. "Will you accept this, ma'am?"
"Why is it-" Desk Lady started, and Ray just groaned.
"It's Monopoly money; that's what they use in Canada. Here," he said, yanking bills out of his wallet and handing them over before he could change his mind. "Keep the change, you greedy, blood-sucking, UFO-faking-"
"Let's just go find our room, shall we, Ray?" Fraser interrupted him, holding an arm out toward the door. Ray glared, but followed his friend's suggestion, primarily because it meant turning his back on the woman who'd just robbed him blind.
"Will you be needing this, sir?" Desk Lady called after them. Ray turned to see that she was holding out the damn dull spoon again, smiling sweetly at him as she did.
Oh, that is- Ray growled and started back toward the desk, but Fraser grabbed his arm and, with a hasty, "That won't be necessary, ma'am, thank you kindly," half-dragged him out the door.
*****
The bad news was that the room was small, cold, and looked like it had been decorated by a ten-year-old kid who had wet dreams about warp cores. The good news was that it had a fully-stocked mini bar.
The really bad news was that it only had one bed, but Ray had high hopes that the good news was going to help him forget about that.
"Now I'm starting to understand how Ian got that Audrey girl to give him the time of day," he observed, inspecting the surprisingly impressive selection in the small chrome refrigerator.
"I don't know why you insist on being so cynical," Fraser replied from across the room-which, in this particular room, translated to about fifteen feet away.
"I'm not being cynical, I'm being realistic. The truth is that-" Ray looked over to find that Fraser was unfastening his collar, and the rest of his sentence disappeared abruptly into an unmarked grave. There was something about all that pressed red serge and miles of polished brass dots that had always made Ray's fingers itch a little, and lately, it was becoming less of an itch and more of an obsession. In fact, it was getting to the point where he was pretty sure he'd never wanted to unbutton something so badly in his entire life, and watching Fraser do it… He grabbed the nearest handful of bottles from the refrigerator and slammed it shut so hard he almost scared himself.
"The truth is what, Ray?" Fraser was looking at him oddly.
"Forget it." He snatched a glass off the top of the refrigerator, tossed in some ice from the ice bucket, and dumped in some Jack Daniels. He was really more of a scotch man under ordinary circumstances, or even a nice bottle of chianti, but guys who wanted to unbutton their partners couldn't be choosers and he gulped the alcohol gratefully.
"Is everything all right?" Fraser was hanging the serge in the closet now, carefully smoothing out nonexistent wrinkles.
Ray wiped his mouth as the whiskey slid warm into his stomach. "Yeah, Benny, everything's great. I answered a hypothetical question, gave up my lunch hour, and ended up stranded in the middle of nowhere"-with my partner, about whom I keep having really inappropriate thoughts-"so that a pathological liar could have a chance at eternal bliss with a woman he'd known for forty-two minutes, and there may or may not have been aliens involved. This is exactly how I wanted my day to go."
"I am sorry, Ray."
And he looked it, too, which he always did, and just because it never seemed to stop him didn't mean he didn't mean it. Ray sighed. "It's OK, Benny. I just wanna relax and watch some TV, OK?"
Fraser nodded, smiling now. "That sounds like an excellent plan."
"Good." Ray sacrificed another tiny bottle of whiskey to the crappy motel gods and grabbed the remote control, planning to collapse on the bed for some good old-fashioned American self-indulgence. But when he turned around, Fraser was already there, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his back ramrod-straight against the headboard and the sleeves of his white shirt pulled up a little, exposing muscled forearms. Ray swallowed hard, suddenly thinking fondly of tracking the crazy granola guy through a tomato-can minefield.
"Uh," he managed. "I'll just, ah… I'll take the chair."
"Nonsense, Ray," Fraser objected, and there was something weird about the way he said it, but Ray was too busy trying to ignore his own weirdness to start examining Fraser's. Besides, Fraser's weirdness was a long and winding road and Ray wasn't sure he'd ever find the end of it. "That chair is much too close to the television. An officer's eyesight is one of his most valuable assets."
"Yeah, but-"
"You know, in Inuit culture, the practice of sharing a bed between friends is quite common. The people have a name for it, which, translated roughly, means-"
"You know what?" Ray interrupted, wishing he had an Inuit handy so he could punch him in the nose. "Forget I said anything. Scoot over."
Fraser held both hands out in front of him, palm-up. "It's not a particularly large bed, Ray, and there's only so much-"
"Fraser."
"Scooting."
Even post-scooting, though, Ray's shoulder still ended up pressed against his friend's, despite Ray himself being as far over on his side of the bed as he could possibly be without falling off. In fact, Ray was cursing Fraser's broad shoulders for a variety of reasons right about now, and the second glass of whiskey seemed like not just a good idea, but possibly the best idea anyone had ever had.
"Are you sure you're all right, Ray?"
"I'm fine, just watch the TV," he muttered, keeping his eyes straight ahead as he dumped a third bottle of Jack-who was fast becoming his closest friend in the world-into his glass. He thought he heard Fraser sniff, but no way was he turning his head to confirm that.
As it turned out, Fraser didn't need to be worried about Ray's eyesight, because Ray couldn't focus on the damn TV anyway, between the whiskey and the way Fraser smelled, like fresh air and starch and good, clean sweat. Ray knew that smell like the leather of the Riv's upholstery, like his ma cooking pasta fagioli, and up close, it was killing him.
"Where's Dief?" he blurted out. The wolf was always good for distraction, smelly and otherwise.
"At the Star Watch, I believe," Fraser answered, his voice relaxed and low and entirely too close to Ray's ear. "No doubt gorging himself on junk food."
Ray chuckled at that, and if it had an edge of panic to it, who was to know? "No doubt."
Fraser shifted a little, and when he settled, his left knee was just brushing the material of Ray's pants along his right thigh. Ray gritted his teeth. He wouldn't have pegged the Mountie for a touchy-feely guy, but apparently all you had to do was get to know him well enough, because the past couple of months, it had been nothing but a hand on his shoulder here and a mouth practically touching his ear there until Ray was repeating to himself on pretty much an hourly basis that Fraser was his best friend and his partner and jumping him would be a very, very bad idea. Fraser was just being Fraser, and if Ray couldn't keep his mind out of the gutter, he could sure as hell at least keep his hands to himself.
Speaking of hands, Fraser had nice ones. Really nice ones. Which was a funny thing to notice about another guy, but with the way Fraser was always waving them around, it was pretty hard to miss. At the moment, one of them was resting half-open on his leg, and Ray had a brief, vivid image of that hand sliding over just a few inches, those strong, capable fingers wrapping-
Ray half-flung himself off the bed. "I can't do this."
Fraser looked up at him, his blue eyes wide and startled. "Do what?"
"This." Ray waved a frantic hand in front of him. "This, you, the bed, I just-I can't, OK?"
Fraser watched him for a few seconds, and then something shifted in his face, like he'd put on a mask. He stood up. "Understood. I'm sure I can request some spare sheets from the night watch, and-"
Aw, crap. "Wait, Benny, no. You don't have to do that."
"I apologize if I made you uncomfortable, Ray," his friend said, his shoulders tense and something Ray couldn't read in his eyes. "I simply thought that-but if I've been-if you're not attracted to me, I-" Those hands were gesturing helplessly now.
"Attracted to you?" Ray was so stunned that his mouth was moving before his brain had time to catch up. "Of course I'm attracted to you! Everyone's attracted to you! Kids love you, animals want you to raise their young, you've left a trail of swooning women halfway across Chicago. And those are just the ones that've only met you once. Me, I spend half my waking hours with you-how the hell am I supposed to be immune?" As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wanted to swallow his own tongue, but it was too late.
Fraser just looked at him. "You may have noticed, Ray, that I also spend half of my waking hours with you."
"Yeah, so?" Ray said, wondering if an alien abduction might actually be the best-case scenario at this point.
"Have you ever stopped to consider why that might be?" Fraser asked.
"Because I have a car?"
"Ray."
Ray threw his arms wide. "Well, I don't know, Benny! I was the first person you met in Chicago; I'm not sure whether that makes me the luckiest or unluckiest guy in the world, but that's how it worked out. And after that, I always figured you just sort of…" He shrugged. "Stuck around, I guess."
"Stuck around," Fraser repeated slowly.
Ray shrugged again, feeling more awkward by the second. "Yeah."
"Because of your car."
Fraser was looking a little hurt, now, and there wasn't much that made Ray feel lower than that. "Look, I just-" He grimaced, rubbed his hand across his head. "What's going on here, Benny?"
"It's just that…" Fraser hesitated, then took a deep breath. "It's just that Ian was willing to risk his heart, and his mother's ring, on a woman he'd known for less than an hour. Not so long ago, I was willing to risk mine on a woman I'd known less than a week. And today, it occurred to me that, loathe as I am to do anything to jeopardize our friendship, if I could hazard so much based on so little, perhaps I owed it to myself to trust that the potential benefits of being honest with you might outweigh any discomfort or awkwardness that might arise from said honesty." He lifted a shoulder, his eyes going slightly unfocused as he warmed to his topic. "After all, as Shakespeare tells us, 'the fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings,' and though of course in that particular case, Cassius was trying to incite someone to murder, the sentiment remains valid. So it seemed that, given the situation, my best, if not necessarily wisest, course of action would be-"
"Benny." Ray's head was kind of fuzzy, and there was a warmth bursting in his chest, and he wasn't sure how much of it was due to the whiskey. He wanted to find out.
Fraser blinked. "Yes?"
"It's been a long day, and I'm a little drunk. You wanna give me a quick translation, here?"
"A quick translation." Fraser tilted his head to the side.
Ray nodded, his heart starting to flop around like the fish he'd caught on their last ill-fated trip to Canada. "Yeah. That'd be good."
"OK," Fraser said, and the next thing Ray knew, he was pressed against the wall with Fraser's mouth plastered to his.
And if Fraser smelled good, he tasted even better, his lips soft and his tongue greedy as Ray opened his mouth for more. Ray could have sworn that every nerve he had was exploding in a shower of sparks, lighting him up, leaving him bright and hot and happy. Fraser's hands were sliding over Ray's chest, his hips pinning Ray's against the wall. Ray pushed back a little and Fraser groaned into his mouth.
When Fraser finally pulled away, his chest was heaving like he'd just chased some bad guy across a dozen or so rooftops. "I hope," he breathed, "I hope that makes things somewhat clearer."
"I dunno, Benny," Ray replied. He suddenly found himself grinning so hard he was afraid his face was going to stick that way. "I didn't quite hear you that time, maybe you should-"
"Understood," Fraser said immediately, and yanked him back into the kiss.
After that, it was a tangle of tongues and hands and gasped encouragement and discarded clothes, and the bed was still too small but that didn't matter so much when Fraser was lying on top of him, rubbing against him in a way that set off starbursts behind Ray's eyes. It was a little strange and it was the last thing he'd expected but it was Fraser, and he had wanted this for so long, and finally getting it was like someone handing him the universe on a silver platter. When Fraser came, chanting Ray's name hoarsely into the skin just below his earlobe, spilling warm over Ray's stomach, Ray felt his own orgasm shoot through him and in that moment, he was pretty sure he could have put a supernova to shame.
Afterwards, they stumbled to their feet just long enough to clean themselves up before collapsing into bed again. When they turned out the lights, they discovered a scattering of glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the ceiling at random, and it turned out that the pathetic excuse for a bed was a lot more comfortable when Ray had Fraser draped over him like a warm, sleepy blanket. Ray ran his fingers idly through the Mountie's thick hair, smiling when Fraser made a sound eerily similar to Dief when he was being petted.
"I have a confession to make, Ray," Fraser murmured after a while, the words slurred against Ray's shoulder.
"What's that, Benny?" Right now Ray didn't think he'd much care what Fraser confessed to, as long as it didn't require either one of them to get dressed. Or stand up. Or move at all, actually.
"The Inuit don't make a habit of sharing beds with friends. I mean, occasionally they do, for warmth. But there's no term for it, Inuit or otherwise."
"You lied?" Ray shifted until he was sure Fraser could see his flabbergasted expression. "Constable Benton Fraser of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police lied? To another officer? To get him into bed? Oh, my God, I'm calling Canada right now. What's the Prime Minister's phone number?"
Even in the dim light, Fraser's ears were as red as his uniform. "I wouldn't say lied, Ray. I may have exaggerated. Slightly."
"OK, that's it. You are not allowed to go on any more road trips with Ian," Ray told him firmly, and Fraser's embarrassed grin was so endearing that Ray couldn't resist kissing it.
"You must admit, though, my strategy was effective," Fraser insisted when they came up for air.
Ray grinned back at him. "I didn't think that was what they meant when they said that the Mounties always get their man."
"Well, technically, our motto is 'maintain the right,'" Fraser answered, his right hand drifting in a very interesting direction, "but I suppose that could be applied in this situation, as well…"
Ray laughed, a little breathlessly. "Give me a little while, and I'll take you up on that. But geez. First a lie, now a dirty joke-it's a slippery slope, ain't it, Benny?"
"It would appear that it is," Fraser agreed happily, and settled himself more comfortably on Ray's shoulder.
Ray just let himself drift on the sound of Fraser's steady breathing, and he was almost asleep when he heard his friend's voice again.
"Ray?"
"Yeah?"
"It's not because of the car."
Ray had to squeeze his eyes shut. He didn't know how to do this, didn't know how to be so happy. It was like staring into the sun. "I know, Benny. But thanks for saying it."
"Sleep well, Ray," Fraser mumbled, pressing a kiss into his shoulder.
"You too, Benny," Ray answered. He fell asleep watching the stars.
END
It's like I'm making up for all the gen I wrote last year. Hee.